The Spirituality of Powerlessness
Powerlessness, a fundamental aspect of chronic substance addiction, is underlined by spiritual abstractionism. The sensational experience of involuntary consumption extends beyond the standard dimensions of physicality, mentality and emotive composition, seeping into the metaphysical membrane of those who suffer its wrath. The foremost step of Narcotics Anonymous is a profound admission, one that liberates the addict from the guise of moral ineptitude and grounds them in a realistic foundation upon which a framework of healing may be built.
To begin this exploration, we assume the inherent existence of God, the ultimate higher power that is both all-encompassing and all-knowing, an infinitely expansive, conscious entity with supreme control over the intricacies of its composition. In this theory, we are all building-blocks of God, analogous to cells in a human body, each with its own unique lived trajectory that when summated comprise part of a highly-complex and deeply-sophisticated organism of unfathomable intelligence. More specifically, the soul which inhabits body is a point source manifestation of the mind of God, an infinitesimal portion of holy unity that is at once vitality and divinity.1
God may also include deities, advanced spiritual entities that have mastered life in physical form and now serve both humanity and source, acting as branches of the divine tree, and lesser-beings of a supernatural essence who play a role in the twisted unfolding of addictive torture, subtle energies that feed on hedonism and chaos, either literally or metaphorically. With this we arrive at an obscure painting of reality—a superposition of the physical world—animals, nature and human beings infused with spirit; and an astral field—a vast matrix of invisible forces ranging from harmless and fleeting to omniscient and dangerous.
This infers an incredible inter-connectivity in which we all operate, one that is complicated and multilayered, breeding grounds for atypical Darwinism and incorporeal parasitism. An investigation into such is paramount in the conception and elevation of cutting-edge treatment modalities—if there are non-physical factors at play, the majority of contemporary models of addiction fail to capture them. Psychedelic-assisted methods carry the possibility of integrable spiritualism or supernaturalism; however, the mechanistic basis of paralleled non-ordinary states may be poorly understood, if recognized at all.
Under the aforementioned description, it was postulated that God has an incalculable ability to manipulate elements of itself; however, we must delineate complete from slightly-limited control. Certain environmental conditions may fall outside even divine reach, such as situational stressors driven by stochastic circumstance. If God represents the diffusive tendencies of the cosmos, chaos becomes the outcome of its constituents’ localized free-will. Think of the human mind—the conscious activity of an individual in actuality makes up only a fraction of all neuropsychological action that is happening in a given instant.2
God in this model is cognizant and idealized, meaning it holds an acute awareness of its entire dynamic architecture; regardless, it may not be able to effect change directly in every single pixilated region. Instead, it does so through a cascading chain of events—alter one variable and witness the resultant differential elsewhere. Since the God system is permeable, akin to a highly-porous network of winding tunnels and interjoining caverns, the rippling effects of small-scale modifications are reverberated through the whole unit.
The soul here is illustrated as a superior divine component, simultaneously detached and attuned to its source while residing in human body. I envision it as a piece of the God-system’s psyche, a particularly special element that is spread out amongst humanity, instilling divine wisdom into all people who turn to it. The summation of souls, plus whatever bulk quantity remains as a reserve supply of dense, super-intelligent energy, partially in the form of deities, equates to the whole of God’s mind. Subsequently, all else that is—nature, organic matter, physical flesh, and astral entities—would compose the “body” of God.3
To live in alignment with God is to live in coherence with soul; therefore, during the process of incarnation, when soul is transmuted from the free-floating abyss it inhabits without earthly vehicle, the divine consciousness, it is acting in accordance with greater purpose. The general characteristics of born-situation could be engineerable specifications, laid out as preferential options to viable soul parcels, but once out into human society, a large portion of following occurrence lies in the hands of fate—carefully orchestrated and strongly preordained, yet fate nonetheless.
In granting its self-materialized pieces the chance at a biological lifetime in tandem with a culturally-conditioned ego, God relinquishes its power of full authority. The soul remains as an internalized, divinely-oriented compass throughout the organic cycle. God, managed by its preserved bulk soul energy, retains its ability to enhance or adjust the surrounding landscape as need dictates, to guide or assist its earth-bound limbs; however, chaos pervades all experiential happenings. This disorderliness is an explicit product of humanized choice, plausibly stemming from those driven by arrogance, greed and evil, modes of being distinctly separate from soul- and thus God-aligned decision.4
This all suggests a perpetual dueling of opposing forces: God, soul, nature and divinely honed human beings, whos actions counteract the generalized air of negativity, versus chaos in all forms, evil, malevolence, the cruel, cold hand of probabilistic outcome. There is also the consideration of polarity—right and wrong, good and bad, pain and pleasure—God and soul may operate without these visceral indicators, instead being drawn towards one of two states of equilibrium, denoted heaven and hell for lack of better terminology.5 This is the fundamental essence of diffusion I have mentioned in previous works.
Diffusion is the natural tendency of a system to move towards some equalized state of being. Here, the system is disequilibrated due to diametric influences of darkness and light, chaos and God, and the undulating free-will of man. Without polarity, God acts from an entirely different perspective than human ego—while the latter uses both emotion and reason, ideally, God and soul would act out of naturality. God may be intimately aware of suffering and thus of the importance to sway its system out from the grips of eternal hell. Another possibility is that divine realms do feature pain through a unique mechanism indescribable to man.
There is a significant problem associated with globalized equilibrium—once a system reaches it, it will stay that way until an external force is applied. The bible’s inclusion of both hell and heaven would infer that God is able to effect change from an equalized system, perhaps through an event similar to the big-bang theory where the structure of the universe implodes and is reorganized into a random, virginal setting. This is a total reset—instead of dwelling in endless sorrow, divine intelligence triggers widespread protectionism by wiping clean an unfortunate slate, which would necessitate massive energy expenditure and a period of null-movement.6
Let us assume that the God-system is indeed creeping towards its negative equilibrium state—God knows this and is motivated to prevent the development of a static living nightmare, and thus optimizes select self-components based on some wildly non-linear objective function. Those with the greatest potential to fight against systemic downfall are assisted and guided with near-impunity. However, God cannot contain or always predict chaos—despite being produced from ethereal substrate, it evolves secondary to divinely oriented interference.
It is useful to depict a chain of events that demonstrate God’s fluctuating control in an individual’s life. Before human birth, the soul is presumably unattached to humanity. It becomes enlisted to ride biological conception into a physical lifetime—an action closely aligned with the will of God, done through meticulous design and forward-extrapolation. Setting, family of origin, and general attributes could all be engineering factors; then, the moment of reckoning, the expulsion of a fresh-faced infant into the cultural expanse.
From this point onwards, God’s tendrilled grasp is loosened—the young person now belong to the world, a place filled with randomized motion and corrupted, cut-off figures. Divine control is diminished yet non-negligible—the soul works in cooperation with a slowly-shaping ego to guide them towards a life of altruism, fulfillment and dignity, hopefully. However, this is not a straightforward journey; for example, the depravity I faced during 17 years of active addiction could be construed as a keystone in God’s overall plan for eventual actualization. Alternatively, it could have been a perfect convolution of circumstance that I was fortunate to escape; or, more realistically, a mixture of both. Regardless of etiology, life led me into a terminal landing-zone of bottomed-out addiction, as it does for many others, and then granted me redemption.
This finally brings us to powerlessness—a symptom of late-stage addiction characterized by inner and outer insanity, lack of agency and life-threatening events. I hypothesize here, given context thus far derived, that powerlessness is marked by a complete disconnection of sentient flesh, or embodied ego, from divine essence, or soul. Along my path, I transitioned between divine contact and sheer madness countless times, oscillating between meaningful hardships and hedonistic fantasies, and this could be interpreted as varying connection to soul.
The culmination of divine blueprinting and chance finally brought me to a state of being so revolted that a rigid boundary encapsulated my soul, effectively shutting off my intrinsic divinity. This suggests, under the guise of the model here, that positive traits such as integrity, groundedness, awareness, and morality are intimate tied to soul, the faint pulse of holiness that injects vibrancy into animate life. Once that link is severed, man is no longer under God’s mentorship to any degree, aside from externality, and thus is unprotected from sinisterism in the form of subtle energies—demons, angels, sly deity-type beings of astral origins—assuming these do exist, and my past experience screams that they do.
Powerlessness may be part of God’s intelligent design for life, the end-game of chaos-driven orientation, for only out of the darkest places does one emerge anew as a useful hand of divinity, ever-lastingly grateful and prescient. This is the climax of soul-lessons, God’s own practice of surrender, an exercise of faith in its own foresight. It is a hostile take-over of lowly-energetic beings, entities that act out of spite and malice, feeding off the steamy aromas of degeneracy and bodily decay.
A similar conception of powerlessness features the soul actually leaving its body in times of extreme destruction, willfully or naturally, and this “rippage” leaves a spiritual crater in the sufferer’s energy body. They attempt to soothe and fill this gap with more and more drugs, food, sex, anything to ease the pain of being soul-less. As long as their soul has retracted into the bulk mind of God, the person acts without a moral compass and thus commits horrendous, irrational acts that defy their genuine character. It is only when this devastation halts that this spiritual protective mechanism is attenuated, and since they are without choice in the depths of powerlessness, external assistance is necessary to avoid their mortal end.
Thankfully, empowerment is attainable even in the worst cases of addictive endeavor—enlightenment, unified consciousness, and soul-harmonized living are always reachable if the person survives their bout of powerlessness. In fact, the sensory contrast between the bottom and life beyond it creates a pillar of distillable gratitude, an unforgettable reminder of how things were. Suffering is a magnificent teacher in the land of polarized sensation—I know I would not be the person I am today were it not for my years of instability, trauma and drug abuse.
Addiction is a shackle applied to man so that he may persevere through purgatorial trial and emerge victorious, better equipped as a loyal servant of divinity—this is part of grand design. Spiritualized recovery opens up a new world of possibility—divine attunement rather than harsh, comedic punishment, quantum manifestation of infinite potential, horizontally-oriented solidarity led by higher-dimensionality, and more. The God system is complex and daunting; however, trust in its wisdom carries the potential for liberation and fulfillment beyond one’s wildest dreams.7
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I had originally used brain in this analogy, which could work, but would assume that consciousness arises out of the brain, which is highly disputed, and thus mind works best here.
In other words, unconscious activity far outweighs that which is conscious. This suggests that the behind-the-scenes behavior of mind and brain is largely responsible for executive function, while “conscious you, in effect, is like a not terribly bright CEO.” (Quote from linked Time article)
It is also important to define God and soul as separate entities—despite being intimately connected, this theory suggests that they are distinct in terms of operational capacities.
There is a point to be discussed here about free-will—it could be argued that true free-will stems only from those who are indeed aligned with God, and that choices made from evil and greed are instead results of environmental chaos. It could be further argued that true free-willed choice, stemming out of soul and thus divinity, does not add chaos but instead detracts from it, unless miscalculated which presumably is a possibility within this context, given the sheer complexity of the system.
Although the theory in this article is original and my own, the particular idea of polarity in the dimensions of God and soul were taught to me by a spiritual school known as the Well Being Initiative.
It is important also in this theory to address the concept of time. I believe time is a construct of humanity that would have no real meaning in the dimensions of God and soul, other than in the depiction of earthly issues. There must, however, be some metric that defines divine action. Here, I propose this value to be change—change in mass, momentum and energy, all globally conserved quantities that can characterize a control volume (CV) through their influx and outflux across CV boundaries compared to generation within the CV, which is the rudimentary basis of Reynolds Transport Theorem.
In all honestly, my views on God, the universe, and spirituality are fluid, bound to change in even a day’s timeframe. This generates an interesting effect as a writer—snapshots that capture my thinking on a particular day—useful data for future comparison.