title: Turning East: Promise and the Peril of the New Orientalism
author: Haevey COX
description: Excerpt(s): The chemically active ingredient in peyote is mescaline, which is structurally related to psilocybin and LSD. Although some people call these substances "hallucinogens" (capable of triggering hallucinations) or even "psychotomimetics" (creating states of mind that seem psychotic), Roquet refuses to use this terminology, since few people really hallucinate when under the influence of these substances. They see and hear and feel what is actually there, only much more intensely. Roquet believes that the term most psychologists prefer, "psychedelic" has become relatively useless because of its sensational attachment to vivid poster art and fortissimo guitar music. In my experience, these substances suspend temporarily the feeling-inhibiting and perception-censoring mechanisms that operate in us during our "normal" hours. They do not add anything of their own. They are "tools" in the best sense of the word. They enable us to feel with full pungency the most buried joys and fears our memories hold. They help us see the starkness and complexity of what is around us, devoid of the gauze with which our manipulative minds usually cover them. They help us remember past happiness grown dim with time, present loves, bygone pains of separation and abandonment. But these substances are terribly potent. They are the psychological equivalent of nuclear power, capable of doing enormous good and creating awesome destruction. No wonder the Huichols wanted to be purified before they let us touch peyote. (pages 44-45)
zlib_text: The Dragoman Renaissance
  
  The Dragoman Renaissance
  
  Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism
  
  •
  
  E. Natalie Rothman
  
  Cornell University Press  
  Ithaca and London
  
  Copyright © 2021 by Cornell University
  
  The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
  NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License:
  <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/> . To use this book, or
  parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact
  Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York
  14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.
  
  First published 2021 by Cornell University Press
  
  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
  
  Names: Rothman, E. Natalie (Ella Natalie), 1976– author.
  
  Title: The dragoman renaissance: diplomatic interpreters and the routes of
  orientalism / E. Natalie Rothman.
  
  Description: Ithaca [New York]: Cornell University Press, 2021. | Includes
  bibliographical references an