Toto

Did Jesus Heal with Pot?

Bennett's chapter in The Pot Book is online here.

spamandham

This is the high quality of work we've come to expect from Biblical history crackpots.

...with the obligatory puns out of the way.

I suppose it's possible that "the anointed" (aka Christians) could really be related to some kind of drug based indoctrination. Paul's trip to the third heaven sure sounds like it involved drugs. ...and Revelation? A stoner wrote it without a doubt.

Splarnst

We can't even confirm he existed at all, and they think they can show something that's not even in the text?

jgreen44

The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross by John M. Allegro BTW, Allegro is a mythicist. In his opinion, Jesus was literally a mushroom.

DCHindley

JG,

Allegro saw the mushroom Amanita Muscaria (aka fly agaric, the red toadstool with white flecks on the cap that you see in illustrations all the time) just about everywhere, by tracing Greek and Latin words back to Sumarian, Akkadian, etc. However, I think a lot of his etymological speculations are waaaay out there.

Allegro's analysis was spawned mainly by Gordon Wassons' book Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1960, I think), who identifies it with the Amantia Muscaria mushroom. It spontaneously grows in symbiotic relationship with conifer and birch trees (it has not been successfully grown in cultivation, I don't believe), and use of it has been documented with regard to Eur-asian peoples into the 19th century.

Although Bennett's thinks the anciant Soma/Haoma was bheng (the Indian word for pot), to his credit he gives a fairly full explanation of the alternative mushroom theory of the origin of Soma/Haoma, and admits that the actual substance used may have changed over the course of centuries as Aryan tribes migrated and their environments changed (possibly mushrooms gave way to bheng).

DCH

DCHindley

Actually, the book is not so bad. No broad generalizations, and cites a lot of sources, both primary (rig veda, etc) and secondary (scholarly).

I was surprised, though, that he did not cite Herodotus' History (4.73, 75) for a literary description of the use of Hemp, as a backdrop to the archeological evidence for its ritual use in burial as well as evidence for its personal use (through inhaling smoke from a smoldering cola contained in a censor).

73 ... After the burial, those engaged in it have to purify themselves, which they do in the following way. First they well soap and wash their heads; then, in order to cleanse their bodies, they act as follows: they make a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined towards one another, and stretching around them woollen felts, which they arrange so as to fit as close as possible: inside the booth a dish is placed upon the ground, into which they put a number of red-hot stones, and then add some hemp-seed. [this apparently means the hemp colas, the blackened seeds of which curious Greeks observers may have found in the bowl afterwards]

...

75. The Scythians, as I said, take some of this hemp-seed, and, creeping under the felt coverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy ...

(The History of Herodotus, tr. George Rawlinson, 1885).

DCH

hylidae

I had a dream a year or two ago in which Jesus gave me a huge bag of pot, a gallon zip bag size stuffed full. For free! I put it in my tote bag and before the dream was over, I accidentally grabbed another gallon bag of weed thinking it was the one he gave me. I stopped myself and said, "oh, thought that was mine but mine's in my bag. oopsie." Jesus said, "oh hey, go ahead and take that one, too!"

There was no oil in the dream, but I can attest to the magic of marijuana-soaked oil. I sometimes make capsules out of it using coconut oil and a coffee maker or crock pot and lots of fluffy keif. I then syringe it into empty gel caps that you can buy or just get a bottle of echinacea or something and empty them out. Take two and call me next Tuesday when you come down.

mountainman

He had the appearance of a physician,
since an unguent box was under his arm,
and a young disciple was following him
carrying a pouch full of medicine.


TAOPATTA: NHC 6.1

rockydennis

During his 3 year political career he used pot, as well as ergot mold, lithium, psychedelic cacti, atropines, and alcohol to aid in miracles and heal the sick. "Eat the bread tainted with ergot mold. It is my body." The lithium tainted water supply which made the wine was of course his blood. What a narcotic bliss it was to hang out with Jesus back then. Imagine tripping and seeing some guy talking about anarchic and radical things no one has ever said before. I'd follow them around the desert for sure. All religion is in one way or another rooted in psychedelics, as well as human spiritual development its self. The Fatima hallucinations, Lazarus overdosing on atropine and the rest of the hallucinogenic miracles of Christ. There could be no other reasonable explanation, in my opinion. Not to say Jesus wasn't connected to a higher consciousness in some way, but he was tripping balls like everyone else around him was. Oh and pot, wasn't pot back then. Not like we think of it now. He was a major smoker that is for sure. They all were back then. Facts get distorted for whatever reason but if you're willing to set aside predisposition and forget everything you've been taught about drugs, you connect the dots and see that it was freakin Woodstock all day everyday if you were down with J.C and his crew.

Davka

What an odd mix of wishful thinking, unsubstantiated assertions, urban legends, fantasy, and hyperbole that was!