Club des Hashischins

The Club des Hashischins, the Hashish Club, (sometimes also spelled Club des Hashishins or Club des Hachichins), was a Parisian group who explored using drugs, mainly hashish, to get creative ideas. 

It was active from about 1844 to 1849. Some of the most important literary and intellectual people in Paris were members. They including Dr. Jacques-Joseph Moreau, Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac Gérard de Nerval, Eugène Delacroix and Alexandre Dumas, père. Monthly "séances" were held at the Hôtel de Lauzun (at that time: Hôtel Pimodan) on the Île Saint-Louis.

Gautier wrote about the club in an article called the "Le Club des Hachichin" published in the Revue des Deux Mondes in February 1846. While he is often said to have started the club, in the article he says he was attending their séances for the first time that evening.

The group dressed up in Arab clothing. They drank coffee and added hashish, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pistachio, sugar, orange juice, butter and cantharides. It was a thick, green mixture, like a jam.

Dr. Moreau wrote a book in 1846 about the cannabis and the drug taking experiments of the club. The 439 page book was called Hashish and Mental Illness - Psychological Studies. Baudelaire wrote that while the drug did give people ideas, it quickly affected their personality. They felt they could only create while under the influence of the drug.

References

Other websites
The Hashish Club 

Category:Writers from Paris
Category:Cannabis