This photo is 50 years old! And sort of looks it. I and Photoshop have done our best.
This, from 1975, looks down from Delphi toward the Gulf of Corinth. I had come to Delphi at the command of a couple of major figures— one from the Bible, the other from science fiction.
Not that I wouldn’t have gone anyway. I was in the bus station in Athens waiting for the bus to Delphi when a stranger approached me. He had long light brown hair and a beard, wore a blanket over his shoulders, and had a strange pale glint in his eye. He looked like Jesus (Northern European Protestant variant). He thrust one hand toward me. There was a book in the hand.
“HAVE YOU READ THIS?” he demanded— in a voice like, well, God.
I looked at the book and saw that it was the British paperback of Frank Herbert’s Dune, which I had in fact read.
However, I knew that when Jesus tells you to read a book about religion while on the road to Delphi, you should oblige. So I said thank you and took the book.
Since I knew about the history of Delphi and its oracle, I was able to do a mental compare-and-contrast with Paul Atreides’ manipulation of planted prophecy to create a religion to justify first, his survival, and second, his ascent to power. Being in a place where historical characters had manipulated religion in much the same way as Paul and his mother added considerably to my appreciation of the history.
And the amazing natural beauty certainly helped. Delphi and Parnassus are astoundingly beautiful, and you can understand how people thought the place was holy. (It still should be, as far as I am concerned.)
I even drank from the sacred fountain, though it didn’t give me the gift of prophecy, and when I climbed the stair to look at the fountain’s source, I found it full of green algae and trash. I’m amazed I didn’t get terribly sick.
And I never met Jesus again, so far as I know.
