The Cactus and the Beast Page | 1 The Cactus and the Beast: Investigating the role of peyote in the Magick of Aleister Crowley There is the Snake that gives delight And Knowledge, stirs the heart aright With drunkenness. Strange drugs are thine, Hadit, and draughts of wizard wine! Aleister Crowley, ‘AHA!’ Patrick Everitt 10849696 [email protected] M.A. Western Esotericism (Thesis) University of Amsterdam 2014-2016 Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Wouter J. Hanegraaff Dr. Marco Pasi Patrick Everitt 10849696 M.A. Western Esotericism (Thesis) [email protected] University of Amsterdam 2014-2016 The Cactus and the Beast Page | 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter 1 – The Great Beast ...................................................................................................... 6 The Invisible College ................................................................................................. 7 Prophets and Angels .................................................................................................. 8 The Birth of a New Aeon ......................................................................................... 11 Drugs and Magick .................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2 – The Divine Cactus ................................................................................................ 15 Native Peyotism ....................................................................................................... 18 Early Peyote Research ............................................................................................. 20 Early Ethnographic Studies of Peyote ..................................................................... 22 Wiley, Prentiss & Morgan, and Mitchell ................................................................. 24 James, Ellis, Symons, and Yeats .............................................................................. 26 From Heffter, through Hofmann, to Huxley ............................................................ 28 Chapter 3 – Alchemical Experiments ...................................................................................... 31 Explicit Material ...................................................................................................... 31 The Experiments of 1907 ......................................................................................... 34 The Drug that Giveth Strange Vision ...................................................................... 36 Hundreds of Experiments ........................................................................................ 38 The Elixir ................................................................................................................. 41 The Peyotism of Aleister Crowley ........................................................................... 42 Chapter 4 – Magick, Strange Drugs, and Draughts of Wizard Wine ...................................... 46 Astral Projection ...................................................................................................... 46 Invocation ................................................................................................................ 47 Revelatory Visions ................................................................................................... 48 Praeterhuman Communications ............................................................................... 51 Patrick Everitt 10849696 M.A. Western Esotericism (Thesis) [email protected] University of Amsterdam 2014-2016 The Cactus and the Beast Page | 3 Peyote Ceremonies and Spirit Guides...................................................................... 55 Peyote and Magick ................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 5 – Half Known, Half Concealed ............................................................................... 57 Blinds and Veils ....................................................................................................... 58 Secrets and Lies ....................................................................................................... 62 Algeria and Liber 418 .............................................................................................. 64 Mexico and Liber 418 .............................................................................................. 68 Chapter 6 – Liber Legis and the Key of AL ............................................................................. 74 Peyote in Cairo? ....................................................................................................... 74 Peyote Patterns ......................................................................................................... 75 93 and 31 .................................................................................................................. 77 Liber AL and Liber 31 ............................................................................................. 78 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 81 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 86 Primary Sources ....................................................................................................... 86 Secondary Sources ................................................................................................... 91 Appendices ............................................................................................................................. 102 Appendix I – Liber LV: The Chymical Jousting of Frater Perardua ..................... 103 Appendix II – El Boazeo, December 1894 ............................................................ 109 Appendix III – The Double-Headed Eagle (Huichol and Scottish Rite) ............... 110 Appendix IV – Huichol Art and J.F.C. Fuller’s Art .............................................. 111 Patrick Everitt 10849696 M.A. Western Esotericism (Thesis) [email protected] University of Amsterdam 2014-2016 The Cactus and the Beast Page | 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Wouter Hanegraaff and Marco Pasi, for their assistance with my thesis research and throughout my studies at the University of Amsterdam. I must also thank the following people who all kindly agreed to read the first draft of this work and give feedback: Brian Conniffe, Martin Dražan, Paul Feazey, Sarah Kennedy, Keith Readdy, Judith Sudhölter, Gellért Tóth, Colin Walsh, and Jake Winchester. Furthermore, I would like to thank Dr. Richard Kaczynski for taking the time to correspond with me about particular issues related to my research. I must also thank the countless friends, colleagues, and teachers whose companionship throughout each stage of my education has consistently proven a treasure of immeasurable value. And finally, I am eternally grateful to my family, whose loving support and boundless generosity are the blessings which have allowed me to pursue the paths I have chosen. Patrick Everitt 10849696 M.A. Western Esotericism (Thesis) [email protected] University of Amsterdam 2014-2016 The Cactus and the Beast Page | 5 Introduction This thesis tells the story of the relationship between two of the most controversial characters in the history of modern religion. On the one hand, we have Aleister Crowley, the self- proclaimed ‘Great Beast 666’ and ‘prophet of Thelema’, once branded by the tabloid newspapers of his day as ‘The Wickedest Man in the World’. On the other, we have peyote, the mescaline-containing psychedelic ‘Divine Cactus’, worshipped as a god and consumed as an intoxicating sacrament for millennia by a number of Mexican and Native American tribes. It is well known that Crowley was one of the first Europeans to experiment with peyote and that he used it in his magical ceremonies. Nevertheless, while a number of valuable academic studies have already been written about Crowley’s life, thought, influence, and magic, there are no works of scholarship which examine his relationship with peyote. The purpose of this thesis is to redress this situation by bringing together as much evidence as possible and exploring the following question: what role did peyote play in Aleister Crowley’s magick? As we shall see, he primarily used peyote to attain visionary contact with the spiritual entities that, according to him, oversaw his spiritual evolution and guided him through the development of Thelema, the new religious movement he founded in the first half of the twentieth century. The first chapter shall outline Crowley’s life and magick, particularly his ‘occult career’ and his early encounter with ceremonial drug use. The second shall provide an overview of the history of peyote, its discovery by modern science, and the reactions of the first Westerners to experience its remarkable effects. Crowley’s own experiments with peyote shall be outlined in the third chapter, while the fourth shall examine the particular forms of magic that he combined peyote with. The fifth shall investigate the