“It’s my Precious!”

Card messages in the Illuminated position.

+ Desire

(Appetite, egoism, egocentric, lavish, largesse, gratification, abundant, ambition, aspiring, eager, bounteous, prosperous)

1. Appetite for life’s finer things can foster a sense of reverie and desire. Selfish is raised to the status of virtue in the game of acquisition. Consider your desires and whether you have them or they have you?
2. Desire, according to the Buddha is “the source of all suffering.” Yet, it is also the fuel that captures our focus and motivates eventual action. Savor your desire and use it to achieve something that will fulfill you.
3. Don’t confuse genuine desire and aspiration for ambition and greed. The first is done for the love of it and cannot be altered. The second is for the love of power and money and can be bribed, bought and sold. Is the motivation clearer now?

Historic Quotes signifying the quality of the Overleaf in this pole

• “There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it”. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Man and Superman
• “Desire is the starting point of all achievement.” Napoleon Hill – Think and Grow Rich
• “Desire, like the atom, is explosive with creative force.” Paul Vernon Buser
• “Desire animates the world. It is present in the baby crying for milk, the girl struggling to solve a math problem, the woman running to meet her lover and later deciding to have children, and the old woman, hunched over her walker, moving down the hall of the nursing home at a glacial pace to pick up her mail. Banish desire from the world, and you get a world of frozen beings who have no reason to live and no reason to die.” WILLIAM BRAXTON IRVINE, On Desire

Card messages in the Shadow position.

+ Gluttony

(voracity, insatiable, hoarding, addiction, surfeit, craving, avarice, covetous, rapacious, predatory, excessive, hungry, extravagant, prodigal, profligate, obsessive, penurious,)

1. Gluttony and hoarding are two sides of the same Greed coin; Ego fearing lack and shortfall. This shadow may be obvious or not, but it suggests that you are suffering because you are voracious for something you don’t have. What is really missing?
2. If you find you can’t get enough, and if you begin to gain a moment of fleeting pleasure at what others have, your addictions are showing. What really is not being satisfied?

Historic Quotes signifying the quality of the Overleaf in this pole

• “For greed, all nature is too little. Seneca – Roman Philosopher
• “Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed” Bhaghavad Gita
• “That’s the funny thing about knowing you can’t have something. It makes you desperate.” Stephanie Meyer, Breaking Dawn

Relevance within the Michael Teaching (Exalted Expression)

Greed informs us of the need to want. Serving as a propellant for experience and thus to include or acquire new things, people, and events into one’s life for the purpose of expanding ones sphere of knowledge. This of course is how evolution occurs. But when a Personality has encountered scarcity, lack, or shortage; Essence knows that this state of want may give rise to the use of lying, deceit, self deception, and betrayal to acquire what it obsesses. On the other hand, it can build high havingness and confidence for the person who does not fear going after what they want. When the stakes are large enough, and inclusive of the needs of many, history may provide an outcome like Augustus Caesar who raised Rome to the pinnacle of civilization and prosperity during his reign.

Like all of the Exalted Chief Features, Greed is outwardly focused on the gaining of resources. And since he/she tends to believe that it is a “dog-eat-dog” world out there, then they’d better be ready to do whatever it takes to get the goods. As a result, Greed is also expansive in that acquiring things to fulfill the emptiness of its early life may well be a wonderful source of both Karma creation and Self-Karma fulfillment. Essence may have orchestrated a life to make-up for one or several lives where restriction or limitation was present. Hence the new Personality, imbued with those memories, is predisposed to Greed as a CF.

In the negative pole, the “what’s in this for me” motive is clear. One might say, it is one of the few honest stances this pole will show you. After that, they are untrustworthy. The character of Lucifer (the Devil) is always the deal maker but like everyone in the gluttony, envy and obsession drive them to want what you have more so than the need to follow through on their side of the bargain. As you might surmise it is a very fertile ground to plant the seeds of karma or revenge.

Many people with eating, drinking, and sex issues often have greed lurking somewhere behind the scenes. Somewhat direct in the inference, Greed is about never getting enough. Addiction to these substances may indeed numb the person to the fear of not having enough or that scarcity will catch up with them; but at the same time packing away as much in the “larder” as one’s capacity might hold. This is where Greed can slide over to Self Destruction and cause a person to collapse under the weight of their own indulgences.

Famous Examples

Arnold Swarzenneger. Ebenezer Scrooge, Richard Branson, Dolly Parton, Count Dracula, Porky Pig, Carly Simon, Kathleen Turner, Richard Nixon, Imelda Marcos, Henry Kissinger, Tim Leary, Howard Hughes, Mae West, Puff Daddy – Sean Combs, Ice Tee, Snoop Dog, Miss Piggy, Jack the Ripper, Adolph Hitler, Rashjneesh, Bette Midler, Howard Hughes, Whoopi Goldberg, Pablo Picasso, Joan Collins, Barbara Walters, Lizzo

Cultural Relevance

Desire is at the top of most people’s drive for a “higher standard of living.” A healthy appetite is important for getting the nourishment one needs, but it is easy to forget the adage “your eyes are bigger than your stomach.” The object of ones desires focuses the mind and creates a yearning for acquiring it. Yet does one enjoy what they’ve won, or earned, or fought for, or conquered? When the answer is yes a person is filled with a sense of accomplishment that gives life a sense of value, even if that value is measured in material items or monetary worth. But if the answer is no, then the amount or quality of consumables is irrelevant for we are trying to fill a spiritual emptiness, rather than a material or biological one. It seems that the world has become voracious and insatiable. Is it any wonder why obesity has become epidemic in developed countries?

Consumption is the life lipids of Capitalism. Without the continuous and ongoing buy and sell transactions process, how will and economy grow? Thus, there is never enough activity to satisfy the demands of marketiers whose sole demand is profit! And by definition, profit is excess! Balance is always sustainable. Waist in nature is biodegraded and used in other ways. In the modern landscape of the industrial world, waste is pawned off to whatever entity seems the most convenient, least capable or protecting itself, and has the fewest defenders: the poor, then the third world, then Nature itself.

Greed stands as one of the seven “deadly” sins for good reason. It acquires at all costs, and will take what it wants from whomever it wants. Greed also denies the possibility of sharing and holds people hostage whenever the opportunity presents itself. The character Mr. Potter the banker, exemplifies not great lavish self indulgence but the desire to own, possess, exclude others, and lord over them. These people consume power in the form of commodities and gain self importance in the name of wealth.

At the other end, so called efficiency is achieved by those ravishing the lust for money and power diminishes the means of those around them. The decline of Unionism across the Western World after creating a middle class that sustained the post war economic engine, has happened concurrently with the narrow but concentrated centralization of wealth in the hands of a few. When people have more than they can possibly assume then waste is inevitable. It is the Earth bearing this legacy now. It is being called the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” or “Plastic Island” the remnants of human consumption and disposal are testament to the way that Greed is not efficient, it just shifts the costs to someone, or in the case of this flotilla of garbage, the ocean itself.

What if we could desire more to have our clean air, water, and happiness for our neighbors and not just ourselves? If so, sharing and generosity would render a feeling of fulfillment even more enriching than the newest car, the bigger house, or the grander dinner. It is not desire that is at issue when it nurtures aspiration and hope, it is myopic drive to acquire rather than come to an understanding of enough.

Greed compels you as Chief Feature if…

1. Food or drink or something to smoke is very comforting.
2. Just about anything I want, I deserve it.
3. People should give me what I want from them.
4. Until I reach my goal or acquire what I need I can’t stop or truly be happy.
5.  Life is for the taking and I’m going to get what’s mine.
6. I can’t stand it when someone has what I wanted.
7. Giving myself a treat always makes me feel better.
8. When I am upset, I go shopping or out to party.
9. Buying stuff is fun.

by Stephen Cocconi © 2024

For a Tarot Session or Channeled Consultation call: 209.768-4956209.768-4956 or email Stephen at channeling@themichaelteaching.com