Smokin Moose
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex Moderator
At first, a certain absurd, irresistible hilarity overcomes
you. The most ordinary words, the simplest ideas assume a
new and bizzare aspect. This mirth is intolerable to you; but it
is useless to resist. The demon has invaded you...
It sometimes happens that people completely unsuited for
word-play will improvise an endless string of puns and wholly
improbable idea relationships fit to outdo the ablest masters of
this preposterous craft. But after a few minutes, the relation
between ideas becomes so vague, and the thread of your
thoughts grows so tenuous, that only your cohorts... can
understand you.
Next your senses become extraordinarily keen and acute.
Your sight is infinite. Your ear can discern the slightest
perceptible sound, even through the shrillest of noises.
The slightest ambiguities, the most inexplicable
transpositions of ideas take place. In sounds there is color; in
colors there is a music... You are sitting and smoking; you
believe that you are sitting in your pipe, and that *your pipe*
is smoking *you*; you are exhaling *yourself* in bluish
clouds.
This fantasy goes on for an eternity. A lucid interval, and a
great expenditure of effort, permit you to look at the clock.
The eternity turns out to have been only a minute.
The third phase... is something beyond description. It is
what the Orientals call *kef*; it is complete happiness. There
is nothing whirling and tumultuous about it. It is a calm and
placid beatitude. Every philosophical problem is resolved.
Every difficult question that presents a point of contention for
theologians, and brings despair to thoughtful men, becomes
clear and transparent. Every contradiction is reconciled. Man
has surpassed the gods.
-- Baudelaire,
Artificial Paradises: on hashish and wine
as means of expanding individuality
you. The most ordinary words, the simplest ideas assume a
new and bizzare aspect. This mirth is intolerable to you; but it
is useless to resist. The demon has invaded you...
It sometimes happens that people completely unsuited for
word-play will improvise an endless string of puns and wholly
improbable idea relationships fit to outdo the ablest masters of
this preposterous craft. But after a few minutes, the relation
between ideas becomes so vague, and the thread of your
thoughts grows so tenuous, that only your cohorts... can
understand you.
Next your senses become extraordinarily keen and acute.
Your sight is infinite. Your ear can discern the slightest
perceptible sound, even through the shrillest of noises.
The slightest ambiguities, the most inexplicable
transpositions of ideas take place. In sounds there is color; in
colors there is a music... You are sitting and smoking; you
believe that you are sitting in your pipe, and that *your pipe*
is smoking *you*; you are exhaling *yourself* in bluish
clouds.
This fantasy goes on for an eternity. A lucid interval, and a
great expenditure of effort, permit you to look at the clock.
The eternity turns out to have been only a minute.
The third phase... is something beyond description. It is
what the Orientals call *kef*; it is complete happiness. There
is nothing whirling and tumultuous about it. It is a calm and
placid beatitude. Every philosophical problem is resolved.
Every difficult question that presents a point of contention for
theologians, and brings despair to thoughtful men, becomes
clear and transparent. Every contradiction is reconciled. Man
has surpassed the gods.
-- Baudelaire,
Artificial Paradises: on hashish and wine
as means of expanding individuality
