"No magic potion" Dr. Chanida said; and yet it has been: The past several days I've been taking the recommended maximum dosage of amphetamine/dextroamphetamine, and reading deeply, and deeply reflecting: How did Vivekananda, who started out, as Ramakrishna's favorite disciple, utterly poo-pooing the very notion of the "goddess Kali," come eventually to be her chief devotee in earth?--even writing poems in the last years of his life celebrating her horrible/terrible/miserific aspect. What?! I've found it so unsettling/perplexing that I've checked out and am reading books on the subject of Kali and "the feminine in religion." Not that I believe there is such a thing, or ever could be, or that I could or would want to understand it if there were. Still not mentioned here has been the story of how I insulted the goddess in her very stronghold (Perugia, Umbria, Italy), saying twice before witnesses "La Vergine e' una putana," and had my ring-finger broken twice in the same place by her--Walked around in a cast with wires sticking out of my finger for six weeks--and never for a minute doubted that the Virgin had done it, just to show me. Even so, still, in my heart I despise and defy her: "Kali, Mary, or Coatlicue" I call her, and "patron saint of the comte de Sade--ho hum. So fucking what."