the semantic pharmacy and the magic of symbols
DESCRIPTION
This is a presentation for a talk I gave at Breaking Convention: a multidisciplinary conference on psychedelic consciousness.TRANSCRIPT
THE SEMANTIC PHARMACY
AND THE MAGIC OF SYMBOLS
Thomas Teun Meijer
Oxford English Dictionary on Drugs
Pronunciation:/drʌg/
1 a medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body […]2 a substance taken for its narcotic or stimulant effects, often illegally.
[…]Phrasesdo drugsinformal take illegal drugs.on drugstaking medically prescribed drugs:on drugs for high blood pressureunder the influence of or habitually taking illegal drugs.Origin:Middle English: from Old French drogue, possibly from Middle Dutch droge vate, literally 'dry vats', referring to the contents (i.e. dry goods)
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Oxford English Dictionary on Medicine
Pronunciation:/ m̍ɛds(ə)n, m̍ɛdɪsɪn/
1 the science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease (in technical use often taken to exclude surgery).2 a drug or other preparation for the treatment or prevention of disease:give her some medicine[count noun] :your doctor will be able to prescribe medicines.3 (among North American Indians and some other peoples) a spell, charm, or fetish believed to have healing, protective, or other power:Fleur was murdering him by use of bad medicine.
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Derrida on Drugs: Pharmakon
Translates as:
• philtre• drug • recipe • charm • medicine• substance• spell • artificial colour• paint
Other mutations:Pharmakos =
- scapegoat- magician
Pharmacia = - fairies- taking of drugs
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Plato on Drugs“All translations into languages that are the heirs and depositariesof Western Metaphysics thus produce on the pharmakon an effect ofanalysis that violently destroys it, reduces it to one of its simpleelements by interpreting it, […] The translation by ‘remedy’ canthus neither be accepted nor simply rejected. […] the idea of thecorrect use of the science or art of medicine, one would still runevery risk of being deceived by language. Writing is no morevaluable, says Plato, as a remedy than as a poison. […] the remedy isdisturbing in itself. One must indeed be aware of the fact that Platois suspicious of the pharmakon in general, even in the case of drugsused exclusively for therapeutic ends, even when they are wieldedwith good intentions, and even when they are as such effective.There is no such thing as a harmless remedy. The pharmakon cannever be simply beneficial.”
– from Jacques Derrida, ‘Plato’s Pharmacy’, in Dissemination, p.99
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Writing on Drugs“[…] Socrates compares the written texts Phaedrus has brought along to adrug (pharmakon). This pharmakon, this ‘medicine’, this philtre, whichacts as both remedy and poison, already introduces itself into the body ofthe discourse with all its ambivalence. This charm, this spellbinding virtue,this power of fascination, can be – alternately or simultaneously –beneficent or maleficent. The pharmakon would be a substance – with allthat that word can connote in terms of matter with occult virtues, crypticdepths refusing to submit their ambivalence to analysis, already pavingthe way for alchemy – if we didn’t have eventually to come to recognize itas antisubstance itself: that which resists any philosopheme, indefinitelyexceeding its bounds as nonidentity nonessence, nonsubstance; grantingphilosophy by that very fact the inexhaustible adversity of what funds itand the infinite absence of what founds it.
Operating through seduction, the pharmakon makes one strayfrom one’s general, natural, habitual paths and laws. Here, it takesSocrates out of his proper place and off his customary track. The latter hadalways kept him inside the city. The leaves of writing act as a pharmakonto push or attract out of the city the one who never wanted to get out, evenat the end, to escape the hemlock. They take him out of himself and drawhim onto a path that is properly an exodus: […]”
– from Jacques Derrida, ‘Plato’s Pharmacy’, in Dissemination, p.70
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Thomas’ voyage on the semantic sea:
Kindreadinphiknight.wordpress.com
“Interweaving symbolic streams
with the embroideries of life”
twitter: @Inphiknight
Email: [email protected]
[email protected] @Inphiknight