A litany against fear – from a cartoon about having to eat broccoli

Way back on July 5, 2011, in a blog post titled Three types of questioners, I briefly mentioned the helpful Litany Against Fear, but said it was a story for another day. Well, today is that day. The Litany is:

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone pat I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

It originally had appeared in Frank Herbert’s 1965 science fiction novel Dune. I was reminded of it when I saw it recited in a Sheldon cartoon by Dave Kellett on April 2, 2019. Last year the Litany was discussed at Medium by Stella Donna in an article titled Fear is the Mind-Killer: A Sci-Fi Novel Teaches Us How to Conquer Fear. It also was quoted by Kevin Abdulrahman (in Chapter 6: Fear and You) of his 2015 book 60 Minutes to Better Public Speaking.

On August 17, 2018 Dave Kellett had another cartoon titled Anatomy of Frank Herbert. He mentioned that Dune had been rejected by twenty editors before finally being published by a company that produced car repair books (Chilton). An article at a Barnes and Noble blog on November 2, 2016 titled 10 things you might not know about Frank Herbert’s Dune mentioned that Sterling Lanier, the editor at Chilton who published it, was fired due to poor sales of the book. Dune was followed by a series of sequels. The boxed set might be jokingly subtitled Raising Sandworms for Fun and Profit.   

The painting of fear by Jean Baptiste Greuze came from Wikimedia Commons.