This useful companion volume to Fitz Hugh Ludlow's "The Hasheesh Eater" contains the complete text of De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," Bayard Taylor's "The Vision of Hasheesh," W.B. O'Shaugnessy's "On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah," many additional hashish- and opium-related writings by Ludlow, the cannabis-related medical texts Ludlow relied upon during his experiments, and contemporary reviews of "The Hasheesh Eater."
"I recommend The Annotated Hasheesh Eater, edited by David Gross. [Fitz Hugh] Ludlow is outrageously erudite, sprinkling his drug tale with references to Hindu mythology, ancient Chinese folk medicine, and tenth-century Welsh royalty. Gross turns what could be maddening into a pleasure by providing helpful notations that explain the arcana."-- Justin Martin, "Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians" (2014)
Fitz-Hugh Ludlow was a recent graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York, when he vividly recorded his hasheesh-induced visions, experiences, adventures, and insights. During the mid-nineteenth century, the drug was a legal remedy for lockjaw and Ludlow had a friend at school from whom he received a ready supply. He consumed such large quantities at each sitting that his hallucinations have been likened to those experienced by opium addicts. Throughout the book, Ludlow colorfully describes his psychedelic journey that led to extended reflections on religion, philosophy, medicine, and culture. First published in 1857, The Hasheesh Eater was the first full-length American example of drug literature. Yet despite the scandal that surrounded it, the book quickly became a huge success. Since then, it has become a cult classic, first among Beat writers in the 1950s and 1960s, and later with San Francisco Bay area hippies in the 1970s. In this first scholarly edition, editor Stephen Rachman positions Ludlow's enduring work as not just a chronicle of drug use but also as a window into the budding American bohemian literary scene. A lucid introduction explores the breadth of Ludlow's classical learning as well as his involvement with the nineteenth-century subculture that included fellow revelers such as Walt Whitman and the pianist Louis Gottshalk. With helpful annotations guiding readers through the text's richly allusive qualities and abundance of references, this edition is ideal for classroom use as well as for general readers.
When Fitz Hugh Ludlow was in college, he found a jar of cannabis extract at his pharmacy, deduced that this was the fabled “hashish” described in The Arabian Nights and The Count of Monte Cristo, and gave in to his curiosity by swallowing a spoonful. His life would never be the same. The Hashish Eater attempts to describe the bizarre distortions of perspective and imagination that Ludlow experienced on extraordinarily large doses of cannabis. Because cannabis was mostly unknown in the English-speaking world at that time, he didn’t have the vocabulary to describe his “trips,” and he couldn’t expect his readers to have had similar experiences to compare. Because of this, he tests the limits of metaphor and creative description; and because of that, his work remains an important document to both understanding and poetically revealing the phenomenology of cannabis intoxication.
When Fitz Hugh Ludlow was in college, he found a jar of cannabis extract at his pharmacy, deduced that this was the fabled “hashish” described in The Arabian Nights and The Count of Monte Cristo, and gave in to his curiosity by swallowing a spoonful. His life would never be the same. The Hashish Eater attempts to describe the bizarre distortions of perspective and imagination that Ludlow experienced on extraordinarily large doses of cannabis. Because cannabis was mostly unknown in the English-speaking world at that time, he didn’t have the vocabulary to describe his “trips,” and he couldn’t expect his readers to have had similar experiences to compare. Because of this, he tests the limits of metaphor and creative description; and because of that, his work remains an important document to both understanding and poetically revealing the phenomenology of cannabis intoxication. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.
History is littered with evidence of humanity's fascination with drugs and the pursuit of altered states. From early Romanticism to late-nineteenth-century occultism and from fin de siècle Paris to contemporary psychedelic shamanism, psychoactive substances have playedcatalyzing people. Yet serious analysis of the religious dimensions of modern drug use is still lacking. the use of drugs and the pursuit of transcendence from the nineteenth century to the present day. Beginning with the Romantic fascination with opium, it chronicles the discovery of anesthetics, the psychiatric and religious interest in hashish, the bewitching power of mescaline and hallucinogenic fungi, the more recent uses of LSD, as well as the debates surrounding drugs and religious experience. This fascinating and wide-ranging sociological and cultural history fills a major gap in the study of religion in the modern world and our understanding of the importance of countercultural thought, offering new and timely insights into the controversial relationship between drugs and mystical experience.
A comprehensive reference book on the nation's most populous state provides, in three thousand entries, information on cities, counties, missions, flora and fauna, architecture, climate, industries, historical periods and events, and other topics.
