Corpse Reviver No. 2
An occult splinter group discovers an ancient gin spell
By Waggoner Lidseede
LOCH ARKAIG, Scotland • 1903 — By sundown on a wet April evening, the three High Protectors of the Numinous Exaltation of Qlippoth Goetia had each finally arrived at Dìomhair House in the Scottish Highlands. They all felt the same combination of excitement and malevolence in the old building’s damp air.
The excitement stemmed from a recent decision that the three — Hetepheres the Mage, Qetesh of Lemnos, and Amunhotep Raetia Curiensis — had made to publicly and dramatically break from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the most revered occult order in Europe.
A testy disagreement at a Golden Dawn meeting over tarot card design with noted mountain climber and purveyor of ritual magick, Aleister Crowley, precipitated the trio’s departure. (They suggested his High Priestess card should be less aristocratic and more mysterious; Crowley dismissed their opinion as “who the fuck are you again?”)
A subsequent notice in the London Daily Telegraph & Courier with a new tarot card design titled The Asshole and featuring an image Crowley’s face superimposed over the backside of a donkey made their exit official. The notice also announced that they were forming a new occult group, the Numinous Exaltation of Qlippoth Goetia.
Hetepheres the Mage, whose given name was Herbert Nolan and whose father owned three banks in Dorridge, poured tea for his fellow High Protectors as they took their seats at the dining table, which doubled as Dìomhair House’s altar. Hetepheres expertly passed the sugar, careful to avoid dipping the linen sleeve of his habiliments in the clotted cream.
Corpse Reviver No. 2
¾ oz gin
¾ oz lemon juice
¾ oz Cocchi Americano
¾ oz Cointreau
Shake all ingredients with ice • Strain into a cocktail glass rinsed with absinthe • Lemon twist
Qetesh of Lemnos (homemaker, Martha Parkes, well-regarded for her tripe and onion pudding) got up to stoke the wood crackling in the dining room’s enormous fireplace. “Well, Amun,” she said. “Are you ready to tell us what you found? The folio looks impressive.”
Amunhotep Raetia Curiensis (John Stanley, who was once unconscious for four minutes after a particularly powerful sneeze) had just returned from Paris where he’d visited the widow of Viscount Marcel Orléans in search of the Cypher of Gad the Seer. Most everyone in Europe’s occult circle suspected the viscount kept the Cypher in the same drawer as his extra AA batteries and whistle collection, but no one had ever seen it.
“Thank you for the tea, Hetepheres,” Amunhotep said, “but I think we might want something stronger while I fill you in.”
“Oooooh, exciting,” said Qetesh of Lemnos as she got up to find a bottle of wine.
Like the Rosicrucian brotherhood that preceded it, members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn had built a foundation on direct connections to ancient secret wisdom passed along over generations to the current fellowship.
Now that they’d bolted from the Golden Dawn, it was only by securing a documented line of philosophical succession back to the Egyptian god Thoth, the source of the Hermetica itself, that the Numinous Exaltation of Qlippoth Goetia could claim credibility in the eyes of their occult peers. Securing the Cypher of Gad the Seer would give their new order instant respect and help attract new members.
“I can’t find any wine,” Qetesh of Lemnos reported. “Just gin, some French liqueurs and a bunch of lemons.”
“Sit and let me tell you what I’ve found,” Amunhotep said. “When I arrived at her home, the Widow Orléans said she did not know anything about a book of spells, and told me the Viscount was le imbécile and le crétin. But she kindly allowed me to search her batterie armoire, and I found this.”
From his bag, Amunhotep produced a dusty book and laid it on the table. His hand shook as he opened it. “I believe it’s what we’d hoped,” he said. “The Grimoire du Thoth Decarabia.” A book of spells, collected by Viscount Orléans from ancient Egyptian sources. It was said that whoever harnesses the ritual magic contained in the Thoth Decarabia could control another’s free will and imagination. It was rumored some could raise the dead.
Amunhoteph turned to a bookmarked page. On the left, was an illustration of a monstrous red dragon with the Eyes of Ra, holding an ank in one claw and a lotus in the other. Below the dragon was the recipe for a potion with instructions to drink it after reciting a spell called the Cadaver Vivifica #2.
As they examined the book’s pages, the High Protectors grew quiet. Hetepheres the Mage sat in his chair and trembled while Qetesh of Lemnos gathered the ingredients for the potion, which magically happened to be on hand at Dìomhair House. As Qetesh mixed the gin, liqueur, and lemons, Amunhoteph began to chant the Cadaver Vivifica #2.
Thoth neither lights the candle nor digs the grave
But his imagination is the foundation for fire and death
The mathematics of knowledge
Are the force by which the secrets of Thoth
Find final expression
In the incarnation of spirit in matter
Uncover the consecrated Pentacle
O, Thoth, constrain and command the spirits
To return to life what had been taken from this realm
They each drank from the chalice and waited. And waited. The wind outside the house howled. They waited. Nothing.
“I think the Widow Orléans was right about her husband,” said Hetepheres the Mage, as he took another swig from the chalice. “But damn. That imbécile made a good gin drink!”
Editor’s Note: Fact-based cocktail historians claim drinks called Corpse Revivers were made at American-style bars in London in the mid-19th century and that the Corpse Reviver No. 2 first appeared in Harry’s Craddock’s The Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930 with the note: “Four of these taken in quick succession will unrevive the corpse again.”
SOURCES:
Calibrou Santrabeft, “Numinous Exaltation of Qlippoth Goetia” in Saddest Splinters: The Most Pathetic Offshoot Groups in Occult History, ed. Pappy F. Barnett (Sacramento: Magick Zodiack Publishing Company, 1944), page 666
Jane Rudolf Skaaz, Spittle Breeze: Remarkable Stories from Sneeze History, (Atlanta: Skaaz Press, 2018) page 934
Mackenzie J. Smith, “32 Resurrection Spells By Vepar, Great Earl of Hell and Ruler of Six Legions of Demons, That Will Make You Laugh Every Time,” BuzzFeed, March 3, 2015
Contributors Notes:
Waggoner Lidseede recently provided the forward to Allen St. Staggins’s forthcoming anthology, Apples Are Fruits, So Round (Shatten, Misanthrope, 2003). Lidseede’s most recent major work, Are Those Eggs Poached, Young Cameron Horking? with woodcuts by J. Froederich Molt (Rotten Bok Choy Press, 1996), was shortlisted for the 1999 Casimir Prize for Fine, Fine Work.
Actual For Real Credits: Susan Johnston Graf, Talking to the Gods (Albany: SUNY Press, 2015)
Next week: Old Pal • Two friends invent the telephone…and a rye sipper