Walkie, much as I appreciate you, I have to call you on the 'pussy-stealer' type, being less of a crime because the victim gets to keep what is stolen. Is it fucking shit less. If anything it is worse. Because as well as being a rapist piece of shite, they go beyond that and try to blow it off, not even trying to excuse themelves, as if what they took, was of about the same moral level of encountering a woman (or man, if the rapist is a faggot of course. Ew.), and, without engaging in rape, in their view 'muff-burgling' being no different, from if they instead didn't rape, but dipped their hand into the lass's purse, bag, coat or whatever else of the kind and helped themselves to a pack of fucking smokes?
Anyone that damn callous as to actually see the two as equal, IMO almost certainly has strong sociopathic tendencies, and, afaik (I am right on this, as being the consensus, Elle, am I not, with regards to the psychology and psychopathological traits, as a headshrinker, you're probably more well up on the most current of the literature than I am) that those with a personality disorder are essentially untreatable, its inborn, with things such as sociopathy, and true psychopathy (ed bundy types I mean, by the latter), just waiting to surface, when its practical, or perhaps when it suits the nutball best to let it off any leash they may have it on. And if it is manifest in a given subject, they are hard-wired that way, and that even if one were to lock such up permanently, the only way that they could be made to stop THINKING of the evils they desire to do, and desiring them still, would be to remove the bit of them that does the thinking from the rest of their body, no?
'Raxy, of COURSE, I never meant to imply that there was a practical association qualitatively with regards to guilt or innocence, in referencing the uncanny valley and witchcraft. Not in the least. Of course somebody can't be guilty in truth, of witchcraft, regardless of the law of the land, because it is impossible to in actuality, employ witchcraft, white, black or any shade inbetween, in any manner beyond ceremony, and/or use of plant or/and animal derivatives to cause effects, ranging from frank and outright subtly poisoning somebody, sticking some wolfbane in their cup of coffee, etc. to culturally-recognized practices like those of the african sangomas with their Ubulawu herbs *not that I deny that these may indeed have therapeutic or psychotropic properties. Or/and toxic effects in some cases. That this is the case is indisputable, but also indisputable, is that it is science, not magic, although the practitioner may have a nonscientific view, and lack the knowledge that after say, partaking of something like DMT in ayahuasca, that it is dimethyltryptamine, allowed to become orally active via the action of coadmixed and coadministered monoamine oxidase inhibitor alkaloids acting on type 5HT2a, 5HT1a, 5HT2c serotonin receptor and TAARs (trace amine associated receptors) which produce psychedelic manifestations through altering biochemistry. (although, truth told, there IS something pretty well ineffable about some such qualities of some of these things, DMT in particular that is most persuasive)
Although there do also exist intriguing cultural parallels between a mixture of sorcery and science. In north african Ubulawu practices, a heavy dose of sorcery is in with a lot of bioactive plants, but at the same time, once it became available, because they knew some of these precious living resources were in massive danger, due to overexploitation, slow growth, combined, pushing the populations of the living plants into danger of dying out, or becoming almost unavailable, many of these african medicine-men using Ubulawu herbs, decided to adopt a western psychedelic drug, knowing what it was, because they realized that with the synthetic, they could use it in what quantities they required, so as to allow their rich bioactive botanical heritage to procreate, and regenerate, the drug in question being the fairly well-known 2C-B (2,5-dimethoxy-4-bromophenethylamine) being nonnaturally occurring at least in any organism thus far analyzed chemically, but recognizing the common properties of this product of man's artifice and hallucinogen and some of their Ubulawu, 2C-B became highly valued, apparently, among many of these african shamen.
With regards to the hostile, hysterical witchcraft panics in european medieval culture, it was highly misogynistic, and influenced by christianity. But it is thought quite probable that, albeit not deliberately, a hallucinogenic toxic group of fungi, plant pathogens which are in nature, obligate parasites upon grasses and cereal grains being favourite or obligate hosts of some species. These fungi, are the Ergots, genus Claviceps, particularly the commonest probably, in england, and widespread wherever we europeans took our cereals. Most Claviceps species are highly host-specific, restricted either to a single grass (usually, although Clavicipitalean species growing on sedges and reeds have been confirmed to exist) species within a genus, or are restricted in their host range with specificity at genus level with regards to the grass hosts. Claviceps purpurea, the most well-known, and doubtless the most infamous, or rye ergot is unique in the genus Claviceps, in that it is extremely adaptable, even so far as to parasitize arundinoid, pooid, panicoids, even some chloridoid grasses, not just rye, wheat, but not only different, and extremely wide ranging genera of host grasses but entirely different lineages and orders of grass supertypes.
They infect by both distribution of nonsexually produced conidiospores, and ascospores during a sexual cycle, mimicking the pollen grain's germ tube formation and travelling down the internals of the florets of host grasses, with conidia being divided into primarily insect-vectored primary, asexual macroconidia and airborne microconidia, along with short-distance maintainance of infection via the sexual reproductive cycle-produced ascospores, and once these infectious propagules come into contact with a suitable host species and locus of infection, they replace the ovary of the plant, with their own tissue, subsisting as a parasite, and in order to survive, producing resting structures called sclerotiae, which look like purplish-black, elongated (usually, although since rye ergot is uniquely adaptable the physical morphology of the sclerotium varies according to the morphology and size of the ovary of the plants)
These fall to the ground, and after suitable climactic conditions for their germination and ascospore formation, start sprouting little mushroom-shaped bodies which sporulate away to perpetuate infections.
However, they have a connection, twofold, perhaps, with witchcraft. In one sense, midwives of the ages were also often targeted by the orthodoxy, for their use of herbal remedies and potions, as 'witches', and ergot was, although if misused, extremely poisonous, and in an extremely unpleasant way, it (and today, chemical isolates of purified compounds) are used in obstetric medicine to staunch post-partum haemorrhage, and to quicken difficult labors, as it contains compounds, ergot alkaloids with a peptidic, cyclic sidechain of a small number of amino-acids, the specific aminoacids being variable.
Chemically, they share one thing in common. They are based upon lysergic acid, and have a certain structural commonality with LSD, the peptidic bond, is an amide linkage between two or more aminoacids..LSD, is a lysergic acid amide, and there are numerous analogs, although not so close to the natural ergot alkaloids as to be toxic. The natural ones however, are. They are both oxytocic in effect, to varying degrees of efficacy, some more than others. But they are also extremely fucking potent vasoconstrictors, and unfortunately being parasites of grain ears, replacing the seed used in making bread with their toxin-laden sclerotiae, which cause a distinct pair of toxic syndromes depending on the alkaloidal chemotype of the infecting strain afflicting a given harvest. One chiefly due to vasoconstriction, due to their powerful agonistic effect on adrenergic receptors located within vascular tissue epithelial walls (quite powerful enough, for example, for my merely harvesting such infected host-plants for their sclerotiae without gloves, picking them and putting them into a bag for transport was sufficient to induce a coldness of my fingers and hands, and tingling in the fingertips, which were the bodypart having most contact physically with the ergot sclerotiae due to the diminished blood-flow to the extremities)
One of the two toxic syndromes from ergot-infested bread, in sublethal quantities was the development of a dry gangrene, with affected people suffering what they thought to be the wrath of god, or else the work of witches and demons, causing the affliction they termed 'St. Anthony's fire', and due to the cutting off of blood supply, the extremities, such as fingers, toes, ears, nose, lips, hands, feet, arms, legs suffered most in this kind of ergot poisoning. The second, which occurs in distinctly different strains, expressing a different profile of ergot alkaloids, less on the vasoconstrictor side, took a convulsive profile, with people being seized by powerful muscle contractions possssed of almost bone-breaking force potential, such that a sufferer would often beg for the assistance of others in forcing their painfully clenched hands open, and preventing them reclenching, and epileptiform seizures. At the time this was not understood, and such as epilepsy was potentially viewed as demoniacal possession, perhaps via the agency of witches, doing the bidding of Satan, and to complicate things, due to the lysergic acid amide structure, some of these alkaloids could also induce hallucinatory states. They are related also to the hallucinogenic principle within the seeds of many morning glory species, ergine, a simple lysergic acid amide, and whilst it has some vasoconstrictor effects when the seed is consumed as an LSD substitute, it is not nearly so powerful as to cause gangrene, tissue dessication and death, etc. and can be, and is, often used, along with relatives in the Convolvulaceous tribe of plants, although these do not produce the hallucinogenic compounds within the seeds directly, rather, an obligate endosymbiont fungus, not of the genus Claviceps itself, but related, of a Clavicipitalean lineage, does so.
Such effects combined, especially in a superstitious, hyperreligiose, mysogynistic cultural setting sets a very strongly provocative scenario for excuses for discrimination against (chiefly) women, as 'witches', often people would be denounced as witches on such 'evidence' as a physical deformity, unattractiveness, on the say so of children on the content of their dreams, or ergotized bread (and it was often heavily, even to the point of acutely lethally so, ergotized, the toxic and psychotropic sclerotiae having been processed along with the uninfected ears and seeds. And the rich, acting the way the rich and powerful so often do, bought up the best flour for themselves, leaving only the dross for the peasants, who were sometimes left, even when toxicity became known of ergot fungi, with a choice between consuming bread which was 30% ergot, to half, or even almost all of it being ergot, rather than grain flour) and facing death by sheer starvation. In addition, the ergot caused frequently, cumulative neurological lesions of enduring duration.
With much effort, these little buggers can be cultured artificially in fermenters, and the ergopeptide alkaloids hydrolyzed to give free lysergic acid, which even in gram quantities, is an extremely valuable commodity, and one that the hobbyist chemist community would otherwise have intense, the very greatest of difficulty in obtaining such a normally 'watched' chemical. Such strains as are stable producers, or both productive of alkaloids AND conidia-forming (rare), and most difficult in terms of the microbiology work required, would be of immense value to the non-uni affiliated scientist community. And of course, not without reward for a job well done either, assuming I could manage it. To whip some cultures into shape appropriate for servitude, although given the toxicity, culture medium handling, and any processing and purification must be conducted with the utmost care.
So, 'Raxy, with such background knowledge thus proffered for your digestion, perhaps the connection is not unobvious? Especially to a shining intellect such as your own
