Diary of a Drug Fiend

[Beltane]

Diary of a Drug Fiend
by Aleister Crowley
Amazon.com Editorial Review

Begins with the age old tale: boy gets wired on coke, boy meets girl, boy marries girl and goes off travelling with her through europe doing copious amounts of C. and H.

Eventually boy and girl end up more or less in the gutter, ready to commit suicide.

Enter King Lamus: Master Adept/Zen Master/Mentor/Father Figure to rescue them both by helping them to discover their True Will, thereby curing them entirely of their addictions.

t is King Lamus' considered opinion that drugs are tools, to be used wisely and with a specific purpose in mind, going on to make the analogy that the best way to avoid drowning is to learn to swim-- not to avoid bodies of water.

An intriguing-- though possibly specious-- theory. Fun and entertaining read.

This book, from everything I tend to hear from credible sources, is purley fiction and it's rumored that Crowley died penniless and addicted to drugs. Still an interesting perspective on the whole thing and a fun read.

- B

[enquirewithin]

It's based on Crowley's own experiences. He was an early pioneer whith using drugs to explore new areas of consciousness. He experimented with mescaline, hashish, cocaine. heroin, and ether. He invented a system of 'magick' where the 'k' signified sex magic-- or a form of tantra. He esperimented with yoga, varoius forms of Eastern mysticism as well as the Western tradition of magic, through the Golden Dawn. He wrote many books about the Kaballah amd magick. He condsidered himself as the prophet of a new post-Christian aeon. He received "The Book of the Law" (Liber AL) in a ceremony in Egypt, form an entity maned Aiwas, which he believed contained the secrets of the new aeon. He still has many followers. He was also an able mountaineer, making an early (unsucessful) attempt on K2.

A fomous line is:

To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof! They shall not harm ye at all.

Crowley appeared to have had an obnoxious personality and was highy charismatic.

He did die impoverished in Hastings. His last meal was a boiled egg and a shot of heroin. His True Will never really did triumph over his addictions.

[Nagognog2]

I met a follower of all-things Crowley. Always carried a deck of Tarot cards. I never did figure out this person's sex.

[illuminati boy]

Whatever else Crowley was, he was keenly aware of the historic role that psychoactive compounds played in religious rites:

Any free man or woman who resides in any community where this {religious ecstasy obtained through drugs or alcohol} is verboten has a choice between two duties: insurrection and immigration.
Aleister Crowley 'The Law is for All'



I B

[enquirewithin]

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/M/masters_darkness/images/image_crowley_pic.gif
"The Wickedest Man in the World"
I met a follower of all-things Crowley. Always carried a deck of Tarot cards. I never did figure out this person's sex.
Whilst Crowley is an interesting character and wrote some fascinating books, many of his followers seem to be short of a few marbles! He seemed to have ridiculed many of his admirers, including one who he called 'Badcock' becuase he admitted to having syphilis.

I met someone who claimed to have repeated all of his experiments (which I don't believe)-- he took a lot of librium!

[Alfa]

Crowley throws in a lot of BS troughout his books, as the swines will roll in mud, while silver recognises silver. In other words; pick out the marbles and forget the rest. There are lots of marbles there.

[Lunar Loops]

Crowley throws in a lot of BS troughout his books, as the swines will roll in mud, while silver recognises silver. In other words; pick out the marbles and forget the rest. There are lots of marbles there.

There's more BS than anything else. He was a VERY charismatic individual, in the same way that some far-right religious fundamentalists are charismatic. Able to get people to follow him and submit to HIS will, he had a whale of a time, but often at the expense of others. He wrote some interesting stuff, but the man was an arsehole...."Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" indeed (more like "do my will shall be the whole of the law").

On the original subject of this thread, I think 'Diary of a Drug Fiend' is a very poorly written book (roughly following his early exploits), that does little to capture the imagination of the reader (all personal opinion of course). I think that 'The Strategem and other stories' is a far better piece of work by the man (from a purely entertaining read point of view).

[Alfa]

There's more BS than anything else.
True, but part of the BS is actually code ment for those who have studied the Hermetic tradition.

The man did some brutal drug experiments, which I am not going to totally describe here to prevent nutcases to repeat them. He burned a certain very toxic substance, to fill the room with smoke until demons strated to form in the smoke. Pretty sensational to read, but I'll pass as far as trying it.

[illuminati boy]

Double entendre, hermetic code, humorous ‘in’ jokes, large lexicon, pure bullshit, and some really no bullshit practical experiments… classic Crowley all. I neither idealize nor revile the individual… but he was a very clever chap and I have certainly read works by him. He is to be read much like the old alchemical texts of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. On one level, everything is practical instructions; on another it is all about sexual intercourse; and on yet another it is all about purification of the spiritual dross. It is too bad that most of the persons who read Crowley don’t follow his actual initial admonitions. Originally he required his students to first become ambidextrous and then to have taken and relatively mastered one analytic discipline (chemistry, math, logic, philosophy, etc.). If someone who is knowledgeable in some of the European Hermetic Tradition, with a fairly good bullshit detector reads his works; they will find them both intriguing and entertaining. If an undereducated wannabe tries to take any work by Crowley at face value, they will likely damage themselves in the process and mistake the resulting iron pyrite for treasure. BTW the ambiguous individual that Nagognog2 mentions may actually have gotten something useful from Crowley… ah but what do I know…

I B

PS Robert Anton Wilson reports having done a number of Crowley / HOGD rituals while under the effects of LSD.

[enquirewithin]

Double entendre, hermetic code, humorous ‘in’ jokes, large lexicon, pure bullshit, and some really no bullshit practical experiments… classic Crowley all. I neither idealize nor revile the individual… but he was a very clever chap and I have certainly read works by him. He is to be read much like the old alchemical texts of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. On one level, everything is practical instructions; on another it is all about sexual intercourse; and on yet another it is all about purification of the spiritual dross. It is too bad that most of the persons who read Crowley don’t follow his actual initial admonitions. Originally he required his students to first become ambidextrous and then to have taken and relatively mastered one analytic discipline (chemistry, math, logic, philosophy, etc.). If someone who is knowledgeable in some of the European Hermetic Tradition, with a fairly good bullshit detector reads his works; they will find them both intriguing and entertaining. If an undereducated wannabe tries to take any work by Crowley at face value, they will likely damage themselves in the process and mistake the resulting iron pyrite for treasure. BTW the ambiguous individual that Nagognog2 mentions may actually have gotten something useful from Crowley… ah but what do I know…

I B

PS Robert Anton Wilson reports having done a number of Crowley / HOGD rituals while under the effects of LSD.
Crowley's works do have multiple levels of meaning. An obvious example would be "The Hunchback and the the Soldier." I think he is best appreciated for his 'magic(k)al rituals which he wrote very well. Magical rituals could be regarded as a way of deliberately changing consciousness, or self meta-programming. Other works liike 777, a complex table of correspondences are really interesting. He had a good knowledge of the Western magical tradition, which he derived from the Golden Dawn. (Books like Diary of a Drug Fiend were written quite badly; Crowley's worst problem was a huge overestimation of his own ablities. He considered himself a poet but his poetry is doggerell.)

Robert Anton Wilson does mention perfoming a magickal experiment under LSD in Cosmic Trigger II. I can't remeber the details now.RAW is a great admirer of Crowley but also said that, like all heads of occult orders, he was an asshole.

[Alfa]

His writings seem to vary a lot trough time. There are several drug related poems & writings in various editions of The Equinox. It isn't always clear which poems are written by Crowley. In many of his writings he is very good at setting an atmosphere, which is essential for his magick. But in his Diary of a drug friend, this is almost absent.

[Lunar Loops]

True, but part of the BS is actually code ment for those who have studied the Hermetic tradition.

Agreed, but that is only of any merit if you happen to be a gnostic. I have read (and have many) of his books, both fiction and 'instructional'. He was certainly an intelligent man and there is some merit in some of his work, but there's a lot of crap talked about him (particularly by those who claim to revere him).

The man did some brutal drug experiments, which I am not going to totally describe here to prevent nutcases to repeat them. He burned a certain very toxic substance, to fill the room with smoke until demons strated to form in the smoke. Pretty sensational to read, but I'll pass as far as trying it.

Again agreed.

[enquirewithin]

Whatever you think about his personality or his writing style, Crowley was a pioneer in consciousness changing and his escapades are great fun to read about.

There are several drug related poems & writings in various editions of The Equinox. It isn't always clear which poems are written by Crowley. In many of his writings he is very good at setting an atmosphere, which is essential for his magick. But in his Diary of a drug friend, this is almost absent.
It's been a ferw years since I have read much of the Great Beast's work, but the Equninox is a source of much of his most interesting work. Others like Jack Parsons, the rocket scientist, and Allan Bennett, one of the first Western Buddhist monks, also experimented with drugs and contributed to the Equinox.

The problem with authorship of some of the works is that many are called Liber XXX, Fra A.'. A.'. (who is Crowley, I think). They were all called Fra (Brother) something or other, their magickal names. Crowley had many names, corresponding to his level of initiation (mainly made up by himself!). Alfa is right about the atmosphere (set and setting) he created. (Diary of a Drug Fiend is not one of his best books.)

Jack Parsons, who was also later associated with L. Ron Hubbard, wrote:

I hight Don Quixote, I live on peyote,
marijuana, morphine and cocaine,
I never know sadness but only a madness
that burns at the heart and the brain.
I see each charwoman, ecstatic, inhuman,
angelic, demonic, divine.
Each wagon a dragon, each beer mug a flagon
that brims with ambrosial wine.
Some of the Equinox is online here (http://www.the-equinox.org/vol1/index.html). It would be interesting to sort out which articles would be of interest to DF readers, if anyone can help.

There is "The Psychology of Hashish" (http://www.luminist.org/archives/psychology_of_hashish.htm)from Volume 2, for example.

[Alfa]

I really like this part of the internet. 10 years ago you had to search for occult bookshops troughout the nation to find special books like this and pay your last savings to get the rare ones. Now much is online.
Check this wealth of OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis) texts out: http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/

BTW, Liber simply means book or writing. Fra is short for Frater.

Here is a sample text of Diary of a drug fiend: http://www.bambinidisatana.com/pdf/drugfiendsample.pdf

[enquirewithin]

I have myself made extensive and elaborate studies of the effects of indulgence in stimulants and narcotics.-- Crowley, Confessions

I suppose that most of this was lost. Searching for Crowley's work on drugs, I can't find as much as I had hoped.

Absinthe:The Green Goddess (http://www.gothcentral.com/gothcentral/QuickShop/textfiles/Crowleyabsinthe.asp) is online, as is his translation of Baudelaire's The Poem of Hashish. (http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/baudelaire_charles/baudelaire_charles_poem1.shtml) You can see the cover of a pamhlet about Cocaine (http://www.luminist.org/bookstore/cocaine.htm). There are his thoughts about opium (http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/newreply.php) from his Confessions.

"Liber CMXXXIV. The Cactus." An elaborate study of the psychological effects produced by "Anhalonium Lewinii" (Mescal Buttons), compiled from the actual records of some hundreds of experiments. is mentioned but never written/ published unfortunately.


There is an outline of articles (http://www.totse.com/en/drugs/miscellaneous_drug_information/ac-drugs.html) he intended to write but never did. I am not sure of the veracity of this article but it could easily have been written by him:

Alcohol. Too general in its action to be useful.
Ether. Invaluable for mental analysis; also to discover one's own final judgment on any matter. Gives the power to appreciate the elements of which sensation is made up. Example: Feeling one's finger move in detail.
Hashish. Good for mental analysis. Aids imagination and builds up courage. One can trace the genesis of ideas, solution sometimes given in a series of pictures. Example: How property began.
Anhalonium Lewinii. Like Hashish. (All three excellent for enabling one to get behind one's superficial ideas and discover the roots of one's thoughts.)
Morphine, Opium etc. Aids concentration. Relieves pressure of worrying thoughts; aids creative imagination. Objection: Injures executive ability, so that ideas are sterile.
Cocaine. Prevents fatigue, enabling one to work at full pressure for an indefinite time. Example: My New Orleans method and work done at Cefalu.
Heroin. Combines the virtues of Opium and Cocaine. Excites imagination; helps concentration and calm; increases executive power and endurance. Example: [The Diary of a] Drug Fiend.


(http://www.spiralnature.com/bio/crowleya/acdrugs.html)

[Benga]

I met a follower of all-things Crowley. Always carried a deck of Tarot cards. I never did figure out this person's sex.

sounds like the Jodorowski dudes that hang around Paris....

[VincentVan]

sounds like the Jodorowski dudes that hang around Paris....
Jodorowsky dudes? Do you mean the director of "The holy mountain" and "El Topo" ? I thought that Jodorowsky and Arrabal´s Parisian "Panic movement" ceased to exist in the ´60. Besides what do tarots have to do with Jodorowski?

[VincentVan]

OK Benga now I understand. I just checked wikipedia and it says that now he recycled himself as a leading tarot expert. I quite liked his movies though.