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The Book of the Damned

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

February 7, 2024



In the early 1900s, Charles Fort 1 wrote "Book of the Damned 2 ," in which he mentioned how science is an attempt to systemize our knowledge while keeping basic assumptions in mind. Any data that does not serve to substantiate those assumptions is "damned," i.e. ignored. But Charles Fort "didn't know from damnation." Since his day, the Drug War has damned a whole pharmacy worth of evidence by pretending that psychoactive substances have no positive uses for anyone, anywhere, ever. Click the links below to listen to and/or read this classic book3.

By the way, Wikipedia's summary of this book is insufficient, to put it mildly.

Wikipedia tells us that "the book is historically considered to be the first written in the specific field of anomalistics." But this is a very shallow book review. The book is actually a harsh satirical criticism of modern science, which as Fort believes, does not investigate anything at all -- but rather sets out to prove things that it already believes. This explains why science today ignores (or "damns," in the language of Fort) any positive stories about drug use -- because it is not interested in investigating drugs per se, but rather in establishing that drugs are bad.

This is why we have a National Institute on Drug Abuse rather than a National Institute on Drug Use. The facts about positive use -- dating back to prehistoric times -- have been damned (ignored) by modern science. Science's goal in our time is to systemize knowledge about drugs based on the assumption that drug use is always unnecessary, dangerous and bad in the long-term: in other words, science is dedicated to "proving" puritanical beliefs about drugs and ignoring the fact that all tribal peoples have used drugs, for both personal and sociological improvement, as noted by the first ethnobotanist, Richard Schultes4.

Fort's book, by the way, is quite amusing, at least to non-materialists. Here are a few of my favorite quips.



"Sometimes cannonballs are found embedded in trees. Does not seem to be anything to discuss; doesn't seem discussable that anyone would cut a hole in a tree and hide a cannonball, which one could take to bed and hide under one's pillow just as easily."

"The volume of smoke that went up (from the Krakatoa volcano of 1883) must have been visible to other planets — or, tormented with our crawlings and scurryings, the earth complained to Mars; swore a vast black oath at us."

"I think it looks very much like what I think it looks like."

"He 'identifies' this matter as sand from an African desert — but after deducting organic matter. But you and I could be 'identified' as sand from an African desert, after deducting all there is to us except sand."


Click here to read The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort.

Click here to listen to The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort.

Author's Follow-up: October 29, 2024

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up


Those interested in the philosophical implications of Fort's Book of the Damned will appreciate The New Inquisition by Robert Anton Wilson. 5











Notes for essay entitled The Book of the Damned:

1: Charles Fort Didn't Know from Damnation DWP (up)
2: The Book of the Damned continued DWP (up)
3: Charles, Fort. 2025. “The Book of the Damned.” Gutenberg.Org. 2025. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/22472/pg22472-images.html. (up)
4: Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers Schultes, Richard, 1979 (up)
5: The New Inquisition Wilson, Robert Anton, 1986 (up)




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Ten Tweets

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Drug prohibition is the perfect racist crime. It brought gunfire to inner cities, yet those who seek to end the gunfire pretend that drug prohibition has nothing to do with it.

I hope that scientists will eventually find the prohibition gene so that we can eradicate this superstitious way of thinking from humankind.

I could tell my psychiatrist EXACTLY what would "cure" my depression, even without getting addicted, but everything involved is illegal. It has to be. Otherwise I would have no need of the psychiatrist.

Drug testing labs should give high marks for those who manage to use drugs responsibly, notwithstanding the efforts of law enforcement to ruin their lives. The lab guy would be like: "Wow, you are using opium wisely, my friend! Congratulations! Your boss is lucky to have you!"

I looked up the company: it's all about the damn stock market and money. The FDA outlaws LSD until we remove all the euphoria and the visions. That's ideology, not science. Just relegalize drugs and stop telling me how much ecstasy and insight I can have in my life!!

The government causes problems for those who are habituated to certain drugs. Then they claim that these problems are symptoms of an illness. Then folks like Gabriel Mate come forth to find the "hidden pain" in "addicts." It's one big morality play created by drug laws.

Alexander Shulgin is a typical westerner when he speaks about cocaine. He moralizes about the drug, telling us that it does not give him "real" power. But so what? Does coffee give him "real" power? Coke helps some, others not. Stop holding it to this weird metaphysical standard.

Cocaine use is a blessing for some, just a little fun for most, and a curse for a few. Just like any other risky activity. We need to educate people about drugs rather than endlessly arresting them for attempting to improve their mental power!

It's amazing. Drug law is outlawing science -- and yet so few complain. Drug law tells us what mushrooms we can collect, for God's sake. Is that not straight-up insane? Or are Americans so used to being treated as children that they accept this corrupt status quo?

Psychiatrists never acknowledge the biggest downside to modern antidepressants: the fact that they turn you into a patient for life. That's demoralizing, especially since the best drugs for depression are outlawed by the government.


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Book Cover

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

This book features 150 annotated images, designed to force brainwashed Americans to confront the fact that drug prohibition is wrong. Here is what author Richard Parrish II says of the book's compiler: "The drug prohibition philosopher provides first-hand, principled, persuasive, and insightful arguments against the current drug prohibition regime..."

Purchase Your Copy
Book Cover

Diary of a Drug Fiend

This is the only full-cast recording of Aleister Crowley's 1922 classic paeon to common sense. It is the first book -- and so far almost the only book -- to stake out a philosophy of drug use that is compatible with human freedom, one in which we learn to use drugs as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity. This recording was produced by the Drug War Philosopher and your purchases help support his effort to push back against the tragically counterproductive policy of drug prohibition, in the name of human freedom and of humanity's right to heal.

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Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.

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Copyright 2026, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

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