Hello... it’s been four years or so since I set up this website and wrote the introductory letter below. It still fits. I merely wanted to add here that “things aren’t getting much better in the world of fear, are they?” So, it seems the relevancy of this archive of material on this website and some of my controversial claims and rants is worthy of the cost of the website upkeep. So, enjoy your journey going through this stuff, and keep in mind that I have really three main research and educational interests that are focused here in no particular order:

   (1) ‘fear’ thing (includes, risk, safety, security...)
   (2) Ken Wilber integral philosophy and
        movement/revolution
   (3) The Matrix (1999-2003) metaphor and morality story/film

R. Michael Fisher, 2007
Vancouver, BC, Canada

    WELCOME to this personal website and some of the unique fear research I have been undertaking for the past 13 years. I have often believed that fearuality is, at least, as important as sexuality in human and societal behavior. Our general ignorance about human sexuality 100 years ago, is where the current knowledge about fearuality is today.

    IN PARTICULAR, my experiential and intellectual passion has revolved around what happens when fear meets fearlessness? Defining and conceptualizing fear, fearlessness, and fearless have been an endless fascination for me as a fear researcher (fearologist) and educator. How these are related to love, pedagogy, and the future development of a global universal ethics, are questions that guide my research and life. Unique to the study of fear, I have chosen a transdisciplinary approach to study these topics, rather than to rely on only traditions, cliches, and one-sided uncritical knowledges about fear, which in contemporary times come predominantly from Western scientific psychology and/or religions.

    THE EVIDENCE is quite convincing to me and many others that violence, oppression, environmental exploitation and toxification, all have their cause based in a view of the world driven by fear, both individually and collectively. When this fear accumulates over time, and is constructed by those in powerful leadership (and parental) positions, and those wishing to sell security and status/success products, and those wishing to get us to watch more news on TV and radio and read more newspapers-- then fear becomes 'fear' of a different order, which some critics have called a new hyperreal species of 'fear.' I wish to understand the dynamics of this construction of 'fear' and how to teach others to best handle it to minimize its damaging effects.

    STUDYING AND COPING with the thousand kinds of "fears" is no longer, by itself, adequate to the type of world we live in, especially with our entering the war without end, declared by the American elite (post-9/11) as the "War on Terror(ism)" -- really fearism-- which is the most dangerous game of FEAR WARS. It is time for a new kind of warrior-- a sacred warrior dedicated to the path of fearlessness and a quality of fear education never before available to human beings. It is time to systematically and critically examine everything being said or written or taught about fear. That's where a healthy Fear Education begins. There are major battles going on around the planet, and always have been, for the control of the knowledge about fear. I am dedicated to exposing the ideologies of fear, and doing so by good critique and critical education. I look forward to your comments and hearing about your initiatives to improve our fearual wisdom.

R. Michael Fisher,
Vancouver, BC, Canada
January 21, 2003