“The rule for all terrors is to head straight into them. When you are sailing in a storm, you don’t let a wave hit your boat on the side. You go bow into the wave and ride it. So in the same way, old folklore says, this is an old wives tale with a lot of truth in it, whenever you meet a ghost don’t run away, because the ghost will capture the substance of your fear and materialise itself out of your own substance and will kill you eventually, because it will take over all your own vitality. So then, whenever confronted with a ghost, walk straight into it and it will disappear. So in the same way, when people stir up the depths of the unconscious and are confronted with their own monsters….when you get that sense of terror, go right at it, don’t run away. Explore, feel the fear as completely as you can feel it. Head straight into it and just it so happens that these things give you the opportunity to go into some of your very, very most closely kept skeletons and the result of that is invariably beneficial.”
— Alan Watts, The Rule for All Terrors
