Reddit reviews The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization

Whether those specific figures did, I couldn't say. But there definitely were psychotropic drugs in Ancient Greece, often added to wine. Hillman's book is a good place to go to explore the issue further.

A rise in "chemsex"? The Greeks and Romans drank spiked wine and had giant religious sex orgies. You know, the good old days. I mean what else were they doing to do with all the opium, blue lotus, and half naked slaves...


The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization

The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization

>Dangers-and-Dongers 0 points a minute ago
So do Americans, but that doesn't mean our greatest scientists are high.

It also doesn't mean they aren't high. Many famous scientists have used LSD, and claimed it aided them. In fact, Francis Crick is said to have been on LSD when he came up with the idea of DNA. He was definitely taking LSD to aid him in science.

>There is no evidence to suggest they would have been used by philosophers.

Actually, there is a lot of evidence suggesting that they were.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries#Entheogenic_theories

https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Muse-Roots-Western-Civilization/dp/0312352492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484074067&sr=8-1&keywords=greeks+and+drug+use

Anyone that has taken psychedelics will notice the prevalence of Geometry, and this is most likely where the connection between the sacred and geometry comes from (i.e., sacred geometry).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_geometry

And its not a stretch given the prevalence of drug use in ancient Greece, and the connection between the sacred and geometry, to think that it is a reasonable hypothesis that Pythagoras' biggest inspiration was a psychedelic. Anyone that has taken a psychedelic will have noticed the phenomenal geometry.

People didn't just make a connection a between the sacred and geometry arbitrarily, and psychedelics is without question the best explanation as to why that connection has been made.

I get the feeling that you are a teenage that thinks that all drugs are bad, and thinks everything that there is to be known about them you learn from some dipshit in health class spouting state sponsored propaganda. There is way more to it than that.

I highly recommend you read The Chemical Muse. It's very much about this subject, and the prevalence of drugs in ancient Greece and Rome. The author asserts that much of the acceptance of drug use in that time has been whitewashed. It's a fascinating and well-researched book.