LAST JUNE, CHRIS BENNETT ADDRESSED

THE ISSUE OF CANNABIS IN THE BIBLE, THIS

MONTH, HE CONCLUDES HIS INVESTIGATION

WITH A MORE DETAILED EXAMINATION OF

THE CANNABIS-ENRICHED ANOINTING OIL

USED BY JESUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 

WAS JESUS A STONER? By Chris Bennett

“CHRIST” IS THE GREEK TRANSLATION of the Hebrew Messiah.  In modern English, this term would be translated as “the anointed one.”  The title “CHRIST” was placed upon only he who had “God’s unction upon him.” 

This holy anointing oil, as described in the original Hebrew version of the recipe in Exodus,[1] contained over 6 pounds of kaneh-bosem-a substance identified by respected etymologists, linguists, anthropologists, botanists, and other researchers as cannabis extracted into 6 quarts of olive oil along with a variety of other fragrant herbs.  The ancient anointed ones were literally drenched in this potent mixture.

Carl Ruck, the scholar who coined the term entheogen, is a professor of classical mythology at Boston University and has researched the history of psychoactive substances in religion for over three decades, working with such luminaries as the father of LSD, Albert Hoffman; entheobotanist Richard Evans Shcultes; and mycologist R. Gordon Wasson.  On the subject of Old Testament cannabis use, he exclaims:

“There can be little doubt about a role for cannabis in the Judaic religion………..

There is no way that so important a plant as a fiber source for textiles and nutritive oils and one so easy to grow would have gone unnoticed……The mere harvesting of it would have introduced an entheogenic reaction.”

Ruck comments further on this practice into the early Christian period: “Obviously the easy availability and long-established tradition of cannabis in early Judaism…. Would inevitably have included it in the [Christian] mixtures.”[2] 

Although most modern people choose to smoke or eat pot, when its active ingredients are transferred into an oil-based carrier, it can also be absorbed through the skin, which is one big organ.  In the New Testament, Jesus baptizes none of his disciples, as is practiced by the Catholic church, but anoints them with this potent entheogenic oil, sending out the 12 apostles to do the same.  “And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.”[3]   

Likewise, after Jesus’ passing, James suggests that anyone of the Christian community who was sick should call to the elders to anoint him with oil in the name of Jesus.[4] 

It should be understood that in the ancient world, diseases such as epilepsy were attributed to demonic possession.  To cure somebody of such an illness, even with the aid of certain herbs, was considered exorcism or miraculous healing.  Interesting, cannabis has been shown to be effective in not only epilepsy, but many other ailments that Jesus and his disciples healed people of, such as skin diseases,[5] eye problems,[6] and menstrual problems.[7]   

According to ancient Christian documents, even the healing of cripples could be attributed to the use of the holy oil.  “Thou holy oil given to us for sanctification…thou art the staightener of the crooked limbs.”[8] One ancient Christian text, The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, which is older than the New Testament and estimated to have been recorded in the second century AD, has Jesus giving the disciples an “unguent box” and a “pouch full of medicine,”[9] with instructions for them to go into the city and heal the sick.  Jesus explains that they must heal the bodies first before they can heal the heart.

These findings shouldn’t be all that surprising, as the medical use of cannabis during that time is supported by archeological records, and the ailments described above had been treated with cannabis preparations throughout the area for many centuries prior to the Christian era.  As Jesus and his followers began to spread the healing knowledge of cannabis around the ancient world, the singular CHRIST became the plural term Christians; that is, those who had been smeared or anointed with the holy oil.  As The New Testament explains: “The anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you.  But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit-just as it has taught you, remain in him.”[10]

The Christians; the “smeared or anointed ones,” received “knowledge of all things” by this “anointing from the Holy One.”[11] Thereafter, they needed no other teacher and were endowed with their own spiritual knowledge.  Indeed, from Jesus’ own spiritual power came through the anointing: 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to bring good tidings to the afflicted;

he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison

to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,

and the day of vengeance of our God:

to comfort all who morn.[12]

Although the biblical story of Jesus’ initiation by John describes it as the classic Catholic baptism, a form submersion in the water, the term baptism itself can be seen to have connotations of initiation.  Likely there was more to the story than is described in the Bible.

Ancient Christian scriptures indicate that the rite originally was performed in conjunction with the kaneh-bosem anointing rite, “the anointing taking place either before or after the baptismal ceremony.”[13] Certain Christian texts that are not part of the official cannon specifically state that Jesus received the title “Christ…because of the anointing,”[14] not because of the water baptism.

The controversy over baptism verses anointing with oil is apparently as old as Christianity itself.  The New Testament, from which we get our image of the classical Jesus, was not selected as such until about AD 350.  The Roman Catholic church fathers who put it together selected these writings from a larger selection of text that were collected from the numerous schools of Christian thought that had developed over the first few centuries.  Anything that contradicted their official view of the life of Jesus was considered heresy and destined for the editorial flames. 

By taking these outlawed Christian texts and other historical finds into account, we can begin separate the man Jesus from the myth.  Indeed, modern concepts involving Jesus, such as the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, fall away, and the man known to his followers as Yehowshua (a common Hebrew name, meaning Jehovah-saved) reemerges with a wholly new message of love, light, and personal liberty. 

The branches of Christianity that the outlawed texts belonged to are now known collectively as Gnosticism.  These outlawed sects worshipped a Jesus radically different from the one who came down to us through the Roman Catholic church, the branch of early Christianity that rose to prominence by force, suppressing all conflicting  Christian and pagan sects and eventually leading to the Dark Ages. 

Luckily one of these ancient Gnostics had the foresight to hide some of these forbidden scriptures from their suppressors, and they were rediscovered in 1947.  Since these Gnostic texts are just as old as and in some cases older than the New Testament, it is not so easy to discard the revelations about Jesus and early Christianity that they contain-unless we are to assume might is right. 

One of the most pronounced differences between the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church and those belonging to the Gnostic Christians is faith verses knowledge.  The term gnosis itself is Greek for knowledge, and gnosis religious practices focused on the development of spiritual knowledge in each individual member.  Alternatively, the practice of the Catholic church emphasizes faith; the individual never knows God directly, but is limited to the descriptions and religious edicts proposed by the church and administered at a painful cost by the hierarchy of various priest, bishops, and popes.

From the rediscovered Gnostic texts, we can see that they believe that much of their own spiritual experience comes through the use of the holy oil.  The Gnostics openly criticized the Roman Catholic church for the placebo act of baptism, which to them has no spiritual affect.  Indeed the Gnostic Gospel of Phillip records that “the anointing (chrisma) is superior than baptism.  For from the anointing we were called ‘anointed ones’ [Christians], not because of the baptism.  And Christ also was [so] named because of the anointing, the Father anointed the son, and the son anointed the apostles, and the apostles anointed us.  [Therefore] He who has been anointed has the All.  He has…the Holy Spirit.”[15]  “In some [gnostic] text…the ‘spiritual ointment’ is a prerequisite for entry into…the highest ‘mystery’.”[16]  Likewise, the Naasenes “claimed to be the true Christians because they were anointed with the ‘ineffable chrism’.”[17]   

In the Gnostic viewpoint, as recorded in the Gospel of Philip, the pseudo initiates of the empty rite of baptism “go down into the water and come up without having received anything… There is water in water, there is fire in chrism.”[18] “The anointing with oil was the introduction of the candidate into unfading bliss, thus becoming a Christ.”[19] “The oil as a sign of the gift of the Spirit was quite natural within a Semitic framework, and therefore the ceremony is probably very early… In time the Biblical meaning became obscure.”[20] The surviving Gnostic descriptions of the effects of the anointing rite make it very clear that the holy oil had intense psychoactive properties that prepared the recipient for entrance into “unfading bliss.”[21] 

Further, if “one receives this unction.. this person is no longer a Christian but a Christ.”[22] Similarly, the Gospel of Truth records that Jesus specifically came into their midst so that he “might anoint them with the ointment.  The ointment is the mercy of the Father…. Those whom he has anointed are the ones who have become perfect.”[23] 

The importance of the holy ointment amongst the early Christians is also attested to in the apocryphal book, The Acts of Thomas, which refers to “Indian Leaves” and equates the power of the holy oil to the “plant of kindness”:” “Holy oil, given to us for sanctification, hidden mystery in which the cross was shown us, you are the unfolder of the hidden parts.  You are the humiliator of stubborn deeds.  You are the one who shows the hidden treasures.  You are the plant of kindness. Let your power come… by this [unction].”[24]

Interestingly, Gnostic texts indicate that cannabis was also burned as incense and used by Jesus, along with cannabis-enriched anointing oil and other entheogens, in complicated shamanistic ceremonies.

JESUS THE INITIATOR

In the Second Book of leou, Jesus tells his followers that among the secrets that shall be shown is the mystery of the Five Trees, which in this case likely meant gaining knowledge of certain magical plants that were used as shamanistic catalysts in the ceremony.  These same five trees were referred to in what is possibly the oldest Christian text in existence, the Gospel of Thomas: “There are five trees for you in Paradise…. Whomever becomes acquainted with them will not experience death.”  In the Gnostic view, “not experiencing death”[25] means reaching a certain state of interior purification or enlightenment.  At that point the initiate would “rise from the dead,” meaning ignorance and blindness, and “never grow old and became immortal”[26]  That is to say, he gains possession of the unbroken consciousness of his spiritual ego, thereby realizing that he is a part of the larger cosmic whole that continues on long after the disappearance of the material body.

THE GNOSTIC TEXTS ARE AS OLD AS OR

OLDER THAN THE NEW TESTAMENT.

THEIR CENTRAL SACRAMENT WAS

AN ANOINTING OIL THAT MAY HAVE

CONTAINED CANNABIS

The Second Book of leou gives a profound description of the shamanistic ceremony that leads to this higher state through the ingestion of the “five trees”:

“The Master sets forth a place of offering…placing one wine jar on the right and one on the left, and strews certain berries and spices round the vessels.  He then…puts a certain plant in their mouths…and another plant in their hands, and ranges them in order around the sacrifice.”[27]  

Continuing with the ritual, as in shamanistic and magical ceremonies throughout history and around the globe, Jesus turns his disciples to the four corners of the world.  “He then offers a prayer… [and] we are… given a description of the Baptism of Fire.  In this rate…vine-branches are used; they are strewn with various materials of incense… A wonder is asked for in “the fire of this fragrant incense.”[28]  The nature of the wonder is not stated.  Jesus baptizes the disciples and gives to them of the Eucharist sacrifice. 

Next follows the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  “In this rite both the wine-jars and the vine- branches are used… A wonder again takes place, but is not further specified… After this we have the Mystery of Withdrawing the Evil of the Rulers… and [it] consists of an elaborate incense-offering… At the end of it the disciples… have now become immortal and can follow Jesus into all spaces whither they would go.”[29]  

The wonder contained in the incense used by Jesus in the ceremony, which so perplexed Professor Mead more than a century ago, was presumably a reference to its indescribable entheogenic effects.  The other undefined “wonder” also likely indicated the magical properties of the different plants used in the ceremony, which were identified to the participants as the Mystery of the Five Trees. (In relation to incense, it is interesting to note that, according to the rediscovered Gnostic documents themselves, the ancient initiate who hid them, Seth, received the inspiration for doing so after inhaling fumes from “the incense of life.”[30])

According to Professor Ruck, even the wine used in such ceremonies was likely far more psychoactive than mere table wine.  “Ancient wines were always fortified, like the ‘strong wine’ of the Old Testament, with various herbal additives, opium, the Solanaceae (datura, belladonna), mandrake, ect.”[31]  In these botanical references we can  likely find some further candidates for the Gnostic Christians’ “five trees.”  

The accounts of mandrake in Genesis and in Solomon’s Book of Songs clearly document the long-term interest that Hebrews had with these seemingly magical plants.  That the use and the knowledge of such pants were passed down by certain branches of the faith, such as the Gnosticism, is self evident.  Mandrake had been used magically throughout the ancient world, and in “Roman times that magic began extensively to be associated with the psychoactive properties of the plant.”[32]

The addition of a powerful hallucinatory drug such as mandrake would help to explain some of the more extreme experiences related to the holy anointings and different baptisms described above.  Some later recipes for witches’ ointments do contain both cannabis and mandrake; and the out-of- body experiences attributed to the Gnostics, as well as aspects of their cosmology, can be compared to the witches’ sabbat (the different visions attained can be explained by to the cultural set and setting of the ingestors). 

One of the more significant and widespread Gnostic sects, the Manicheans, performed ceremonies similar to the one that Jesus is prescribed as presiding over.  They were condemned by the Catholic church for using “secrete sacraments.”  The seminal Catholic philosopher St. Augustine, a renounced Manichean, “bitterly censured the heretic Manicheans of the Old Religion for their fungus-eating.”[33]  A number of Manicheans escaped the persecution of the Catholic church, and the sect survived into the 12^th century in parts of Europe, where they were finally slaughtered by the armies of the Catholic church.  Quite curiously, Manicheans also lasted until the 17^th century in China, where they finally succumbed to indigenous elements of that culture. 

In medieval China, the “general opinion of their religion was that it involved drug-induced ecstasy, for their leaders had titles like ‘spirit-king’ and ‘spirit-father’ and ‘spirit-mother,’ but the common folk deliberately mispronounced the word for ‘spirit’ (mo) as ‘ma,’ meaning ‘cannabis sativa’ (as if ‘pater’ were changed phonetically to ‘pot-head’).”[34] “The Chinese also refer, in a twelfth-century text, to Manicheans who eat red mushrooms…The Manicheans who ate mushrooms…also used urine for ritual water.  The practice recalls that of agaric-using Paleo-Siberian tribes who still in the last century drank the urine of the original partaker of fly-agaric in order to extend its pharmacological action.”[35] (The psychoactive chemical of Amanita muscaria, the fly-agaric mushroom, passes through the urine and can be reingested. 

‘CANNABIS AND

MUSHROOMS WERE

HIGH SACRAMENTS

TO THE GNOSTICS,

TREATED WITH

RESPECT AND

REVERANCE.’

In regards to the Christian use of the mushroom, Ruck explains, “The most compelling indication that the Amanita muscaria was the Eucharistic meal in certain early agape halls comes from the mosaic fourth-century floor preserved beneath the later basilica at Aquileia in northern Italy.  In a context of mystical Gnostic symbols, it depicts baskets of mushrooms…This was not a restaurant and hence the fungi…are not there as culinary delicacies.  Similarly, the well-known fondness of the Manichaens for ‘red mushrooms’ (as well as for ‘ablutions’ with urine, the characteristic second use of the muscaria as the metabolite) must be understood in terms of the role of the fungi in Gnostic vegetarianism.”  Ruck comments further that “other more serviceable mushrooms, such as the psilocybe, could be substituted for Amanita.”[36]       

Likewise, a medieval Manichean painting contains the image of a basket in its center, holding the holy fruit.  With its white speckles, this appears to be more strong evidence of the Christian use of the fly-agaric mushroom. 

Of course, the ancient Christian psychonauts, who used entheogens to explore the realms of inner space, did so in s spirit far different from that of the majority of people who use them today.  To the Gnostic, cannabis, mushrooms, and other substances were clearly high sacraments, a means of achieving spiritual gnosis, and thus treated with both respect and reverence.

In contrast, today’s generally unstructured, chaotic, and nonsacramental approach to drugs often burns out at least as many people as it turns on.   

Dr. Richard Strassman, who has studied the use of modern psychedelics and their effects for almost two decades, has noted: “The problem with depending upon one or several transformative psychedelic experience as a ‘religious practice’ is that there is no framework that suitably deals with every day life between drug sessions.  The introduction of certain Amazonian hallucinogenic plant-using churches in the West, with their sets of ritual and moral codes, may be a new model combining ethnical and psychedelic practice.”[37]  

Alternatively, and likely with more appeal, the rediscovery of  hidden aspects of early Christianity, through the study of the rediscovered Gnostic scriptures and an analysis of their initiatory system, could well provide the ideal basis for the ordered reintegration  of these substances into the typically Christian West.  It could also yield longer-lasting and more psychologically beneficial results for those people choose to use them.

As for them that actively oppose them: If cannabis was one of the main ingredients of the ancient Christian anointing oil, as history indicates, and receiving this oil is what Jesus the Christ and his followers Christians, then persecuting those who use cannabis could be anti-Christ.  That revelation is sure to come as a shock to pious right-wing Christians such as John Ashcroft, especially considering that America’s antimarijuana attorney general is known to anoint himself in the style of the biblical kings before taking a new office-only Ashcroft, not wanting to bother to gather rare biblical ingredients, uses Crisco cooking oil instead. 

It is curious that the rediscovery of the ancient Gnostic documents, which have brought these revelations about Jesus and the early church to light, should have so closely coincided with Christian culture’s rediscovery of the plant entheogens they used.  In many ways, the appearance of these ancient documents that represent the lost “word” of Jesus, coinciding with the cultural reintroduction of the sacraments they used, may represent a sort of resurrection of the Christ spirit: a spirit who contains the same power for revolution that Jesus and the high initiates who followed him demonstrated in the Middle East almost two millennia ago.   

Visit the author’s Website: forbiddenfriutpublishig.com.