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KANEH BOSM
THE HIDDEN STORY OF CANNABIS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
 By Chris Bennet
Part 3 in a series on the
History of
Cannabis and
Human Consciousness
THEN GOD SAID, I GIVE YOU EVERY
SEED-BEARING
PLANT ON THE FACE OF THE WHOLE
EARTH,
AND EVERY TREE THAT
HAS FRUIT IN IT."
GENESIS
1:29-30
Those words seem straightforward enough, and yet cannabis and most other
psychoactive medicine plants are outlawed in our society. Those who use these
plant gat eways to other states of consciousness are jailed for doing so.
Ironically, the major force for continuing this plant prohibition is a group
referred to as the Christian Right. They claim to believe in both the Bible and
old Yahweh, yet Yahweh's opinion on the matter is stated quite clearly in the
above quotation.
This article shows how the Old Testament Prophets were none other than
ancient shamans, and that cannabis and other entheogens played a very prominent
role in ancient Hebrew culture.
THE ROOTS OF KANEH-BOSM
The first solid evidence of the Hebrew use of cannabis was established in
1936 by Sula Benet, a little known Polish etymologist from the Institute of
Anthropological Sciences in Warsaw (1).
The word cannabis was generally thought to be of Scythian origin, but Benet
showed that it has a much earlier origin in Semitic languages like Hebrew, and
that it appears several times throughout the Old Testament. Benet explained that
"in the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament there are references to hemp,
both as incense, which was an integral part of religious celebration, and as an
intoxicant (2)."
Benet demonstrated that the word for cannabis is kaneh-bosm, also
rendered in traditional Hebrew as kaneh or kannabus. The root
kan in this construction means "reed" or "hemp", while bosm means
"aromatic". This word appears five times in the Old Testament; in the books of
Exodus, the Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
The word kaneh-bosm has been mistranslated as calamus, a common marsh
plant with little monetary value that does not have the qualities or value
ascribed to kaneh-bosm. The error occurred in the oldest Greek translation of
the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint in the third century BC, and was
repeated in the many translations that followed (3).
THE HIDDEN STORY
When we take a chronological look at biblical references to kaneh-bosm, we
reveal more than just the story of cannabis in the Old Testament. Another
exciting and concealed story emerges as well, that of the suppression of the
worship of Astarte, also called Ashera, known to the ancient Semites as the
Queen of Heaven.
The First Reference
to Kaneh-Bosm
MOSES & MARIJUANA
The first mention of kaneh-bosm in the Old Testament appears with the
prophet-shaman Moses. At the beginning of his shamanic career, Moses discovered
the angel of the Lord in flames of fire from within a bush.
It is later in his life however, that a definite reference to cannabis is
made. Sula Benet explains this reference as follows:
The sacred character of hemp in biblical times is evident from Exodus
30:22-33, where Moses was instructed by God to anoint the meeting tent and all
its furnishings with specially prepared oil, containing hemp.
Anointing set sacred things apart from secular. The anointment of sacred
objects was an ancient tradition in Israel: holy oil was not to be used for
secular purposes...
Above all, the anointing oil was used for the installation rites of all
Hebrew kings and priests.
This first reference to kaneh-bosm is the only that describes it as an
ointment to be applied externally. However, anointing oils made with cannabis
are indeed psychoactive and have been used by such seemingly diverse groups as
19th century occultists and medieval witches (4).
Closer to Moses' own time, cannabis was used as a topical hallucinogen by the
ancient worshippers of Asherah, the Queen of Heaven. Asherah has also
been referred to as the Hebrew Goddess (5).
The shamanistic Ashera priestesses of pre-reformation Jerusalem mixed
cannabis resins with those from myrrh, balsam, frankincense, and perfumes, and
then anointed their skins with the mixture as well as burned it (6).
THEN THE LORD SAID TO MOSES, "TAKE THE
FOLLOWING FINE SPICES: 500 SHEKELS OF LIQUID MYRRH, HALF AS MUCH OF FRAGRANT
CINNAMON, 250 SHEKELS OF KANNABOSM, 500 SHEKELS OF CASSIA - ALL ACCORDING TO
THE SANCTUARY SHEKEL - AND A HIND OF OLIVE OIL. MAKE THESE INTO MAKE THESE
INTO A SACRED ANNOITING OIL, A FRAGRANT BLEND, THE WORK OF A PERFUMER. IT WILL
BE THE SACRED ANNOITING OIL.
THEN USE IT TO ANOINT THE TENT OF THE
MEETING, THE ARK OF THE TESTIMONY, THE TABLE AND ALL ITS ARTICLES, THE
LAMPSTAND AND ITS ACCESSORIES, THE ALTAR OF INCENSE, THE ALTAR OF BURNT
OFFERING AND ALL ITS UTENSILS, AND THE BASIN WITH ITS STAND. YOU SHALL
CONSECRATE THEM SO THEY WILL BE MOST HOLY, AND WHATEVER TOUCHES THEM WILL BE
HOLY.
ANOINT AARON AND HIS SONS AND CONSECRATE
THEM SO THEY MAY SERVE ME AS PREISTS. SAY TO THE ISRAELITES, "THIS IS TO BE MY
SACRED ANOINTING OIL FOR THE GENERATIONS TO COME. DO NOT POUR IT ON MEN'S
BODIES AND DO NOT MAKE ANY OIL WITH THE SAME FORMULA. IT IS SACRED, AND YOU
ARE TO CONSIDER IT SACRED. WHOEVER MAKES PERFUME LIKE IT AND WHOEVER PUTS IT
ON ANYONE OTHER THAN A PREIST MUST BE CUT OFF FROM HIS PEOPLE."
THE PRIESTS OF POT
The above Old testament passage makes the sacredness of this ointment quite
clear. Moses and the Levite priesthood jealously guarded its use, and enforced
this discriminatory prohibition with God's commandment that any transgressors be
'cut off from his people'. This law amounted to a death sentence in the
ancient world.
SMOKE IN THE TENT
Lacking the invention of pipes, it was the practice of some ancient peoples
to burn cannabis and other herbs in tents, so that more smoke could be captured
and inhaled. In the last installment of this column we discussed such a group,
the ancient Scythians. The Scythians were a nomadic people who travelled and
settled extensively throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, Central Asia, and
Russia. They burned cannabis inside small tents and inhaled the fumes for
ritualistic and recreational purposes.
Moses and his priests burned incense and used the holy ointment in a portable
'tent of meeting', the famous Tent of the Tabernacle. As cannabis is
listed directly as an incense later in the Bible, it seems likely that Moses and
the Levite priesthood would have burned cannabis flowers and pollen along with
the ointment and incense which God commanded them to make.
AND AARON SHALL BURN INCENSE EVERY
MORNING: WHEN HE DRESSETH THE LAMPS, HE SHALL BURN INCENSE UPON IT. AND WHEN
AARON LIGHTETH THE LAMPS AT EVEN, HE SHALL BURN INCENSE UPON IT, A PERPETUAL
INCENSE BEFORE THE LORD THROUGHOUT YOUR GENERATIONS.
THE SCYTHIAN CONNECTION
Given that the Scythians and Israelites were involved in a trade of goods and
knowledge, it is not surprising to find the similar technique of using tents to
retain smoke. Benet commented on the often overlooked connections between these
two groups.
The Scythians participated in both trade and wars alongside the ancient
Semites for at least one millennium before Herodotus encountered them in the
fifth century BC. The reason for the confusion and relative obscurity of the
role played by the Scythians in world history is the fact that they were known
to the Greeks as Scythians but to the Semites as Ashkenaz.
The earliest reference to the Ashkenaz people appears in the Bible in
Genesis 10:3, where Ashkenaz, their progenitor, is named the son of Gomer, the
great-grandson of Noah. 
GOD WITHIN A CLOUD
A reading of the Old Testament reveals that Yahweh "came to Moses out of the
midst of the cloud" and that this cloud came from smoke produced by the burning
of incense. As scholar Ralph Patai commented in his book The Hebrew
Goddess, "Yahweh merely put in temporary appearances in the tent of meeting.
He was a visiting deity whose appearance in or departure from the tent was used
for oracular purposes."
One is reminded of the ancient Persian sage Zoroaster, another monotheist
like Moses, who heard the voice of his god, Ahura Mazda, while in a state of
shamanistic ecstasy produced by cannabis. The Greek oracle of Delphi also
revealed her prophecies from behind a veil of intoxicating smoke.
The insights achieved from the use of cannabis, whether inhaled in the Tent
of the Tabernacle or applied topically, could have been interpreted by Moses as
messages from God. This is similar to modern shamans who interpret their
experiences with plant hallucinogens as containing divine revelations.
CANNABIS CONCIOUSNESS
In issue #1 of CANNABIS CANADA, we discussed a book by Julian Jaynes
called The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral
Mind. Jaynes offers an interesting explanation of how the development of
consciousness may have taken place. Although he failed to fully recognize the
strong role that plant-drugs may have played in the development of consciousness
(7), Jaynes did come up with a most revolutionary theory.
In his book, Jaynes claims that ancient people were not as fully conscious
and self-aware as modern humans. Being unable to introspect, they experienced
their own higher cognitive functioning as auditory hallucinations - the voices
of gods, actually heard as in the Old Testament or the Iliad - which told a
person what to do in circumstances of novelty or stress.
GOD SAID TO MOSES, I AM THAT I AM. THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE TO SAY TO
THE ISREALITES: 'I AM HAS SENT ME TO YOU.'
I AM THAT I AM
Could the commandments given by God to Moses and other Biblical prophets have
been the early beginnings of full human self-awareness? Cannabis has its own
unique receptor sites in the human brain, located in the areas governing higher
thinking and memory. Could it be that deep interior thought grew out of language
and the use of psychoactive plants like cannabis? And that the first prototypes
of this ability for deep interior thinking, an ability we now take for granted,
would have been considered Prophets? Would this make God's commandments any less
sacred?
In light of this information, is not the above statement more believable as
the birth words of Judaic consciousness, rather than as the commandment of an
omnipotent God?
The Second Appearance
of Cannabis
The next Biblical account of cannabis comes under the name kaneh and
appears in relation to King Solomon. In Solomon's Song of Songs, one of
the most beautifully written pieces in the Old Testament, Solomon mentions kaneh
in describing his bride.
COME WITH ME FROM LEBANON, MY BRIDE,
COME WITH ME FROM LEBANON. DESCEND FROM THE CREST OF AMANA, FROM THE TOP OF
SENIR, THE SUMMIT OF HERMON. . .
HOW DELIGHTFUL IS YOUR LOVE, MY SISTER,
MY BRIDE! HOW MUCH MORE PLEASING IS YOUR LOVE THAN WINE, AND THE FRAGRANCE OF
YOUR OINTMENT THAN ANY SPICE!. . .
THE FRAGRANCE OF YOUR GARMENTS IS LIKE
THAT OF LEBANON. . .
YOUR PLANTS ARE AN ORCHARD OF
POMEGRANATES WITH CHOICE FRUITS, WITH HENNA AND NARD, NARD AND SAFFRON,
KANEH AND CINNAMON, WITH EVERY KIND OF INCENSE TREE.
THE GARDEN OF THE GODDESS
The ancients worshiped the Goddess as a nude female image, the earth they
lived on and the nature around them. The fertile rays of the sun on the earth
was thought of as God's fertilization of the Great Mother. In light of this
symbolism, it is not surprising to find Solomon's Song to be full of both erotic
and vegetative imagery (8).
 In The Woman's Book of Myths and Secrets, Feminist Scholar
Barbara Walker explains
the Old Testament 'Ashera' is translated 'grove', without any
explanation that the sacred grove represented the Goddess, genital center,
birthplace of all things. In the matriarchal period, Hebrews worshiped the
Goddess in groves (1 Kings 14:23), later cut down by patriarchal reformers who
burned the bones of Ashera's priests on their own altars (2 Chronicles
24:4-5).
SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN
In The Temple and the Lodge by Baigent and Leigh, the authors state that
Solomon's 'Song of Songs' is a hymn and invocation to the Phoenician mother
goddess Astarte. Astarte was known as "Queen of Heaven", "Star of the Sea" and
"Stella Marris".
The authors show us that Astarte was conventionally worshiped on mountains
and hilltops, and then point to a quote from I Kings 3:3.
SOLOMON LOVED YAHWEH; HE FOLLOWED THE
PRECEPTS OF DAVID HIS FATHER, EXCEPT THAT HE OFFERED SACRIFICE AND INCENSE ON
THE HIGH PLACES.
I Kings 11:4-5 offers an even more explicit example of Solomon's ties to
Astarte.
WHEN SOLOMON GREW OLD HIS WIVES SWAYED
HIS HEART TO OTHER GODS; AND HIS HEART WAS NOT WHOLLY WITH YAHWEH HIS GOD AS
HIS FATHER DAVID'S HAD BEEN. SOLOMON BECAME A FOLLOWER OF ASTARTE, THE GODDESS
OF THE SIDONIANS.
THE SPIRIT OF THE SCYTHIANS
Solomon's practice of burning incense on high to the Queen of Heaven may have
been a custom done in the same spirit as that of the Scythians, who burned
cannabis in mountain caves and consecrated the act to their version of the Great
Goddess, Tabiti-Hestia (9).
Archeological finds show that the worship of the old Canaanite gods was an
integral part of the religion of the Hebrews, through to the very end of Hebrew
monarchy. The worship of the Goddess played a much more important role in this
popular religion than that of the gods.
The Third Reference
to Cannabis
GOD WANTS HERB
The next direct reference to kaneh-bosm appears in Isaiah, where God is
reprim anding the Israelites for, among other things, not supplying him with his
due of the Holy Herb.
YOU HAVE NOT BROUGHT ANY KANEH FOR ME,
OR LAVISHED ON ME THE FAT OF YOUR SACRIFICES. BUT YOU HAVE BURDENED ME WITH
YOUR SINS AND WEARIED ME WITH YOUR OFFENCES.
A HOUSEFUL OF SMOKE
 An excerpt from earlier in Isaiah indicates that God's appetite had
previously been appeased, and "the house was filled with smoke..."
AND THE POSTS OF THE DOOR MOVED AT THE
VOICE OF HIM THAT CRIED, AND THE HOUSE WAS FILLED WITH SMOKE
THEN SAID I, WOE IS ME, FOR I AM UNDONE
BECAUSE I AM A MAN OF UNCLEAN LIPS, AND I DWELL IN THE MIDST OF A PEOPLE OF
UNCLEAN LIPS; FOR MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE KING, THE LORD OF HOSTS.
THEN FLEW ONE OF THE SERAPHIMS UNTO ME,
HAVING A LIVE COAL IN HIS HAND, WHICH HE HAD TAKEN WITH THE TONGS FROM OFF THE
ALTAR,
AND HE LAID IT UPON MY MOUTH AND SAID,
LO, THIS HATH TOUCHED THY LIPS; AND THYNE INIQUITY IS TAKEN AWAY, AND THY SIN
PURGED.
EATING ANGELS
In The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, Scholar John M. Allegro points
out that ancient peoples believed psychoactive plants to be living gateways to
other realms, and thought of them as angels. The Greek and Hebrew
equivalent of the word angel literally means messenger or worker of
miracles.
SHAMANS IN DISGUISE
It seems much more believable that the winged beings which appeared to Isaiah
and other Biblical prophets were not actual angels (10), but rather ancient shamans, wearing elaborate costumes and
enacting trance inducing rituals, all enhanced by the use of cannabis smoke and
psychotropic compounds like anamita muscaria, mandrake, and others.
This type of ritual initiation was common in the ancient middle east, and
often involved the use of winged costumes and masks like those the early
European explorers would find the aboriginal peoples of the world still using
thousands of years later.
DRINKING IN THE HOLY SMOKE
Seraphim translates as "smoke drinker," and those of us familiar with hashish
know that it burns in a similar way to both incense and coal. It isn't hard to
imagine an ancient shaman lifting a burning coal of hashish or pressed bud to
the lips of the ancient prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah, upon having the coal lifted to his lips, had his iniquity taken away
and his sins purged. This is comparable to the way in which the Hindu sadhus
lift their chillums to their third eye and exclaim "Boom Shiva," an act
indicating their loss of ego and oneness with Shiva.
The Fourth
Reference to
Cannabis
KANEH FROM A DISTANT LAND
The fourth appearance of cannabis in the Old Testament is in Jeremiah, by
which time it seems that Yahweh's taste for the herb had declined. In the same
way that God rejected Cain's offering of grain in favour of Abel's blood
sacrifice, the cannabis also is rejected.
WHAT DO I CARE ABOUT INCENSE FROM SHEBA
OR KANEH FROM A DISTANT LAND? YOUR BURNT OFFERINGS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE; YOUR
SACRIFICES DO NOT PLEASE ME.
The Final
Reference
to Cannabis
TRADING WITH TYRE
The final Biblical reference to kaneh appears in Ezekiel 27, in a passage
called A Lament for Tyre. The kingdom of Tyre had fallen into disfavor
with Yahweh, and cannabis appears as just one of many of the wares received by
Tyre, the merchant of peoples on many coasts.
Both of these passages refer obliquely back to the story of King Solomon. The
mention of Sheba brings to mind Solomon's love affair with the Queen of Sheba,
and the King of Tyre played a pivotal role in Solomon's building of the
temple.
DANITES AND GREEKS FROM UZAL BOUGHT YOUR
MERCHANDISE; THEY EXCHANGED WROUGHT IRON, CASSIA AND KANEH FOR YOUR
WARES.
FROM FAVOUR TO DISFAVOUR
Of these five references to kaneh and kaneh-bosm, the first three have
cannabis appear in Yahweh's favour, the fourth definitely in his disfavour, and
the fifth on a list from a kingdom that had fallen from grace in the eyes of the
Israelite God. One might wonder at the reason for these apparent contradictions,
and the answer can be found within the story of the suppression of the cult of
Ashera, or Astarte, the ancient Queen of Heaven.
In The Chalice and the Blade, Riane Eisler explains this as follows:
There are of course some allusions to this in the Bible itself. The
prophets Ezra, Hosea, Nehemiah, and Jeremiah constantly rail against the
"abomination" of worshipping other gods. They are particularly outraged at
those who still worship the "Queen of Heaven". And their greatest wrath is
against the "unfaithfulness of the daughters of Jerusalem," who were
understandably "backsliding" to beliefs in which all temporal and spiritual
authority was not monopolized by men. But other than such occasional, and
always pejorati ve, passages, there is no hint that there ever was - or could
be - a deity that is not male.
The ties between cannabis and the Queen of Heaven are probably most apparent
in Jeremiah 44, where the ancient patriarch seems to be concerned by the
people's continuing worship of the Queen of Heaven, especially by the burning of
incense in her honour.
Keep in mind the documented use of cannabis by the shamanistic Ashera
priestesses of pre-reformation Jerusalem, who anointed their skins with cannabis
mixtures as well as burning it as incense.
THUS SAITH THE LORD OF HOSTS, THE GOD OF
ISRAEL; YE HAVE SEEN ALL THE EVIL THAT I HAVE BROUGHT UPON JERUSALEM, AND UPON
ALL THE CITIES OF JUDAH; AND BEHOLD, THIS DAY THEY ARE A DESOLATION. .
.
BECAUSE OF THEIR WICKEDNESS WHICH THEY
HAVE COMMITTED TO PROVOKE ME TO ANGER, IN THAT THEY WANTED TO BURN INCENSE,
AND TO SERVE OTHER GODS. . .
THEREFORE NOW. . . WHEREFORE COMMIT YE
THIS GREAT EVIL AGAINST YOUR SOULS. . . IN THAT YE PROVOKE ME TO WRATH WITH
THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS, BURNING INCENSE UNTO OTHER GODS IN THE LAND OF
EGYPT?
THEN ALL THE MEN WHICH KNEW THAT THEIR
WIVES HAD BURNED INCENSE UNTO OTHER GODS, AND ALL THE WOMEN THAT STOOD BY, A
GREAT MULTITUDE, EVEN ALL THE PEOPLE THAT DWELT IN THE LAND OF EGYPT, ANSWERED
JEREMIAH, SAYING,
AS FOR THE WORD THAT THOU HAST SPOKEN
UNTO US IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, WE WILL NOT HEARKEN UNTO THEE.
BUT WE WILL CERTAINLY DO WHATSOEVER
THING GOETH FORTH OUT OF OUR OWN MOUTH, TO BURN INCENSE UNTO THE QUEEN OF
HEAVEN, AND TO POUR DRINK OFFERINGS UNTO HER, AS WE HAVE DONE. WE, AND OUR
FATHERS, OUR KINGS, AND OUR PRINCES, IN THE CITY OF JUDAH, AND IN THE STREETS
OF JERUSALEM: FOR THEN WE HAD PLENTY OF VICTUALS, AND WERE WELL, AND SAW NO
EVIL.
BIBLICAL PROHIBITION
Jeremiah's reference to the previous kings and princes that burned incense t
o the Queen of Heaven can be seen as referring to King Solomon, his son
Rehoboam, and other Biblical kings and prophets.
Other key Biblical figures in the prohibition of cannabis use and the worship
of the Queen of Heaven include King Hezekiah and his great-grandson Josiah.
II Kings 18:4 reports of Hezekiah that:
HE REMOVED THE HIGH PLACES, AND BRAKE
THE IMAGES, AND CUT DOWN THE ASHERAS, AND BRAKE INTO PIECES THE BRAZEN SERPENT
THAT MOSES HAD MADE; FOR UNTO THOSE DAYS THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DID BURN
INCENSE TO IT:
AND HE CALLED IT NEHUSHTAN.
BREAKING THE SERPENT
The interesting thing about this passage is that the Ark of the covenant does
not contain the ten commandments of the law of Moses, rather it holds Nehushtan,
a brass serpent. The serpent is a frequent component in early representations of
the goddess.
The Bible reports that the kings before Hezekiah "set up images and groves in
every high hill, and under every green tree; And there they burnt incense in all
the high places..."(1Kings 17) So did the kings who reigned after Josiah, who
was killed in battle in 609 BC. According to The Columbia History of the
World, Josiah's defeat seems to have been taken as proof of the error of his
ways... the later prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel show polytheism back in
practice."
A FORGED BOOK OF LAW
The Book of the Law, which makes up most of Deuteronomy and Leviticus,
was used to prohibit the worship of the Goddess and instill the death penalty
for the burning of incense. Although it was supposedly written by Moses, it was
not discovered until some 600 years after Moses' death.
In Green Gold, Judy Osburn follows the suggestion that the Book of the Law
may have been a forgery committed by the Hebrew priesthood with the hope of
eradicating the competing temples and their deities, which were getting more
sacrifices from the people than was the temple of Yahweh.
Osburn quotes Occidental Mythology by theologian Joseph Campbell, as
stating that, before the discovery of the Book of the Law,
neither kings nor people had paid attention whatsoever to the law of
Moses which, indeed, they had not even known. They had been devoted to the
normal deities of the nuclear Near east, with all the usual cults...
Up until that time the Hebrew people worshiped in the old ways,
practicing their cult in open places on peaks and hills and mountains, and
even caves below.
The mysterious discovery of the Book of the Law took place during the reign
of King Josiah. Once informed of the new regulations, Josiah's wrath against the
incense burners was far harsher than that of his great-grandfather Hezekiah. The
Bible describes his actions as follows.
AND THE KING COMMANDED HILKIAH THE HIGH
PREIST. . . TO BRING FORTH OUT OF THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD ALL THE VESSELS THAT
WERE MADE FOR BAAL AND FOR ASHERAH, AND FOR ALL THE HOST OF HEAVEN: AND HE
BURNED THEM OUTSIDE JERUSALEM IN THE FIELDS OF KIDRON. . .
AND HE PUT DOWN THE IDOLATROUS PRIESTS,
WHOM THE KINGS OF JUDAH HAD ORDAINED TO BURN INCENSE IN THE HIGH PLACES IN THE
CITIES OF JUDAH, AND IN THE PLACES ROUND ABOUT JERUSALEM; THEM ALSO THAT
BURNED INCENSE UNTO BAAL, TO THE SUN, AND TO THE MOON, AND TO THE PLANETS, AND
TO ALL THE HOST OF HEAVEN.
AND HE BROUGHT OUT THE ASHERAH FROM THE
HOUSE OF THE LORD, OUTSIDE JERUSALEM. . . AND BURNED IT AT THE BROOK KIDRON,
AND STAMPED IT SMALL TO POWDER. . . AND HE BROUGHT ALL THE PRIESTS OUT OF THE
CITIES OF JERUSALEM, AND DEFILED THE HIGH PLACES WHERE THE PRIESTS HAD BURNED
INCENSE. . .
AND THE HIGH PLACES THAT WERE BEFORE
JERUSALEM. . . WHICH SOLOMON THE KING OF ISRAEL HAD BUILDED FOR ASHTORETH THE
ABOMINATION OF THE ZIDONIANS. . . DID THE KING DEFILE. AND HE BRAKE IN PIECES
THE IMAGES, AND CUT DOWN THE GROVES, AND FILLED THEIR PLACES WITH THE BONES OF
MEN.
AND HE SLEW ALL THE PRIESTS OF THE HIGH
PLACES THAT WERE UPON THE ALTARS, AND BURNED MEN'S BONES UPON THEM, AND
RETURNED TO JERUSALEM. . .
AND LIKE UNTO HIM WAS THERE NO KING
BEFORE HIM, THAT TURNED TO THE LORD WITH ALL HIS HEART, AND WITH ALL HIS SOUL,
AND WITH ALL HIS MIGHT, ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF MOSESL NEITHER AFTER HIM AROSE
THERE ANY LIKE HIM.
SEPERATION FROM THE SHEKINAH
The Goddess returned to the Hebrew faith somewhat later in a form of Jewish
mysticism called the Cabala. This teaches that the Shekinah is the female soul
of God, who couldn't be perfect until he was reunited with her. Cabalists
believed that it was God's loss of his Shekinah that brought about all evils. In
some traditions the Shekinah is seen as the pillar of smoke that guided the
wandering nation of Israel during its Exodus from Egypt.
THE RETURN OF THE GODDESS
Our separation from the ancient Goddess and the denial of her ecstasies could
well be seen as the root cause of humanity's separation from nature, both our
own and that of the world around us. Perhaps the Goddess' ancient spirit won't
fully be restored until her children begin to respect and heal her abused body
the Earth, return to her sacred groves in dance and worship, and are free to
once again burn the holy incense of kaneh-bosm in her honor and praise.
It would seem that the spirit of Ashera's ancient incense burners has
returned, in the form of the modern-day smoke-in. Once again people of all ages,
races, and creeds are gathering together illegally, to celebrate the many
benefits and uses of the sacred tree, and to burn holy incense in protest, as
did the defiant crowd before Jeremiah so long ago.
CANNABIS AND THE CHRIST?
But what of the Bible's new Testament? Was Jesus a secret imbiber of the
herb, or did he continue on with the harsh prohibition of cannabis, instituted
with the zeal of Hezekiah, Josiah and Jeremiah? For the answer to those
questions, you'll have to order a copy of Green Gold, or wait for a distant
installment of When Smoke gets in my I.
BOOM SHIVA! BOOM SHAKTI!
HARI HARI GUNJA!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler; Harper Row; 1987.
Early Diffusions and Folk Uses of Hemp by Sula Benet; Reprinted in
Cannabis and Culture edited by Vera Rubin; Mouton; 1975.
Flesh of the Gods edited by P T Furst; Praeger; 1972.
Green Gold the Tree of Life; Marijuana in Magic and Religion by Chris
Bennet, Judy Osburne, & Lynn Osburne; Access Unlimited; 1995.
The Hebrew Goddess by Raphael Patai; Avon Books; 1967.
Marihuana: The First Twelve Thousand Years by Ernest Abel; Plenum
Press; 1980.
Marijuana and the Bible edited by Jeff Brown; The Ethiopian Zion
Coptic Church; 1981.
Occidental Mythology by Joseph Campbell; Penguin Books; 1982.
The Origins of Consciousness in the Break down of the Bicameral Mind
by Julian Jaynes; Houghton Mifflin Company; 1976.
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross by John M. Allegro; Double day;
1969.
Techniques of High Magic, by King and Skinner; Destiny Books;
1976.
The Temple and the Lodge by Baignet and Leigh; Corgy Books; 1989.
The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker;
Harper Collins; 1983.
ENDNOTES
1 In 1903, British physician Dr. C. Creighton
wrote Indications of the Hashish Vice in the Old Testament, in which he
concluded that several references to cannabis can be found in the Old Testament.
Examples are the "honeycomb" referred to in the Song of Solomon, 5:1, and the
"honeywood" in I Samuel 14: 25-45. Creighton also suggested that Saul's madness,
Jonathan's and Samson's strength, and the first chapter of Ezekiel are all to be
explained by the use of cannabis. (back)
2 All quotations from Sula Benet in this article
are taken from Early Diffusions and Folk Uses of Hemp, reprinted in
Cannabis and Culture, Vera Rubin, Ed. (back)
3 At this same point in history, 300 BC, a group
which would become known as the Gnostics was formed. The Gnostics (meaning
knowledge) were a symbiosis of Judaic, Zoroastrian and Neo-Platonic thought, and
claimed direct knowledge of the divine.
The Sufis, a group that is said to be an offshoot of Gnostic knowledge, use a
similar term for cannabis: khaneh. (back)
4 In Techniques of High Magic, authors
King and Skinner list the following astral projection ointment from the 1890's:
lanolin - 5 ounces; hashish - 1 ounce; hemp flowers - 1 handful; poppy flowers -
1 handful; hellebore - 1/2 handful. In 1615, Italian physician and demonologist
Giovanni De Ninault listed hemp as the main ingredient in the ointments and
unguents used by the "Devil's followers". (back)
5 As in Raphael Patai's The Hebrew
Goddess, published by Avon Books in 1967. (Quoted in The Once and Future
Goddess, by Elinor W Gadon, Harper & Row, 1989.) (back)
6 William A.Emboden Jr., Ritual Use of
Cannabis Sativa L.: A Historic-Ethnographic Survey, printed in Flesh of
the Gods, edited by P.T.Furst, published by Praeger in 1972. (back)
7 An idea which is fully explored in Terence
McKenna's Food of the Gods, published by Bantam in 1992. (back)
8 For more information on Bible erotica see
The X-Rated Bible; An Irrevent Survey of Sex in the Scriptures, by Ben
Edward Akerley. (back)
9 For more information on the Scythian use of
cannabis see the second installment of this series in Cannabis
Canada number 2. (back)
10 Wings on gods or angels can be seen as
symbolizing the ability to travel between the 'two worlds'. For example, the
Greek god Hermes, who's winged feet enabled him to act as messenger between men
and gods.
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