Ether

[Anville Azote]

On 4/24/06, Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Milutis, Joe.  Ether: The Nothing that Connects
>    Everything.  Minnespolis: U of Minnesota P, 2006.
>

"I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to
put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the
thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the
triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and
filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an
archangel for a moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great
truth which underlies all human experience and is the key to all the
mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me
in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had
lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of a cherubim. As
my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and,
staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling characters,
the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The
words were these (children may smile; the wise ponder): 'A strong
smell of turpentine prevails throughout'."

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, from a Phi Beta Kappa address at Harvard
University (1870)

http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=12811

Note the intriguing false singular "a cherubim", perhaps influenced by
the false plural "cherubims" found in the King James Version.  "A
cherubim" here parallels "an archangel", as both are orders of angels
in medieval Christian thought.