The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HASHISH surgery, &c., just as mysticism has revolutionised, again and again, the philosophies of mankind. The analogy is a perfect one. By meditation we obtain the vision of a new world, even as the world of micro- organisms was unsuspected for centuries of thinking— thinking without method—bricks without straw! Just so, also, the masters of meditation have erred. They have attained the Mystic Vision, written long books about it, assumed that the conclusions drawn from their vision were true on other planes—as if a microscopist were to stand for Parliament on the platform “ Votes for Microbes” —never noted possible sources of error, fallen foul of sense and science, dropped into oblivion and deserved contempt. I want to combine the methods, to check the old empirical mysticism by the precision of modern science. Hashish at least gives proof of a new order of conscious- ness, and (it seems to me) it is this Avimdéd facie case that mystics have always needed to make out, and never have made out. But to-day I claim the hashish-phenomena as mental phenomenaof thefirst importance; and I demand investigation. I assert—more or less ex cathedré—that meditation will revolutionise our conception of the universe, just as the microscope has done. Then my friend the physiologist remarks: “But if you disturb the observing faculty with drugs and a special mental training, your results will be invalid.” And I reply: “ But if you disturb the observing faculty with lenses and a special mental training, your results will be invalid.” 53