Mann versus Benjamin, on the subject of psychedelics

Thomas Mann:

Dear Ida,

Thank you very much for THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION, though the book does not excite me with the enthusiasm which it has you. It presents the latest, and, I might add, most audacious form of Huxley's escapism, which I could never appreciate in this author. Mysticism as a means to that escapism was, nonetheless, reasonably honorable. But that he now has arrived at drugs I find rather scandalous. I already have a bad conscience as it is, since I take a bit of Seconal or Phanodorn at night in order to sleep better. But to put myself in such a state during the day, where everything human becomes a matter of indifference to me and I lapse into conscienceless aesthetic self-indulgence would be loathsome to me. But this is what he recommends to everyone in the world, because their lot in life is said to be "at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous." What a use of 'best' and 'worst'! His mystics should have taught him that 'suffering is the fleetest of the beasts leading to perfection' ---which one cannot say of doping; and the reverie found in a chair as a miracle of existence and in sundry captivating delusions of color has more to do with monotony than he thinks.

The Hamburg doctor Frederking has warned that the excited state of mescaline-rausch, psychotherapeutically speaking, is only suitable for very experienced individuals. (And Huxley is not such a person, but rather a dilettante.) The suggested treatment would have to be strict and restricted. Nor could it in any way be predicted that the outcome of a mescaline-experiment would be at all worthwhile. . . .

Now, encouraged by the persuasive recommendation of the famous author, many English and American youth (especially) will try the experiment. The book comes to a rather abrupt end. But it is a thoroughly --- I don't want to say immoral --- but one must say an irresponsible book, which can only contribute to the stupefaction of the world and to its instability in meeting the extremely serious questions of the time with intelligence....

Walter Benjamin:

We know of primitive peoples of the so-called preanimistic stage who identify themselves with sacred animals and plants and name themselves after them; we know of insane people who likewise identify themselves in part with objects of their perception, which are thus no longer objecta, "placed before" them; we know of sick people who relate the sensations of their bodies not to themselves but rather to other creatures, and clairvoyants who at least claim to be able to feel the sensations of others as their own. The commonly shared notion of sensuous (and intellectual) knowledge in our epoch, as well as in the Kantian and the pre-Kantian epochs, is very much a mythology like those mentioned.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE FIRST HASHISH IMPRESSION, December 18, 1927, 3:30 am
1. Apparitions hover (vignette-like) over my right shoulder. Chill in this shoulder. In this context: "I have the feeling that there are 4 in the room apart from myself." (Avoidance of the necessity to include myself.)
2. Elucidation of the Potemkin anecdote[1] by the explanation, be it suggestion: to present to a person the mask of their own face (i.e., of the bearer's own face).
3. Odd remarks about aetheric mask [Äthermaske], which would (obviously) have mouth, nose, etc.
4. The co-ordinates through the apartment: cellar-floor/ horizontal line. Spacious horizontal expanse of the apartment. Music is coming from a suite of rooms. But perhaps the corridor [is] terrifying, too.
5. Unlimited goodwill. Suspension of the compulsive anxiety complex. The beautiful "character" unfolds. All of those present become comically iridescent. At the same time one is pervaded by their aura.
6. The comical is not only drawn out of faces but also out of situations. One searches out occasions for laughter. Perhaps it is for that reason that so much of what one sees presents itself as "arranged", as "test": so that one can laugh about it.
7. Poetic evidence in the phonetic: for a while at one point, no sooner had I made an assertion than I'd have used the very word in answer to a question merely by the perception ( so to speak) of the length of time in the duration of sound in either of the words. I sense that as poetic evidence.
8. Connection; distinction. Feeling of little wings growing in one's smile. Smiling and flapping as related. One has among other things the feeling of being distinguished because one fancies oneself in such a way that one really doesn't become too deeply involved in anything: however deeply one delves, one always moves on a threshold. Type of toe dance of reason.
9. It is often striking how long the sentences one speaks are. This, too, connected with horizontal expansion and (to be sure) with laughter. The arcade phenomenon is also the long horizontal extension, perhaps combined with the line vanishing into the distant, fleeting, infinitesimal perspective. In such minuteness there would seem to be something linking the representation of the arcade with the laughter. (Compare Trauerspiel book: miniaturizing power of reflection). [2]
10. In a moment of being lost in thought something quite ephemeral arises, like a kind of inclination to stylize [a few words here illegible] one's body by oneself.
11. Aversion to information. Rudiments of a state of transport. Considerable sensitivity towards open doors, loud talk, music.
12. Feeling of understanding Poe much better now. The entrance gates to a world of grotesques seem to open up. I simply prefer not to enter.
13. Heating-oven becomes cat. Mention of the word 'ginger' in setting up the writing table and suddenly there is a fruitstand there, which I immediately recognize as the writing table. I recalled the 1001 Nights.
14. Thought follows thought reluctantly and ponderously.
15. The position which one occupies in the room is not held as firmly as usual. Thus it can suddenly happen --to me it transpired quite fleetingly --that the entire room appears to be full of people.
16. The people with whom one is involved (particularly Joël and Fränkel) are very inclined to become somewhat transformed: I wouldn't say that they become alien nor do they remain familiar, but rather resemble something like foreigners.
17. It seemed to me: pronounced aversion to discuss matters of practical life, future, dates, politics. The intellectual sphere is as spellbinding as is the sexual at times to persons possessed, who are absorbed in it.
18. Afterwards with Hessel in the cafe. Departure from the spirit-world. Wave farewell.
19. The mistrust towards food. A special and very accentuated instance of the feeling which a great many things occasion: "Surely you don't really mean to look that way!"
20. When he spoke of 'ginger', H[essel]'s writing table was transformed for a second into a fruitstand.
21. I associate the laughter with the extraordinary fluctuations of opinion. More precisely stated, it is, among other things, connected with the considerable sense of detachment. Furthermore, this insecurity which possibly increases to the point of affectation is to a certain extent an outward projection of the inner feeling of ticklishness.
22. It is striking that the inhibiting factors which lie in superstition, etc.,and which are not easy to designate, are freely expressed rather impulsively without strong resistance.
23. In an elegy of Schiller's it is called "The Butterfly's Doubting Wings" ["Des Schmetterlings zweifelnder Flügel''].[3] This in the connection of being exhilarated with the feeling of doubt.
24. One traverses the same paths of thought as before. Only they seem strewn with roses.