Just to screw the whole thing up even more, I'll summarize a bit from Aldous Huxley's Jesting Pilate; it would take me a while to find a proper citation, so ....
• At any rate, Huxley commented on a curious habit in India of claiming lost eras in which technologies and philosophies arising elsewhere in the world were once extant on the subcontinent. A reasonably well-educated man told him with a straight face about a maharajah who used to fly off in hot-air balloons to a land far to the east, across a vast ocean.
I don't recall why exactly, but at the time, I was struck by the notion of Nazca.
Of course, given some of the pharmacology offered us by nature, there is a compelling but disorganized and extended argument that might suggest the phantasmic representations handed down from various precolombian American cultures--especially Central and South America--are, in fact, inspired from within. I know I've seen the world so askew on mushrooms that I can't rule out my mind accidentally constructing a potential reality that I am not equipped to perceive and assimilate.
A Bradbury story comes to mind, but I can't remember the title. And even then, why it comes to mind is obscure, as well. Strike that. Two stories. The first is about a Chinese emperor and an airplane. The second is Dandelion Wine, and Leo Auffman's Happiness Machine (as I believe it's called)--in that case, Bradbury may well have been describing the internet.
• At any rate, Huxley commented on a curious habit in India of claiming lost eras in which technologies and philosophies arising elsewhere in the world were once extant on the subcontinent. A reasonably well-educated man told him with a straight face about a maharajah who used to fly off in hot-air balloons to a land far to the east, across a vast ocean.
I don't recall why exactly, but at the time, I was struck by the notion of Nazca.
Of course, given some of the pharmacology offered us by nature, there is a compelling but disorganized and extended argument that might suggest the phantasmic representations handed down from various precolombian American cultures--especially Central and South America--are, in fact, inspired from within. I know I've seen the world so askew on mushrooms that I can't rule out my mind accidentally constructing a potential reality that I am not equipped to perceive and assimilate.
A Bradbury story comes to mind, but I can't remember the title. And even then, why it comes to mind is obscure, as well. Strike that. Two stories. The first is about a Chinese emperor and an airplane. The second is Dandelion Wine, and Leo Auffman's Happiness Machine (as I believe it's called)--in that case, Bradbury may well have been describing the internet.
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