15 ms·

What caused the hallucinations of the Oracle of Delphi?

151 points by mediocregopher 4y ago

OnlyMortal 4y ago
Fumes. This has been what is assumed for years.
- krapp 4y ago
  Watch the Religion for Breakfast video linked in this thread, or RTFA. The ethylene fume theory has been pretty thoroughly debunked.
zasdffaa 4y ago
"Originally this was a young virgin, but after trouble with kidnappings..." Jesus. That's a grim insight into the culture of the time, though perhaps it shouldn't have been given Greek legends.
kogus 4y ago
TL;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.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- martimarkov 4y ago
  That’s such a good summary. I should have started with reading the comments
- peatmoss 4y ago
  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?
  - phdelightful 4y ago
    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.”
  - kergonath 4y ago
    > what is its alternative? Accepting that we won’t know everything (but also accept that there are things we don’t know yet and that will be known in the future, and that it’s ok to change your mind in the face of new evidence). Actually, it’s not really an alternative to empiricism, but I don’t thing that empiricism has this particular weakness.
- Hayvok 4y ago
  Clarification: We have no idea if the hallucinogenic effects of the place were real, if they were mere theater, or something else altogether. That a succession of women served as Oracles in the Temple of Apollo (for hundreds of years) is well supported.
Alex3917 4y ago
There is a good Religion for Breakfast episode about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IJfmaGs72c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IJfmaGs72c
- cassepipe 4y ago
  Thank you for that. This is an excellent review of the original theory and its rebuttals.
  - Alex3917 4y ago
    His entire channel is great. It's one of the only YouTube channels where I can't think of a single bad video he's put out.
sfvisser 4y ago
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.
- s_dev 4y ago
  SQL and HTML/CSS and C and bash are all Turing complete. However we can easily see some languages are a better suited to expressing certain types of ideas than others. If this is true for formal languages -- why would wouldn't this phenomena be accentuated at the natural language level.
- anbende 4y ago
  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 programming languages or stacks. The way you think about a problem and how to solve it will be influenced by the language and tools you use (and know). You learn to think in a particular language or tool set. That doesn’t mean that you can’t think outside of it, but it does mean that there is a tendency to stay inside of it, inside the structures you know. In the same way, some languages lend themselves more readily to certain culturally prevalent concepts. More nuanced words for snow or love, different color boundaries, different emotion words or nuances, etc. I ran into this often when learning French as an emotion researcher. I’d try to express a scientific conception of a mood or emotion from English, and the French speaker would suggest a translation but it clearly didn’t mean exactly what I was going for. And the way the French speaker would push back was interesting, “we wouldn’t say it like that, we’d say it like this”. But the “this” and “that” were not exactly the same. I was watching us both be constrained by our language context. It could be pushed through, but the tendency was to just move forward as if we’d reached common ground but hadn’t fully.
  - ArnoVW 4y ago
krisoft 4y ago
> 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%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D180 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... 2: https://erenow.net/ancient/delphi-a-history-of-the-center-of-the-ancient-world/6.php https://erenow.net/ancient/delphi-a-history-of-the-center-of...
- MonkeyClub 4y ago
  With apologies for hastiness, rushed day - Greek: "ὁ γὰρ πρότερον ἐὼν αὐτόθι αὐτόματος κατεκάη" (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0125%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D180 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...) Literal translation: "because the one [= the temple] that previously existed in the same place completely burned down on its own" The crux here is on "αὐτόματος", for which see LSJ: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=au%29to%2Fmatos&la=greek&can=au%29to%2Fmatos0&prior=au)to/qi&d=Perseus:text:1999.01.0125:book=2:chapter=180&i=1#lexicon http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=au%29to%2Fmatos&...
  - KMag 4y ago
    I know barely enough Greek to sound it out, but "αὐτόματος" is "automatos", which probably gives enough information to anyone not interested in following the link.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  "There is no historical record of..." is an interesting assertion. On the one hand, it's easy to make and sort of requires no citation because there wouldn't be one. "There is no historical record of Caesar's fondness for juggling." But on the other hand, it's a dangerous claim because it's extremely falsifiable, like in your example. But I suppose it's easy to say "whoops, I read all of the historical records but forgot about Histories book 2, good find!"
kwatsonafter 4y ago
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 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!
- kordlessagain 4y ago
  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 materials in the booth, only a piece of paper with the swooshed circle symbol. After talking to him briefly I asked, "Do you visualize?". He looked at me calmly for just a moment and then replied, "I practice Zen." I then repeated myself, asking " Yes, but do you visualize?". Immediately he replied, "I practice Zen." Later I would joke it was at the moment I became enlightened, but understanding this from a fundamental standpoint is both a choice of faith and a logical conclusion done by the mind. People do visualize, but some people don't. Practicing Zen is about not adding to things, but living in the moment and being aware of your surroundings. The monk may have been able to visualize, but he knew that doing so would pull him out of the moment so he didn't. Conversely, the Hari Krishna visualized at will, by his own admission when I was asking about it, and allowed it to be a thing he was aware of in the few moments we spoke.
  - 4y ago
murbard2 4y ago
This isn't asking the hard question though: how did the oracle see the future?
- asiachick 4y ago
  Oracle: Lisa, this supplicant has not groveled in the least Lisa: Then zot them into oblivion darling Oracle: Your groveling is unacceptable! I shall ZOT THEE! You have been zotted!
- kordlessagain 4y ago
  According to mystical based beliefs described in A Textbook of Theosophy by C.W. Leadbeater: > When a man thinks of any concrete object - a book, a house, a landscape - he builds a tiny image of the object in the matter of his mental body. This image floats in the upper part of that body, usually in front of the face of the man and at about the level of the eyes. It remains there as long as the man is contemplating the object, and usually for a little time afterwards, the length of time depending upon the intensity and the clearness of the thought. This form is quite objective, and can be seen by another person, if that other has developed the sight of his own mental body. If a man thinks of another, he creates a tiny portrait in just the same way. If his thought is merely contemplative and involves no feeling (such as affection or dislike) or desire (such as a wish to see the person) the thought does not usually perceptively affect the man of whom he thinks. These mental bodies are not considered by the textbook to be bound by time, given they are "astral bodies" for which, under certain conditions, time and space don't matter.
- mcphage 4y ago
  I think first it would need to be established that she did in fact see the future.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    Yes. The explanation “it was all made up by one or more writers” sufficiently covers not just the precognition, but also the hallucinations and even the existence of the oracle.
dahlem 4y ago
I remember the most exciting book on this topic that I read, was the book on Constantin (the great) by Jacob Burkhardt. While maybe being a bit speculative, at least partly, I had the impression of highly plausible puzzle-solving by someone who actually read and understood the ancient sources. You will find a lot of details on questions like this. I find it most recommendable for anyone who is interested in (the making of) politics and religion now and then.
kingkawn 4y ago
The voice of the Gods
photochemsyn 4y ago
Our question is: Why did the Pythia go into a frenzy? The major theory you hear about this is that the Oracle was ingesting some kind of drug, possibly a psychedelic derived from rye fungi - but who can say with any certainty? Maybe it was just similar to the 'speaking in tounges' religious phenomenon, which has examples from all over the world: https://www.skeptical-science.com/religion/speaking-in-tongues-the-real-story/ https://www.skeptical-science.com/religion/speaking-in-tongu...
- sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
  Maybe it was just BS. Don't write off the simplest explanation.
  - GrumpyNl 4y ago
    Thats what i thought, might al be part of the conception, the make believe show.
  - narag 4y ago
    "Drugs" is simple enough. Actually training naked virgins to go bananas without some chemical help seems a little more complicated. Something the article doesn't seem to consider is the possibilty that there was some kind of (natural or built) chamber where the gas could get trapped and thus concentration be higher.
    - sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
      Not training. Maybe she figured out that making up bullshit gave her power. Seems a lot simpler than "drugs".
      - t_mann 4y ago
        The role must have been filled by dozens of different individuals over the centuries, it seems reasonable to assume that there was some kind of induction process for new recruits.
rapjr9 4y ago
Seems like the author is neglecting the possibility of human intervention. The priests and priestesses may have found a way to collect ethylene gas from the stream and released it intentionally at the right time. A trade secret so to speak. Hidden secrets in religion are not uncommon.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  > Hidden secrets in religion are not uncommon. // It's not clear what you mean here, could you give some examples?
  - coeneedell 4y ago
    Not the person you replied to of course, but when I saw this the concept of mystery religions comes to mind for me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_mysteries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_mysteries They were even widespread in the same region at the same time.
  - rapjr9 4y ago
    I was referring to "hidden knowledge", see Wikipedia's entry on "esotericism": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_esotericism#Esotericism_as_a_universal,_secret,_inner_tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_esotericism#Esotericis...
throwaway5752 4y ago
People speak in tongues at church because they are expected to, have seen it before, and they lie about it. It seems that should be the presumption in the case of Delphi, too, rather than a biochemical mechanism or "antipositivism". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_in_tongues#Medical_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_in_tongues#Medical_re...
- jhap 4y ago
  I don't think most people "lie about it", at least not intentionally. I think it's more likely they get really caught up in the moment or something among those lines. I am interested in what in what it would be like to go to a concert of a bar with one of these people.
  - throwaway5752 4y ago
    I really don't care what it would be like to go to a social event with one of those people, nor do I care to deeply plumb the depths of the distinction between a lie and untruth.
    - mistrial9 4y ago
      cues hardcore hip-hop
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > I don't think most people "lie about it", at least not intentionally. No, they do, and are usually pushed into it by prayer retreats and a forced lack of sleep (in the stories I've heard.) It's after they fake it once in order to sleep, then get into the habit of faking it, that they decide that they were never actually faking it, retconning the first incident into an awakening. It was once only tiny pentecostal sects that did this (speak in tongues), but evangelical churches grew out of that tradition and took over the world. Literally didn't exist 100 years ago. It's also where we got faith healing and snake-handling. edit: Again, barely older than Scientology or the Nation of Islam.
gfody 4y ago
our minds are perfectly capable of frenzied hallucinations without any external substance, especially one trained specifically for this purpose probably only had to meditate or chant or indulge some trigger for a moment.
goto11 4y ago
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.html https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2018/06/delphic-oracle.ht... Tl/dr: The oracle speaking cryptic prophetic verses from a trance is a literary construction. So the ethylene theory is a trying to provide a naturalistic explanation for a fiction.
- andi999 4y ago
  How can dragons be memories of dinosaurs? Or do you think some skeletons were found?
  - ProjectArcturis 4y ago
    The identification of dinosaurs as dragons is a common theory but I believe the historical evidence for it is extremely sparse. Still, it is really strange to me that dinosaur bones were only officially discovered in 1841.
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      Regarding Chinese dragon bones: http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2021/03/dinosaur-fossils-and-chinese-dragons.html?m=1 http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2021/03/dinosaur-fossils-...
    - krisoft 4y ago
      > Still, it is really strange to me that dinosaur bones were only officially discovered in 1841. Isn’t this a bit like how America was only officially “discovered” in 1492? To the general surprise of everyone already living there :) There are descriptions from the 4th century China which can be read to imply that they found dinosaur bones. The area indicated by these writings is known in the present to have such fossils. Can we say for certain that what they had were dinosaur bones? No, of course not. They didn’t describe their findings in detail and the actual bones were lost since then.
dr_dshiv 4y ago
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. Seems plausible.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Here is the image: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-only-surviving-image-of-the-Delphic-Pythia-Aegeus-the-mythical-king-of-Athens_fig1_262091264 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 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/581067/summary https://muse.jhu.edu/article/581067/summary And, finally, that the oracle used lots (dice, basically) for divination. More randomness. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/358831 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/358831
  - pjot 4y ago
    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?
    - mgdlbp 4y ago
      GP included HN's ellipsis when copying the link from a previous comment of theirs. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15563650701477803 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/155636507014778...
  - NKosmatos 4y ago
    Came here to say the same thing, it's either Laurel or Oleander leaves that Pythia (the high priestess) either chewed or inhaled (their fumes). At least that's what I remember from high school and what most Greeks know. It's debated that the whole Oracle of Delphi thing could be a very well organized scam, but that's another discussion. It's a place worth the visit: https://www.visitgreece.gr/mainland/central-greece/delphi/ https://www.visitgreece.gr/mainland/central-greece/delphi/
itronitron 4y ago
>> Positivist dispositions can lead to the acceptance of claims because they have a scientific form, not because they are grounded in robust evidence and sound argument. Interesting that is a form of hallucination itself :)
boxed 4y ago
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind has a very interesting answer to this question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in...
- SeanLuke 4y ago
  Which is...
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  Such a fun theory, we will probably never know how rocks started thinking…
benibela 4y ago
Too much pressure?
lordnacho 4y ago
Cynical me thinks the simplest explanation is it was all just a big show they put on. Similar to when my aunt went to a fortune teller who guessed she had six kids. The fortune teller was probably just well informed about the local environment. If you're running an Oracle business, your customers are already locked in. It's a long pilgrimage to get there, so you've probably got something important to ask about. The sales people will know roughly what kind of relational data is precious to you, and your branding makes Oracle a natural choice, despite what the techies of the time might say (it's expensive! There's a free and open source that we can get high at!). Once they're there, you keep the magic going by offering associated services. Maybe a bit if consulting on what the old lady said. Of course the consulting will always include coming back for more prophesies. Most of the business is knowing what kinds of things people want to hear, and feeding back a few things you found. After all it's only once a month there's a seance, the rest of the time can be spent hanging around finding out what the customers want.
- krapp 4y ago
  If you look into the examples of oracular statements from Delphi[0], and assume them to be an accurate representation, many of them are vague enough that a "true" interpretation can be found in hindsight from various outcomes. And it is likely that a lot of those prophecies were informed by having a unique amount of access to political and social dealings throughout the Greek world. It helps when all the kings and all the priests come to you and tell you their secrets. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oracular_statements_from_Delphi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oracular_statements_fr...
noasaservice 4y ago
I know that magic is poo-pooed and all, but, have you considered that answer as well? Or perhaps they weren't hallucinations, and instead divinations. Calling what the Oracle of Delphi had "hallucinations" puts a bad spin on it from the onset. Or lets not get hung up with the word "magic". Lets call it a 5th type of energy. Mechanical detection don't work, but a number of humans can feel it. Hard to measure for sure. Some people are more connected to that energy than others. But again, being human-centric at this time makes verification hard/impossible. What I would adore is a theorem to connect that energy to the 4 other types of energy (EM, strong, weak, gravity). And then, we can start scientifically describing all of those "weird" human issues of stuff we just shouldn't know (I'm thinking of: past life recollections, feeling someone staring at you, parental intuitions that something's wrong with a child, etc).
- josephcsible 4y ago
  > makes verification hard/impossible In other words, unfalsifiable. That means it's unscientific too.
  - mistermann 4y ago
    Out of curiosity: if something isn't scientific, does that mean that it doesn't exist?
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      No. It just means that you shouldn't do things to make other people believe that it is scientific.
      - mistermann 4y ago
        Psychology is generally considered a science of sorts is it not? And it is certainly non-deterministic, and thus can't be verified like the deterministic majority of scientific matters.
durpleDrank 4y ago
I read a long time ago in a book that it was from the steam/vapor of the pit that they would hang out around. I forget what substance was floating out of it but it made them "high".
pyuser583 4y ago
Prophesying was a common function for ancient priests. The flights of birds, the guts of sacrificial offerings. E All sorts of things. The prophesies were usually very pragmatic and politically conservative (not edgy). It’s not hard to do. Many modern magicians do the same thing. Fortune cookies, etc. It’s not hard to do this, but being intoxicated makes it harder not easier.
mef 4y ago
In this comment section: a hundred people either missing the point, proving the point, or both!
heavyset_go 4y ago
Temporal lobe epilepsy is hypothesized[1][2] to be a contributing factor towards the visions, fits, etc that various prophets throughout history experienced. Something like half of those with temporal lobe epilepsy experience hyperreligiosity or salvation[3] with their condition, along with religious hallucinations, delusions, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_lobe_epilepsy#Effects_on_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_lobe_epilepsy#Effects... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschwind_syndrome#Hyperreligiosity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschwind_syndrome#Hyperreligi... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2654983/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2654983/
- Lyapunov_Lover 4y ago
  A much more obvious explanation is that it involved nothing more than stream-of-consciousness rambling. You take a random sentence and you convince someone it's deep and profound. They work hard trying to understand it, and they end up having a sudden moment of insight. The sentence itself did nothing. It was the work in trying to understand it that did the trick. Reading tea leaves? You're just looking at something random. Scrying? It's the same. Nothing about the Oracle of Delphi strikes me as odd enough to demand a deeper explanation than that. It was just a person making nonsensical statements.
UberFly 4y ago
The Cult of Kosmos of course, until Kassandra did away with those scheming manipulators. Good riddance. ;)
_8j50 4y ago
Why is OP so sure it was a hallucination? Could be fraud. Or not.
misja111 4y ago
Tl;Dr; we don't know

Fumes. This has been what is assumed for years.

krapp 4y ago
Watch the Religion for Breakfast video linked in this thread, or RTFA. The ethylene fume theory has been pretty thoroughly debunked.

"Originally this was a young virgin, but after trouble with kidnappings..." Jesus. That's a grim insight into the culture of the time, though perhaps it shouldn't have been given Greek legends.

kogus 4y ago

TL;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.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
martimarkov 4y ago
That’s such a good summary. I should have started with reading the comments
peatmoss 4y ago
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?
- phdelightful 4y ago
  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.”
- kergonath 4y ago
  > what is its alternative? Accepting that we won’t know everything (but also accept that there are things we don’t know yet and that will be known in the future, and that it’s ok to change your mind in the face of new evidence). Actually, it’s not really an alternative to empiricism, but I don’t thing that empiricism has this particular weakness.
Hayvok 4y ago
Clarification: We have no idea if the hallucinogenic effects of the place were real, if they were mere theater, or something else altogether. That a succession of women served as Oracles in the Temple of Apollo (for hundreds of years) is well supported.

Alex3917 4y ago

There is a good Religion for Breakfast episode about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IJfmaGs72c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IJfmaGs72c

cassepipe 4y ago
Thank you for that. This is an excellent review of the original theory and its rebuttals.
- Alex3917 4y ago
  His entire channel is great. It's one of the only YouTube channels where I can't think of a single bad video he's put out.

sfvisser 4y ago

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.

s_dev 4y ago
SQL and HTML/CSS and C and bash are all Turing complete. However we can easily see some languages are a better suited to expressing certain types of ideas than others. If this is true for formal languages -- why would wouldn't this phenomena be accentuated at the natural language level.
anbende 4y ago
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 programming languages or stacks. The way you think about a problem and how to solve it will be influenced by the language and tools you use (and know). You learn to think in a particular language or tool set. That doesn’t mean that you can’t think outside of it, but it does mean that there is a tendency to stay inside of it, inside the structures you know. In the same way, some languages lend themselves more readily to certain culturally prevalent concepts. More nuanced words for snow or love, different color boundaries, different emotion words or nuances, etc. I ran into this often when learning French as an emotion researcher. I’d try to express a scientific conception of a mood or emotion from English, and the French speaker would suggest a translation but it clearly didn’t mean exactly what I was going for. And the way the French speaker would push back was interesting, “we wouldn’t say it like that, we’d say it like this”. But the “this” and “that” were not exactly the same. I was watching us both be constrained by our language context. It could be pushed through, but the tendency was to just move forward as if we’d reached common ground but hadn’t fully.
- ArnoVW 4y ago

krisoft 4y ago

> 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%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D180 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... 2: https://erenow.net/ancient/delphi-a-history-of-the-center-of-the-ancient-world/6.php https://erenow.net/ancient/delphi-a-history-of-the-center-of...

MonkeyClub 4y ago
With apologies for hastiness, rushed day - Greek: "ὁ γὰρ πρότερον ἐὼν αὐτόθι αὐτόματος κατεκάη" (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0125%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D180 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...) Literal translation: "because the one [= the temple] that previously existed in the same place completely burned down on its own" The crux here is on "αὐτόματος", for which see LSJ: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=au%29to%2Fmatos&la=greek&can=au%29to%2Fmatos0&prior=au)to/qi&d=Perseus:text:1999.01.0125:book=2:chapter=180&i=1#lexicon http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=au%29to%2Fmatos&...
- KMag 4y ago
  I know barely enough Greek to sound it out, but "αὐτόματος" is "automatos", which probably gives enough information to anyone not interested in following the link.
CobrastanJorji 4y ago
"There is no historical record of..." is an interesting assertion. On the one hand, it's easy to make and sort of requires no citation because there wouldn't be one. "There is no historical record of Caesar's fondness for juggling." But on the other hand, it's a dangerous claim because it's extremely falsifiable, like in your example. But I suppose it's easy to say "whoops, I read all of the historical records but forgot about Histories book 2, good find!"

kwatsonafter 4y ago

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 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!

kordlessagain 4y ago
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 materials in the booth, only a piece of paper with the swooshed circle symbol. After talking to him briefly I asked, "Do you visualize?". He looked at me calmly for just a moment and then replied, "I practice Zen." I then repeated myself, asking " Yes, but do you visualize?". Immediately he replied, "I practice Zen." Later I would joke it was at the moment I became enlightened, but understanding this from a fundamental standpoint is both a choice of faith and a logical conclusion done by the mind. People do visualize, but some people don't. Practicing Zen is about not adding to things, but living in the moment and being aware of your surroundings. The monk may have been able to visualize, but he knew that doing so would pull him out of the moment so he didn't. Conversely, the Hari Krishna visualized at will, by his own admission when I was asking about it, and allowed it to be a thing he was aware of in the few moments we spoke.
- 4y ago

murbard2 4y ago

This isn't asking the hard question though: how did the oracle see the future?

asiachick 4y ago
Oracle: Lisa, this supplicant has not groveled in the least Lisa: Then zot them into oblivion darling Oracle: Your groveling is unacceptable! I shall ZOT THEE! You have been zotted!
kordlessagain 4y ago
According to mystical based beliefs described in A Textbook of Theosophy by C.W. Leadbeater: > When a man thinks of any concrete object - a book, a house, a landscape - he builds a tiny image of the object in the matter of his mental body. This image floats in the upper part of that body, usually in front of the face of the man and at about the level of the eyes. It remains there as long as the man is contemplating the object, and usually for a little time afterwards, the length of time depending upon the intensity and the clearness of the thought. This form is quite objective, and can be seen by another person, if that other has developed the sight of his own mental body. If a man thinks of another, he creates a tiny portrait in just the same way. If his thought is merely contemplative and involves no feeling (such as affection or dislike) or desire (such as a wish to see the person) the thought does not usually perceptively affect the man of whom he thinks. These mental bodies are not considered by the textbook to be bound by time, given they are "astral bodies" for which, under certain conditions, time and space don't matter.
mcphage 4y ago
I think first it would need to be established that she did in fact see the future.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  Yes. The explanation “it was all made up by one or more writers” sufficiently covers not just the precognition, but also the hallucinations and even the existence of the oracle.

dahlem 4y ago

I remember the most exciting book on this topic that I read, was the book on Constantin (the great) by Jacob Burkhardt. While maybe being a bit speculative, at least partly, I had the impression of highly plausible puzzle-solving by someone who actually read and understood the ancient sources. You will find a lot of details on questions like this. I find it most recommendable for anyone who is interested in (the making of) politics and religion now and then.

kingkawn 4y ago

The voice of the Gods

photochemsyn 4y ago

Our question is: Why did the Pythia go into a frenzy? The major theory you hear about this is that the Oracle was ingesting some kind of drug, possibly a psychedelic derived from rye fungi - but who can say with any certainty? Maybe it was just similar to the 'speaking in tounges' religious phenomenon, which has examples from all over the world: https://www.skeptical-science.com/religion/speaking-in-tongues-the-real-story/ https://www.skeptical-science.com/religion/speaking-in-tongu...

sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
Maybe it was just BS. Don't write off the simplest explanation.
- GrumpyNl 4y ago
  Thats what i thought, might al be part of the conception, the make believe show.
- narag 4y ago
  "Drugs" is simple enough. Actually training naked virgins to go bananas without some chemical help seems a little more complicated. Something the article doesn't seem to consider is the possibilty that there was some kind of (natural or built) chamber where the gas could get trapped and thus concentration be higher.
  - sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
    Not training. Maybe she figured out that making up bullshit gave her power. Seems a lot simpler than "drugs".
    - t_mann 4y ago
      The role must have been filled by dozens of different individuals over the centuries, it seems reasonable to assume that there was some kind of induction process for new recruits.

rapjr9 4y ago

Seems like the author is neglecting the possibility of human intervention. The priests and priestesses may have found a way to collect ethylene gas from the stream and released it intentionally at the right time. A trade secret so to speak. Hidden secrets in religion are not uncommon.

pbhjpbhj 4y ago
> Hidden secrets in religion are not uncommon. // It's not clear what you mean here, could you give some examples?
- coeneedell 4y ago
  Not the person you replied to of course, but when I saw this the concept of mystery religions comes to mind for me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_mysteries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_mysteries They were even widespread in the same region at the same time.
- rapjr9 4y ago
  I was referring to "hidden knowledge", see Wikipedia's entry on "esotericism": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_esotericism#Esotericism_as_a_universal,_secret,_inner_tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_esotericism#Esotericis...

throwaway5752 4y ago

People speak in tongues at church because they are expected to, have seen it before, and they lie about it. It seems that should be the presumption in the case of Delphi, too, rather than a biochemical mechanism or "antipositivism". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_in_tongues#Medical_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_in_tongues#Medical_re...

jhap 4y ago
I don't think most people "lie about it", at least not intentionally. I think it's more likely they get really caught up in the moment or something among those lines. I am interested in what in what it would be like to go to a concert of a bar with one of these people.
- throwaway5752 4y ago
  I really don't care what it would be like to go to a social event with one of those people, nor do I care to deeply plumb the depths of the distinction between a lie and untruth.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    cues hardcore hip-hop
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > I don't think most people "lie about it", at least not intentionally. No, they do, and are usually pushed into it by prayer retreats and a forced lack of sleep (in the stories I've heard.) It's after they fake it once in order to sleep, then get into the habit of faking it, that they decide that they were never actually faking it, retconning the first incident into an awakening. It was once only tiny pentecostal sects that did this (speak in tongues), but evangelical churches grew out of that tradition and took over the world. Literally didn't exist 100 years ago. It's also where we got faith healing and snake-handling. edit: Again, barely older than Scientology or the Nation of Islam.

gfody 4y ago

our minds are perfectly capable of frenzied hallucinations without any external substance, especially one trained specifically for this purpose probably only had to meditate or chant or indulge some trigger for a moment.

goto11 4y ago

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.html https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2018/06/delphic-oracle.ht... Tl/dr: The oracle speaking cryptic prophetic verses from a trance is a literary construction. So the ethylene theory is a trying to provide a naturalistic explanation for a fiction.

andi999 4y ago
How can dragons be memories of dinosaurs? Or do you think some skeletons were found?
- ProjectArcturis 4y ago
  The identification of dinosaurs as dragons is a common theory but I believe the historical evidence for it is extremely sparse. Still, it is really strange to me that dinosaur bones were only officially discovered in 1841.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    Regarding Chinese dragon bones: http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2021/03/dinosaur-fossils-and-chinese-dragons.html?m=1 http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2021/03/dinosaur-fossils-...
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > Still, it is really strange to me that dinosaur bones were only officially discovered in 1841. Isn’t this a bit like how America was only officially “discovered” in 1492? To the general surprise of everyone already living there :) There are descriptions from the 4th century China which can be read to imply that they found dinosaur bones. The area indicated by these writings is known in the present to have such fossils. Can we say for certain that what they had were dinosaur bones? No, of course not. They didn’t describe their findings in detail and the actual bones were lost since then.

dr_dshiv 4y ago

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. Seems plausible.

dr_dshiv 4y ago
Here is the image: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-only-surviving-image-of-the-Delphic-Pythia-Aegeus-the-mythical-king-of-Athens_fig1_262091264 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 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/581067/summary https://muse.jhu.edu/article/581067/summary And, finally, that the oracle used lots (dice, basically) for divination. More randomness. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/358831 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/358831
- pjot 4y ago
  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?
  - mgdlbp 4y ago
    GP included HN's ellipsis when copying the link from a previous comment of theirs. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15563650701477803 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/155636507014778...
- NKosmatos 4y ago
  Came here to say the same thing, it's either Laurel or Oleander leaves that Pythia (the high priestess) either chewed or inhaled (their fumes). At least that's what I remember from high school and what most Greeks know. It's debated that the whole Oracle of Delphi thing could be a very well organized scam, but that's another discussion. It's a place worth the visit: https://www.visitgreece.gr/mainland/central-greece/delphi/ https://www.visitgreece.gr/mainland/central-greece/delphi/

itronitron 4y ago

>> Positivist dispositions can lead to the acceptance of claims because they have a scientific form, not because they are grounded in robust evidence and sound argument. Interesting that is a form of hallucination itself :)

boxed 4y ago

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind has a very interesting answer to this question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in...

SeanLuke 4y ago
Which is...
mensetmanusman 4y ago
Such a fun theory, we will probably never know how rocks started thinking…

benibela 4y ago

Too much pressure?

lordnacho 4y ago

Cynical me thinks the simplest explanation is it was all just a big show they put on. Similar to when my aunt went to a fortune teller who guessed she had six kids. The fortune teller was probably just well informed about the local environment. If you're running an Oracle business, your customers are already locked in. It's a long pilgrimage to get there, so you've probably got something important to ask about. The sales people will know roughly what kind of relational data is precious to you, and your branding makes Oracle a natural choice, despite what the techies of the time might say (it's expensive! There's a free and open source that we can get high at!). Once they're there, you keep the magic going by offering associated services. Maybe a bit if consulting on what the old lady said. Of course the consulting will always include coming back for more prophesies. Most of the business is knowing what kinds of things people want to hear, and feeding back a few things you found. After all it's only once a month there's a seance, the rest of the time can be spent hanging around finding out what the customers want.

krapp 4y ago
If you look into the examples of oracular statements from Delphi[0], and assume them to be an accurate representation, many of them are vague enough that a "true" interpretation can be found in hindsight from various outcomes. And it is likely that a lot of those prophecies were informed by having a unique amount of access to political and social dealings throughout the Greek world. It helps when all the kings and all the priests come to you and tell you their secrets. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oracular_statements_from_Delphi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oracular_statements_fr...

noasaservice 4y ago

I know that magic is poo-pooed and all, but, have you considered that answer as well? Or perhaps they weren't hallucinations, and instead divinations. Calling what the Oracle of Delphi had "hallucinations" puts a bad spin on it from the onset. Or lets not get hung up with the word "magic". Lets call it a 5th type of energy. Mechanical detection don't work, but a number of humans can feel it. Hard to measure for sure. Some people are more connected to that energy than others. But again, being human-centric at this time makes verification hard/impossible. What I would adore is a theorem to connect that energy to the 4 other types of energy (EM, strong, weak, gravity). And then, we can start scientifically describing all of those "weird" human issues of stuff we just shouldn't know (I'm thinking of: past life recollections, feeling someone staring at you, parental intuitions that something's wrong with a child, etc).

josephcsible 4y ago
> makes verification hard/impossible In other words, unfalsifiable. That means it's unscientific too.
- mistermann 4y ago
  Out of curiosity: if something isn't scientific, does that mean that it doesn't exist?
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    No. It just means that you shouldn't do things to make other people believe that it is scientific.
    - mistermann 4y ago
      Psychology is generally considered a science of sorts is it not? And it is certainly non-deterministic, and thus can't be verified like the deterministic majority of scientific matters.

durpleDrank 4y ago

I read a long time ago in a book that it was from the steam/vapor of the pit that they would hang out around. I forget what substance was floating out of it but it made them "high".

pyuser583 4y ago

Prophesying was a common function for ancient priests. The flights of birds, the guts of sacrificial offerings. E All sorts of things. The prophesies were usually very pragmatic and politically conservative (not edgy). It’s not hard to do. Many modern magicians do the same thing. Fortune cookies, etc. It’s not hard to do this, but being intoxicated makes it harder not easier.

mef 4y ago

In this comment section: a hundred people either missing the point, proving the point, or both!

heavyset_go 4y ago

Temporal lobe epilepsy is hypothesized[1][2] to be a contributing factor towards the visions, fits, etc that various prophets throughout history experienced. Something like half of those with temporal lobe epilepsy experience hyperreligiosity or salvation[3] with their condition, along with religious hallucinations, delusions, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_lobe_epilepsy#Effects_on_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_lobe_epilepsy#Effects... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschwind_syndrome#Hyperreligiosity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschwind_syndrome#Hyperreligi... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2654983/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2654983/

Lyapunov_Lover 4y ago
A much more obvious explanation is that it involved nothing more than stream-of-consciousness rambling. You take a random sentence and you convince someone it's deep and profound. They work hard trying to understand it, and they end up having a sudden moment of insight. The sentence itself did nothing. It was the work in trying to understand it that did the trick. Reading tea leaves? You're just looking at something random. Scrying? It's the same. Nothing about the Oracle of Delphi strikes me as odd enough to demand a deeper explanation than that. It was just a person making nonsensical statements.

UberFly 4y ago

The Cult of Kosmos of course, until Kassandra did away with those scheming manipulators. Good riddance. ;)

_8j50 4y ago

Why is OP so sure it was a hallucination? Could be fraud. Or not.

misja111 4y ago

Tl;Dr; we don't know