Sex, Drugs & Magick: The Way Out

Sex, Drugs & Magick: Reject: The Story of Holy Out

You wanna see violence? Close down 24 hour gas stations and let nicotine addicts deal with their shit in the wee hours. I've never used heroin, but the closest I've ever come to violence is over nicotine which has a much different chemical composition to heroin. 

As Wilson was able to name himself a nicotine addict in an earlier chapter, I will go ahead and confess that I am as well. I shake when I'm separated from it and nigh evr'y time I puff, I wish I didn't want to. This is made all the more complicated by the fact that I regularly have to discourage vaping. (I'm going to go ahead and preface whatever comes after with the fact that I despise vaping and I hate the cloud of dubiousness around it; the credulity-engulfing miasma that ping-pongs back and forth between the unreliable and the also unreliable. I would always rather be sparking up a cigarette than sucking on the glorified USB drive that has become my techno-nipple. If I die and retain any consciousness that allows me to know that the penalty for vaping is the same or worse than combustibles, I'll just die.) I have earnestly implored many people to never try nicotine, because you are rolling the dice that first time with a lifelong addiction cycle. The memory of my first cigarette is like a blown-glass bird with wings outstretched and filled with syrup. Too late, I realized the syrup was filling up my lungs. Nicotine, man. Addiction fucking sucks. 

One of my coworkers, much older and shrewder, used to make a silly remark when we'd talk about our shared addiction..."Ozzy Osbourne always said it was harder to stop smoking cigarettes than quit heroin." 

I don't know that much about Ozzy; I loved the reality show when I was a kid and like most of his music. (I also specifically hate him for his song that mangled the reputation of one of my mentors. It also spread the crass mispronunciation of his sainted name.) I'm not sure if he said that about cigarettes, but if he did....I imagine he was wrong and/or purposely being hyperbolic. 

Heroin seems like a really bum deal. I am not afraid of heroin addicts, having known a few in my life. The violence that heroin users do is not typically perpetrated randomly on the streets but against themselves and those that love them. Most are quite similar to our Joe Smith/Holy Out...people who drift and fumble through life while engendering a mixture of sympathy and, forgive me, revulsion. The glassy eyes of the opiate abuser that Wilson dwells upon multiple times during his story always get to me very quickly, along with the inability to hold a topic in their head or perform simple tasks. (If you've ever been behind someone strung out on opiates in a gas station line, you'll understand what I'm talking about. The only thing more annoying and embarrassing than that is the person who won't stop buying lottery tickets and scratching them at the counter.) 

I imagine that aversion also comes from the "there but for the yadda yadda yadda go I..." mantra that many of us have embedded. I can see specific similarities between Joe/Holy and myself. I can drawl on at length about the ills of society (though I pray I am not guilty of "dead-level abstracting") and am prone to a breed of cynical self-pity. I also, and this part always makes me uncomfortable, was hung up on the "harm" caused me by my first heartbreak and wondered for years if I was doomed to repeat the pattern of my first relationship ad nauseum. I have pondered deeply around the tragedy of hearing and saying the word "no." I can see where I would probably take to heroin pretty quickly. There but for yadda yadda yadda...

I think the saddest part of this chapter is, it almost seems as if Joe/Holy is actually going to make it out for a minute. Then the teenage girlfriend arrives on the scene and the reader knows that with those types of decision making skills, our boy isn't long for the world of semi-stability. I guess I've never strayed near heroin because I do try to retain a bare minimum consciousness of the decisions I make and heroin seems like doing the opposite. That's one other thing about heroin users, as well as most addicts, I've know; nothing is ever their fault, or at least not for long. That is to say nothing is their fault outwardly, but then it seems from their behavior and implicit guilt like everything must be their fault, inwardly. I don't think I ever touched heroin because I never hated myself quite that much. And maybe it says something about my lack of understanding that I consider self-hatred as a prerequisite to heroin abuse. (I should also mention the path to heroin that springs from a prescription that becomes a habit/relief and then leads to further abuse.) 

I don't have a lot of intelligent comments to add to the topic of these white powders. I guess I've got to draw on the immortal words of that bitch Nancy Reagan: "Just Say No." 

Stray Thoughts

- Ed Sanders is absolutely as wonderful as he appears in the description by Wilson and far more interesting than the blurb does justice to. Relevant to our discussion, Sanders apologizes in one of his memoirs for downplaying the seriousness of amphetamine and heroin abuse at times during his youth. 

- Like Arlen, my beloved wife has reminded me in conversation before that that first rejection is just as hard on girls as it is on boys. I really do wonder how many of us can trace our romantic mistakes back to the imprints of our "first love"/first rejection. 

- Find Narcan Resources

- Once again, this didn't really inspire a song in me. I guess listen to The Velvet Underground or Marianne Faithful. Maybe Rodriguez or Curtis Mayfield. Neil Young or James Taylor...there are a lot of songs about heroin. 

- On the other hand; 

:Pertinent suggestions: 

Sex, Drugs & Magick: Nothing, with twinkles

Messe Noir, Manuel Orazi, 1903

Sex, Drugs & Magick: Powders, White and Deadly

It is wildly different talking about opioid addiction in 2022 than when this book was penned or revised. In the part of our Brave Nation that I hail from, most of us know someone whose life has been affected by addiction to these types of drugs. (If you don't know someone who is addicted to cocaine, you can easily find someone addicted to meth. If you don't know someone who is addicted to heroin, you can easily find someone addicted to prescription painkillers.) This has led to a culture that is more sympathetic whilst simultaneously being more judgmental. Pity seems to be measured by the distance between you and the addict(s) you know, with love for the addicts as a corollary. There's a lot of hemming and hawing; really, it is incessant, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of progress. 

 Secondly, it is a very different milieu since fentanyl made its debut on the world stage. Warnings abound about avoiding any powder as you don't know what it is and it could be cut with something worse than talcum powder and baby laxative. Many public health initiatives have tried to make testing kits commonly available (causing the moralists to powder the pearls in their clutches). Narcan training is increasingly common and there are often initiatives to get members of the public trained in its application. Over the past weekend, I passed a car with "I CARRY NARCAN" in large, red letters on a bumper sticker. These, while indicative of our times, are also signs of progress in our apprehension of the nature of drug addictions- that we must be ameliorative, instead of wishing it would simply go away. 

Harm reduction is a wonderful thing, and I am heartened every time I see some new method adopted. I have always fancied Wilson's "solution" to the ill-effects of heroin and hope to see something like that in the United States someday. I don't care for people to die, despite unfortunate circumstances and/or choices. 

Stray Thoughts

- Diary of a Drug Fiend is as insightful and interesting as Wilson makes it out to be, and, like most of Crowley's writing is occasionally very funny. It also contains some very harrowing scenes of drug addiction, but essentially it is a romance. The love between Peter Pendragon and Lou Laleham is a central part of the novel; I also agree that modern audiences would probably find Lou's true will more offensive than the other components. 

- The poem quoted in this chapter from Diary of a Drug Fiend is "The Treasure House of Images" by Captain J. F. C. Fuller which Wilson also has Leila Waddell recite snippets from in Masks of the Illuminati. 

- I do appreciate, and had forgotten, that Wilson acknowledges the provenance of Gardener's Wiccan rituals. 

- While it could be said just as easily of many things, my experiences have taught me that heroin addiction, aside from the user and victims of theft, affects children more than anyone else. It is perhaps the most regrettable and heartbreaking part of the picture. 

- I don't really have much of a song in mind for this chapter. Be safe out there. 

:Pertinent suggestions for music: 

Sex, Drugs & Magick: Closed Doors

 

Sex, Drugs & Magick Interlude: Behind Suburban Doors: The Story of George & Martha

I recently witnessed someone writing about how, despite the objections of cannabis users, many people's first illegal act is purchasing the drug. Now, I had the typical pothead reactions of seething anger at this old calumny, before realizing that without the caveat that drug addiction always begins with the use of marijuana, many people probably do first break the law with extralegal purchases. Another part of me would like to say that I am still skeptical; I would imagine more people broke the law the first time by sneaking a cigarette (or a vape nowadays) or a drink (followed by how many others?) This does bring up the idea that many of us, aside from jaywalking or speeding, probably first break the law indulging in something the government says we are not allowed to have. We are repeating childhood forays into the cookie jar. 

Of course, the stakes are higher in consuming cannabis than in being caught with tobacco or alcohol while underage. So, in a sense, cannabis consumption is the first thing many of us do that could realistically end up with ourselves behind bars. Much like George and Martha, I am still uncomfortable purchasing cannabis and have no desire to add any other incarcerable risks to my life. I still live in one of the more uncivilized parts of Our Great Nation and while my paranoia isn't quite to the level of our suburban couple's, I have always felt some kinship with the pair. 

I can remember wishing that I had some sort of self-destruct case when I first began to keep cannabis on hand. Over the years I have used hidden outdoor stashes, hollowed out books (I thought it was terribly clever that I hollowed out a pharmacology textbook), and forgotten access panels to rafters to hide my stash. For a couple years I kept it inside a hollow porcelain elephant statue that had a chip in the hip that could be removed and replaced, kept inside a crowded closet. While I'm no longer nearly as paranoid about a home invasion, I still try to think strategically about how to hide and dispose of my grass, if need be. 

One difference between George and I is that I hate having cannabis in my vehicle. Absolutely hate it; I don't enjoy driving to begin with, let alone riding dirty. I hate especially having to drive long distances with it in my vehicle. Perhaps in the days of coerced names George's strategy would have made sense, but in my mind you risk a lot more having it in a vehicle than in your home. (At an end of the year party one of my coworkers asked if I had weed; I was flabbergasted they thought I'd ever travel with it unnecessarily. Pretty lame, I know.) I am equally as surprised and distressed if someone thinks to smoke in their vehicle and have pled my career as a reason not to light up when I am in the vehicle with them. 

Keep it at home, folks. If you want to play it safe. 

Stray Thoughts 

- The quote from "The Book of Shadows" at the beginning of the interlude is another fabrication of Gardner's. Interestingly, it was written as a reply to Doreen Valentine proposing a set of rules for "the Craft," due to the influx of Wiccan practitioners in the late Fifties. Gardner replied that the Craft didn't need new rules since it already possessed this, previously unseen or unheard of, part of the "authentic" Book of Shadows. 

- As an aficionado of de Sade, I should point out that blasphemy and sex are one of the greatest flavor combinations in the world. 

Sex, Drugs & Magick: Washington's Toothache

 

"A Smoking Club" by James Gillray (They are smoking tobacco, but I liked the illustration.) 

Sex, Drugs & Magick: Chapter Four: The Mexican Weed

I don't think there's as much for me to comment on in this chapter compared to the others. We don't have the ambiguities of a personal anecdote, nor do we have the occult hints of the last chapter proper. Instead, we have a rational history of marijuana and survey of its use that was contemporaneous during the time of publication. This doesn't seem like much anymore when marijuana is a hot topic and the history of the plant is more widely available than ever before. But I'm sure it was revolutionary for many readers over the years and it was for me as well. 

As I've mentioned before, when I set out into my occult excursion (from which I have yet to return) I wanted to stay away from drugs; I wanted to work the wonders of the Qabalah and be like one of Yates' Rosicrucian mages. I failed, quickly. Originally, I did stay away from the drug literature, but I was already firmly in the hands of the Magician of Northampton and while I rolled my eyes at the pothead dialogue when I first read Illuminatus!, I knew that I needed to keep reading Wilson. So it would be that Sex, Drugs & Magick was my first proper primer on drugs. This chapter did what it was supposed to; it changed my perspective on cannabis. 

Maybe it's a cheap trick to use Washington as a way to legitimize the use of marijuana; pretty much every American has the idea that the Commander of the Continental Army was a god who once walked the earth drilled into us from the youngest age. But it is effective, even for a cynical nineteen year old whose attitude towards marijuana was akin to how he imagined Phillip Marlowe would have felt; only good for addling the mind- stick to alcohol and cigarettes. (I was and am, very dumb. Also- I'm obviously not talking about the best version of Marlowe- Elliot Gould's in Roger Altman's The Long Goodbye.) Hey, if the guy on the one dollar bill smoked weed, what's stopping me. 

Interestingly, maybe?, this wasn't the first time I'd heard that Washington had an inordinate fondness for hemp. That was a pretty common piece of lore, even in the Stone Ages before Colorado freed the djinn of civilized cannabis laws, and that piece of lore formed the basis of one of the best scenes in a Pynchon novel, which I read well before Sex, Drugs & Magick. Pynchon's Mason & Dixon contains an enchanting scene where the two surveyors meet with Washington at Mount Vernon and get uproariously high. In the mix is one of Washington's slaves Gershom (he's Jewish for Pynchonean reasons) who becomes much more of an equal as the smoke flows and a merry, snack providing Martha. Even before I ever partook of the pernicious drug myself, I loved that passage. 

So perhaps it was a combination of Moore, Wilson, Pynchon and George Washington who got me hooked. 

Stray Thoughts

- The jazz "marijuana-cult" has always been a fascinating part of this chapter. When I read Wilson's hope that a jazz historian might one day find out more about this group, I immediately thought of Eric. So Eric, have you ever came across some musician/cheeba-enthusiasts who like fanciful Hindu names? 

- Marijuana is pretty unanimously agreed upon as making sex even better. This is such a given to me anymore that I hardly reacted to that part of the chapter at all. If you haven't tried it- boy howdy, you should. 

- I hope I'll stop harping on this as much as the rest of you, but I am uncomfortable with the fate of legal cannabis in the United States with the current rhetoric from the Right. If they consolidate power this Autumn and in 2024, I think we could see major setbacks. While some libertarian-leaning conservatives might be cool with marijuana, I feel as if the segment leading this shit vanguard are not. Remember, that it was only June when Laura Ingraham was suggesting that cannabis use is to blame for the recent mass shootings. This makes Biden's heel-dragging on federal decriminalization or legalization all the more frustrating.