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Cannabis used in ancient and modern religions |
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Written by Justin Baker
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The use of natural plants as sacraments is a common religious practice
dating to prehistoric times. When such plants have psychoactive
properties and are used as sacrament, they are called entheogens. A
subcategory of entheogens are those religions that use cannabis and are
referred to collectively as Cantheism, a term coined by researcher
Chris Conrad.
 Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for hemp rope is a symbol of Cantheism
Cannabis has been used as a sacrament by followers of many of the
world’s great religions, such as Zoroastrians, Coptic Christians, Sadhu
Hindus, Sufi Muslims and — perhaps best-known —Rastafarians. Modern
religious use includes the THC ministries, based in Hawaii, and Our
Church, based in Arkansas. An online discussion group on this topic can
be accessed through
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Many of the modern Christian-based Cantheist faiths cite scripture such
as Genesis 1:12 and 1:29-31, which state that God gave man “every green
herb” to consume and “saw that it was good.” Exodus 30:22-29 listed
cannabis in an oil for anointing the priests of Israel but was
mistranslated in the Greek, Latin and English Bibles as “calamus,”
until Hebrew scholars in Jerusalem confirmed that the word was actually
cannabis, or “qaneh bosm.” Isaiah 18:4-5 describes God using “a clear
heat upon herb,” similar to modern vaporizers, and recommends pruning
an herb “afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect,” as in the
sinsemilla cannabis stage before the seed crop ripens for use in food,
oil or plantings. Ezekiel 34:29 describes “a plant (sometimes
translated as a farm or plantation) of renown.” St Paul predicted in 1
Timothy 4: 1-6 an age of prohibition where people are forbidden to
partake of God’s herbs (meats) by men “speaking lies in hypocrisy, …
For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be
received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and
prayer.”
Non-Christian faiths that use cannabis have included the Oracles at
Delphi and Thebes in ancient Greece and Egypt, whirling Dervishes and
modern Hindu sects that honor Shiva in India, Nepal and elsewhere.
Hundreds of Hindu holy men, devotees and tourists smoked marijuana near
a temple in Nepal’s capital on Feb. 26 of this year as part of festival
celebrating the Hindu god Shiva that drew more than 150,000 people.
Ironically the fact that cannabis has been used in religious creed and
practice for thousands of years by millions of people is counted
against it by the government as one reason its religious use is banned,
claiming that its popularity among religious and non-religious users
constitute a form of drug abuse while hoasca is used by only a few
score of individuals in the US.
In another irony, when Congress passed the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act (RFRA) in the 1990s to protect the use of natural
entheogens by churches was ruled unconstitutional because it infringed
on States Rights (the reverse of its opinion on medical use in the
Gonzalez v. Raich) but remains a Constitutional barrier against the
federal government. In other words, whereas the federal government does
not recognize medical marijuana, religious use remains a viable
argument in federal court that is largely untested. This is due in
large part to the fact that every religious use case argued has been
tainted by commercial or non-religious activity. Meanwhile, in
California sacramental use is not protected, but medical marijuana is.
Has anyone ever heard of faith healing?
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Volume Two 
