Peyote, a sacred plant of the Tarahumara people, became a symbol of spiritual quest and rebellion for the literary avant-garde. After a trip to Mexico in 1936, Antonin Artaud experimented with it as a means of rediscovering a primitive consciousness and inner truth, describing his visions in Voyage au pays des Tarahumaras (Journey to the Land of the Tarahumara). His account, published in English in 1948, profoundly influenced the Beat Generation, already fascinated by Mexico as a land of myths and escape. The Beats—Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Lamantia—adopted peyote as a tool for hallucinogenic exploration, seeking to reproduce Artaud’s ecstasies and challenge social norms. Lamantia introduced it to San Francisco, McClure and Burroughs made it a quasi-ritual practice, while Huxley theorized its effects in The Doors of Perception. The cactus, banned by the Church but celebrated by poets, embodies the link between Native American shamanism, surrealism, and counterculture, marking a generation in search of the absolute and transgression.