What causes oracle addiction?
If you know the struggle, you know what I mean.
The addict hardly ever admits their addiction; But witnesses know and can vouch for it. This is true of every kind of addiction, but it’s perhaps even more true when it comes to oracles. Our society here in the industrial West is very materialistic. “Woo woo” things are frowned upon (as evidenced by the affectionate nickname we use for mysticism, which I used here myself to remind you). If someone is an alcoholic, for example, the general public understands where the specificity of the addiction came from — alcohol is widely available, it features in parties, it’s relatively normal as a thing in itself, and while it’s a real pity that some people go way over their limits and develop an addiction to it, societal judgement will focus on the excess only. People are very unlikely to say, “well, but wasn’t it dumb to start drinking AT ALL? Who even drinks? Only the ignorant and the uneducated” — Said no-one ever, here in the West.
There’s an unspoken rule in our culture that says it’s understandable to drink. Keep it under moderation, but it’s understandable to drink. Nobody becomes less adult or less intelligent or less this or that in the eyes of society, because of drinking.
On the other hand, if we’re comparing the social stigma that comes with it, oracle addiction can almost be likened to addiction to illegal drugs: “if you try at all, you’re asking for trouble”. Oracles aren’t illegal in most places (save for a few theocracies) but there’s stigma nonetheless because this activity doesn’t fit into the norm of what people are supposed to believe or follow religiously.
This makes for very interesting social phenomena, such as the fact oracle seekers tend to keep it “hush hush”. You’d never guess the demographics I sometimes work for!
On the other hand, though, I do occasionally come across an addict. It’s horrible, because I feel utterly helpless. If I out them to others, this can make things worse because people will start bullying them; If I tell them about my suspicion, they’ll adamantly deny and even feel offended (trust me, I tried). There is no rehab for this specific kind of addiction as far as I’m aware, so I can’t enlist external help. The few healers I befriended ended up being very immature people who prioritised protecting their ego instead of our friendship, so… *Sigh* I guess the partnership with a healer I used to wish for will have to be archived together with other dreams of mine that never manifested. Maybe our “archetypes” don’t mesh. Who knows.
I am no healer myself, unfortunately. (I used to assume I could follow the healer path, because I had a past life memory of it; But this current life is about something else entirely, as it turns out. Anyway, a topic for another post). My talent where mysticism is concerned is in divination only; Neither do I have a vocation for healthcare work in the mundane side of things — so I don’t think I’d have the knack for creating this rehab niche if I pursued the education it requires. My hands are tied.
Maybe the lesson I was born to learn this time is “there are people you can’t save. So, learn to see them and do nothing about their suffering and still feel okay in the end of the day”. Very tough lesson! But one day I’ll learn it.
This article is aimed at speculating possible causes for oracle addiction, comparing and contrasting it to other (more common) kinds of addiction, and hopefully arriving at a starting point (however imperfect) for its prevention. Feel free to weigh in.
First of all: addiction isn’t only correlated to quantity. There’s also an element of emotional dependence.
Shopping addicts don’t shop every day, and neither do alcoholics drink every day. They don’t exaggerate every time, either; But they undoubtedly do it on impulse and in a weirdly “magical thinking” way which borders on superstitious (ie, “if I don’t drink now; if I don’t shop now; if I don’t consult this oracle now, this and that bad thing will happen”). Maybe I sound like a hypocrite here talking about superstition, but trust me, THERE IS such a thing as superstition. Not every “woo woo” has a legit element to it. People put it all together in the same box and are done with it, but it they bothered opening their minds a bit, they’d know that the differentiation I made here is legit.
So, one of the keys to understanding how addiction works is self-control. Is it present? To what extent? Can the person handle having to wait, or delaying the engagement with the object of addiction in favour of some random errands? An addict will have poor self-control and display a lot of distress if you test them like that, because they’re emotionally attached to the object of their addiction.
I said the above because, when I say “oracle addiction”, I’m pretty sure some people assume I’m automatically talking about regular customers; But no, I’m not. In fact, I only work once a month, and there’s no negotiating because I didn’t make that rule — my source did. Tarot readers, on the other hand, will come across stereotypical addicts more often than I, because they aren’t working under the same restriction; But regardless, they read for themselves, and I consult my own oracle from time to time (a privilege only I get to have, because I need to practise). So… How come we aren’t addicts? We’re doing it pretty often. To a weirdly extreme extent, almost daily.
That’s because of something I already mentioned: addiction doesn’t have all that much to do with quantity and/or frequency. If you don’t feel attached, if you’re casual about it, you won’t get addicted.
The same applies to mind-altering substances: without emotional attachment, the excess can take a toll on the physical body (like when you drink too much in a party and pass out and have a horrible hangover, but don’t develop an addiction just because of that. You approached alcohol in a way that was dumb and immature; but it wasn’t out of despair though). So, psychologically speaking, occasional excesses won’t cause addiction as long as you’re not using the substance as an outlet away from a perceived prison (as this well-known experiment demonstrates).
One of the reasons I know I’m not addicted to oracle is, plain and simply, I don’t have a panic response to obstacles or interruptions. If I set out to practice and/or to work, and I get interrupted, I’ll just calmly talk to the person or do the urgent thing, and restart the ritual whenever I can. I’ve had instances where I couldn’t restart at all, I had to totally put it off several hours, or even to the next day. It happens. No need for panic.
In fact, everyone knows there’s no need for panic in this scenario; Even an addict’s rational mind knows. Emotionally, though… It can be another story.
(Of course this is oversimplifying things a bit, since certain kinds of withdrawal can have a physical element too. I’m speaking in general terms. There’s no denial that not all kinds of addiction involve substances. I already mentioned shopping and oracle. Cut me some slack).
Addictions hide distress with feeling out of control. So, essentially, addicts crave control.
…And it’s not just any kind of control. Specifically, it’s about instant gratificaton.
Think about it: control isn’t a bad thing to ask for. It’s a very common human necessity. When you take control of something, it tends to mean you got used to it, you mastered it, you’re doing work which is effective and worthwhile. That’s the meaning of “being in control”.
When you start learning an instrument, your fingers slip all over the place and you produce weird sounds unintentionally. That means you don’t have much control. However, with practice and instruction, you start having more and more control, and it’s this control that allows you to enjoy playing your music.
…But that’s a gradual process. It requires, in the beginning, trusting that you will eventually arrive at the place where you can take more control of the situation.
Craving control as instant gratification, on the other hand, is more on par with what addicts go through: they think they “can’t afford” to start gradually learning how to have more control over their employment situation or love life or whatever it is they feel they lost control of. They want it back RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW… But they don’t know how, so they create delusions based on magical thinking which serve to “numb” the pain of not knowing how to have the instant relief they crave:
“Oh, I’m disappointed in love. And I’m not willing to muster the patience to actually learn anything productive about love over a long period of time. I want this problem to completely go away RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW. So, what can I do instead? Numb the pain, I suppose”.
(Replace “love” with your chosen life problem)
Instead of admitting their impatience and sense of undue entitlement, they’d rather pretend the situation they’re in is a “prison” which is “impossible” to get out of — because admitting it’s possible, and it would take time and effort, brings shame, since the person is impatient and entitled.
Hence, narcissism is often linked to addiction — not always, but often. Yes, there’s an element of real victimhood at play, but there’s also an element of trying to evade accountability and responsibility. And the latter, as a lot of mental health professionals keep saying, is harder to tackle.
Okay, but how does that play out with oracles?
You might be confused now, trying to see how consulting oracles can possibly numb anyone’s pain. If anything, pop culture tells us that it’d achieve the opposite: more fear and more anxiety about the future.
Well, first of all, if you’re relying on POP CULTURE of all things, that’s your problem. We all know it’s fake. It’s entertainment. Real oracles aren’t sensationalist like the ones from Hollywood.
Secondly… Even in the odd occasion when you might interpret a message very negatively, you might still prefer that to the complete unknown — hey, at least now you’re “in the know”. Thus, if I were to summarise oracle addiction into one sentence, it would be “addiction to being in the know”. It’s similar to, hypothetically, if someone somewhere got addicted to watching the weather forecast, and became so obsessed with it that they couldn’t get on with their day unless they knew exactly what the coming weather would be like. I don’t know any such person, but I hope the hypothetical image is clear.
It’s all about trying to regain control — as with any addiction — but in a way that is not really productive, and only serves as a smoke curtain to distract the addict from the real underlying problem which they feel too powerless or too lacking in confidence to address. Phew! I have probably seen through some people with that one. I hope they don’t feel “naked” and come here attacking me — but even if they do, I hope they eventually grow up and mature some more, and realise that there IS a way out of the pit they think they’re in… All it takes is some boldness to face their shadow head-on, without letting the ego prevent it. Easier said than done, I know.
When you really examine what it’s like for oracle addicts to pursue it so obsessively, you start to notice that it’s very obviously a facade for a deeper underlying problem (perhaps the one I pointed out above). It’s glaring and hard to unsee. If they TRULY MEANT IT when saying “oh, I’m just super worried about this thing”, they’d consult once and leave it alone. But no. They don’t leave it alone. So, it isn’t the answer — or multiple confirmations of the answer from multiple oracles — that they truly crave. It’s the process of going through it, so perhaps they can tell themselves unconsciously “see, I’m doing something. You can relax now — for a minute, until the next urge comes up”.
Allright. I have learned this much, but I’m sure there is a lot more I don’t know about oracle addiction. I especially — frustratingly — don’t know how to help those who are suffering from it (other than, obviously, not shaming them). Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments.
