{"collection":"Ordo Templi Orientis","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_oto_lib93_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_oto_lib93_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_oto_lib93_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/oto/lib93.htm","summary":"This is a first-person diary excerpt by Aleister Crowley (writing under his magical name \"Baphomet 666\"), documenting his self-directed attempt to withdraw from a two-year heroin and cocaine habit in February 1922, likely written at a rural retreat in France. The text records, in near-real-time entries, the physical and psychological torments of withdrawal \u2014 what Crowley calls the \"Storm Fiend\" \u2014 including insomnia, bronchial distress, emotional numbness, compulsive drug-taking, and an inability to concentrate or feel motivated. His main argument is that heroin addiction is a physical affliction requiring a methodical reduction regimen (he proposes a \"Close Season / Open Season\" tapering schedule), while cocaine dependency is fundamentally a moral weakness that willpower alone should overcome \u2014 a distinction he insists on even as his entries repeatedly show him failing to resist either drug. The most distinctive feature is the collision between Crowley's grandiose self-image \u2014 he calls himself \"the foremost living psychologist\" and frames the experiment in occult and Nietzschean terms \u2014 and the humbling, candid record of his actual behavior, compulsive doses taken for reasons he admits he cannot explain. The writing oscillates between clinical self-observation, philosophical musing, and frank intoxicated rambling, making it simultaneously a document of addiction medicine history, a window into Crowley's mystical worldview, and an unintentionally comic portrait of self-delusion under the influence.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Liber XVIII - The Fountain of Hyacinth","tradition":"Ordo Templi Orientis","translated_text":null,"word_count":9550}