On comparing the material from House of Incest to her first LSD experience:

“The material was so like what was brought on by LSD that it proved my point that this is a world that is accessible to the poet, accessible to the artist. If we hadn’t really … belittled the poet so much, and the artist so much, we wouldn’t have needed the alchemy or the drug to reach those visions.

One of the most marvelous things which is almost undescribable and probably only happened to mystics was turning into gold. Suddenly I turned, I myself turned, became gold. It was a sensation I’ve never yet been able to describe. Except compared to making love probably… That’s one of the themes of Volume 5. And then of course it continues the struggle of the woman trying to remain a woman and yet trying to be an artist too.”

— An excerpt from Robert Snyder’s 1973 documentary Anaïs Nin Observed. [via Dangerous Minds]