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Cannabis and Canaanite Religion

Posted: Fri May 29, 2020 8:42 am
by Secret Alias

Re: Cannabis and Canaanite Religion

Posted: Fri May 29, 2020 8:43 am
by Secret Alias
No wonder there were so many prophets in first Commonwealth Israel ...

Re: Cannabis and Canaanite Religion

Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2020 8:58 am
by Joseph D. L.
What are your thoughts on the possible use of psychotropic drugs by Jews? The High Priest communicating with YHWH as a cloud in the Tabernacle is, at least to me, comparable with the Delphi Oracle, who would get high on the vapers that emanated from the cave.

Re: Cannabis and Temple Ointment, c.275 BC

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 8:56 pm
by billd89
Color me skeptical, I should like to review the academic sources more carefully. But this looks like a commodity business w/ some coherent standards recorded. About 275 years later, the 'Christos' was an annointed one, and I suspect this 'Christos cult' may have originated as an essential oil marketing scheme networked by luxe Alexandrian Jewish perfumers/ alchemists, c.15 AD.

If the following is correct, and assuming the composition of Exodus dates c.272 BC, this ancient commercial recipe looks intriguing. Weed LINK.

In 1936, a little known Polish Professor, Sara Benetowa (later Sula Benet), did extensive etymological research, showing that both the Aramaic and Hebrew versions of the Old Testament contained references to cannabis as ... an incense. But most pre-eminently, {cannabis} was the active ingredient in the Holy anointing oil of the ancient Hebrews, a practice likely adopted alongside with their god, from the earlier cult of Dagon/Ea/ Enki/ Oannes. Referring to the Hebrew word Q'aneh-Bosm (also translated Kaneh-Bosm, Kanebosm, Kineboisin, Kannabos), Benet stated in a later essay;

"The sacred character of {cannabis} 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 {cannabis}. 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." (Benet, 1975)

The book of Exodus records the event of Moses receiving the instructions for making and distributing the hemp enriched holy oil, in the most auspicious tones.

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Take the following fine spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh (half as much of fragrant cinnamon), 250 shekels of q'aneh-bosm, 500 shekels of cassia-- all according to the sanctuary shekel-- and a hind of olive oil. Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil. Then use it to anoint the Tent of the Meeting, the art of the Testimony, the table and all its articles, the lampstand [sic] and its accessories, the alter of incense, the alter of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the basin with its stand. You shall consecrate them so that they will be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy.

Anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them so they may serve me as priests. Say to the Israelites, "This is to be my sacred anointing oil for the generations to come. Do not pour it on men's bodies and do not make any oil with the same formula. It is sacred, and you are to consider it sacred. Whoever makes perfume like it and whoever puts it on anyone other than a priest must be cut off from his people." (Exodus 30: 22-23)

If 1 Sanctuary Shekel = 11.4 g, and these are all oils, so
5,700 g Myrrh Oil .......... Molecular Wgt 1003.0 ...... Density 1.00 ........ 5.700 L. .... 32%
2,850 g Cannabis Oil .... Molecular Wgt 314.5 ........ Density 0.92 ........ 3.098 L. .... 17%
5,700 g Cassia Oil ........ Molecular Wgt 282.4 ........ Density 1.041 ...... 5.476 L. .... 31%
3,374 g Olive Oil ........... Molecular Wgt 1382.2 ...... Density 0.920 ...... 3.667 L. .... 20%

By this estimation: 17.62 kg = 31 Mina (31.08); 17.94 (18.33) L. ~ 5 Hin (4.685), and 30-20-30-20% by Volume. I'm calc'ing w/ modern purity standards, and back-of-the-envelope here. It would be a standard bulk purchase, presumably easy reckoning 31 Mina in 5 Hin Units.

A few observations.
I have no idea for how long this amount should last the Temple, all necessary anointing, whatever cycle of the calendar year of 354 days? I have no 275 BC spot prices, it might be helpful to looks at other periods (adjusting for Ag fluctuations, to .999 Fine) to estimate the 5 Hin rate.

According to Pliny's prices (c.75 AD), Cassia was an exorbitant 912 Denarii/kg - one suspects that is a local retail price in Asia Minor and the Alexandrian Spot was closer to 450 D./kg (still, 6x the price of Ag). In 301 AD, Cassia was only 2x the Silver Price.

Myrrh was the second expensive Oil. According to Pliny's prices (c.75 AD), Myrrh Oil was 152 Denarii/kg and 63% the Silver Price at Alexandria; in Diocletian's time, it is 2x the Silver Price.

Virgin Olive Oil in 301 AD is 80.5 D/kg of 44% the Silver Price.

Cannabis Oil was presumably local at Alexandria, very cheap and unquoted in either period.

Total Cost, in 275 BC? From this anachronistic data, I cannot fathom. (The perfumer's charge would be extra, plus shipping costs.)

Perhaps more useful conclusions can be drawn from the ingredients? Myrrh and Cassia Oils were precious, distant foreign imports but only 60% of the mixture; Jews were presumably the commodity brokers in Punt, already dominating the Red Sea trade c.350 BC? Myrrh has a woody medicinal smell, Cinnamon is sharp and fiery; Cannabis is sweet and intoxicating, whereas Olive oil is earthy and verdant: these are four very distinct characters that probably had symbolic meanings (elemental correspondence?), as we would suspect.

Philo Judaeus does not mention the Temple Ointment formula, but he does interpret another (Aaron's incense) in precisely this way:
And as I imagine these four ingredients of which the entire perfume is composed are emblems of the four elements of which the whole world is made; he likens the stacte {myrrh substitute} to water, the onycha* {Mystery Ingredient: does shecheleth sound remotely like Sekmet or shemshemet??} to land, the galbanum {resin of Ferula gummosa} to the air, and the pure transparent Frankincense to fire; for stacte, which derives its name from the drops (stagones) in which it falls is liquid, and onycha is dry and earth-like, the sweet smelling galbanum is added by way of giving a representation of the air, for there is fragrance in the air; and the transparency which there is in frankincense serves for a representation of fire.

* Also, from a dodgy website:
James Strong writes "the Syriac etymology of the word, namely, to run in drops, exude, distil, would lead to the idea of a resinous and odoriferous substance of the vegetable kingdom."[19] Another writer says “the context and the etymology seem to require the gum of some aromatic plant... The Hebrew word would seem to mean something that exuded, having odorous qualities.”

Sticky buds of skunk? Shecheleth means to roar like a lion. Lion-headed Sekhmet is associated with Cannabis and female maladies, as detailed in the links of the Reply below.

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Re: Cannabis = Šaḥar (רחש) ?

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2021 12:26 pm
by billd89
Random musings ... At Elephantine (c.410 BC) we find an Aramaic reference to a mysterious herb Šaḥar p.160, a Semitic word for 'the dawn', 'rising' and 'enchantment'. Also note the meaning at Isaiah 14:12 of 'royal splendour' compared to Pliny's royal Theobrotion or Semneion: "from the majesty of power and justice". So Dawn births the Davidic King, in the First Temple Period. From the ancient Ugaric and in Babylonian and Canaanite religion(s), Shahar is a child of El (along with twin Shalim, the god of dusk). The Dawn's splendor is associated with the Morning Star (Lucifer) and the Devil's Weed? Perhaps; consider the following.

See Laura Quick, Hêlēl ben-Šaḥar and the Chthonic Sun: A New Suggestion for the Mythological Background of Isa 14:12-15,[2018]:

hêlēl ben-šaḥar must refer to the planet Venus, the Ugaritic god 'Aṯtar, who in South Arabian inscriptions is referred to as Venus

Recall the syzygy of 'Aṯtar-Aštarte/Atargatis/Asherah; ‘Anat consort of Yahweh/Set, corresponds to Sekhmet. The 'Queen of Heaven' (Jeremiah 44) is typically assumed by scholars to have been Inanna, Anat, Isis, Astarte, Asherah.

In the conflation of medicine & magic, we should not be surprised that cannabis offerings to this deity were preserved in prescriptions of folkloric medicine, particularly the gynaikeia. But to trace one possible religious connection, a LXX reference to the morning dew piqued my curiosity. The Ramesseum Papyri {data from c.1700 BC?}, one of the oldest medical records discovered, prescribes "celery, cannabis is ground and left in the dew overnight. Both eyes of the patient are to be washed with it in the morning." Egyptian doctors used this treatment for glaucoma and other eye issues (i.e. tears), purview of She who was the god of healing and medicine: Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet 'the Eye of Re'. Furthermore, Venus as the Morning Star was Tioumoutiri/Phospheros (also: Eos/Eosphoros), in Egypt variously associated in different times/locales with alternate deities: sometimes Osiris-Sekhmet, also Hathor or Isis. This conflation of Egyptian, Babylonian, Phoenician, Greek and Jewish deities makes one single and consistent identification impossible, but any association with doomed pagan-Semitic female cults partly explains why cannabis offerings were eventually suppressed in Israel.

That cannabis in Egyptian folk-wisdom persisted for hundreds of years longer (as the Ramesseum Papyri would clearly indicate) may be confirmed by Diodorus Siculus (c.50 BC), i.e. that Egyptian women even then used Shemshemet/Cannabis as a mood-altering drug:

1.97.7: And as proof of the presence of Homer in Egypt they adduce various pieces of evidence, and especially the healing drink which brings forgetfulness of all past evils, ... For it is manifest that the poet had acquired exact knowledge of the 'nepenthic'​ drug which he says Helen brought from Egyptian Thebes...; for, they allege, even to this day the women of this city use this powerful remedy, and in ancient times, they say, a drug to cure anger and sorrow was discovered exclusively among the women of Diospolis {Thebes} ... Again, Aphroditê {i.e. Atargatis} is called 'golden' by the natives in accordance with an old tradition, and near the city which is called Momemphis there is a plain 'of golden Aphroditê.'

Presumably, at Thebes the (Golden) Hathor-Sekmet = "golden Aphroditê" (in the Greek expression) or Venus, was long known to local Jews as 'the Queen of Heaven.'

Jeremiah 44:15-17a, b rails against Egyptian Jewish women using the herb of 'The Queen of Heaven', in some relic, heterodox feminine cult(s).

Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, and all the women standing by — a great assembly — along with all the people living in {Lower} Egypt and in {Upper Egypt}, said to Jeremiah... "We will burn incense and pour out liquid offerings to the Queen of Heaven just as much as we like.”

Aštarte/Atargatis/Asherah:

Phoenicia/Assyria/Babylon (1200-100 BC)
Ashtarte >>> Asherah 'Lady Day'; --/Innana/Ishtar = Venus
Ugaritic: ‘ṯtrt = ‘Aṯtart /‘Athtart
Hebrew: עשתרת = Ashtoreth
Aramaic: (Ashtarte/Anat) = Atargatis

Egypt (700 BC)
Asherah/Hathor/Qudshu

Graeco-Egypt (300-100 BC)
Asherah/Hathor-Sekmet = Aphroditê
(c.240 BC) Heavenly Hathor = Aphroditê Urania

Arabia (550 BC)
Ashira = Athirat/Asherah

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Re: Zosimos (?) and the Cannabis Wines of Egypt

Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2023 10:08 pm
by billd89
I have not investigated this material; it's new to me (although I have read Berthelot's translation, in parts.) I think this might be a compendium of different sources, however, so Caveat Lector! I am not aware at all/don't believe that Zosimos wrote about Cannabis (but I may be wrong).

Cannabis website link
Gnostic and Zoroastrian influences on later Alchemy have been long suggested. An important figure in this transition, is Zosimos, the Alchemist, who lived on either side of 300 AD. Interestingly, surviving translation of Zosimos work, have the ancient sage identify references to cannabis infused wines and beers. “…wines can be made in a multitude of ways, [as shown]through many accounts that authors have left to us, and nature, and art such things, that is, grown wines from the vineyard and medicinal, or by adding various spices like palm, cannabis seed, etc …”; “Certainly brewers of Egyptian beer [‘zythi’], which is more powerful [then our beers]are not lacking in the false and wicked arts, and might be better used for intoxication. This [concoction]includes: borage, cannabis seeds and leaves, helenium, ivy leaves, strychnine, and darnel.”* As Tom Hatsis has noted of this :

“Interestingly, he uses “lolium temulentum” for “darnel” (a known psychoactive), which specifically draws attention to the intoxicating powers of the plant (temelentum means “intoxication”)! He is also comparing the addition of things like cannabis, darnel, and strychnine to the magical arts!!! I mean, he calls them “false and wicked arts,” but that is EXACTLY how writers commented on magical works. He is OPENLY recognizing the use of cannabis and darnel in potions by magicians!” (Hatsis, 2016)

Zosimos is particularly known for his use of Zoroastrian and Gnostic themes in his surviving texts. It has been suggested that Zosimos, took the group initiations of Gnosticism, and turned them into the personal initiations, of alchemy, which he saw as a symbolic technique of spiritual refinement, rather than a purely chemical process directed at things like making lead into copper, or silver into gold. The Visions of Zosimos, describe a series of astral voyages that are reminiscent of the cannabis infused out of body ascents of earlier Zoroastrian and Gnostic figures, but with clear alchemical overtones.

*Translated by Tom Hatsis, from the Latin De Zythorum confectione fragmentum (Gruner, 1814) {Link} .

In fact, it's not "the ancient sage" who wrote this, but the c.1813 Author. See Footnote 54:
De reliquo innumerae dantur vinorum 1) formae, quas veteres auctores scriptas reliquerunt, et natura, et arte 52) talia, i. e. vina ex vinea nata et medicata, vel aromatum additione varia, vel expres sione succorum fermentantium, v. c. ex fructu palmarum, 53) semine cannabis, 54) passis et melle 55) et cet. facta, sed his iam immorari nec licet, nec lubet.

54) SIM. SETHUS de alim. Facult. p. 112. ed. Gyr.


The reference to Cannabis Wine is from L.G. Gyraldus, Simeonis Sethi, ... Syntagma per elementorum ordinem de alimentorum facultate ad Michaelem Ducam imperatorem (Basel , 1561), p.112. The information/source is 16th C. AD, more than 1000 yrs after our Zosimos.

Nevertheless, cannabis is mentioned in OT period sources and it was almost certainly used as an entheogen ~600-400 BC and long afterwards; Zosimos of Pantopolis would also have known recipes for entheogens and such plant uses (even if there's no writing attesting to that supposition).

Re: Cannabis and Canaanite Religion

Posted: Sun May 28, 2023 8:33 pm
by Leucius Charinus
https://youtu.be/OFna6qHSt_c?t=1882
Ask Harvard Philologist Carl Ruck Anything

Entheogen theory

Carl Ruck is best known for his work along with other scholars in mythology and religion on the sacred role of entheogens, or psychoactive plants that induce an altered state of consciousness, as used in religious or shamanistic rituals. His focus has been on the use of entheogens in classical western culture, as well as their historical influence on modern western religions. He currently teaches a mythology class at Boston University that presents this theory in depth.

The book The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, co-authored by Ruck with Albert Hofmann and R. Gordon Wasson, makes a case that the psycho-active ingredient in the secret kykeion potion used in the Eleusinian mysteries was most likely the ergotism causing fungus Claviceps purpurea. Furthermore the book introduced for the first time the term "entheogen" as an alternative for terms such as "psychedelic", "hallucinogen" and "drug" that can be misleading in certain contexts.

The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist (2001) explores the role that entheogens in general, and Amanita muscaria in particular, played in Greek and biblical mythology and later on in Renaissance painting, most notably in the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald.

In January 2003 Ruck came to public attention commenting on a book by the cannabis activist Chris Bennett. He was quoted in The Guardian,[1] and then wrote an article for The Sunday Times.[2] His later work explored entheogenic connections to the Roman cult of Mithras.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_A._P ... gen_theory