A Little Communion Toot

It's interesting that in our religion obsessed culture, mind-altering drugs, which throughout mankind's early history played an important role in attaining religious bliss and ecstasy, are anathema to the so-called "values" crowd. The gift from the gods of primitive societies has turned into the devil's curse. The Oracles of Delphi would sit in the inner sanctum, which literally means holy place, breathing in the smoke from braziers and respond to the questions of those who came great distances for their "wisdom." The answers were enigmatic at best. "Where should we put the city?" asked colonists from Megara in 667 BC who would found the city that was Byzantium, became Constantinople, and today is Istanbul. "Put it opposite the blind," responded the Oracle, in her drug-induced stupor. "Ah," said the Megarans, "it must mean it should go in a place so beautiful that only a blind man couldn't see it, and selected the Golden Horn as the spot. Anybody who couldn't figure that out without consulting a blitzed-out virgin must have been doing some pretty powerful stuff himself.