Submitted by I Was Here on
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Sacrament
3. The Hebrews
4. The Egyptians
5. The Hindus
6. The Muslims
7. Buddha Shinto
8. Shinto
9. Other Religions: Coptic, Gnostic, Rastafarian
10. Emerging Tribes
11. Personal Accounts from the Religion of Jesus Church
12. War on Drugs
13. Theosophy
14. Conclusion
15. Appendix
This document is authored by Rev. Dennis Shields. It is being reproduced here in an effort to circumvent censorship (see '15. Appendix' for more information).
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IN THE TABERNACLES OF NATURE,
GARDENS OF BEAUTY,
WHEREVER TWO OR THREE GATHER,
BEHOLD: HE IS IN OUR MIDST
Phone - (808) 328-9794, Fax (808) 328-9426
Mail - P.O. Box 828, Kaawaloa, Hawaii, 96704
The Holy Herb
The Religion of Jesus Church is a group of like-minded individuals who believe:
That God is Our Father and that we are all, the entire human race, one spiritual family that there are as many paths to God as there are people to walk them.
That Cannabis is a Holy Sacrament from times of antiquity.
That our main religious text is the Urantia Book because the Urantia Book is a unifier of the world's religions this unifying of religious thought.
This unifier of religious thought allows us to draw upon the broad scope of human religious experience in the determination of the form our religious practices take.
We draw upon many religious texts, including the Holy Bible, and many others to establish and verify our religious practices.
Churches have common elements in differing attributes, such as but not limited to, religious text, religious practices, religious symbols, and religious rituals.
The Urantia Book Paper-92 Section-1 Para-3 Page-1004 Line-4 Para-1
Religion arises as a biologic reaction of mind to spiritual beliefs and the environment; it is the last thing to perish or change in a race.
Religion is society's adjustment, in any age, to that which is mysterious.
As a social institution it embraces rites, symbols, cults, scriptures, altars, shrines, and temples.
Holy water, relics, fetishes, charms, vestments, bells, drums, and priesthoods are common to all religions.
It is impossible to entirely divorce purely evolved religion from either magic or sorcery.
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1. Introduction
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We believe that basing our religious freedom on merely on texts is too restrictive and does not factor in other elements of religious life, which are of equal or sometimes greater importance to the life of the individual believer than just the text alone.
For example, the Native American Church bases its use of Peyote on oral traditions with no written text whatsoever.
That said, we believe that the archive of religious writings and historical references of the Religion of Jesus Church allows us to easily explain the scriptural reasons why Cannabis is a Sacrament of the Church.
The reason we must have the freedom to choose Cannabis as sacrament is simply because it is Holy:
Holy to us, Holy to Moses, Holy to the religious heritage of Jesus, Holy to Buddha, Holy to Zoroaster, Holy to millions of Hindus.
Because Cannabis brings us closer to God and our Heavenly Father closer to us, it helps us to achieve greater growth of our soul.
Cannabis is and always will be a spiritual aid - this fact is proven over and over again throughout history.
There is no reason that just as thousands have before used Cannabis religiously the members of the Religion of Jesus Church should be prevented from partaking in the blessings of Holy Smoke as through our belief system the religious heritage of Cannabis through the ages is ours.
Where ever the truth may lead us we know the truth and we are set free indeed.
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2. Sacrament
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The Sacramental use of Cannabis is a common element in the Hebrew religious traditions; so the modern understanding of the day-to-day lifestyle of the first century AD is incomplete without considering the religious, medicinal and industrial use of the hemp plant common to the peoples of the time.
In addressing only the religious area, we find that the sacramental use of hemp is woven into the religious lives of the Semitic peoples and therefore either as Holy Anointing Oil or as sweet spices, or as principal spices in the offering of the Holy Smoke to the Father at the incense altar, and that Jesus was raised from childhood in a religion which used Cannabis as Sacrament.
This is supported by the following research conducted before Cannabis was prohibited:
(quote number 63.) Cannabis use in the Old Testament was again looked at in 1936, by Sula Benet. "... Benet stated that the original Hebrew versions of the Old Testament and the Aramaic translations contained references to cannabis by name; "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." .
The name "cannabis" is generally thought to be of Scythian origin, but Benet argues that it has a much earlier origin in Semitic languages like Hebrew, occurring several times in the Old Testament. .
Benet also informs us of hemp's role as a sacred oil, stating that in Exodus 30:23 God commands Moses to make a holy anointing oil of myrrh, sweet cinnamon, kaneh bosm, and kassia.
He continues that the word kaneh bosm is also rendered in traditional Hebrew as kannabos or kannabus and that the root "kan" in this construction means "reed" or "hemp", while "bosm" means "aromatic".
This word appeared in Exodus 30:23, Isaiah 43:24, Jeremiah 6:20, Eziekiel 27:19, Song of Songs 4:14.
An ancient Hebrew religious requirement was that the dead be buried in hemp (referred to as Kaneh) shirts (Klien 1908).
For some unknown reason this word disappeared from the text and has been mistranslated as "calamus"..
'The error occurred in the oldest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint in the third century B.C., where the terms *kaneh, kaneh bosm were incorrectly translated as 'calamus'.
And in the many translations that followed, including Martin Luther's, the same error was repeated.'. **( from 'Cannabis and Culture', Vera Rubin Editor, and 'The Book of Grass', Edited by Andrews and Vinkenoog ).
To put this in perspective, Ex.30:23 is a recipe for a anointing oil so Holy that it was the means by which Moses was directed to make the altar, the Ark of the Covenant, the tabernacle and the Aaronic priest hood MOST HOLY. What with can the Holy be made Holy? Moses used an ointment made in part of Cannabis to make the Holy Most Holy.
The context of this scripture describes how this oil is to be used to anoint the altars for incense and the burnt offering, the Ark of the Covenant, the tabernacle, and the candlestick to make all of them MOST HOLY.
" And thou shalt sanctify them, that they may be most Holy: whatso ever toucheth them shall be Holy. And thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. And thou shalt speak to the children of Israel saying, This shall be an Holy anointing oil unto me throughout your generations." Ex.[v.29-v.31]
Thus Cannabis along with myrrh, cassia and olive oil were the answer to Moses to the question of, 'can the Holy be made Holy, even Most Holy?'. Therefore to the Hebrews of the time Cannabis was worthy, viable, and good enough to be a principal spice for the consecration of even the Ark of the Covenant.
Cannabis is Sacrament, if it was "good enough for Moses, it's good enough for me."
sac·ra·ment
(sák´r-mnt) -n. 1. A formal Christian rite, such as baptism and matrimony, esp. one considered to have been instituted by Jesus as a means of grace.
2. Often Sacrament. a. The Eucharist. b. The consecrated elements of the Eucharist, esp. the bread or host.
3.* something regarded as having a sacred character [ME < OFr. sacrement < LLat. Sacramentum < Lat., oath < sacrare, to consecrate < sacer, sacred.]
*from the Random House Dictionary and from the Heritage dictionary from the Microsoft Bookshelf.
sa·cred
(sä´kríd) -adj. 1. Dedicated to or set apart for the worship of a deity.
2. Worthy of religious veneration: the sacred teachings of Buddha.
3. Made or declared holy: sacred bread and wine.
4. Dedicated or devoted exclusively to a single use, purpose, or person: a private office sacred to the President.
5. Worthy of respect; venerable.
6. Of or pertaining to religious objects, rites, or practices. [ME, p.part. of sacren, to consecrate < OFr. sacrer < Lat. sacrare < sacer, sacred.] sa´cred·ly adv. sa´cred·ness n.
Because Cannabis is a principal ingredient in the Hebrew holy anointing oil, this usage signifies that Cannabis is a Sacrament because it is of sacred character, and having been used as a device to render the altar and the tabernacle and the Ark holy, it must be considered holy indeed. The Altar and Ark and Tabernacle would seem to be holy of their own right, yet to have them further sanctified by Cannabis containing oil can only prove that Cannabis is so superior that it is to be venerated; that it is worthy of special respect.
Its use is Sacred and it is Sacrament.
(quote number 67.) "The sacred character of hemp in Biblical times is evident from Exodus 30:22-23, 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." -Sula Benet ,Cannabis and Culture, V. Rubin, Ed..
(quote number 65.) Around 1980, etymologists at Hebrew University in Jerusalem confirmed that cannabis is mentioned in the Bible by name, Kineboisin (also spelled Kannabosm), in a list of measured ingredients for "an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of apothecary' to be smeared on the head. The word was mistranslated in King James Version as 'calamus'.- Exodus 30:23. Latimer, D., 'Crimes of the Ancient Mariners'., In High Times. May 1988, pp.21-22.
In the 1973 paperback printing of Smith's Bible Dictionary under the listing "reed" on page 570, "... Some kind of fragrant reed is denoted by the word keneh ...... or more fully by keneh bosm; see Ex. xxx.23 ....."
Also of note is the use of cannabis as sweet spices in the Hebrew incense burners. This means that when the Hebrews were at religious service in Moses' time they entered smoke-filled tents to worship and be visited by God, and the kind of smoke that filled these tents was Cannabis.
No wonder they had religious experiences... they were worshipfully utilizing Cannabis to "increase their spiritual receptivity and enhance the creative imagination" (see p566 Urantia Book).
That is why, of course, it is called Holy Smoke.
The Urantia Book Paper-49 Section-5 Para-5 Page-566 Line-40 Para-2
The inherent imagination and spiritual receptivity is definitely influenced by this differential chemical endowment.
69. Incense was assigned miraculous powers by the Israelites. It was burned in golden bowls or cauldrons placed on or beside the altar. It was also burned in hand-held censers. In the Blessing of Moses, a poem belonging to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and written about 760 B.C., the sacrificial smoke is offered to the God of Israel:
"Let them teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law; Let them offer sacrificial smoke to thy nostrils, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar".
This passage is very similar in Deuteronomy 33:10 : "They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and
Israel thy law: they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar".
70. Scriptures make it abundantly clear that the cloud and the smoke are related to the burning of incense. Exodus 40:26 describes Moses burning incense, a cloud covering the tent of the congregation and the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle. Leviticus 16:2-13 describes how God appeared in a cloud and refers to it as the cloud of incense. Numbers 16:17-19 describes how every man of the congregation had a censer full of burning incense and that the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the congregation. Isaiah 6:4 describes how Ezekiel saw God in a smoke-filled inner court. Numbers 11:25 describes how God was revealed to Moses and the seventy elders in a cloud; that the Spirit rested upon them and that they prophesied and ceased not.
71. And so it came to pass that Moses and others entered the 'Tent of the Tabernacle', to burn incense to the Lord most High. The tent was used to hold smoke, the pipe was not yet known. After all Herodotus wrote of the Scythians using a similar method around 700 BC; "...When, therefore, the Scythians have taken some seed of this hemp, they creep under the cloths and put the seeds on the red hot stones; but this being put on smokes, and produces such a steam, that no Grecian vapour-bath would surpass it. The Scythians, transported by the vapour, shout aloud.".
Because the Hebrew religious life included the use of cannabis as an ingredient in the Holy Anointing Oil handed down from the times of Moses and the Hebrew religion of the first century used Cannabis as a part of incense burning in the synagogue a reasonable and rational conclusion is that the sacramental use of Cannabis was a part of the religious life that was Holy in the religious heritage of Jesus, and this religious life constituted the foundation used by Jesus to build His religion, the Religion of Jesus.
Quote from the Urantia Book Paper-196 Section-1 Para-3 Page-2090
Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.
The Urantia Book makes clear that we are to live and grow truth.
This would include expanding our knowledge of the religious life of Jesus and embracing truth where ever we find it.
The Urantia Book Paper-176 Section-3 Para-7 Page-1917 Line-41 Para-3
Truth is living; the Spirit of Truth is ever leading the children of light into new realms of spiritual reality and divine service. You are not given truth to crystallize into settled, safe, and honored forms. Your revelation of truth must be so enhanced by passing through your personal experience that new beauty and actual spiritual gains will be disclosed to all who behold your spiritual fruits and in consequence thereof are led to glorify the Father who is in heaven. Only those faithful servants who thus grow in the knowledge of the truth, and who thereby develop the capacity for divine appreciation of spiritual realities, can ever hope to "enter fully into the joy of their Lord." What a sorry sight for successive generations of the professed followers of Jesus to say, regarding their stewardship of divine truth: "Here, Master, is the truth you committed to us a hundred or a thousand years ago. We have lost nothing; we have faithfully preserved all you gave us; we have allowed no changes to be made in that which you taught us; here is the truth you gave us." But such a plea concerning spiritual indolence will not justify the barren steward of truth in the presence of the Master. In accordance with the truth committed to your hands will the Master of truth require a reckoning.
The clear implication from this passage is that we have a duty to expand our knowledge base, that we are not to be limited to only that which is in any one religious text; instead we must grow the truth with the truth that is available from all sources, including the continuum of human experience contained in religious practices, rituals and ceremonies.
Such expressions of religious lifestyle have served for ages to conserve the religious memories of civilization in place of written text that only the very rich could afford.
It is in the "passing through your personal experience" that the use of Cannabis sacrament is made sacred. It is the dedication of its use to the pursuit of the Divine which renders it a catalyst to worship. Rather than being a merely a mandate of obeisance to Deity it is the expression of a free will love offering from a grateful creature to their creator that is Holy.
It is the very nature of freedom in the phrase 'freedom of religion'; this ability of the creature to worship their Creative Parent in the manner of their choosing in accordance with the religious heritage of all mankind.
When instituting the remembrance supper as sacrament, Jesus was careful to leave open the opportunity for the believers' free will expression of their individual manner of entering the joy of communion:
"In instituting this remembrance supper, the Master, as was always his habit, resorted to parables and symbols. He employed symbols because he wanted to teach certain great spiritual truths in such a manner as to make it difficult for his successors to attach precise interpretations and definite meanings to his words. In this way he sought to prevent successive generations from crystallizing his teaching and binding down his spiritual meanings by the dead chains of tradition and dogma. In the establishment of the only ceremony or sacrament associated with his whole life mission, Jesus took great pains to suggest his meanings rather than to commit himself to precise definitions. He did not wish to destroy the individual's concept of divine communion by establishing a precise form; neither did he desire to limit the believer's spiritual imagination by formally cramping it. He rather sought to set man's reborn soul free upon the joyous wings of a new and living spiritual liberty. (The Urantia Book Paper-179 Section-5 Para-4 Page-1942)
It is clear that Jesus places high value on our creative imagination coupled with our spiritual receptivity and as we know from page-566 "The inherent imagination and spiritual receptivity is definitely influenced by this differential chemical endowment.". The New Wine has a physiological response which is more fitting to the event of the Remembrance Supper. Cannabis is an influence utilized by the Father and the Son to bring their children to sup at the table of remembrance. It is far more beneficial to believers than is the old wine of alcohol.
The Urantia Book Paper-169 Section-1 Para-4 Page-1851 Line-15 Para-2
And I tell you this story to impress upon you that the Father and his Son go forth to search for those who are lost, and in this search we employ all influences capable of rendering assistance in our diligent efforts to find those who are lost, those who stand in need of salvation.
In this case Cannabis is an 'influence' capable of rendering assistance in helping gain a spiritual receptivity via the completion of open neurotransmitter receptor sites, by the addition of the good thought provoking neurotransmitter cannabinoids, which have their greatest concentration in the frontal lobe region of the brain in a spot corresponding to that area known from the ancients as 'the third eye'.
The use of Cannabis is totally consistent with the open nature of the Remembrance Supper. It is in this sense that the members of The Religion of Jesus Church refer to Cannabis as a Spiritual Condiment at the Lord's Table. This Sacrament is shared with God inside us as well as with each other so that we all, God the Father and Jesus included, partake in the Sacrament. This constitutes the consummation of the communion. The Creator allows us this freedom then so must man if freedom exists.
The Urantia Book Paper-101 Section-4 Para-3 Page-1109 Line-35 Para-5
"Truth is always a revelation: autorevelation when it emerges as a result of the work of the indwelling Adjuster; epochal revelation when it is presented by the function of some other celestial agency, group, or personality."
It has been revealed to us through the mechanism of autorevelation and then confirmed by living experience in the lives of many, that Cannabis fulfills the spiritual reception enhancement criteria referenced on page 566 of the Urantia Book in that cannabis has its own unique receptor sites in the human neurosystem which promote greater spiritual receptivity. This function of Cannabis has been repeatedly demonstrated by the unique religious position of Cannabis in the many world religions and belief systems which The Religion of Jesus Church collates into its practices and beliefs.
Again and again from antiquity Cannabis and religion are intertwined why even the Pygmies have been shown to have evolved from the hunter-gatherer stage to becoming agriculturists around the religious use of one crop, Cannabis. The Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Scythians the Thracians, Muslim, Ishmaliis and Sufi, the Knights Templar (from whom we get freemasonry), Buddha and Buddhism, Zoroaster (whom the Urantia book calls one of the seven great human religious leaders), the Hindus, the Gnostics, the Coptics, the Rastafarians the African Dagga cults, the Bashiling, the Sikhs, the Atits, the Aztecs, present day Cuna Indians of Panama, Cora Indians of Mexico, the Tepehuna and the practitioners of Shinto, all have in common their Creator and the religious use of the Cannabis plant.
"We drank Bhang and the mystery I AM HE grew plain"
The Urantia Book links and categorizes the evolution of religion and the up-stepping of evolutionary religion through the interaction of revelationary input throughout the ages and this gives the member of the Religion of Jesus Church the entirety of the high points of all the world's religions to call upon as our religious heritage. The Urantia Book outlines this heritage in part as follows:
The Urantia Book Paper-92 Section-5 Para-5 Page-1009 Line-9 Para-2
"There have been hundreds upon hundreds of religious leaders in the million-year human history of Urantia from Onagar to Guru Nanak. During this time there have been many ebbs and flows of the tide of religious truth and spiritual faith, and each renaissance of Urantian religion has, in the past, been identified with the life and teachings of some religious leader. In considering the teachers of recent times, it may prove helpful to group them into the seven major religious epochs of post-Adamic Urantia:
1. The Sethite period. The Sethite priests, as regenerated under the leadership of Amosad, became the great post-Adamic teachers. They functioned throughout the lands of the Andites, and their influence persisted longest among the Greeks, Sumerians, and Hindus. Among the latter they have continued to the present time as the Brahmans of the Hindu faith. The Sethites and their followers never entirely lost the Trinity concept revealed by Adam."
The Urantia Book
Philo was a great teacher; not since Moses had there lived a man who exerted such a profound influence on the ethical and religious thought of the Occidental world. In the matter of the combination of the better elements in contemporaneous systems of ethical and religious teachings, there have been seven outstanding human teachers: Sethard, Moses, Zoroaster, Lao-tse, Buddha, Philo, and Paul.
The following is a list of quotes and historical references to the use of Cannabis across the ages and among groups which have the origins and the inter-relatedness of their religion explained and inter-linked through the revelation of the Urantia book.
Some of the following quotes and references are from the Urantia Book and many from other sources; nonetheless we regard the commonality of the use of Cannabis religiously among these groups and the various records, scripture, ritual, practices and beliefs as scriptural source of our religious practices and as validation of the legitimacy of the spiritual value of the Cannabis plant to vast numbers of people around the world for thousands of years.
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3. The Hebrews
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The Urantia Book Paper-92 Section-5 Para-5 Page-1009 Line-9 Para-2
"2. Era of the Melchizedek missionaries. Urantia religion was in no small measure regenerated by the efforts of those teachers who were commissioned by Machiventa Melchizedek when he lived and taught at Salem almost two thousand years before Christ. These missionaries proclaimed faith as the price of favor with God, and their teachings, though unproductive of any immediately appearing religions, nevertheless formed the foundations on which later teachers of truth were to build the religions of Urantia.
3. The post-Melchizedek era. Though Amenemope and Ikhnaton both taught in this period, the outstanding religious genius of the post-Melchizedek era was the leader of a group of Levantine Bedouins and the founder of the Hebrew religion Moses. Moses taught monotheism. Said he: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God." "The Lord he is God. There is none beside him." He persistently sought to uproot the remnants of the ghost cult among his people, even prescribing the death penalty for its practitioners. The monotheism of Moses was adulterated by his successors, but in later times they did return to many of his teachings. The greatness of Moses lies in his wisdom and sagacity. Other men have had greater concepts of God, but no one man was ever so successful in inducing large numbers of people to adopt such advanced beliefs."
In addition to the prior establishment of cannabis or kaneh bosm as a principal spice which was used to make the Holy, Holy
57. The following piece was taken from "Licit and Illicit Drugs", page 31. "In the Judaic world, the vapors from burnt spices and aromatic gums were considered part of the pleasurable act of worship. In Proverbs (27:9) it is said that `Ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart'. Perfumes were widely used in Egyptian worship. Stone altars have been unearthed in Babylon and Palestine, which have been used for burning incense made of aromatic wood and spices. While the casual readers today may interpret such practices as mere satisfaction of the desire for pleasant odors, this is almost certainly an error; in many or most cases, a psychoactive drug was being inhaled. In the islands of the Mediterranean 2,500 years ago and in Africa hundreds of years ago, for example, leaves and flowers of a particular plant were often thrown upon bonfires and the smoke inhaled; the plant was cannabis". (1-Edward Preble and Gabriel V. Laurey, "Plastic Cement: The Ten Cent Hallucinogen", International Journal of the Addictions, 2-Fall 2967: 271-272).
The use of Cannabis for religious purposes was common to the peoples in the mid-east at this time.
58. "There is a classic Greek term, cannabeizein, which means to smoke cannabis. Cannabeizein frequently took the form of inhaling vapors from an incense burner in which these resins were mixed with other resins, such as myrrh, balsam, frankincense, and perfumes". (Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L)
59. Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. observed the Scythians throwing hemp on heated stone to create smoke and observed them inhaling this smoke. Although he does not identify them, Herodotus states the when they "have parties and sit around a fire, they throw some of it into the flames. As it burns, it smokes like incense, and the smell of it makes them drunk, just as wine does us. As more fruit is thrown on, they get more and more intoxicated until finally they jump up and start dancing and singing". (Herodotus, Histories 1.202.)
The Urantia Book Paper-89 Section-4 Para-3 Page-977 Line-46 Para-6
Man still later conceived that his sacrifice of whatever nature might function as a message bearer to the gods; it might be as a sweet savor in the nostrils of deity. This brought incense and other aesthetic features of sacrificial rituals which developed into sacrificial feasting, in time becoming increasingly elaborate and ornate.
60. cannabis as an incense was also used in the temples of Assyria and Babylon "because its aroma was pleasing to the Gods" (Meissner 1925 [II]:84).
61. Like the ancient Greeks, the Old Testament Israelites were surrounded by cannabis-using peoples. A British physician, Dr. C. Creighton, concluded in 1903 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. (Others have suggested that the "calamus" in the Song of Solomon was in fact cannabis).-Licit and Illicit Drugs, E.M. Breche and the Editors of Consumer Reports.
62. find another reference to it in Dr. Lester Grinspoon's Marihuana Reconsidered (1971). Dr. Creighton, Grinspoon states ; ....argues that cannabis, ... is implicitly referred to in a number of passages of the Old Testament. This hypothesis was suggested to him by the guess that the "grass" which Nebuchadnezzar ate was in fact hashish, or at least some form of cannabis, and because the Arabian word for "grass" was the same as the word for "cannabis": "hashish". Creighton suggests that Saul's madness, Jonathan's and Samson's strength, ... –are all to be explained by the use of cannabis."
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4. The Egyptians
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The Urantia book shows that the religious practices of the Hebrews incorporated Egyptian origins to the Hebrew system of worship.
The Urantia Book Paper-92 Section-5 Page-1009
"3. The post-Melchizedek era. Though Amenemope and Ikhnaton both taught in this period, the outstanding religious genius of the post-Melchizedek era was the leader of a group of Levantine Bedouins and the founder of the Hebrew religion Moses. Moses taught monotheism. Said he: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God." "The Lord he is God. There is none beside him." He persistently sought to uproot the remnants of the ghost cult among his people, even prescribing the death penalty for its practitioners. The monotheism of Moses was adulterated by his successors, but in later times they did return to many of his teachings. The greatness of Moses lies in his wisdom and sagacity. Other men have had greater concepts of God, but no one man was ever so successful in inducing large numbers of people to adopt such advanced beliefs."
The Urantia Book Paper-96 Section-5 Para-3 Page-1058 Line-3 Para-1
"Many of the advances which Moses made over and above the religion of the Egyptians and the surrounding Levantine tribes were due to the Kenite traditions of the time of Melchizedek. Without the teaching of Machiventa to Abraham and his contemporaries, the Hebrews would have come out of Egypt in hopeless darkness. Moses and his father-in-law, Jethro, gathered up the residue of the traditions of the days of Melchizedek, and these teachings, joined to the learning of the Egyptians, guided Moses in the creation of the improved religion and ritual of the Israelites. Moses was an organizer; he selected the best in the religion and mores of Egypt and Palestine and, associating these practices with the traditions of the Melchizedek teachings, organized the Hebrew ceremonial system of worship."
And this ceremonial system included the ceremonial use of Cannabis for Holy purposes.
The Urantia Book Paper-95 Section-3 Para-3 Page-1045 Line-38 Para-7
"Thousands of years before the Salem gospel penetrated to Egypt, its moral leaders taught justice, fairness, and the avoidance of avarice. Three thousand years before the Hebrew scriptures were written, the motto of the Egyptians was: "Established is the man whose standard is righteousness; who walks according to its way." They taught gentleness, moderation, and discretion. The message of one of the great teachers of this epoch was: "Do right and deal justly with all." The Egyptian triad of this age was Truth-Justice-Righteousness. Of all the purely human religions of Urantia none ever surpassed the social ideals and the moral grandeur of this onetime humanism of the Nile valley."
Again we find that Cannabis has an even earlier original use as a sacrament among the Egyptians and that the uses of this Reed of God span millenniums. The use of Cannabis throughout the religious heritage of the middle east stems from its earliest recorded religious use among the Egyptians.
7. 'The Egyptians spun hemp in the regions of Badarian around 4,000 B.C.'. -Mercer John, The Spinner's Handbook. Prism Press, Dorset England. 1978. p.16.
3. The Ancient Egyptians held a balanced view of both Divine Mother and Father Gods, unlike the many Patriarchal religions that followed after Egypt's fall. They believed that humans held the potential for becoming godlike. The Egyptian's believed that a sacred plant was a major part of that transhumanization; as it is written in the Harris Papyrus 501, dated 311 B.C.E., and translated by Budge, (1910),;...."and a like measure of the divine shrubs to prompt the speech of the star gods."
2. According to "Licit and Illicit Drugs" by the Consumer Union, page 397-98: "Ashurbanipal lived about 650 B.C., but the cuneiform descriptions of cannabis in his library `are generally regarded as obvious copies of much older texts', says Dr. Robert P. Walton, an American physician and authority on cannabis. `This evidence serves to project the origin of hashish back to the earliest beginnings of history'".
5. Egyptian writings tell us that the "divine shrub", was prepared in "the sacred laboratory of Osiris". Barbara Walker has stated the following on Osiris in The Woman Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, (1983) (with information taken from Man and His Gods, H. Smith, 1952;} "Certainly Osiris was a prototypical Messiah, as well as a devoured Host. His flesh was eaten in the form of communion cakes......the 'plant of truth'. Osiris was Truth, and those who ate him became truth also, each of them another Osiris, a son of God, a 'Light-god, a dweller in the Light-god.'"
1. According to William A. Embolden in his book Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L. p. 235: "Shamanistic traditions of great antiquity in Asia and the Near East has as one of their most important elements the attempt to find God without a vale of tears; that cannabis played a role in this, at least in some areas, is born out in the philology surrounding the ritualistic use of the plant. Whereas Western religious traditions generally stress sin, repentance, and mortification of the flesh, certain older non-western religious cults seem to have employed cannabis as a euphoriant, which allowed the participant a joyous path to the Ultimate; hence such appellations as "heavenly guide".
"They spoke of Egypt , and Planno explained that the Great Pyramid at Giza had been built under the direction of an Ethiopian-born pharaoh named Khufu, and that the pharaohs used to smoke the black herb that grew in the valley of Gojam in Ethiopia, the most powerful ganja on the planet, the strain from which Solomon cut a stalk which he sowed inside the Temple. He told Bob ((Marley)) that in their mystic, ganja assisted reveries, the pharaohs came to comprehend the one truth in the journey of life, the Alpha and Omega of this passage: 'word sound is power.' Jah created the earth by speaking the words, by naming the sacred names. Only the most enlightened men know their own names."--Catch A Fire; The Life of Bob Marley, Tim White, H. Holt & Co..
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5. The Hindus
*
The Urantia Book links the Hindus as a branch of the tree of religions in the following manner:
The Urantia Book Paper-92 Section-6 Para-2 Page-1010 Line-44 Para-4
"On Urantia, evolutionary and revelatory religion are progressing side by side while they blend and coalesce into the diversified theological systems found in the world in the times of the indictment of these papers. These religions, the religions of twentieth-century Urantia, may be enumerated as follows:
1. Hinduism--the most ancient.
2. The Hebrew religion.
3. Buddhism.
4. The Confucian teachings.
5. The Taoist beliefs.
6. Zoroastrianism.
7. Shinto.
8. Jainism.
9. Christianity.
10. Islam.
11. Sikhism--the most recent.
In the above eleven religions six of them feature the religious use of Cannabis. The Urantia Book gives Hinduism a rating on par with the Hebrew religion in terms of being advanced."
Paper-92 Section-6 Para-3 Page-1011 Line-14 Para-1
"The most advanced religions of ancient times were Judaism and Hinduism, and each respectively has greatly influenced the course of religious development in Orient and Occident. Both Hindus and Hebrews believed that their religions were inspired and revealed, and they believed all others to be decadent forms of the one true faith."
Paper-92 Section-6 Para-4 Page-1011 Line-19 Para-2
India is divided among Hindu, Sikh, Mohammedan, and Jain, each picturing God, man, and the universe as these are variously conceived. China follows the Taoist and the Confucian teachings; Shinto is revered in Japan.
As Hinduism is an advanced evolutionary religion the religious discoveries and practices made by the holy use of the Cannabis plant are legion:
20. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Indian Cannabis Drugs Commission, set up to study the use of Cannabis in India contains the following:
"...It is inevitable that temperaments would be found to whom the quickening spirit of bhang is the spirit freedom and knowledge. In the ecstasy of bhang the spark of the Eternal in man turns into light the murkiness of matter."
"...Bhang is the Joy-giver, the Sky-flyer, the Heavenly-Guide, the Poor Man's Heaven, the Soother of Grief...No god or man is as good as the religious drinker of bhang...The supporting power of bhang has brought many a Hindu family safe through the miseries of famine. To forbid or even seriously to restrict the use of so gracious an herb as the hemp would cause widespread suffering and annoyance and to large bands of worshipped ascetics, deep-seated anger. It would rob the people of a solace in discomfort, of a cure in sickness, of a guardian whose gracious protection saves them from the attacks of evil influences, and whose mighty power makes the devotee of the Victorious, overcoming the demons of hunger and thirst, of panic, fear, of the glamour of Maya or matter, and of madness, able in rest to brood on the Eternal, till the Eternal, possessing him body and soul, frees him from the haunting of self and receives him into the Ocean of Being. These beliefs the Musalman devotee shares to the full. Like his Hindu brother the Musalman fakir reveres bhang as the lengthener of life, the freer from the bonds of self. Bhang brings union with the Divine Spirit. `We drank bhang and the mystery I am He grew plain'"."
"Much of the holiness of bhang (cannabis) is due to its virtues of clearing the head and stimulating the brain to thought. Among ascetics the sect known as Atits are specially devoted to hemp. No social or religious gathering of Atits is complete without the use of the hemp plant smoked in ganja or drunk in bhang. To its devotee, bhang is no ordinary plant that became holy from its guardian and healing qualities. According to one account, when nectar was produced from the churning of the ocean, something was wanted to purify the nectar. The deity supplied the want of a nectar-cleanser by creating bhang. This bhang Mahadev made from his own body, and so it is called angai or body-born (body and blood of the Lord). According to another account some nectar dropped to the ground and from the ground the bhang plant sprang. It was because they used this child of nectar or of Mahadev in agreement with religious forms that the seers or Rishis became Siddha or one with the deity. He who, despite the example of the Rishis uses no bhang shall lose his happiness in this life and in the life to come. In the end he shall be cast into hell. The mere sight of bhang cleans from as much sin as a thousand horse-sacrifices or a thousand pilgrimages. He who scandalizes the user of bhang shall suffer the torments of hell so long as the sun endures. He who drinks bhang foolishly or for pleasure without religious rites is as guilty as the sinner of sins. He who drinks wisely and according to rule, be he ever so low, even though his body is smeared with human ordure and urine, is Shiva (a man of god). No god or man is as good as the religious drinker of bhang. The students of the scriptures at Benares are given bhang before they sit to study. At Benares, students of the Ujain, and other holy places, yogis, bairagis and sanyasis take deep draughts of bhang that they may center their thoughts on the Eternal. To bring back to reason an unhinged mind the best and cleanest bhang leaves should be boiled in milk and turned to clarified butter. Salamisri, saffron, and sugar should be added and the whole eaten. Besides over the demons of madness bhang is Vifaya or victorious over the demons of hunger and thirst. By the help of bhang ascetics pass days without food or drink."-On the Religion of Cannabis, JM Campbell, from the index of The Indian Cannabis Drugs Commission.
The Urantia text shows that the Hindus have long known and perpetuated the truth up to and including the present day Brahmans
The Urantia Book Paper-92 Section-5 Para-5 Page-1009 Line-9 Para-2
"1. The Sethite period. The Sethite priests, as regenerated under the leadership of Amosad, became the great post-Adamic teachers. They functioned throughout the lands of the Andites, and their influence persisted longest among the Greeks, Sumerians, and Hindus. Among the latter they have continued to the present time as the Brahmans of the Hindu faith. The Sethites and their followers never entirely lost the Trinity concept revealed by Adam."
The Brahmans give a very good description of enhanced spiritual receptivity as described in the following explanation of "good Bhakti"
16. "In their references to the use of bhang, the Brahmins were matter-of-fact rather than lyrical, `It gives good bhakti,' said Shankar Lal: `You get a very good bhakti with bhang.' He went on to define bhakti as the sort of devotional act which consists in emptying the mind of all worldly distractions and thinking only of God. The "arrived" devotee is able to keep his thoughts from straying off onto trivial or lustful topics;..." pp. 74, The cannabis Medical Papers by David Solomon.
17. Cannabis is offered to Shiva during temple worship on Shivaratri day as "food of the gods" (Hasan 1974). Cannabis is used in worship and in offerings made on the fulfillment of vows and bhang is customarily served at weddings and at religious festivals (Great Britain 1969: 159-165)
12. In Indian tradition, cannabis is associated with immortality. There is a complex myth of the churning of the Ocean of Milk by the gods, their joint act of creation. They were in search of Amrita, the elixir of eternal life. When the gods, helped by demons, churned the ocean to obtain Amrita, one of the resulting nectars was cannabis. After churning the ocean, the demons attempted to gain control of Amrita (cannabis), but the gods were able to prevent this seizure, giving cannabis the name Vijaya ("victory") to commemorate their success.
Other ancient Indian names for cannabis were "sacred grass", "hero leafed", "joy", "rejoicer", "desired in the three worlds", "gods' food", "fountain of pleasures", and "Shiva's plant".
Early Indian legends maintained that the angel of mankind lived in the leaves of the cannabis plant. It was so sacred that it was reputed to deter evil and cleanse its user of sin. In Hindu mythology hemp is a holy plant given to man for the "welfare of mankind" and is considered to be one of the divine nectars able to give man anything from good health, to long life, to visions of the gods. Nectar is defined as the fabled drink of the gods.
Tradition maintains that when nectar or Amrita dropped from heaven, that cannabis sprouted from it. In Hindu mythology Amrita means immortality; also, the ambrosial drink which produced it. In India hemp is made into a drink and is reputed to be the favorite drink of Indra (the King of the Indian gods). Tradition maintains that the god Indra gave cannabis to the people so that they might attain elevated states of consciousness, delight in worldly joy, and freedom from fear.
According to Hindu legends, Shiva, the Supreme God of many Hindu sects, had some family squabble and went off to the fields. He sat under a hemp plant so as to be sheltered from the heat of the sun and happened to eat some of its leaves. He felt so refreshed from the hemp plant that it became his favorite food, and that is how he got his title, the Lord of Bhang (an Indian hemp beverage) (Bang/la/desh = Cannabis/hill/people).
The Urantia book links Hindu beliefs and the Vedas to the body of the world's religions in the following references:
The Urantia Book Paper-94 Section-4 Para-1 Page-1031 Line-17 Para-3
"With the passing of the centuries in India, the populace returned in measure to the ancient rituals of the Vedas as they had been modified by the teachings of the Melchizedek missionaries and crystallized by the later Brahman priesthood. This, the oldest and most cosmopolitan of the world's religions, has undergone further changes in response to Buddhism and Jainism and to the later appearing influences of Mohammedanism and Christianity."
The Urantia Book Paper-111 Section-0 Para-4 Page-1215 Line-20 Para-4
"In the conception of the atman the Hindu teachers really approximated an appreciation of the nature and presence of the Adjuster, but they failed to distinguish the co-presence of the evolving and potentially immortal soul."
13. Cannabis is mentioned as a medicinal and magical plant as well as a "sacred grass" in the Atharva Veda (dated 2000-1400 B.C.). It also calls hemp one of the five kingdoms of herbs...which releases us from anxiety and refers to hemp as a "source of happiness", "joy-giver" and "liberator". Although the holy books, the Shastras, forbid the worship of the plant, it has been venerated and used as a sacrifice to the deities.
14. In the tenth century AD. hemp was extolled as 'indracanne', the "food of the gods". A fifteenth-century document refers to cannabis as "light-hearted", "joy-full", "astringency", "heat", "speech-giving", "inspiration of mental powers", "excitability" and the capacity to "remove wind and phlegm".
Indian medical works dating back to 1300 A.D. list among the effects of cannabis that it "sharpens the memory", "sharpens the wits", "creates energy", "stimulates mental powers" and is an elixir vitae.
Commission witnesses testified that cannabis is "refreshing and stimulating", "alleviates fatigue, creates the capacity for hard work and the ability to concentrate, and gives rise to pleasurable sensations, so that one is `at peace with everybody'". (Great Britain 1969: 174-175, 191-192). Moslems as well as Hindus share the belief that ganja is "a holy plant" (Chopra 1969: 216-218).
15. Today in Tantric Buddhism of the Himalayas of Tibet, cannabis plays a very significant role in the meditative ritual to facilitate deep meditation and heighten awareness. In modern India it is taken at Hindu and Sikh temples and Mohammedan shrines. Among fakirs (Hindu ascetics) bhang is associated with the Divine Spirit. Like his Hindu brother, the Musalman fakir reveres bhang as the lengthener of life and the freer from the bonds of self.
Thus spake Zarathustra
The Urantia Book
"Philo was a great teacher; not since Moses had there lived a man who exerted such a profound influence on the ethical and religious thought of the Occidental world. In the matter of the combination of the better elements in contemporaneous systems of ethical and religious teachings, there have been seven outstanding human teachers: Sethard, Moses, Zoroaster, Lao-tse, Buddha, Philo, and Paul."
Of these seven outstanding teachers three Moses, Zoroaster and Buddha have religious affiliation with Cannabis.
The Urantia Book Paper-92 Section-5 Para-5 Page-1009 Line-9 Para-2
"4. The sixth century before Christ. Many men arose to proclaim truth in this, one of the greatest centuries of religious awakening ever witnessed on Urantia. Among these should be recorded Gautama, Confucius, Lao-tse, Zoroaster, and the Jainist teachers. The teachings of Gautama have become widespread in Asia, and he is revered as the Buddha by millions. Confucius was to Chinese morality what Plato was to Greek philosophy, and while there were religious repercussions to the teachings of both, strictly speaking, neither was a religious teacher; Lao-tse envisioned more of God in Tao than did Confucius in humanity or Plato in idealism. Zoroaster, while much affected by the prevalent concept of dual spiritism, the good and the bad, at the same time definitely exalted the idea of one eternal Deity and of the ultimate victory of light over darkness."
The Urantia Book Paper-95 Section-6 Para-1 Page-1049 Line-19 Para-5
"From Palestine some of the Melchizedek missionaries passed on through Mesopotamia and to the great Iranian plateau. For more than five hundred years the Salem teachers made headway in Iran, and the whole nation was swinging to the Melchizedek religion when a change of rulers precipitated a bitter persecution which practically ended the monotheistic teachings of the Salem cult. The doctrine of the Abrahamic covenant was virtually extinct in Persia when, in that great century of moral renaissance, the sixth before Christ, Zoroaster appeared to revive the smoldering embers of the Salem gospel."
The Urantia Book Paper-95 Section-6 Para-7 Page-1050 Line-17 Para-3
"Even the religion which succeeded Zoroastrianism in Persia was markedly influenced by it. When the Iranian priests sought to overthrow the teachings of Zoroaster, they resurrected the ancient worship of Mithra. And Mithraism spread throughout the Levant and Mediterranean regions, being for some time a contemporary of both Judaism and Christianity. The teachings of Zoroaster thus came successively to impress three great religions: Judaism and Christianity and, through them, Mohammedanism."
The Urantia Book Paper-98 Section-5 Para-2 Page-1082 Line-17 Para-4
"The cult of Mithras arose in Iran and long persisted in its homeland despite the militant opposition of the followers of Zoroaster. But by the time Mithraism reached Rome, it had become greatly improved by the absorption of many of Zoroaster's teachings. It was chiefly through the Mithraic cult that Zoroaster's religion exerted an influence upon later appearing Christianity."
The Urantia Book Paper-131 Section-5 Para-1 Page-1449 Line-43 Para-5
"Zoroaster was himself directly in contact with the descendants of the earlier Melchizedek missionaries, and their doctrine of the one God became a central teaching in the religion which he founded in Persia. Aside from Judaism, no religion of that day contained more of these Salem teachings."
The three wise men who left gifts with baby Jesus were Magi or followers after Zoroaster From the historic record of Zoroaster we get the following:
25. "Shamanic ecstasy induced by hemp smoke was known in ancient Iran". One of the few surviving books of the Zend-Avesta, called the Venidad, "The Law Against Demons", calls bhanga (cannabis) "Zoroaster's good narcotic", and tells of two mortals who were transported in soul to the heavens where, upon drinking from a cup of bhanga, they had the highest mysteries revealed to them. Professor Eliade has theorized that Zoroaster, the Persian prophet, said to have written the Zend-Avesta, may have used hemp to bridge the metaphysical gap between heaven and earth. In the Zend-Avesta hemp occupies the first place in a list of 10,000 medicinal plants. Eliade, Mirceau. Shamanism. Pantheon books. 1964.
It must be stated here, that it is the belief of the members of the Religion of Jesus Church that Cannabis is not a narcotic, nor is Cannabis a drug, rather it is an herb; herb
(ûrb) (hûrb) -n. 1. A plant that has a fleshy stem as distinguished from the woody tissue of shrubs and trees and that generally dies back at the end of each growing season. 2. Any of various often aromatic plants used esp. in medicine or as seasoning. [ME herbe < OFr. erbe < Lat. herba.]
26. "What is essential is to elucidate the type of religious experience characteristic of Zarathustra. Nyberg believed that he could compare it to the typical ecstasy of the Central Asian shamans. His hypothesis was rejected by the majority of scholars, but Widengren has recently presented it in more moderate and convincing terms. He cites the tradition according to which Vishtaspa used hemp (bhang) to obtain ecstasy: while his body lay asleep, his soul traveled to paradise. In addition, in the Avestan tradition, Zarathustra himself was believed to "give himself over to ecstasy." It is in trance that he would have had his visions and heard the word of Ahura Mazda.....It may be admitted that Zarathustra was familiar with the Indo-Iranian shamanic techniques (also known to the Scythians and the Indians of the Vedic period), and there seems to be no reason to suspect the tradition that explains Vistaspa's ecstasy by hemp."
-A History of Religious Ideas Vol. 1, Mircea Eliade, translated by Willard R. Trask, 1978. (Eliade refers to H.S. Nyberg's Die Religion des alten Iran's and G. Widengren's Les religions de l'Iran.)
27. 'As in India, cannabis penetrated the ancient Near East with incursions of Central Asian nomads. A legend in the Persian Avesta, closely related to the Vedas of India, has it that early heroes Gustap and Ardu Viraf were "transported in soul to heaven and had the highest mysteries revealed to them"* by drinking banha (bhang). Zarathustra's wife Hvovi sacrificed to the gods "wishing that holy Zarathustra would give her his good narcotic bhanga.."'.-Dr. M. Aldrich in The High Times Encyclopedia of Drugs
28. 'Zoroaster's wife Hvovi made offerings to the lower gods so they would ask the supreme being to 'give her his good narcotic, bangha.... that she might think according to the law, speak according to the law and do according to the law". Conrad, Chris. Cannabis; Lifeline to the Future.
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6. The Muslims
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The Urantia Book Paper-92 Section-5 Para-5 Page-1009 Line-9 Para-2
"6. The sixth century after Christ. Mohammed founded a religion which was superior to many of the creeds of his time. His was a protest against the social demands of the faiths of foreigners and against the incoherence of the religious life of his own people."
Paper-92 Section-6 Para-8 Page-1011 Line-43 Para-6
"Islam is the religio-cultural connective of North Africa, the Levant, and southeastern Asia. It was Jewish theology in connection with the later Christian teachings that made Islam monotheistic. The followers of Mohammed stumbled at the advanced teachings of the Trinity; they could not comprehend the doctrine of three divine personalities and one Deity. It is always difficult to induce evolutionary minds suddenly to accept advanced revealed truth. Man is an evolutionary creature and in the main must get his religion by evolutionary techniques."
Islam is another of the worlds religions whose adherents have a heritage rich with the religious use of Cannabis.
30. In his epic essay 'On the religion of Cannabis', JM Campbell made the following comments on cannabis and the Moslem faith;
‘In his devotion to bhang, with reverence, not with the worship, which is due to Allah alone, The North Indian Mussulman joins hymning to the praise of bhang. To the follower of the later religion of Islam the holy spirit in bhang is not the spirit of the Almighty, it is the spirit of the great prophet Khizr, or Elijah. That bhang should be sacred to Khizr is natural, Khizr is the patron saint of water. Still more Khizr means green, the revered color of the cooling water of bhang. So the Urdu poet sings 'When I quaff fresh bhang I liken its color to the fresh light down of thy youthful beard.' The prophet Khizr or the green prophet cries 'May the drink be pleasing to thee'. Nasir the great North Indian Urdu poet of the beginning of the present century (this was written in 1894) is loud in praises of his beloved Sabzi, the Green One. 'Compared with bhang spirits are naught. Leave all things thou fool, drink bhang.' From its quickening the imagination, Mussulam poets honor bhang with the title Waraq Al Khayal, Fancy's Leaf. And the Makhazan or great Arab-Greek drug book records many other fond names for the drug. Bhang is the Joy-Giver, the sky-Flier, The Heavenly-Guide, The Poor Man's Heaven, the Soother of Grief.'
31. According to one Arab legend, Haydar, the Persian founder of the religious order of Sufi, came across the cannabis plant while wandering in the Persian mountains. Usually a reserved and silent man, when he returned to his monastery after eating some cannabis leaves, his disciples were amazed at how talkative and animated (full of spirit) he seemed. After cajoling Haydar into telling them what he had done to make him feel so happy, his disciples went out into the mountains and tried the cannabis for themselves. So it was, according to the legend, the Sufis came to know the pleasures of hashish. (Taken from the Introduction to A Comprehensive Guide to Cannabis Literature by Earnest Abel.)
It has been stated that Haydar told his followers; "God has granted you the privilege of knowing the secret of these leaves. Thus when you eat it, your dense worries may disappear and your exalted minds may become polished."
"The apocryphal oath by which Haydar entrusted his disciples not to reveal the secret of hashish to anyone but the Sufis underlies the close association between the drug and the Sufi movement in the Arab community.
The Sufis ... origins were in Persia where they began as a group of ascetics who banded together to discuss religious topics and recite the Koran aloud".--Ernest Abel, Marihuana; The First Twelve Thousand Years
32. ...cannabis inspires some of its devotees with precisely the sort of "state" which the Koran appears to associate with paradisal wine, which "causes no headaches", and enhances the play of love with houris and cup-boys. Cannabis is green, the color of Islam, and the color of the Hidden Prophet of Sufism, Khezr the Green Man, the immortal ruler of Hyperborea, Alexander's cook, servant of Moses, discoverer of the Fountain of Youth, initiator of sufis who have no human master, a vegetation spirit in whose footsteps flowers and herbs sprout by magic. Green is the highest color in certain systems of Sufi alchemy." Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresies, 1971 Peter Lamborn Wilson
33. Hashish has an ancient and accepted importance in the history of Persian mysticism, where it has traditionally been used not as a stimulant but as a spiritual soporific 'producing a quiescence of the soul which is known as keyf or kaif, which translates as intoxication, carouse or placid enjoyment. The plant from which the drug is derived is correctly called hemp, Cannabis sativa......In his study of the Egyptians written in 1860, Edward William Lane describes popular story-tellers recounting the life of Ez-Zahir, which was based on the life of Sultan Baybars. In this story fedayeen were always described as using beng, or hemp, and henbane, mixed with hashish. Lane records that at even that time it was common practice. Other writers confirm this use of a mixture of hashish and other drugs, and one author on oriental spiritualism explains this use for the effect of 'raising the imagination until it attained to a beatified realization of the joys of the future world.'. 'The Assassins, Edward Burman, Crucible publishing.
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7. Buddha Shinto
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The Urantia Book
37. 'Buddhism permeates Korea, Japan, China, Tibet and southeast Asia. In one legend, Gautama Buddha in the sixth century BC subsisted on a ration of one hemp seed per day , nothing else, during his six years of asceticism that led to his revealing the four noble truths and the eight-fold Path to Knowledge.*
By the first century AD, Taoists in Japan used hemp seeds in their incense burners. A fifth century Japanese booklet stated that 'Cannabis and mulberry...have long been used in worshipping the gods'. According to Japanese Shinto beliefs, purity and evil cannot exist side by side. Waving the gohei ( a short stick with undyed hemp fibers-- for purity---attached to one end) above someone's head will drive evil spirits from inside him.**' Conrad, Chris. Cannabis: Lifeline to the Future quoting from *Beal, S. Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King, 1882. **Joya, M. Things Japanese, 1963
The Urantia Book Paper-92 Section-6 Para-5 Page-1011 Line-22 Para-3
"The great international, interracial faiths are the Hebraic, Buddhist, Christian, and Islamic. Buddhism stretches from Ceylon and Burma through Tibet and China to Japan. It has shown an adaptability to the mores of many peoples that has been equaled only by Christianity."
15. Today in Tantric Buddhism of the Himalayas of Tibet, cannabis plays a very significant role in the meditative ritual to facilitate deep meditation and heighten awareness. In modern India it is taken at Hindu and Sikh temples and Mohammedan shrines. Among fakirs (Hindu ascetics) bhang is associated with the divine spirit. Like his Hindu brother, the Musalman fakir reveres bhang as the lengthener of life and the freer from the bonds of self.
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8. Shinto
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Paper-94 Section-5 Para-3 Page-1033 Line-1 Para-1
This composite belief spread through the lands of the yellow and brown races as an underlying influence in religio-philosophic thought. In Japan this proto-Taoism was known as Shinto, and in this country, far distant from Salem of Palestine, the peoples learned of the incarnation of Machiventa Melchizedek, who dwelt upon earth that the name of God might not be forgotten by mankind.
The Urantia Book
Paper-131 Section-7 Para-1 Page-1451 Line-11 Para-1
Only recently had the manuscripts of this Far-Eastern religion been lodged in the Alexandrian library. It was the one world religion of which Ganid had never heard. This belief also contained remnants of the earlier Melchizedek teachings as is shown by the following abstracts:
By the first century AD, Taoists in Japan used cannabis seeds in their incense burners. A fifth century Japanese booklet stated that 'Cannabis and mulberry...have long been used in worshipping the gods'. According to Japanese Shinto beliefs, purity and evil cannot exist side by side. Waving the gohei ( a short stick with undyed hemp fibers-- for purity---attached to one end) above someone's head will drive evil spirits from inside him.**' Conrad, Chris. Cannabis: Lifeline to the Future quoting from *Beal, S. Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King, 1882. **Joya, M. Things Japanese, 1963
The believers in Shinto have a long association with Cannabis and Cannabis fibers Shinto marriage ceremonies have the wrist of the bride and groom bound with a Cannabis cord. Also as a part of the religious ceremonies surrounding sumo wrestling the grand champion or Yokozuna wears a ceremonial belt made of Cannabis.
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9. Other religions: Coptic, Gnostic, Rastafarian
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117 They were convinced too, that the day would come when the world would discover the truth about Jesus. When this took place, it would be the mission of the Followers to come out into the open and teach those who wanted to believe in Jesus the methods by which a man or woman could 'enter the Kingdom'.---Among the Dervishes, O.M. Burke, 1973, (It should be pointed out here that the hashish ingesting Isma'ilis and Sufis, have long been associated with earlier Gnostic and Zoroastrian traditions and a Christian group which has been strongly tied with the Isma'ilis, the Druzes of East Lebanon, also claim secret knowledge about the beginnings of Christianity.)
47. ' Most (scholars) agree that the Templars "had adopted some of the mysterious tenets of the Eastern Gnostics."'--Walker, 1986, quoting, R.P. Knight,The Symbolic Language of Ancient Art and Mythology, New York, 1982
87. And let us not forget that Irenaeus, an early bishop, accused the Gnostics of initiating with a secret sacrament..--The Gnostic Gospels, E. Pagels
9. An archeological dig in Ethiopia, uncovered two ceramic smoking-pipe bowls containing traces of cannabis resin and dating from the 14th century. ('Cannabis Smoking in 13-14th Century Ethiopia', N.J. Van der Merwe, in Cannabis and Culture , Vera Rubin, ed.. Dr. M. Aldrich has suggested Ethiopia as the potential origin of the water pipe. In many parts of East Africa, especially near Lake Victoria (the source for the Nile), hemp smoking and hashish snuffing cults still exist. .It should be noted here for future reference that Ethiopia is the oldest Christian country in the world. The Christian faith in Ethiopia pre-dates the formation of the Roman Catholic Church and it was not until the Middle Ages that Ethiopia bowed down to the Papacy. The elders of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church claim a cannabis Eucharist tradition dating back to their ancestors in Ethiopia and further to the time of Christ, a tradition that was handed down verbally, from elders to younger.
68. In an article that appeared in The Dubuque Telegraph Herald, Friday, March 26, 1993, page 2A, in an article about a court case involving the Israel Zion Coptic Church , ( who like the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church use ganja), Professor Stanley Moore, chairman of the Philosophy department of the University of Wisconsin-Olatteville, is quoted as saying that the Coptics may be right about cannabis use in the Bible. Moore points out that some scholars believe as the Coptics do ,that Biblical references to "aromatic herbs" and "smoke" mean psycho-active drugs used in religious observances. That, Moore said is as old as religion itself, "Western Jews and Christians, who shun psycho-active drugs in their faith practices, are the exception, not the norm.".
54. "The Rastafarians maintain that ganja induces wisdom and understanding and assists in reasoning, meditating, praying, and communing with brethren. Ganja produces a clarity of vision and depth of comprehension about man and his world which is not attainable otherwise. The present writer can attest that the reasoning he heard during sessions when ganja was smoked was quite inspiring and altogether unlike anything heard from men who are not upon things sacred, not to speak of the men in rum bars."--DREAD, The Rastafarians of Jamaica, Joseph Owens, Kingston, 1976.
55. In anthropologist L.E. Barrett's study, The Rastafarians, an elder of the Rastafarian movement states the Rasta's relationship with Ganja;
"Concerning ganja and the amount of publicity it has received of late, it becomes imperative that I should impart some knowledge on it regarding its history and usage among the Rastafarians.....The Rastafarian sees ganja as part of his religious observances. He sees ganja as the smoother of mental imbalance and as a mediatory influence. Ganja is really used to bring forth a peaceful and complacent aspect within man..... We do not find ganja as a mental depressor, ganja sharpens your wit, and keeps you intellectually balanced....... Even in Trinidad today, ganja is used by the East Indians in their worship without any Government interference or restrictions. If ganja was not available in Jamaica as a sedative to keep the poor calm, the island would have experienced anarchy already.
In Rastafarian Holy book King Rasta of Is Real by A'ana Pali Little did he know that the spirit in the bible was written by men and prophets who smoked cannabis, the burning bush, the new wine and the holy burnt sacrament and this spirit of the herb shall never change. Of all the wonders of the Earth, the man that smoked ganga back then has the same spirit of the man that smokes ganga now. The prophets knew this spirit had never changed and never will. They knew men of all the ages, of all the nations that smoked new wine would always be aware of the good feelings inside and how ganga would show us the Kingdom of Righteousness.(Rastix 44)
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10. Emerging Tribes
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The fingerprints of God show up over and over again as the entire spectrum of humanity from the advanced to the primitive have in common the urge to worship as their reaction to the use of the cannabis plant and its resultant effect upon them is the increase in the desire to know God:
The Urantia Book Paper-126 Section-2 Para-5 Page-1388 Line-40 Para-5
"As the years passed, this young carpenter of Nazareth increasingly measured every institution of society and every usage of religion by the unvarying test: What does it do for the human soul? Does it bring God to man? does it bring man to God?"
When this test of Jesus is applied to cannabis, across the centuries we find that man is brought to God through the religious use of Cannabis Sacrament and because of the common element of the use of Cannabis is in so many of the world religions we believe that man is indeed brought to God through the religious use of Cannabis. What Cannabis does for the human soul is a matter of the personal testimony of each one who Holy Smokes religiously.
8. The African continent is probably the zone showing the widest prevalence of the plant's psychoactive use. When white men first went to Africa, cannabis was a part of the native way of life. Africa was a continent of cannabis cultures where cannabis was an integral part of religious ceremony. The Africans were observed inhaling the smoke from piles of smoldering cannabis. Some of these piles had been placed upon altars. The Africans also utilized pipes. The African dagga (cannabis) cults believed that Holy cannabis was brought to earth by the gods.
Throughout the ancient world Ethiopia was considered the home of the gods. It was referred to as the "Divine Land". It was also referred to as the "Land of Incense". The Hashish of Ethiopia is superior to that of the Nile Delta.
9. An archeological dig in Ethiopia, uncovered two ceramic smoking-pipe bowls containing traces of cannabis resin and dating from the 14th century. ('Cannabis Smoking in 13-14th Century Ethiopia', N.J. Van der Merwe, in Cannabis and Culture , Vera Rubin, ed.. Dr. M. Aldrich has suggested Ethiopia as the potential origin of the water pipe. In many parts of East Africa, especially near Lake Victoria (the source for the Nile), hemp smoking and hashish snuffing cults still exist. .It should be noted here for future reference that Ethiopia is the oldest Christian country in the world. The Christian faith in Ethiopia pre-dates the formation of the Roman Catholic Church and it was not until the middle ages that Ethiopia bowed down to the Papacy. The elders of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church claim a cannabis Eucharist tradition dating back to their ancestors in Ethiopia and further to the time of Christ, a tradition that was handed down verbally, from elders to younger.
10. 'Pogge and Wissman, during their explorations of Africa in 1881 visited the Bashlinge. They found large plots of land around the villages used for the cultivation of hemp. Originally there were small clubs of hemp smokers, bound by ties of friendship, but these eventually led to the formation of a religious cult. The Bashilenge called themselves 'Bena-Riamba'-"the sons of hemp", and their land 'Lubuku', meaning friendship. They greeted each other with the expression "moio", meaning both "hemp" and "life".
....The hemp pipe assumed a symbolic meaning for the Bashilenge somewhat analogous to the significance which the peace pipe had for *American Indians. No holiday, no trade agreement, no peace treaty was transacted without it.'-Early Diffusion and Folk Uses of Cannabis, by Sula Benet, from 'Cannabis and Culture'; Rubin & Comitas , ed. .
52. According to the cannabis Medical Papers by David Solomon, Book Three, Ch. 8., Cannabis: A Reference, Dr. William H. McGlothlin, Ph.D., Harvard--"cannabis plays a role in certain primitive South American tribes'.
The present day Cuna Indians of Panama use cannabis as a sacred herb and the Cora Indians of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico smoke cannabis in the course of their sacred ceremonies.
53. In the Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L by William A. Emboden, Jr., pages 229 and 231, is the following: "A particularly interesting account of a Tepehua (no relationship to "Tepecana") Indian ceremony with cannabis was published in 1963 by the Mexican ethnologist Roberto William Garcia of the University of Veracruz, Mexico. The Tepehua belong linguistically and culturally to the Totonac of Veracruz, northernmost branch of the Maya language family.
"In his account of Tepehua religion and ritual, William Garcia (1963: 215-21) describes in some detail a communal curing ceremony focused on a plant called Santa Rose, `The Herb Which Makes One Speak', which he identified botanically as Cannabis Sativa. According to Garcia it is worshipped as an earth deity and is thought to be alive and comparable to a piece of the heart of God". (Body and blood)
We witness the fingerprints of God when in cultures which are as diverse as the Tepehua Indian and the Hindu both relate to this sacred plant as the "Body and Blood of the Lord".
It is of special confirmation to the members of the Religion of Jesus Church that terms which have been historically used with regard to the Communion are used in connection with the new wine cannabis by independent recognition of spiritual truth and venerated by religious usage.
3. We are mandated to bring about a mercy mission of Faith Healing utilizing Cannabis Sacrament.
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11. Personal Accounts from the Religion of Jesus Church
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The following are accounts of the human price paid by those in the Religion of Jesus Church and those who could be helped by the Religion of Jesus Church Mercy Ministry, Cannabis Heals and its mobile corollary Cannabis Heals on Wheels
AFFIDAVIT OF JOHN ROBISON
STATE OF HAWAII
COUNTY OF HAWAII
March 9,1994
1. Affiant is a resident of Kealakekua Hawaii
2. Affiant is a member of the Religion of Jesus Church, and gives account to the following experiences:
3. On November 24, 1992, Affiant John Earl Robison II, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic or Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia also known as A.L.L., a blood disease that effects your immune system through your white blood cells.
4. During aggressive Chemotherapy and Cobalt Radiation, to both my brain and spine, I was prescribed a federally controlled narcotic called Marinol* for uncontrollable nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite.
5. During my three month stay in the hospital I've read and watched educational programs about Cannabis being used for medicinal purposes.
6. Since then I've become aware of an increasing amount of uses for the Cannabis herb.
7. Since becoming a member of the Church I have become aware of Scientific evidence that Cannabis Alkaloids specifically 9 tetrahydrocannabinol, 8 tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabinol and cannbidiol have shown effectiveness as anti cancer agents, and are shown to "significantly inhibit" certain types of leukemia.
8. Upon leaving the hospital I decided to try Cannabis to heal myself from the nausea, and uncontrollable vomiting from the medications I was on.
9. The Cannabis herb proved to heal me in such a manner that I am able to eat and hold food down to help fight the disease that I have.
10. A month later I had to admit myself back into the hospital but now I stay in apartments to give me the freedom to practice what I believe helps heal me. Since my last round of treatments I've experimented with the Cannabis herb and found in my personal experience Cannabis indeed benefits this victim of the disease.
11. Whether it be cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, A.I.D.S, Glaucoma, etc. as a sufferer of disease I know that any person who has to deal with going through chemotherapy and/or radiation (that is chemically made) should have that right to use any natural God given herb of this planet to help heal/cure their disease.
12. After a total of nine months of aggressive chemotherapy I am now on a maintenance phase of this course of chemotherapy treatment. I am now required to take a daily dose of Metacaptapurine and a weekly dose of Methotrexate, both which are anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapy) . l am also a recipient of Marinol. Marinol is not as effective or even close to being as effective in relieving my symptoms as the Cannabis plant.
13. I also firmly believe that my God put this 'natural' herb on this earth for those who are victims of such diseases.
14. I do believe the Cannabis herb can heal and I feel it is my God given right to practice with the Cannabis herb and use it for my "Faith Healing''. As I receive better results from this natural God given herb, I believe that the greatest recovery from my disease is dependent on my receiving Church blessed Cannabis Sacrament for Faith Healing. For me this is a life and death issue.
15. In my Faith Healing process I've experienced life enhancing events that make me believe that God has given Cannabis to us to heal those who believe.
16. With Cannabis I am able to eat and hold food down regularly which is big progress in fighting the disease that I have.
17. I would like to say based on these facts stated above, and based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and the First Amendment my belief in faith healing using Cannabis Sacrament is and must be protected and acknowledged.
18. It now costs $655.00 for a 10 day supply of Marinol which I feel is outrageous for someone who is just trying to survive a life threatening disease and knowing it shouldn't be this hard, especially since my medicinal Cannabis could be grown in my back yard which would also provide me the therapy and stress relief of peaceful gardening.
19. Cannabis can also be used for a number of other things to help the environment which is another part of the faith healing process being secure in the knowledge that as my body heals so is the world healing.
20. I would be willing to be put on a study/program such as a Compassionate Investigative New Drug (IND) Program. So that I could prove that the Cannabis herb is a big factor in my "Faith Healing" process.
21. Further Affiant sayeth not.
Respectfully Submitted,
John Earl Robison II Affiant
PO BOX 2239
Kealakekua, Hawaii 96750
* MARINOL a Legally prescribed drug
_____________________________________________________
September 24, 1994
Dear Sir/Madam:
I am an AIDS infected individual who recognizes that the use of cannabis may be of help to me in my battle for a quality life. My appetite and food cravings are almost nil and I am told that cannabis is GOOD for appetite enhancement...the munchies are an integral part of a pot trip. This herb also helps to lessen anxiety and depression, I am outraged that I am denied access to so useful a treatment.
Instead I get chemicals from pharmaceutical companies that have severe side effects...some more than others. At present prices for cannabis are so high that I could not afford it. I would like to grow my own while I am still able.
Sincerely,
Ray F Boyea
PO Box 923
Keaau, Hi 96749-0923
_______________________________________________________
Affidavit regarding life extending properties for my step-son by Rev. Dennis Shields
At the end of 1979 about one month before Christmas Ryan suddenly developed a large lump in his side. His pedeatritan told us that it was most likely an appendicitis. After four hours in the waiting room for a "two hour max." operation... well I find that I am incapable of conveying in words the anguish and horror that was ours, the boys mother and I, when told the boy who had only that September turned seven, he had cancer. Two tumors the size of softballs. Malignant. Three months to live. Air ambulance to Kapiolani Children's Medical center Nine hours of "heroic" surgery The words undifferentiated abdominal sarcoma, meaning we don't know where it came from but Ryan has a malignant tumor and needs chemotherapy after three weeks post op recovery time.
Chemotherapy; drugs so toxic that the hair falls out, accompanied by overwhelming fatigue and uncontrolled vomiting. The patient undergoes rapid weight loss depletion of appetite and depression. This was the scenario at the begging of 1980.
The boy underwent chemotherapy, the unrelenting bouts of gut wrenching heaves unmercifully contorting the frame of this dear boy were torturous to observe. Some forty such episodes a day for four or five days in a row.
The boy's oncologist, Dr. Robert Wilkinson, regarding Ryan's reaction to the chemotherapy asked me if I could get any HEMP to counteract the horrific side effects of the chemotherapy. Now here was a doctor who could prescribe medicine such as methotrexate (a toxin so poisonous that the dose must be timed precisely so that an antidote can be administered to prevent the patient from dying) asking me if I could provide HEMP to help the fight to save my sons life, because if he prescribed it he would lose his medical license. I am proud to say that I honored the good doctors request, and Ryan benefited. In all the chemotherapy sessions that followed he only threw up 3 or 4 times a day. He was able to maintain an appetite even regain lost weight.
Ryan lived longer than three months He lived longer than a year. From the diagnosis of his illness until his passing a period of eighteen months he lived. He lived to meet his baby brother Elijah. This was a fifteen month extension of his life expectancy It is my experience to have witnessed and assisted the beneficial medicinal application of HEMP. Were this punishable by death yet would I still have assisted my son.
Now we face an AIDS epidemic where millions of victims will need medicinal HEMP.
Who knows what tomorrow may bring, cancer or aids for that matter is no respecter of persons, God forbid that your loved one that special precious person in your sight may be the one struck next. Yet were that horror to grip your family as it once grabbed mine if you were the father or brother or husband... or what if it were you yourself Judge would you withhold the sacred relief that a medicinal herb given to man by God does bring.
Rev. Dennis D. Shields
_________________________________________________________
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12. War on Drugs
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Cannabis prohibition is an extension of racial discrimination and is unfair to the 'minority' members of our church. The origination of the anti-cannabis laws stem from the bigoted Jim Crow laws of the turn of the century, the very basis of the laws burdening our religious beliefs stems from a racist origin:
'Harry J. Anslinger was director of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics from its inception in 1931 for the next 31 years, and was only forced into retirement in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy after Anslinger tried to censor the publications and publishers of Professor Alfred Lindsmith (The Addict and the Law, Washington Post, 1961) and to blackmail and harass his employer, Indiana University. Anslinger had come under attack for racist remarks as early as 1934 by a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, Joseph Guffey, for such things as referring to "gingercolored niggers" in letters circulated to his department heads on FBN stationery'.
Prior to 1931, Anslinger was Assistant U.S. Commissioner for Prohibition. Anslinger, remember, was hand-picked to head the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics by his uncle-in-law, Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury under President Herbert Hoover. The same Andrew Mellon was also the owner and largest stockholder of the sixth largest bank (in 1937) in the United States, the Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, one of only two bankers for DuPont* from 1928 to the present.
* DuPont has borrowed money from banks only twice in its entire 170 year history, once to buy control of General Motors in the 192O.
Its banking business is the prestigious plum of the financial world.
In 1937, Anslinger testified before Congress saying, "cannabis is the most violence causing drug in the history of mankind."
This testimony, along with Anslinger's outrageous racist statements and beliefs, was made to the Southern dominated congressional committee and is now an embarrassment to read in its entirety.
For instance, Anslinger kept a "Gore File," culled almost entirely from Hearst and other sensational tabloids c.g., stories of axe murders, where one of the participants reportedly smoked a joint four days before committing the crime.
Anslinger pushed on Congress as a factual statement that about 50% of all violent crimes committed in the U.S. were committed by Spaniards, Mexican Americans, Latin Americans, Filipinos, Negroes and Greeks, and these crimes could be traced directly to cannabis.
(From Anslinger's own records given to Pennsylvania State University, Li Cata Murders, etc.)
Not one of Anslinger's cannabis "Gore Files of the 1930s is believed to be true by scholars who have painstakingly checked the facts.
In fact, F.B.I. statistics, had Anslinger bothered to check, showed at least 65% to 75% of all murders in the U.S. were then – and still are -- alcohol related.
As an example of his racist statements, Anslinger read into U.S. Congressional testimony (without objection) stories about "coloreds with big lips, luring white women with jazz music and cannabis".
He read an account of two Negro students at the University of Minnesota doing this to a white coed "with the result of pregnancy." The Congressmen of 1937 gasped at this and at the fact that this drug seemingly caused white women to touch or even look at a "Negro."
Bonnie, Richard & Whitebread, Charles, The cannabis Conviction, Univ. of Virginia Press, 1974; Congressional testimony, 1937"
The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer
Cannabis prohibition is a extension of religious discrimination dating from the 15th century. The origins of Cannabis prohibition are a hangover from papal infallibility and in fact are designed to originally discriminate against Muslims.
109. While embracing wine as a sacrament, the Inquisition outlawed cannabis ingestion in Spain in the 12th century and France in the 13th. Anyone using hemp to communicate, heal, or otherwise was labeled a "witch". In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII proclaimed hemp an unholy sacrament of the second and third types of satanic mass which lasted more then 150 years.
41. ' Saint Joan of Arc, for example, was accused in 1430-31 of using a variety of herbal "witch" drugs, including cannabis, to hear voices.---The Emperor Wears No Clothes, J. Herer
46. The Order of Knights of the Temple was founded in the Holy Land in 1118 A.D. ....Its organization was based on that of the Saracean fraternity of 'Hashishim', 'hashish-takers', whom Christians called Assassins. The Templars first headquarters was a wing of the royal palace of Jerusalem next to the al-Aqsa mosque, revered by the Shi'ites as the central shrine of the Goddess Fatima.
47. ' Most (scholars) agree that the Templars "had adopted some of the mysterious tenets of the Eastern Gnostics."'--Walker, 1986, quoting, R.P. Knight, The Symbolic Language of Ancient Art and Mythology, New York, 1982
'ambiguous references to a sacred plant or herb appear in their [the Templars] surviving manuscripts'-Sex and Drugs, R.A. Wilson, 1971
The Masonic Lodge, the Shriners, the Eastern Star, the order of DeMolay all religious fraternal orginizations which have at their root Jacque DeMolay and the Knights Templar. The tradition of the sacred plant use in freemasonry is exemplified by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both freemasons.
108. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington often corresponded about the virtues of smoking hemp and are said to have traded parcels of it as gestures of friendship.
Dr. Burke, president of the American Historical Reference Society and consultant for the Smithsonian Institute, included the following U.S. presidents as cannabis users: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, and Franklin Pierce.
"Early letters from our founding fathers often refer to the pleasures of hemp smoking", said Dr. Burke. There are even references to it in the Congressional Record. Cannabis never became a commercial industry because the plant was too easy to grow.
George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson all cultivated pot on their plantations. George Washington is said to have preferred a good pipeful of "the leaves of hemp" to any alcoholic drink.
James Madison once remarked that had it not been for hemp, he would not have had the insights he had in the work of creating a new and democratic nation.
The founder of a relative recent addition to the worldwide family of religious beliefs who practice the religious use of Cannabis is
Bla·vat·sky - Biography
(bl-vát´skë) (-vät´-) MadameHelena. or Elena Petrovna Hahn 1831-91. Russian-born theosophist.
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13. Theosophy
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Theosophy [Gr., = divine wisdom], philosophical system with affinities to MYSTICISM that claims insight into the nature of God and the world through direct knowledge, philosophical speculation, or a physical process. Theosophy deduces the essentially spiritual nature of the universe from an assumption of the absolute reality of the essence of God. Theosophists generally believe that evil exists as a product of finite human desires; individuals can overcome it by arousing their latent spiritual powers. Emphasis is given to allegorical interpretation of sacred writings and doctrines. The Renaissance philosopher PARACELSUS combined scientific ideas with theosophical speculation. More recent theosophists include Jakob BOEHME, F.W.J. SCHELLING, and Emanuel SWEDENBORG.
The philosophy and theology of the Orient, especially of India, contain a vast body of Theosophical doctrine and modern Theosophy draws much of its vocabulary from Indian sources.
The Theosophical Society, with which Theosophy is now generally identified, was founded in 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.
44. "She (Blavatsky) wrote, sometimes under the influence of hashish, several books filled with esoteric lore, which owed a great deal to Hindu and Buddhist systems of thought, and brought to public awareness in the West such concepts as karma, prana, kundalini, yoga and reincarnation." – Benjamin Walker, Tantrism; Its Secret Principles and Practices, (1982).
45. A.L. Rawson, who was a close friend of Blavatsky for over forty years, stated of her relationship with cannabis;
"She had tried hasheesh in Cairo with success, and she again indulged in it in this city under the care of myself and Dr. Edward Sutton Smith, who had had a large experience with the drug among his patients at Mount Lebanon, Syria. She said : "Hasheesh multiplies one's life a thousand fold. My experiences are as real as if they were ordinary events of actual life. Ah ! I have the explanation. It is a recollection of my former existence's, my previous incarnations. It is a wonderful drug and it clears up profound mystery.""*
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15. Conclusion
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The members of the Religion of Jesus Church use Cannabis religiously because it brings us closer to God, because it brings God closer to us and because it is Holy and has been regarded as Sacrament and as Holy for thousands and thousands of years by millions of people.
88. History has shown that cannabis has been used as a sacrifice, a sacrament, a ritual fumigant (incense), a good-will offering, and as a means of communing with the divine Spirit. It has been used to seal treaties, friendships, solemn binding agreements and to legitimize covenants. It has been used as a traditional defense against evil and in purification. It has been used in divinations (1. the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge; 2. unusual insight; intuitive perception). It has been used in remembrance of the dead and in ancestor worship. It has been used and praised for its medicinal properties. It has been used for food, clothing, fuel, paper, oil, sails, cord, fish-nets, and relaxation.
Practically every major religion and culture of the ancient world utilized cannabis as part of their religious observance. Cannabis was the ambrosia of the ancient world. It was the food, drink, and perfume of the gods. It was used by the Hindus, the Buddhist, the Taoist, the Shinto, the Moslems and the Zoroastrian religions. It was used by the Africans, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Asians, the Europeans, and possibly the Indians of the Americas
God gave cannabis to man.
God is the inventor of Cannabis.
To God we give thanks for the cycle of life represented by this plant.
We give thanks for the food value of this plant.
99. It is interesting to note that hemp seeds are a complete source of protein , as well as being rich in other compounds which are essential to human health, prompting researcher and bio-chemist Lynn Osburn to label it Natures Perfect food. Osburn states that hemp seeds..'contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life. No other single plant source provides complete protein nutrition in such an easily digestible form, nor has the oils essential to life in a ratio for human health and vitality'.
The botanical fruit of hemp is its seed , which is the highest source of Essential Fatty Acids (hempseed oil is 80-81% essential fatty acids). "The EFA's are responsible for our immune system" stated Dr.R. Lee Hamilton, who along with fellow UCLA researcher William Eidleman, conducted promising research using the EFA's in the treatment of AIDS, which is a immune deficiency.
In an open letter concerning the valuable hemp seed, released by the two researchers (Dec.29,91), they stated that the possibility of feeding the world "is at our fingertips" and went on to state, "what is the richest source of essential oils? Yes, you guessed it, the seeds from the cannabis hemp plant. What better proof of the life giving values of the now illegal seed...What the world needs now is intelligent re-legalization of cannabis hemp, especially for medical intervention".
We thank God for the Healing properties of Cannabis.
We thank God for Cannabis, it is good for us.
Prepared by Rev. Dennis Shields
Numbered quotes are from the book:
Bennett, Chris & Osburn, Judy and Lynn, GREEN GOLD – THE TREE OF LIFE: MARIJUANA IN MAGIC AND RELIGION, Access Unlimited, Frazier Park, CA, 1995. [Citation Updated, GM]
Many thanks to Chris without whose five years of research the realizations outlined in this paper could not have been so well substantiated.
Originally Authored by Rev. Dennis Shields - 11/15/1994 to 1/26/1995
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15. Appendix.
*
(Green Moon's Notes)
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