Aleister Crowley Diary Entry

Saturday 28 September - Sunday, 29 September 1901

Experiment in taking laudanum September 28-29 1901.

Having got myself into a poetical frame of mind after a fairly active day (2 h[ou]rs walk, photographing, etc) I took doses of laudanum as follows: 10 drops in water at 5.52, 6.12, 6.29, 6.45, 7.2, 7.17, 7.32. 70 drops in all. Writing poetry: no appreciable physiological result. 7.46 15 drops. 8.25 20 drops. This last dose made me rather sick and dizzy. I lay down and soon recovered and went on writing. No contraction of pupils, very slight change of pulse. Allan [Allan Bennett] thinks my eyes were dilated forcibly with cocaine from the day before when I had bust up a tooth. My eyes were somewhat aching with the glare of lamps. 8.18 20 more drops. Talked laughed and wrote a little more—very fast. 8.50 25 drops. 9.45 30 drops. Took some tea which made me better able to write. 10.20 30 drops more.

Discussing with Allen why results so small. Wrote a bit more of poem. Feeling well from quantity of water inside me—the vehicle of the Laudanum! About 11.30 went to bed. Occasional slight dizziness. Very sensitive to sound and "nervous". But latter normal to me at this time from practicing concentration. Wrote 4 sonnets in French (in bed). Went to sleep: this was light refreshing and several times gently disturbed: I had some dreams not remarkable in any way.

[Note: on opposite side of page in Crowley's hand reads:] "I got some imaginative effects of a slightly grotesque kind: and after magnificent visions of Himalyas best mountain scenery I ever had and later of Japanese-Albrecht Durer-esque village-river scenes. But these latter shifty and unreal though exceedingly quaint and lovely".

Woke at 5.45 for a minute or two. Woke at 7.45 and got up for breakfast. Slept 8.30 - 10.0. Strong pipe made me feel dizzy again. So lay down and wrote this account (10.40). Nothing to call a headache: dullness as if from waking too early, or rather heaviness and the sleep toxin feeling. The drinking of so unusual a quantity of water gave me a fairly full bladder on waking—to my horror I found the urethral muscles partially paralysed. I could only micturate in short jerks. Quantity of urine certainly not increased considering my drink (1 pint tea and about 1 1/4 pint water). The total dose was thus 210 drops. Pupils much contracted. Sleeping uneasily off and on all day.

9 P.M. 29th [September] pupils pretty normal. Took Strychia, Iron Hypophosp. At 2.03 this afternoon had a good dinner and feel all right.

Yoga impossible after taking laudanum.

[71]

12.0 m[id]n[ight] Dhâranâ on Ajna and “Aum Tat Sat Aum” thirty-one minutes. At one time Ajna seemed enormously, perhaps infinitely, elongated.

11.15 a.m. - 11.41 a.m. Mantra “Aum Tat Sat Aum” with usual throbbing.

Took 210 drops of Laudanum as an experiment under Mâitrânanda’s [Allan Bennett] guidance. (Absolutely no mental result, and hardly any physical result. I must be most resistant to this drug, which I had never previously taken).

[29 August]

Recovering from the Laudanum.

10.5 a.m. Prânâyâma and Dhâranâ hopeless.

[74]