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  1. Ingesting Magic: Ingredients and Ecstatic Outcomes in the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri.Alan Sumler - 2017 - Arion 25 (1):99-126.
    There are spells in the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri which promise divine visitations, assistants, ecstatic states, vessel inquiries, and vivid dreams. They also require powerful psychoactive botanical ingredients. How did these spells work and what were the expectations of somebody purchasing them? Looking at the ingredients of visionary spells and relying on the pharmacology of Dioscorides and Theophrastus, I ascertain how these spells achieved the promised visions and altered states of consciousness for the user. These spells guarantee great spiritual (...)
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  2. Myth Rationalization in Ancient Greek Comedy.Alan Sumler - 2014 - Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 107 (2):81-100.
    Ancient Greek comedy takes interesting approaches to mythological narrative. This article analyzes one excerpt and eight fragments of ancient Greek Old, Middle, and New Comedy. It attempts to show a comic rationalizing approach to mythology. Poets analyzed include Aristophanes, Cratinus, Anaxilas, Timocles, Antiphanes, Anaxandrides, Philemon, Athenion, and Comic Papyrus. Comparisons are made to known rationalizing approaches as found in the mythographers Palaephatus and Heraclitus the Paradoxographer. Ancient comedy tends to make jokes about the ludicrous aspects of myth. Early Greek myth (...)
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  3. Cannabis in the Ancient Greek and Roman World.Alan Sumler - 2018 - Lexington Books.
    Cannabis in the Ancient Greek and Roman World explores the use of cannabis and hemp in medicine, religion, and recreation in the classical period. This work surveys the plant in Greek and Roman literature and provides a compendium of primary sources discussing hemp through the Middle Ages.
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