Up: [[Compulsion]] Created: 2025-10-03 Updated: 2025-10-12 Course: Compulsion as the Great Mystery of Life with Margaret Klenck for Washington Jung A compulsion can be a life-giving warmth, in which case we call it a passion. Or it can be a fire. I’ve wondered about the difference between a compulsion and an addiction. See [[Addiction or Compulsion? Is there a difference?]] I now think the difference is the extent to which the flame consumes us. Whether we’re talking passion, compulsion, or addiction, every fire begins with a spark. In Jungian terms, the spark is something new that is waiting to be awakened in us and is needed to make us whole. See [[Compulsions Have a Psychological Purpose]]. Something captures our attention, there’s a touch of heat that ignites the spark, and the spark compels us to explore. Sometimes we’re satisfied by devoting ourselves to the exploration for a short time. An example would be when, as a preteen, I plastered pictures of David Cassidy all over my bedroom walls, watched every episode of *The Partridge Family*, and played his song, “I think I love you” over and over again. I don’t remember David Cassidy, but I remember the feeling of that short-lived compulsion. I remember feeling more alive, more engaged with the world, and better able to handle small annoyances because my love for David Cassidy gave me a larger, more noble purpose. Sometimes, though, the spark turns into a conflagration and a short-term exploration doesn’t satisfy it. Then we have addiction. That’s the heaven and the hell of the inner spark. It has something numinous about it, something archetypal and magnetic. [[Compulsions Can't and Mustn't Be Ignored]].