Life Without Games, Part IX

(I'm not sure why this is an image of Typhon, but there you have it.)

The Many Headed Monster

The difficulty with the Epithymia is simply that it wants, and wants, and wants-- without limit. Left to its own devices, it will spend its time eating, drinking, and having sex and sleeping. A human under the rule of Epithymia is an animal.

As a brief aside, there is a notion found in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite that is worth exploring further in a future post. For Dionysius, the creation of the universe proceeds upward from the simplest to the most complex-- and this is also a moral evolution. What this means is that, for beings at a certain, lower, level, certain qualities are simply not present. But for beings at a higher level, the presence of these qualities is their good, the absence, their evil.

For example: Life is not present in a stone, and its absence does not harm the stone. But if life is not present in a plant, the plant is dead. To say it another way, it has fallen to the level of a stone. Similarly, movement is not present in a plant. But if movement ceases in an animal, it soon finds itself either eaten by something else or starving to death. This is why the long-term comatose were referred to as "vegetables." Finally, in an animal, morality is simply not present. A cat kills a mouse, a chicken pecks another chicken to death, a male dog forces itself on a female. No harm is done. But a human who torments a animal as a cat torments a mouse, or bullies and murders a weaker human, or violates another sexually, has fallen to the level of a beast. To be ruled by Epithymia is to be bestial.

Don't suppose for a moment that the writings of Dionysius are foreign to the traditions we are discussing here. While his identity was unknown, it seems likely that he was a member of Proclus's school, and there are some who have suggested that he was actually the late Classical pagan philosopher Damascius in disguise! His Christianized Platonism, or Platonized Christianity, was the light of the Christian world for 1500 years, and his partial loss (or total loss, if one is Protestant) in the West has been part of our disaster. Moreover, I am fairly certain that I see Dionysius, along with Origen and John Scotus Eriugena, lurking in the background of Iolo Morganwg's Christian Druidry. More on this at a later date.

For now let us return to the topic, and suggest another way to master the Epithymia. This is the way of Fasting.

Fasting

The word "fast" traditionally refers only to food. Historically, Christians kept either one, two, or even three fasting days per week, every week, and several major periods of fasting throughout the year. What these latter were varied by region. Lent-- the forty days prior to Easter-- and Advent-- the four weeks prior to Christmas-- were always major fasts. Other fast periods included:

Ember Days. This was a series of 3 days around the Solstices and Equinoxes kept as fasts in the Roman Catholic Church. In the older literature, the purpose of these fasts is explicitly to harmonize the soul with the energy of the season-- that is, the Airy energy of the Spring, the Fire of Summer, the Earth of Autumn and the Water of Winter. (You may be used to another arrangement; this is the older one, from what I can tell.)

St Michael's Lent. This is the period from the Feast of the Assumption of Mary on August 15th to the Feast of Saint Michael on September 29th. (Happy Michaelmas, everybody!)

Rogation Days. This was a day, or several days, of prayer and fasting in early Spring, associated with agricultural fertility.

The Dormition Fast. This refers to the 14 days prior to the Assumption of Mary-- or, as the Feast is known in the Orthodox Church, the Dormition (Falling Asleep) of Mary.

Periods of fasting are traditionally followed by periods of feasting. I've written on this topic at length, and so I won't try to recapitulate the whole discussion here. But I do want to make a few additional points.

Traditional fasts in the Orthodox Church are basically time spent as a sober vegan. Fasting rules in the Catholic Church-- which the modern Church in its wisdom, has abrogated-- allow for fish to be eaten, but greatly restrict the quantity of food one intakes; traditionally, the rule was "one meal of no more than 8 ounces plus two snacks; you can also have plain bread and coffee in the morning." For most of us today, however, I believe that the primary focus of fasting need not be food. What I recommend above all is fasting from technology.

The trouble with technology is that it acts upon the epithymia, but it has effects which cascade up through the entirety of the soul. We hear a great deal, these days, about pornography addiction, and a bit about videogame addiction, but in my view the problem is less the content of the screen than the screen itself. To my own mind, it doesn't matter whether a person is addicted to social media, online politics, shopping on Amazon, World of Warcraft, or pornography. The effect on the soul is the same.

And so I strongly recommend regular periods of abstinence. These need not be periods of total withdrawal from all screen or internet use-- though they may be. Instead, they should target whatever form of technology wasts the most of your time. As I wrote,

The nature of the new fast will vary for every person, as everyone's engagement with technology differs, as does their ability to abstain from it. A computer programmer will both have more need and more difficulty in fasting from technology than a professional wilderness guide!

Those who are Christian or willing to work with Christian symbolism can simply use the traditional fasting periods. In addition to providing a regular structure, these also have the advantage that you won't be working alone-- Christians around the world will be fasting in one way or another at the same time. Remember that the thymos is basically social; participating in a fast with others will allow you to tap into the lion's strength. Non-Christians will need to come up with fasting periods on their own. A fasting calendar based on the pagan Wheel of the Year would probably be very helpful, as it would-- like the Christian liturgical calendar-- allow for group participation. At minimum Saturday would work quite well as a day for fasting from technology. Saturn governs discipline, and he is also associated with agriculture. Saturn is equally the planet of Ceres, the Grain Mother; her day is a fine day on which to disconnect from the virtual and reconnect with Nature.

Nor do food and technology exhaust the possibilities for fasting. A 40, 90, or 365-day period of abstenence from alcohol can be very helpful, especially for people who want to learn to drink socially, rather than having to commit to teetotaling. I'm sure that a similar period of withdrawal from caffeine would be of great benefit as well, and if anyone is capable of it, I'd be glad to hear it. (In a fine synchronicity, the hot water pot just finished boiling as I was typing that sentence; time to go pour a cup of coffee). There is a large and growing literature on the benefits of temporary abstinence from sexual activity, and there are entire traditions of internal alchemy based on re-purposing sexual energy for magical and spiritual attainment.

The Capacity for Delay

Like meditation, fasting is as a form of training. Just as a weightlifter develops strength which can be used, and is meant to be used, outside of the gym, so the faster develops the capacity for refusal.

But notice: Traditionally, every fast ends with a feast. Fasting isn't the culinary equivalent of celibacy. During the long stretches of Lent and Advent, the most rigorous and committed faster knows that a long period of feasting is coming. When it comes to taming the Epithymia and mastering addictions, delay is one of the most powerful tools. The way this works is simple: When the Appetite asks for something, rather than telling it "No," tell it, "Okay, but only if you still want it in 30 minutes." Or ten minutes, or an hour, depending on what it is.

This is how I drink alcohol most of the time. I enjoy beer, but when I was younger I tended to overdo it badly. These days, after I drink a glass of beer, I tell myself, "You can have another one if you want it in an hour." Most of the time, it turns out I don't want it anymore. Sometimes I do, and in that case I have it. I do my online shopping the same way. Left to my own devices, I'd have the Amazon truck pulling up to the house every single day, and almost always to bring me still more books. So if I want to buy something online-- or to make any major purchase-- I force myself to wait 24-48 hours. If I still want it, then, okay. But it turns out that I usually don't.

That's all I've got for today.

Join me next week, and we'll wrap up this discussion, and move on to something else which I've wanted to write about here for some time. See you then!