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

by D.C.A. Hillman

A scholar reveals the drug use that flourished in Ancient Greece and Rome and the academic censorship that has concealed it. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312352492
• ISBN13: 9780312352493
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 243 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Maximal entheogen theory of religion in late antiquity

David Hillman's book "The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization" is a required book in the field of entheogen scholarship. It presents a maximal entheogen theory of religion in Late Antiquity; it is the first book to present such a strong, clear view. The use of psychoactives was utterly normal, commonplace, mainstream, and culturally integrated. Hillman forces a revision of the assumption-framework that is used by some other entheogen historians. John Allegro's book The Sacred Mushroom & The Cross postulated that the early Christians were motivated to use coded story-figures such as the figure of Jesus in order to hide their deviant, unusual practice of use of visionary plants (mushrooms) from mainstream culture, which persecuted and disallowed such use. Hillman doesn't address Allegro's explanation, but that aspect of Allegro's theory is soundly disproved by the culture that Hillman reveals, a culture thoroughly saturated with psychotropic drugs, and must be abandoned. The cover art shows Plato with red eyes, which today has culturally distorting connotations of "Plato smoked pot." Hillman should've chosen instead something like the fresco showing Dionysus' victory procession, with Dionysus on a chariot drawn by four tigers with mushrooms above their backs. The book would benefit from ancient pictorial evidence of psychoactive plants and their use, of which there is no shortage. The book ought to have subheadings. The author omits subheadings, thus obscuring what specific topics are covered in the book. This lack of topical entry points can also make the book seem more boring, when one gets caught in a topic of less interest and cannot see where the next topic of interest begins. I have extracted some potential subheadings below. Introduction chapter. Hillman's thesis committee forced him to remove his chapter on ancient world's recreational drug use, saying "the Romans just wouldn't do such a thing" -- a baseless anachronistic presupposition, projecting today's outlook onto the past, thus censoring and obscuring the outlook that characterized the past. Chapter 1: The Ancient Crucible. This chapter emphasizes the misery and anguish of ancient life. I too felt miserable and filled with anguish after reading most of it, since I was expecting to read about entheogens instead. The reader starts wishing for some opium to ease the pain of reading this chapter. Skip this chapter and read it afterward. It is of peripheral relevance and gives the wrong impression that the book justifies entheogen use because opium lessens misery. Chapter 2: Ancient Medicines. Skip this chapter and read it afterward. It is of peripheral relevance and would give the wrong impression that the book prefers a medicinal paradigm. Chapters 1 and 2 are appropriate to provide background and peripheral information, but act as a hurdle in their placement in front of the expected chapters about entheogens. Chapter 3: Greeks, Roma

Unrestricted drug use in antiquity

Dr. Hillman reviews much of the classic literature of ancient Rome and Greece to correct what he feels is a conspiracy of "mainline" classicists and historians to bury the subject of rampant mind altering drug use in antiquity. It makes sense. The only effective treatment in a pharmacutical sense would be plants and combinations thereof. He gives example of specific drugs used for specific problems. No problem there. Where he apparently steps on academic toes is in the area of recreational drug use by the entire population. He has no specific data on this but draws inferences from data provided by mostly Pliny and Plutarch. I suppose it makes sense to infer that the ordinary Gaius on the street would have great access to these . There were no laws or restrictions on use at that time. The conclusion he makes is that ,even with unrestricted use of heavy drugs ans halucnogens ,it is possible for a civilization to thrive. You wouldnt have everyone hooked and stoned all of the time,accomplishing nothimg. He may be right..I highly reccomend this book. James e. Vigiletti J.D.

The Antiblockbuster

The repeated references gave me a sense of exactly how pervasive and widespread censorship is on this topic, and not just on the author's personal experience of censorship and his dissertation. If you think you can learn a lesson from history since it repeats itself, how can you learn anything if the great minds are put into English in a way that doesn't really communicate what they said? It is a much more subtle and sinister way to alter how large groups of people see the world. I don't write book reviews, but it seems like there is a misunderstanding that this is supposed to be some kind of drug odyssey. I read this book without political agenda, but I was also mesmerized by seeing how drugs function within a society and not just as a hangup. The exhaustive nature of the book showed me that there are many, many references regarding drugs in antiquity. So many that it made me wonder how many people were involved in making the translations more palatable to fit with our modern view on drugs, and how many more people were required to maintain those translations. I think the author is trying to give you an honest translation of alot of what was written pertaining to drugs so many centuries ago. Were those societies superior? Well, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson thought it was so much so that they based our democracy on it which is the reason we have a senate and not a parliament.

Fascinating Read

I thought this book was a fascinating read. Going in I had very limited knowledge of Greco-Roman culture, so it was nice to see that the author did a great job of explaining the context of the time as well as the background of the historical figures. I'd say this is not only an interesting and entertaining read, but also a very important book. We can certainly learn some things from the way drugs were treated in these cultures compared to our horribly horribly misguided ways of dealing with drugs, such as the damaging War on Drugs, in the present time. I loved the section about the democracy of ancient Athens. As well as learning about fascinating figures like Pythagoras and Aristophanes (sp?). Highly recommended, I will surely be reading this book a second time someday.

Surprising truths they hid from us

I just received a copy of this book this week, and literally couldn't put it down since I found the topic fascinating. The author describes his ordeal with a doctoral dissertation committee, who were insisting that he remove offending chapters from his dissertation. Those chapters became this book. It seems to be a huge secret that there was recreational drug use by the ancients. The cradle of democracy was full of druggies! I had some classical studies and none of this was EVER mentioned. But, the use of herbals and botanicals for medicinal purposes was known. The use of psychotropic substances for recreation and inspiration was decidedly not taught. For a very fascinating look at a still taboo subject, I suggest reading ths book. It is an easy read, despite the scholarly origin for the author. I would have liked more scholarly references but probably wouldn't have understood them since I have no background in ancient Greek. I was particularly interested in the way the author tied the frequent wars to use of botanicals for medicine and relief. Life was difficult back then and it probably did help to numb the fear and pain of a very hostile world to have potent drugs sold in the marketplace along with the kitchen produce. Very readable and informative and a little naughty. I had no idea that the founders of Western democracy were bisexual druggies until I read this book!