@@> On Mar-27-98 Day Brown wrote to David Martorana
 @@> on "Soma Mysteries"
 
 DB> Wasson traces the etiology of 'soma' from both the Sanskrit,
 DB> and the ancient Greek, to sacred fungi of pre-historic Aryan
 DB> shamen. My best bet.  Even though one might discover what the
 DB> fungi was, the change in climate and ecology since those times
 DB> suggests the fungi of flower may very well no longer exist.
 
 DB> There is another wall painting of Persephone from Stabiae, which
 DB> was buried with Pompei, now in the Museo Nazionale in Naples; in
 DB> is she is picking flowers which appear to be some kind of daisy,
 DB> a four foot leggy plant, except there are only four petals, like
 DB> a dogwood, with a dark center.  I dunno of any such flower.
 
     Probably place my Persephone in the center of a hundred such
     plants to cover all bases.
 
 In your explorations of "leveraged experience", you do not mention
 the designer "ointments" where a dash more black henbane or a pinch
 less arconite could mean the difference between a religious experience
 and a flying adventure. Also, though I read much about the "WHAT"
 was placed in these ol' potions, I do not see the specific recipes
 that separate "being poisoned to death" from "tripping" (and all the
 mischief between!). I assume you either already have some of the
 more fungus oriented recipes (and their associated controls),
 or are willing to "experiment up" from some safe starting point. I
 was rather amazed that the old wiccan herbalists could measure out
 and prepare such complex recipes to SPECIFIC effect. Was also
 surprized to find that the Greeks used much smaller doses of
 the Hemlock brew as an aphrodisiacs.
 
     .....a draft of "Grut" henbane pilsener with
     a dash of "Stropharia cubensis" ?    I Never
     realized your ol' Aryans brewed psychedelic
     beer for funnin !
     SOURCE: ......"The Well of Remembrance" by Ralph Metzner
 
  NOTE: Even found a version of the Persephone tale (Prosipina)
        where she was picking violets.   Not hard to digest the
        myth as one of a giant black meteor penetrating the ground
        and destroying all the vegetation (a-la Velikosky).
 
  INQUIRY:
  Though I have some appreciation for your exploratory reach, I've
  still not absorbed your specific motivation. Our brains do seem,
  as is sometimes said, to have capacities some beyond what we can
  exploit. I might assume that like a computer system, we are locked
  out of certain (sort of) classified areas with some future dependencies
  or (still missing) keys. My main question centers around the 10,000
  years of chemical leverage already expended. If such efforts have
  led to so little, how might we justify continuing to follow this
  approach? In most cases, mental breakthroughs seem to have been
  accomplished during everyday naturalness. In my case I see any such
  reaching (chemical or otherwise) as pure fun (something to kill time
  till we die). If you don't consider it as "none of Dave's business"
  what is your driving force? .....or do we get back to stealing the
  EDEN brand tomatos as a hobby?   .
                                  :*:
                     ... @@ ...  \\i//
                                  \i/   ... Dave
                                ~~~~~~~
--- Maximus/2 3.01
---------------