The incentive leading to this paper were the events of September 11th and a wish to understand the cultural and ideological forces, which led to the attack. The growth of religious radicalism and its aggressivity are examined within the context of Freudian, post-Kleinian and Winnicottian ideas about group processes. The growth of narcissistic states of mind between leaders and their supporters has been researched through the examination of the hold of fascist regimes on their populations. This model is applied to understand the growth of radical Islam. Cosmic power, which is the driving force of al-Quaeda, is examined in terms of destructive narcissism and malignant mirroring processes. The pull for nations to respond to terror by the same retaliatory logic is explored with reference to Baudrillard's work on the subject of terror, Britton's ideas on triangularity and Winnicott's ideas on illusion. These theories are applied in order to gain a clearer sense of the level of alarm generated in democracies towards religiously justified violence as a response to the threat of modernity.