Spiritual Aspects of Cannabis Consummation in history

2009.04.08

It is not strange that a plant with such a huge variety of different uses has been a part of many spiritual practices. It played a great part in the rituals of world religions, the church members considered it to be a way to get in touch with their gods directly, to receive the blessing exactly from the hands of the deity. Its easing tension and fear effects were in great use for various kinds of sacrifices, including human sacrifices. And we must not forget that cannabis has loads of other uses other than taking internally.

Shamans are known for their use of different drugs. Marijuana was one of those which were in use since ancient times. Some Chinese mummies in Turpan and Xinjiang had the traces of hash inside so that shamans could continue their profession in the netherworld.

Hindu culture had always a strong bond with pleasures. They considered cannabis to be the gift from one of their gods – Shiva. That gift was in good hands of fakirs, yogis and sanyasis. Moreover, cannabis used to be an idol for them. It was worshiped, there were special festivals organized for it. However, Hindu stated they had been worshiping not the plant itself, but the deity it symbolized. Using ganja was the way to worship that god of adoration. But not all classes of the people could do that due to special caste system that restricted commencing some sorts of divine service to people other than brahmins.

Ancient pagan cultures considered cannabis to be connected with deities of love, nature and sex. For instance, with north goddess of love, Freya. During specially held festivals preachers could get a connection to a divine force and get the blessing by ingesting the smoke of the plant.

Muslim culture is famous for its strictness and negative attitude towards all kinds of drugs that blur the mind. Cannabis included. That goes only for orthodox Islam. Some other confessions read the prohibition of intoxicant as fermented grape. That's literally so they do not include hash in it. That is why some Sufi found it acceptable to use it in spiritual practices. Due to the price lower classes of Muslim society found marijuana not affordable.

In Christian culture cannabis has never had any use as a psychoactive plant. It's oil was used in medicine and for baptism ceremonies. Moreover, for early Christians cannabis oil was a required part of Chrism right components of which were essential for proper baptism and therefore becoming a Christian.

As we can see, cannabis consummation was never a must in ancient religions. It was always just a means to get to the higher spheres of the world, a tool for meditation and self-contemplation. That might be a good way out for our society – make hash legal for specific people for specific purposes. The problem is that there might be too many different opinions on which people and which purposes should be given exceptions. Anyway, free public discussion of this matter, when historic and spiritual aspects are taken into consideration, is just the thing that our society require nowadays.