Our evolved physiological makeup disposes us to fear all sorts of actual and potential threats, even those that exist only in our imagination.
The people who have the effrontery to rule us, who call themselves our government, understand this basic fact of human nature. They exploit it, and they cultivate it. Whether they compose a warfare state or a welfare state, they depend on it to secure popular submission, compliance with official dictates, and, on some occasions, affirmative cooperation with the state’s enterprises and adventures.
– Robert Higgs, Fear: The Foundation of Every Government’s Power
A psychopathic serial killer is on the loose in a remote area stalking a group of campers totally unaware of his presence. The moon is beginning to shine its light as two campers leave the group to gather some firewood for the evening’s festivities. As they arrive at their destination, they hear strange noises in the distance, but attribute it to a herd of deer they had seen earlier. As the killer creeps closer ready to pierce their flesh with the edge of his knife, the female camper spots him and screams. But she is paralyzed and unable to move. She simply stands still with her hands on her face watching her male companion get slaughtered to death. By the time she tries to run, it’s too late.
The scene described above could be spliced into hundreds of horror movies depicting how dumb people can behave in the face of fear. You know, they tend to run toward danger instead of making the obvious choice of running for their lives. While these Hollywood exaggerations are crafted to sell a fantasy, they still convey a certain principle based in reality: fear causes brain paralysis.
How Our Brains and Bodies React When Gripped by Fear
When people are terrorized, the smartest parts of our brain tend to shut down.
– Dr. Bruce Perry, Senior Fellow of the Child Trauma Academy
It is a fact that when humans are confronted with fear, normal brain functions short circuit and disrupt the process of logical thought. This paves the way for emotional decision making to take center stage. This can be a good thing in short-term situations as it activates our fight or flight ability to rapidly confront or avoid danger. However, when the brain is subjected to long-term bouts of fear it can lead to anxiety, confusion and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Remaining in a fearful state increases one’s chances of reacting to situations based on heightened emotions that often override common sense approaches to problem solving. A person victimized by fear can have difficulty recognizing truth, making logical decisions, debating issues factually, remaining calm and civil, and avoiding paranoid thought patterns.
In an article entitled Impact of Fear on the Human Brain, author Valerie Soleil states, “When faced with a threat, the cortex responsible for risk assessment and actions cease to function. In other words, logical thinking is replaced by overwhelming emotions, thus favoring short term solutions and sudden reactions.”
The part of the brain that triggers the response to fear is called the amygdala. This small area of the brain releases stress hormones that spread throughout the nervous system. Bodily reactions to these hormones can cause accelerated breathing, high blood pressure and increased heart rates. Prolonged exposure to traumatic, fear-inducing stimuli “can lead to significant distress and dysfunction and limit a personʼs ability for success and joy of life.”
Heightened and prolonged states of fear can also have devastating effects on the rest of the human body. An article by Kristeen Cherney documents many of the awful effects of fear including:
- Depression
- Panic attacks
- Headaches
- Irritability
- Breathing problems
- Loss of libido
- Extreme fatigue
- Upset stomach
- Muscle aches and other pains
Cherney lists a variety of disorders and damage to bodily systems (cardiovascular, digestive, respiratory, etc.) that fear and anxiety can induce. But, the most detrimental of all may be fear’s ability to harm the immune system. In describing the terrible effects fear has on the immune system, Cherney states:
But if you repeatedly feel anxious and stressed or it lasts a long time, your body never gets the signal to return to normal functioning. This can weaken your immune system, leaving you more vulnerable to viral infections and frequent illnesses. Also, your regular vaccines may not work as well if you have anxiety.
During a pandemic, the last thing a concerned government would want its citizens to do is live in a constant state of fear since it increases vulnerability to infection and illness. Yet, governments worldwide – aided by their media puppets – launched a fearmongering campaign for the ages in response to the coronavirus.
Fear as a Weapon to Control Populations
Traumatic events typically evoke a whole suite of brain responses, such as making people faster to startle, increasing their reaction time and producing hypervigilance to any type of sensation that might be linked with the threatening experience. And this warping of perspective is exactly what terrorists aim to achieve.
– Maia Szalavitz, How Terror Hijacks the Brain
Where were you when you first heard about a deadly virus spreading around the world with the potential to kill millions? Do you remember how you felt upon hearing this news? Did it spark concern, panic, or even fear?
Regardless of your state of mind when learning that a “lethal” coronavirus was being transmitted to almost every country in the world, the media went into overdrive with non-stop coverage to ensure you would experience fear. Here are just a few of the headlines circulating even before the March 30 pandemic declaration by the World Health Organization.
After the fear campaign paralyzed humanity with impending dread, governments around the world in unison began locking down their countries to “keep people safe”. Millions of people across the globe were being told they must stay home, close businesses and schools, and remain at least six feet apart whenever venturing outside to obtain necessities. Soon after these measures were firmly in place, face mask requirements were added. This sudden shift in societal behavior came to be known as the new normal.
Fear is Used to Reengineer Societal Norms
By keeping the population in a state of artificially heightened apprehension, the government-cum-media prepares the ground for planting specific measures of taxation, regulation, surveillance, reporting, and other invasions of the people’s wealth, privacy, and freedoms.
– Robert Higgs, Fear: The Foundation of Every Government’s Power
Because of the unknown nature of the novel coronavirus and its true lethality, most people naively complied with government mandates to self-quarantine and eliminate human contact as much as possible. In a matter of weeks, major cities became ghost towns. People crossed the street to avoid each other. Police arrested and beat citizens for not observing social distancing measures. Domestic and international travel became almost obsolete. Schools and colleges sent millions of children home to learn online. People reported their neighbors for having too many house guests. Funerals and weddings were held with few attendees or postponed indefinitely. Routine doctor visits and non-emergency procedures were cancelled. Families were barred from visiting sick loved ones in the hospital or nursing homes. A future vaccine was promised as the only way to return things to normal.
Societal norms were completely erased and draconian measures were put in place to stop an invisible virus. The social conditioning trick to manipulate the global populace through fear worked like a charm. Humanity had been brainwashed through trauma-inducing broadcasts, press conferences, headlines, death charts, mathematical prediction models, and trending topics on social media to obey whatever dictates trusted officials and health experts pronounced.
The preponderance of shock propaganda effectively short-circuited our brains whether we or anyone we knew had even contracted the virus. The threat of Covid-19 became personal because we absorbed stories about it constantly through the media. Even when the predicted death toll was drastically lowered, most people remained afraid. We had been successfully taught to fear as aptly described by Javanbakht and Saab in their article “What Happens in the Brain When We Feel Fear,” which states:
Similar to other animals, we very often learn fear through personal experiences, such as being attacked by an aggressive dog, or observing other humans being attacked by an aggressive dog.
However, an evolutionarily unique and fascinating way of learning in humans is through instruction – we learn from the spoken words or written notes! If a sign says the dog is dangerous, proximity to the dog will trigger a fear response.
Mesmerized by the spoken words of talking heads on propaganda networks like CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, and BBC and triggered by signage urging compliance with mandates, the people succumbed and ceased all critical thinking about what they were being asked told to do.
Fear of the virus also helped drive a wedge between people over policies such as face coverings, which led to shaming, censorship, unemployment, and violence. Fear is a great tool to divide and conquer!
Fear Tricks People into Giving Up Civil Rights
Over the ages, governments refined their appeals to popular fears, fostering an ideology that emphasizes the people’s vulnerability to a variety of internal and external dangers from which the governors—of all people!—are said to be their protectors.
– Robert Higgs, Fear: The Foundation of Every Government’s Power
The very governments promising to keep citizens safe were the same ones that allowed the virus to spread across continents by not closing borders and shutting down international travel.
What began in the U.S. as a 15-day requirement to slow the spread, flatten the curve and help alleviate the burden placed on hospitals turned into a dystopian nightmare still being enforced as of this writing. The world looks so much different today than it did back in February!
Governments, bureaucrats, unelected officials, and experts enforced emergency orders and drafted new laws to impose vast new powers neutralizing many constitutional rights. Here are some examples of violations of U.S. constitutional laws:
- Laws limiting the number of people allowed to participate in public or private gatherings violate freedom of assembly guaranteed in the 1st Amendment
- Allowing liquor stores and casinos to remain open while forcing churches to close violates 1st Amendment freedom of religion rights
- Being censored for criticizing government policies violates guaranteed 1st Amendment freedom of speech laws
- Banning stories and denying coverage of events about the benefits of hydroxychloroquine and other potential coronavirus cures violate freedom of the press
- Threats of forcible removal to quarantine infected persons violate 4th Amendment rights
- Unjustly firing people from their jobs for espousing opinions that go against official sources violates 5th Amendment deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law rights
There are many more examples showing the destruction of constitutional rights in my Covid Chronicles series.
For those born after or too young to remember historical events like the Bolshevik Revolution, Holocaust, Jonestown massacre, and Manson family mass murders, the current lockdown scenarios offer a great window into the minds of deranged authoritarian movements. If you’d like to know how people like Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Jim Jones, and Charles Manson got people to follow their extreme ideas and commit horrible atrocities against other human beings, the answer is simple: They were all experts at manipulating people through fear.
Fear Can Destroy Faith
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7
As a Christian, it makes me very sad to see so much of the church remaining silent while dark forces invade our country and world, seeking to enslave humanity. This is not the time to obey governments and rulers. Now is the time to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” (Ephesians 5:11)
After 40 years of wandering, a whole generation of Israelites died in the wilderness because they were too afraid to possess the land God had given them. Most believed the giants in the land were too much for them to overcome. Their faith was rendered void as they gave in to their fears, ultimately leading to their demise.
If you’re a Christian reading this article, don’t allow any “giants” in the world keep you living in fear. Whether the threat comes from viruses, terrorists, mayors, governors, presidents, or global schemers, God has promised to work every situation for our good. Stand firm in your faith and do not allow fear to cause you to miss out on God’s promises. Put on the whole armor of God and be prepared to fight the battle for truth, love, and righteousness. In whatever way you can, resist all laws and edicts that seek to outlaw your freedom to worship God. After all, we are called to “obey God, rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Join the example of Pastor John MacArthur who refused to allow the Governor of California to keep his church shut down.
I hope that you will be encouraged by these scriptures!
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Psalm 23:4
In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me. Psalm 56:11
