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Seeking information for a book I'm writing..

N

N8iswhoeyeyam

Greenlighter
Joined
Jun 16, 2017
Messages
14
Basically, I'm writing a book. The setting is basically Roman style dress and architecture, it's much more modern. Think if the Roman Empire never collapsed. The story centers around a slave trading company/religion in their efforts to create the perfect slave and the lives of "The Masters" that train them. The Masters are part of a religious sect that train the slaves to better serve the nobility of the nation.

The part of the story I need help fleshing out is how they break the free person and mold it into perpetually submissive and obeisant slave. The idea behind the Masters work is have the slave venerate the Masters and later their owner as a personal god that lives to serve and please - that is to say they believe they were created and brought into existence to serve their god. I'm thinking that drugs, perhaps hallucinogens, would be involved. I realize since it's fiction that I could make up a magic potion that does this, but that seems like a cop-out and instead thought I'd seek out information on real life possibilities to reflect in the story. I know extremely little about drugs, but I've asked on other forums and have been told this is the best drug board and I was hoping to find help here with answers.

Basically, I'm looking for ideas on how break the mind from a current reality in order to implant a new one. Some of the reading I've done and asking around other places have brought up datura; that the subject becomes very suggestive and the trip can last a day or more. Does anyone have experience with this?


Any help is appreciated! If I'm on the wrong board please tell me and direct me to the most appropriate one please.
 
Datura came to mind too, but no I don't have any personal experience. You should find trip reports on erowid to give you a feeling for it.

On a side note. Romans were great consumers of opium. The famous Roman triads (not sure about English translation...triadas in Spanish) were basically opium with lots of other extravagant ingredients like gold, or a piece of serpent or whatever to make them classy. That was used by Emperators because to be addicted to opiates protects against poisoning and certain illnesses.
You could make everybody addicted to opiates in your book to give it some realism. Opium and flour were the only products that didn't suffer a high tax increment in the decline of the Empire as they were seen as essential.
I am narrating out of memory so for the proper information about drugs in the Roman Empire or anywhere else in history, just go to The General History of Drugs by Antonio Escohotado.
 
Thanks!
What is erowid?

Do you think prolonged exposure to datura could make this mind control per se to work? I've been told a trip can last a day or two, or even up to two weeks? I've had atropine and scopalamine mentioned in relation to this, on other boards, and told it could last a long time?

I really don't know anything about drugs :/
 
slavery is similar to addiction,
so you may want to play with a variant of highly addictive methamphetamine, one that requires daily redosing yet enables good working ethics - and then possibly throw in a form of diazepam to help slaves get to sleep, and to keep them even more dependent upon their masters who dispense these chemical agents that keep servants servile and compliant.

good luck with your fiction
 
That's an idea! Thanks!

I was more of less thinking it would more of a re-education - where the free person or "test subject" has most or all of their past washed away and a new reality that the Masters (and after their sale, their owner) are gods and it's actually a gift and honour for the slave to able to serve them, you know? Rather than a constant dependance on the drug.
 
What is erowid?
Click to expand...
erowid.org

it's an amazing online drug reference. been around since 1995.

as for your story, i'm pretty sure you're pretty much describing something like the 'original' definition of 'zombie', sort of enslaved person under the control of someone else, apparently through achieved through dosing someone with puffer fish venom to paralyse them (according to some sources then they are buried presumed dead), the body recovered and the victim/zombie is given datura and held uynder the control of the bokor (sorcerer).

Along with puffer fish venom in the initial poisoning, "toad toxin -bufotoxin" is mentioned in some sources which could refer to a number of chemicals, which notably - from a drug point of view - include some tryptamines, which are psychedelic drugs).

wikipedia said:
[R]eports appeared that Narcisse received a dose of a chemical mixture containing tetrodotoxin (a pufferfish toxin) and bufotoxin (a toad toxin) to induce a coma that mimicked the appearance of death. He was then allowed to return to his home where he collapsed, "died", and was buried.

The Canadian ethnobotanist Wade Davis, who did research related to the implication that tetrodotoxin was present, hypothesized how this might have been done. The bokor (sorcerer) would have given Narcisse a powder containing the tetrodotoxin through abraded skin. Narcisse would then have fallen into a comatose state, closely resembling death, which resulted in his live burial. His body was then recovered and he was given doses of Datura stramonium to create a compliant zombie-like state and set to work on a plantation. After two years, the plantation owner died and Narcisse simply walked away to freedom.
Click to expand...

link

wikipedia said:
Zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead persons physically revived by the act of necromancy of a bokor, a sorcerer or witch. The bokor is opposed by the houngan or priest and the mambo or priestess of the formal voodoo religion. A zombie remains under the control of the bokor as a personal slave, having no will of its own.
Click to expand...
link

there is also a Vice News documentary about this subject;



Personally i think this is 'possible' shared beliefs suggestion, or because both participants believe or understand this folkloric possession to be a possible.

In any other sense, I don't think controlling someone with datura is in realistic pharmacologically.
i think the following (highlighted) quote is kind of interesting as it relates to your book pot and the theme of slavery;

wikipedia said:
The zombie belief has its roots in traditions brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans, and their subsequent experiences in the New World. It was thought that the voodoo deity Baron Samedi would gather them from their grave to bring them to a heavenly afterlife in Africa ("Guinea"), unless they had offended him in some way, in which case they would be forever a slave after death, as a zombie. A zombie could also be saved by feeding them salt. A number of scholars have pointed out the significance of the zombie figure as a metaphor for the history of slavery in Haiti.
Click to expand...
link
 
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Lots of info, decent!

Yeah, a zombie is a pretty great metaphor for what I'm describing. The test subject, rather than "raised from the dead" would have the reality that they were created to live as a slave to serve the god that owns them. They wouldn't necessarily be without a will of their own, it's just that their will and their personal reason for living is to serve their master/god - so that if their toiling in the fields, or working the kitchen, or whatever their station, they're happy to do it and honored their master/god allows them to serve.

I'm kind of looking for how the Masters would implant such a reality into the mind of a free person - also how they would cause a break from the old reality of being a free individual.

I'll check out that erowid thanks!
 
Given the natural predisposition of people to be led, subjugation has always been the norm. Therefore, instilling in a slave the belief that they exist to serve presents no special challenges. In my opinion, psychedelics strongly encourage subversive inclination, so I doubt they could have been used to sustain enslavement.
 
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N8iswhoeyeyam said:
That's an idea! Thanks!

I was more of less thinking it would more of a re-education - where the free person or "test subject" has most or all of their past washed away and a new reality that the Masters (and after their sale, their owner) are gods and it's actually a gift and honour for the slave to able to serve them, you know? Rather than a constant dependance on the drug.
Click to expand...

the problem is that drugs do not encode ideas or beliefs. and erroneous perceptions and addictions (enslavements) are often dismantled by psychedelics over time, so I do not think you can get that into your story, You could however have an implant idea which after observing behavior for a few days can begin to generate mental media that convinces the slave that the master is loving etc.

Other than that, combining enslavement with addiction provides a moral mirror of our current world which is usually compelling.
 
Can you think of other drugs aid in brainwashing the slave? Could you elaborate on the implanting an idea and observing behaviour part?
 
These drugs that would be used to create the slave, what I'm assuming would be psychedelics, hallucinogens, hypnotics, deliriants, etc, would use in combination with sensory deprivation, confinement, torture, exhaustion, starvation and sleep deprivation, forcing them to watch suggestive videos and listen to suggestive whispers all of which reinforce the new reality, that they were never free or an individual, they had been created for this purpose alone and that they always existed as such, and that it is a great honour to have even been created to serve.

Different drugs, or indeed a combination, could be used and the training could take up to a year or more.

The drugs wouldn't sustain their submissive servitude, their overwhelming desire to serve their personal god/master and the year plus of re-education should be what sustains their will to serve. The drugs would only be needed in combination with other factors throughout the training would be to break the mind and permanently alter the slave's reality.
 
N8iswhoeyeyam said:
Can you think of other drugs aid in brainwashing the slave? Could you elaborate on the implanting an idea and observing behaviour part?
Click to expand...

the implant would be an advanced and complicated electronic device beyond today's tech that could track shifting mental contents and then insert commands appropriately. The device would need time to adapt to each slave's personal mental architecture, but once adapted it could reliably introduce the kinds of signals required to alter behavior.
 
I'm liking the idea, but I don't plan on them being that far advanced, like no robots or computers. That's why I'm trying to go with old fashioned brainwashing and re-education. I think a sophisticated chip implanted in their brain that chances their thought process is akin to a magic potion that does the same - no offense, because I like the idea - it seems like a quick way out, you know?
 
That's the thing, I'm trying to avoid the magic fix idea. That's why I'm playing with the idea of drugs - like the Angel's Trumpet or datura - along with intense training to make the slave. It's going to be a trial and error thing, some slaves just won't make it you know?
 
Well, it is a legend of an order of hashish users trained by a mysterious Old Man of the mountain for warfare. I see a link in the use of the drug and the command of their behaviour, you can milk ideas for your training into slavery...But YOU are the writer....
 
lol oh yeah! I see the connection now! I like it! :D

If you want to help me write it I'll give you credit xD
 
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