Cannabis and religion

Cannabis pollen was recovered from the tomb of Ramses II, who governed for sixty-seven years during the 19th dynasty, and several mummies contain trace cannabinoids.

[8] Cannabis has been used by shamanic and pagan cultures to ponder deeply religious and philosophical subjects related to their tribe or society, to achieve a form of enlightenment, to unravel unknown facts and realms of the human mind and subconscious, and also as an aphrodisiac during rituals or orgies.

[citation needed] Herodotus wrote about early ceremonial practices by the Scythians, thought to have occurred from the 5th to 2nd century BCE.

In addition, according to Herodotus, the Dacians and Scythians had a tradition where a fire was made in an enclosed space and cannabis seeds were burned and the resulting smoke ingested.

[10][11] Linguistics offers further evidence of prehistoric use of cannabis by Germanic peoples: The word hemp derives from Old English hænep, from Proto-Germanic *hanapiz.

[15] Baháʼí authorities have spoken against intoxicant drugs since the earliest stages of the religion, with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá writing: Regarding hashish you have pointed out that some Persians have become habituated to its use.

Vajrayana Buddhism is probably the most open to cannabis use,[citation needed] especially in the sense that the Vajrayana Precepts urge the aspirant to develop "pure view", in which one extracts the pure essence of all things through seeing their true nature of śūnyatā, including things normally seen as defiled such as sex and, as mentioned in some Tantric Buddhist texts, drugs including cannabis.

Moreover herbal medicine, including some natural psychoactive drugs, is deeply linked with the Tantric Buddhist traditions of Vajrayana, in particular Tibetan Buddhism.

[26] The Assemblies of God USA, as well as other Pentecostal and holiness churches, have historically advocated abstinence from all alcohol, tobacco, and narcotics.

In Hinduism, wise drinking of bhang (which contains cannabis), according to religious rites, is believed to cleanse sins, unite one with Shiva and avoid the miseries of hell in the future life.

All major Sunni and Shia scholars considered it by analogy (qiyas) to be similar to khamr (intoxicants/alcoholic drink) and therefore deemed it haraam (forbidden).

[38][39] Those scholars who consider cannabis forbidden refer to a hadith by the prophet Mohammed regarding alcoholic drinks, which states: "If much intoxicates, then even a little is haraam.

Imam Mohammad Elahi in Dearborn Heights, Michigan (United States), declared: "Obviously, smoking marijuana for fun is wrong...

"[46] Non-intoxicating cannabis products such as CBD and hemp are considered by many Islamic jurists to be permissible, especially when prescribed by a doctor as a treatment for an illness.

This name derives from the Arabic word hashishin, meaning "hashish-smokers," after their purported use of hashish in esoteric rituals, brainwashing, and to celebrate a successful kill.

Other historians claim that these rituals were a form of self-defence to grieve a fallen comrade or family member, for example, rather than just celebration to honour a kill.

[50] Though the argument is regarded as a fringe and erroneous theory by mainstream scholars, some writers have theorized that cannabis may have been used ritually in early Judaism.

[54] In 2020 a study at Tel Arad, a 2700-year-old shrine then at the southern frontier of the Kingdom of Judah, found that burnt offerings on one altar contained multiple cannabinoid compounds, suggesting the ritual use of cannabis within ancient Judaism.

Rastafari see cannabis as a sacramental and deeply beneficial plant that is the Tree of Life mentioned in the Bible and quote Revelation 22:2, "... the herb is the healing of the nations."

The Mingyi bielu (Chinese: 名醫別錄) ("Supplementary Records of Famous Physicians"), written by the Taoist pharmacologist Tao Hongjing (456-536), who also wrote the first commentaries to the Shangqing canon, says, "Hemp-seeds (Chinese: 麻勃) are very little used in medicine, but the magician-technicians (shujia 術家) say that if one consumes them with ginseng it will give one preternatural knowledge of events in the future.

"[67][68] A 6th-century AD Taoist medical work, the Wuzangjing (Chinese: 五臟經) ("Five Viscera Classic") says, "If you wish to command demonic apparitions to present themselves you should constantly eat the inflorescences of the hemp plant.

"[69] Joseph Needham connected myths about Magu, "the Hemp Damsel", with early Daoist religious usages of cannabis, pointing out that Magu was goddess of Shandong's sacred Mount Tai, where cannabis "was supposed to be gathered on the seventh day of the seventh month, a day of seance banquets in the Taoist communities.

[75][76] The Temple of the True Inner Light believes that cannabis is one of the parts of God's body, along with the classical psychedelics: mescaline, psilocybin, LSD, and DMT.

[77] The First Church of Cannabis Inc. officially gained legal recognition in Indiana in 2015 following the passage of that state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act.