The Equinox (Volume I, Number I)

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HASHISH There is only one remedy for this state of affairs, the discipline of thought which we call in its highest forms meditation and magic. The existence of the disease, it will be noticed, indeed perfectly explains the nature of thought- wandering as observed by me in simple meditation without drugs. It should be taken, I think, as the normal action of the untrained mind. So long as the thoughts are strongly thrown out, rational, the critical glyphs approve, and the thought-current moves harmoniously to its end. Such are the trained thought-currents of educated men. The irrespon- sible and aimless chatter of women and clergymen is the result of weak thoughts constantly drowned by their associated critical glyphs. Mere sympathetic glyphs, too, may be excited in really feeble intelligences. Puns and other false associa- tions of thought are symptomatic of this imbecility. An extreme case is the classical ‘“‘Cat—mousetrap—kittens” chain of the lunatic, when somebody said “ hat.” As I said, there is but one remedy; we are all more or less subject to this wandering of thought, and we may all wisely seek to overcome it; that remedy is to train the mind con- stantly by severe methods; the logic of mathematics, the concentrated observation necessary in all branches of science, the still more elaborate and austere training of magic and meditation. Too many people mistake reverie for meditation; the chemist’s boy who thought Epsom salts was oxalic acid is a less dangerous person. Reverie is turning thought out to grass ; meditation is putting him between the shafts. The so-called poet with his vague dreams and ideals is indeed no better than a harmless lunatic; the true poet is the ba D 49