Addictions

Date: Wed, 11 Sep 96 16:53:41 EDT

Isabel, You pose many interesting questions.

I see addictions as a spiritual crisis.

The crisis could be a test, or chosen by your higher self to teach you something as depicted in Key 14 (Temperance). The experience could be a necessary lesson required to transmute some aspect of your personality.

What could the lesson be? What can addictions teach us?

When we're addicted to a substance or image that stimulates our animal sense levels, we're trying to satisfy and satiate the senses.

Satiating the senses can't be done!

As long as we focus on the sense life, we'll never get enough to satisfy our senses. That is the lesson of addiction. We can never be satisfied via only the 5 senses. We keep trying to get more and more satisfaction from the substance or activity, but we can't! Perhaps this is the lesson many of us must learn the hard way.

Trying to achieve spiritual transcendence via the satisfaction of sensual pleasure and desire is (as I see it) the path from VICTORY (desire) to BEAUTY (Christ consciousness). This path corresponds to Key 13 (Death). By using the Scorpio energy to try and satisfy animal urges and/or reproduction of the species only, we bring about death and dissolution of form which then provides the seed for future growth.

When you've got an addiction, to give it up something must die or be dissolved, before your physical body is dissolved.

It may come down to a choice - WHAT DO YOU WANT? Do you want the sensation bad enough that you'd accept the dissolution of your physical body? Some people will embrace their addiction to the point where they lose everything - job, spouse, relationships, house, family, until finally they're facing death itself. Either way - in this life, or the next one - the lesson must be learned. Better to learn it now in this life if possible.

The way out of this dilemma lies in the skeleton of K13. The skeleton has two twists in his/her spine. One at the Mars center and one at the Venus center. This tells us that we must REDIRECT the flow of energy away from the Mars center (Volition/Sex) and towards the Venus center (Love).

We begin to redirect this energy by using the Magician to focus on those things that help to humanize our sub-consciousness and tame the Red Lion, until finally in Key 7 (The Chariot) we bring the senses, (the pairs of opposites) and our addictions to rest by realizing that it's God (higher self, rider in the Chariot) that reconciles the opposites. It is not your personal will that conquers sense addiction, but God's will flowing through the vehicle of personality. Perfecting the personality into an unrestricted vehicle for the flow of the One Will.

JC

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Treatment for addiction?

Addiction is indicative of something being out of balance.  The treatment therefore would be to restore overall balance and health to the personality.  Therefore, besides attempting some specific treatment, one should also engage in practices which promote overall physical, mental, and emotional health.

[Hypothesis]
For a specific treatment, one can utilize the Law of Polarity, eliminating a particular harmful vibration by employing it opposite.

In this light, addiction can be viewed as a form of touch-response (K9) which is being over-stimulated and out of control.  One could try balancing this over active area by using the complementary color/sound which corresponds to K18 and   Red-Violet.   (Note K18:Pisces is the polar opposite of K9:Virgo on the astrological chart)

RL

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I would like to offer that there is a deep connection between addiction and  magic. It seems that this is going unheard, so I want to say it again. I  offer it up in the spirit of how we might look at Key 15 and the chains we  are bound in. Does anyone other than me see some grapes for a tail?  L.

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I know compulsive exercisers with this same problem. Their entire lives seem totally dominated by this insidious habit. I know folks who have entirely ruined legs, torn ligaments, suffered serious bruising, or who have even broken bones and lost teeth over their addiction. Yet, they persist. Maybe one day, when they have hit bottom, they will wake up, quit lying to themselves about their situation, and admit to God and friends that they have a problem. Only when they have awakened to their situation (Key 16) can they begin their recovery.

JSW