SELF-CONFIDENCE 201In Think and Grow Rich Hill suggests that ill health comes from fear: "Thought
impulses immediately begin to translate themselves into their physical equivalent,
whether those thoughts are voluntary or involuntary .... All thought has a tendency
to clothe itself in its physical equivalent. "The Fear oj Death
To many this is the worst of all the six basic fears, and the reason why
it is regarded as such becomes obvious to even the casual student of
psychology.
The terrible pangs of fear associated with death may be charged
directly to religious fanaticism-the source that is more responsible
for it than are all other sources combined.
So-called heathens are not as much afraid of death as are the civilized,
especially that portion of the civilized population that has come under
the influence of theology.
For hundreds of millions of years we have all been asking the still
unanswered (and, it may be, the unanswerable) questions, whence? and
whither? Where did I come from and where am I going after death?
The more cunning and crafty, as well as the honest but credulous,
of the race have not been slow to offer the answer to these questions.
In fact the answering of these questions has become one of the so-called
learned professions, despite little learning being required to enter this
profession.
Witness now the major source of origin of the fear of death.
"Come into my tent, embrace my faith, accept my dogmas (and pay
my salary) and I will give you a ticket that will admit you straightway
into heaven when you die," says the leader of one form of sectarianism.
"Remain out of my tent," says this same leader, "and you will go direct
to hell, where you will burn throughout eternity."
While, in fact, the self-appointed leader may not be able to provide
safe-conduct into heaven nor, by lack of such provision, allow the un-
fortunate seeker after truth to descend into hell, the possibility of the