I have also read the PR that the Pythia just babbled and the priests made their own interpretations. I don't doubt that that is what it degenerated into. If I were a Pythia and I had to go against the real training and work that the Oracle did because a bunch of men took over the place - I'd babble, too - because the men are obviously going to turn it to their own ends one way or another. Because that is what masculine history has recorded about the Oracle, doesn't mean that is necessarily the way it was. I doubt also that they 'babbled'. According to one source I have - the book I was talking about earlier - they actually sang the prediction. I can go with this. Prophecy is a mystical state. It is the product of an altered state of consciousness - whether it is induced by drugs or not - it is still an altered state. The Unio Mystica that occurs in such a state has expressed in other religions - spontaneous song has been recorded in all religions from Islam to Buddhism to Christianity. I think that originally the priestesses did actually achieve a bonafide union with their deity which was later perverted to serve political ends. For all we know, they drugged the oracle to shut her up, not to turn her on. I sometimes read these reports and think about the fact that the people who are doing the reporting on these mystical states have never experienced them themselves, thus they see only the outside of the experience, not the inside. I hope I don't come off as too opinionated, here - I suppose I do. I am just suggesting some open minded exploration of what has been handed down to us rather than just an acceptance of it. Male history has not written women well.