There may be no older idea in the world. Friedrich Nietzsche once described Dionysian intoxication as “nature overpowering mind”—nature having her way with us. The Greeks understood that this was not something to be undertaken lightly or too often. Intoxication was a carefully circumscribed ritual for them, never a way to live, because they understood that Dionysus can make angels of us or animals, it all depends.
