What do we mean when we speak of terror? In its most important and general sense the term signifies a psychic state of great fear or dread. There is an almost infinite variety of events, phenomena, persons and objects that may, under certain conditions, strike terror into the hearts of human beings. Death and natural catastrophe have provided the common dreads of men and women throughout their history. Mankind's only final defence against the King of Terrors has been his beliefs in a form of life after death, his small cries of faith in the face of disaster.