The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HASHISH Yogic doctrines, yet approximately expressed them, though in a degraded and distorted form. I was also aware of the prime agony of meditation, the “dryness ”* (as Molinos calls it) which hardens and sterilises the soul. The very practice which should flood it with light leads only to a darkness more terrible than death, a despair and disgust which only too often lead to abandonment, when in truth they should encourage, for that—as the oracles affirm— it is darkest before the dawn. Meditation therefore annoyed me, as tightening and con- stricting the soul. I began to ask myself if the “dryness’ was an essential part of the process. If by some means I could shake its catafalque of Mind, might not the Infinite Divine Spirit leap unfettered to the Light? Who shall roll away the stone? Let it not be imagined that I devised these thoughts from pure sloth or weariness. But with the mystical means then at my disposal, I required a period of days or of weeks to obtain any Result, such as Samadhi in one of its greater or lesser forms; and in England the difficulties were hardly to be overcome. I found it impossible to meditate in the cold, and fires will not last equably. Gas stinks abominably; heating apparatus does not heat; electricity has hitherto not been available. When I build my temple, I shall try it. The food difficulty could be overcome by Messrs. Fortnum and Mason, the noise difficulty by training, the leisure difficulty * The period of the rule of Apophis in the mystic regenerative process Isis Apophis Osiris I A O; or the Black Dragon in the alchemical translation from the First Matter of the Work into the Elixir. 37