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 sualism. At present, I am experimenting with white mice. I dip their feet in red ink and permit them to make scrawls on a certain curious chart.

I have dabbled in drugs, for you know that the old Greek priests, the modern seers, and the medieval pythonesses, all have resorted to drugs to assist them to see visions. The narcotic or anæsthetic fumes, rising from the tripods, lulled the old Greek hierophants and soothsayers into a sympathetic frame of mind. First, I experimented with Napellus, for I had read that Napellus caused one's mental processes to be transferred from the brain to the pit of the stomach. There exists an exact description of the effects of this drug on an adept, one Baptista Van Helmont, which I will read you.

Peter, here, went to the shelves, and after a little hesitatian, pulled out an old brown volume. He turned over the pages for a few seconds and then began to read: Once, when I had prepared the root (of Napellus) in a rough manner, I tasted it with the tongue: although I had swallowed nothing, and had spit out a good deal of the juice, yet I felt as if my skull was being compressed by a string. Several household matters suggested themselves and I went about the house and attended to them. At last, I experienced what I had never felt before. It seemed to me that I neither thought nor understood, and as if I had none of the usual ideas in my head; but I felt, with astonishment, clearly and distinctly,