The Profitable Manufacture of Fear: And the Critical Work of Spirit Tending

Why are we seeing a rise of fascism and authoritarianism across the world, especially in the United States? It's tempting to point to a single cause, but the truth is more complex. Economic inequality and dislocation, cultural backlash, disinformation, and climate instability all converge into one central outcome: fear.

Some fear is reasonable, especially for those most marginalized, who live under real and immediate threat. But much fear is deliberately engineered. Fear is profitable. It is used to divide communities, undermine solidarity, and keep people vulnerable to manipulation.

In this context, spiritual tending is not a luxury. It is critical. Because authoritarianism thrives on brittle spirits, while thriving communities are rooted, resilient, and alive.

The Roots of Rising Fascism

First, we name what is. Getting real is essential to re-membering our wholeness. Fascism is now, and has in the past, arisen in particular contexts.

Economic Dislocation and Inequality. Generations of wage stagnation and wealth concentration leave many people feeling powerless and disposable.

Social and Cultural Backlash. Expanding rights for women, queer and trans folks, Black and Brown communities, and migrants generates reactionary resistance from those invested in dominance.

Psychological and Tribal Dynamics. Fear easily flips into scapegoating; humans are wired to seek safety in "us vs. them" categories.

Environmental and Existential Stressors. Climate disruption and ecological collapse create widespread anxiety, uncertainty, and scarcity.

Disinformation and Media Ecosystems. News silos and manipulative platforms amplify outrage, fear, and conspiracy thinking.

Historical Patterns. Authoritarian movements often arise in periods of upheaval—what we are seeing is tragically familiar.

Together, these dynamics converge into a cycle of fear + inequality, weaponized by those who profit from division.

Water drop over parched land, Photo by Stockcake

The Engineered Fear Model

Engineered fear follows a predictable pattern:

Isolate people → from each other, from community trust, from nature, from their own sense of agency.

Flood them with crisis → so they feel powerless and dependent on "strong" leaders or controlling systems.

Break trust in the sacred → whether that's God, gods, the web of life, or inner wisdom. A person who knows they are whole and connected is much harder to control.

This model isn't abstract. It plays out in the profiteering we saw during COVID-19, in how media cycles keep us in crisis mode, and in political projects that thrive on keeping communities fragmented and afraid.

Discernment, Not Denial: The Role of Healthy Fear

Authentic spiritual practice doesn't bypass real dangers or systemic harm—it strengthens our ability to distinguish between manufactured panic and genuine threats that require action. When we're grounded in our values and connected to community, we can respond to climate crisis, political violence, or personal safety concerns from a place of clarity rather than reactivity.

This isn't spiritual bypassing. This is spiritual preparation for sustained, effective engagement with difficult realities. The goal isn't to eliminate fear. The goal is to cultivate the discernment that allows us to act from wisdom rather than being paralyzed by overwhelm or manipulated by those who profit from our terror.

Fear becomes healthy when it connects us to what we love and moves us toward protection and care: for ourselves, our communities, and the living world. It becomes toxic when it isolates us, makes us smaller, or hands our agency over to systems that don't serve life.

Pride Parade, Rawpixel CC0

A Counter-Practice of Spirit Tending

The work of spiritual direction and tending offers a radical, necessary counter-practice:

Reweaving Connection

Creating safe, intentional spaces where people explore meaning, belonging, and sacredness on their own terms. But this isn't just individual work. The work is about building networks of mutual care that are harder to divide and exploit. When people know they belong to something larger than themselves, they're less vulnerable to the false promises of authoritarian movements.

Restoring Agency

Helping seekers trust their own discernment, values, and choices instead of outsourcing them to fear-based systems. This includes strengthening our capacity to regulate our nervous systems under stress: work I explore more deeply in other posts about embodiment and trauma-informed spirituality. When we can stay present in our bodies even during difficulty, we make decisions from clarity rather than panic.

Cultivating Resilience

Equipping people with inner resources so that even in crisis, they respond from compassion and wisdom instead of reactivity. This resilience isn't built in isolation—it emerges from relationships. We need communities that practice together, share resources, and commit to each other's well-being across difference.

Lessons from History: When Spirit Tending Resisted Tyranny

Throughout history, spiritual communities rooted in authentic practice have provided crucial resistance to authoritarian movements.

During World War II, Quaker communities across Europe created underground networks that saved thousands of Jewish lives. Their commitment to "that of God in everyone" wasn't abstract theology—it translated into concrete action. They opened their homes, forged documents, and risked their lives because their spiritual practice had cultivated an unshakeable commitment to human dignity. Crucially, their decentralized structure made them harder for Nazi authorities to infiltrate or destroy.

Buddhist communities in Tibet and Burma have sustained resistance to occupation and military rule through practices that maintain inner freedom even under extreme oppression. Their emphasis on interconnection and compassion provided alternatives to the us-versus-them thinking that authoritarian systems depend on.

Indigenous land defenders across the Americas draw strength from spiritual connections to place that colonizers cannot fully comprehend or co-opt. At Standing Rock and countless other sites, ceremony and prayer become acts of resistance because they affirm relationships that capitalism seeks to sever.

Liberation theology movements in Latin America demonstrated how spiritual practice could challenge economic oppression and political violence while maintaining commitment to love and justice.

These examples share common threads: deep rootedness in practice, commitment to community beyond the self, and spiritual foundations that couldn't be shaken by external pressure.

Treeroots, CC0

The Trap of Spiritual Bubbles

But we must also acknowledge how spiritual communities can become complicit in the very dynamics they claim to resist. When spiritual practice becomes about comfort rather than transformation, or when communities become insular echo chambers, they lose their power to challenge systems of oppression.

Social media algorithms can turn spiritual hashtags into just another form of consumption, where profound practices get reduced to performance and spiritual bypassing. Similarly, spiritual communities that focus only on individual enlightenment while ignoring systemic harm can inadvertently serve as what Marx called "the opiate of the masses"—keeping people pacified rather than engaged.

The antidote is spiritual practice that consistently asks: How does this practice serve life? How does it connect me more deeply to the struggles and joys of my neighbors? How does it strengthen my capacity for sustained action on behalf of justice?

Find spiritual mentors, guides, and companions with ethical commitments you know and agree with. Do your individual work with people who practice consent and are willing to acknowledge what is real.

The Choice Before Us

They win by keeping people spiritually brittle. We heal by becoming spiritually flexible, grounded, and unshakable.

Or in other words:

In an era when fear is deliberately manufactured to keep people small, disconnected, and reactive, my work tends the opposite soil. I accompany people as they deepen trust in their sacred wisdom, reweave bonds of community, and cultivate resilience rooted in what they hold most holy. Authoritarianism thrives on brittle spirits; my calling is to help grow spirits that bend but do not break.

Try It

Notice the places in your life where fear is pressing on you right now. Is it the news? Your community? Family tensions? Ecological uncertainty? Place your hand over your heart and whisper: Fear is not the whole of me.

Ask yourself: Where do I feel most alive, most rooted, most connected? What practice, place, or relationship brings you back to that sense of wholeness? Make time to nourish it this week.

Then ask: How might this groundedness serve not just my own well-being, but my capacity to show up for others? What would it look like to let my spiritual practice fuel sustained engagement rather than retreat from the world's pain?

Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy,
Rev. Amy
Companioning soul-weary change-makers becoming rooted, aligned, and alive again.

For Further Exploration

Books

• Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism - A classic work on how fear and instability give rise to authoritarian systems.

• Butler, Octavia E. The Parable of the Talents - A Prescient novel about the challenges of building hope and community in a deteriorating society.

• hooks, bell. All About Love - A call to cultivate love and community as radical resistance to fear and domination.

• Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century - Brief, powerful reflections on resisting authoritarianism in daily life.

• Solnit, Rebecca. Hope in the Dark - A reminder that even in bleak times, seeds of change and imagination take root.

MoonForestBone

Friday, October 24, 2025

Authoritarianism Thrives on Brittle Spirits: the Profitable Manufacture of Fear