Word: soma
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Predictably, Huxley compares mescaline to soma, the universal antidote to everyday existence in Brave New World,--a drug with "all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol, none of the drawbacks." Like soma, mescaline is an hallucinogen and a euphoriant that is not harmful and provides a reasonably safe, extremely interesting escape from the world. But the effects of mescaline are far too capricious, much too susceptible to subtle psychological influences, and certainly too time-consuming to rank with those of Huxley's ideal drug. And with the majority that finds heaven in mescaline here is inevitably a small minority that...
...issue may be raised sooner than one might expect. Since mescaline became available, several other drugs with similar properties have been isolated, and some of these have very many of the qualities of Huxley's soma. The most astounding one is psilocybin, a compound isolated quite recently from a certain genus of Mexican mushrooms and now also synthesized. Psilocybin affects the mind much more selectively than mescaline, specifially stimulating those psychic effects that have been termed "broadened consciousness." It never impairs the higher mental functions, often it greatly enhances them. Visions and physical symptoms do occur but seem less intense...
George Bolton and Ed O'Callahan as Cerebro and Soma make believably solid citizens, and they can say absurd things without blinking an eyelash, which is what the play requires. Fred Morehouse and Endo seemed overly conscious of himself as an actor last night, where the apparent consciousness of the others was of their stage personages, rather than their off-stage personalities. Randy Echols' Visionary has little to do (which is very difficult for an actor to do well) and Echols is fine at it. He has a touching moment of pathos and beauty at the end of the play...
Your exposition [of a new muscle relaxant to be marketed under the name Soma-June 8] leaves me with no recourse but to admit that my life is momentarily complete. To envision N-isopropyl-2-methyl-2-propyl-1,3-propanediol dicarbamate narcotized people running around chanting Soma, delicious Soma, is to my mind just about...
...JOHN SOMA...