Chapter 2: The Politics of Aura and Imagination in Benjamin’s Writings on Hashish

In a letter to Gershom Scholem written in July 1932, Benjamin recounts with disappointment a list of projects that – due to the prolonged precariousness of his financial situation – remain untouched or uncompleted. He writes that amongst the books which “mark off the real site of ruin or catastrophe” is “a truly exceptional book about hashish”. “Nobody”, he cautions Scholem, “knows about this [project], and for the time being it 2 should remain between us” . However, while Benjamin’s plans for a book on hashish appear concretely for the first time in this letter, as early as 1919 he had expressed an interest in exploring the psychological effects produced by hashish and opium. Inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s writings on the topic in Artificial Paradise (which was written in