The Poem of Hashish (The Complete Essay translated by Aleister Crowley)

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You submitted the following rating and review. We'll publish them on our site once we've reviewed them. Item s unavailable for purchase. Please review your cart. You can remove the unavailable item s now or we'll automatically remove it at Checkout. The Will and the Ego become alarmed, and may be attacked and overwhelmed. I trust my readers will concede that the practice of ceremonial magic and meditation, all occult theories apart, do lead the mind to immense power over its own imaginations.

The fear of being swept away in the tide of relentless images is a terrible experience. Woe to who yields! The narcotic effect C. One simply goes off to sleep. This is not necessarily due to the brain-fatigue induced by A and B ; for with one sample of Cannabis , I found it to occur independently. Comprehending that Intelligible with extended Mind; for the Intelligible is the flower of Mind A similar fire flashingly extending through the rushings of air, or a Fire formless whence cometh the Image of a Voice, or even a flashing Light abounding, revolving, whirling forth, crying aloud.

Also there is the vision of the fire-flashing Courser of Light, or also a Child, borne aloft on the shoulders of the Celestial Steed, fiery, or clothed with gold, or naked, or shooting with the bow shafts of Light and standing on the shoulders of the horse; then if thy meditation prolongeth itself, thou shalt unite all these symbols into the Form of a Lion. The most important of the psychological results of my experiments seem to me to lie in A.

I devoted much pains to obtaining this effect alone by taking only the minutest doses, by preparing myself physically and mentally for the experiment, and by seeking in every possible way to intensify and prolong the effect. Simple impressions in normal consciousness are resolved by hashish into a concatenation of hieroglyphs of a purely symbolic type. Just as we represent a horse by the five letters h-o-r-s-e, none of which has in itself the smallest relation to a horse, so an even simpler concept such as the letter A seems resolved into a set of pictures, a fairly large number, possibly a constant number, of them.

These glyphs are perceived together, just as the skilled reader reads h-o-r-s-e as a single word, not letter by letter. These pictorial glyphs, letters as it were of the word which we call a thought, seem to stand at a definite distance in space behind the thought, the thought being farther from the perceiving soul.

Looking at each glyph, one perceives, too, that itself is made up of other glyphs yet nearer to the Self, these glyphs, however, being formless and nameless; they are not truly perceived, but one is somehow aware of them. Unfortunately, the tendency to fall into effect B makes it very difficult to concentrate on the analysis of these ideas, so that one is hurried on to a similar examination of the next thought. It puzzles one, too at the time, in the very course of the analysis , to ask: The only solution appears to lie in a metaphysical identification of Monotheism and Pantheism.

Again, one is conscious of a double direction in the phenomena. Not only is it true to say that the thoughts are analysed into glyphs and so on, back to the pure soul; but also that the pure soul sends forth the glyphs, which formulate the thought. Here again we must identify the Atman system of Hinduism centered in Ego with the Anatta system of Buddhism, in which the impressions are all. Further, there arises an exceedingly remarkable state of mind, described in the Bhagavad-Gita I quote Arnold: The experience could not be better phrased.

It is almost impossible to describe so purely metaphysical a state, which involves clearly enough a contradiction in terms. Yet the consciousness is so vivid, so intense, so certain, that logic is condemned unflinchingly as puerile. The best escape for the logician is to argue that the three assertions are closely consecutive, so closely that mind thinks them one; just as the two points of a pair of compasses pressed upon certain parts of the body are felt as one point only.

While the mystic will mutter some esoteric darkness about the true interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity. I think one should add that these results of my introspection are almost certainly due to my own training in philosophy and magic, and that nothing but the intensification of the introspective faculty is due to the hashish. Probably, too, this effect A would be suppressed or unnoticed in a subject who had never developed his introspection at all.

The Mind of the Father whirled forth in re-echoing roar, comprehending by invincible Will Ideas omniform; which flying forth from that one fountain issued; for from the Father alike was the Will and the End by which are they connected with the Father according to alternating life, though varying vehicles. But they were divided asunder, being by Intellectual Fire distributed into other Intellectuals.

For the King of all previously placed before the polymorphous World a Type, intellectual, incorruptible, the imprint of whose form is sent forth through the World, by which the Universe shone forth decked with Ideas all-various, of which the foundation is One, One and alone. From this the others rush forth distributed and separated through the various bodies of the Universe, and are borne in swarms through its vast abysses, ever whirling forth in illimitable radiation They are intellectual conceptions from the Paternal Fountain partaking abundantly of the brilliance of Fire in the culmination of unresting time But the primary self-perfect Fountain of the Father poured forth these primogenial Ideas The Soul, being a brilliant Fire, by the power of the Father remaineth immortal, and is Mistress of Life, and filleth up the many recesses of the bosom of the world.

The alleged annihilation of time and space, which so frequently reappears in articles on hashish, seems to me solved more simply by a more accurate analysis of the phenomenon. Which is absurd; were it so, we should not need watches. We are accustomed to work whether the idea be philosophically tenable or not is not german to the matter with a minimum cogitable both of space and of time. Just as a definite number of beats of the pendulum makes an hour, so mentally a less definite but far from indefinite number of thoughts makes an hour's consciousness.

Perhaps powerful and vivid thoughts count for a longer lapse of time than weak ones. Deep sleep passes like an invisible electric discharge. The apparently contrary fact that time seems short when we have been reading an interesting book or performing a pleasant and absorbing task is explained thus; the multitude of impressions is harmonised into one impression. Read an unharmonious and dull book, or an essay like this, and the time appears ineffably long. This, then, is what happens to the eater of hashish.

It finds then that from the idea cat to the idea mouse is a journey through the million dying echoes of cat to the million dawn-rays of mouse, and that the journey takes a million times as long as usual. This analysis of a thought into its dawn, noon, and sunset, is well drawn in Buddhist psychology. The same criticism applies to space; for in practice we judge of space by the time required to pass through it, either by the small angular or focussing movements of the eye or by our general experience.

So that if I cross a room, and think a million thoughts on the way, the room seems immense. It is by the tedium of the journey, not by any hallucination of the physical eye, that this illusion is produced. In writing my notes on one occasion I found that my right arm which of course is not in the line of vision at all, normally was many thousands of miles in extent.

It was strange and difficult to control such colossal sweeps through space to the fine work of the pen. It was the time that it apparently took to get one word written that caused the illusion of extravagant size, itself therefore a rational illusion, turned to phantastic absurdity by the excited imagination, which visualized it.

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For of those who are thus negligent, the progress is imperfect, the impulses are vain, and the paths are dark. Another and highly important result of thought-analysis is the criticism of thought as it arises. Just as the impressions are represented by pictorial glyphs, so each reflection upon an impression is accompanied by either one or two more only when the control is imperfect critical glyphs, as it were in small type, an annotation of approval or otherwise. Thus, a chain of thought A-B-C will have three approving pictures in a fainter key; the soul justifying the sequence.

Should one continue A-B-C-E an opposing glyph will warn of the falsity, or at least cast doubt upon it. In the generally unstable condition of the thought, such a critical glyph may be strong enough to become the dominant; and then the whole line of thought breaks down. Let me give an example: This at the best: There is only one remedy for this state of affairs, the discipline of thought which we call in its highest forms meditation and magic. The existence of the disease, it will be noticed, indeed perfectly explains the nature of thought-wandering as observed by me in simple meditation without drugs.

It should be taken, I think, as the normal action of the untrained mind. So long as the thoughts are strongly thrown out, rational, the critical glyphs approve, and the thought-current moves harmoniously to its end. Such are the trained thought-currents of educated man. The irresponsible and aimless chatter of women and clergymen is the result of weak thoughts constantly drowned by their associated critical glyphs.

Mere sympathetic glyphs, too, may be excited in really feeble intelligences. Puns and other false associations of thought are symptomatic of this imbecility. As I said, there is but one remedy; we all more or less subject to this wandering of thought, and we may all wisely seek to overcome it; that remedy is to train the mind constantly by severe methods; the logic of mathematics, the concentrated observation necessary in all branches of science, the still more elaborate and austere training of magic and meditation.

Too many people mistake reverie for meditation; the chemist's boy who thought Epsom salts was oxalic acid is a less dangerous person. Reverie is turning thought out to grass; meditation is putting him between the shafts. The discursive prattle of such superficial twaddlers as Longfellow and Tennyson is the most deadly poison of the mind. All this is true enough in the merest exoteric necessity of adult civilisation.

But if we are to go further into the nature of things, to dive deeper than the chemist, soar higher than the poet, look wider than the astronomer, we must furnish ourselves with a blade of still better temper. But it is requisite to understand this; for if thou inclinest thy Mind thou wilt understand it, not earnestly; but it is becoming to bring with thee a pure and inquiring sense, to extend the void mind of thy soul to that Intelligible, that thou mayest learn the Intelligible, because it subsisteth beyond Mind Thou wilt not understand it, as when understanding some common thing.

In other of my philosophical writings I have endeavored to show that the ratiocinative faculty was in its nature unable to solve any single problem of the universe. Both are right, and both are wrong. The metaphysical deadlock is a real and not a verbal one. Why should the rules of golf govern the mechanics of the flight of a golf-ball?

It is this fact that has made it possible for the faith-mongers to make head against the stream of philosophy. Fichte is really and truly just as right and as wrong as Schelling; Hume is quite as impregnable as Berkeley. It may, I think, be readily conceded that the reasoning faculty is not apodeictally absolute. It represents a stage in human thought, no more.

You cannot convince a savage of the truth of the Binomial Theorem; should we then be surprised if a mystic fails to convert a philosopher? My dear Professor, how can you expect me to believe this nonsense about bacteria? Come, saith he, to the microscope; and behold them! Oh, there are a thousand questions to ask! Is it fair observation to use lenses, which admittedly refract light and distort vision? How do I know those specks are not dust?

The Professor can convince me, of course, and the more skeptical I am the more thoroughly I shall be convinced in the end; but not until I have learned to use a microscope. Only in the same way, by teaching him to use the instrument. None that I know of. The analogy is a perfect one. Just so, also, the masters of meditation have erred. I want to combine the methods, to check the old empirical mysticism by the precision of modern science. But today I claim the hashish-phenomena as mental phenomena of the first importance; and I demand investigation. Then my friend the physiologist remarks: And he smiles gently: And I smile gently: When thou seest a terrestrial demon approaching, cry aloud and sacrifice the stone Mnizourin.

As a boy at school I enjoyed a reputation for unparalleled cowardice; in the world I am equally accused of foolhardiness. The judgment of the boys was the better. The truth is that I have always been excessively cautious, have never willingly undertaken even the smallest risk. The paradoxical result is that I have walked hundreds of miles unroped over snow-covered glaciers, and that nobody so far as I know has ever attempted to repeat my major climbs on Beachy Head. One may add a little grimly that the same remark applies to my excursions into the regions of the mind, the conscience, and the soul.

This bombastic prelude to a simple note on the precautions which I took in my experiments. First, the use of the minutest care in estimating doses. Secondly, the rule never to repeat my experiment before the lapse of at least a month. Frankly, I doubt if these were necessary. I do not suppose my will to be abnormally strong; I believe rather that there is a definite type of drug-slave, born from his mother's womb; and that those who achieve it or have it thrust upon them are a very small percentage.

In saying this I include such obsessions as music, religion, gambling, among drugs. There are people who rush from meeting to meeting, and give up their whole lives to this unwholesome excess of stimulant; they are happy nowhere else; they become as irritable as the cocaine-fiend, and render wretched the lives of those who are forced to come in contact with them. Personally, I have never felt the bearing-rein of habit, though I have tried all the mental and physical poisons in turn.

I smoke tobacco, the strongest tobacco, to excess, as I am told; yet a dozen times I have abandoned it, in order to see whether it had any hold upon me. It had none; I resigned it as cheerfully as a small boy resigns the tempting second half of his first cigar.

Roll Away the Stone: An Introduction to Aleister Crowleys Essays on the Psychology of Hashish

After a meal for the first day or two my hands would go to my pockets from habit; finding nothing there, I would remember, laugh, and forget the subject at once. I think, therefore, that we may dismiss the alleged danger of acquiring the hashish habit as fantastic. Nobody will acquire the habit but the destined drug-slave; and he may just as well have the hashish habit as any other; he is sure to fall under the power of some enchantress.

Of course if you excite, by whatever stimulus, a foul imagination, you will get pestilent effects. When Queen Mab tickles the lawyer, he dreams of fees. So the people who associate nudity with debauchery, and see Piccadilly Circus in Monna Lisa, will probably obtain the fullest itching from the use of the drug. I recommend it to them for, slaves and swine as they are, it must inevitably drag them to death by the road of a certifiable insanity less dangerous to society than their present subtler moral beastliness.

I think, too, that Baudelaire altogether exaggerates the reaction. I never felt the slightest fatigue or lassitude; but went from the experiments to my other work with accustomed freshness and energy. Probably, however, these effects depend largely on the sample of the drug employed; some may contain more active or grosser toxic agents than others.

We discard his preliminary sophisms. Possibly if pharmacists were to concentrate their efforts upon producing a standard drug, upon isolating the substance responsible for effect A , and so on, we might find a reliable and harmless adjuvant to the process which I have optimistically named Scientific Illuminism. But at least for the present we have not arrived so far. Not surely enough to guarantee results to other people without a lengthy series of experiments, still less to recommend them to try for themselves, unless under skilled supervision.

My present appeal is to recognised physiologists and psychologists to increase the number and accuracy of their researches on the introspective lines which I have laid down above, possibly with further aid from the pharmacist. I must add a paragraph or two on the nature of the mystic process and the general character of the transcendental states of consciousness resulting from its successful practice.

So, as I set myself to discuss the character of mystic states, it is immediately evident that if I am to render myself at all intelligible to English readers, a totally new system of classification must be thought out. The classical Eight Jhanas will be useless to us; the Hindu system is almost as bad; the Qabalistic requires a preliminary knowledge of the Tree of Life whose explanation would require a volume to itself; but fortunately we have, in the Buddhist Skandhas and the Three Characteristics which deny them, a scheme easily assimilable to Western psychology.

In examining any phenomenon and analysing it we first notice its Name and Form Nama and Rupa. In such a world live the entirely vulgar. Next with Berkeley we perceive that this statement is false. There is an optical sensation Vedana of red; an olfactory sensation of fragrance; and so on. Next, these modifications of sense are found to be but percepts; the pleasure or pain vanishes; and the sensations are observed coldly and clearly without allowing the mind to be affected.

Next, the perception itself is seen to be dependent on the nature of the observer, and his tendency Sankhara to perceive. The oyster gets no fun out of the rose. This state establishes a dualistic conception, such as Mansel was unable to transcend, and at the same time places the original rose in its cosmic place. The creative forces that have made the rose and the observer what they are, and established their relation to one another, are now the sole consciousness. Here lives the philosopher. The rose and the observer and their tendencies and relations have somehow vanished.

One has somehow got behind the veil of the universe. Here live the mystic and the true artist. The Buddhist, however, does not stop here, for he alleges that even this consciousness is false; that like all things it has the Three Characteristics of Sorrow, Change, and Unsubstantiality. Now all this analysis is a purely intellectual one, though perhaps it may be admitted that few philosophers have been capable of so profound and acute a resolution of phenomena.

It has nothing to do with mysticism as such, but its rational truth makes it a suitable basis for our proposed classification of the mystic states which result from the many religious and magical methods in use among men. O Ether, sun, and spirit of the moon! Ye, ye are the leaders of air! The Principles, which have understood the Intelligible works of the Father, He hath clothed in sensible works and bodies, being intermediate links existing to connect the Father with Matter, rendering apparent the Images of unapparent Natures, and inscribing the Unapparent in the Apparent frame of the World There are certain Irrational Demons mindless elementals , which derive their subsistence from the Aerial Rulers; wherfore the Oracle saith, Being the Charioteer of the Aerial, Terrestrial and Aquatic Dogs There are certain Water Elementals whom Orpheus calls Nereides, dwelling in the more elevated exhalations of Water, such as appear in damp, cloudy Air, whose bodies are sometimes seen as Zoroaster taught by more acute eyes, especially in Persia and Africa Let the immortal depth of your soul lead you, but earnestly raise your eyes upwards.

Crowley used it to promote Thelema, but it soon ceased publication.

He then moved to the studio apartment of Roddie Minor, who became his partner and Scarlet Woman. Through their rituals, Crowley believed that they were contacted by a preternatural entity named Alamantrah.

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The relationship soon ended. He spent mid on a climbing holiday in Montauk before returning to London in December. When he was suffering from asthma, a doctor prescribed him heroin, to which he soon became addicted. Undertaking widespread correspondences, Crowley continued to paint, wrote a commentary on The Book of the Law, and revised the third part of Book 4. He offered a libertine education for the children, allowing them to play all day and witness acts of sex magic.

He occasionally travelled to Palermo to visit rent boys and buy supplies, including drugs; his heroin addiction came to dominate his life, and cocaine began to erode his nasal cavity. There was no cleaning rota, and wild dogs and cats wandered throughout the building, which soon became unsanitary.

New followers continued to arrive at the Abbey to be taught by Crowley. Another was Cecil Frederick Russell, who often argued with Crowley, disliking the same-sex sexual magic that he was required to perform, and left after a year. More conducive was the Australian Thelemite Frank Bennett, who also spent several months at the Abbey. In February , Crowley returned to Paris for a retreat in an unsuccessful attempt to kick his heroin addiction. On publication, it received mixed reviews; he was lambasted by the Sunday Express, which called for its burning and used its influence to prevent further reprints.

Subsequently, a young Thelemite named Raoul Loveday moved to the Abbey with his wife Betty May; while Loveday was devoted to Crowley, May detested him and life at the commune. Loveday drank from a local polluted stream, soon developing a liver infection resulting in his death in February Returning to London, May told her story to the press. As a result, John Bull continued its attack, with its stories being repeated in newspapers throughout Europe and in North America.

Tunisia, Paris, and London: Employing a local boy, Mohammad ben Brahim, as his servant, Crowley went with him on a retreat to Nefta, where they performed sex magic together. In January , Crowley travelled to Nice, France, where he met with Frank Harris, underwent a series of nasal operations, and visited the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, and had a positive opinion of its founder, George Gurdjieff.

Destitute, he took on a wealthy student, Alexander Zu Zolar, before taking on another American follower, Dorothy Olsen. Crowley took Olsen back to Tunisia for a magical retreat in Nefta, where he also wrote To Man , a declaration of his own status as a prophet entrusted with bringing Thelema to humanity. After spending the winter in Paris, in early Crowley and Olsen returned to Tunis, where he wrote The Heart of the Master as an account of a vision he experienced in a trance.

Aleister Crowley

In March Olsen became pregnant, and Hirsig was called to take care of her; she miscarried, following which Crowley took Olsen back to France. Hirsig later distanced herself from Crowley, who then denounced her. According to Crowley, Reuss had named him head of the O. Moving to Paris, where he broke with Olsen in , Crowley went through a large number of lovers over the following years, with whom he experimented in sex magic. Throughout, he was dogged by poor health, largely caused by his heroin and cocaine addictions.

He also befriended Thomas Driberg; Driberg did not accept Thelema either. It was here that Crowley also published one of his most significant works, Magick in Theory and Practice, which received little attention at the time. Crowley was deported from France by the authorities, who disliked his reputation and feared that he was a German agent. So that she could join him in Britain, Crowley married Sanchez in August Now based in London, Mandrake Press agreed to publish his autobiography in a limited edition six-volume set, also publishing his novel Moonchild and book of short stories The Stratagem.

Stephenson meanwhile wrote The Legend of Aleister Crowley, an analysis of the media coverage surrounding him. In April , Crowley moved to Berlin, where he took Hanni Jaegar as his magical partner; the relationship was troubled. He then returned to Berlin, where he reappeared three weeks later at the opening of his art exhibition at the Gallery Neumann-Nierendorf. In August , he took Bertha Busch as his new lover; they had a violent relationship, and often physically assaulted one another. He continued to have affairs with both men and women while in the city, and met with famous people like Aldous Huxley and Alfred Adler.

After befriending him, in January he took the communist Gerald Hamilton as a lodger, through whom he was introduced to many figures within the Berlin far left; it is possible that he was operating as a spy for British intelligence at this time, monitoring the communist movement.

In need of money, he launched a series of court cases against people whom he believed had libelled him, some of which proved successful. During the hearing, it was revealed that Crowley had been spending three times his income for several years. Crowley continued to socialise with friends, holding curry parties in which he cooked particularly spicy food for them.

The work sold well, resulting in a second print run. In he gave a series of public lectures on yoga in Soho. Crowley was now living largely off contributions supplied by the O. Second World War and death: In , his asthma worsened, and with his German-produced medication unavailable, he returned to using heroin, once again becoming addicted. As the Blitz hit London, Crowley relocated to Torquay, where he was briefly hospitalised with asthma, and entertained himself with visits to the local chess club.

He stipulated that though Germer would be his immediate successor, McMurty should succeed Germer as head of the O. Accompanying this was a book, published in a limited edition as The Book of Thoth by Chiswick Press in To aid the war effort, he wrote a proclamation on the rights of humanity, Liber Oz, and a poem for the liberation of France, Le Gauloise.

An Anthology of Sixty Years of Song. In April Crowley briefly moved to Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire, where he was visited by the poet Nancy Cunard, before relocating to Hastings in Sussex, where he took up residence at the Netherwood boarding house. He took a young man named Kenneth Grant as his secretary, paying him in magical teaching rather than wages. He was also introduced to John Symonds, whom he appointed to be his literary executor; Symonds thought little of Crowley, later publishing negative biographies of him. Corresponding with the illusionist Arnold Crowther, it was through him that Crowley was introduced to Gerald Gardner, the future founder of Gardnerian Wicca.

On 1 December , Crowley died at Netherwood of chronic bronchitis aggravated by pleurisy and myocardial degeneration, aged The funeral generated press controversy, and was labelled a Black Mass by the tabloids. He believed that this Aeon follows on from the Aeon of Osiris, in which paternalistic religions like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism dominated the world, and that this in turn had followed the Aeon of Isis, which had been maternalistic and dominated by goddess worship. Thelema revolves around the idea that human beings each have their own True Will that they should discover and pursue, and that this exists in harmony with the Cosmic Will that pervades the universe.

Mysticism is the raising of oneself to their level. Both during his life and after it, Crowley has been widely described as a Satanist, usually by detractors. Crowley stated he did not consider himself a Satanist, nor did he worship Satan, as he did not accept the Christian world view in which Satan was believed to exist. This was intended as a veiled reference to male masturbation.

Pasi noted that Crowley sympathised with extreme ideologies like Nazism and Marxism-Leninism, in that they wished to violently overturn society, and hoped that both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union might adopt Thelema. In this attitude he was influenced by the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and by Social Darwinism.

Crowley was bisexual, and exhibited a sexual preference for women. Even in later life, he was able to attract young bohemian women to be his lovers, largely due to his charisma. Views on race and gender. Crowley insulted his close Jewish friend Victor Neuburg using anti-Semitic slurs, and he had mixed opinions about Jews as a group.

Crowley has remained an influential figure, both amongst occultists and in popular culture, particularly that of Britain, but also of other parts of the world. In , the O. Amado argued that Thelema was a false religion created by Crowley to hide his true esoteric teachings, which Amado claimed to be propagating.

Several Western esoteric traditions other than Thelema were also influenced by Crowley. Crowley also had a wider influence in British popular culture. He sold it in As night hath stars, more rare tha In ocean, faint from pole to pole, So all the wonder of her lips Hints her innavigable soul. Such lights she gives as guide my.

Your hair was full of roses in the The sorceress enchanting and the p In the starlight as we wove us in Immemorial as the marble in the ha In the pleasuance of the roses wit. Kill off mankind, And give the Earth a chance! Nature might find In her inheritance The seedlings of a race.

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