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THE NEW ORLEANS STATES New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A. 22 February 1931 (pages 35-36)
STARTLING REVELATIONS OF WEIRD, MYSTERIOUS CULTS THAT HAVE BROKEN OUT AROUND THE GLOBE.
BY BRUCE GRANT
Today Mr. Grant, investigator and journalist, describes and analyzes the hasheesh rites of Aleister Crowley, British mystic and religious dualist. The author also tells the extraordinary story of Amy Hudson, the shoe clerk, and her escape from the Panic mysteries, and gives an interesting account of marihuana (loco weed) societies in New York City’s Greenwich Village. The goings-on of these latter devotees include the sacrifice of a rabbit to a snake. Mr. Grant appends other fascinating details.
The inspirational qualities, which cause millions of people to band themselves into love or secret cults, are many and varied. They may spring from a distorted religious fervor, or a gesture of contempt for modern ways of living, or a real baseness of moral character, juvenile hysteria, plain tomfoolery—or dope.
Aleister Crowley, a leader in the spectacular O.T.O. cult, believed that supreme spiritual exaltation could be obtained by either excess or simplicity of living—or said he believed it. He was a modern Manichean, pure and simple. If he was sincere in his beliefs he followed the dualistic religious philosophy of the ancient Persian Manes, Mani or Manichaeus. They believe that God and Satan were equals, and worshipped both.
In worshipping his satanic majesty, Crowley threw hasheesh parties in his Washington Square apartment in New York’s Greenwich Village, celebrated the Black Mass, and took part in many forms of indulgence. In worshipping God he gave himself over to fastings, meditation and mortification of the flesh, and once even exiled himself on Aesopagus Island, in the Hudson River, without food and little clothing.
In Greenwich Village today are many disciples of Crowley’s teachings—disciples after their own way. They have formed art and literary clubs, which meet at regular intervals for the ostensible purpose of discussion and debate on the higher subjects, but in reality to indulge in bases phases of life—drugs and orgies.
These are nothing more than hasheesh, ether and marihuana cults.
That dope often figures strongly in modern cultism was shown recently in the near-tragedy of pretty Amy Hudson—a story so weird, so unbelievable, that it seems to have been snatched from fiction, which may not be, but can be made stranger than truth. In this case both the young woman and the police have sworn to its authenticity.
Amy Hudson was a clerk in a shoe manufacturing concern on the outskirts of Brockton, Mass. One day she received a customer, a French-Canadian, who asked her for a certain type of red sandal, a sort of Oriental mule, such as is worn by the odalisques f the harems. When she enquired the size of the customer, in broken English, said he would take several pairs of all sizes. But Miss Hudson could find but one pair in stock which suited the mysterious visitor. He took those and gave an order for two dozen of the same type—in assorted sizes—and left a delivery address. When the sandals had been manufactured the young woman, intrigued by the strange character of the man, decided to accompany the messenger when he delivered the footgear.
When they arrived at a tumbledown rooming house they were admitted at once. Monsieur X—— was delighted at the visit from the young woman, who naively explained she had only come to see that the order had been executed all right. He bade her be seated and gave the delivery boy a bill of large denomination, which would have to be changed. When the youth had left the man closed and locked the door and offered Miss Hudson a drink.
At first she refused. Then since he was persistent, and feeling that it would be easier to placate him, she consented.
The next thing she remembers according to her story, she was regaining consciousness in a large room filled with the fumes of a pungent Oriental incense. There was eerie, creepy music, and dancing girls in diaphanous gowns and red sandals. The host was passing among the dancers with a white powder, later identified as cocaine. Amy refused to take any, and, as her brain cleared she saw that she was standing beside a statue of the Great Goat-God Pan, at the foot of which was a bleating black goat. A knife had been placed in her hand, and she was bade sacrifice the goat to the sylvan god.
She fainted and awoke from which she described as a horrible nightmare, in the presence of friends. For her employer from the shoe plant, and others, had traced her to the house, and burst in with the police. The authorities described the cult as a “group of drug addicts,” where the celebrants eschewed the vintage of ancient days and resorted to dope to worship a pagan god.
Aside from Crowley’s hasheesh soirees, and the other parties where the burning fumes from a bowl were sniffed by certain groups for their stimulating effects, the writer recently learned of a clique of soidisant intelligentsia in Greenwich Village, where a marihuana, or Mexican loco weed, cult held forth under the guise of a literary society.
This particular group has split up now, although numerous others have been patterned after it. One evening’s activities were described by a former member.
“Every Saturday night,” said my informant, “a half dozen young men and women gathered in the studio of B———, an artist. I went there on that night with a young woman who pampered poets, and who worked as a stenographer for a birth-control organization.
“When we arrived there were already a half-dozen persons there, mostly the type one finds in New York’s Greenwich Village, clerks and college girls out for a thrill. The artist, B———, wore a robe upon which had been flecked various tints of paint, and in one corner of the room was an unfinished painting on an easel—or it may have been finished. I could not tell.
The thing that held my attention was a large case in the center of the room. In this case was a boa constrictor—the non-poisonous [illegible] of the North African religious worship [illegible] [illegible]ooism. This reptile was to figure later in the rites.
The young women were lying about on the [illegible] and in the chairs in the most unconventional of attitudes, and the young men were [illegible] about, puffing cigarettes and uttering [illegible] banalities. No liquor was served, and I [illegible] later the reason.
About 10 o’clock when everyone had been [illegible] for, B———, a tall fellow with a mop [illegible] [illegible] hair and a peculiar, wild look in his eyes came out with a tray of cigarettes—they looked like ordinary cigarettes, but were twisted [illegible] end like the home-made brand. He passed them around without comment.
My companion, who had smoked marihuana [illegible] American type of Hasheesh—showed me how to hold the cigarette to get the best effect. She lit her own and placed it between the second and third fingers of her left hand, above the [illegible] joint. Then she made this hand into [illegible] the lighted end of the cigarette outside. She draped her right hand over the other, leaving a small aperture between her two thumbs, and she placed her lips and drew in a long breath, such as an Arab might employ on a nargileh.
“The lighted end of a cigarette glowed like an ember under the bellows, and the girl closed her eyes.
“ ‘That mixes the smoke with the air,’ she explained, as she let the bluish fumes percolate through her nose and mouth, ‘and gives you the desired effect.’ She lighted my own for me and held my hands as I arranged the cigarette. I could smell the odor of the burning weed, which was not unpleasant. I took a puff, drawing it deep into my lungs. I felt no effects whatsoever. Then I took another and another, and soon I felt in a state of utter contentment, a slight tingling over my body, and did not care to make the slightest physical effort.
“But this condition quickly passed—my cigarette was but half burned—yet it had seemed some time.
“I looked about the room. The party was becoming merry. One of the girls had begun to giggle and then suddenly burst into a loud laugh. I heard an argument going on at my elbow, and turned to see two men sitting near me.
“ ‘The only reason for poets,’ one was expounding, ‘is that they hope to get pretty girls for nothing.’ ‘What does it matter?’ lazily asked the other. ‘Why, man,’ insisted the first, ‘this pretty-girls-for-nothing idea has obsessed man from time immemorial.’ ‘Oh, I’ll admit I’d rather have them for nothing,’ agreed the second. ‘I am a Socialist. I believe in everyone having everything for nothing.’
“I decided to take another puff at
the cigarette after this conversation. My throat felt dry
and parched. In a voice which did not seem to belong to me,
but which seemed to come from afar, I asked my companion
where the drinking water was to be found. She placed a hand
on my arm. ‘Don’t drink a thing,’ the words beat on my ear
drums like thunder. ‘It will burn up your throat.’
“ ‘Does everyone feel high?’ came the voice of B———, the artist, who, unlike the rest, walked about the room as he puffed his cigarette. My brain had cleared a bit and my vision, too. My hearing was unusually acute. Now I felt my normal self, but in reality I knew that I was only deluding myself with a queer sort of narcotic cunning.
“The distance across the room seemed immense. I felt a strange lassitude. As I lifted my cigarette to my lips, for I was puffing it now, it seemed to take an incredibly long time.
“The girl next to me was talking. ‘—they are going to feed the snake,” she said. Her words seemed vague, and I even imagined that I did not hear them—at first. Then I closed my eyes and flogged my brain into harness. When I opened my eyes I had shaken off some of the effects of the drug by sheer willpower.
“I watched the group before the glass cage. Then, with an effort, I arose and walked over to see what was going on. B——— came from another room with a white rabbit, and he was holding it by its pink ears. I noticed in B———‘s eyes a cruel glint, and I thought of the stories told of Mexican peons who run amuck under the influence of the loco weed.
“The artist lowered the rabbit into the cage and the frightened little creature huddles in a corner, its eyes wide and staring, its delicate nostrils quivering. The great snake slowly unwound itself, and its terrible head wove about a moment, and then its beady eyes fastened on the prospective feast. The rabbit shrank back against the glass. With a quick, lightening-like movement the reptilian head shot out. The rabbit gave a scream; the snake closed his jaws over its head. One of the girls fell back in a faint.
“ ‘[illegible] the serpent has been the symbol of mortal love for thousands of years,’ the artist was intoning. I felt a sickness come over me. I had seen enough and fled from the place.”
My informant told me that later the cult had been disbanded. The snake which had satisfied the inclinations of a morbid band of marihuana smokers, was presented to a zoo, where he is peacefully passing his old age.
The opium divans which not dot exclusive sections in New York City are frequented by a clique of fashionable folk, who have formed themselves into a sort of drug-cult. There exists in Paris, too, special opium houses, hasheesh houses and ether houses. Three opium houses for instance, are to be found in the Avenue Hoche, the Avenue Jena and the Rue Lauriston; there is an ether restaurant in Neuilly, a Paris suburb, where an ether cult gathers; and one for opium, hasheesh and ether in the Rue de Rivoli.
In these places, as in America, cultism, mingled with drug-taking and the ancient and medieval diablerie and Satanism are closely associated with the ancient and medieval practises of drug-taking—a highly dangerous combination. |