The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HASHISH producing a standard drug, upon isolating the substance responsible for effect (), and so on, we might find a reliable and harmless adjuvant to the process which I have optimis- tically named Scientific Iluminism. But at least for the present we have not arrived so far. In my own case I should know fairly well what to do, well enough to get my little “loosening of the girders of the soul” at a guess twice in five times, perhaps more. Not surely enough to guarantee results to other people without a lengthy series of experiments, still less to recommend them to try for themselves, unless under skilled supervision. My present appeal is to recognised physiologists and psychologists to increase the number and accuracy of their researches on the introspective lines which I have laid down above, possibly with further aid from the pharmacist. Once the pure physio-psychological action is determined, I shall then ask their further attention to the special results of combining the drug with the mystic process—always in- voking trained observation—and from that moment the future of Scientific Illuminism will be assured. I must add a paragraph or twoon the nature of the mystic process and the general character of the transcendental states of consciousness resulting from its successful practice. XI “He maketh the whole World of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, and of the all-nourishing Ether.” —ZOROASTER. One truth, says Browning, leads right to the world’s end ; and so I find it impossible to open a subject, however small 57