THE UROLOGIC AND CUTANEOUS REVIEW

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

July 1924

(pages 427-428)

SEXOLOGY

The Diary of a Drug Fiend

“The Diary of a Drug Fiend” is written by Aleister Crowley. It deals with the effect of habit-forming drugs on men and women in the upper walks of life. Unless one is a specialist in the treatment of drug addiction, a criterion by which to judge the truthfulness of the book is sadly lacking. However, Aleister Crowley assures that the story is a true one, which has been rewritten only as far as necessary to conceal personalities, and, of course, we cannot contradict Mr. Crowley on this point. The most remarkable thing about the book is the dedication. “TO ALOSTRAEL [Leah Hirsig], Virgin Guardian of the Sangraal in the Abbey of Thelema in ‘Telepylus,’ and to ASTARTE LULU PANTHEA, its youngest member. I dedicate this story of its Herculean labors toward releasing Mankind from every form of bondage.” From this dedication we may be sorely tempted to conclude that the book is intended as a tract to promote the cult which has its headquarters in the “Abbey of Thelema,” This cult has for its main doctrine the ides “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” One, Basil King Lamus if the high priest of this cult and his title is “Big Lion.” We gain the impression that his mission is to restore those, who have fallen into the clutches of the drug habit, to a normal and sane life.

The book is divided into three parts, the first of which is entitled “Paradiso.” The hero is Sir Peter Pendragon and he tells the story in the first person. Peter had been in the flying corps during the war and after the Armistice he felt the letdown just as most of the other young folks in England did. During a wild night in London, he met a girl names “Unlimited Lou,” who was a “snow bird,” or user of cocaine. He took his first sniff of the drug that night. On the spur of the moment he marries “Unlimited Lou,” and they go over to Paris on a cocaine honeymoon. Sir Peter informs us that this is the happiest kind of honeymoon, while it lasts. But after a while the pair find that cocaine is losing its power to lift them to the heights of ecstasy that they crave. Then the idea occurs to them that heroin will be a very good substitute and they only use it to find that its effect is quite different in character but still agreeable. To the psychoanalyst the absolute lack of sex in this book is of interest as showing the effect of the drugs they took. We have known for a long time that drugs checked the libido.

When the bridal pair leave Paris and go to Capri, they fall into the hands of a clever swindler and are stripped of their cash and jewels. They are obliged to cable to London for funds. The second book begins at this point and is called “Inferno.” ’ Lou keeps the diary. They fall lower and lower, not from lack of funds, but because of their eccentricities. Then they retire to the ancestral estate of Sir Peter and take up the study of devil worship. By this time their antics have become too much for the servants and they have departed. At this point Sir Peter has the misfortune to shoot himself, and in the excitement of nursing him, Lou forgets all about the taking of drugs. By the time he has recovered from his injury, they are both apparently cured of the drug habit. But on their return to London, they resume it and fall even lower than before, if that is possible. This ends the second book.

Sir Peter writes the third book “Purgatorio.” They have decided that there is nothing left to make life worth while and they are on the verge of suicide when King Lamus appears on the scene and takes them to “Telepylus.” Then begins the effort to omit the drug. Lamus does not forbid their taking either cocaine or heroin, but he does insist that the fact be recorded on a chart kept for that purpose. This acts very cleverly as Peter finds he takes it more often than Lou does and being determined not to let her beat him cuts down the number of his own doses. They also find that they are kept busy in various ways, so that they cannot find time to take their drug at regular intervals and then they begin to see that there is a chance of being able to get along without it. Lamus now learns that Peter has always been intensely interested in mechanics, particularly in that branch concerned with airplanes; and his wife’s one ambition is to help her husband in any line of work he undertakes. At last after there has been a course of treatment at the Abbey of Thelema, we find both the young people completely cured and looking forward to a life of work and experiments in their particular fields.

As we should expect from the general nature of the book, there is a great deal of mysticism of the East mixed in with modern science. This is well shown in the midnight invocation of Lamus: “Hail to thee, who art Ra in thy silence, even unto thee who art Kephra the beetle, that travellest under the heavens, in thy bark in the midnight hour of the sun. Tahuti standing in his splendor at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto thee from the abodes of evening!”