Sean Croke

Lecture & Workshop Host

LECTURE: St Peter and the Keys to Heaven: The genus Trichocereus in Magical Practice

The genus of cacti known as Trichocereus, which are also known by such names as Achuma, Gigaton, and San Pedro, are a group of very wise and instructive plant teachers that originate in the Andean highlands and are now grown all across the world. They are a potent visionary medicine that have been worked with as a teacher plant and medicinal herb for millennia, with a rich and vibrant history of ceremonial use dating back at least to the Chavin culture some 3,000 years ago. The practices of the cult surrounding this cactus are still alive and thriving, having become syncretized during colonization and ongoing interactions with the wider world, and these practices would be familiar to anyone who is well versed in Western occultism.

This class will cover some history of this genus in terms of their use in magical workings and healing traditionally, as well as looking at some modern ways of working with the cactus in a variety of lineages, including the author’s approximately twenty years worth of practice tending to this plant in the garden, researching them in a phytochemical sense, and working with them as a ceremonial teacher.

WORKSHOP: The Garden is the Kingdom of Heaven
1.5 HOUR INTENSIVE– space is limited to 20 participants

This will be a hands on, practical workshop on the cultivation of the genus Trichocereus with a focus on helping them to thrive in more Northerly climates where they would not otherwise do so. We will cover propagation via cuttings, grafting, and seed as well as going over the various species and named clones that are most applicable to ceremonial workings. Techniques to encourage flower production and to create viable hybrids in the garden even in difficult USDA zones will be a focus, with any luck there will be a flowering cactus present. While we cannot taste the plant in this context, we can discuss various and hypothetical methods for preparing the cactus as a medicine.
**All participants will go home with a seedling and some seeds that have come out of the author’s garden.

$35 workshop add on fee
$10 materials fee

BIO: Sean Croke is a wildcrafter, gardener, practitioner, medicine maker, and teacher. He lives on a 25 acre plot of land with his family and a bunch of other humans, animals, and plants on occupied Chehalis tribal territory, but he works and moves extensively within Skokomish, Squaxin, Nisqually, and Lummi lands in the area often called “Washington State”. He is a father and loves to take care of living things of all sorts. He is the head teacher and founder of The Hawthorn School of Plant Medicine, a nine month program that connects plants to people by visiting the many different landscapes that exist within the Pacific Northwest and the plants that live upon them, while also learning cultivation, medicine making, and clinical skills.

Sean runs a small herbal medicine company called Understory Apothecary that produces small batches of extracts and fresh plant material from either the farm or the wilds. He also works with Cascadia Terroir, a small essential oil company that he picks and distills for. He does his best to provide medicines to the Canoe Journey Herbalists every year. Sean graduated from The Evergreen State College in 2012 with a BA/BS in Ethnobotany and Organic Chemistry and maintains a deep love of phytochemistry. He was a practitioner and the main medicine maker for the now defunct Olympia Free Herbal Clinic for five years, and continues to see clients on a sliding scale down to zero in the name of keeping herbs accessible to everyone. Sean is currently really excited about planting alders and camus, and hopes that the salmon will run thicker than ever in the centuries to come. https://blackriverbotanicals.com

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