Spirituality/Medicine Interface Project
Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Religion and Spirituality
Abstract
From the dawn of history, anxiety has been associated with religious, spiritual and existential issues. In animistic cultures people suffered from anxiety when rules and rituals that were meant to calm deities and ancestral spirits were disobeyed. Fear of being accused of being the source of some misfortune paralyzed members of tribal communities believing in the power of the “evil eye.” Many religious traditions attributed illness and disease to the work of demons and other spiritual entities. Mystics of all times reported inner turmoil and fearful darkness on their route to inner peace and lucidity. Orthodox Christians endured fear of a threatening God, who will punish with eternal damnation. Existentialist philosophers, psychotherapists and novelists introduced the idea of anxiety as loss of inner freedom—a freedom which was considered to be the core of human existence. And finally, since the end of the 19th century, philosophers, social scientists and psychopathologists have associated anxiety with the cultural and spiritual transitions that took place when stable feudal societal arrangements transformed into modern society with its individualism and its more subtle and pervasive insecurities.This content is limited to qualifying members.
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