Diary of a Drug Fiend
by Aleister Crowley
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Book Summary Information
Author: Aleister CrowleyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1977-06-01
ISBN: 0877281467
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Weiser Books
Book Reviews of Diary of a Drug Fiend
Book Review: the-HERO-INside-of-us-all; of deservedly dark repute!
Summary: 5 Stars
The unrepentant Mage Aleister Crowley has here writ besides the FIRST self-help book on Heroin & Cocaine addiction, also the BEST! The Master-Therion does nothing less than psychologically maneuver the reader into a defenseless position and throw needles at them! Entirely correct that to the intellectually-minded and philosophically-disposed person, there is NOTHING like HEROIN addiction to brutally test the limits and bounds of their mind's total capacity! Crowley has 35 years of experience under his witch hat when it comes to what he called the three kings-"smo, drin, & fuc"- and an education at Cambridge and Trinity to back him up. If you doubt his erudition for any reason simply consult his 900-plus page autohagiography. The 370 page novel was dictated by the Occult Master to the Scarlet Woman, Leah Hirsig in just 27 days, 12 & 3/4 hrs. beginning on June 4th, 1922. It is dedicated in part to his youngest daughter, ASTARTE, which points to his sincerity in writing what is essentially autobiographical enough to consider part of his Confessions. Crowley had the gall & wit to take as his example Dante's 'Divine Comedy', partitioned off in three parts of the same triptych: PARADISO, INFERNO, & PURGATORIO, which affords him to delineate all these aspects of what it is to be a drug fiend. The novel is really two journals---the first by 'Sir Peter Pendragon' (an inside literary referenced joke) who's modelled on Cecil Maitland (Lover of Mary Butts, the brilliant English writer of the 1920 & 30's, as well as the first editor of 'Magick In Theory & Practice' while both were in residence at the infamous "Abbey"), was briefly a pupil & friend of Crowleys', and is writ in a straightforward if lyrical narrative; the second, by 'Unlimited Lou', is modelled on an imagined adult persona, a "wish-phantasm" of Crowley's eldest daughter, Lola Zaza, and is episodic and revolves around a brilliant poem composed by The Beast, who's called 'King Lamus' and occupies the real-life 'Abbey Of THELEMA' in Cefalu, Italy between the years 1920-23. Such a manner of attack, from three differing pov's: a young man's, a young womans', (both in love) and a final treatise expounding the doctrines of a graduated master, allows maximum coverage. The degree to which Crowley has imposed his own persona upon all three characters is masterful; two in the form of himself: Sir Peter Pendragon being the younger enthusiastic decadent,(via Huysmans') and King Lamus as the aged, experienced Mage; while also speaking in the guise of the lady Unlimited (Crowley openly admitted he always wanted to be a hermaphrodite)being as well various assemblages all greatly affected by Crowley over the course of his first 47 years. Such is this reader's humble opinion anyway, with much gathered evidence besides he might add. Unrepentant, furiously poetic, psychologically unforgiving, he has human nature pegged down to a crucifixated "T"!(so to speak) Crowley associates the stages of addiction (now accepted among the establishment but back then unacknowledged, if not balked at and ridiculed) with the ritual initiation rites of ceremonial Magick, which affords him an almost spiritual-psychologocal tool for conducting his various surgeries on the human soul...which modern-day medicine remains ignorant of while refuting its importance; for some strange reason people and learn-ed doctors as well persist to assume/conclude that if you stop ingesting drugs physically it means you will immediately start getting better psychologically (or spiritually) as well?!?! Such a scholar's bane is the occultist's reward in allowing wordly experience to take precedence over scholastic doctrine! Speaking strictly from a veteran's well-won distance in reviewing the benefits awarded to all by the saints, in light of his many years in the service of the-HERO-INside-of-us-all,(private anagram) Crowley ascertains under the guise of Unlimited Lou: "I had no idea that those people had got so much sense. I've always thought of them as tangled up with religious ideas. I understand now. Yes, it's the life of holiness, if you have go to the trouble of putting it in terms of morality, as I suppose you (English) people have to...I was one of the chief sinners in my time...Human life or Heroin life? I've tried them both; and I don't regret having chosen as I did." In summation, The Diary Of A Drug Fiend( taken in title after the exemplar of Russian Satire: Gogol's story in yet another literary reference, which abounds in ALL of Crowley's many masterpieces) is a classic must-read among lovers and aspirants of Literature, cultural scholars and historians in the field of drug addiction and psychology, in which it is of no less import or interest than Schreber's "memoirs"; Crowley admirers, as well as Thelemites (another literary allusion of great import in Occultism in gerneral= to Rabelais' 'Gargantua & Pantagruel'-ian ideal utopian society) and of course to fans of the genre of autobiographical drug-related works. I have never heard of anybody in all these fields ever being let down from the veritable hysteria produced by both the book nor the authors dark reputation, which besides being fostered & deserved, was also earned! As The Mega-Therion said: "Success will be my only proof!"
Summary of Diary of a Drug Fiend
The true story of Aleister Crowley's own experience with drugs.Literature & Fiction Books
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