CHAPTER 1: THE WAYS OF THE

FORCE


Most of the literature on the subject of addiction is in
agreement:

there is a weakness or defect within the ad-

dicted individual that makes him or her more susceptible

to addictions than the general population.

It is a disease

of the psychological or even, some would say, spiritual sort.

So that we could label a person `sick or ill' who engages in
an addictive habit much the same way that we would call a

control

person `sick' when they have a physical illness; for neither of

the two can

their aiction. For instance, the person

who smokes cigarettes can no more control his compulsion

than the individual with cancer can control their cancer.
You may have felt or heard this sense of helplessness;
for the common refrain from smokers has often been heard:
I wish I could stop smoking but it is next to impossible.
Some call this a weakness of the will but, as this chapter

weakness of will

will show, nothing could be further from the truth. This so

called

is misinterpreted and misdiagnosed

to the detriment of all who seek help in their quest to quit

smoking.

THE FORCE
In the modern context, not to mention historically, we
have all heard stories about the incredible resiliency of the
human spirit. We also know this intuitively; that there has
hardly been an obstacle on earth that has not been subjugated by the will of man or woman. Yet the cylindrical role
of tobacco wrapped in paper, that millions throughout the
world light up every day, is able to to make the strongest
of wills succumb to it's wiles.

For those who try to quit

smoking, we see, almost in dramatic form, a titanic struggle between the human will and a force that compels the
individual to smoke. This nameless force always seems to
win; it is indomitable, crushing the strongest of wills and
resolutions.
For centuries, man lived in ignorance of the forces that
existed outside of him. When there came to be an under-

harness

standing of these forces, that they were not random or haphazard, man was able to

these same forces which

he was so helpless against. Eventually, mankind recognized

that there was order in the universe and that the forces of
nature operated according to principles or laws. Once these
principles were understood then the seemingly wild, recalcitrant forces of nature lost their bite . . . they could and
can be tamed.
The nameless force, which bends and breaks the human
will with ease, can be understood. It operates according to
principles and laws. If we understand this force which bends
the will so easily we will be able to harness this seeming
fury and tame it to serve us. We will understand why we
smoke and in the larger context we may begin to understand
addictions in general.

But in an even larger context we may even broaden our

view and more fully understand human behavior. Like gravity, no one on the planet is free from the pull of this force.
What we will nd is that we are all subject to and under the

not only this thing called addiction

but all matters of mayhem in human aairs
sway of this fury. A fury, because if not recognized for what
it truly is, will unleash

. In fact, it may

be the case that addictive behavior is just a small subset of

the manifestations of this force.
THE GREAT DEEP

Seasoned sailors know, when they look at the surface

waters of the deep, that there is another aspect to those
seemingly calm waters.

They understand that the depths

of the ocean conceal mighty and mysterious forces that are

constantly churning and seething underneath.

You and I

might look at the surface of these waters and see calmness

and serenity but the trained mariner knows the truth, he
sees and respects the great duality.

He understands that

the surface is not always representative of what is going

on down below where powerful forces are at work. He also
knows that at times these forces manifest themselves on the
surface . . .
Like the forces of the deep, the force which so easily

storm

manipulates the will of an addict or a smoker, is hidden from

view. At times, however, it unleashes its fury in a

of

intense cravings and desires for a certain substance that no

force on earth can ostensibly contravene. The cravings are
only signals or signs that the force sends up to the surface
from it's deep origins.

The storm, the cravings, are only

an eect of the force below.

The eects are visible to us

in the form of these desires whereas the force which wields

its power upon the human will, is invisible to us. Since the
force is invisible perhaps we can understand a little of it's
nature by studying the eects it produces.

The Addictive Personality

emotional logic

THE LANGUAGE OF THE FORCE

In the book

by Craig Nakken

we are given some insight into the eects of this force when
he uses the term

. When dealing with a so

called addiction, he says that the mind or intellect is out of

the loop. For example, you know in your mind that smoking

emotional pressure

that cigarette may not be good for you yet you still do it
because of

or urgency. As Nakken puts

it, Emotional logic works to satisfy this urgency even if it is

not in the best interest of the person.(pg.9) He states that
emotional logic can be summed up in the phrase, I want
what I want and I want it now!

This much is true and

any smoker or addict can attest to this. It is this emotional

pressure which summons the cravings which culminate in
the use of the substance.

wrong

But Nakken speaks for and represents the addiction model

of thinking by dismissing emotions as

interests

best

or misdirected

because they guide people into that which is not in their

. Practically the whole eld of addiction treatment

has adopted this view. Actually, as we shall see, emotions

contain information; valuable information that must be de-

receptacles
of information that go largely unheeded because they are not
the type of information we are used to

coded. It is a type of information that is packaged in the

most eective vehicle.

Emotions are, in eect,

. But they can not be

dismissed because they are integral to addictions as some

researchers have realized.

In the 1970's the psychologist J. Richard Eiser found

enjoyed
Smoking as a Sub-

that people addicted to substances actually

jectively Rational Choice

what they were doing.

In his paper,

doing

, he lists the dierent approaches

that had been investigated by researchers into the causes

of addiction such as social upbringing, personality type etc,
and found them wanting; he instead concluded that these
may not be the reason at all for smokers and their decision

enjoyed the activity.

to smoke. He concluded from his study that smokers were

making a rational choice because they

All these theories of addiction just mentioned and others,

like social or peer pressure do not add up for, in the end,

emotionally

the smoker smokes because there is something to be gained

. As Eiser puts it in another paper of his, ac-

count must somehow be taken of the pleasure smokers derive

from smoking itself . . .
What we have here is an interesting dichotomy. Nakken
implies what the addiction model of thinking has always
purported, that the emotions are wrong or misdirected while

enjoyable

enjoy-

Eiser conrms what has been known to all who use these

able yet bad

substances, they are

. Cigarette smoking is

; this sounds like sin.

The dichotomy can be

summed up in a phrase that has probably rebounded a bil-

know

feel

lion times inside the mind of those who smoke cigarettes:

I

it is bad for me but I

like having a cigarette.

Knowledge versus feelings and emotions. Which one is right?

It would seem that knowledge should rule the day in this
case, obviously, since the experts say that harm comes of
cigarette smoking. The only rebuttal to these experts are
our feelings and cravings. The tension in this dynamic between knowledge and emotions is great but one thing that
has not been given its day in court to testify, one thing

that has not been examined and put under the microscope,
so to speak are the emotions. Should we so easily dismiss
a part of our human nature or should we at least investigate whether the emotions are trying to tell us something.
Maybe our emotions, wrapped in cravings and desires, are
trying to tell us a deeper, more powerful truth?
FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

intelligent language

There is evidence that, concerning addictions, the emotions are an

that are communicating

information in the form of cravings and desires which are

not understood because the cravings are not the reality but,
as in language, symbolic of something else. They are only

actuality essence
symbolic

acting as a relay station and need to be decoded.

the emotions are not the

or

Again,

of what they

represent. In this way they are very much like language because language is

. We all know that the word dog

is dierent from the reality; it is just a symbol of the reality,

the actual four legged creature. No one in their right mind
mistakes the word for the reality. In the same way emotions
and cravings are symbolizing something other than themselves . . . they are only a shadow of a deeper reality.
Our misunderstanding of the representational nature of
emotions is why we have failed to grasp their meaning and
importance.

specicity

Another sign that emotions are of an intelligent nature

is

By using the word dog, an image comes to

mind that excludes the rest of the universe we do not

think of a table or lamp or anything else when the word
dog is specied. What must be understood is that the cravings or desires that a smoker has also have this specicity.
The individual desires tobacco, he or she does not desire a

If

toothpick or an ice-cream.
the emotions are a source of information or knowledge

that can be decoded, then we should not so easily dismiss

them and instead strive to nd out what they are pointing
to.
What is that deeper reality and why is it communicating
a rather peculiar desire for a specic substance known as
tobacco?

Feeling Good: The Science of Well Being

MESSAGE DECODED
In the book

the author Ian Glynn summarizes much of the research in

this area. He cites numerous experiments where it is shown
that emotions have a direct correspondence to brain states.
He summarizes one study by Dietrich Lehmann and associates in which it was found that the electrical activity of
the brain was changing in discrete steps lasting a fraction
of a second coincident with transitions between conscious
thoughts.(pg.

242) Thoughts and emotions consistently

corresponded to what he calls `micro-states' of the brain

because of their incredible shortness of duration. What is
interesting is that through repeated testing he concludes
the same thought generates the same brain micro-state,
whether spontaneous or experimentally induced.(pg. 246)
For instance if one has a fearful thought, there will be
certain characteristics that the brain will have, e.g. blood
ow, oxygen amounts, electrical activity and glucose usage
and amounts, that correspond to that exact thought every
time. For every emotion there is a physiological event occurring in the brain. These emotional states were induced
from the outside by the experimenters telling the subjects
to think of a certain situation intently. What are we say-

ing here? If someone tells you a scary story you will likely
feel an emotion but this emotion is representational of a

symbolic

physio-chemical arrangement or conguration of your brain.

That emotion you experience is

of the biochemi-

cal events occurring in your brain. So emotions are the ip

side or mirror of bio-electrical/chemical events that happen
simultaneously.

bi-directional.
outside

The strange and fascinating thing about this principle

is that it is
by some

Not only can an emotion, caused

inside

event, cause a physiological brain change

or state but a physiological change from

can cause an

emotional state. In the 1940's this is what the physiologist

Walter Hess brought to fruition, through his experiments,
what had only been theorized before. In electrically stimulating various parts of the brain in animals, he was able
to induce certain brain states which, in turn, induced vari-

An emotion can occur because of a physical state that the brain is in

inside
Your Body's Many Cries for Water

ous emotions that ranged from anger to fear and curiosity

and even hunger.

. For example, if the brain has

lost oxygen in discrete amounts, this will induce emotions

of a certain kind that are due to a physical state
in this case low oxygen levels.

Dr.

book,

Batmanghelidj in his
, has convincingly

shown that even water deciency will eect a `panic mode'

physical status

in the brain. All anxiety attacks and feelings of panic are

due to the

of the brain having a water short-

age, according to Batmanghelidj. It is important to grasp

represent

symbolic

that these emotions are caused by an inner condition or we

could say that they
condition.

or are

of an inner

There is another emotion that is representational of an

inner condition of the cell and that is hunger. We are well

acquainted with this but we take it for granted that it is
actually due to a physiological state in the cell. Hunger is

signal or message is
wrapped up and packaged in an emotional craving a feeling
feel
really a signal from the human cell that it is in need of nutrients in order to keep running but the

. Though the stomach may gurgle and you

hunger,

it is really a physical status of the cell the cell needs nutri-

ents. Through a myriad number of bio-chemical processes

that involves various organs, hormones and brain transmitters, the cell communicates with the surface by means of a
powerful emotion laid craving . . . hunger.
In light of what we have just learned, we could say that
hunger is a feeling or emotion that is coded; it has a deeper
meaning which is the physical state of the cell. It is telling us
that our body and the units that our body is composed of
the cells need nutrients in order to keep functioning. So
here we have another example of what feelings or emotions

feeling

are coding; they are conveying a physiological status that is

occurring in the cell. The

of hunger equals a nutrient

decit of the cell the physical state the cell is in. A hunger
or craving equals a physical decit occurring in the cell of a
nutrient or nutrients emotions are reecting, they are the
other side of the coin of, a physiological status of the cell.
Is it possible that the emotional cravings we feel for such
things as tobacco are really symbolic of a physical status of
the cell? In other words, is it a message from the great deep
that the cell needs something? If hunger or a craving reects
a physiological state then perhaps cravings in general are
signalling a deciency. In short, a craving any craving
is a hunger or deciency state of the cell.

The most arresting fact about hunger is that it can not

be disobeyed. Much like gravity, it is an irresistable force
that, if not placated through ordinary means, will redirect the human organism to obtain nutrition by un-ordinary
means. This is a fundamental point to be grasped in order
to understand the craving for tobacco.
REORIENTATION DAY
The cell acts as though it is eternal. In fact, according to
an experiment that was carried out by Nobel Prize winner
Alexis Carrel, it may be eternal. For close to thirty years
Carrel kept tissue cultured from an embryonic chicken heart
in a specially designed ask; this is three times longer than a
chicken's life span. All he did was regularly change the uid
medium that the tissue was in with fresh, nutrient dense
uid. The only reason the experiment ended was because
someone forgot to change the uid.
In it's grasp for survival, the cell displays a remarkable
intelligence which is comprised of strategies or backup plans
just in case it is not getting the needed materials for it's continued existence. The principle is not new and was philosophically developed by one man in the mid 1800's. The primary discoverer and explicator of it was the renowned physician/scientist by the name of Claude Bernard.

In essence

the principle states that in order to maintain life the cellular

environment must be at a specic level (nutrients,oxygen,
pH etc) this level where everything is working eciently,
is the ideal and we can call this plan A. But if there is something that causes this level to deviate from the norm, the
body will call in plan B as a backup plan to maintain that

Lectures on the Phenomena

level. And believe it or not there may be a plan C or plan D

even. As he put it in his book,

10

Common to Animals and Plants

: all of the vital mecha-

nisms, however varied they may be, have always one goal,
to maintain the uniformity of the conditions of life in the
internal environment.
For instance, in his pioneering study into the phenomena
of diabetes, he discovered that the blood of animals had
sugar content even when he was starving them. How could
dextrose still be in the blood when he was clearly starving
the supply of it to the body? What was found was that the
body needs to maintain a constancy in regard to sugar levels
in order to maintain brain function. So when it is not being
supplied throught the diet the body goes into plan B. Plan B

milieu

was Bernard nding that the liver could store and produce

interieur

sugar, when needed, to maintain, as he called it, the

 the internal environment. When sugar was not

provided by diet, the liver would supply it by breaking down

stored sugar (glycogen).

However, plan B can not go on

forever, as the liver is limited in storage. If the sugar does

milieu

not eventually come through dietary means, then, in order

interieur
reorient

to maintain a steady supply of sugar in the blood (

) the body will resort to plan C. At this stage the

body will begin to turn on itself as a source of food.

will

It

itself to obtain whatever it needs by a form

of cannibalism which is known physiologically by the term

milieu interieur

catabolism. This is a desperate strategy but the organism

must maintain the internal environment (

at a certain level in order to survive. This is the outcome of

hunger, the force that can not be disobeyed. If one option
is not available the cell will reorient itself to cannibalize
the body. This is a redirection or, rather, reorientation at
the cellular level which obviously we can not see. But this

11

also occurs at the macro-level, which we can see, as in the

following example . . .
A particular example of reorientation at the macro-level,
or whole human organism, is the Uruguayan ight that
crashed in the Andes in 1972. The survivors were so ravenous
that they fed on the well preserved bodies in the snow of

Miracle in the Andes

those that did not survive the crash. Nando Parrando, one
of the survivors, relates in his book,

we were starving in earnest, with no hope of nding food,

but our hunger soon grew so voracious that we searched
anyway .

again and again we scoured the fuselage in

search of crumbs and morsels.

We tried to eat strips of

leather torn from pieces of luggage, though we knew that

the chemicals they'd been treated with would do us more
harm than good. We ripped open seat cushions hoping to
nd straw, but found only inedible upholstery foam . . . .
The hunger of the cell is the awesome force from the
deep that sends its vigorous signals to the surface in a raging
fury if its needs are not met. All convention and propriety
is thrown out the window to a ravenous person because the
cell must have food. Most people don't have bugs or vermin
on their mind for dinner but a ravenous person will do what
is necessary. A ravenous person will even resort to eating

reorients
He or she will seek nutrients in
unconventional ways and in unconventional things; this is
reorientation of the human physiology.
another person in their desperation for nutrients. Thus, the
cell

the desires of a person so that it gets what it

needs in any way possible.

The cell overrides the human physiology because hunger

is the supreme force which ensures that the cell will survive. Survival is the Prime Directive of the cell and it has

12

recruited or created an incredible force to do this. So powerful is this force of hunger that the cell actually overrides
socially adopted conventions that a person has so that the
person may in fact do things that he would not normally
do in order to get that x, which is nutrients in the form of
food. Ravenous people, as seen above, will commit extreme
acts even including crime in order to get nutrients for the

only

cell. The force of hunger is so great that it will overwhelm

a person and the

thing that will be on his mind is a

single minded obsession with food. It will be so focused and

crazed that a person, if they are without means, may resort
to very irrational behavior such as stealing and lying and
cheating and other sorts of pathological behavior. Have we
heard this somewhere before concerning something else like,
maybe, addiction based behavior?
Ultimately, if there is no possibility of attaining food
from the environment, the body still reorients itself; it will
actually resort to cannibalism of a dierent kind.

It will

actually begin tearing apart internal structures within the

body in order to get at required nutrients.

The eld of

physiology has a nicer word for it, catabolism, but really it

is the body eating itself. This is how powerful the drive of
the cell for nutrients is.
THE GREAT FIRE OF MICRO-HUNGER
But there is another type of hunger that is less well
known but that is even more widespread than the full scale
hunger we have just talked about. Most of humanity is suffering from this at this moment. You see, the human body
requires close to 100 nutrients in order to perform it's functions eciently.

If one of these nutrients is decient from

the body for an extended period of time, you may not feel it

13

cell recognizes this deciency almost instantly and

is starving for that particular nutrient.
but the

Scientists call this

type of hunger special hunger or specic hunger.

What occurs in specic starvation is a craving or hunger

for a specic nutrient. However, if the nutrient is not avail-

uncon-

able, the cell, as in the case of general starvation discussed

ventional ways and forms

above, will reorient the physiology to acquire it in

. The thesis of this book is that

this is what is going on when a person desires tobacco. The

tobacco is actually oering a nutrient that is not available in
the food supply, for reasons we shall soon discuss, and so
the cell MUST have this nutrient and it will do so in forms
that are considered non-foods. The craving for tobacco is
not irrational but rather it is biologically driven by the needs
of the cell the craving is representational or symbolic of a
cellular situation.
The two fundamental reasons for this reorientation are:
The nutrient that is being sought in non-food forms
such as tobacco is removed from the normal foods by processing techniques
As a result of these processing techniques we are left
with devitalized foods that do not contain the nutrients in
them in order to be metabolized by the body. In a sense,
they are what we could call partial-foods since they have vi-

greater need

tal nutrients removed. The irony is great, however, because

the consumption of these partial-foods creates a

for the nutrient that is sought in tobacco which was originally removed from the food supply.
The smoker, in a sense, is starving for this missing nutrient.
I have dubbed this missing nutrient the Magic Element

14

for many reasons but mainly because it serves as an antidote to the situation that is caused in the cell by the consumption of partial-foods.

Partial-foods or rened foods

cause a situation in the cell that goes by the name of inammation.

However, this term does not seem to convey

the image of what is actually occuring biochemically as a

result of eating partial-foods. So I will rename this situation
in the cell by calling it the FIRE. In a bio-chemical sense the
cellular environment is inamed or IN-FLAMES. It will become more clear, as you read, as to what this actually is but
for now what you must know, and will be revealed in chapter
9, is that the Magic Element is a FIRE-extinguisher. It is
the emergency switch for the cell and the brain when these
suer from consumption of partial-foods and their eects.
But, to reiterate, there is a problem the Magic Element
is not available in the food supply it has been rened out
of the food supply.

is all around us

Yet herein lies another grand irony

the Magic Element

. In fact, it is so ubiquitous in our environ-

ment that there could never be a lack for this vital nutrient
of the cell but it is in NON-FOOD forms. But this is actually a tribute to the design of our bodies for the deciency in

reorient

our food supply of the Magic Element does not pose a problem for the cell. The cell will

those non-food forms

it can acquire this vital Element from the environment

.

in

the organism so that

So what we will see on the outside

is behavior that is not conventional or cravings for things

carriers

that are not normally considered food but are nevertheless

of this Magic Element such as tobacco.

No, it

is not quite eating other humans but this is nevertheless,

reorientation of the cell, though for a specic nutrient. This

15

special hunger is not noticed by the stomach but by the cell.

The cell will send its signal in a specic manner because it
is a specic hunger for the Magic Element. The craving for
these non-food items in the environment, which is really a
craving for the Magic Element, is more fully explained in
chapter 2 but, for our purposes, one of them happens to be
tobacco.
Because the Magic Element is not being supplied in the
diet, the cell will brilliantly reorient certain mechanisms in
the individual so that he or she can at least attain the nutrient from another source that is not conventional, e.g. tobacco. The starved cell communicates this through strong
and powerful emotion laden cravings that are impossible to
withstand because the cell must feed.

If this is true, you

can see why hypnosis and counseling are limited in their

nutrient specic starvation response

eects how can you hypnotize away the needs of the cell?
Smoking is really a
the cell.

by

NO SIN ONLY A DEFICIENCY

Obviously, the craving or emotion we know as hunger is
not belittled or neglected in our society. But the cravings
for cigarettes are looked at as irrational and we are told
that it is abnormal. It may seem abnormal until one understands the cellular needs of the deep and how the cell will
override things like a taste mechanism in order to get at a
nutrient. If one does not understand this then the person
having the cravings for that unconventional substance can
seem abnormal or ill as we would look at a person that eats

addiction model

other people.
The

sin

imposes a paradigm of helplessness.

The smoker can not help his

16

, his addiction.

It is an

inherent weakness that he or she can not help, much less

special starvation

think about curing it.

The

model empowers the individual

because, rst of all, the individual can recognize for the rst
time that they do not have an inherent weakness only a nutrient deciency. Secondly, once the problem is understood
there is potential for a remarkable thing to occur.
Picture again the scene of the stranded airplane passengers in the desolate mountains: Because of the brunt force
of the cells demands for nutrients, the cell conscripted the
machinery of the bodies of the stranded passengers to act
in a way that they would never in their lives have imagined. Their actions seem repulsive but the cell's demands
are that great and it will reorient the organism in order
to get at what it needs.

Anyway, what would have cured

them of their reorientation? The answer is obvious: if food

were found by some chance and they ate it, then they would
have been cured of the starvation which led them to such
repulsive acts.
The same thing will happen in a nutrient specic deciency. The cell is starving but it is starving for one or more
nutrients due to the eating of partial foods. This causes a
FIRE which creates a greater demand for the Magic Element. On top of this, the Magic Element is already scarce
in our food supply in essence, the cell is starving for
the Magic Element due to one or both of these situations.
But if the Magic Element is supplied in the right amounts
through our diet, then the redirected physiology of the body
is brought back to normal. The reorientation of the body is
no more. So whatever the person may have been doing to
supply the Magic Element (like smoking tobacco) will dis-

17

appear. Desires and cravings that were once formidable will

no longer exist because the cell has received the Magic Element in a whole food form. It might seem strange to think
of tobacco smoking as supplying a nutrient but just keep in
mind that it is ultimately a plant and all plants have some
substances which, when isolated, can have a physiological
benet.

But the only way to test this theory is to see if

the nutrient that will be introduced in chapter 8, the Magic

Element, will stop the reorientation or rather, the cigarette
smoking. This book lays the theoretical groundwork but it
will be supplemented by the experience that you have when
you take the missing nutrient.
In this book:
-It will be shown that tobacco, though a non-food, is a
carrier (like many other non-foods) of two nutrients. One
of the nutrients is the Magic Element, which is discussed in
chapter 8 and 9. The other one serves as a sort of fascilitator
to help the Magic Element be absorbed in the cell.

This

nutrient will be discussed in chapters 6 and 7.

-It will be shown that these nutrients serve a specic
function in the body and brain especially.
-It will be shown by YOU, if you care to read on, that
supplying at least one of these nutrients, the Magic Element, in your diet through food or supplementation, will
STOP your reorientation known as cigarette smoking just
as presenting food to those stranded passengers would have
instantly cured them of their cannibalism.
What you will understand and hopefully appreciate by
the end of this book is that the partial-foods (or special
starvation) in our society, are the real gateway drug that
eventually will relegate us to the consumption of non-foods

18

such as tobacco smoking.

This is an important point to

keep in mind, since the last 100 years have seen the dominance of rened foods as in no other time period on earth.
The human organism has the intelligence to combat this
fractionation or splintering of the food supply by utilizing a
certain survival strategy known as reorientation. It is as if
the cell is trying to put the pieces of a fractured picture back
together again by this strategy of acquiring a non-food to
use it for making up for the lack in the partial-foods. The
non-foods (tobacco etc) happen to have the missing piece
of the puzzle that the partial-foods are not supplying the
Magic Element.

And the biggest partial-food in our soci-

ety is practically used by everyone and no indictment is

handed out against it, by the authorities, in it's causal relationship to smoking. Instead, the eect smoking is vilied. Though, as a reader of this book, you will understand
that smoking is a strategy of the cell to supply a missing
part to something that was once whole. In it's attempt to
make things whole, the body will seek after quite strange
things and objects in it's search for the Magic Element . . .

19