They appear in many different shapes and disguises, from statues to animals to spiders to waif-like children. They frighten us to the point where we hang protective symbols and herbs around our doorways to keep them out, and say prayers to prevent them from harming us.The reality is, however, that we have created these figures ourselves, in order to give a physical form to all of those things that we are afraid of: our dread of the inexplicable, and the terrible uncertainty we feel about never knowing what will happen to us next.These figures represent everything from poverty and disease and madness and death to those horrors for which we have no names.Many of them have become legendary. Satan is a prime example, with his horns and his hooves. Then there’s the Indian goddess Kali, covered in blood, naked except for her belt of severed heads. Or Damballa, the slithery voodoo serpent god; and bristly Coyote, the Native American trickster. Or the Irish banshees, with their screeching voices and their ragged dresses, who gather outside your house as somebody comes close to breathing their last.There are literally thousands of them, in every culture and religion, representing every possible terror that you can imagine, and some that you should be thankful that you can’t.But there are other figures of fear, closer to home.
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