the Equinox - The Hermetic Library

THE HASHEESH EATER
longer anything to do with horizons, and the boundary which
was at once our barrier and our fortress is removed, until we
almost perish from the inflow of perceptions.
It would be no hard task to prove, to a strong probability, at
least, that the initiation to the Pythagorean mysteries, and the
progressive instruction that succeeded it, to a considerable
extent consisted in the employment, judiciously, if we may
use the word, of hasheesh, as giving a critical and analytic
power to the mind, which enabled the neophyte to roll up the
murk and mist from beclouded truths till they stood distinctly
seen in the splendour of their own harmonious beauty as an
intuition.
One thing related of Pythagoras and his friends has
seemed very striking to me. There is a legend that, as he was
passing over a river, its waters called up to him in the presence
of his followers, “Hail! Pythagoras.”
Frequently, while in the power of the hasheesh dilirium,
have I heard inanimate things sonorous with such voices. On
every side they have saluted me, from rocks, and trees, and
waters, and sky, in my happiness filling me with intense
exultation as I heard them welcoming their master; in my
agony heaping nameless curses on my head as I went away
into an eternal exile from all sympathy. Of this tradition of
Iamblichus I feel an appreciation which almost convinces me
that the voice of the river was indeed heard, though only by
the quickened mind of some hasheesh-glorified esoteric.
Again, it may be that the doctrine of the metempsychosis was
first communicated to Pythagoras by Theban priests; but the
astonishing illustration which hasheesh would contribute to
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