Ham on Addictions - part 1

[David G. Schlundt, Ph.D.]

[This is the first of two sessions in which Ham makes the group face 
the problem of drug addiction]


02/16/97

Ham: Greetings, children, I am Ham and again I want to thank you for
gathering. Welcome, Vontis. Yes, we are again going to discuss the
acquiring and utilization of spiritual energy effects.  

You tend to make it hard on yourselves to experience spiritual energy
by using drugs. Caffeine and alcohol are included in this.  Nicotine
is also seriously inhibiting of the bodies natural sensitivity to
spiritual energies.  Stimulants and depressants tend to alter the
electrochemical balance that is necessary to feel through the human
body impulses that are then conveyed to the mind. 

Your bodies are extremely sensitive, fine-tuned equipment.  The
Father's spirit acts to adjust and tune the body toward receiving
spiritual energies.  It is unwise to attempt to adjust the body
yourselves by the clumsy means of drug use.  By using drugs, you
directly and now consciously thwart your Father's efforts. I am not
prescribing a strict teetotaler regimen on you, but I want you to
become aware of the delicate chemical balance that our bodies
maintain.  

Also, a warning against the use of psychochemical drugs such as
marijuana.  These drugs may lower the normal barrier that exists
between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind and so it is easy
to delude yourselves into thinking wrongly because the emotional
response to this thinking is stronger than usual.  Dreams are strong
emotional experiences for the same reason. You may think you are
discovering the superconscious when in fact you are entering the realm
of the more primitive emotional animal mind, the subsconscious.  

Q: Is that the dwelling place of the ego?

Ham: No, the ego is in all three realms, superconscious, conscious,
and unconscious mind.  In fact, it is hard to separate the ego from
the mind itself.  For mind to operate as a distinct entity, it must
perceive itself as distinct, but the decision to choose unselfishness
is made by the will in synchrony with the Divine will, thus overcoming
the ego's objections. The power of decision, that is the power of will
decision, always elevates the human character because it is your will
in partnership or synchrony with the Divine will so the Spirit asserts
dominance over mind.  The ego mind always is focused on what will I
lose while the will and augmented soul always focuses on what will I
gain. Does this help to clarify for you what the ego is and its
functions.

Q: Yes, it helps Ham.

Ham: Do you have other questions on this subject.

Q: Are you saying all mind altering drugs are used in response to the
ego?

Ham: Yes, I would say that they are a self-focused act, so would come
under the loose classification of being ego driven.

Q: It is self-focused, and it is also self-focusing isn't it.

Ham: Yes.

Q: Do you think about the levels of reality as vibrational frequency
levels?

Ham: Yes and No. It depends upon what levels of reality or aspects of
reality you mean. Physical matter and morontia matter do exhibit what
it referred to as vibrational frequency. But mind and spirit do not. 
Are you understanding?

Q: Yes, I was going to ask you that next.  So do certain levels of
virbrational frequency have corresponding access to different
portions.... like on one vibrational frequency you would be more privy
to the morontia experience and on another you would be more privy to
an emotional or physical area. I know that it is clumsy on my part.

Ham: Yes, this is expressing my understanding very well. While in the
physical body, you are experiencing greater or lessor conscious
synchronization with the soul's vibrational energy. Fairly good
synchronization creates health, mental stability, and emotional well
being.  When the mind becomes disassociated with reality, feeding
spiritual poisons to the soul and chemical poisons to the body, then
illness, depression, and antisocial behavior results. So the decision
process is absolutely crucial to synchronizing the physical and the
morontial, it is in this state of synchronicity that many blessings
are realized. One blessing we discussed last week was the ability to
influence your fellows through the heart's stream of love.  This is
not an aggressive posture, it is not an attitude of trying to
influence for personal gain.  In fact, it is the opposite of that, it
is the attitude of complete vulnerability, of nonresistance, You love
because you are love not for anything else. Love itself is your
reward, and so you need nothing from any other.  

Q: So the reward is being able to love?

Ham: Yes.

Q: Wow. About your lesson tonight ham, the way to control one's
frequency is to control it on the electric side through faith rather
than on the chemical side through blood sugar? . Ham: You, yourself,
cannot tune the body.

Q: But, everybody tries to through the blood sugar side.

Ham: Yes, and by other means.  It would be like trying to repair a
watch with mittens.

(Laughter)

Q: It seems to me that where man wants to get is to drop down into the
morontia area of high blood sugar.

Ham: It is not the morontia area. It is the subconscious area.

Q: So, through faith one relaxes and drops to a lower vibrational
frequency, or not, goes to a higher.

Ham: No, but it is not a nervous making creation.

(Some discussion here)

Ham: Yes, Jarad, you are confusing emotional states with vibrational
states.

Q: And levels of awareness and perception?

Ham: Awareness and perception, certainly, but the blood sugar analogy
is not a part of this understanding.

Q: Can you give me some more of that?

Ham: The chemical bodily response to levels of blood sugar is entirely
physical and somewhat creative of the animal responses.

Q: I was going to say associated response becomes a part of it? So you
become attenuated to or predisposed to have a view point. O.K. I
understand.

Ham: The morontia soul, as you know, fills the entire body form and is
centered around the area of the heart, maybe more of the mid point
between the heart and the solar plexus in the middle of the body. 
This is the point of contact between the spiritual, the morontial, and
the material.  

When you speak of experiencing God's love as a physical sensation, it
is there at the center of the body that this physical sensation
occurs.  It is there in the center of the body that feelings of love,
or empathy, or sympathy for anther person is felt for these are
spiritual emotions, higher emotions.  When you feel moved by great
words, or great music, or the beauty of a painting or a sunset, again
you feel that warmth there in the center of the body.  

It is unfortunate that your scientists have understood a limitation of
the mind as being the brain. The mind is not the brain. The brain acts
as a computer for the mind, it is a storage house, and a intelligence
center for the nervous system which allows sensory perception in the
physical form of the physical world. But, the proper center of the
mind would be there at the center of the body for this is the point
from which you feel your great decisions are originated. Is this not
so?

Q: It is also there when you hear something or know something that is
true, it resonates in that spot as well.

Ham: Yes.

Q: What is that we call chill bumps, when we are in awe of something.

Ham: This is more of the animal response than a purely spiritual
response. More emotional response.

Q: We can have an emotional response to a spiritual experience.

Ham: Yes.

Q: And probably often do.

Ham: Correct.

Q: How do the stimulants and depressants interfere with our heart
center, or can you correlate these ideas for us.

Ham: They, in general, throw the underlying body chemistry into a
reaction response so your body instead of tuning with the spirit is
actively counteracting some foreign chemical that you have introduced.
This is taxing to the body and eventually the body becomes habituated
to this stimulation and so the chemical balance is constantly
incorrect, it is unnatural.  The Father of course works within this
situation, but it is not optimum for his efforts.  So it is not just
an unkindness to yourself, but an unkindness to your father as well.

Q: What is the best course of action for caffeine, to go cold turkey
and eliminate it or to try to taper it off. I should say,
specifically, what is the best course of action for me?

Ham: Caffeine is highly addictive, and the body adjust to its
ingestion gradually so that the ingestion of caffeine becomes a
dependency very much like the opiate based drugs.  The nature of it is
such that cold turkey is pretty much best solution because cutting
down isn't usually a way to quit.  You of course will have headaches
and irritability for several days but not to the point of
debilitation. 

Q: I will feel better if I succeed from withdrawing from caffeine?

Ham: Yes, it is a problem for you even now and will get worse until
you quit. 

Q: I am sure you have the same advice for me.

Ham: Yes, I would advise quitting caffeine.



[The rest was personal questions and was deleted]

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*
David G. Schlundt, Ph.D.               (615)322-7800
Associate Professor of Psychology      (615)343-8449  Fax
Vanderbilt University               schlundg at ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
301 Wilson Hall
Nashville, TN  37240
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Effort does not always produce joy, but there is no happiness without intelligent effort.
The Urantia Book
Paper-48 Section-7 Para-2        Page-556 Line-7 Para-2
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