Eating Disorders: Help for Hoarders

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Help for Hoarders

"Here, too, I saw a nation of lost souls,far more than were above: they strained their chests against enormous weights, and with mad howlsrolled them at one another. Then in haste they rolled them back, one party shouting out:“Why do you hoard?” and the other: “Why do you waste?”“Hoarding and squandering wasted all their lightand brought them screaming to this brawl of wraiths.You need no words of mine to grasp their plight.The earliest reference to hoarding occurred in Dante Aligheri’s Divine Comedy, an epic poem written early in the 14th century. In the poem, Dante along with a guide had to descend through all 9 circles of Hell before they could ascend through Purgatory and then on to Paradise. The first section of the poem, The Inferno, was Dante’s account of their trip through Hell. Each circle of Hell contained assorted shades (ghosts) suffering increasingly harsh punishments. As the pair entered the 4th circle of Hell, they found two mobs at war, crashing against each other with enormous boulders they pushed with their chests. The armies formed a circle and as Plutus, the Greek God of Wealth watched, they collapsed upon each other crashing the stones against each other, only to retreat and taunt “Why do you hoard?” While the opposite mob replied, “Why do you waste?” Dante’s guide explained that these were the hoarders and wasters in life, the Avaricious and Prodigal. Their lives were spent acquiring possessions and chasing wealth, but by doing so they shielded themselves from God’s light. Now they were forever doomed to this fate. Their possessions became the heavy stones they heaved and crashed for eternity.