Les Paradis Artificiels (English: Artificial Paradises) is a book by French poet Charles Baudelaire, first published in 1860, about the state of being under the influence of opium and hashish. Baudelaire describes the effects of the drugs and discusses the way in which they could theoretically aid mankind in reaching an ideal world. The text was influenced by Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Suspiria de Profundis.[1] His longtime friend and colleague Gautier also wrote reminiscences about his experiences at the Club de Hashischins, held for a time at the Hotel Pîmodan, which is where he and Baudelaire first became acquainted.[2]
Baudelaire analyzes the motivation of the addict, and the individual psychedelic experience of the user.
LegacyBaudelaire's descriptions of the hashish spell in Artificial Paradises foreshadowed other such work that emerged many decades later with intense scientific research into serotonergic psychedelics.[3]
For example: Baudelaire's cycle of reflections on the drug by the subjects of his scholarship, inspired Walter Benjamin to engage in his own hashish and mescaline protocols later on.[4]
A renaissance of interest in these early drug-experiments--inclusive of other more contemporary works by Aldous Huxley (Doors of Perception), Allen Ginsberg ("Lysergic Acid")[5], Aleister Crowley [6], Robert Graves[7], William S. Burroughs[8] etc.--became an atmospheric element of the literature of the counter-culture during the 1960's in the European and American sphere.[9]
See also- Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey (1821)
- The Hasheesh Eater by Fitz Hugh Ludlow (1857)
- List of books about cannabis
- ^ "Les Paradis artificiels". Litteratura.com. Archived from the original on 20 January 2012. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
- ^ Gautier, Théophile. "Club de Hashaschins" in Revue deux Mondes, 1 February 1846.
- ^ Osborn, Catherine (1967). "Artificial Paradises: Baudelaire and the Psychedelic Experience". The American Scholar. 36 (4): 660–668.
- ^ Benjamin, Walter. On Hashish (1927-1934). trans. Howard Eiland et. al. Harvard, 2006.
- ^ Piepenbring, Dan (2015-01-20). "Vegetable-snake Undersea Beings: A Belated Correction by Dan Piepenbring". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2026-06-10.
- ^ Re: Crowley, Aleister. Diary of a Dope Fiend.
- ^ See for example the notes on 'Magic Mushrooms' in Greek Myths (1955) which was a standard anthology used in middle-schools and high-schools during the 1950's & 1960's (eventually displaced by Edith Hamilton's Greek Mythology--perhaps precisely because of the Graves essay on mushrooms).
- ^ See for example the Yage Letters (sent to Allen Ginsberg), Junky, Naked Lunch (especially the introduction) etc.
- ^ See for example Bruce Schlain and Martin A. Lee's Acid Dreams (Grove Press, 1985), Don Lattin's Harvard Psychedelic Club (HarperCollins, 2009), see especially the notebooks and interviews of Jim Morrison etc. et. al.
- Les Paradis artificiels—Full online downloadable text.
