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The relationship between addiction and culture has an ancient history, and from the nineteenth century it has become fully popularized and glamorized, starting with Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821). For De Quincey, drugs brought out what was originally there in the imbiber. Importantly, they did not in any way transform the addict. This was not considered to be magic, and it did not involve shifting the whole consciousness to an entirely new world. The notion of a fixed identity, anathema to much contemporary thinking, was only starting to disperse. Fast-forward a century and a half, and the simple equation of magic plus drugs equals popular culture can be proved from a plethora of memorable examples. There is Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) overdosing in Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994), one of many contemporary salvation narratives that concern addiction. Left to her own devices as she waits for her escort, hit-man number one Vincent Vega (John Travolta), Mia overdoses on his supply of drugs. The Tarantino Testament contains some of the Old Testament commandments, plus some more: thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not take so long micturating and giving yourself a pep talk, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not consume drugs, and thou shalt not leave your wife with another man. Vincent continues a life of crime, but his partner, hit-man number two Jules Winnifield (Samuel L. Jackson), is born again and uses overt biblical language throughout the film. When the two men are shot, they magically survive, proving the equation: magic plus drugs equals popular culture.
A certain addiction to magic in popular culture is as common as addiction to drugs is generally. David Punter’s Rapture: Literature, Addiction, Secrecy is illuminating here, with magic, rapture, and addiction overlapping. As Robin Sims explained in Transgressive Culture 1.1, Punter considered rapture as an experience which is beyond language, deranging and disorganizing language when one attempts to speak of it. Rapture is a loss of the self, a loss of control associated with absence as well as plenitude, with mystical ecstasy, and with death, addiction, and madness. Sims revealed how Punter examined secrecy and its connection with the sacred in the romanticism of William Blake, Novalis, and Friedrich Hölderlin.