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The Elixir of Life: Our Magical Medicine
Aleister Crowley
A Lecture Delivered by Crowley at the National Laboratory of Physical Research on 5 October 1932 at the Request of Ghost-Hunter Harry Price
The title of my address tonight may well have caused surprise in some quarters. Magick seems to interest a great many people, and rejuvenation a great many others; but the two classes rarely overlap. It is part of my purpose this evening, however, to show that this is founded upon a misconception of the nature of both subjects. In reality, they almost coincide. Is it not written "They that sow to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting?"
I think I had better begin by giving you a glimpse of the secret initiated tradition of magick with regard to the doctrine of rejuvenation. The essential point to grasp is that, while we do not by any means regard the universe as an illusion in a sense which that word is understood by certain schools of Hindus, we hold that there exists a certain hierarchy of reality, the most spiritual rank in which is the truest perfection and reality. That form of matter which is directly perceptible by the senses, while not wholly unreal, is regarded, if I may use the expression, as the excrement of the living truth of a thing. It may be regarded in another light as circumstantial evidence of reality.
Perhaps I may make myself clearer by quoting the very practical case of a murder trial. The prisoner is charged with taking away the life of a fellow-creature, feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought. It is his spiritual condition, his motive, which constitutes the crime of murder, and the actual facts of the case are only important so far as they go to create an irrefragable presumption of his state of mind.
Now the essence of magick is the
working upon phenomena by spiritual forms of energy. We use
the laws of nature, and the materials at our disposal, in
much the same way as a painter uses the laws of light and
his colors and canvases to convey his idea of ultimate truth
to others, and by enlightening them in this way to obtain
the desired impression. It is merely a question of practice
and technique to overcome the inertia of our materials to
bring
It should therefore not occasion any surprise, least of all to the distinguished audience which I have the honor of addressing this evening, if I insist that the problem of rejuvenation can only be profitably attacked from the magical salient. It is, of course, perfectly true that we can bring about desired changes by manipulation of matter on its own plane, but from the point of view of the magician this is a clumsy and empirical method, and furthermore is liable to prove dangerous; because such operations are, in the nature of things, little better than blind guesses. To be really successful, we must study the essential qualities both of our means and of our object. We must stand outside and above them if we are to deal with them effectively, and this means the use of magical methods. After all, one of the factors in our problem is physical life itself, which can hardly be confused with the combinations of matter which give rise to it, or (at least) are commonly associated with its manifestations.
Such, briefly, are the outlines of the theory on which magicians have worked since the beginning of history.
We may now take a very cursory glance at the magical tradition itself insofar as it bears upon this problem of rejuvenation. One need not refer seriously to people like Kinu; Brahmadatta, who reigned an hundred and twenty thousand years in Benares. The enormous bulk of Oriental figures can be dismissed as symbolic, and everyone who has travelled in the East and enquired how far it is to the nearest village, will be very painfully reminded of the local lack of precision. But in the Book of Genesis we get (in the pre-diluvian genealogy) very precise figures, and, whatever the explanation may be, the ordinary one which applies to so many Biblical statements, the moral interpretation of a number according to the words which it represents, does not apply. I see no particular reason to disbelieve wholesale the general tradition of great longevity. It seems to be quite reasonable to admit that in primitive times the dangers of life were very much less than they are now. The world was emptier, life was simpler, the number of diseases was very much less. There were no regular doctors.
I cannot say that I attach any very great importance to any argument drawn from this source. The utmost that one can say is that life need not necessarily be anything like as short as the average today. Within our own generation the statistics of insurance companies show that quite slight modifications in the circumstances of a people can make very noticeable differences in the average duration of life.
To continue this historical
animadversion, there is really, as far as I know, nothing in
the Bible which indicates clearly the existence of any
secret traditional method of prolonging life. Long life is
always regarded as a blessing, but the only method of
obtaining it seems to have
Nor have my researches carried me far enough to enable me to tell you, with any authority, of what folk lore to search for the first indication of that quest of the Elixir of Life which appears so spontaneously with the alchemists; but I feel inclined to surmise that it must have existed in secret for a long period, since it comes into notice contemporaneously with the general Renaissance. There may perhaps have been some mystery concealed beneath the fables of the Greek mythology, where immortality, usually under restricted conditions, is attained by mortals; generally as a result of pleasing the gods, or of driving a hard bargain with them. In any case, the Elixir of Life became known as one of the three principal pre-occupations of alchemy, and here we come at once upon a very interesting and suggestive fact. Even today, in spite of research, it is not openly known what was the real theory of the alchemist. It seems to us absurd that a man who was trying to make gold from baser metals should have abused all his colleagues on the grounds that they were heretics or of bad moral character. But that is no longer so curious if one assumes (with one school) that the alchemists were really mystics in many cases, and were not dealing with ordinary chemistry at all, which is absurd, because their works do follow them; or with the school to which I myself adhere, the school which holds and works with the theory which I outlined in the beginning of these remarks, that matter is nothing but a sensible symbol of spiritual causes of phenomena. In other words, the alchemist dealt magically with Matter.
At this point we may reach out a hand to the East and dwell for a moment upon the general theory of Prana. Prana is usually translated "force." Perhaps energy would be a better term. We cannot say exactly what it is, but it is that which distinguishes live protoplasm from dead protoplasm. It is that by virtue of which things live and move and have their being. It is a form of energy by whose adroit manipulation one can affect the outward appearances, that is to say the physical phenomena which are its reflection in the grossest world of illusion, that is to say, the world we know.
To give a practical example. If a man is ill, they diagnose that the prana in his body is in some way out of order, and they attempt to cure him by teaching him to control his prana by means of various exercises, principally of breathing, for they claim that the principal vehicle of prana is the breath.
In the light of modern physiology, these theories do not sound as absurd as they would have done to our grandfathers. The whole tendency of physics and its soul, mathematics, in the last thirty years or more, has been to move away from the hard-headed and heavy-footed materialism of the Victorian age. The grossest qualities of any substance, not less than the most subtle, are nowadays conceived as being various modes of its motion. All the ultimate terms employed by modern thinkers to attempt to define the real nature of a thing have become infinitely subtle in conception, appreciable only by the noblest intelligences; and (even so) they are found to be definable, so much so that certain modern writers have been able to" form a daisy-chain in which no link exists except in relation to the others. This fundamental revolution in our whole habit of thought has become familiar to all of us: even the merest readers of newspapers in little paragraphs know that an element is not, as was supposed fifty years ago, an ultimate substance suigeneris. Perhaps the best way to picture an element is as an especial kind of dance rhythm. If then this be so in so gross a matter as chemistry, why should it not be even easier to apply these principles to physiology? The life of the body is in the individual cell, and it is on the harmony and interplay and on the well-being of these cells, that health depends and life itself. We come, therefore, quite quickly and quietly to the heart of the problem. We grow old because our cells fail to keep up with the rhythm of the dance of life. But there is nothing the matter with the cells themselves. During the first years of life they dance so well that their administrator increases constantly in mental and bodily stature. It is known also that the principal cause of cellular degeneration is failure to get rid of waste tissue. The cells are clogged; they are no longer as elastic as they were. A great many modern methods of rejuvenation lay special stress upon attempts to cleanse the body. You may be interested especially in one which has always been held very secret. Tonight is probably the first time that it has ever been mentioned at all except under vows of the greatest secrecy. I refer to the method of cleansing by the four elements. The waste products of the body are attacked one by one in a carefully graduated series of treatments; and, without any other assistance, a body which is not too hopelessly down the hill, is able to pick up the rhythm of youth and activity. As a matter of fact, this is merely a scientific development of what is done by all of us in empirical ways with our holidays by the sea, and our sunbathing, our cures in various Spas, our mud baths, our radio treatments, and the like. The difference is that the cleansing by the four elements does not leave any corner unvisited.
I am inclined to think that were it practically possible to live from the beginning in perfectly hygienic conditions, that there would be no need for any Elixir of Life, but unfortunately we are all so situated that circumstances are constantly forcing us into the most scandalous neglect of every precaution about health. To renew our strength as the eagle's, we are therefore compelled to go back to the Elixir of Life, and I should like to mention to you one or two cases where this subject has been dealt with in fiction.
You all remember that in Lytton's Zanoni, the adept Mejnour had gone on cheerfully living and being rude to people for many centuries; but the author is deplorably vague about what Mejnour did to produce this effect, and no one need wonder that his creator became a strikingly successful politician.
Then we have the very famous case of Althotas in Dumas' Memoirs of a Physician; and there again the only ingredient which is specified with any precision is that at the last moment the Elixir is to be completed with the three last drops of blood drawn from the body of a virgin. This, of course, links up with the tradition of ritual murder and the like, and I have no intention of going further into that widely talked of and little known subject tonight. In any case there is no attempt at a scientific explanation of the theory.
Far otherwise is the case of Claude Farrere in La Maison des Hommes Vivants. Claude Farrere is a very good friend of mine with whom I have spent many very pleasant evenings, though not entirely I am glad to say, upon pure research. But he told me much of his life in the East, of the wisdom he learned from Chinese philosophers. As I am personally convinced that no one can know anything at all until he has harmonized, I may even say identified, all existing theories of the Universe, I believe that what he puts forward in this book is worthy of the most serious attention. In case anyone here has not read it, I will just outline the essential part of the story.
A French officer, lost in a fog, encounters a very vigorous man, white-bearded, who proves to be some eighty years of age. He gives the officer shelter and introduces him to his father and grandfather, all equally alert and vigorous. The grandfather explains that he learned the secret of rejuvenation from the famous Comte de St. Germain, who was himself reputed to have lived for a number of centuries. The one important factor in his account of St. Germain is that the cause of death was really that he had been too ambitious, that he had tried to "fix" himself at the age of forty, or thereabouts, instead of later years. The idea being that at forty one lives a life which is liable to serious shocks so grave that physiology cannot be relied upon always to repair the damage. The old gentleman took warning by this disaster, made his experiment and decided to stay in the neighborhood of eighty, retaining the very fullest use of his faculties in every manner.
Now, what was the method employed by these worthy persons? They had a curious piece of apparatus, something in the nature of an enormous lens, which they put up in the middle of a large room with an armchair on each side of it. They applied some unspecified source of energy which transferred, through the lens, the living cells of the person in one chair to the person in the other, with the evident result that the giver is completely exhausted, and requires some period of recuperation before he (or she) is again fit to communicate more life. We are reminded at once, of course, not only of the old stories of vampirism, but of modern methods of transfusion of blood, and also of the methods of Dr. Voronoff. Now in this story it is not expressed in so many words, but it is subtly implied throughout, that although the actual method of rejuvenation is, prima facie, material, a great deal of psychic energy is required to make it effective.
In the three methods which I have mentioned the same thing is curiously true. Vampirism is a definitely magical art. In the transfusion of blood there must be a peculiar sympathy between the giver and the receiver. And, the operations of Dr. Voronoff might, I think, be very much more effective if he had studied what Paracelsus and Baptista Porta called Sympathy, as well as the general theory of prana.
These examples I have produced really more as "horrible examples," than as monuments of human wisdom. To the initiate such things only indicate how useless is all human wisdom unenlightened by the Spirit of Truth. The initiate constantly reads of the latest great discovery in science, and is reminded of what they taught him in the secret conclaves of the Adepts at the very outset of his studies. This is no less true of methods of rejuvenation than it is of the theory of relativity. You will find space described as "finite yet boundless" in the poem of a boy of twenty-five, published in the year 1901.All Einstein in one phrase!
The Adepts have always known how
to prolong life
We really cannot do with any more "statesmen" than we have at present. There are no doubt cases where the prolongation of active life might enable the completion of an important research. No doubt any of you will be able to think of other cases suitable for the process; especially your own.
I am compelled by the terms of my oath to refrain from any public exposition of the theory and practice of rejuvenation. I may even get a rap or two over the knuckles for the hints I have already given, but I can at least give my personal testimony to the fact that this process is not chimerical, but a living reality of science.
I will tell you of one or two cases that I have seen. The first is that of a man of forty years of age. He was resident in New York, and prepared—very hastily and ignorantly—the Elixir from the doubtless imperfect data at his disposal. He took a dose. Nothing came of it, as in the case of the boy who prayed for a bicycle. So, he took another dose, with no result. He took a third dose, and it merely made him angry. He began to want to prove that it was useless, and he took four more doses. Then, at this moment he went up to live in a cottage which borders a lake in New Hampshire. He purchased a sailing canoe and a little axe with which to chop wood so that he could cook his suppers, and to remind him of George Washington. Then, the "stuff began to work in the most violent manner.
He lost the whole of his intellectual interest, he became like a rather stupid boy of his teens, and began to cut down trees like a madman; he put in fifteen hours a day at this. On one occasion he wanted to make a wharf for his canoe, so he cut down an appropriate tree and prepared a section twenty-two feet long, the trunk being so big that he could not put his arms nearly round it even at the smaller end. He had no tools, and yet worked that log down through the other trees to the water's edge. The feat became locally notorious. People came from all sides to witness this fantastic burst of energy which lasted a couple of months or so. It then became spiritualized, and he accomplished within six weeks more work than would be expected of anyone in as many months. Then a violent reaction set in, and he was more or less afflicted with lassitude for nearly half a year. Such annoyance may be caused to those who follow ignorance and indiscretion. But this man learned through his mistakes. When he came to try the experiment again, some six years later, he took the proper precautions and prepared the Elixir intelligently and with great care. He took measured doses, with the proper precautions, and in good conditions. This experiment was a complete success. Instead of forty-seven, one would have taken him to be at the most a man of thirty-five years, and he retained all his intellectual interests and abilities. In fact they were very greatly enhanced, as well as his essential physical well-being. This state was persisting indefinitely when it was cut short by a series of tragic occurrences of a purely external character. Even so the result of his operation is still, in spite of very adverse circumstances, noticeable today.
The other case with which I propose to detain your attention for a moment is that of a woman just under forty years, if I remember correctly. She was constitutionally sound, but suffering from complete nervous exhaustion and debility. In this case two doses of the Elixir not only restored her to more than her normal health and strength, but took a good ten years off her apparent age.
These are no doubt spectacular results, and perhaps one may admit that the circumstances were about as favorable for success as they could have been. On the other hand the preparer and administrator of the medicine, in both cases, had not anything like the experience that he should have had—before attempting the project. I have no doubt myself that this practice and further experiment would enable us to perfect this method of magical rejuvenation within a very short time. In particular I am convinced that the key to progress depends upon emphasizing this word "magical." I am sure that the spiritual conditions of our existence must be made perfect before life itself will be really worth living.
As I said at the beginning this evening, "They that sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but they that sow to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting."
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