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What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

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Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

#111

Post by brightball »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #102
sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not training. Maybe she figured out that making up bullshit gave her power. Seems a lot simpler than "drugs".

It is plausible, we only have to look to social media and politicians to see what they do to people. Take prophecy its much like crystal ball gazing, where the crystal ball reader gives a vague report which is open to interpretation for people who are looking for hope can get something to cling onto. A good example is left handed people have historically been seen as wrong 'uns in the bible so right handed people can…

You should check out the story of Ehud in Judges. He’s left handed and specifically successful in his task because of what was otherwise seen as a deficiency at that time.

Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

#112

Post by kwatsonafter »

kordlessagain wrote: post #44
kwatsonafter wrote: post #10

I think it's worth noting-- there's some serious work exploring these kinds of things in the ancient world (Temple of Kykeon, Soma of the Rg Veda, Amrta, Cintamani) and it's still an open subject. Terence McKenna theorized that Psilocybin mushrooms might be responsible for, "mystical visions through substance" but as a practicing, "Hindu" (Chaitanya follower) I've come to find that in the case of the mystical substan…

There was a World Day fair at UC Davis a few years back. One tent had Hari Krishnas in it. I asked one of the Hari Krishnas, "Do you visualize?", and he replied with a beam, "Oh, yes. I do visualize and I love it! I see all sorts of wonderful things." He then pushed a colorful copy of the Rig Veda in my hands and ran off smiling. A bit later I went over to the Zen booth and talked to a young monk. They had no materia…

There's a lot here in your comment-- Thanks for the reply! I'm actually a practicing, "Hare Krsna Devotee" under Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj in the line of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math.

I think there's so much in different spiritual circles. What seems to unite them all is a kind of concept of, "surrendering wholeheartedly to..." and I think that manifests itself in a huge diversity of ways. I think that what Zen ends up missing is a viable moral concept and an explanation of what, "love" actually is at a metaphysical level. The reversi-logic Koan thing gets really old after awhile but I can appreciate how that might resonate with some people. Zen is very, "interesting" but having sat on the mat for some time that the, "great realization" has always been, "stop holding out for a great realization; it's all a crock of shit including the crock of shit you tell yourself that it's all a crock of shit." I know a lot of old burnout hippy-boomer types that got lost in Zen land and never found their way back. I also know a lot of Hare Krsna devotees that got lost in Prabhupadaland. I think it's worth noting that pretty soon we're both going to be biologically dead forever.

I suppose it's all worth a consider. Hare Krsna Prabhuji!

Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

#113

Post by jrumbut »

mherdeg wrote: post #92
goto11 wrote: post #51

The final point about positivism is important. Geeks love naturalistic explanations of mythological ideas, however far fetched. Trolls are really cultural memory of Neanderthals. Dragons are dinosaurs. The witch craze was due to ergot poisoning etc. If anyone is interested in what actual historians think about such theories, read for example this: https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2018/06/delphic-oracle.ht... Tl/dr:…

I completely misread this as > Greeks love naturalistic explanations of mythological ideas, however far fetched. And wonder whether this is also broadly, historically true?

There seems to have been Greeks like Thucydides who did like that and Greeks like Herodotus who enjoyed the opposite (supernatural explanations of the natural), I wouldn't know enough to make a general claim.

Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

#114

Post by pjot »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #107
dr_dshiv wrote: post #57

The only picture of the Pythian priestess is a red figure drinking cup from around 430 BC. She sits on a bronze tripod, holds laurel leaves and a bowl or water or wine. She would, apparently, listen to the rustle of the leaves— scry into the ripples of water — and feel the resonant vibrations of the tripod. All in order to channel the wisdom of the god Apollo. Sources of randomness to support creative inspiration. Se…

Here is the image: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-only-surviving-image... Also, the ethylene theorists have a rebuttal. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/155636507014778 ... It’s funny that neither paper attempted to just try the stuff and, you know, attempt mantic divination. And there is some evidence for those laurel leaves (which were chewed) to be psychoactive. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/58…

  Also, the ethylene theorists have a rebuttal. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/155636507014778 ...
This page 404’s - do you have another source?

Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

#115

Post by KVFinn »

anbende wrote: post #13
sfvisser wrote: post #6

Language shaping the way you think always feels off to me. Most languages are pretty much universal and unbiased and are capable of expressing an infinite amount of concepts. As easily as their negations, subtle variations, contextual dependencies, nuances, etc.

The hard version of this, sometimes called Strong Whorfianism (after the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) is relatively easy to discredit. Imagine a system of gears. Turn them and adjust them in your mind. You’re thinking in images rather than language. The soft version of this, that our thinking is influenced by the limits of language is almost certainly true. To give a very HN example, think about the work done in different…

The extra soft version is that verbal languages are interchangeable, but there are differences between verbal languages and nonverbal, like sign language.

Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

#116

Post by kergonath »

User23 wrote: post #50
kergonath wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most languages are pretty much universal and unbiased and are capable of expressing an infinite amount of concepts. Yes, most of them are (or can be, with the addition of a couple of neologisms or borrowings). Just like you can do anything with any Turing-complete language. Languages and cultures still have biases and built-in world views. For example, to most Europeans, the idea that you would need to estimate you…

> For example, to most Europeans, the idea that you would need to estimate your social rank to properly address someone is utterly alien. German is well known for having different pronouns based on social rank and familiarity.

Two of them, just like in French or Spanish: a standard one and a polite form for people you don’t know. Social rank does not factor in this.

Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

#117

Post by kergonath »

Retric wrote: post #31
kergonath wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also would not be propagated along with the culture, which is the hypothesis at its core: not that people of one given language are incapable of understanding some concepts, but rather that their cultural bagage tends to bias them and shape their way of thinking (which I would think is obviously true to anyone who’s ever lived in a foreign country or read literature or news articles in a foreign language).

The constant creation of new words for new things and concepts seems to limit that idea. Only dead languages are static, otherwise they can all adapt to new ideas as long as their sufficiently useful.

It is not incompatible, the time scales involved are different.

Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

#118

Post by goto11 »

mherdeg wrote: post #92
goto11 wrote: post #51

The final point about positivism is important. Geeks love naturalistic explanations of mythological ideas, however far fetched. Trolls are really cultural memory of Neanderthals. Dragons are dinosaurs. The witch craze was due to ergot poisoning etc. If anyone is interested in what actual historians think about such theories, read for example this: https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2018/06/delphic-oracle.ht... Tl/dr:…

I completely misread this as > Greeks love naturalistic explanations of mythological ideas, however far fetched. And wonder whether this is also broadly, historically true?

The Greek philosopher Euhemerus believed that Gods has originated as humans who was worshiped after their death. So the naturalistic explanations existed, although I don't know how widely accepted they were.
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