SATAN = SANTA ?!?!

First, I found the Santa reading to be very interesting and enlightening. It is very factual about the agaric mushroom, but at times I found the links between Santa and the fly agaric a little forced and farfetched. For the most part, however, the Santa reading certainly gives me something to think about. Many of the points outlined in the Santa reading seem to make too much sense than to be mere coincidence.

What I came away with from the readings is very vague and perhaps oxymoronic. I got the impression that often drugs can help artists have more creative thoughts and ideas, but just as often drugs can hinder an artist's work. Basically drugs induce altered states, in which artists are often inspired. In the altered state however, most artists do not actually produce work. They only have a vision. Once sober, they use their skills and talents to express the creativity experienced in the altered state. Similarly, without artistic skills, creativity experienced in an altered state that cannot be expressed is lost to the world. Drugs have influenced many artists like Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, and Edgar Allen Poe, but they have also restricted many artists as well. For example, Hughes states that for Jack Kerouac, "the effect of speed is more clearly harmful." And even though Poe was influenced by opium, alcohol, and severe mental illness, perhaps he would have been just as genius sans drugs. And without drugs, Poe may not have been found dying in the streets in clothes that weren't even his own  and we could have more Poe short stories. 

Another thought I had was that if in general, artists don't actually produce work in drug induced ASCs and must do so in a normal state, that's why marijuana, LSD, and other seemingly nonaddictive drugs consistenly produce art. I mean once you're addicted to heroin, all you're worried about is getting heroin, so expressing what you experienced on your last high probably takes a backseat to your next fix.

One last thought: Walt Disney was a major progressive in American culture and yes, he used drugs. I don't think it is a coincidence that Alice in Wonderland is pretty much an animated trip and fly agaric mushrooms show up in Snow White. How I'd love to see his diaries. I'm sure that every project Disney was personally behind had a social message.