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Falling Down the Spiral

Falling Down the Spiral

The Dark Side of Religious Yearning

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Stephen Bradford Long
Oct 25, 2024
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Falling Down the Spiral
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A worn spiral staircase with dark wood and faded designs
Photo by Won Young Park on Unsplash

In Junji Ito’s horror manga masterpiece Uzumaki, an obsession with spirals consumes and eventually destroys an entire town. In one harrowing scene, a character crushes his own body into the shape of a spiral, killing himself in the process.

Anyone struggling with religious obsession and the search for a religious home can potentially relate to Ito's horror story. The desperate, frantic search for a religious life that gives one meaning can become a form of OCD—a tightening, ever-more suffocating spiral. Falling down the spiral only provides temporary relief, but the obsession inevitably resurfaces, more ferocious and painful than before.

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