In the first edition of our book, Alchemically Stoned: The Psychedelic Secret of Freemasonry, we dedicated a couple of chapters to Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry and his fascinating use of a sacramental libation of Acacia.[1] For, many species of Acacia are known to be rich sources of the powerful psychedelic compound dimethyltryptamine or DMT, an entheogen with a long history of ceremonial use among various tribes in South America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. The following excerpt is among the many expansions and additions that will appear in the forthcoming second edition of Alchemically Stoned: The Psychedelic Secret of Freemasonry.

In addition to Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite, a libation of Acacia also appears in La Tres Sainte Trinosophie, a late eighteenth century Alchemical manuscript attributed to Cagliostro.[2] MS. No. 2400 in the Bibliotheque de Troyes, La Tres Sainte Trinosophie was in Cagliostro’s possession when he was arrested in Rome. It has been described as being

“Of the utmost significance to all students of Freemasonry and the occult sciences… one of the most extraordinary documents relating to the Hermetic sciences ever compiled. Though the libraries of European Rosicrucians and Cabbalists contain many rare treasures of ancient philosophical lore, it is extremely doubtful if any of them include a treatise of greater value or significance.”[3]

Among several other cryptic Alchemical images, La Tres Sainte Trinosophie depicts within its colorful pages a mystical bird, perhaps the mythical phoenix, perched on an altar and holding within its beak a sprig of Acacia. That the sprig is indeed intended to be a species of Acacia is evidenced by the clearly defined bi-pinnate compound leaf structure, characteristic of Acacia and related species. Interestingly, even the bird here appears to symbolize the Acacia. Its beak, for example, resembles nothing so much as an Acacia thorn in both shape and color – thorns being one of the identifying traits of most species of Acacia. In fact, the first century Greek physician, pharmacologist, and botanist, Pedanius Dioscorides, who named the tree, did so after its most distinguishing feature: akakia, ‘thorn.’[4]

In section six of La Tres Sainte Trinosophie, the same wherein the bird and Acacia appear, we read:

“He handed me in a crystal cup a shining liquor of saffron hue; its taste was delicious and it emitted an exquisite aroma. I was about to hand the cup back to him after moistening my lips in the liquor, when the old man said: ‘Drink it all; it will be thy only nourishment during thy journeys.’ I obeyed and felt a divine fire course through all the fibers of my body. I was stronger, braver; even my intellectual powers seemed doubled.”[5]

Compare to the following excerpts from the Apprentice and Companion lectures of Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite, where the Acacia is referred to as being the primal matter in a very specific Alchemical operation. When properly executed, this operation results in the production of a “cubical ashlar;” that is, the result is a purified, crystalline stone or salt that has been produced from the Acacia. This stone is then dissolved into a “red liqueur,” which is afterward imbibed by the candidate for initiation.

Cagliostro’s ritual states:

“The acacia is the primal matter and [when] the rough ashlar or mercurial part has been purified, it becomes cubical …It is thus that you may bring about the marriage of the Sun and Moon, and that you shall obtain…the perfect projection. Quantum suficit, et quantum appetite[6].”[7]

“The candidate…shall drink [the red liqueur placed upon the Master’s altar, thereby] raising his spirit in order to understand the following speech which the Worshipful Master shall address to him at the same time.

‘My child, you are receiving the primal matter… Learn that the Great God created before man this primal matter and that he then created man to possess it and be immortal. Man abused it and lost it, but it still exists in the hands of the Elect of God[8] and from a single grain of this precious matter becomes a projection into infinity.

The acacia which has been given to you at the degree of Master of ordinary Masonry is nothing but that precious matter. And [Hiram’s] assassination is the loss of the liquid which you have just received…’”[9]

We suspect that the “shining liquor of saffron hue” described in La Tres Sainte Trinosophie is one and the same with the “red liqueur” mentioned in the rituals of Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite. Where the one generated a “divine fire” that coursed throughout the body, increasing strength, bravery, and intellect in its wake, the other ‘raised the spirit’ while ‘increasing understanding.’ All of these symptoms are consistent with the effects of low to moderate doses of DMT and other classic hallucinogens, e.g. mescaline, LSD, and psilocybin.

Truly, in 1966, James Fadiman and Willis Harmon conducted the Psychedelics in Problem-Solving Experiment.

“The researchers administered low doses of mescaline…to professional people (i.e., engineers, mathematicians, architects) who were highly motivated to solve a problem they had been working on for three months or more without success. Virtually all of the subjects reported making significant breakthroughs and producing solutions that were validated by independent tests and, eventually, commercial acceptance of their solutions.”[10]

A more recent study, conducted by Thomas Anderson of the University of Toronto and Rotem Petranker of the University of York, found that those who had taken “microdoses” of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and psilocybin, “scored higher on measures of wisdom, open-mindedness, and creativity…”[11]

Following the turn of the nineteenth century, Cagliostro’s manuscript would go on the influence the formation of a Masonic Lodge, Les Trinosophists, formed by Belgian Freemason J.M. Ragon whom, Manly P. Hall imagines, could have known the author of La Tres Sainte Trinosophie as a young man. According to H.P. Blavatsky,

“It is on the occult properties of the three equal lines or sides of the Triangle that Ragon based his studies and founded the famous masonic society of the Trinosophists…”[12]

Ragon writes:

“The first line of the triangle offered to the apprentice for study, is the mineral kingdom, symbolized by Tubalc:.[13] The second line on which the ‘companion’ has to meditate, is the vegetable kingdom, symbolized by Shibb:.[14] In this kingdom begins the generation of the bodies. This is why the letter G is presented radiant before the eyes of the adept. The third side is left to the master mason, who has to complete his education by the study of the animal kindgom. It is symbolized by Macben:.[15], etc., etc.”[16]

Thus, even at the heart of Ragon’s Les Trinosophists, we find a highly suggestive Alchemical treatment of Masonic symbolism reminiscent of Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite. One line in particular is worth scrutinizing: “In [the vegetable] kingdom begins the generation of the bodies.” We take this sentence to mean that it is in the vegetable kingdom, using plant Alchemy or spagyrics, where one will discover the secrets of regeneration.

Cagliostro himself even prescribed a certain Alchemical retreat for the purpose of effecting regeneration in some of his more advanced adepti. See the following ritual, which comes from an Alchemical manuscript titled Thesaurorum Thesaurus (1580), a document in use by der Orden des Gold und Rosenkreuzer, the first Rosicrucian Order to surface following the initial publication of the Rosicrucian Manifestos. For regeneration,

“the candidate will shut themself up in a house in the coutryside having a room whose windows are to the south. The operation must begin in the full moon of May; during the first sixteen days the food will consist only of light soups and tender plants and the patient will always leave the table a little hungry. The initiate will drink the May dew, collected from sprouting wheat on pure and white linen. He will begin the meal with a large glass of dew and will finish it with a biscuit or a simple crust of bread. The seventeenth day, at sunrise the candidate for regeneration must extract a palette of blood, that is to say a light blood-letting. Starting from this day, he will take some white drops of balm of azoth, six the morning and six the evening, in increasing the dose two drops by day until the thirty-second. The thirty-third day, after the same regime, he will remain in bed until the end of the quarentine. He will take a grain of Materia Prima. On first waking, after bleeding himself, he will absorb a first grain of universal medicine, he will repeat this the following days. After an unconsciousness of three hours, then convulsions, perspirations and considerable evacuations, he will change the bed linen. He will then eat some beef consomme which has had the fat removed, seasoned with refreshing and laxative plants. The following day he takes the second grain of universal medicine. A deep sleep will follow. The hair, teeth, the nails and skin will blacken and be renewed. The thirty-eighth day, bathe with the abovementioned aromatic herbs. The thirty-ninth day, he will swallow, in two spoonfulls of red wine, ten drops of the elixir of Acharat. The fortieth day, he will return home rejuvinated and perfectly recreated. Thanks to the strength thus acquired, the regenerated man will be able to ‘propagate the truth, annihilate vice, destroy idolatry and spread the glory of the Eternal.’”[17]

As to what these “white drops of balm of azoth” actually consist of, we can only speculate. If they happened to be some form of an MAOI, it would make sense that Cagliostro should allow this substance to build up in the system of the candidate prior to the latter’s reception of the “grains” of “Materia Prima” and “universal medicine.” For, the presence of MAOI in the system of the candidate would effectively activate the DMT in or Alchemically extracted from a psychoactive species of Acacia. Another possibility is that the “drops” served as some sort of purgative, purging and purifying the candidate prior to his administration of the “grains.” In either case, significantly, the purgative properties of ayahuasca and its analogues have long been touted, with the brew being known in some regions as simply “la purga,” “the purge.”

A grain is of course a unit of measurment used for dispensing drugs. We know from Cagliostro’s ritual for his Egyptian Rite that the “Materia Prima” is a species of Acacia, and the “universal medicine,” the tryptamine stone prepared therefrom by Alchemical means. Moreover, the effects of the “universal medicine,” subjective no doubt, e.g. the death and regeneration of the skin, nails, teeth, etc., are in keeping with something known in anthropology as shamanic dismemberment, a phenomenon which is extremely common to both shamanic initiation and high-dose tryptamine intoxication. Mircea Eliade explains,

“Both spontaneous vocation and the quest for initiation involve…a more or less symbolical ritual of mystical death, sometimes suggested by a dismemberment of the body and renewal of the organs…equivalent to re-entering the womb of this primordial life, that is, to a complete renewal [or regeneration], to a mystical rebirth.”[18]

Terence and Dennis McKenna added in The Invisible Landscape:

“He will lie as though dead or in a deep trance for days on end. …Invariably during this prolonged trance the novice will undergo an episode of mystical death and resurrection; he may see himself reduced to a skeleton and then clothed with new flesh; or he may see himself boiled in a cauldron, devoured by the spirits, and then made whole again [i.e., regenerated]; or he may imagine himself being operated on by the spirits, his organ removed and replaced with ‘magical stones’ and then sewn up again.”[19]

The anthropologist-cum-shaman, Michael Harner, said in his book Cave and Cosmos: Shamanic Encounters with Another Reality,

“One of the most mysterious and distinctive ways of becoming a shaman has been through experiencing the dismemberment of one’s body in an altered state of consciousness. Accounts of this kind of initiatory experience are relatively common among Siberian tribes and Aboriginal Australian people.”[20]

What we’re seeing with Cagliostro’s retreat for regeneration, therefore, is nothing shy of a sort of shamanesque Alchemical initiation, replete with an ayahuasca analogue, the motif of shamanic dismemberment, and followed by a rebirth or regeneration experience.

Notably, a species of Acacia actually did play a significant role in the Egyptian religion. Repeatedly depicted in Egyptian art, the Acacia truly was considered sacred as it was the tree wherein the body of Osiris was said to have been encased; that is, the deity was literally believed to reside within the tree. Jerry B. Brown, Ph.D., a founding professor of anthropology at Florida International University in Miami, asserts:

“there is…evidence [in ancient Egypt] of knowledge of…the acacia tree, one of the most prominent trees in ancient Egyptian art due to its association with the death and rebirth of the god Osiris. Egyptian myth attributed the rebirth of Osiris and every subsequent pharaoh to the sprouting of the DMT-containing acacia tree out of the coffin in which Osiris was buried.”[21]

Ben Christie adds that:

“Acacia nilotica contains Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT [and] is portrayed hugely in Egyptian mythology. It is referred to as the tree of life, and from under this tree the first gods of Egypt were born. Osiris, god of the underworld, rebirth, and the spirit, was also born from an Acacia nilotica tree. Osiris is also believed to live inside the spirit of all Acacia nilotica trees. …In modern archaeology of Egypt, Acacia nilotica has been found in a huge percentage of the tombs unearthed.”[22]

Perhaps the most formidable evidence that knowledge of the entheogenic potential of certain species of Acacia was in the possession of the ancient Egyptians is found in the Tale of Two Brothers, a story dating from 1200 to 1194 BC, during the 19th Dynasty of the New Kingdom, and preserved in the Papyrus D’Orbiney housed at the British Museum, which bears a striking resemblance to the myth of Osiris. In the tale, the following address is pronounced:

“And this is what shall come to pass, that I shall draw out my soul, and I shall put it upon the top of the flowers of the acacia, and when the acacia is cut down, and it falls to the ground, and thou comest to seek for it, if thou searchest for it seven years do not let thy heart be wearied. For thou wilt find it, and thou must put it in a cup of cold water, and expect that I shall live again, that I may make answer to what has been done wrong. And thou shalt know of this, that is to say, that things are happening to me, when one shall give to thee a cup of beer in thy hand, and it shall be troubled; stay not then, for verily it shall come to pass with thee.”[23]

Here, a magical Acacia “beer” is plainly discussed in terms of the soul’s immortality. Cagliostro’s fixation on the sprig of Acacia as the prima materia in his personal Alchemical brand of Egyptian Freemasonry is thus not without warrant.

John Yarker argued that Cagliostro’s Rite was lifted wholesale from Martinez de Pasqually’s Elus Cohens.

“The Rite of Cagliostro was clearly that of Pasqually, as evidenced by his complete ritual, which has recently been printed in the Paris monthly, L’Initiation; it so closely follows the theurgy that it need leave no doubt as to whence Cagliostro derived his system.”[24]

And, Pasqually’s Elus Cohen is possessed of it own potential allusions to the psychedelic experience. According to Rene Le Forestier, the incense blend used by Martinez de Pasqually and his order Elus Cohen[25] included, among other psychoactives, “spore of agaric.”[26] Members of Elus Cohen were prone to seeing “passes” of “luminous glyphs” and visions of the mysterious La Chose, ‘The Thing,’ during ritual.[27] As Tobias Churton, a lecturer at Exeter University, estimates, “The Thing was really nothing less than Wisdom personified – the divine Sophia.”[28]

Still, one would be excused for mistaking Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite for an earlier Egyptoid Masonic order founded by one Karl Friedrich von Koppen, an officer in the Prussian army, known as Afrikanische Bauherren (African Architects). According to Henrik Bogdan,

“One of the earliest propagators of Egyptian Masonry was Karl Friedrich von Koppen (1734-1797) who founded the Order of the Afrikanische Bauherren in 1767. This order was based on a short text by Koppen and Bernhard Hymmen (1731-1787), entitled Crata Repoa. In this text, the authors presented an alternative history of Freemasonry in which the first Grand Master was identified as the biblical Ham, who had immigrated to Egypt and there taken the name Menes. In Egypt Menes received a secret knowledge, which has been passed on and preserved by generations of Freemasons all the way to the eighteenth century. Allegedly, the Order of the Afrikanische Bauherren was based on this secret knowledge. The Rite comprised a total of [seven or] eleven degrees divided into three group or Temples.”[29]

Graham Hancock described the Crata Repoa as “a strange Masonic tract.”

“The Crata Repoa…purports to contain authentic reproductions of initiation rituals performed in the Great Pyramid by ancient Egyptian priests. As odd as it may seem, this peculiar ‘Egyptian’Masonic society of African Architects received the sponsorship of Frederick II…”[30]

To this passage, Philippa Faulks adds:

“These rituals are now thought to have been inspired by Jean Terrasson’s Masonic novel The Life if Sethos published in 1731, which included large amounts of information gleaned from Greek texts relating to the mysteries of Egypt. It is likely that Cagliostro was familiar not only with the novel but with the rituals then incorporated into various Masonic Lodges throughout France during the mid-1700s.”[31]

Finally, from Christian Rebisse,

“The first degree of the African Architects is that of Pastophoris. It corresponds to the apprentice grade. The disciple was initiated into the mysteries of the hieroglyphs and dressed like an Egyptian. In the second, Neocoris, he was given a caduceus and taught to cross his arms over his chest in the attitude of Osiris. In the third degree, Melanophoris, which corresponded to that of Master, he was confronted by the kingdom of the dead and placed before the sarcophagus of Osiris. The degrees of Christophorus and Balahate followed, where he was initiated into alchemy. Then came the degree of Astronomus and that of Ibis [Propheta?] which related to Hermes Trismegistus. …The order possessed a rich library and chemical laboratory. In 1773, lodges of this rite existed in Berlin, Switzerland, and France.”[32]

Like Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite, the Crata Repoa (and assumedly Afrikanische Bauherren which it inspired) is possessed of its own mystical libation. In the seventh and final degree, titled Propheta, the member was called “Saphenath Pancah, i.e., a man who knows the secrets.” He was then “given a drink, called oimellas, and told that now all trials were over.”[33]

Could Von Koppen’s mysterious “oimellas” have been an early version of Cagliostro’s entheogenic libation of Acacia? Based on an etymological analysis of the word, Heckethorn suggests that oimellas implies a combination of simply wine (oi = oinos, wine) and honey (mela, honey). While this, of course, is purely speculative on Heckenthorn’s part, it remains that both wine and honey are known to have been commonly used as carriers for entheogenic additives such as cannabis, opium, belladonna, and even psychedelic mushrooms. Honey, for example, is a known carrier for psilocybin mushrooms, while wine has a long history of being infused with all manner of inebriants.

Remarkably, according to professional Alchemist Erik J. LaPort, the method by which eighteenth century Alchemists would have extracted DMT from organic sources was a version of Paracelsus’ Primum Ens technique involving the use of ether in conjunction with – wait for it – pomegranate wine vinegar and honey![34] Oinos and mela, indeed! LaPort, explains,

“The Primum Ens technique using chloroethane or ether is perfectly in-line with European Alchemy… It matches the chemical terminology and traditions of the period in Europe under discussion. [Chloroethane or diethyl ether] is floated on a layer of honey or honey-vinegar (prior to adding this to water or wine), and evaporated [over low heat], all the plant-actives will migrate into the acidic honey or honey-vinegar layer, which can then be easily combined with water or wine to whatever ratio ones desires to finish the elixir. The ancients would have used ‘acacia honey,’ which is a light and highly translucent honey…plus either red wine or pomegranate vinegar.”[35]

If we are to believe the records of the Inquisition, Cagliostro learned of the secrets of Egyptian Masonry from a manuscript he acquired from a London bookseller named George Coston in the spring of 1777. As Crata Repoa had been published roughly a decade prior, it is perhaps likely that the manuscript Cagliostro acquired from Coston was in fact none other than Von Koppen’s Egyptoid text.

Whatever the case, it is clear that an elixir of Acacia lies at the heart of both Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite and La Tres Sainte Trinosophie – and likely of Von Koppen’s Afrikanische Bauherren and Crata Repoa. While it is common knowledge that such elixirs are central to Alchemy and Rosicrucianism, as our research in Alchemically Stoned: The Psychedelic Secret of Freemasonry is designed to demonstrate, they’re also of great import in certain corners of the Craft.

Thank you P.D Newman for another great contribution to Pansophers.

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WORKS CITED

Bogdan, Henrik. Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation. State University of New York Press. Albany, NY. 2007.

Brown, Jerry B. The Psychedelic Gospels. Park Street Press. Rochester, Vermont. 2016.

Christie, Ben. Collective Evolution. “The Egyptians

Had Their Own Version of Ayahuasca They Called ‘The Tree of Life.’” http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/05/31/the-tree-of-life-acacia-

nilotica/. Accessed Sept. 25, 2018

Churton, Tobias. The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians. Inner Traditions. Rochester, VT. 2009.

Faulks, Philippa. The Masonic Magician: The Life and Death of Count Cagliostro and His Egyptian Rite. Watkins. London. 2008.

Gledhill, D. The Names of Plants. Cambridge University Press. New York. 2008.

Hall, Manly P. The Most Holy Trinosophia. The Phoenix Press. Los Angeles, CA. 1933.

Hancock, Graham. The Master Game. Disinformation. New York, NY. 2001.

Harner, Michael. Reality Sandwich. “Our World: Shamans and Spirits.” http://realitysandwich.com/172374/our_world_shamans_spirits/. Accessed Oct. 25, 2018

Heckethorn, Charles W. The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries, Vol. 1. George Redway. London. 1897.

Laboure, Denis. Iniziaziazione Antica. “From Cagliostro to Arcana Arcanorum.” http://iniziazioneantica.altervista.org/1700-1800/cagliostro/Alchemy_CagliostroandArcanaArcanorum_[english].pdf. Accessed Oct. 25, 2018

LaPort, J. Erik. The Grand Deacon’s Instructions for Creating the Perfected Ashlar. Privately circulated.

McIntosh, Christopher. Eliphas Levi and the French Occult Revival. State University of New York Press. 2011.

McKenna, Terence. The Invisible Landscape. Harper San Francisco. San Francisco, CA. 1993.

McKenna, Terence. Food of the Gods. Bantam. New York, NY. 1993.

Newman, P.D. Alchemically Stoned: The Psychedelic Secret of Freemasonry. The Laudable Pursuit Press. Norman, OK. 2017.

Rebisse, Christian. Rosicrucian History and Mysteries. Supreme Grand Lodge of the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis. San Jose, CA. 2005.

Smith, Phillip. “New Study on Microdosing Psychedelics Shows Why Scientists Are Excited About the Potential for Promoting Human Flourishing.” Alternet. http://www.alternet.org/drugs/microdosing-psychedelics-linked-heightened-wisdom-creativity. Accessed Nov. 6, 2018.

Wikisource. Anpu and Bata. https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Egyptian_Literature/Egyptian_Tales/Anpu_and_Bata?fbclid=IwAR0oAFf9oaFVhQM6iupnjN_vtlvSVp2v058nUfxPTxS85hRQ6Ivb-wEK3rA. Accessed Nov. 25, 2019.

[1] Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite refers to the Acacia as being the primal matter in a very specific Alchemical operation. When properly executed, this operation results in the production of a “cubical ashlar;” that is, the result is a purified, crystalline stone or salt that has been produced from the Acacia. This stone is then dissolved into a “red liqueur,” which is afterward imbibed by the candidate for initiation.

[2] Some sources attribute the document to Saint-Germaine. But, as the presence of the sprig of Acacia in the document indicates, Cagliostro is the more likely culprit.

[3] Hall, p. 27

[4] Gledhill, p. 33

[5] Ibid. at pp. 53-58

[6] “Take as much as you need and as much as you have appetite for.”

[7] Faulks, The Masonic Magician: The Life and Death of Count Cagliostro and His Egyptian Rite, p. 214

[8] By “Elect of God,” Cagliostro may mean the Elus Cohen of Martinez de Pasqually, claimed by Yarker to have been the ultimate source for Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry.

[9] Ibid. at p. 225

[10] Brown, pp. 213-214

[11] Smith

[12] Ibid. at p. 29

[13] The word implied here is Tubal-Cain, the father of metallurgy. Hence its association with the mineral kingdom.

[14] The word implied here is Shibboleth, meaning ‘an ear of corn’ or ‘a sheaf of wheat.’ Hence its association with the vegetable kingdom.

[15] The word implied here is Macbenac, said to mean “son of putrefaction.” Hence its association with the animal kindgom.

[16] Ibid. at pp. 29-30

[17] Labourne

[18] McKenna, The Invisible Landscape, p. 25

[19] McKenna, Food of the Gods, p. 5

[20] Harner

[21] Brown, p. 211

[22] Christie

[23] Wikisource

[24] Ibid. at p. 175

[25] The Elus Cohen was the first real high-grade system of Freemasonry. Essentially theurgic in nature, the Elus Cohen was the ultimate source for both Louis Claude de Saint-Martin’s system Martinism, officially organized by Papus as the Martinist Order, and Jean-Baptiste Willermoz’ system CBCS, the apex of the Rectified Scottish Rite.

[26] McIntosh, Eliphas Levi and the French Occult Revival, p. 21-25

[27] Churton, The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians

[28] While the spores of A. muscaria are not psychoactive, the fact that the mushroom is referenced at all is worthy of mention. Moreover, one wonders what became of the fruiting bodies from which the spores were harvested.

[29] Bogdan, p. 101

[30] Hancock, p. 413

[31] Ibid. at pp. 41-42

[32] Rebisse, pp. 112-113

[33] Heckethorn, p. 56

[34] Privately communicated

[35] LaPort, The Grand Deacon’s Instructions for Creating the Perfected Ashlar, privately circulated