New Theory on What Got the Oracle of Delphi High

[icymist]

Something in the ancient Greek temple of Delphi made its priestess high enough to believe she could predict the future. Scientists just can’t agree on what.

In the temple, the resident female oracle, called a Pythia, was a role filled by a succession of women over the years, usually priestesses of high birth who lived a solitary life in the temple.

A simple cocktail of carbon dioxide mixed with methane could have induced the psychic trances that the Pythia used to channel the gods and dish out their advice, according to the latest, Italian-led study.

“It is possible that the toxicity problems due just to a deficit of oxygen in the Temple room, where air ventilation was weak and the gas release from the soil was strong,” said study leader Giuseppe Etiope of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome.

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