Fake Fear

 

 

 “Courage is the same pathway
as fear in the brain.” 

 

In the early months of 2020 as a world crisis unfolded I heard these words above.[1] I was so stunned that I quickly jotted them down on a post-it note. I tacked it onto the bottom of my computer screen. Day after day I’d read this sentence and ponder its significance. 

 

Could this be true? Did God so wonderfully create man that He built into us a mechanism by which we could eschew fear and stand with courage? The statement above indicates that it is a natural phenomenon, built into our very physical flesh. After all, history is filled with examples of courageous men and women who endured terrible fear to do bold acts of bravery. 

 

Just how fearfully and wonderfully made is our brain, that God made a passageway from fear to courage? I did more research. And I searched the Scriptures to see if this statement could be true. What I found was astonishing, convicting and comforting. 

 

 

A fear-laden threat, or is it a curse? (Source)

 

 

During the years that I was a professional counselor, and for many decades after, I frequently ministered to people who struggled with fear. Many of them were victims of abuse – physical, emotional, and spiritual. I noticed a very interesting common denominator in all of them. When they were in the throes of fear – whether real or imagined, past memories or a current threat – a rational part of their brain seemed to shut down. Some adopted an amorphous anxiety as a way of coping. One woman explained that as long as she felt anxious she knew she was on guard, prepared for the next abusive event. Thus fear and anxiety became a never-ending cycle from which she couldn’t escape without believing she was “in danger.” Of course, such a stance took its toll on her physical health. Like many other professing Christian believers, she was caught in “the spirit of bondage again to fear” (Rom. 8:15; Heb. 2:15).[3]

 

At the onset of the global crisis I began to receive reports that these people were feeling “triggered.” This word “triggered,” although adapted by politically correct “woke” culture, had its origins in describing post-traumatic stress syndrome, a very real condition.[4] But what was it about the crisis that was “triggering” them? What was causing their anxiety cyclone to start spinning?

To get to the answer to this question, I dug deeper. I discovered that there was an entire orchestration of a FAKE FEAR going on, and it had been happening for several decades. 

 

False Alarm 

I decided to buy a book authored by the man who had said that “courage is the same pathway as fear in the brain.” He is a doctor, and he mentioned that he had written a book on this topic fifteen years earlier. I hadn’t always agreed with what he said in his interviews, but he was conscientiously avoiding hype. This set him apart from the dominant doctors who filled the airwaves the past two years. 

 

The doctor’s book was released in 2005 in the aftermath of 9/11. I read it immediately after I had just finished Pastor Jim Jenkins’ book From Rubble to Redemption: A Ground Zero Chaplain Remembers. The connection between the two books was quite fascinating. Pastor Jim reported he was on the scene in the devastating immediate aftermath of a terrible national crisis. The doctor, who had a practice in New York, reported on what transpired during the next few years. The doctor’s book almost reads like a sequel. 

 

The doctor said he began observing in his practice the real-life consequences in people’s lives to the incessant barrage of “apocalyptic warnings” (p. 1) coming from the establishment media. His opening chapter is aptly titled “The Fear Epidemic” which occurred on the heels of this national crisis. Rather than closure, and a calm settling back to normal national life, the doctor witnessed the relentless crisis cycles of fear-mongering: the white powder in envelopes, the introduction of new infectious germs and flus, incessant talk of radicalized zealots, and continual high alert orange levels.[5] He critically observed the relentless hyping of one crisis after another: 

 

“We are bombarded with information. We live by TV sound bite and by Internet hyperbite. Medical information has become agenda-driven, exaggerated by the media and disseminated on the Internet….

“Our brains are not being infiltrated or provoked to panic by accident. Since 9/11 especially, the government has exploited its role as our official protector, from Homeland Security to the CDC….

“Government officials and politicians employ the media megaphone to promote the idea that they are keeping the populace safe…..

“The mass media tend to magnify the latest health concern and broadcast it to millions of people at once. This has the effect of elevating an issue to a grand scale and provoking panic way out of proportion to the risks.” (pp. 16-17) 

Climate change “Fear porn in the 70s” (Source)

 

The Physiology of Fear 

The reason I bought his book is because I wanted to read how the doctor addressed the biology of fear. The human response of fear is normal, he said, but it can quickly go awry. Our body has an immediate reaction: 

 

“Fear is more than a state of mind; it’s chemical. It is present in the circuitry of our brains, in the neurochemical exchanges between nerves. Fear is a physical reaction to a perceived threat. As long as the danger is direct and real, fear is normal and helps to protect us.” (p. 14) 

 

The organ known as the amygdala responds to a fearful threat. 

 

 

And here is the key point: 

 

 

It seems that this is a protective mercy of God that our immediate physical reaction mechanism kicks in first. The trouble is that it so quick, so spontaneous, that it takes more time for our brains to process it and respond. 

 

Atomic disaster preparedness fear porn used on elementary students in the 1950s and 60s. Hiding under desks was a fake promise of protection. (I remember it well.) (Source)

 

“Pseudothreats” 

Humans therefore need to step back and consider the fear source logically in our rational mind. The doctor explains that “an appropriate fear response depends on access to accurate information.” (p. 28) However, he noticed that people do not naturally do this. Therefore we are prone to reacting to “pseudothreats” – fake threats (p. 33). Here are a few ways things can go wrong: 

 

 

The doctor describes the process of how the public is manipulated by fear: 

 

“The media focus on particular aspects of a problem, inflating and distorting it until the audience has internalized the experience and considers the reported danger an accepted fact.” (p. 56) 

 

Ponder the ramifications of the above quote: FAKE FEAR is based on FAKE FACTS. Below is a more current quote:

 

(Source)

 

 

Panic Attack 

Fear possesses a strange behavioral characteristic of being contagious; i.e., people can catch it from each other. “The sense of inadequate protection against an over-hyped threat contribute[s] to the spread of panic.” (p. 111) 

 

While describing the onslaught of unusual health threats that populated the airwaves during the first five years after 9/11, the doctor labeled hysteria as “the true contagion.” He cynically recalls inoculating people against hysteria (p. 120) – he said he was attempting to placate their overblown fears by giving them whatever protective cure was being touted by the experts. He describes an onslaught of fear. Fear was generated by the media, fueled by the politicians, and fortified by corporate interests that stood to profit from the touted panaceas. 

 

Significantly, during 2000-2005 there were early experiments in the globalized conditioning of the populace. The doctor noticed: “The global health alert and travel advisories that were meant to inhibit the dissemination of the [disease] also spread virulent fear by word of mouth. Public health agencies raised the stakes….” And for the first time the WHO enacted a “global surveillance network.” (p. 142-3) “By focusing only on the worst-case scenarios regarding the spread of [it], the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control were in effect controlling the populace through fear.” (p. 145). For what reason? The doctor suggests that “government officials… whip up public support for their… programs. Make people afraid, make people feel they need you to protect them, and they allow you free reign with your agenda.” (p. 146) No wonder the politicians love fear. 

 

The doctor warns about the combustible nature of fear: 

 

“In studying fear, I have come to believe that it has a tendency to reignite itself. Once a fear fire is extinguished, another one takes its place. There are fear seekers in our society, and these groups are always expanding in number and infecting new members.” (p. 3) 

 

(For those who are curious, the despotic Dr. F is cited on pages 174-175 for pontificating in the media circa 2004 with his “usual gravitas,” which “unfortunately gave the impression that an outbreak was looming.” Here we see evidence that during the earlier mass fear-experiments the cult of fear expertise was born and flourished. If certain officials pronounced it, it must be true.)

Prophecy Mongering 

We simultaneously observed this cult leadership phenomenon in the evangelical world. On May 23, 2013 we published a post on Herescope titled “Prophecy Mongering.” We documented how certain evangelical prophecy leaders were aggressively marketing vibrant scary imagery, monstrous creatures, and fearsome scenarios to incite endtime hysteria. Many people were sucked into their prophecy fear vortex forgetting the Scriptures that foretell of Jesus’s soon return. We wrote:

 

Sadly the doctor noticed that traditional religion seems to be no match for the “culture of worry” that “is a growing weed that feeds on manufactured dangers and threatens to become its own cult.” He observed that “religion has become overloaded with today’s obsessive worry and no longer serves as a reliable cure for fear.” (p. 193) He did not foresee the calamitous cave-in which we now see on full display today – key church leaders cheerleading for the official state narratives.[6]

 

Furthermore, it appears that fear is an addiction for many people. While godly Christians would eschew an addiction to actual pornography, many are now fear junkies. While we were working on multiple series of articles on the topic of the endtime fear-mongering our research associate, the late Pastor Larry DeBruyn, noticed that fear itself was a potent biochemical addiction.[7] Those who watch horror movies for entertainment, or who play frightening video games, or who watch round-the-clock fear-ridden news broadcasts, would be classic examples. In 2011 we co-wrote an article warning about various forms of mind-altering inebriation. In recent years this addiction to fear has actually come to have its own defining terminology: 

fear porn

Media content that deliberately and enticingly plays on people’s fears about disaster, disease and death….[8]

Fear’s Megaphone 

The doctor’s prescription against miasmatic fear begins with: “one simple cure is to turn off the TV.” (po. 195) That was in 2004. Already back then the major news networks were broadcasting 24/7 fear porn. The mass media-driven necrosis of fear has now malignantly metastasized on Social Media. Worse, now other influential voices have technology-based platforms to perpetuate the cancer. 

 

Let’s review: fear is a spontaneous reaction to a real, presumed or perceived danger. Our first response to it is immediate in the flesh, biological and physiological. Our second response to it is to use our brain. We examine facts, check out the situation and ascertain whether the threat is real… or not. God built into us the ability to react immediately, and the capacity to rationally respond by using our mind. We who are biblical Christians recognize there is also a spiritual response. More on this point later. 

 

At the current moment there are widespread reports from people who feel threatened by imminent bodily harm. This perceived peril provokes a fear reaction. Well-functioning individuals exhibit a rational secondary response, which is to analyze the facts and ascertain the real danger. It is precisely at this point where we now see active intervention on the part of additional fear-mongering entities to accelerate and amplify the panic. 

 

An Australian mother’s Instagram post. The sign reads: “Mummy,  what’s an immune system?” “Oh, that’s just conspiracy; we don’t use those anymore.”

 

The first prong of the attack is the shut down the free flow of information. The powerful hand of Big Brother has turned off diverse faucet feeds of fact. If a basic human need when confronted by immediate fear is to process it with data, it is precisely here where access is being denied. How? By the corruption, skewing and hiding of factual information. A key evidence of ongoing fraud is the uniform, uni-party, in-unison programmed narrative. This sort of obvious gaslighting makes people suspicious. They don’t trust it. And for good reason. 

 

This panic pandering has been a concerted global effort across the entire spectrum of civil society, including academia, corporate, technology, media and government. It is due to sheer tenacity and a desire to survive that people continue to search out additional factual information. Is the latest crisis real or is it fake? Is it manufactured or is it real? We need to know. But people’s efforts to get at the truth are being stymied. Diversity of data is being systematically repressed, suppressed, cancelled, shut down, demonetized, deplatformed, banned, censored and de-algorithmed. Second opinion sources are excoriated, censured, lambasted, doxxed, fired, professionally de-credentialed, and some lives have been threatened. The intended message is punitive: “Don’t seek truth, don’t speak out, don’t delve into alternate facts, don’t question the establishment narrative…. Or else….” This is persecution, which in itself breeds more fear. 

 

 

Chicken Little, an international folktale that makes “light of paranoia and mass hysteria.” (Source and Source)

Fake Blame 

Panic-ridden people can be volatile and quite vulnerable to manipulation. They will do whatever it takes to relieve themselves of simmering anxiety. Abuse victims have reported to me that they hoped to avoid fearsome repercussions by intricately following the rules, obeying the steps, and being willing to live under extremely confining conditions. The saddest examples were those who reported they tried their hardest to avoid pain and punishment by remaining hyper-vigilant day and night. They were willing to “do whatever it takes” to try to pacify their abusers – even if it was illegal, immoral or unethical. 

 

In contrast, those who survived abuse taught me important lessons about how they critically assessed a threat. They said they learned how to throw a monkey wrench into the spinning vortex of fear to put a stop to it. They stopped to question. Question everything. Question everybody. What is true and what is false? What is real and what is fake? This objectivity was the life skill that helped them to flee abusers, get out of the occult, leave cults, and run away from heavy shepherding. Some of these people testified that God equipped them with a spiritual gift to discern when someone was trying to deceive them. This skill, or gift, helped some to literally survive. 

 

So two years ago when these same people reported a return of that old feeling of oppression it raised some interesting questions. What was happening that put them on full alert? Was someone or something trying to deceive them? The answer that unfolded was shocking. We were staring in the face of systemic abuse; i.e., a full-throttled top-down effort. 

 

Page 206, False Alarm

 

In 2022 we now recognize that systemic fear is being propagated with standardized lies. To avoid the deliberate disinformation discerning Christians have long since turned off television, particularly the news networks, which notoriously pump out crisis after crisis, fear upon fear, and hype added to hype. These pundits are false prophets who engage in obvious fabrications and flagrant deceptions. They have constructed extravagant narratives – so complex that they occasionally get caught in their own spinning webs of deceit.

 

When major segments of the global population refuse to succumb to their forged fakeries, the panic propagandists have cooked up a deathly stew of retribution. By employing nasty caricatures and noxious stereotypes they are now ascribing false blame to entire classes of people. At very high levels there are radical calls to de-legitimize and dehumanize entire people groups, penalizing them by denying them access to basic life sustenance; even eradicate the people who are being blamed for the problem. Fake blame. Many have noticed the parallels to earlier historical persecutions. This aggressive stigmatization is intentionally designed to stoke even more fear. 

 

In a vacuum of free intellectual discourse false rumors run amok and conspiracy theories will flourish. Fake facts will gain traction and persecutions will ensue. People whipped up into a frenzy of fear will revert to full-scale panic mode. In this condition people lose their objectivity and reason. Each new piece of “confirmation” data, whether real or fake, actual or contrived, gets tossed into the swirling vortex of fear. 

 

How do people find their way out of this vicious cycle? They acquire objectivity. They regain their right mind. They find courage. 

 

(Source)

 

REAL FAITH vs. FAKE FEAR 

Scripture has much to say about fear. But does it also talk about FAKE FEAR? Yes! The Lord repeatedly warns “fear not” over and over and over again. Yet in our era of mystical-existential Christianity, a great number of believers do not take these verses literally. They say they believe we aren’t supposed to fear, but do they really obey this command? There is a prevalence of anxiety-laden people in the church today. 

 

If courage does indeed run in the same pathway as fear in the brain, then it is apparent that God’s Word serves as a key fact to address the fear at hand. Innumerable stories in the Bible recount how the Lord intervened in a fearful situation with a strong promise of delivery. For example, Deuteronomy 31: 6: “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” This is repeated in verse 8 of the same chapter. 

 

The Boy Who Cried Wolf (Source)

 

Jesus warns that in the endtimes there will be terrible crises on earth including “fearful sights.” One can imagine what hype the Global Media Fear Machine will be pumping out when “great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.” (Luke 21:11). Therefore, if we do not learn to turn to the Lord now, in the midst of early signs of these coming events, then we will be on even more precarious footing in the days to come. This may be why the “fearful, and unbelieving” are listed along with murderers and whoremongers, sorcerers and idolators, who “shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” in the judgment described in Revelation 21:8. 

 

Jesus equated fearfulness with lack of faith: “And He said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?” (Mark 4:40) This statement was made at a time when the disciples were in imminent peril, a great storm on the sea. Rationally assessing the situation with their mind they feared that they would perish. Yet here we see the Lord interject faith – not a nebulous faith, but a very tangible rebuke of the wind and calming of the sea. This is not superficial faith. This is not FAKE faith. This is REAL faith. 

 

This is why Hebrew 11:1 states that FAITH is the actual substance of things hoped for, the very EVIDENCE of things not seen. It is one thing to imagine something, but quite another to KNOW that it is REAL. This is a ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. It surpasses human reason: 

 

“Faith is here a Divine fruit of the Spirit, given and wrought by it in His elect, and is justifying the purchasing the soul to glory. (John 12:38; Rom. 5:1; 2Cor. 12:9; Eph. 1:19,20; 2:8).
Is the substance of things hoped for: ὑπόστασις, in 2 Cor. 9:4, notes confidence of boasting; Heb. 1:3, personal subsistence; and 3:14, confidence of faith. Here it is a real, present, confident assent of the soul of a believer to the promise of God (which is the basis or foundation of it) by which the spiritual good things to come, and which fall not under sense, yet with a most vehement and intense desire urged for, are made to have a mental, intellectual existence and subsistence in the soul which excerciseth it, Rom. 8:18, 26; John 3:36.
The evidence of things not seen: ἔλεγχος is a demonstrative discovery of that which falleth not under sense, such as is scientifical, and puts matters out of question to a man; and therefore is styled by logicians a demonstration: here it notes faith to be that spiritual space which by God’s revelation demonstrates or makes evident all things not seen by sense, or natural reason, without it, as matters of spiritual truth, good and evil in their several kinds, both past, present, and to come, John 17:6, 8; Eph. 1:17,18.” [9]

 

Scripture warns repeatedly against the fear of man. Proverbs 29:25 warns “The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.” The most poignant example can be seen in the life of Saul, who after after flagrantly disobeying the Lord, admitted to Samuel “I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.” (1 Samuel 15:24). David professes, “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” This is repeated in Hebrews 13:6: “So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” Here we find faith is a bulwark against our fears, particularly our fears of man’s persecution: 

 

“And therefore faith expelleth fearfulness of, and introduceth fearlessness of, any created evils incident to a believer; and of which man may be an instrument inflicting, Psalm 46:2,3. Implying in it an unshaken settledness of mind, judgment, and thoughts on God’s help, a fixed frame of heart, without tumultuous passions or perturbations, with an unmovable resolution to keep close to God and His Word both in word and deed, amidst all oppositions and persecutions of men for it.”[10]

 

“The Spirit of Fear ”

This key verse reveals that there is such a thing as “the spirit of fear.” This corrupt fear does not come from God. 

 

“And of a sound mind; σωφρονισμός we translate it a sound mind; others, sobriety; others, a calm and quiet mind. A sound mind, in the ordinary notion of it, for a judgment sound in the faith, is requisite to a minister of the Gospel. Sobriety is the gift of the Spirit: sobriety is a very general term, and signifies the moderation and government of our passions; that which seems to be here meant is such a government, and composure of spirit, that nothing shall deter us from the discharge of our duty; and the term sound mind, opposed to a weak and sickly mind, staggering at every danger, may well enough express the apostle’s sense.” [11]

 

Thus in this verse above we have a firm foundation upon which our faith can stand, without wavering (Hebrews 10:23; James 1:6). It is by this that we can avoid becoming a victim of the abuses of fear. If we can rehearse this verse now, burying it deeply into our conscience and conviction via its daily conscious exercise, we may well avoid future worse corruptions by bondage to fear. By this stance we may be immune to the ubiquitous fear trumpted round the clock by powerful aristocracies. 

 

 

A memorable scene of courage from the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Source)

 

Contagious Courage 

Is courage contagious just like fear is contagious? There are many Bible believers and church historians who believe this is the case. 

 

 

It seems apparent that one of the reasons for koinonia fellowship in the church age is because by standing together we take courage. When Paul was a prisoner on his way to Rome, Luke describes this comforting scene:

“And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii forum, and The three taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage.” (Acts 28:15) 

 

The books of Deuteronomy and Joshua are filled with edifying verses about taking courage. Before the upcoming battle scenes, first the Lord repeatedly admonishes the Hebrews to take courage: 

 

 

 

 

We published this in 2013 HERE.