The Powerful Spiritual Symbols That Trigger Fear What is a Psychological Trigger

The Powerful Spiritual Symbols That Trigger Fear —

The powerful spiritual symbols that trigger fear and hatred are tools others can use to control our thoughts and behaviors.  What is a psychological trigger that controls you?  If you don’t know, you need to find out, otherwise others can use them to control you.

“This is an important point about symbols: they do not refer to historical events; they refer through historical events to spiritual or psychological principles.” — Joseph Campbell

The principle he is referring to is the cognitive link.  This link between symbol and our psyche can elicit a range of positive or negative emotions.  It is what we understand as a trigger.

What is a Psychological Trigger?

A psychological trigger is something we encounter which causes extreme distress and turns on the primitive survival mode of the sympathetic nervous system.  This is the “fight, flight, or freeze” response.  The trigger could be almost anything.

This mode prevents you from higher thinking centers of the mind.  It may also be associated with other pre-programmed responses via hypnosis or other mind control techniques.

Symbols Are Cognitive Links

Most people think of symbols as innocent objects, but symbols represent words and concepts and there are many concepts which are not innocent or benign.  Words create pictures within the mind, which connect to memories and trigger fear and anger.  Many famous stories contain the same central themes related to our primal psyche.

You will find the same themes in religion and popular stories.  The reason is simple. These themes resonate with us because they evoke strong emotions. Our emotions can be powerful tools for motivating good or evil deeds depending on the programming and values which drive them.

The three most popular religions are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, and they know how to use the powerful spiritual symbols that trigger fear.  They use them to gain and retain members.  They are well-known for their ability to install thinking and values, which replaces logic and facts with mythology and superstition.

There are three common elements to these stories.   First, the story has a hero, who is special in some way.  They become the focal point of the story. The hero possesses some kind of special skill or gift.   Second, the hero battles an evil foe. And against the odds, the hero wins.  You will identify with this character personally because of the metaphors of their background and struggles.

The time and place are different, and the story’s characters change names, but the underlying themes are the same.  The above elements of this typology are found in the central theme in the New Testament, with Jesus as the champion. (1)  And, it’s also the same typology we find in Star Wars with Luke Skywalker.  We see the same theme in The Avatar and Harry Potter.

Look closely at the elements of the stories. It’s the same theme, just different characters, and we want to hear the story again and again. What you don’t realize is that these stories also hide the story’s object in the symbols that trigger fear and other subliminal messages. What is a psychological trigger you associate with religion?

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder.  Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won.  The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” — Joseph Campbell (2)

The cognitive links work behind our level of conscious awareness. Thus, they are ripe for exploitation.

Anyone with knowledge and access and the ability can use these triggers to manipulate their thinking. This is why you need to learn your psychological triggers and how to break unhealthy patterns of thought associated them.  Plus, you can help others to see them and break their power.

The Powerful Spiritual Symbols That Trigger Fear

The Most Powerful Spiritual Symbols Trigger Fear

Words Become Images

As a simple experiment, look at the images above. These are symbols of the most popular religions. What emotions do these symbols bring up for you? If you have an emotional reaction, either positive or negative, it is a sign of an emotional trigger at work.

Religious symbols and stories often have several layers of meaning.  Each layer conveys a different message and so you must possess the right level of knowledge to understand the message.   The public message or meaning of the symbol or story is often very different from message conveyed to those in the cult. Thus, the same symbol or story can have different psychological triggers. One symbol can elicit pride and honor while also conveying hate and fear.

These emotions are evidence of a dynamic link.  People can use these links to manipulate by using these symbols.  What about the religious symbols above?  What is a psychological trigger that each of these elicit?

“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”  ― Jiddu Krishnamurti

As mentioned earlier, words create images within the mind.  However, the same term can create different images for different people.  For example, for one person the word apple makes them think of the fruit on a tree, but for another it means a large computer company.  Therefore, controlling the meaning of the image or brand is so important.

Many cultures use rites and rituals as symbols of power to codify the emotional triggers.  For example, a labyrinth is an outward representation of the inward spiritual journey.  The maze is a test and a rite of passage with tests and trials along the way which require knowledge to navigate it safely.  You can advance to the next level within the religious sect if you can successfully complete the maze.  There are penalties for failing to pass the test.  You may lose your current standing in the sect, or you may even surrender your life.

The benchmark of an effective collective story is in its ability to inject extreme and violent values and behaviors into the cultural narrative.  If you can control the dominant cultural narrative, you can program people to be suicide bombers. How do you do this? You program a worldview that makes these acts acceptable.  It’s the worldview that governs our thoughts and values.  The more exposure people have to propaganda, the more likely they are to accept it.

Words and graphic designs paint a picture of the connections to our thought patterns, values, beliefs, memories, and dreams. It’s all tied together; the powerful spiritual symbols that trigger fear are thread between them all.  These links are the secret levers that create thought chains.  And this is how it is possible to manipulate thinking by triggering these levers. Get the picture?

Here’s how it works.  You may feel the symbol of the cross may be neutral on the surface, but it reminds of a loved one who has died.  So, the cross conjures a link to death.  You just don’t see the link, you just feel the loss.  This link is unconscious.

For instance, many people expose themselves to a large amount of unconscious programming by leaving the TV on in the background.  There is a lot of harmful propaganda which presents itself as news or religious programming. The more often you hear something, even if it is a lie, the more likely you are to believe it is true.  This type of programming distorts thinking. Most of the time, people don’t know it’s happening.

Religious Brand and Their Cognitive Links

Modern advertising copies a formula straight from Western religion.  You create a problem that only your product can solve.  For instance, Mr. Clean was a cleaning product of the 1950s.  It showed how Mr. Clean was the only cleaning solution that could remove the dirt from a tile floor.  Again, this advertising model comes directly from Western religion.  Create the problem, an afterlife in hell, and then offer the solution: heaven.

Religions have used symbolism in their stories for eons, because they know it is an effective way to program ideas and values. There is a formula for propaganda. First, they trigger a deep emotion. The more extreme the emotion, the less it needs to be repeated for it to be effective. They use slogans and short phrases to trigger the desired emotional response. Religions and unscrupulous politicians use these tactics all the time. This groupthink tool suspends the use of common sense. People commit acts of violence under the banner of a flag, symbol, or story.

Choosing a symbol with the ability to manipulate requires two things.  First, the graphic representation needs to have a powerful psychological tie to a primal instinct like fear or anger.  Second, the symbol must be easy to recognize and copy.  These traits create a high level of brand recognition.  The icons of the world’s largest religions are great examples of this formula.

The cross is the brand of Christianity.  Islam uses the crescent moon and star as a brand.  And the Star of David, a six-pointed star, is the brand of Judaism.  These are symbols as psychological principles that communicate multiple messages.

The Power of Spiritual Symbols that Trigger Fear

To be afraid of something, you must learn to fear it.  You learn to fear by being told that something is dangerous.  Our family is the first source of our cultural programming.  If our parent tells us something is dangerous, we listen.  This authority can extend to others in our circle of influence.

“Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all.  As a result, we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts. And we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.”  — Joseph Campbell

Most people would agree it would be a major error to mistake analogies and metaphors for real people or events. But this is exactly what Western theology does.  They pretend that their stories and symbols are real.  It is also be an error to discount this kind of thinking as harmless make-believe. Metaphors and analogies are typologies that are powerful psychological triggers. These triggers can program people think and act in violent ways.

“Everything that happens in the Old Testament is a type or adumbration of something that happens in the New Testament, and the whole subject is therefore called typology, though it is a typology in a special sense.”  — Northrop Frye

“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?” ― Mark Twain

These symbols engage our fight, flight, or freeze reaction.  What connects these images to the psyche is the trigger layers of programming.  The powerful spiritual symbols that trigger fear are links to multiple layers and multiple triggers.  These drivers come from four primary sources:

1) Personality
2) Instinct
3) Primal mind
4) Culture

If you learn about your fears, you can deal with how they affect you and keeping others from misusing them. It’s the best way to overcome the tactic of group hypnosis or groupthink manipulation. So, learning to face your fears becomes a gateway to freethinking.  Any of these fears can lead you to an existential crisis known as the “dark night of the soul.”

Personality Fears

The Enneagram is a great tool to help you learn about the elements of your Ego. It starts with a questionnaire which identifies your personality and instincts and then takes you on a deeper dive into the programing of subconscious mind. You can use it to find and disarm psychological triggers.

1) Type one fears corruption or being defective.
2) Personality type twos fear rejection or abandonment.
3) Threes fear not being successful or even seen as worthlessness.
4) Type fours fear being just average and not unique.
5) Fives fear incompetence.
6) The Type Six fear lacks loyalty and support.
7) Type sevens fear missing out on something.
8) Eights fear not being in control.
9) Type nines dread the loss of connection.

“When men think and believe in one set of symbols and act in ways which are contrary to their professed and conscious ideas, confusion, and insincerity are bound to result.” — John Dewey

Instinctual Fears

There are three basic instinctual types in the Enneagram system. They each have corresponding fears.  These core fears are:

  • Those with self-preservation fear the loss of things they consider essential.
  • The “social stack” has a general fear of rejection.
  • Leverage the sexual instinct to dull existence or make them think they are missing something exciting.

Fears of our Primal Mind

Our monkey brain houses our autonomic nervous system. The control center regulates much of our body’s unconscious activities, including heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, and eye pupil response. These primal brain activities are something we share with many creatures.

Groupthink manipulation enables linking beliefs and values to our fight, flight, or freeze response.  One accomplishes this by creating a Scapegoat that can be blamed.  They become the focal point and outlet for negative emotions, like fear and anger.  These triggers are powerful motivators that override our moral compass and rational thinking. See Cultural Fears below.

Cultural Fears

The fears of the dominant culture are the home of religious belief. They center on the following main issues:

  • Fear of Death
  • Fear of Afterlife
  • Loss of loved ones
  • Lack of material necessities (food, water, shelter)
  • Health issues
  • Bias and prejudice of religious belief (God), ethnic, race, and gender

These fears and insecurities provide opportunities to create customers. What is a psychological trigger on this list that resonates with you?

“Religious people claim that it’s just the fundamentalists of each religion that cause problems. But there’s got to be something wrong with the religion itself if those who strictly adhere to its most fundamental principles are violent bigots and sexists.”  — David G. McAfee

It’s important to remember that religions exist to make generational customers.  If you are a follower of one of the major religions, chances are you underwent indoctrination as a child.  The cognitive links of your faith are a part of your cultural narrative.  It is this programming that is the fear trigger.  Fear is behind anger. It’s what propels ordinary people to act with violence.  The motivation comes from the programming embedded in the symbols.  These are the psychological tools of Western theology.

The Hamsa

The example for this article is the Hamsa, which is a symbol we see in many cultures.  Judaism calls it the hand of Miriam, the sister of Moses.  Christianity calls it the hand of Mother Mary.  In Islam, it is the hand of Fatima, Muhammad’s daughter.  The origins of this symbol go back to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.  In these cultures, the Hamsa is used as a protection against evil spells, explicitly pointing to The Evil Eye. (3)

The “All-Seeing Eye” is one of the key themes here.  You can find this symbol in many cultures.  Christians call it The Eye of Providence. However, it originates before recorded history.  Some say it comes from Egypt and the Eye of Horus. (4)

There are several secondary symbols here as well—for instance, the rainbow, spiral, and the dots around the perimeter, and the hand.  And the meaning for these will depend on the cultural context. The rainbow is an excellent example of how meaning changes based on cultural context, because the definition differs depending on who is using it.

The main message of the Hamsa is that spiritual awakening is available to everyone. It’s an invitation for people of all backgrounds to blossom spiritually.  Depending upon your worldview, you may see a different message.  Please let us know how you relate to this symbol.

Preparing for Research

Above all, this exercise is an excellent tool for developing our awareness.  On the surface, it seems like an analytical exercise. However, this is serious inner work.  This exercise will show you how symbols affect your thinking and values.  Sorting out these connections may take more than one session.

Preparation is key to getting the best results. First, use a spiritual journal to record your findings. It’s a good practice to record as you go along. Your research may show you essential connections to other things like dreams or habitual thought patterns.

Second, brush up on logical reasoning and the scientific process.  It will ground you in the process of the practice.

The Enneagram Of Personality

Next, familiarize yourself with the Enneagram.  You must go beyond just knowing your personality type, tri-type, and instinctual stack. Learn about the different triads and dynamic variations.  Dig into the fears and motivators that are a part of your psyche. This system can yield important insights if you know enough to recognize them. The more you know, the better.

Select Topic

If this is your first venture into symbolism, pick one outside your religion. It’s best to avoid encountering any idea that will trigger your fight, flight, or freeze reaction, which causes the mental condition of cognitive dissonance.  If this happens, your research session is over.  For this reason, choose a neutral symbol or topic.

Use Emotional Checks

Anytime you engage in spiritual research, we recommend using emotional checks. It’s a process to help you stay as unbiased as possible.  It helps you control the things that trigger fear.

Emotional checks will reduce stress and increase the accuracy of our research. So, it’s more like a safety net.  It will catch us when we fall into emotional distress. When we face ideas conflicting with our current opinion, it creates a dilemma.  We instinctively react to protect our sacred ground.  You don’t want to research while in a state of distress.

Public Libraries

Last but not least, you can find several historical origins for your research at a public library.    Keep in mind some authors are biased.  So, be sure to check the accuracy of the source.  The subject of symbolism will refer to texts known as Bestiaries. We’ll discuss these in more detail below.

Exercise Connecting Symbols to Psychological Principles

You can do this exercise on your own.  But this exercise works best with a partner—ideally, someone on the same quest. Find someone you can talk with openly without filtering your answers.  Be sure to jot down your discoveries in your journal.  Things may come up that don’t seem important until after you’ve had time to ponder your answers.

1) First, find several sources.  Use different authors and publishers. Using diverse resources will help you develop the best overall meaning. It will show a general historical significance for the symbol.  Bestiaries are rich sources for this type of data (see below for information about this source).

2) Next, use the Enneagram Personality Profile.  Find your personality type and instinctual stack.  Then, discover the connections between historical meaning and your fears.

3) Last, use the repeating question exercise to explore your fears.  The goal is to drill down below the superficial answers.  You want to find the connections between symbols and your fear triggers. Examples of repeating questions include, “tell me how this fear shows up?”  It’s important to realize we tend to give superficial answers first.  But, by repeating the question, you’ll eventually get down to the truth about the fear.  You might spend 5 minutes on just one question to get to the root.  So, be patient.

The Bestiaries

You can trace the meaning of almost every symbol to the ancient texts known as Bestiaries. (5) Their availability varies.   These contain the root associations for animals, plants, and rocks. Similarly, these texts include fictional creatures or anthropomorphic beings.  You can find the links to many superstitions of Western theology.  Sometimes they show how the meaning changed.  After all, no one knows the exact origin of oral traditions.

In the Middle Ages, the Bestiaries became popular as curiosities and because of this, private collectors saved many of these works from mass book burning events.  Christians were burning any books they deemed as evil or demonic.  Heck, they are trying to do it again now.

The Catholic Encyclopedia

The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic history and Christianity. It’s a reference text for internal Church use, so it reveals some interesting facts not meant for public disclosure.   The 1907 version is enlightening. Volumes 13 and 14 of the 15 volume set discuss where the Church got its symbols, doctrines, and dogma.

In Conclusion

Understanding the power of symbols helps us recognize how they trigger our emotions and what we can do to prevent this from happening.  We learn words are symbols that may have several levels of meaning.  Some words, characters, and logos are powerful cognitive links. And, the study of symbols can reveal the motives behind the image. For example, the typologies of rebirth and resurrection are potent symbols in our culture.  They are the motives that sell afterlife beliefs.

References

(1) The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology, David Kravitz, 1975. 
(2) Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
(3) Bulfinch’s Mythology, Illustrated Edition, Thomas Bulfinch 1978 Edition 
(4) An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, J. C. Cooper, 1987: 
(5) The Bestiary.