Pure OCD, The Mind Virus and Wetiko Part I.

Discovering Wetiko?

Pure OCD is so difficult to live with because even if the sufferer has the confidence to share their feelings – which is no small assumption – they often lack the vocabulary to communicate their way out of isolation.

One interesting character I discovered through the alternative media was modern day shaman Paul Levy. What especially blew my mind was his book ‘Dispelling Wetiko – Breaking The Curse of Evil’* and its blatant application to Pure OCD. I should disclose: nowhere in this densely written book is Pure OCD specifically mentioned, unsurprising as (presumably) Levy isn’t a Pure OCD sufferer – we are something of a niche market after-all! However, this idea of wetiko resonated with me to my core, the comparison seemed too blatant to be coincidence. I’d be amazed if any Pure OCD sufferer would not feel at least some connection to wetiko after reading Levy. I suspect most would find it a revelation. I’m suggesting others look into his work, because discovering a framework to communicate my Pure OCD struggles, in part through Paul Levy’s popularisation of wetiko, was of great benefit to me personally, and hopefully to you dear reader too.

Could Pure OCD be a Mind Virus?

Wetiko is a Native American term for a psycho-spiritual mind-parasite or virus**. I’m not suggesting Pure OCD sufferers are themselves the virus; rather, a parasite like force is feeding off them. A sucker for alliteration, I’m fond of the term mental-malware. Applying Jungian psychology and quantum physics, Paul Levy can be difficult at times to read; however, he is worth unpicking. I found the more I slowly read and repeatedly listened to him online, the deeper my understanding and appreciation of his work was. By way of introduction, he summarised wetiko best with:

“Just as viruses or malware infect a computer and program it to self-destruct, wetiko programs the human biocomputer to think and behave in self-destructive ways. Covertly operating through the unconscious blind spots in the human psyche, wetiko renders people oblivious to their own madness, compelling them to act against their own best interests. People under its thrall can, like someone in the throes of an addiction or in a state of trauma, unwittingly create the very problem they are trying to resolve, clinging desperately to the thing that is torturing and destroying them.”

I’m not suggesting that when Native American’s coined the term they intentionally had Pure OCD in mind. We know, that it was primarily used to describe colonial Europeans, seen as being out of harmony with nature and literally out of their mind with a lust for power. What I am suggesting is that Pure OCD could be one manifestation of wetiko, and that wetiko has been with us throughout history and across culture, incarnating where it can, appropriate to the individuals time and place. I’m not suggesting that today’s Pure OCD sufferers are reincarnated buccaneering conquistadors. Conversely, I also don’t believe that the European age of exploration was evil. I am suggesting that wetiko can facilitate suffering, through a manipulation of the psyche, in a myriad of cruelly creative ways. 

Levy describes those possessed by wetiko as suffering from an autoimmune disease of the psyche:

“In autoimmune deficiency syndrome, the immune system of the organism perversely attacks the very life it is trying to protect. In trying to live, it destroys life, ultimately destroying even itself. In the same way, once wetiko has insinuated itself into a living entity, it acts like a perverted antibody, treating the wholesome parts of the system as cancerous tumors to be exterminated.”

Pure OCD operates the same way, not by the impacting the body’s immune system but by the mind’s immune system. What is the mind’s immune system? I’d argue this is the Amygdala, the part of the brain primarily responsible for processing emotions. An ‘amygdala hijack’ refers to a “personal, emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat”. This hijacking of the amygdala is the very process that Pure OCD sufferers endure when feeling the need to ruminate. The mind is responding to perceived emotional attacks, not physical ones. For something to be hijacked there needs to be a hijacker, some kind of invading entity rather than an organic internal cause, which is what I’d suggest wetiko the mind parasite is. 

Describing Wetiko and Pure OCD

Curiously, wetiko randomly pops up in popular culture in – of all places – The DuckTales Christmas Special (2017) with a character named Wendingo (an alternative word for wetiko). Chillingly, the creatures were described as “poor souls turned into monsters by obsession and desperation.” Any sufferer will know obsession and desperation are immediately synonymous with Pure OCD. Furthermore, how often do coping mechanism designed to numb the stress associated with these obsessions, grow to addictions, potentially then breeding monsters out of anyone?

Likewise, wetiko is “sometimes portrayed as a shape-shifter who can even appear disguised as a good spirit”. Again, this is how Pure OCD works. The thoughts that demand a compulsion is actioned on the pretense that fulfilling them is prerequisite to avoid catastrophe. Thus, Pure OCD sufferers feel morally obligated to fulfil Pure OCD’s demands by endless rumination, acting under the spell of an entity disguised as something necessary,  when in reality it is purely parasitical. 

According to the ancient Native Americans, whenever wetiko consumes another person, it is only briefly satisfied before growing in proportion to the meal (psychic energy) it has devoured, so that it can never be full nor satisfied. Likewise, whenever a sufferer yields to Pure OCD’s demands for rumination, it only serves to empower the obsession. Starving the wetiko shrinks its stomach, feeding the wetiko doesn’t fill its stomach, but only makes it bigger.

Without wanting to go too off topic, the Gnostic Christians with their esoteric knowledge far removed from our modern world, believed in ‘Archons’, a similarly sinister force that projected its own brand of destructive evil onto the world. It was man’s purpose to struggle in pscho-spiritual warfare, where “a soul must achieve by gnosis to escape the dominion of the archons“. Likewise, all South East and Far East Asia shares folklore ‘hungry ghosts’. According to some Hindu traditions, hungry ghosts endlessly seek particular objects, emotions or people including fear or the vitality of the living***. I suspect they are all referring to the same entity which although fascinating, is a potential topic for another day. 

The Cure for Pure OCD and Wetiko 

There is only one way to ever recover from Pure OCD; which is…spoiler alert…to resist seeking reassurance about the imaginary (but convincingly real) threats one’s obsessions pose. No matter how impossible that seems or how diverse Pure OCD manifests itself, that is the bottom line: the compulsive act of reassurance itself is what fuels the obsession. My point is, this is exactly wetiko’s modus operandi too. Wetiko acts as a mind virus, compelling Pure OCD sufferers to unwittingly create the very problem they are trying to resolve. Wetiko or Pure OCD then feeds from the mental energy required to produce the cognitive compulsions, only to ever tighten it’s grip around the victim.

More in Part II…

Footnotes

• • • Where all quotes are taken from, unless otherwise stated.

    • I appreciate “Native Americans” aren’t a homogeneous ethnic group; hence, wetiko has many alternative spellings representing different dialects from the many tribes spread across the North American continent. Likewise, wetiko was represented in many of the different languages, such as wendingo as mentioned. Despite these differences in tribal links and vast geography, it’s fascinating to think that wetiko wasn’t just an isolated piece of ancient philosophy, but something deeply rooted across the continent, yet an alien concept to later European settlers. For further reading, examples of indigenous peoples familiar with wetiko include the Ojibwe, the Saulteaux, the Cree, the Naskapi, and the Innu.

    • Not to be conflated with the Daoist idea of Hungry Ghosts being the emanations of neglected ancestors, nor the Tibetan notion of Hungry Ghosts being a realm of existence for entities that had previously lead overly indulgent lives. I am specifically referring to a mind parasite that tortures its victims, as opposed to the ghost being the victim.