What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
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Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
#2TL;DR: We have no idea if they were real, and if they were what caused them, and it's ok to be unsure and inconclusive sometimes.
Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
#3TL;DR: We have no idea if they were real, and if they were what caused them, and it's ok to be unsure and inconclusive sometimes.
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Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
#4TL;DR: We have no idea if they were real, and if they were what caused them, and it's ok to be unsure and inconclusive sometimes.
That’s such a good summary. I should have started with reading the comments
Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
#5TL;DR: We have no idea if they were real, and if they were what caused them, and it's ok to be unsure and inconclusive sometimes.
I'm not sure I read the same thing. I think this misses the late point, that if empiricism can have weakness, what is its alternative?
Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
#6Language 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.
Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
#7> Moreover, ethylene in the concentrations that cause trances is extremely flammable, and there’s no historical record of any explosions or fires.
That doesn't seem to be true. Herodotus 2.180:
"When the Amphictyons paid three hundred talents to have the temple that now stands at Delphi finished (as that which was formerly there burnt down by accident), it was the Delphians' lot to pay a fourth of the cost." [1]
I'm not a student of the Classics so I can't verify from the original. This source [2] seems to imply that the world choice implies as if the place burnt down on its own.
1: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
2: https://erenow.net/ancient/delphi-a-history-of-the-center-of...
Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
#8TL;DR: We have no idea if they were real, and if they were what caused them, and it's ok to be unsure and inconclusive sometimes.
I'm not sure I read the same thing. I think this misses the late point, that if empiricism can have weakness, what is its alternative?
Maybe the positivists’ antipositivism should just be “not everything demands an empirical explanation in order for us to continue functioning well in day-to-day life, and that’s just fine.”
Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
#9There is a good Religion for Breakfast episode about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IJfmaGs72c
Re: What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?
#10I 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 substances of ancient India that there's actually a very involved and very profound philosophical tradition(s) surrounding Amrta (Love of Godhead; Bhakti) Soma (Moon Juice for The God of Heaven) and Cintamani (Puranic equivalent of the Philosopher's Stone) that really doesn't have anything to do with, "psychedelic culture" outside of being generally mind expanding.
tl;dr: She was last holy remnant of the age the Hellenic Greeks idealized about-- The Homeric period before book culture and the Sophists. The time when magic and unadulterated heroism ruled the Earth. Think about Tolkien the next time you trip. The magic isn't in a molecule baby, it's in us!