THE ST. LOUIS GLOBE-DEMOCRAT

St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.

4 August 1923

(page 11)

BOOK REVIEWS.

“The Diary of a Drug Fiend,” by Aleister Crowley.

This story reads like the real thing, the actual experiences of a man and woman who were victims of the drug habit, showing the gradual disintegration of mind and shriveling of the body, until after a year they looked like an old man and woman, and, worst of all, they were dirty and unkempt, losing all sense of decency as the cruel drug did its work.

The story goes on and on, the man and woman deciding in the beginning that, like the Christian Scientists, there is only evil when one is conscious of it, and that they, under the influence of cocaine, could soar up into the blue, regardless of everything that might have troubled them. But, of course, there came a time when the drug refused to work, and they sank as low as they had soared high.

Finally they came under the influence of a man who had known them from the time the drug first got hold of them, and through him they were cured. “The only excuse,” he said, “for taking a drug, whether it is quinine or Epsom salts, is to assist nature to overcome some obstacle to her proper functions. The danger of the so-called habit-forming drugs is that they fool you into trying to dodge the toil essential to spiritual and intellectual development. But they are simply man traps, and it is up to us to use them wisely.”

But both of them found out that out of the terrible experience they had gained much.