The Hashish Eater · Chapter
VII: The Night of Apotheosis explained
The narrator resolves to abandon hashish after a night of horror, but the allure of visionary beauty draws him back.
What happens
The narrator resolves to abandon hashish after a night of horror, but the allure of visionary beauty draws him back. He takes the drug again, experiences a fantasia where he becomes Bruce discovering the Nile, and walks with a friend through transformed landscapes. The chapter explores the tension between the ecstasy and terror of hashish, the nature of reality, and the hope for transcendent vision beyond earthly limits.
Themes in this chapter
Hashish and Altered States of Consciousness
The entire chapter is a detailed account of a hashish experience, from the initial thrill to the fantasia of being Bruce discovering the Nile, highlighting the drug's power to transform perception.
Visionary Experience and Imagination
The narrator's hashish vision creates a vivid alternate reality where he is an explorer, and he reflects on the deeper meaning and beauty revealed by such states.
The Search for Transcendence
The narrator seeks insight and mystical discovery through hashish, and the chapter ends with a hope for ultimate transcendent vision beyond earthly limitations.
Characters to notice
- The Narrator
Returns to hashish after a horrific experience, undergoes a visionary journey as Bruce, and reflects on the nature of perception and reality.
- Sam
Accompanies the narrator during the hashish vision, corrects a geographical detail, and helps him navigate the altered state.
- Sidney
Takes charge of the narrator after Sam leaves, accompanying him on the visionary walk through the woods.
- Clapperton
Appears in the narrator's hashish fantasy as a companion to Bruce (the narrator) during the discovery of the Nile.
- Southey
Mentioned in a reference to the Doctor and true-heartedness, though not directly present in the chapter's action.
Key passages
“I thirsted for insight, adventure, strange surprises, and mystical discoveries. I took hashish again.”
The narrator's longing for transcendent experience overcomes his fear, leading him to consume hashish once more.
This moment marks the pivotal decision to re-engage with the drug after a traumatic episode.
“Hashish is indeed an accursed drug, and the soul at last pays a most bitter price for all its ecstasies; moreover, the use of it is not the proper means of gaining any insight, yet who shall say that at that season of exaltation I did not know things as they are more truly than ever in the ordinary state?”
The narrator acknowledges the dangers and moral cost of hashish, but questions whether its heightened perceptions might reveal a deeper truth about reality.
This reflection encapsulates the central tension of the chapter between the allure of visionary experience and the recognition of its perils.
“We may depend upon it, we have not read the world within or the world without. Some mystic wind, like that of hashish, now and then just flutters the leaves of those shut books as it passes by, and the gleam of the divine characters for an instant ravishes us.”
The narrator suggests that ordinary perception is limited, and that hashish offers fleeting glimpses of a deeper, divine reality.
This metaphor of unread books reinforces the theme of hidden knowledge and the promise of ultimate revelation.