An experience that affected me deeply was a LSD trip where we actually walked through an old graveyard in South End, Port Elizabeth. On reflection, this was not the wisest of things to do.One section of the cemetry is set aside for adherents to the Islamic faith.On one grave, covered in cement, was a vase which contained a large bunch of dried poppy pods - the aesthetics were utterly magnificent.Suddenly I picked up a visual vibration, or textural wave of exquisite black lace, beautifully embroidered. I would classify this as a Persephone vibration.Plutonic, yes, but on the feminine side. Pluto is not merely masculine. There is a Queen of the Underworld as well.

Later: there is an Islamic woman somewhere in my past lives. She is the clue to the recent (1997) interest in mystic movements within early Islam.

See: Kerenyi on Poppy, in his Eleusis, pp. 37, 131.

These vases represent:

"...plants on tombs encompassed in a small sanctuary, or heroon, where we usually find idealized statues of the dead. A poppy, perhaps a substitute for the mystic pomegranite, is not lacking amongst these epiphanies in plant form."

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Robert Temple on Poppy Milk, in 'The Sirian Mystery.'

The Poppy in Minoan symbols. Evans, The Palace of Knossos.

40. Aedicula with a poppy growing out of a tomb. Reverse of an Apullian vase in the Vatican. From: Kerenyi, Karl, Eleusis, Fig. 40.

I had experienced this with the poppies on the Grave in Port Elizabeth. A Moslem Woman - Vision of Black Lace - perhaps she was a widow. Also this was Hecate. The Textures of Hecate, or Persephone.

Poppy and Opiates.

"The substance of Cartari's digest of Eusebius is the subject of the reverse of a desco da parto in the North Carolina Museum of Art, in which a nude male infant urinates into a poppy pod held by another child (Fig. 8)."

Fig.8.

"Reverse of a desco da parto by Apollonio di Giovanni (1415-65). Tempera on panel, 58.4 x 59.1 cm. North Carolina Museum of Art (Kress Collection), Raleigh. The subject of this Florentine birth tray of the fifteenth century, showing a boy urinating into a poppy pod held by another youth, derives from Eusebius and is symbolic of fertility. "

"26 E Callman. Apollonio di Giovanni. Oxford. 1974. p. 59, correctly identified the meaning of the poppy pods, but the action of the other infant has escaped notice, as has a proper explanation for the scene."

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A Fragment destined for: and related to:

ORION.DOC

From Robert Temple, Conversations with Eternity

p. 54

was "hooked" on opium, and that it was fundamental to their religion. Some of this evidence has gone unnoticed because many archaeologists are unfamiliar with botanical matters or with the details of obtaining opium.The Minoan figurines of the snake-goddess emphasize bursting breasts which protrude through a special opening in the clothes - they are generally of a pronounced milky-white colour. But the rest of the goddess is usually yellow, brown and black. Associations with opium may have been in the minds of the Minoans; the goddess who gives milk, symbolized by full white breasts, may have been associated with poppy-milk. The fact that yellow, brown and black are the colours which appear to have been held sacred to the goddess may refer to the successive stages of congealing of the opium. This is not merely idle speculation. See Figure II. As we have seen, the goddess with the poppies was also associated with the oracular doves and omphalos stones. There can be no doubt that opium was one of the main oracular drugs and, like the herbs mentioned earlier, was important in inducing visions and hallucinations.

Before leaving the subject, we should perhaps note a few more ancient references. When ointments and oils are referred to, we must realize that one of the best ways to absorb certain substances into the body is through the skin. Nowadays people often forget this; if

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