The Work
Chasing the Dragon was first published in 1980 by Hodder and Stoughton (London), co-written by Jackie Pullinger and Andrew Quicke. It is the account of Pullinger's journey to Hong Kong in 1966 at the age of twenty-two - with no mission organization, no financial support, and no specific plan - and her subsequent fourteen years of ministry in the Walled City of Kowloon, a lawless enclave of approximately 50,000 people densely packed into a few city blocks that the colonial government of Hong Kong neither administered nor policed, and which was controlled by Triad gangs and sustained by heroin addiction.
The title 'chasing the dragon' is slang for a method of smoking heroin by heating it on foil and inhaling the vapor - a practice ubiquitous in the Walled City, which was both the center of Hong Kong's heroin trade and home to thousands of addicts. Pullinger's ministry, which began with youth club work and street outreach, evolved into a practice of praying with addicts in tongues, through which she witnessed dozens of dramatic deliverances from heroin addiction without the withdrawal symptoms that characterize medical detoxification.
The book sold millions of copies and has been translated into numerous languages. It has been among the most influential missionary memoirs of the twentieth century and has inspired thousands of Christians to pursue urban mission and charismatic ministry.
Biblical Engagement
Acts 16:6-10 provides the book's structural parallel for Pullinger's calling. Paul's Macedonian vision - the man of Macedonia appealing 'Come over into Macedonia, and help us' (Acts 16:9) - is the biblical archetype of the missionary call to a specific place, received unexpectedly and followed without knowing what will be found there. Pullinger received what she understood as a divine call to go to the ends of the earth in a young people's church meeting; she describes a spiritual intuition that she should board a ship and go as far as she could go without a return ticket. The ship eventually brought her to Hong Kong.
Her calling is not to a precise destination (she knows only that she should go to Asia) and has no organizational support - no mission board, no financial backing, no contacts in Hong Kong. This radical dependence on divine guidance and provision, without the normal structures of organizational mission, is the narrative's demonstration of Acts 16's pattern: the Spirit directing missionary movement in ways that bypass normal human planning.
Acts 2:4 ('And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance') provides the theological basis for the charismatic gift that becomes central to Pullinger's ministry. After several years of discouraging work in the Walled City with minimal results, Pullinger received an experience of speaking in tongues at a charismatic meeting led by Dennis Bennett (an American Episcopalian who had helped spark the charismatic renewal). She began praying with addicts in tongues, and the subsequent deliverances - described in vivid detail - are the book's most dramatic content.
The specific claim Pullinger makes is that praying in tongues with heroin addicts enabled them to withdraw from heroin without the agonizing physical symptoms (sweating, vomiting, muscle cramps) that normally accompany opiate withdrawal. Medical professionals have disputed whether this is possible; charismatic readers have taken it as a demonstration of the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. Pullinger does not claim to understand the mechanism; she reports what she observed.
1 Corinthians 14:2 ('For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries') provides Paul's description of glossolalia as direct communication with God 'in the spirit' - a form of prayer that bypasses the rational mind and operates at the level of spiritual communion. Pullinger draws on this Pauline description to explain what she observes in the addicts who are delivered: the tongues prayer seems to work at a level below conscious intention, making possible a freedom from compulsion that willpower cannot achieve.
Luke 4:18 ('The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised') is the messianic program that Pullinger's ministry enacts. The Walled City is a literal embodiment of every category Jesus names: the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives (of addiction, of Triad control, of poverty), the bruised. Pullinger's ministry is not merely an analogy of Jesus's; it is an explicit continuation of it.
Acts 16:9 ('And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us') is evoked throughout the book whenever Pullinger describes her initial call and her subsequent sense of divine guidance in the Walled City. The pattern - a person who needs help, a divine call to come, a journey in faith without full knowledge - is the missionary archetype that structures her narrative.
Author & Context
Jackie Pullinger was born in 1944 in Croydon, Surrey, England. She studied at the Royal College of Music, London, and was preparing for a career as a musician when she felt called to missionary work. She arrived in Hong Kong in 1966 on a cargo ship, with enough money for one month's expenses, and began working as a teacher. Her entry into the Walled City was gradual, beginning with youth club work in the surrounding neighborhood and deepening as she came to understand the city's social structure.
The Walled City of Kowloon was a historical anomaly: a walled enclosure of approximately 6.5 acres that had been a Chinese military fort during the Qing dynasty and that, through a complex series of treaty ambiguities, was claimed by neither the British colonial government nor the Chinese government after 1898. The result was a lawless enclave that grew into one of the most densely populated places on earth - estimates range from 33,000 to 50,000 people in an area the size of a city block - and that was dominated by six Triad gangs, extensive heroin trade, and unlicensed medical and dental practitioners. It was demolished in 1994 after a joint agreement between the British and Chinese governments.
The charismatic renewal that Pullinger encountered was one of the most significant religious movements of the late twentieth century. Beginning in the late 1950s with neo-Pentecostal stirrings in mainline Protestant churches, and including the 1960 outpouring at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California (Dennis Bennett's parish), it spread rapidly through mainline Protestant, Anglican, and eventually Catholic churches. Pullinger's encounter with this movement in the mid-1960s gave her the theological framework and the specific spiritual practice - tongues-prayer - that transformed her ministry.
Structure and Argument
The book is structured as a memoir with the narrative logic of a call story: departure (the inexplicable call, the risky journey), arrival (the discouraging reality of Hong Kong's mission field), crisis (years of work with minimal visible results), breakthrough (the charismatic experience and its consequences), and harvest (the dramatic deliverances and the growth of a community of former addicts). This structure echoes the missionary narrative of Acts: persecution, apparent failure, surprising breakthrough, and community formation.
The Walled City is described with careful detail - its physical layout, its social organization, its Triad hierarchy, its economy of addiction - giving the reader a vivid sense of the specific place in which the mission occurs. Pullinger resists romanticizing: the addicts are often ungrateful, dishonest, and relapsing; the Triad bosses are dangerous; the poverty is grinding. The miracles (the deliverances from addiction) are set against this hard background rather than against a backdrop of easy religious sentiment.
Critical Reception
The book was enthusiastically received in charismatic and evangelical circles. It was widely used in missionary training, charismatic renewal conferences, and church youth groups. It inspired numerous Christians to pursue urban mission, to pursue charismatic gifts, and specifically to engage with the problem of drug addiction.
Sceptical readers - both secular and within the church - have questioned the specific claims about painless withdrawal from heroin. Medical professionals have noted that heroin withdrawal, while extremely unpleasant, is rarely life-threatening and that psychological and spiritual factors can significantly affect the subjective experience of withdrawal. The question of whether what Pullinger witnessed constitutes a miracle, a psychosomatic phenomenon, or a natural variation in withdrawal experience has not been definitively resolved.
Theological Significance
The book's most significant theological contribution is its demonstration - or claimed demonstration - that the supernatural gifts described in Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 12-14 are not restricted to the apostolic age but are available in the present for mission in conditions of extreme human need. This claim is the heart of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements' theological program, and Pullinger's narrative is one of its most compelling illustrations.
The book also contributes to the theology of urban mission: its detailed engagement with the specific social, economic, and spiritual conditions of the Walled City models an approach to mission that begins with the reality of the place rather than with imported programs.
Legacy
Pullinger founded St. Stephen's Society in Hong Kong, a registered charity that continues to provide residential care for former drug addicts, prostitutes, and gang members. The society has expanded to work in mainland China, the Philippines, and other parts of Asia. Pullinger was awarded the MBE in 1977 and has received honorary doctorates from several universities.
The book's influence on the charismatic renewal and on evangelical urban mission has been extensive. It has been regularly assigned in Pentecostal and charismatic Bible colleges and mission training programs. Its account of tongues-prayer as a specific tool of spiritual warfare against addiction has influenced charismatic ministry to addicts and homeless persons worldwide.
Reading Alongside Scripture
Readers should study Acts 16:6-15 (Paul's Macedonian call and his arrival in a new city), Acts 2:1-21 (the Pentecostal outpouring), 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (the gifts of the Spirit including tongues and healing), Luke 4:14-21 (Jesus's announcement of his mission to the poor and captive), Luke 15:11-32 (the prodigal son - the pattern of departure, degradation, and return that structures many of the conversion stories in the book), and Romans 8:26-27 (the Spirit's intercession in the prayer of those who do not know what to pray).
Further Reading
- David Wilkerson, The Cross and the Switchblade (1963) - the earlier and closely parallel account of charismatic ministry to gang members and addicts in New York City that prepared the audience for Pullinger's story and directly influenced her understanding of urban Pentecostal mission. - Andrew Quicke, Beyond the Walled City (1991) - a documentary account of the Walled City and its demolition, providing historical context for the world Pullinger's book describes. - Jackie Pullinger, Crack in the Wall (1989) - her account of the work that developed after Chasing the Dragon, including the expansion of St. Stephen's Society and the ongoing community of former addicts.