Word: soma
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Soma. so snoozy and soothing. See MEDICINE...
...ancient Aryan invaders of India found that from the fermented juice of a vine (probably Asdepias acida) they could get a drink that made them feel happy, courageous and of superhuman strength. They called it "soma." It was so potent that it gained the status of a deity (the Rigveda is repetitive with praises of the divine potion). That was about 3,500 years...
When Aldous Huxley saw a Brave New World in his crystal ball (1932), he borrowed the name soma for his panacea: "There is always soma, delicious soma, half a gram for a half-holiday, a gram for a weekend, two grams for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon." That was 600 years hence, in the 7th century After Ford...
Singing Theologicals. In this verbally sparkling but essentially dismal exercise in self-vindication and world indictment, Huxley has assembled a mass of evidence to suggest that the human race is approaching his dread vision of total togetherness much more quickly than he estimated. (Huxley set the time of his soma-happy society in the 7th century A.F., or After Ford.) Institutes for Motivational Research, hidden persuaders and singing commercials make Huxley think man is being nudged closer to the dark side of the moonstruck world he once described...
Unfortunately, there are passages when Huxley becomes as blurred as a soma drunkard. There must be a good drug, he argues-something to make man happy and yet not bad, and he has hopes for an amino-alcohol called Deaner, which "sounds almost too good to be true" (no hangover; one just feels lovely...