Using Liber Jugorum methods to completely kill a habit?
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I know it isn't the intended use, but for my own curiosity and experimentation I used the methods from Liber Jugorum to go a week without smoking cigarettes. When I set my mind to the task I smoked a cigarette, recorded the time, then officially started the experiment. I normally smoke a little over a pack a day (and have been doing so for roughly 10 years), so the withdraws were pretty intense, but anytime my mind would turn toward cravings I would go in the bathroom and slash my thigh with a box cutter. (I initially started on my upper arm but switched to my thigh so I wouldn't give my co-workers the false impression that I'm a "cutter", depressed, or mentally unstable.)
I didn't smoke a single cigarette during the experiment, but wound up with a significant amount of tallies by the end of it.
It's been a few months since the experiment and I'm considering doing it again, but for a longer duration. Possibly 3 months. My question is, is this an appropriate way to go about it and experiment with Jugorum, or should I just kick the habit with will-power alone and use Jugorum in a more traditional and recommended way?
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I wouldn't recommend this. Look for some smoking cessation methods to get more ideas. I'd just remind you that the physical withdrawals will only last about a week, after that is the psychological habit conditioning you've created over the past ten years with triggers like having a cup of coffee or alcoholic beverage, turning the ignition in your car, after meals, and so forth. Replace any unwanted behavior with wanted behaviors. When I quit smoking, I carried a pocket of Jolly Ranchers and a water bottle to 1) satisfy my oral desire and 2) cleans my body of the toxins. Drink lots of water.
Physical symptoms of withdrawal may include rapid heart rate, pounding pulse, anxious sweats and tunnel vision. I found this all seemed like an unwanted adrenaline rush, so I used the nervous energy it produced to go walking for about 20 minutes while sucking a J.R. and drinking my water bottle. Also, since nicotine is a stimulant (the relaxing affect you believe in is actually you relaxing now that you are satisfying your addiction to the stimulant), I also always had on hand single serve pouches of instant coffee to drink. This helped me through the after period of the withdrawal where I may have wanted to dive into a quick nap because my body felt that desire.
Be the master of your body. That's the lesson there.
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Takamba is right on on this one.
Jugorum is more fore INTENSE("I've had enough about everything negative about myself and the after-effects of such negativeness!"), purposes.
I am not saying cigarette cessation is not serious. It took me a few months when I quit, and the side-effects are life-threatening, but cessation of smoking is more wanton and unsure. The thoughts are always there to smoke again, and in that specific predicament, it might actually insult your subconscious intelligence a bit to use this just for cigarettes.
If you do it, do it for EVERYTHING. Any negative thought, word, or action. If you're all-in on doing this, I'd say go for it, giving the smoking thoughts some slack at first, then after a week or so continue as with the Unicorn, Ox, and Horse including smoking thoughts.
You see how this is for so much more than smoking and why frivolous thoughts of smoking could screw you up easily on this?
I tell you what, I did this practice for a few weeks until I did not think, say, or do anything that wasn't directly related to meditation, survival, Magick, study, and work. I still have the marks, very lightly, (I used a very sharp razor each time and only made a very light letting of blood. Enough to pinch you to let you know what you were thinking/saying/doing.)
Good luck, strange traveler.
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I stand balanced between the poles on this one.
That is, I say, yes, use Jugorum - just don't use the cutting method. Use another aversion technique.
I agree with Takamba that you should start with the established medical methods that do work better than anything else (at least in the general case). But I see no reason not to reinforce it with a bit of a SAFE aversion signal.
OTOH, the most important thing learned about behavior modification since Crowley's time is that rewarding positive behavior works better than punishing negative behavior. Look for a way to make this work for you!
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I do apologize, my previous post, now fully read, sounds a little chaotic:
I surely didn't use "very sharp" razors, I used fully new ones each time. One thing with this, and Jim is straight-up right on this, is to be completely safe with what you are doing.
If you are practicing Jugorum, and decide to use a little pain with cutting or whatnot, to DO it. Don't eff up a little with thoughts or actions or speech when cutting yourself is one the line. And if you go with the route of a little pain, be sure it's sterile and safe.
As explained before, this is an extreme therapy for training yourself. You could use a razor-sharp straight-pin or needle and just give a little prick each time. Some have even gone to the level of red markers, but it is my belief that Jugorum is to be practiced very seriously by those who feel, within themselves, there's only a little "unorganized chaos" in the sub/consciousness, and that a little extreme focus and a little pain/averion would pretty much tune them into the silent Magick around them that is normally deafened out by these very beautiful, but very distracting animals.
The more closer you are to these animals, the less "cute/attractive" they become and the more you hear through them, even through your own. (Not trying to say animals are downright attractive here.)
They more they become your friends who work with you than half-tame or wild animals, the more enjoyable they are to have around -- and the quieter they become.
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Oh my, yes. Counting doses is the only way to fully arm yourself when you are dependent on it and trying to control the use of it.
Food is number one on this. Food is the main reason people do not live to be 130 today. If a toddler was given proper medicine, and ate only natural foods, (I will leave out my opinion on meats and fish,) from the time he was born, with no synthetics and no preservatives, I believe this would be an easy estimate to achieve for the human race.
However, they are putting the same synthetic, harmful preservatives into food that have much more use in industrial chemistry and the like, then to turn someone's insides into a jar of formaldehyde.
Really though, the stuff is great when things are dead. (No, I don't have a special fridge in the back or anything
) But when you start drinking it you won't live for long.Strange story: My dad served in vietnam and was stationed in Thailand. There was a wine there called "running deer", containing formaldehyde, that a few GIs drank. The formaldehyde, weather smoked or drank, produces a stupor without positive effects as alcohol has. It is more of a lack-of-oxygen thing from what I understand.
One young GI was in the hospital next to my Dad, and he was 18 but looked 40ish or 50ish. His girlfriend brought him running deer in the hospital, a thai girl he had probably met and was fooling around with. Not my Dad, the young man.
For sure if he was not sent home right away, he would have died from the ingestion of formaldehyde.
Counting doses of McDonald's is a Universe apart from counting doses of a little C or H or M, or even cigarettes.
I followed Crowley's advice in DOADF, and after a few months of counting doses of opiates, I was not in need of them anymore. I started counting doses of everything that I did, and ended up not smoking, not drinking too much, and not eating too much.
"Take suck thereof, oh my Chosen, take suck? That little creature shall fill you with the juice of vacuity. Thou, even thou, art that Creature."
A little advice from our Prince.
