Drugs, Addiction and Initiation: The Modern Search for Ritual by Luigi Zoja

Author:Luigi Zoja [Zoja, Luigi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783856305956
Publisher: Daimon
Published: 2012-09-12T07:00:00+00:00

Those drug addicts who have a greater sense of awareness in general openly admit to their own self-destructiveness. They say that they prefer to approach death little by little, gradually letting themselves go in that direction while leaving the decision as to the exact moment of death to chance. Even if we interpret this as the need to pass on to a radically new situation, death is still not sought and openly confronted – as it once was by the initiate, who was required to both face an experience of psychic death and to overcome perilous trials. The death of the drug addict is, for the most part, something faced passively.

Those who are most conscious of their self-destructiveness and who are most openly contaminated by the archetype of the negative hero appear to be characters who have chosen a radical and dramatic role, but who hesitate in translating its consequences into action. What is missing is the hero’s energy and will power, along with his ability to assume responsibility for his own destiny. Consciousness feels the strength of the archetypal model, but cannot adhere to it completely; everywhere we look we see drugs that bring death, but not renewal. Death is postponed and relegated to the end of a process which, insofar as it is archetypal, tends to unfold autonomously once established, since it does not follow conscious choice as much as it does the unconscious urges of a pre-established model. Even the most aware of drug addicts lives in a kind of tormenting ambivalence, in a daily compromise between the need for radical and definitive change and the little escape route of his daily habit.

The profanity of cultural circumstances does not allow the need for renewal to develop in a calm and solemn process, endowed with that respect for the sacred which the psyche needs in order for the internal experience to be worth something. The consumerism instilled into every member of our society not only encourages him to hasten his experimentation with drugs and their effects, but also represents itself as a sort of profane pseudo-ritual. This pseudo-ritual, in that degenerated form we call obsessive, allows an outlet for the archaic need for ritual now suppressed by our society.

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