Psychedelics in the Work of 6 Famed Polish Writers
Mainstream discussion of psychedelics, or psychoactive substances, is becoming more and more common thanks to new studies in medical therapy. In view of this, Culture.pl looks at the surprising links between psychedelics and six writers and poets that are household names in Poland.
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‘Autumn Flora’ by Kazimierz Stabrowski, 19th / 20th century, photo: Krzysztof Wilczyński / National Musuem in Warsaw
For those who don’t know, psychedelics are psychoactive substances which, when taken, can produce temporary effects such as hallucinations and changes in perception, consciousness and emotions. A well-known example of a psychedelic is LSD or lysergic acid diethylamide, but there are plenty of other ones. Experiences caused by psychedelics are sometimes compared to the effects of entering a deep trance or meditation.
It’s worth adding that the term ‘psychedelic’ is a mash-up of two Greek words: psyche which stands for ‘soul’ and delein which means ‘to show.’ So when you say that something is psychedelic you’re basically saying that it’s soul-revealing, that it shows a part of the psyche that remained hidden.
In many countries psychedelics are banned as illegal drugs. Nevertheless, these substances are being discussed in the mainstream more and more. For example, in autumn 2020, a group of researchers from Johns Hopkins University, published a study showing that psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound found in so-called magic mushrooms, can help treat depression. Here’s how the study, titled Effects of Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy on Major Depressive Disorder, is described at the Johns Hopkins Medicine website:
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Treatment consisted of two psilocybin doses given by two clinical monitors who provided guidance and reassurance. The doses were given two weeks apart. […] After treatment, most participants showed a substantial decrease in their symptoms, and almost half were in remission from depression at the follow-up.
Also, this year the American state of Oregon legalised the use of psilocybin in therapeutic settings. In view of developments such as these, Culture.pl decided to take a look at the links between psychedelics and Polish literature.
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‘The Apotheosis of Słowacki’ by Konstanty Górski, 1913, photo: National Digital Library Polona
We start off with Juliusz Słowacki, an undisputed classic of Polish literature and one of Poland’s most important Romantic poets and writers. Słowacki lived in the years 1809-1849 and is known for having created such pivotal works as the 1834 drama Balladyna and 1838’s poem Anhelli. The poet is also known to have smoked opium. He, most probably, used the drug as a cure for tuberculosis which he suffered from – in the 19th century, opium was legal and widely considered to help with that illness.
But Słowacki also used opium to obtain visions, ones that would – in all probability – serve as inspiration for his writing. Here’s an excerpt from a letter that Słowacki’s friend Konstanty Gaszyński wrote to Lucjan Siemieński in 1851:
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He [Słowacki] was very worn down […], in a constant fever, since as they say, he took opium to induce visions which he often described to me.
A work by Słowacki that seems to reference the use of opium is the 1832 verse novel Lambro, which tells of an 18th-century Greek freedom fighter who becomes a pirate. In the story, the hero imbibes a psychoactive poppy infusion:
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Then a clay bowl before the Greek he lands,
Hiding a coin, into the bowl he pours
A drink pressed from poppy plants
[…]
And what others dream of – he saw while awake,
Only brighter. The split apparitions trembled
With a single life, like the coils of a snake
Through his writings, Słowacki is also linked to another psychedelic: hashish. In 1841, he published the digressive poem Beniowski which is set in the 18th century and describes the travels and adventures of the Polish nobleman Maurycy Beniowski. After the death of Słowacki, a previously unpublished part of his Beniowski appeared in 1866. In that additional part of the poem, the character Borejsza smokes hashish, causing him to experience a swirling in the head. It ought to be said though, that it remains unclear whether the poet ever took hashish himself.
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‘Portrait of Władysław Reymont’ by Jacek Malczewski, 1905, Krzysztof Wilczyński / National Museum in Warsaw
An undoubted description of using opium can be found in the short story ‘W Palarni Opium’ (In the Opium Den) by the Nobel Prize in Literature winner Władysław Reymont. This eminent Polish writer, who lived in the years 1867-1925, is the author of classic novels such as The Peasants and The Promised Land. ‘In the Opium Den’ is one of his lesser-known works; it appeared in 1894, in the periodical Tygodnik Ilustrowany.
Set at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the story is about a man travelling to London by sea who convinces his travel companions to take him to an opium den once they arrive in the city. When the hero eventually visits the den, he smokes opium for the first time in his life. Here’s an excerpt from Reymont’s short story which describes how the psychedelic affects its protagonist:
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I was running through some magical worlds. I was swimming in a green beam of light. I was in the universe. Billions of stars swayed around me, like white, yellow and purple flowers. Countless whirls of flames cut through the space. I saw stars smiling. […] I was everywhere, but I could not want, I seemed to be melting, permeating, omnipresent.
It’s unclear whether Reymont ever tried opium himself. We do know that he visited London the same year ‘In the Opium Den’ was published. Regardless of Reymont’s personal experiences, his description of an opium den and the effects of smoking the opiate that can be found in his short story do seem rather convincing.
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Amanita muscaria mushrooms in the forest, photo: Adam Ławnik / East News
Some of her writing links Tokarczuk to amanita muscaria mushrooms, sometimes known as fly agaric, which are known to have hallucinogenic properties. These mushrooms appear, for instance, in her 1996 novel Primeval and Other Times, which describes life in a fictional Polish village in the 20th century making use of fantastic tropes. One of the characters in the novel, a witch’s daughter by the name of Ruta, is fond of amarita muscaria mushrooms – she observes them keenly when she spots them growing in the wilderness. She also enjoys visiting a forest named Wodenica where she has unique experiences:
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Since then she’s been coming to this damp place in Wodenica where she lies down on the wet moss. After she lies down for a while, she starts to feel the mycelium differently – because the mycelium slows down time. Ruta falls into a dream-non-dream and sees everything in a completely different way. She sees the individual gusts of wind, the flight of insects, full of slow grace, the fluent motions of ants, the particles of light that fall on the surfaces of leaves. […] Ruta feels like she’s been lying there for hours, when actually only a moment has passed. That’s how the mycelium takes control of time.
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From ‘Primeval and Other Times’, trans. MK
In her 2018 paper ‘Grzybnia Jako Metafora w Twórczości Olgi Tokarczuk’ (Mycelium as a Metaphor in Olga Tokarczuk’s Works), Anna Larenta of the Faculty of Philology at the University in Białystok argues that the above quote describes a psychedelic experience:
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Wodenica […] is abundant with hallucinogenic amarita muscaria mushrooms, so Ruta’s experiences can be treated as narcotic visions.
Also, in her 1998 novel House of Day, House of Night Tokarczuk gives a recipe for an amarita muscaria pie. It’s worth mentioning here that amarita muscaria mushrooms are poisonous and have to be carefully prepared before they can be consumed.
Tokarczuk is also linked to psychedelics through her 2016 short story ‘Late Saturday to Early Sunday’, which in a rare occurrence was published in English translation before it appeared in Polish. This humorous work depicts God on the last day of creation having a conversation about psychedelics with his neighbour. They discuss, among other things, amarita muscaria as well as magic mushrooms. The short story also touches upon opioids and LSD.
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Stanisław Lem, 1961, photo: CAF / PAP
Another important Polish writer linked to psychedelic mushrooms is Stanisław Lem (1921-2006). Lem is best remembered as a highly influential sci-fi author. Among his most noted works are the novel Solaris and his Fables for Robots collection of short stories.
In a 2003 interview conducted by Ewa Lipska, titled ‘Nikomu Się Nie Śniło…’ (No One Dreamt of It…), Lem admits that he had taken psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms:
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One time, together with the late Jan Józef Szczepański, we took psilocybin under medical supervision. […] You enter a phase of delusion, all the colours become more saturated. An ordinary cupboard turns out to be a beautiful phenomenon, filled with colours. Everything remains the same, but gains outstanding variegation. Later come changes in spatial perception. My legs were stretching far, far and away…
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From Gazeta Wyborcza, trans. MK
Lem also says in the interview that his experience with psilocybin served as inspiration for an episode in his 1976 book The Chain of Chance. In this detective novel, a retired American astronaut tries to solve a series of mysterious deaths in 1970s Naples. Toward the end of the story, the hero experiences strong hallucinations in a hotel room:
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The reflexes on the surface of the table fluttered with dragonfly wings, the table flapped into my face with grey-ribbed bat wings, their panic dulled the milk of the night lamp, the edge of the table became flabby, held, in my hands – I couldn’t escape the congestion of transformations, nor could I keep up with them, in the next hour the speed of the transfigurations became dizzying; monstrous, majestic and taunting, they blew through me like the wind, also with my eyelids closed – my eyes became redundant.
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From ‘The Chain of Chance’, trans. MK
Lem also mentions the fact that he took psilocybin in his essay Świadomość a Rozsądek (Consciousness Toward Reason), published in his 1999 book Bomba Megabitowa (Megabit Bomb).
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Photographic portrait of Zygmunt Krasiński by Karol Beyer, ca. 1859, photo: National Digital Library Polona
Another acclaimed Polish penman that mentions experimenting with a psychedelic in one of his works is Zygmunt Krasiński. Like Słowacki, Krasiński is considered one of Poland’s leading Romantic authors. He lived in the years 1812-1859 and is best remembered for his outstanding dramatic works Nie-Boska Komedia (The Un-divine Comedy) and Irydion.
In his French-written 1847 essay De l’Ether (On Ether), Krasiński describes the effects of taking ether. Back then, the substance was used as an anaesthetic for surgical operations. However, the Polish writer used ether not for medical reasons, but to discover its effect on his consciousness. He is known to have taken the psychedelic a couple of times:
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You usually go through two separate and different states. At first you experience the same thing as when you’re under the occasional impression that you’re strapped with wings and can fly through the air in a dream. You feel that you’re becoming a bird – an angel – an infinite spirit, endowed with endless might and equipped with the ability to traverse all the universes of creation and reach even God. – Later, after the impression of happiness and elation, comes the feeling of nearing eternal death.
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From ‘On Ether’ by Zygmunt Krasiński, trans. MK
In a 2017 paper, Małgorzata Karpińska of the Institute of History at the University of Warsaw mentions that Krasiński believed that ether helped him complete his 1847 poem Ostatni (The Last One). This work takes the form of a lament of a Polish political prisoner, who has been exiled to what appears to be Siberia for opposing tsarist Russia’s rule over part of Poland (throughout Krasiński’s life Poland was partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria). The following verses may provoke associations with Krasiński’s quoted description of ether’s effects:
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For your spirit is a flying guest of the Universe,
He who had before of godlike pathways dreamt,
[…]
Then you pass the moments – days – months – years
Having no hopes at all of amends
And your spirit rots for nothing in the end
Author
From ‘The Last One’, trans. MK
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Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz as ‘Professor Pulverston’, from the collection of Ewa Franczak & Stefan Okołowicz, photo: Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów
Whereas Krasiński wrote an essay on one psychedelic – ether – the next writer on our list wrote a whole book about various psychedelics and drugs. In his 1932 book Narcotics, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, also known as Witkacy, describes his experiences with nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, peyote, morphine and ether.
Witkacy, who lived in the years 1885-1939, is among Poland’s most influential artists. His diverse oeuvre includes plays, novels, paintings and photographs. He authored, for example the drama Szewcy (Shoemakers) and the autobiographical novel 622 Upadki Bunga, Czyli Demoniczna Kobieta (The 622 Downfalls of Bungo or The Daemonic Woman). He’s especially valued for his painted portraits, many of which were created under the influence of various narcotics. You can find out more about them in our article Witkacy: The Scandalising Portrait Artist.
In Narcotics, Witkacy gives a haunting description of how he was influenced by consuming peyote, a hallucinogenic cactus:
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[…] I was completely unaware that the curtain shall be raised. Finally it happened. […] I see layers of various colours and extremely exuberant greenery that seems tropical. The fight of ‘baseless monsters’ again – I unavailingly try to remember their shapes which change with every moment. They’re machine-like, but alive. Cleaning rods, top hats, kinds of caricatures of machines and locomotives compounded with monstrous insects reminiscent of grasshoppers, locusts and mantises. Machines covered with hair.
In 1930, Witkacy published the novel Insatiability which portrays a dystopian 20th century, where Africa and West Europe are under communism, while Poland, a democracy, faces the threat of a Chinese invasion. The main hero, Genezyp Kapen, takes a fictitious drug called dawamesk. In his 2013 book Encyklopedia Polskiej Psychodelii (The Encyclopaedia of Polish Psychedelia), the philosophy historian and writer Kamil Sipowicz says that Witkacy modelled his description of this drug’s effects on his experiences with peyote. Here’s an excerpt from Insatiability, showing how dawamesk affects the novel’s hero:
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[…] Suddenly the billowing curtain broke and a whirl of diamond sparks engulfed him. They began to form unknown and unfathomable objects that were fighting with each other: some combinations of machines and insects, some diabolically precisely constructed personifications of baseless nonsenses incarnated into mysterious matter, coloured brown, yellow and purple. And then this whirl suddenly ended and [he] became aware that it was only a three-dimensional curtain of a higher order, concealing another world that exists outside of this space.
It seems that it’s time to bring down the curtain on this article. Please notice that this text is by no means an encouragement to take psychedelics, it’s purely informational. We do hope, however, that you had a mind-opening read!
Written by Marek Kępa, Nov 2020
Based on Kamil Sipowicz’s 2013 book ‘Encyklopedia Polskiej Psychodelii’ published by Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej.