The Boogeyman

When I was a child, my mother used to tell me that if I didn't come into the house before dark, the boogeyman would catch me, put me in his sack, and take me away. I didn't know what the boogeyman was or what he looked like, but in my mind, he was creepy, mean, and grotesque.

What my mother told me frightened me. I didn't want the boogeyman to catch me, so I did what she wanted and came in before dark. For the first few years of my childhood, my fear of the boogeyman kept me in line.

When my mother first told me about the boogeyman, I accepted what she said. I didn't question her. Nor did I doubt her. She told me there was a boogeyman—so there was a boogeyman!

But around the age of six, my fear began to fade. Not because I was older or wiser, but because most of my friends had stopped believing in the boogeyman. The word on the street was that parents had made up the boogeyman to frighten their children into doing what they wanted them to do.

I started pestering my mother daily with questions. Who is this boogeyman? Where does he live? When he puts children in his sack, where does he take them? What does he do with them?

After much relentless questioning, my mother finally admitted that the boogeyman wasn't real. Parents had invented him to frighten their children into obedience. And just like that, I learned a valuable lesson: question… everything!

Now, I'm not saying that at six years old, I went around interrogating everyone. I didn't. But over time, I stopped believing whatever people said just because they said it. When I had doubts, I asked questions. Lots of them! When I wasn't satisfied with the answers, I searched for them myself.

As adults, we have a responsibility to ask questions. We shouldn't continue to follow a path simply because it's the one our parents showed us or because someone frightened us into believing it's the only way. We are supposed to examine the road for ourselves—by questioning whether the information we've been given is the Truth.

Our fears keep us silent. And much like the fears we had as children, they sanction our belief in the boogeyman.

Whether the boogeyman is the fear planted in our minds by the lies and innuendo spread by unethical news commentators and politicians—or the boogeyman that religious leaders perpetuate to keep us in fear of the gods and demons that represent their doctrines—the result is the same: they keep us afraid.

But we are adults. Believing in the boogeyman keeps us childlike and fearful. Adults grow up and overcome their fears.

The entire time I believed in the boogeyman, my fear controlled me. It convinced me that if I didn't do what my mother said, the boogeyman would catch me, throw me in his sack, and take me somewhere no one would ever find me. That was scary!

To control someone's fear is to hold power. It allows parents to manage their children, religions to intimidate their followers, and governments to subdue entire nations. When we allow others to govern what makes us afraid, we hand them control over our lives.

But fear is not all-powerful. It is not all-encompassing. Fear has a nemesis—a very formidable one: Truth.

When we seek, accept, and apply the Truth, we can confront and subdue our fears.

We no longer run from fear—we overcome it. We stop allowing mythological gods, angels, devils, demons, superstitions, and mystical mumbo-jumbo to frighten us. Instead, we pull them from the darkness of our ignorance and expose them to the light of knowledge and understanding.

The Philosophy of the Divine Law teaches that by accepting the Truth, we free ourselves from fear. A person who knows the Truth but does not accept or apply it consigns themselves to the control of others.

Living in alignment with the Truth, we no longer wait to be told what is right—we search for it ourselves. We do not tremble at the unknown or obey out of fear of punishment; we act because we understand. Our choices are no longer shaped by threats or myths but by knowledge, compassion, and responsibility.

In this light, we are no longer children frightened by imaginary monsters but the conscious stewards of our reality—living not beneath the weight of fear but within the clarity of Truth.

Fear is our greatest enemy. But acceptance of the Truth will always be its most powerful foe.

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