Posted on 06/05/2025 1:18:11 PM PDT by Red Badger
So...it was you all along...
~~~~~
Ergot is neither rare nor difficult to produce. It comes naturally in souring rye and barley crops. Ergot poisoning is thought to be the cause of the Salem witch trials and a large portion of the plagues of Europe.
Villages in and after the Roman and Holy Roman empires ate from communal stores of rye and barley which soured periodically.
The hippies knew about morning glories in the 60s.
Far out man.
Far out, any relation to Abby Hoffman?
Finally!
People thought the rumor in the 1960s about heating banana peels on an open stove door would bring out chemicals to get high on was true. It wasn’t. 🍌
A false urban legend was that it inspired the Donovan #1 hit Mellow Yellow. But it was said by Donovan from seeing an ad for a yellow vibrator.
The Rolling Stone Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll said: “he admitted later the song made reference to a vibrator; an “electrical banana” as mentioned in the lyrics. Donovan stated, “I was reading a newspaper and on the back there was an ad for a yellow dildo called the mellow yellow,” he said.”
Meme....
Guy is probably a mayor in a large Dem city today.
Remember the U. of Chicago retired Distinguished Professor Bill Ayres? Formerly on the 1960s-1970s most wanted list of the FBI.
“In 1969, Ayers co-founded the far-left militant organization the Weather Underground, a revolutionary group that sought to overthrow the United States government which they viewed as American imperialism. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Weather Underground conducted a campaign of bombing public buildings in opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.” Wikipedia.
Note: Due to technicalities in court including the way in which the FBI handled the case, Ayers was set free. “Illegal actions by the FBI.”
Questioned a few years ago about the bombings, he said he had “no regrets” and that “I wish we had done more.”
He absurdly tried to convince news interviewers later that he merely meant a moral feeling of opposition to the killings due to the war meant people should organized more protests in public.
I’d always heard of things in the Middle Ages. Wheat got the fungus but they had to eat it. Knew craziness would follow.
I think it was called St. Vitus dance.
I hadn’t heard of this Salem theory.
Been waiting over fifty years for the flashbacks they promised!
And the reference to being crazy ‘bout fourteen and she being crazy ‘bout him?
It’s shrooms now. Even heals spinal CNS injury.
The psychedelic effects are just a nuisance. That’s why I take them at night, in bed. Next day I can feel,, balance and walk much better.
I like being able to walk.
Props to the ‘Shroom
Another man’s account:
Impossible to answer authoritatively.
One source said it was “Fotine” (a name), another said when Donovan was age 16 the fourteenth girl he had sex with gave him hepatitis which turned his skin yellow from liver damage.
Fotina is also a cheese that is yellow and has tiny holes like Swiss.
Saffron is yellow, too. And a name (a casual girl friend of mine in 1966 had the last name, adapted from Safran.) Her father ran for mayor locally and lost.
Saffron was the daughter of British blues musician Alexis Korner; Saffron “Sappho” Gillet Korner. Friend of Donovan. I was surprised as a non drug user to hear that in the late 1960s Rorer 714s were yellow colored quaaludes.
Finally, during the banana smoking craze some stores refused to sell bananas.
Ergot fungus would cause the craziness in Convulsive Ergotism which related to Gangrenous Ergotism, also known as "St. Anthony's Fire".
https://morbidhistory.com/ergotism-the-mystery-of-st-anthonys-fire/
(St. Vitus' dance is Sydenham's Chorea, caused by an autoimmune reaction to a childhood Strep infection).
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