The beast initiate: the lycanthropy of Heracles

The obscurantist Hellenistic poet Lycophron referenced the initiation of Heracles as a beast suckling the breast of the goddess Hera. This was the event that was the mythological origin of the Galaxy and of the lily flower that incarnated the same deifying essence as the celestial milk of the goddess and it was the etiology for the domestication of felines. As the Lion of Nemea, Heracles was the greatest of the wild cats. The lily was an analogue of a sacred mushroom, as the narkissos of Persephone’s abduction by Hades. The event of the lactation of Heracles is depicted on four Etruscan mirrors and a Faliscan-Hellenic red-figure krater. The deifying milk-flower of the goddess was a ritual of adoption into the family of the celestial deities, that Hera performed also with two other bastard sons of Zeus, Hermes and Dionysus. As the beast being initiated, Heracles became a wolf. Like the motif of the domestication of the cat, the lycanthropy of Heracles involves the whole family of canines, from the domesticated dog to its wilder antecedents in the wolf and its analogue as the fox. The lycanthropy initiation is a bacchanalian rite of root- cutters and is a motif of warrior brotherhood widespread among the Indo-European peoples.Published versio

The lady who served the potion: botanical symbolism behind the mysteries of Eleusis

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Mushrooms and the wine of Maron

Although the excavators of the sanctuary of the Great Gods on the island of Samothrace recognize that drinking to the point of intoxication was practiced at the Mystery, naively this has not been seen as an element in the initiation scenario. Numerous drinking cups have been found, inscribed as the property of the gods, and the ancient village of Keramidaria (‘Ceramics’) was devoted to the manufacture of amphorae, officially stamped as genuine provenance of Samothrace for the export of the wine distinctive of the Mystery, probably a version of Homer’s potent Maronian wine of the Cyclops. That wine still existed in the Roman Period, and on the testimony of the proconsul assigned to the province, it even required dilution with eight parts water to be drunk safely. At the time of Odysseus, the rate of dilution was twentyfold. Such potent wines achieved their high intoxicating potential from the substances added to the ferment, a fact that has now been confirmed by the discovery of an intact wine cellar from Canaan, dated to the beginning of the second millennium BCE. The myth of the establishment of the Mystery, dated to the generations before the Trojan War, narrates the tale of its founder sailing like a drunken loon upon a wineskin, and similar establishments of the Mystery of the Great Gods depict a Kabeiric dwarfish Odysseus sailing upon an amphora filled with the special potion of the great sorceress Circe. This wine was fortified with a sacred psychoactive mushroom, whose antiquity can be traced back to the wolf sacrament of the Achaemenid Persians, and documented as well in Celtic lore and among the Nordic berserkers, recorded as early as the Emperor Trajan as a rite of the Dacians of Thrace, who are named as the ‘People of the Wolf’ and who carried the banner of Draco into battle, a serpent with the head of a wolf. The serpent is an indication of the wolf’s toxicity, and the fondness of wolves for eating the mushrooms was the basis for the rituals of lycanthropy and the initiated fraternal packs of warriors. In Athens of the Classical Age, the fungal identity of this initiatory sacrament was common knowledge, obscenely parodied on the comic stage. The Etruscans carried this sacrament to the Italian peninsula and it was incorporated into the mythologized history of Rome’s founding by the Trojan Aeneas as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the edible tables that would signal the site for the future city. The cult of the Great Gods involved the widespread phenomenon of the little people that materialized from the sacramental fungus as fairy creatures, using the mushroom as their tables set with dainty morsels that inspired visionary experience and of which it was taboo for the uninitiated to partake

An Assessment of Potential Detectors to Monitor the Man-made Orbital Debris Environment

Observations using NORAD radar showed that man made debris exceeds the natural environment for large objects. For short times (a few days to a few weeks) after solid rocket motor (SRM) firings in LEO, man made debris in the microparticle size range also appears to exceed the meteoroid environment. The properties of the debris population between these size regimes is currently unknown as there has been no detector system able to perform the required observations. The alternatives for obtaining data on this currently unobserved segment of the population are assessed

A new sabellid that infests the shells of molluscs and its implications for abalone mariculture

Bibliography: leaves 76-87.Infestations of sabellid polychaetes were found in South African farmed abalone in 1994. Growth experiments confirmed that infested abalone had reduced growth rates. Surveys of both the intertidal and subtidal region at various locations around the South African coastline revealed that the sabellid was endemic to the region. It occurred in a range of mollusc species, but some species were more susceptible than others. The fact that some molluscan species became infested with worms only when exposed to them in the laboratory suggests that environmental factors may play a role in controlling natural levels of infestation. Different host selection on the East Coast of South Africa suggests that there may be more than one species of worm. Larvae disperse by crawling and settle at the growing edge of the shell underneath the mantle. Although the larvae are benthic, there is limited transfer of larvae through the water column, which can result in export of larvae from infested tanks. The risks of dispersal are discussed in a farm management context. Abalone kept in more hygienic laboratory conditions tended to grow faster than in farm tanks and had lower levels of infestation by sabellid larvae. This was attributed to the sabellids being less fecund under these conditions. This was probably caused by lack of food as evidenced in a separate starvation experiment. Based on experimental observations and farm experience it was possible to make management recommendations to limit the effect of the sabellid Quantitative measurement taols to assess the impact and productivity of sabellid infestations were developed Management of infestations on a farm requires a combination of inhibiting transfer and productivity of the worm and also promoting growth of the abalone. However, the constant risk of exposure to natural populations of sabellids necessitates the development oJ a treatment to eradicate sabellid infestations. The use of microcapsules as a drug delivery mechanism was explored and holds promise. Gelatin microcapsules, oil immulsions and liposomes were experimented with. All formulations were successfully produced in the desired size range of 2-30 μm. In all cases the sabellid'l readily ingested the capsules. Various toxins were successfully added to the formulations, but none of the treatments were able to harm the sabellids. The problem appeared to be the short passage time within the guts and the inability of the sabellids to digest the outer encapsulating layers to expose the toxins. More research is required to find the correct combination of toxin and delivery mechanism