Leo Perutz, St Peter's Snow

[capetonian]

"A novel published in 1933, describes the isolation of a hallucinogenic drug from an ergot-type fungus. It remarkably predates the discovery the hallucinogenic properties of the ergot-derived alkaloid lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) by ten years. It also identifies ergot as the secret psychoactive sacrament of the ancient mysteries forty years before this hypothesis became a matter of academic and scientific investigation. In the novel, a central character plans to use an ergot derived drug as an agent of popular religious renewal, prefiguring the New Age religious revival initiated by the popular use of LSD. The story involves the mass testing of a hallucinogenic drug on the unsuspecting inhabitants of an isolated village almost twenty years before the Pont St Esprit incident of 1951, which has been ascribed to the CIAs plans for experimental dosing of unsuspecting civilians with psychoactive drugs. This article investigates how the author could have managed to foresee these future events in such prophetic detail and reveals the sources that were available. In this article the history of psychoactive drugs is set in the context of the political, scientific, literary, and philosophical culture of the interwar period and shows that the cultural history of psychoactive drugs is enhanced by such context."

So what do you think was going on? Was acid discovered before Hoffman came along. Was Perutz a visionary of sorts?

There's probably a lot more questions than there are answers.

KIRKUS REVIEW

A novel by the Czech-Israeli Perutz (By Night Under the Stone Bridge, p. 460, etc.), who wrote in German and died in 1957, that was banned by the Nazis soon after its publication in 1933. The story of a laboratory experiment inducing mass hysteria had far too many parallels to be countenanced. Again Perutz invokes an older, even mystical world, as he tells the story of the young doctor Georg Amberg, who awakes in a hospital after a serious accident to discover that his memories of what happened are not believed. There seems to be a conspiracy of sorts afoot. He remembers that he was struck by a blow from a fall, but the medical authorities insist that he was knocked down by a car in the town square. As he lies in bed, Amberg recalls how he came to accept a job as village doctor in a remoter rural area in Germany--a place where time stood still. On the nearby estate there of Baron von Malchin, an old friend of his historian-father, all farm work was done the old way. There were no machines and the villagers seemed to live feudal lives. The Baron, an obvious fanatic, dreamed of reestablishing the Holy Roman Empire and bringing God back to a world where religion was dead. The Baron was preparing an heir to take over the country. To bring God back, he had a young chemist and colleague of Amberg's, the beautiful Bibiche, create an elixir--St. Peter's Snow--whose purpose was to induce religious frenzy. Amberg, in love with Bibiche, witnessed the fatal execution of the plan: the people found God, but he was the god of political revolution. And now, as Amberg recovers, he learns that his memories are true--that there is a conspiracy to make him forget. A compelling stow, not only about the terrible consequences of fanaticism and delusion, but also about the reluctance to accept their existence. And the contrast between the rather ordinary Amberg, the witness to the madness, and the scope of the Baron's compulsive delusion is underscored by vivid and evocative writing. A timeless tale.

Edited April 13, 2016 by capetonian