Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish, Opium and Mescaline

7/29/2019 Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish, Opium and Mescaline

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Protocols to the Experimentson Hashish, Opium andMescaline 1927-1934:

Translation and Commentary[Translated by Scott J. Thompson, copyright March 25, 1997]

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Protocol I.Hightlights of the First Hashish Impression [by Walter Benjamin: 18.Dec.1927]Protocol II.Highlights of the Second Hashish Impression [by Walter Benjamin & Ernst

Bloch:15.Jan. 1928]Protocol III.Walter Benjamin: Protocol of the Hashish Experiment of 11 May 1928.Protocol IV.Walter Benjamin: 29 September 1928. Saturday. Marseilles.Protocol V.Walter Benjamin: Hashish Beginning of March 1930Protocol VI.Walter Benjamin: On the Session of 7/8 June 1930

Protocol VII.Egon Wissing: Protocol to the Experiment of 7 March 1931.Protocol VIII.Fritz Frnkel: Protocol of the Experiment of 12 April 1931 (Fragment.)Protocol IX.Fritz Frnkel: Protocol of 18 April 1931.Protocol X./ Crock NotesWalter Benjamin: 1932Protocol XI.Fritz Frnkel: Protocol to the Mescaline Experiment of 22 May, 1934.Protocol XII.Walter Benjamin: Undated Notes.

Protocol I: Highlights of the First Hashish Impression [by Walter Benjamin:] Written 18 December[1927]. 3:30 a.m.

1. Apparitions hover (vignette-like) over my right shoulder. Chill in this shoulder. In this context: "I havethe 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 themask of their own face (i.e., of the bearer's own face).

3. Odd remarks about aetheric mask [thermaske], which would (obviously) have mouth, n ose, etc.

4. The co-ordinates through the apartment: cellar-floor/ horizontal line. Spacious horizontal expanse of theapartment. 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'dhave 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 alwaysmoves 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 horizontalexpansion 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 tostylize [a few words here illegible] one's body by oneself.

11. Aversion to information. Rudiments of a state of transport. Considerable sensitivity towards opendoors, 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 Jol and Frnkel) are very inclined to becomesomewhat 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. Theintellectual 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 manythings 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 innerfeeling of ticklishness.

22. It is striking that the inhibiting factors which lie in superstition, etc.,and which are not easy todesignate, are freely expressed rather impulsively without strong resistance.23. In an elegy of Schiller's it is called "The Butterfly's Doubting Wings" ["Des Schmetterlingszweifelnder Flgel''].[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.

Return to Protocol Index

Protocol II: Highlights of the Second Hashish Impression[by Walter Benjamin:] Written 15January 1928. 3:30 p.m.

The recollection is less vivid although the reverie [Versunkenheit] was of a diminished intensitycompared to the first time. To b e precise, I was not as lost in thought [versunken], but more profoundly

inward. Also, the gloomy, strange, exotic passages of the rausch haunt the r ecollection more than theluminous ones.

I recall a satanic phase. The red of the walls became the determining factor for me. My smile took onsatanic features: although it assumed more the expression of satanic knowledge, satanic satisfaction,satanic repose than the satanic, destructive effect. The sense of those present in the room as beingsubmerged intensified: the room became more velvety, more glowing, darker. I named it Delacroix.

The second, quite intense observation was the game with the adjoining room. In general, one begins toplay games with spaces. Beguilements of one's sense of direction arise. What's recognized in an alert state

in the quite unpleasant displacement which is accidentally conjured when, traveling at night on the rearseat of a train, one imagines one's traveling on the front seat or the reverse, can be experienced asbeguilement from the translation of motion into the static.

The room disguises itself before our eyes, wraps itself up like an alluring creature in the costumes of thedispositions. I experience the feeling that not only the imperial coronation of Charlemagne, but the murderof Henry IV, the ratification of the Treaty of Verdun and the murder of Egmont were enacted in the next

room. Things are only mannequins and even the great world-historical events are only costumes beneath

which they exchange glances of assent with nothingness, with the base and the banal. They respond to theambiguous winking of nirvana across the way. To resist becoming implicated in any way in such assent,

then, is what accounts for the "satanic satisfaction" previously referred to. This is also th e root ofaddiction, to immensely heighten the collusion with non-existence by intensifying the dosage. Perhaps it is
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no self-deception to say that in this state one develops an aversion towards the free, so-to-speak uranian

atmosphere in which thoughts of the "outside" become almost agonizing. Unlike the first time, there is nolonger the friendly, amiable lingering in the room out of pleasure in the situation for its own sake. Rather,a thick, self-woven, self-spun spiderweb in which world affairs hang strewn about like the corpses of

insects sucked dry. Here, too, the rudiments of a hostile stance towards those present in the room takeshape; fear that they will become a bother or could drag one down.Yet despite its depressive elements, this rausch has its cathartic outcome which, if not blissful like the last,

nonetheless has its ingenious side which is not without its charm. Except that this comes to a peak as theeffect wears off, which sets forth the context of depression more clearly. For this reason the increase of

dosage could, under certain circumstances, play a part in the depressive character.Double structure of this depression: first fear and then indecision in related questions of practicality. This

indecision has gained mastery: suddenly a coercive temptation is tracked down to a very concealed motive[Moment]. The possibility of yielding to it somewhat with the prospect of overcoming it is thereforeattained.Hunger set as an oblique axis through the system of the rausch.

The great hope, inclination, longing to approach the new, the untouched in the rausch can hardly be

attained any longer in elated fluttering, rather in tired, self-absorbed, relaxed, idle, sluggish downhillmutation. In this descent, one still believes in developing a certain friendliness, a certain attractiveness[Attrativa] in order to carry friends along with one's dark-edged smile, half Lucifer, half Hermestraducens, no longer the spirit and human being of the last experience. Less human, more daimon andpathos in this rausch.The bad simultaneity of the need to be alone and the desire to stay together with others intensifies - -a

feeling which emerges in deeper fatigue, and which one would have indulged. One has the feeling of onlybeing able to abandon oneself to this ambiguous winking of nirvana across the way entirely by oneself in

the profoundest silence, and yet needs the presence of others as gently shifting relief figures on thepedestal of one's own throne.

Hope as cushion which lies beneath one only just now taking effect.The first rausch made me familiar with the fickleness of doubt; the doubting lay within me myself ascreative indifference. The second experiment, however, caused things to appear dubious.Tooth operation. Noteworthy memory shift. Even now I cannot free myself from the mental image, that

the location had been on the left side.On the way home as well, when the latch on the bathroom door is hard to lock, the suspicion:

experimental set-up.One hears the tuba mirans sonans, plants oneself in vain resistance against the tombstone.It is well-known that when one closes one's eyes and gently presses against them ornamental figures

appear whose form we have no in fluence upon. The architectures and spatial constellations which one seesbefore one's eyes on hashish have something related to them in their origins. When they appear and whatthey appear as is, first of all, involuntary, so lightning quick and unannounced do they show themselves.

Then when they are suddenly there, effortless imagination comes more consciously in order to take certain

liberties with them.One may well say in general that the sensation of "outside", "outdoors" is connected to a certain feeling of

aversion. One must, however, sharply distinguish between the "outside" and the still quite extended fieldof vision, which for the person in the hashish rausch has exactly the same relation to the outside that thestage has to the cold street for a theatergoer. Now and then, however, there is something between theintoxicated person and their field of vision which -- to continue the metaphor-- is like a proscenium

through which an entirely different air sweeps through the outside. The proximity of death formulateditself to me yesterday in the sentence: death lies between me and my raus ch.

The image of autonomic signaling [Selbstanschluss]: certain mental things of themselves have their say,like toothaches, which at other times are rather fierce. All sensations, mental ones especially, have a moreintense gradient and seize the words from their lair.

This "ambiguous winking of nirvana across the way" has certainly been nowhere as vivid as in OdilonRedon.The first difficult impairment which took place was the inability to make plans in advance. When we

examine it closer it is astonishing that we are capable of making plans from one day to the next, i.e.

beyond our usual daydreams. Very difficult to have the dreams (or the rausch) on hashish at one'sdisposal.

Bloch wanted to gently touch my knee. I had already perceived this touch long before the sensation of itreached me: I perceive it as a highly unpleasant violation of my aura. To understand that one has to bear in

mind that all movements appear to gain in intensity and methodicalness and that as such they become

perceived as unpleasant.After-effect: perhaps a certain weakening of the will. But as the effect wears off exhilaration gains theupper hand. Does the recent tendency of my handwriting to incline upwards [aufwrtssteigendeSchriftrichtung] (despite more frequent depressions) have anything to do with hashish?[4]Another after-effect: on my way home I secure the latch and when there is some d ifficulty in doing so myfirst (and immediately corrected) thought: experimental set-up?

Although the first rausch stood morally high above the second, the climax of the intensity is indeedincreasing. This is to be understood more or less in the following way: the first intoxication loosened and

lured the things out of their customary world while the second rausch soon placed them in a new oneextensively underlying this interstice.

Concerning the continuous digressions in hashish. First of all, the inability to listen. Howeverdisproportionate this seems in relation to that boundless benevolence towards others, it is nonethelessactually rooted in it. Before one's [conversation] partner has barely opened his mouth, he disappoints usimmensely. What he says lags endlessly far behind what we would so gladly have credited him with and

believed him capable of had he remained silent. He disappoints us painfully in his unresponsive attitude

towards that greatest object of all attention: ourselves.As for our own distracted, abrupt switch from the subject under discussion, the feeling that corresponds tothe physical interruption of contact can be explained thus: we are endlessly allured with whatever we are

directly engaged in discussing; we fondly stretch out our arms towards whatever we have a vague notionof. Barely have we touched it, however, than it disappoints us corporeally: the object of our attentionwithers away under the touch of language. It ages in years, our love has completely exhausted it in a single

instant. Thus does it rest until it seems to become alluring enough to lead us b ack to it.To return to the colportage phenomenon of the room: the possibility of all things which have potentially

taken place in this room is perceived simultaneously. The room winks at one: so, what may have happenedto me? The connection of this phenomenon to the colportage. Colportage and caption. To visualize it thus:

one pictures to oneself a kitschy chromolithograph on the wall with a longish strip carved out of the lowerpart of the frame. A ribbon runs along this lower part and now captions alternating with one anotherappear in the niche: "Murder of Egmont", "Imperial Coronation of Charlemagne" etc.In our experiment I repeatedly saw porticos with oriel windows and once said: I see Venice, but it looks

like the upper part of the Kurfurstenstrae."I feel weak" and "I know myself weak" --those are two radically different intentions. Perhaps the first one

alone really carries the punch. But on hashish one can talk almost exclusively about the rule of the secondand perhaps that explains why the facial expression is impoverished, despite the intensified "inner life".The difference between these two intentions is to be investigated.

Further: function shift [Funktionsverschiebung]. I take this term from Jol. The following experiencesuggested it to me. During the satanic phase I was handed a book by Kafka. The title read Betrachtung[Meditation]. [5]But then all at once this book meant to me what a book in a poet's hands means to asomewhat academic sculptor who has to sculpt a statue of this poet. It was immediately dovetailed by

myself into the sculptural construction of my person and was consequently subject to me in a much morebrutal and absolute manner than could have been accomplished by the most withering critique.

But there was still something else: namely, it was as if I were in flight from Kafka's spirit and now in themoment when he had touched me, I were m etamorphisized into stone as Daphne was changed into ivyunder Apollo's touch.Connection of the colportage-intention with the most profoundly theological. It reflects it opaquely,

displacing to the space of contemplation what is intended only in the space of daily life. Namely: time andagain the world is the same (that everything which has ever happened could have been enacted in the same

room). In a theoretical sense, that is a tired, withered truth, despite all the insight concealed in it, whichnonetheless finds its greatest confirmation in the existence of the devout, to whom, as here, the space ofimagination serves as all that has been, and thus all things serve to the best. The theological is so deeply

sunken in the realm of colportage that one may say: the profoundest truths, aspired to far away from theoppressive, animal truths of men, still possess the violent force capable of adapting themselves to theoppressive and the common, to even mirror themselves in their own way in irresponsible dreams.

Ernst Bloch: Protocol of the Same Experiment

I eat nothing. Energy of the silence remains. Energy from fasting is lost when one is sated.The rausch today compares to the previous one as Calvin to Shakespeare. This is a Calvinist rausch.
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Now I am in a state of indolent, sinking longing. It is always just such an ambiguous winking of nirvana

across the way. Allegory of peace, arcadia rises oppressively to the surface. That is all that remained ofAriel. That's the purest measure of the relation between this rausch and the first.When even I, to whom things are going in a worldly way, going badly (depressed),sense this winking,

then see what power it has. Yes, it is the smile. The smile is the veiled image of Sais.[6]It's now as if something had taken me by the hand to the sought after cleft in the rocks. But that toobecomes just a rained-out rendezvous with the spirits. A rained-out Venice similar to the Kurfrstenstrae.

But at the same time I enjoy this rain-laden humor; look down from the window with the pipe. I talk withintention of saying something florid; they must be suspicious.

It is as if the words were suggested to one phonetically. There is automatic signaling [Selbstanschlu ]here. Things have their say without asking for permission. That ascends into very high spheres. There is a

silent password with which certain things now pass through the gate.The depressive mood nonetheless becomes more absorbing. Fear of it going away and being absorbedwith it are simultaneous. Am only capable of retaining the emotional atmosphere of the depression, not itscontents.

Again a powerful feeling of being at sea. The phase-like = sea voyage, life in the cabin: it is perfectly

clear, it is the world seen through glass. A web now fashions itself, everything joins forces with the blackbackground as in bad engravings. Hashish interweaves the entire space.Pause (I take Kafka's Betrachtung [Meditation] as support). Benj[amin]:"That's the right support" --Myself: "You couldn't find one more refined." Benj[amin]: "None more well-informed".Stairway in the studio: a structure only fit for wax figures to inhabit.Thereupon I begin so much graphically. All of Piscator can pack u p and go. Have the possibility of

rearranging the entire lighting with tiny little lever. Can make out the London Opera from the Goethehaus.Can read all of history out of it. It appears to me in the room, and that's why I focus on the colportage

images. Can see everything in the room; the sons of Richard III and whatever you please.In addition, things participate in my depression = devaluation of their matter. They become mannequins.

Unattired dress-up puppets awaiting my intention, standing about naked, everything about them instructivelike an anatomical model. No, it's this: they stand there without an aura. Through my smile. Through mysmile all things stand under glass.Now a passage emerges between the easel and stairs through which the breath of death gently caresses.

The death which is between me and the rausch. It forms a snow-covered path leading into the rauschbeyond. This path is death.

To Frnkel, who comes down the stairs: You have turned into a lady. You always wind up with a frockbetween your feet, like webs.When W[alter] B[enjamin] was urged: "No, I don't want anything. Even if you have to reprimand me in

iambs [sich zu diesem Zweck Jamben vorbinden], I won't eat anything."At the end: step outside into a May evening from my castle in Parma. Walk so gently, so softly, theground is silk.

To me: (in parting) Stay identical for a while yet!

Postscript: When Dr. Frnkel wanted to write something down: "Ah, now I'm coming into the palacegardens again, where my every step is recorded."

Walter Benjamin: Bloch's Protocol to the Experiment of 14 January 1928

The sequential order is loose [frei, free].[Trans. note--- Passages which repeat Bloch's protocol verbatim (see above) have not been includedhere.]Likewise to Frnkel: Now that you've stepped outside, the street intercedes on your behalf. You comeback entirely transformed.

At any moment now I'll be knocking on the ceiling which is terribly thin.In other words, an impetus to wakefulness.Fall down the steps again; fanciful [lustvoll]. It begins to get light outside.

Now I luckily have everything but what the servant girls buy for 25 pfennigs in an Egyptian dreambook.

Death as zone which surrounds the rausch.State of inner listlessness.

Now I am not going through an African phase, but rather a Celtic one. It's getting progressively brighter.Given the opportunity to say what I had elaborated on earlier: "Now I am the schooled teacher".

Something or other "spills over the depressive state" (the opposite ofaufheben[7]:bersplen [to spill orwash over].Hence it can be seen precisely what one is lacking in order to be happy.That is the sad evidence. Indeed, it is quite comical. Dying has an entirely different imperative than it did

the first time.Exhalations from the earth. Intermediate step. Illumination of the rausch.More chthonic. Saw a flight of steps leading down to us, so that we were to a certain extent sitting

underground* * *


Protocol III: Walter Benjamin: Protocol of the Hashish Experiment of 11 May 1928

V.P. [Versuchsperson, Test Subject] : JolAt [...] o'clock, Jol ingested [...] g [ rams] of Cannabis ind[icae].

J[ol] showed up at Benjamin's around 10:30. After having taken the dosage earlier, he had led a meeting

in the House of Public Health [Gesundheitshaus] and had taken part in the discussion without anyhindrance. As there was still no visible effect by 11 o'clock, the outcome of the experiment promised to bequite negligible. Though to himself he seems to have changed, this is not apparent to the observer. The

conversation was initiated by B[enjamin]'s works, and turned of its own accord to questions of an eroticnature, viz. sexual-pathological documents (from the collection of Magnus Hirschfeld). Benjamin placedan album with explicit illustrations in front of the test subject. Effect: nil. The conversation remains purely

scientific.However, curious mimetic anticipations, so-to-speak, occur to B[enjamin], who frequently loses the thread

of the conversation, unlike J[ol], and offers a light when J[ol] reaches for a biscuit.After 11 o'clock, a call from Frnkel, who promises to come. This conversation strikes the observer as

itself the triggering factor of the hashish rausch. First (moderate) attack of laughter on the telephone. Afterconversation ended, strong impression of the room, to which it should be noted: the telephone is notlocated in B[enjamin]'s room, but in the adjacent flat; to reach the room in question, one must pass througha third room. J[ol] wishes t o remain in the room where he made the phone call, but is very unsure. He

doesn't venture to rest against a pillow in the corner of the sofa but takes up a position in the middle of it.[His] power of observation had already intensified (relative to B[enjamin]'s more normal one, which is the

only standard of comparison in this case) before passing through the middle room. This hallway is filledwith framed specimens of handwriting. J[ol] at once discovers a chart which is discernible as having todo with a collection documenting the history of written characters. B[enjamin] has never noticed this

chart. More astonishing yet, on the way back through this room: a violet-colored balloon is tied to the backof a chair. B[enjamin] doesn't see it at all. J[ol] is startled. The source of light in front of the balloonappears to J[ol] secretly as an ultraviolet lamp, which he calls "apparatus".

With the transition to the new milieu in B[enjamin]'s room, there is at once a complete disorientation of

the sense of time. The ten minutes which have elapsed since the telephone conversation seem to him likehalf an hour. The following p eriod is characterized by a restless anticipation of Frnkel. The phases are

outwardly recognizable by repeated deep breaths. Discussion of J[ol]'s formulation: "I've miscalculatedthe time." Other formulations: "My watch is running backwards," "I would like to stand in between thedouble-glazing [of the window pane]," "Frnkel could in fact be gradually about to appear now." Standingat the window, J[ol] sees two cyclists: "He cannot come by bicycle, to be sure. Let alone by twos!"

Later on, a phase of deep absorption in thought of which but a few isolated details here can be retained.Divagation on the word "Kollege " [colleague]. Etymological considerations. B[enjamin] finds this quiteremarkable, for he had quietly pondered over the etymology of this word eight hours earlier the same day.He attempts to communicate that to J[ol]. The latter sternly refuses: "I cannot stand these mediumistic[mediumistisch] conversations among intellectuals."Other formulations whose context I can no longer reconstruct: "Shall I in the meantime talkmalthusianistically [malthusianistisch]?" "Every mother with 5 children can say that." (That can be saidof every mother with 5 children?) ["Opponenz" "Alimentenz"] Divagation on "wild men" "symmetry ofloutish men". (Related perhaps to the title like the one in the Vossische Zeitung)[8].New divagations onan intermediate thing between Kaiser and Kautsky". (Aimed at B[enjamin])."Always a house with lines in such a manner and candlestick shapes (deep sigh). Candlestick shapes

immediately remind me of something sexual. Must be something sexual for the sake of appearances." Theword "secretorium" [Sekretorium] arises in this context. As soon as I confirm a sentence of his, he perks
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up in a more lucid phase, to judge from his words. "I've just come up with the lift." Other reflections: "I

only know that which is entirely formal...and not even that anymore." Or: "As I said that, I was thechurch." Or: "Now that was really something...Ach Gott, but of course those are impersonations of aninferior kind." Or: "One sees the gold nuggets lying there, but one can't lift them." [He] holds forth at

length now on lifting and seeing as two totally different actions, as if he were making a discovery.When the opportunity arises, B[enjamin] is emboldened to remark that no solution to contact betweenhimself and J[ol] has happened. J[ol] reacts in an extraordinarily vehement manner: solution to contact

[Kontaktlsung] said to be a contradictio in adjecto. Then echolalia (perceiving [perzipierend]?):"Contact, out-tact, by tact, with tact in Spain"["Kontakt, Austakt,durch Takt, mit Takt in Spanien"].This is a divagation from an earlier stage of the experiment. Other divagations: B[enjamin] lets drop theword "parallels", to which there is a reaction: "parallels intersect in infinity --surely one can see that."--

Then lively doubt, whether they intersect or not.Fragment: "...By means of this thing, which in fact should be a measure, or was, search me." Otherdeviations: "I don't believe it for a moment that you're attempting to make jokes. You're too unsure ofyourself for that."

After a period of time has elapsed I withdraw into the background of the room onto the couch next to

Frnkel. J[ol] has a great liking for this arrangement. F[rnkel] is not well, he stands up, and I accompanyhim out. He is gone for a long time. In his absence: first J[ol] assumed that we were talking outside aboutexperimental procedures. But he drops it. Hears a rattling. Associates this with the lighting of a

candlestick. Believes that he saw how I guided Frnkel to the toilet with a candlestick. Hereuponimmediately follow still fairly objective discussions. Gradual elucidaton.Supplementary entry from the deepest phase: a corner of my desk b ecomes for J[ol] a naval station,

coaling-station, something situated between Wittenberg and Jterbog.[9]"But all of it at the time ofWaldersee."[10]After that, there was a very remarkable, beautifully poetic divagation about imaginedschooldays in Myslowitz. Afternoon in the school, outside in the fields [and] sun,etc. Then he loseshimself in other images: Berlin. "One must travel to the Orient to understand Ackerstrae."

From the phase of anticipating Frnkel's arrival: "Now I'd like to sit on the window-sill." Afterwards along divagation on the word "threaten" [drohen]. "Frnkel threatens to come". J[ol] himself also callsattention to another infantilism. On occasion he has the feeling that F[rnkel] will break a promise he hasmade, no matter which one. He is to have "shaken hands on it (as boys tend to do)." End of the experiment

around 3 o'clock.

Ernst Jol: Protocol to the Same Experiment

Anticipating Frnkel:Having telephoned, one could expect F[rnkel] in about 20-30 minutes. We left the telephone roomthrough the hallway with the development of handwriting. A child's blue balloon was fastened to the backof a chair at a table where a lamp stood. To me, the layout appeared instantly reversed to the extent that

the balloon was in front of the lamp which shone through it, illuminating the room with a blue light, like a

Solluxlampe [radiation lamp]. I gave the balloon the name "apparatus".Returning to B[enjamin]'s room, the tension of anticipation increases at times to an agonizing intensity. In

this context there were considerable miscalculations of time so impressive that, for a moment, I believedmy watch was running backwards. The other things (the double-glazing, the cyclist) are described in theprotocol.[11]What's peculiar is the intensification which is implied first in the mention of the double-glazed window, then in [the mention of] the outer metal sill.

Some kind of infantile features are at play with the metal sill. For example, it was clear to me that in thissituation I would only take up a little space on the sill, i.e., that I was a small boy.

At one time when I said "space" ["Raum"] for outer space [Weltenraum], I believed [myself] to saysomething new stylistically in so far as the semantic character of the thing were intensified by grammaticalincoherence. I wondered whether Morgenstern, for example, would have had a much more powerful

impact had he carried the grotesqueness of his Palmstrm[12]poems over into his cosmic poetry.No doubt, my formulations seemed too daring to me, for the most part, but nonetheless quite pertinent,and they disclosed to me some rare perspectives. My doubt, however, was apparent as an almost constant

factor in my questions regarding the surroundings; whether my remarks stood up to objective criticism.

Vodka:

I had the feeling of having to entertain F[rnkel] somewhat, and it's certainly no accident that I directedhim to the various liqueurs which, for reasons of abstinence, were out of the question for me, personally,

and which were irrelevant to my hunger. It's worth noting that I became so captivated by a bottle labeled

as vodka that I wanted to test its authenticity, which I doubted. Since the Treaty of Versailles hadforbidden the production of cognac in Germany, I believed that the Treaty of Rapallo had allowed theRussians to keep their vodka, and it gave me the greatest pleasure to see that the great conventions and

treaties of the nations were essentially matters regarding the regulation of spirits. Contributing to this wasthe fact that, either this visit or the one before, Benjamin had given me some genuine Russian cigarettes.I sometimes had the feeling that I should mediate between B[enjamin] and F[rnkel], although I wasn't

aware of any kind of conflict.

The Medals:Frnkel gave me a shallow cardboard box half-filled with ginger. At the same time B[enjamin] handed me

a little oval bowl with biscuits. I took both of them, feeling as if I were b eing paid tribute. Then bothobjects reminded me of medals, especially the bowl (which could be compared to to a large badge for thewounded-in-action). F[rnkel] and B[enjamin] seemed to me like prisoners, who voluntarily surrendertheir medals as souvenirs (as the English did when captured). The remarkable thing was that both of them

lost their individuality at that moment and were only generic, so to speak, though their presence as such

was extraordinarily clear. It was something humiliated, slavish.All of th ese things condensed into something like permanent realities.As in other experiments, there were, of course, moments of fleeting apparitions, but they were instantly

divested of any semblance of reality, which did not in the least spoil their relative wealth and tremendousliveliness.

The Church:At sometime or other all the food I had in my hands was taken away from me. Then I recalled that a

package of biscuits was lying somewhat hidden to the right of my easy chair. I reached into it contentedlyand in so d oing experienced such a remarkable crisscross of emotions of martyrdom and well-being that I

said: "Now I am th e church." As soon as I had expressed that, I felt like a fat, priestly prebendary sitting inmy easy-chair, but with an expression of great earnestness, almost sadness.

The Coaling-station:A dish of cake was taken away from me. I thought that it would be put back on the projecting edge of thedesk where B[enjamin] was sitting, but it was set down on the table out of my reach where F[rnkel] was

sitting. The edge of the desk which I had hoped for as a suitable depot, my army's base so to speak,became for me a cape. The course which the dish had traversed from my hands to the cape and from thecape to the table lying in the dark like a dark continent was like the curve of steamship lines on the map of

a great transoceanic shipping firm. An important strategic point, a coaling-station, had been taken awayfrom me, and now I held forth on the importance of said coaling-station, fulminating with the politics of alittle bourgeois schooled on local advertising. I was reminded of my classmate Thiele, who once loudly

interrupted a lesson in school: "Where does the middle-class come in?". In the Anhalterstrae on the way

home after school one day, he had said of some political personality, I think it was the President ofVenezuela, that he should be made a head shorter, a kind of terminology which was new to me then, and

which I had heard with a mixture of fascination and objection. The topographical distribution of stages ofdevelopment became clear in this context, to the extent that I experienced the meaning of the coaling-station in a childhood milieu on the one hand, but then also as a conversation on a passenger train nearJterbog. (Compare this to Myslowitz, where a shift back into the past either vies with or combines with

geographical remoteness.)

In Myslowitz:B[enjamin], who was sitting only about two steps away most of the time, looked very different inappearance during the experiment. For example, the form and fullness of his face changed. The cut of his

hair, his eye-glasses made him first stern, then genial. During the experiment I knew that, objectivelyspeaking, he couldn't change so quickly, but the impression at the time was so strong that it wasconsidered the correct one.

Once he was a Gymnasium student in a little eastern town. He had a handsome cultivated study. I asked

myself: where has this young man acquired so much culture? What is his father's occupation? Draper orgrain agent? At this moment he seemed inattentive to me and I bid him to recite. His attempt at recitation

seemed very slow to me and I called him to account. At this moment I saw a summer afternoon in the littleeastern town, very hot, the sun resting on the fields before the town; and afternoon in the Gymnasium --a
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sign of the small town or of the past: science lesson in the afternoon. Said the teacher: "So, please hurry

up, we really do not have much time here." I had to laugh, for in fact this hot summer afternoon seemedpredestined for nothing but time, and I could call to mind nothing that would seem to take precedence ateither this hour or in Myslowitz, for that matter.

I believe I then told further how the Gymnasium students imitate their teachers, exaggeratingextravagantly with the German students' unassuming talent for caricature: "...I really don't have any time."

Frnkel is led out by Benj[amin]When this happened I assumed that both of them were in the hallway or in the telephone room discussing

the experiment. This became exaggerated at once: they were talking about me, my character in particular.Then I heard footsteps receding and a soft clinking. Now I saw how B[enjamin], holding a candlestick

with a burning candle in his hand, accompanied F[rnkel], leading him to the door of a toilet and thenhanding him the candlestick.This representation of the scene was something completely without restraint and natural to me. If I'm notmistaken, I was automatically reminded that we are no longer living in the age of candlesticks. The

interesting thing was that F[rnkel] in particular couldn't at all imagine that the scene had actually taken

place 20 years earlier, just as I had seen it.[13]From this insufficiency of memory I most clearly saw thegreat effect of the hashish with regard to the recapturing of time. I saw before my eyes a little bracketholding a white candlestick inside the W.C. In well-kept households, matches would never be lacking, etc.

While F[rnkel] was outside I had all kinds of peculiar fears and I asked B[enjamin] whether there wereany cause for concern about him. This scene reminded me quite a bit of an intermezzo in Wiesbaden,where I had already been forced to consider transportation to the hospital and so on. (Compare this with

the experiment in question).[14].

Part and Opposite [Teil und Gegenteil]:In this rausch a prominent part was played by the to and fro of comprehension, the doubt between

meaning and meaninglessness, the banal and the significant. I said that in ordinary life doubt is lessdefined, duller and more shadowy, whereas here part and opposite present themselves with equally sharpdefinition and vie with one another to the point of being painful. This became apparent to me in the imageof the two sails on the Wannsee. It would be false to ask: which is the correct one. This image is worth

noting because there is no contradiction between the two sails, and only the meaning which one attributesto each of them could constitute the contradiction. Seen in such a way from the distance, two enemy ships

navigating towards one another without their flags hoisted could be taken as allies. In this image itbecomes clear that the flag-character, the sign or insignia is actually what is significant here and thisobservation leads us to the following: that within the rausch emphasis is universally distributed, as is never

the case otherwise. The externalization of the p ersonality (spoken of in very general terms) makes onecapable of an expansion of partisanship such as one would have to attribute to a divine being, or to animpartiality such as is characteristic of, say, an animal. If I am not mistaken, B[enjamin] spoke of an

"agreement" [Vereinbarung], an expression which was quite evident to me.I further tried to show how that deeper kind of identification is attained through cunning. Namely, that bymeans of mistaken identities (possibly explained in the physiological terms of the senses, which are

corrected at once), affinities and identities, the lasting reward of this error, establish a connection in adeeper sphere to which the error was a bridge. (I see just now from F[rnkel's protocol that B[enjamin] hasspoken of "reconcilability" [Vereinbarkeit].[15]In this context belongs the turn of phrase to which I attached great importance: "What you say is true, but I

am right." Moreover, it was quite clear to me that this "is true" was no comfortable concession but rather aclear insight into the correctness of an adopted viewpoint, further emphasizing that the word "also" in the

formulation: "You are right, but I am right also" immediately must make the entire sense questionable.

On the Way Home:Nighttime around 3 a.m. on the way home. First dim light on the Hansa-shore. Strong, exceptionallyblissful feeling of continuity: these shores further down and the Arno flowing between them. It is the samewater only here it is called Spree.

After the acute state of rausch, with its isolations and restrictions, it is possible that there is a sense of

having a stronger bond with world and humankind. This is quite evident in the experiments of theRussians.


Protocol IV: Walter Benjamin: 29 September 1928. Saturday. Marseilles.

After long hesitation, took hashish at 7 o'clock in the evening. During the day I had been in Aix. I am

taking down notes of what p ossibly follows only to determine whether it will take effect, as mysolitariness hardly allows for any other supervision. Next to me a small child is crying, who disturbs me. Ithink that three quarters of an hour have already elapsed. And yet it has actually been only half an hour.

Thus... apart from a very mild absent-mindedness, nothing's happening. I lay upon the bed, read andsmoked. All the while opposite me this glimpse of the ventre of Marseilles. (Now the images begin to take

hold of me.) The street that I'd so often seen is like an incision cut by a knife.Certain pages in Stepppenwolf, which I read early this morning, were a final impetus to take hashish.

I definitely feel the effects now. Essentially negative, in that reading and writing are difficult for me. Agood three quarters of an hour has transpired. No, it seems that much just won't come.Just now the telegram from [Wilhelm] Speyer would have to come: "Work on novel finally given up" etc.It does one no good if, in spite of everything, disappointing news rains on the parade of the oncoming

Rausch. But is it really only this sort? For a moment there was suspense as I thought, now [Marcel] Brion

is coming up. I was intensely excited.(Postscript during dictation: Things happened in the following way:I lay upon the bed really with the absolute certainty that, in this city of hundreds of thousands, where only

one person knew me, I would not be disturbed, when there was a knock at the door. That had neverhappened to me here at all. Nor did I make any move whatsoever to open it, but inquired about the matterwithout altering my position in the least. The valet: "Il y a un monsieur, qui voudrait vous parler." --

"Faites le monter."["A gentleman wishes to speak to you." --"Let him come up."]. I stood leaning against the bedposts, my

heart palpitating. Really, it would h ave been quite remarkable to see Brion show up now. "Le monsieur",however, was the dispatch courier.)

The following written the next morning. Under thoroughly magnificent, mild after-effects which give methe lightheartedness not to pay strict attention to the sequence. Of course, Brion didn't come. I finally leftthe hotel, for it seemed to me that no effects were apparent or else they were so weak as to overrule theprecaution of staying in my room. First station, the caf at the corner of Cannebire and Cours Belsunce.

Viewed from the harbor, the one on the right and not my usual one. Now what? Only that surebenevolence, the anticipation of seeing people amiably disposed towards one. The feeling of loneliness

quickly vanishes. My walking stick becomes especially delightful to me. The handle of a coffeepotsuddenly looks very large and remains so. (One becomes so sensitive: afraid of being hurt by a shadowfalling across paper. --Disgust disappears. One reads the slate on the pissoir.) I wouldn't be surprised if

Mr. So-and-so came up to me. That he doesn't do so does not matter to me, either. But it's too loud for methere.Now the demands which the hashish eater makes on time and space come into play. They are, as is well-

known, absolutely regal. Versailles is not too great for one who has eaten hashish nor eternity too long-

lasting. And in the background of th ese immense dimensions of the inner adventure, of absolute durationand the immeasurable spatial realm, a wonderful, blessed humor now lingers all the more agreeably with

the contingencies of the spatio-temporal world. I am endlessly aware of this humor when I find out thatthe kitchen at Basso's and the entire upstairs have just closed the very moment I've sat down to tuck ineternity. All the same, the feeling afterwards that all this indeed remains forever, constant, lit up, well-patronized and full of life. Presently I must note how I happened to find a seat at Basso's. To me it was a

matter of the view of the Old Port which one had from the upper storey. As I was passing by below I spiedan unoccupied table on the balcony of the second floor. In the end, however, I only got as far as the first.

Most of the tables by windows were occupied. So I walked over to quite a large one which seemed to havejust become free. The moment I sat down, though, the disproportion became apparent to me: disgraceful toseat myself this way at such a large table, so I walked on through the whole floor towards the opposite end

to take a seat at a smaller table which had just then become visible.But the meal was later. First, the little bar on the port. I was again on the verge of making a confusedretreat, for I heard a concert, what's more a brass section, coming from that direction. I was ju st barely

able to account for it as nothing more than a honking car horn. On the way to the vieux port [Old Port],

already this wonderful lightness and determination in my stride, which turned the stony, irregularpavement of the large public square I crossed into the dirt of a country road which I, brisk wanderer,

traveled by night. For I still avoided the Cannebire at this time, not being certain of my regular functions.
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In that little port bar the hashish began to allow its truly canonical magic free reign with a primitive acuity

which I had hardly experienced before. Namely, it began to make me a physiognomist, at any rate anobserver of physiognomies, and I witnessed something quite unique in my experience: I became dead seton the forms in the faces around me, which were partly of a remarkable rawness and ugliness; faces which

I generally would have avoided for two reasons: neither would I have wished to draw their attention tomyself, nor would I have been able to bear their brutality. It was a seemingly advanced outpost, this porttavern. It was the one furthest in that direction which was still accessible without putting me in danger,

and here in my rausch I had assessed it with the same certainty with which a deeply exhausted personunderstands how to fill a glass to the very brim without spilling a drop, whereas a person with refreshed

senses would never be in a position to do so. It was still far enough away from the rue Bouterie, and yet nobourgeois were sitting there. At best there were a pair of petit bourgeois families from the neighborhood

sitting next to some of the authentic harbor proletariat. I now grasped all at once how to a painter --has itnot happened to Rembrandt and many others? --ugliness is the true reservoir of beauty, better than thereceptacles of its treasure; just as the jagged mountain chain could appear with all the interior Gold of theBeautiful sparkling from its folded strata, vistas and ranges. I particularly recall an infinitely bestial and

vulgar face of one of the men, from which the "wrinkles of abandon" suddenly struck me. It was men's

faces which appealed to me most. And now, too, I began the long sustained game in which anacquaintance surfaced up in front of me in each new face. Often I knew his name, often again not. Thedeception vanished as deceptions in dreams vanish, that is, not in shame and with oneself compromised,

but rather untroubled and friendly like a being which has performed its obligation. Under thesecircumstances there could be no talk of loneliness; was I my own companionship? That certainly, thoughnot quite so conspicuously. Nor do I know if that would have particularly pleased me. This, on the

contrary, was no doubt more likely: I became my own shrewdest, most sensitive, most shameless pander,and procured for myself with the ambiguous certainty of one who is intimately acquainted with and has

studied the desires of his customer. Then it began to take half an eternity until the waiter appeared. Rather,I couldn't wait for him to appear. I walked into the barroom and left the money on the table. Whether tips

are customary in such a tavern, I don't know. I would have left something in any case, though, otherwise.Under hashish yesterday I was stingier; it wasn't until I grew fearful that my extravagances would attractattention that I really made myself conspicuous.The same at Basso's, with the order. First I ordered a dozen oysters. The man also wanted to know right

then what was to be ordered for the following course. I in dicated a standard something or other. Then hereturned with the news that they were out of that. So I looked over the menu at the other courses under the

same section, seemed about to order one when the name of another above it caught my eye, until I hadreached the top of the list. It was not out of gluttony, though, but rather a quite pronounced politenesstowards the entrs, which I didn't want to insult by disregarding them. In short, I got stuck on a pt de

Lyon. Lion pt I thought, laughing facetiously as it sat before me nicely on a plate, and then disdainfully:this delicate rabbit --or chicken meat-- whatever it may be. To b e sated on a lion would not have seemed atall out of proportion to my lion appetite. Besides, it was secretly all settled that I would go to another

restaurant after I'd finished at Basso's (that was around 10:30) and have dinner a second time.

First, however, [was] the way to Basso's. I glided along the quayside and read one after another the namesof the boats docked there. At the same time I was overcome by an incomprehensible cheerfulness, and I

smiled in the face of all the first names of France there in a row. It seemed to me that the love which waspromised to these boats along with their names was wonderful, beautiful and touching. Only one calledAero II, which reminded me of aerial warfare, did I pass over unaffably, just as I'd been forced to avert myglance from certain overly deformed faces in the bar which I'd just come from.

Upstairs at Basso's the tricks commenced for the first time when I looked down. The square in front of theport was, to put it best, like a palette on which I mixed the local colors at random, probing this way and

that, irresponsibly if you will, but like a great painter who views his palette as an instrument. I wasextremely reluctant to partake of the wine. It was a half bottle of Cassis, a dry wine. A piece of ice swamin the glass. It was, however, exquisitely compatible with my drug. I had chosen my table because of the

open window through which I could glance down at the dark square. And when I did so from time to timeit had the tendency to alter itself with each person who set foot on it, as if it formed a figure [in relation] tothe person which, mind you, had nothing to do with how he saw it, but rather was closer to the view of the

great portraitists of the 17th Century who cast persons of title in relief by positioning them in front of

porticos and windows.Here I must make this general remark: the solitariness of such a rausch has its shadow side. To speak of

the physical aspect alone, there was a moment in the port tavern when a severe pressure in my di aphragmsought release in humming. Furthermore, there's no doubt that many a beautiful and illuminating thing

remains dormant. But on the other hand, the solitariness acts in turn as a filter; what one writes down the

next day is more than an enumeration of sequential events. In the night the rausch stands out withprismatic edges against everyday experience. It forms a kind of figure and is more memorable than usual.I should say, it contracts and in so doing fashions the form of a flower.

To get closer to the riddle of bliss in rausch one must reconsider Ariadne's thread. What delight [there is]in the mere act of unwinding a skein. And this delight is quite profoundly related to the delight of rausch,as it is to the delight in creative work. We go forward: but in doing so not only do we discover the bends

of the cavern in which we venture forth, but rather we savor this happiness of discovery by virtue of thatother rhythmical bliss which comes from unraveling a skein. Such a certainty from the intricately wound

skein that we unravel - is that not the happiness of at least every prose form of productivity? And underhashish we are prose beings savoring at the peak of our powers. De la posie lyrique --pas pour un sou.

At a [public] square off the Cannebire where the rue Paradis runs into promenades, an all-engrossingsensation of happiness came over me which is harder to get a grasp of than everything prior to this point.Fortunately, in my newspaper I find the sentence: " By the spoonful one must draw sameness [das Gleiche] out of reality ". Numerous weeks prior to this I'd read a sentence by Johannes V. Jensen which seemed to

say something similar: "Richard was a young man who had a sense for everything in the world of the same

kind." This sentence had quite pleased me. It now enabled me to confront the political-rational sense that ithad for me with yesterday's experience of a individual-magical one. Whereas Jensen's sentence meant forme that things are, as we certainly know, so thoroughly mechanized [and] rationalized that whatever today

is particular lies hidden in the nuances only, the insight yesterday was completely different, namely, I sawnuances alone; and they were the same. I became inwardly engrossed in the pavement in front of me. Bymeans of a kind of salve - magic salve- that I glossed it over with, so to speak, this very same pavement

could have been Parisian pavement. One often talks about stones for bread. Here these stones were thebread of my imagination, which thereupon had suddenly become voracious to taste that same something of

all locales and countries. During this phase as I sat in the dark, the chair against the wall of a house, therewere fairly isolated moments of [an] obsessive character [Suchtcharakter ]. I was immensely proud to

think of sitting in Marseilles here on the street in a hashish rausch ; certainly who else shared my rauschhere, on this evening, how few. As though I were not capable of sensing the danger of approachingmisfortune and loneliness, the hashish was ever to remain. In this thoroughly intermittent stage a nearbynightclub's music, which was following me, played an extraordinary rle. [It] was p eculiar how my ear

made a point of not recognizing "Valencia" as "Valencia". [Gustav] Glck[16]drove past me in a taxi. Itwas a fleeting moment. It had been strange, just as, earlier, [Erich] Unger[17]had suddenly emerged outof the shadows of the boat on the quay from the form of a harbor dead beat and pimp. And when Idiscovered some such literary figure again at a nearby table at Basso's, I said to myself that I had finallyfound out what literature was good for. But there were not only familiar figures. Here in the stage of the

deepest reverie, two figures - philistines, vagrants, who knows - passed by me as "Dante and Petrarch"."All men are brothers." Thus began a train of thought which I can no longer follow. But its final segmentwas certainly much less banal than its first, and led perhaps into animal imagery. But that was at a stage

other than the one at the port, from which I find the short note: "Acquaintances only and beauties only " --

namely, the passers-by."Barnabus" stood on an electric tram which briefly came to a stop in front of the square where I was

sitting. To me, though, the sad and desolate story of Barnabus seemed no bad destination for a tramoutward bound for the city limits of Marseilles. Around the door of a dance-hall a very beautiful scenewas taking place. Every now and then a Chinese man in blue silk pants and luminous rose-colored jacketemerged. That was the doorman. Girls made themselves conspicuous in the doorway. I was in a very

contented mood. It amused me to see a young man with a girl in a white dress coming out and to jump tothe conclusion: "She gave him the slip in there in her chemise and he's claiming her back to him again.

That's it." The thought of sitting here in a center of every revelry flattered me, and by "here" I was notreferring to the city but to the little, by no means eventful spot where I was sitting. But the manner inwhich the events occurred was such that the outward appearance touched me with a magic wand and I

became engulfed in a dream about it. At such times people and things behave like those stage props andmannequins made out of elder pulp in the glazed tin-foil crate, which become galvanized by rubbing theglass and with each movement involuntarily enter into the most bizarre relationships.

The music, which meanwhile continued to blare and subside, I called the straw scourge of jazz. I've

forgotten the reasons with which I p ermitted myself to tap my foot to the beat. That goes against myupbringing, and it did not happen without inner conflict. There were times when the intensity of the

acoustic impressions crowded out all the others.
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Most of all, it was the din of voices, and not the streets, which drowned out everything in the little port

bar. The strangest thing about this noise of voices was that it sounded entirely like dialect. The people ofMarseilles suddenly did not speak a good enough French to me, you might say. They had stopped short atthe dialect stage. That phenomenon of alienation, which may be implied, and which Kraus has formulated

with the fine adage "The closer one looks at a word, the further away it looks back" appears to refer tothings here, too. At any rate I find among my entries the astonished note: "How things r esist one'sglances."

The effects wore off when I crossed the Cannebire and finally turned the corner to have just a little icecream in a small Caf des Cours Belsunce. It was not far from that other, first caf of this evening where

the lover's bliss which the contemplation of some fringe ru ffling in the wind imparted suddenly convincedme that the hashish had begun to take effect. And when I recall this state, I'd like to think that hashish, in

relation to nature, possesses the force and power of persuasion to allow us to recapture the greatsquandering of one's own existence, which we savor when we're in love. For when we are in love for thefirst time and our existence slips like gold coins through nature's fingers, which cannot hold on to themand must lavishly spend them in order to obtain the new being, the new-born, then, without hoping or

expecting a thing, she flings us with both hands full toward existence.

* * *Return to Protocol Index

Protocol V:Walter Benjamin: Hashish Beginning of March 1930

A divided, ambivalent course of events. A positivum: the presence of Gert,[18]who through apparentlyquite extensive experiences of this sort (hashish was obviously something new to her) became a force

boosting the effects of the toxin. Just how much, to be discussed later. On the other hand, a negativum:insufficient effect upon her and Egon, due perhaps to the inferior quality of the preparation, which was not

the same as the one I took. Not being sufficient, Egon's narrow lodgings were entirely inadequate and sucha poor nourishment for my dreams that I kept my eyes shut for almost the entire session. This led toexperiences which were completely new to me.If contact with Egon was nil, when not negative, then contact with Gert had too sensual a hue to make a

purely filtered intellectual yield of the undertaking possible.Nonetheless, I see from certain notes of Gert that the rausch was so deep that the words and images have

vanished from me at a particular stage. Since contact with other people, moreover, is essential to attainintellectually and linguistically articulated utterances, it can be inferred from the above that the insightsthis time were out of proportion to the depth of the rausch and the enjoyment, if you will. All th e more

reason to emphasize just what it was that seemed to b e the core of this session, not only in Gert's notes butaccording to my own recollection. These are the pronouncements I made about the nature of the aura.Everything I said th en was pointed polemically at the theosophists, whose inexperience and ignorance I

found highly obnoxious. And in opposition to the conventional, banal notions of the theosophists, I posited

three aspects of the genuine aura, albeit unsystematically. First of all, the genuine aura appears in allthings, not just specific ones as people imagine. Secondly, the aura changes completely and fundamentally

with each movement made by the object whose aura it is. Thirdly, the genuine aura can in no way bethought of as the immaculate, spiritualistic magic ray as depicted and described in vulgar, mystical books.On the contrary, the distinguishing feature of the genuine aura is: the ornament, an ornamental periphery[Umzirkung] in which the thing or being lies fixed, as if confined in a sheath. Nothing conveys asaccurate a conception of the genuine aura as van Gogh's late paintings, which could be described as allthings painted with their accompanying aura.

From another phase. First experience I had of audition colore. I was not very attentive to what Egon saidbecause my hearing immediately converted his words into the perception of colorful, metallic glitterwhich coalesced in patterns. I made this understandable to him by comparing it to the knitting patterns

which we loved as the beautiful colored plates of"Herzblttchens Zeitvertreib" [Darling's Diversions]when we were children.Even more remarkable perhaps is a later phenomenon connected to how Gert's voice sounded to me. That

was at the moment when she gave herself a shot of morphine, and I, not having had any knowledge of the

effects of this drug aside from what I'd read in books, was able to describe her state to her in a fullypenetrating and accurate manner based --as I myself maintained-- on her intonation. Otherwise, this turn

of events --Egon's and Gert's veering off into morphine-- was, to a certain extent, the end of theexperiment for me; but a highlight as well, I must admit. It was the end because the enormous sensitivity

evoked by the hashish threatened to turn every inability to be understood into a source of suffering, which

I suffered then, too, since "we had parted ways from each other". At least that is how I formulated it. Itwas a highlight because of this subdued but persistent, sensual relation to Gert which I now felt as shefiddled with the syringe (an instrument to which I have a considerable aversion), nor could I help being

influenced by the black pyjamas she wore --for this whole relation then took on a black hue, to which herrepeated and stubborn attempts to induce me to take morphine were unnecessary for her to appear to me asa kind of Medea, a lady poisoner from Colchis.

Some remarks on the characteristic of the zone of vision [Bilderzone]. If while talking to someone wenotice that this person is smoking a cigar or pacing back and forth in the room, etc., it comes as no surprise

to us that, being unconscious of the effort we expend in speaking to him, we are still capable of followinghis movements. An entirely different picture is presented, however, when the images we see before us

while speaking to a third party have their origins within ourselves. In ordinary states of consciousness thisis, of course, not an issue. On the contrary, suppose such images arise, even arise incessantly, theynonetheless remain unconscious. In the hashish rausch the situation is otherwise. It is possible, as thisevening proved, for a virtually tumultuous production of images[19]to take place independently of anyresidual fixation and orientation on the part of our attention. Whereas images arising spontaneously in

ordinary states, of which we are not in the least aware, remain for that very reason unconscious, theimages in hashish obviously do not require our attention at all for them to show themselves to us. To besure, the production of images can unearth such extraordinary things so fleetingly and with such rapidity

that we cannot manage to pay attention to anything else on account of the beauty and peculiarity of thisworld of images. Such was the case that --as I now formulate it in a lucid state with a certain proficiencyin imitating hashish formulations-- every word of Egon's I heard detained me from an distant journey. As

for the images themselves, I can no longer say much more than that they were small in scale, for theyappeared and disappeared with tremendous rapidity. They were essentially objective, but often with a

considerably ornamental overlay. Things with such an overlay are preferred: masonry, or example, orarchways or certain plants. At the very beginning I formed the word "Strickpalmen"["Stitchpalms"] to

designate what I saw. Palms with a certain amount of meshwork, like petticoats, I explained. Then entirelyindistinguishable images like those familiar to us from surrealist painting. For example, a long gallery ofsuits of armor which concealed neither soul, nor heads; instead flames played around the opening at theneck. A terrific peal of laughter from the others was released by my "Decline of the Art of Cake-Baking."

The matter was as follows: for a time giant, larger-than-lifesize cakes appeared to me. Like standing infront of a lofty mountain, the cakes were so gigantic that I could only see part of them. I launched into

detailed descriptions of how such cakes were so consummate that it was n ot necessary to eat them, forthey immediately stilled all appetite through the eyes. And this I called "vision bread" [Augenbrot,literally "eye bread"]. Just how I happened to coin this phrase, I can no longer recall. But I believe that I'm

not mistaken when I construe it in the following way: nowadays one is required to eat the cake and thereinlies the blame for the decline in the art of cake-baking. The coffee which was poured into my cup I treatedanalogously. For a good quarter of an hour I held the cup full of coffee suspended in my hand, explaining

it as being beneath my dignity to drink from it, and I transformed it, to a certain extent, into a sceptre.

How one can speak of the hand's need for a sceptre in hashish. This rausch was not very rich in coinages. Irecall a "Haupelzwerg"[20], a concept which I tried to convey to the others. More intelligible is my reply

to one of Gert's utterances, which I took up with my customarily unbounded disdain. And the formula ofthis disdain was: "What you say means as much to me as a Magdeburg rooftop."Particularly striking was the beginning, in the first phases of the rausch, when I compared things to theinstruments of an orchestra which are tuned before the p erformance begins.

* * *


Protocol VI:Walter Benjamin: On the Session of 7/8 June 1930

7/8 June 1930. Extremely deep hashish depression. Felt passionately in love with Gert. Left completely

forlorn in my armchair; agonized at her being alone with Egon. And on top of everything, he is unusually

jealous as well; continually threatened to throw himself out the window were Gert to leave him. But that isjust what she didn't do. Certainly the solid foundations of my sorrow were already there. Two days ago, a

fleeting chance occurrence at becoming better acquainted which revealed just how much my sphere ofactivities has in fact narrowed, and not long before that (a piano upstairs is bothering me) the noteworthy
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8/14

night with Margarete Kppke, who insisted so much on my being a child that I distinctly gathered how

much she intended the opposite of man with the word, and who impelled me so much towards my ownkindred. I found at least three of the components in Bloch's formula: poor, old, sick and forsaken to beapplicable to myself. I have doubts whether things will turn out well for me. As for country, locality and

position, means of living, the future holds only the most uncertain prospects for me. Many friends, but Ipass from one hand to the next. Many accomplishments, but none to make a living from and many whichare a hindrance to my work. It was as if these thoughts wanted to hold me captive; and this time they did

so, too, with ropes, so to speak. How inclined I was to see revelations behind all of the insulting thingsGert said, which she read from my face, and to make Kppke's riddles with dates and warnings my own. I

am so sad that I must practically indulge myself uninterruptedly in order to live. However, I was also quitedetermined to let Gert indulge me. As she danced I drank in every line which she set into motion, and

what all couldn't I say about this dance and this night if Satan himself were not playing piano upstairsthere. I spoke while I was watching her with the conscious sense of borrowing much from Altenberg[21];words and figures of speech of his, perhaps, which I myself had never read in his writings. While she wasin the midst of her dance I tried to describe it to her. The most exquisite thing was that I saw everything in

this dance, or rather, such an infinite amount that was clear to me; everything would be inconceivable.

What is the inclination of all the ages for hashish, of the Kaffir himself or many words, thoughts, sounds --of Africa or of the ornament, for example, compared with the red Ariadne's thread which offers us thedance through its labyrinth. I allowed her every opportunity to transform herself in essence, in age, in

gender. Many identities spread over her back like fog over the night sky. When she danced with Egon shewas a slender boy in b lack attire. Both of them cut an extravagant figure through the room. Apart, she wasquite in love with herself in the mirror. The window in her back stood black and empty. In its frame the

centuries receded in a backwards motion while with each of her gestures --so I said to her-- she either tookup a fate or let it fall, twisted it around her, coiling herself tightly into it, or strained after it, let it lie there

or leaned amiably close to it. What odalisques do when they dance before Pashas, Gert did for me. Butthen this flood of insulting words erupted from her which she seemed to have pent up just before the final

wildest outpouring. I had the feeling that she was r estraining herself, holding back the worst, and in sothinking I would certainly not have deceived myself. Solitude then followed, and hours later the attempt ofbrow and voice to console, but by that time my grief within the recesses of the sofa bastion had intensifiedtoo much and I was not to become rescued. Thereupon the most unspeakable faces drowned along with

me, [and] nothing, almost nothing [would have] made it across to safety were there not floating on thesurface of this black flood the peak of a gothic church spire made of wood; wooden spire trimmed with

colorful, dark green and red panes.* * *


Protocol VII:Egon Wissing: Protocol to the Experiment of 7 March 1931

W[alter] B[enjamin], a capsule at 9 o'clock, first effect 11 o'clock. Lying d own, with eyes closed most ofthe time, completely calm. My entries concluded at 1 o'clock. Approx. 1/4 hr. after the effects set in he

sticks his index finger straight up in the air; retaining this gesture unchanged for at least an hour.A depressive and euphor[ic] element continuously struggled with one other. It was probably not thisconflict alone, however, which led to the difficulty or impossibility --felt negatively by the test subject-- ofmaking any progress within the rausch toward the construction of thoughts; rather, the effects of the

Eukod[al][22], which subject took at 10:30 (0.02 subcutaneously), certainly played a part as well. Anadditional feature belonging to the general characteristic [is] that toys or colorful children's pictures thrust

themselves to the fore again and again.Subject repeatedly makes vain initial attempts to meet the rausch halfway; the left bedroom windowplayed a part in this context, just before the blue of the night sky assumed an unusual intensity and

sweetness under the influence of the h[ashish], which accounts for the explanation later that the windowhad "something of the heart...""Crouching windmills from a children's book," agricultural images also returned later. There was an

excursus about the "field drum" ["Ackerwalze"] with ironic allusions to the Osthilfe[23]. The field drum,whose crank lies deeply hidden in the grain, is turned by a goblin and effects the ripening of the seed.His raised arm, or rather hand, "disguises itself" covered with varicolored glazed paper. The subject

explains that his arm is "a look-out tower - or rather a look-in tower --images go in and out-- he feels nopain."

It is at this phase that I am telephoned and my medical services are urgently beckoned by a neighbor

woman who lives on the same floor. I promptly put myself in some semblance of order, stand up, wherebysubject seems to be extremely unhappy and utters: "Don't leave me alone," etc. I stay for about 10 minutesand return afterwards. Subject is lying in exactly the same position, the index finger still pointing

vertically. He indicates that I have been very neglectful.From subject's later pronouncements and recollections arose the particularly impressive image of astaircase, which was later an "ice staircase" whence an extract appeared in the spiral form of a smaller than

life-size winding staircase upon whose every step along the outer wall a tiny, delicately colored doll-likefigure appeared to be melting away, which the test subject called "little doll man", conscious that he was

vulgarizing the state of affairs in a philistine manner. Later there was also talk of a "little doll woman". Allof it entirely fanciful, smaller than life-size.

There now came a period in which vegetable forms stood in the foreground. These mental images[Vorstellungen, representations] were accompanied to some extent by a sadistic primary feeling. In thiscontext extremely tall trees which were slender and strictly symmetrical in form played the main part. Itdid not take long before these trees became metallic. The test subject gave to one of them the following

explanation: the rigidness and immovableness of this tree does not at all belong to its original nature,

which had once been something full of life. One still recognizes it in the beating of both great wings, tothe right and left beneath the treetop. (Hence a variant of the Daphne motif to some extent). According tothe subject, the trees make snapping movements, they become "Schnap-trees"[24], called "little Zopper-tree"[25]in an earlier context. (Compare this to what was said about the "little doll man").--The leitmotifs of the following sequence of images have been designated by the test subject himself as"heraldic". At the same time the image of rhythmically animated surfaces of water first appeared, which

lasted for a longer time. The visual mirror-relation of heraldic emblems, the shifted correspondence whichoccurs just like crests [Wappen, also "coats of arms"] in the mirror-images of the water, becomesexpressed by the subject with the verse:"Wellen schwappen -- Wappen schwellen"

["Waves are splashing - Crests are swelling"][26].This word order came as the finally satisfying one after numerous other attempts. The subject set greatstore by this verse, in the conviction that here the same mirror symmetry that dominated the images ofcrests and waves also came to light in language --though certainly not by imitating, but rather in original

identity with the optical image. The subject holds forth insistently: "quod in imaginibus, est in lingua".The water continues to dominate the image-world. The mental image of the sea which the waves were

based on recedes, however, into the image of currents. Its water actually never comes to light, i.e., it iscovered over in layers of fruit -like patterns, later plainly fruit, predominantly berries, which lie stratified intiny tartlet-like boats, which slide from one into the next. The subject speaks of "Beerenwiegen" [berry-cradles], "Zipwiegen" [onion-cradles][27]or "garden-fruit cradles" as well. -- "All the seas and riversfilled with little fruit cradles." The vegetable forms were finally transformed into garlands, there was talkof a "science of garlands."

It seemed that a period of deep reverie (Versunkenheit , immersion) then followed, from which theoriginal protocol has retained the sentence: "One hears not with the ears alone, but also with the voice."The subject elucidates the sentence: in the rausch the voice is not only a spontaneous but also a receptive

organ; by speaking it explores, as it were, that whereof it speaks. For example, when speaking of the stonesteps of a staircase, the voice mimetically receives the hollow spaces of the porous stone in its ownsonority.An image without any controllable context arises: fishnets. "Nets spread over the whole earth before the

end of the world." The world thereby empty of human beings, grey.A short period of oriental images followed: "Elephants, changing pagodas. The legs of the elephants sway

like fir-trees."A wood appears to the subject. He explains somewhat ironically that people are always speaking about theallure of the woods. Well, why do the woods lure them, then? One can experience this with Mexicans. To

the Mexican, going into the woods means to di e. That is the reason why the woods allure."Test subject explains that he's having a "bad rausch". He blames the morphine for his "demoralization".By demoralization he means a small output of knowledge yielded in the rausch. Accordingly, somewhat

later on the subject explains that he's had "no proper rausch at all, rather a decorative rausch and sales

rausch." [Zierrausch und Reklamerausch]."Grotto made of fretwork", "fretsaw-nose" ["Laubsgenase"][28]and then with an alteration of the

consonants "Laufsgespiel"In this connection then was the tale about the field-drum (see above).
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Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish, Opium and Mescaline