| chrisbennett |
| Pot-TV Station Manager |
 |
|
| Reged: Jun 21 2000 |
| Posts: 2714 |
| |
|
Cartoonist faces Greek jail for blasphemy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1443815,00.html
He meant it as a piece of religious satire, a playful look at the life of Jesus. But Gerhard Haderer's depiction of Christ as a binge-drinking friend of Jimi Hendrix and naked surfer high on cannabis has caused a furore that could potentially land the cartoonist in jail.
Haderer did not even know that his book, The Life of Jesus, had been published in Greece until he received a summons to appear in court in Athens in January charged with blasphemy.
Article continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He was given a six-month suspended sentence in absentia, but if he loses his
appeal next month his sentence could be increased to two years.
Haderer's book is the first to be banned in Greece for more than 20 years, and he is the first artist to fall prey of the European arrest warrant system since it was introduced in June 2002.
Yesterday in Vienna, a group of prominent writers and poets called a press conference to draw attention to the plight of Haderer, an Austrian, whose case they claim is crucial to the freedom of international artists.
"It is unbelievable that a person can write a book in his home country and be condemned and threatened with imprisonment by another," said Nikki Conrad, a human rights expert who organised yesterday's press conference. "But he is not going to just sit back and accept this injustice. He is prepared to take this to the European court of human rights. When Gerhard first got the summons he thought it was a joke. But now he is starting to get a bit nervous."
Mr Conrad added that a 1,000-signature
petition of international artists, signed by people including the Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, would be delivered to the EU within the next two weeks.
"This campaign is crucial for the future freedom of international artists. Haderer is unique and situations like this will inhibit his artistic style," said the poet Gerhard Ruiss.
The Austrian comedian Hubert Kramar, who is next week due to star in a new satirical play about Christ, turned up to the press conference dressed as Jesus. "We are supposed to be living in a democratic society. Greece is in Europe and the whole idea of the European Union is that everything is supposed to be more open. But what happened to Haderer is scaring artists like me," he said.
Haderer's 40-page book has been already published in seven countries, including Germany, where 100,000 copies have been sold. Well known in Germany for his weekly illustrations in the news magazine Stern, he is to appeal against his six-month
sentence in Athens on April 13.
--------------------
Pot TV Manager
Post Extras:     |
| Lisa - 420 |
| enthusiast |
| |
|
| Reged: Sep 02 2004 |
| Posts: 212 |
| Loc: Stuck in my own private Idaho | |
|
Sadly, the link doesn't work. I'd really like to see what the furor is about. It's amazing to me that someone can be tried and convicted in a country he doesn't live in!
But wait... I live in the US... nothing should surprise me anymore.
--------------------
There are only two kinds of people in this world... those that give you peace and those who don't.
Post Extras: |
| madcapdrummer |
| journeyman |
| |
|
| Reged: Oct 18 2004 |
| Posts: 92 |
| Loc: The Shuswap: Where we leave no turn unstoned. | |
|
I had better luck with this link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1443908,00.html
(You may have to copy and paste the entire URL)
I happen to teach Sunday School; why the big fuss over this drawing? Can't Jesus also be cool?
Peace
--------------------
Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use.
- Jimmy Carter, 1977
Post Extras:
|
|
|
|
Now it does...
web page
--------------------
Everything made from hydrocarbons can be made from carbohydrates.
Post Extras: |
|
|
|
If I could make a surf board do that, I'd be pretty proud of myself. WTF is their problem? They're getting way too anal about nothing.
--------------------
Everything made from hydrocarbons can be made from carbohydrates.
Post Extras: |
| chrisbennett |
| Pot-TV Station Manager |
| |
|
| Reged: Jun 21 2000 |
| Posts: 2714 |
| |
|
Funny thing, I was a hardcore surfer before I became a pot activist after having a religious expereince that left me thinking pot was the Tree of Life from the Bible, and that started taking up all my time. Here is my letter to the Guardian.
Hello Guardian,
I read with keen interest the recent story 'Cartoonist faces Greek jail for blasphemy', as the Guardian also covered my related story a little more than a year ago, 'Jesus 'healed using cannabis' ', Monday January 6, 2003. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,869273,00.html
The reality is Gerhard Haderer's comic hold elements of truth. I know at least 4 University professors's who concur with this hypothesis based on the research provided in my book, as well as one of the world's top cannibinoid experts (and an employee of Britain's's GW Pharmaceuticals). below is the
review of my book by prof. Carl Ruck, which appeared in the Guardian's competition the Sunday Times, as well as the original article which caused all the controversy, from High Times magazine. My co-author Neil McQueen is currently getting his PhD. in New Zealand and his Thesis will be based around the Biblical references to k'neh bosem, (Hebrew for cannabis) and it's use in the Judaic and early Christian Holy Oil. (Google my name, with Jesus and Cannabis to see the far reaching impact of this story.)
Cheers,
Chris Bennett
(604)682-0039
Source: The Sunday Times
Date: 12 January 2003
Was there a whiff of cannabis about Jesus?
Claims of drug use by biblical figures surprisingly have susbtance,
says Professor Carl Ruck
Was Jesus a Stoner? is the mischievous title of an article about the use of cannabis in ancient Judaism in next month's High Times, a pro-cannabis magazine. Its author, Chris Bennett, likes to shock. He is the
host of Burning Shiva, a show on Canada's Pot-TV, and an advocate for the medical use and decriminalisation of marijuana.
Bennett first looked at the use of drugs in religion two years ago in his book Sex, Drugs, Violence, and the Bible. He postulates that Jesus's ministry was fuelled by mind-altering substances, that he may have used cannabis-based oils to heal eye and skin diseases and that his very name - Christ - derives from being anointed with cannabis-enriched oil.
His politics and television career might make it tempting to dismiss him but what Bennett says makes perfect sense. Over the centuries drugs have been used by virtually all religions. Why not Christianity?
In ancient times cannabis was widely cultivated throughout the Middle East. It grows like a weed and provides nourishing seed, which is also a good source of fibre used to make rope.
People certainly knew of its pleasurable effects; it would have been impossible to harvest it without
becoming ecstatic as the drug would be absorbed through the skin. And as long ago as 1935 a Slovakian linguist identified the plant known as "fragrant cane" in the English Bible as flowering cannabis, a link since accepted by some Jewish authorities.
Ancient people were fascinated by herbs and their healing powers and knew much more about them than we do; at least about mixing herbs to release their potency.
Ancient wines were always fortified, like the "strong wine" of the Old Testament, with herbal additives: opium, datura, belladonna, mandrake and henbane. Common incenses, such as myrrh, ambergris and frankincense are psychotropic; the easy availability and long tradition of cannabis use would have seen it included in the mixtures. Modern medicine has looked into using cannabis as a pain reliever and in treating multiple sclerosis. It may well be that ancient people knew, or believed, that cannabis had healing power.
Much of their knowledge, passed down
through an oral tradition, has been lost and to some extent it is the modern prejudice against drugs that has stopped us looking for it. Revulsion against drugs and the hippie culture even led to the term "entheogen" being coined to describe a psychotropic substance used in religious rituals.
Entheogen comes from the Greek entheos (meaning "god-inspired within") and the word is now commonly employed in English and European languages to discuss sacramental foods used by shamans (mystic or visionary priests) to achieve spiritual ecstasy.
So what of the early Christians? At the time they were evolving, they had to compete with other religions of the Roman empire. The strongest of those was Mithraism, imported from Persia, which exists today as Zoroastrianism.
Its sacrament, Haoma, was virtually identical to what we know of soma, in Brahmanism. Worshipped as a god, soma was a strange plant without leaves or roots that needed little light and induced religious
ecstasy. It was most likely amanita muscaria: a magic mushroom. In ancient Rome sharing the Haoma cemented the bond of brotherhood of emperors, bureaucrats and soldiers. Pagan Greek celebrations at the sanctuary of Eleusis, meanwhile, included a visionary experience for a crowd of 1,000 people, from drinking a potion made from a fungus that grows on wheat and produces an effect similar to LSD.
So, did Jesus use cannabis? I think so. The word Christ does mean "the anointed one" and Bennett contends that Christ was anointed with chrism, a cannabis-based oil, that caused his spiritual visions. The ancient recipe for this oil, recorded in Exodus, included over 9lb of flowering cannabis tops (known as kaneh-bosem in Hebrew), extracted into a hin (about 11 pints) of olive oil, with a variety of other herbs and spices. The mixture was used in anointing and fumigations that, significantly, allowed the priests and prophets to see and speak with Yahweh.
Residues of cannabis,
moreover, have been detected in vessels from Judea and Egypt in a context indicating its medicinal, as well as visionary, use. Jesus is described by the apostle Mark as casting out demons and healing by the use of this holy chrism. Earlier, from the time of Moses until the later prophet Samuel, holy anointing oil was used by the shamanic Levite priesthood to receive the "revelations of the Lord". The chosen ones were drenched in this potent cannabis oil.
Early Christian documents found in Eygpt, thought to be a more accurate record than the New Testament, portray Jesus as an ecstatic rebel sage who preached enlightenment through rituals involving magical plants. Indeed, Bennett goes so far as to say that Jesus was probably not born the messiah but acquired the title when he was anointed with cannabis oil by John the Baptist. The baptism in the Jordan was probably to wash away the oil after it had done its work. The early Christians fought hard for followers in the ancient
world, recognising the similarity of their own "foreign" god and his eucharistic meal to the Greek gods. Various sects and even the elite in what would eventually become the Roman Catholic church probably used the full range of available entheogens for baptism, ordination and the eucharistic meal.
What we now call the host might have been more than just bread. There are indications that early Christians shared magic mushrooms - and the spiritual visions and ecstasies they occasioned - as their eucharistic meal. A 4th-century mosaic discovered at a basilica in Aquileia in northern Italy depicts baskets of mushrooms. Why? This wasn't a restaurant. Could the "red mushrooms" have been the ritual meal?
Eating bread and sharing wine together was, and remains, at the heart of the Christian ritual. We'll never know exactly what Jesus and his disciples consumed at the Last Supper, but as they believed they were drinking the blood of Christ we must accept it was - if not
actually hallucinatory - at least fortified by God.
Carl Ruck is professor of classics at Boston University
WAS JESUS A STONER?
2003-02-10 >> news category >> exclusive
Chris Bennett
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.
"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 only placed upon he who had "Gods unction upon him."
This holy anointing oil, as described in the original Hebrew version of the recipe in Exodus (30:22-23), contained over six pounds of kaneh-bosem, a substance identified by respected etymologists, linguists, anthropologists, botanists and other researchers as cannabis, extracted into about six quarts of olive
oil, along with a variety of other fragrant herbs. The ancient anointed ones were literally drenched in this potent mixture.
Carl P. 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 Schultes, and mycologist R. Gordon Wasson. On the subject of Old Testament cannabis use he explains:
"There can be little doubt about a role for cannabis in 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 induced an entheogenic reaction."
Ruck comments further on the continuation of 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."
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 in fact one big organ. In the Bibles New Testament, Jesus baptized none of his disciples, as is practiced by the Catholic church, but instead anointed 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" (Mark 6:13).
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 (James 5:14).
It should be understood that in the ancient world, diseases such as epilepsy were attributed to demonic possession, and to cure somebody of such an illness, even with
the aid of certain herbs, was the same as exorcism, or miraculously healing them. Interestingly, cannabis has been shown to be effective in the treatment of not only epilepsy, but many of the other ailments that Jesus and the disciples healed people of, such as skin diseases (Matthew 8, 10, 11; Mark 1; Luke 5, 7, 17), eye problems (John 9:6-15), and menstrual problems (Luke 8:43-48).
According to ancient Christian documents, even the healing of cripples could be attributed to the use of the holy oil. "Thou holy oil given unto us for sanctification thou art the straightener of the crooked limbs" (The Acts of Thomas).
One ancient Christian text, The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, which is older than the New Testament, estimated to have been recorded in the second century AD, has Jesus giving the disciples an "unguent box" and a "pouch full of medicine" with instructions for them to go into the city and heal the sick. Jesus explains that you must heal "the
bodies first" before you can "heal the heart."
These findings shouldnt really be all that surprising, as the medical use of cannabis during that time is supported by the archeological record, 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 counterfeitjust as it has taught you, remain in him" (1 John 2:27).
The Christians, the "smeared or anointed ones," received "knowledge of all things" by this "anointing from the Holy One" (1 John
2:20). Thereafter, they needed no other teacher, and were endowed with their own spiritual knowledge. Indeed, from Jesus own words after his initiation by John, it would appear his own spiritual power came through the anointing:
The Spirit of the Lord God 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 Lords favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn.
Although the Biblical story of Jesus initiation by John describes it as the classic Catholic baptism, taking place in a form of submersion in water, the term "baptism" itself can be seen to have connotations of "initiation," and likely there was more to the story than is described in the Bible.
Ancient Christian scriptures indicate originally the rite
was performed in conjunction with the kaneh-bosem anointing rite, "the anointing taking place either before or after the baptismal ceremony." Certain Christian texts that didnt make it into the official canon specifically state that Jesus received the title "Christ because of the anointing" not because of a water baptism.
The controversy over baptism versus anointing with oil is apparently as old as Christianity itself. The New Testament, from where we get our image of the classical Jesus, was not selected as such until about 350 AD. The Roman Catholic church fathers who put it together selected these writings from a larger selection of texts 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 labeled heresy and destined for the editorial flames.
By taking these outlawed Christian texts and other historical finds into account, we
can begin to separate the man Jesus from the myth. Indeed, our modern concepts of Jesus, such as the virgin birth and the Resurrection, fall away, and the man known to his followers as Yehowshua (a common Jewish name meaning Jehovah-Saved) re-emerges with a wholly new message of love, light and personal liberty.
The branches of Christianity that the outlawed texts belonged to are now known under the collective title of Gnostics. These outlawed sects worshipped a Jesus radically different than the one that 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 1945. As these Gnostic texts are just as old and in some cases older than the New Testament, unless we
are to consider that might is right, then it is not so easy to discard the revelations about Jesus and early Christianity that they contain.
One of the most pronounced differences between the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church and those belonging to the Gnostic Christians is "faith" versus "knowledge." The term "Gnosis" itself is Greek for "knowledge," and Gnostic 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 themselves, but is limited to the descriptions and religious edicts proposed by the church and administered at a painful cost by the hierarchy of various priests, bishops and popes.
From the rediscovered Gnostic texts, we can see that they believed much of their own spiritual experience came through the use of the holy oil. The Gnostics openly criticized the Roman Catholic church for the placebo act of
baptism, which apparently had no spiritual effect. Indeed the Gnostic tractate the Gospel of Philip records that, "The anointing (chrisma) is superior to 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, for the Father anointed the son, and the son anointed the apostles, and the apostles anointed us. He [therefore who has been anointed has the All. He has the Holy Spirit." "In some [Gnostic] texts the spiritual ointment is a prerequisite for entry into the highest mystery" (Rudolph 1987). Likewise, the Naasenes "claimed to be the true Christians because they were anointed with the ineffable chrism" (Mead 1900).
In the Gnostic viewpoint, as recorded in the Gospel of Philip, the pseudoinitiates 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" (Gospel of
Philip). "The anointing with oil was the introduction of the candidate into unfading bliss, thus becoming a Christ" (Mead 1900). "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 obscured" (Chadwick 1967). 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."
Further, it is stated that if "one receives this unction this person is no longer a Christian but a Christ" (Gospel of Philip). 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."
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 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]."
Interestingly, Gnostic texts give indications that cannabis was also burned as incense, and used by Jesus, along with the cannabis-enriched anointing oil and other entheogens, in complicated shamanic ceremonies.
Jesus the Initiator
In the Second Book of Ieou, Jesus tells his followers that amongst the secrets they 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 a shamanistic catalyst 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 Whoever becomes acquainted with them will not experience death." In the Gnostic view, "not experiencing death" meant reaching a certain state of interior purification or enlightenment, at which point the initiate would "rise from the dead," meaning ignorance and blindness, and "never grew old and became immortal." That is to say, he gained possession of the unbroken consciousness of his spiritual ego, and as such realized that he was a part of the larger cosmic whole that continued on long after the disappearance of the material body.
The Second Book of Ieou gives us a profound description of the shamanistic ceremony that led 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 on the left, and strews certain berries and spices round
the vessels; He then puts a certain plant in their mouths and also another plant in their hands, and ranges them in order round the sacrifice" (Mead 1900).
Continuing with the ritual, as in shamanistic and magical ceremonies throughout the 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 rite vine-branches are used; they are strewn with various materials of incense A wonder is asked for in "the fire of this fragrant incense." The nature of the wonder is not stated. Jesus baptizes the disciples and gives them of the Eucharist sacrifice.
Next follows the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. "In this rite both the wine-jars and 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 (Mead 1900).
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 and 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").
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, etc." 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 Solomons Song of Songs clearly document the long-term interest the Hebrews had with these seemingly magical plants. That the use and knowledge of such plants were passed down by certain branches of the faith, such as the Gnostics, 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" (Schultes & Hofmann 1979/1992).
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 in them, and the
out-of-body experiences attributed to the Gnostics, as well as aspects of their cosmology, can be compared to the witches sabat (the different visions attained attributable 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 described as presiding over. They were condemned by the Catholic church for using "secret sacraments." The seminal Catholic philosopher St. Augustine, a renounced Manichean, "bitterly censured the heretic Manicheans of the Old Religion for their fungus eating" (La Barre 1980). A number of Manicheans escaped the persecution of the Catholic church, and the sect survived into the 12th century in parts of Europe, where they were finally slaughtered by the armies of the Catholic church. Quite curiously, Manicheans also lasted until the 17th 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 pothead)" (Ruck et al. 2001). "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. This 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" (La Barre 1980). (The psychoactive chemical of Amanita muscaria, the fly-agaric mushroom, passes through the urine and can be reingested.)
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 Christian 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 Manicheans 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 fungi in Gnostic vegetarianism." Ruck comments further that "other more serviceable mushrooms, such as the psilocybe, could be substituted for Amanita."
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 a far different spirit from the majority of people who use them today. To the Gnostics, 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, todays generally unstructured, chaotic, and unsacramental approach to "drugs" often results in burning out at least as many people as they turn 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 experiences as a religious practice is that there is no framework that suitably deals with everyday 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 ethical
and psychedelic practice" (Strassman 1995).
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 who choose to use them.
As for those who actively oppose them: If cannabis was one of the main ingredients of the ancient Christian anointing oil, as history now indicates, and receiving this oil is what made Jesus the Christ and his followers Christians, then to persecute those who use cannabis, could be considered anti-Christ. That revelation that is sure to come as a shock to pious right-wing Christians such as John Ashcroft, especially considering that Americas anti-marijuana attorney general is known to
anoint himself in the style of Biblical kings before taking a new officeonly 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 cultures 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 that contains the same power for revolution that Jesus and the high initiates that followed him demonstrated in the Middle East almost two millennia ago.
--------------------
Pot TV Manager
Post Extras: |
skellington |
| MALADROIT |
| |
|
| Reged: Sep 08 1999 |
| Posts: 6486 |
| Loc: vancouver | |
|
hullo chris
sorry to go off topic but were you a surfer in the tofino-uclulet area? i recall you saying that you were a good pal of andrew struthers who is the author of the green shadow...were you one of the people who made tofino cool before it got ruined?
--------------------
""We don't want a war in the Middle East if we can avoid it."
- Dick Cheney, January 20, 2005
Post Extras: |
| chrisbennett |
| Pot-TV Station Manager |
| |
|
| Reged: Jun 21 2000 |
| Posts: 2714 |
| |
|
I lived in Ucluelet for 20 years, and when I became a hemp activist in 1990, my own brother was the IWA camp chairman for the loggers who wanted to log Clayquot Sound. The area traded logging for tourism, I suppose tourism was the lesser of two evils and slightly more renewable. I pushed the hemp envelope when I was in Ucluelet, making the first commewrcialy produced hemp seed food bar, Mama Indica's hemp Seed Treats, paperpads, clothing and more. I also wrote both of my books will living in Ucluelet, and found myself with the aid of entheogens on the beautiful beaches of the area. I was a surfer up unitll I left there 5 years ago to come to pot TV, but it has probably been since the early 1990's that I was a hardcore surfer. I left Paradise to Come to Babylon and push what I had garnered from my stay in the wilderness.... No worries though I brought the vibe from there with me. Ironically, Jordan Island's God Bud, is the same
strain (purple Skunk) that I grew for about 12 years well living in Ukee, and it just won the cup (I always new it was the best!). Glad to see everyone out there is starting to catch up!
By the way, Andrew, I am in Andrew Struther's new Book, The Last Voyage of the Loch Ryan, (we were both boat owners and surf buddies) and Andrew, who started smoking the good herb again after a long break, is writing abook about cannabis.
--------------------
Pot TV Manager
Post Extras: |
| eco2man |
| old hand |
| |
|
| Reged: Nov 29 2000 |
| Posts: 791 |
| Loc: Amerika, land of the Free? Ha! 2.2 million "free" inmates. 25% of world's prisoners! | |
|
Gerhard Haderer book illustration.
Naked, High, Hippy Surfer Jesus. (not Gerhard Haderer's caption)
----------------
Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC). March 23, 2005.
Artists rally behind illustrator convicted over Jesus comic
http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/03/23/Arts/jesuscomic050323.html
VIENNA - An Austrian illustrator behind a comic that depicts Jesus as a laid-back, binge-drinking surfer is in the midst of an uproar.
A group of artists gathered in Vienna Tuesday to draw attention to Greece's ban of Austrian illustrator Gerhard Haderer's The Life of Jesus, a religious satire and playful re-imagining of the life of Christ. It is reportedly the first book the country has banned in
more than 20 years.
In January, an Athens court convicted Haderer of blasphemy and gave him a six-month suspended sentence in absentia for creating the tongue-in-cheek comic, which features an often inebriated Jesus whose miracles happen because of luck rather than by divine intervention.
The book, which has sold more than 100,000 copies across Europe, also includes appearances by such contemporary characters as late rock icon Jimi Hendrix and fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld.
"It is unbelievable that a person can write a book in his home country and be condemned and threatened with imprisonment by another," human rights activist Nikki Conrad told the Guardian newspaper at the press conference.
"When Gerhard first got the summons he thought it was a joke. But now he is starting to get a bit nervous," Conrad said. "He is not going to just sit back and accept this injustice. He is prepared to take this to the European Court of Human Rights."
Haderer, who has said he did not even know his 40-page book had been published in Greece until he received the court summons, is appealing the ban and will appear in court April 13.
When first published in his native Austria in spring 2002, Haderer's book drew some controversy and protests from religious figures but was not banned. The Life of Jesus has also been published in countries such as France, South Korea, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Germany, where Haderer is well-known for his weekly illustrations in the news magazine Stern.
"I'm not concerned with the criticism of the historical figure of Jesus in my book, but rather with what the clergy has made of him," Haderer said in a 2002 interview, adding that blasphemy was not his intent. "That would be a border that I would never cross with my caricatures."
Austrian comedian Hubert Kramar, who is set to star in an upcoming satirical play about Jesus, appeared at the Vienna press conference
dressed as Christ.
"We are supposed to be living in a democratic society. Greece is in Europe and the whole idea of the European Union is that everything is supposed to be more open. But what happened to Haderer is scaring artists like me," he said.
The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN, the International Publishers' Association and the International Booksellers Federation have also issued a joint letter to Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis condemning the conviction and sentence.
--------------------
 Cannabis event photo galleries. MMM, 420, etc.. Hundreds of events and reports worldwide.
Edited by eco2man (Wed Mar 23 2005 01:38 PM)
Post Extras: |
| eco2man |
| old hand |
| |
|
| Reged: Nov 29 2000 |
| Posts: 791 |
| Loc: Amerika, land of the Free? Ha! 2.2 million "free" inmates. 25% of world's prisoners! | |
|
If any of the link URLs below are not made correctly clickable automatically,
then copy and paste the URL into the address window of your browser.
Google and Google News search shortcuts for Gerhard Haderer:
http://news.google.com/news?q=Gerhard+Haderer
http://www.google.com/search?q=Gerhard+Haderer
Cannabis Culture Forums: Cartoonist faces Greek jail for blasphemy.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/forums/showflat.php?Number=1063767
Guardian (UK). March 23, 2005. Cartoonist faces Greek jail for blasphemy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1443908,00.html
CBC. March 23, 2005. Artists rally behind illustrator convicted over Jesus comic.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/03/23/Arts/jesuscomic050323.html
Jesus Comic Enrages Greeks. Deutsche Welle. Feb. 8, 2005.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1480744,00.html
"A Kind of Christian Fatwah"? Deutsche Welle. May 13, 2002.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,502662,00.html
Ananova - Greek police seize hippy Jesus book.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_755512.html
Franco Fabbro. Amanita
muscaria use by 1st Christian church in Aquileia. Mosaics indicate use of the mushrooms via snails fed with them. Worship hall of the ancient Basilica of Aquileia in north-eastern Italy. Mosaics covered over in the 4th Century AD.
http://people.etnoteam.it/maiocchi/fabbro.htm
Google search shortcuts:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Chris+Bennett+Jesus+cannabis
http://www.google.com/search?q=Was+Jesus+a+Stoner
http://www.google.com/search?q=Aquileia+basilica+mushrooms
http://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Ruck+mushroom
http://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Ruck+marijuana
http://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Ruck+cannabis
http://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Ruck+Aquileia
Google images search:
http://images.google.com/images?q=Aquileia
http://images.google.com/images?q=+site:www.aquileia.net+Aquileia
Aquileia.
http://www.aquileia.net
http://www.aquileia.net/basilica_2_ing.htm
Old Map. Aquileia region.
http://www.uni-bamberg.de/ggeo/hilfswissenschaften/studarb/HAUSA~GX/767_aquileia.html
--------------------
Cannabis event photo galleries. MMM, 420, etc.. Hundreds of events and reports worldwide.
Edited by eco2man (Wed Mar 23 2005 02:05 PM)
Post Extras:
|
| elektron |
| member |
| |
|
| Reged: Jul 29 2003 |
| Posts: 144 |
| |
|
oh-nestly
for some people this kind of information is so shocking
that its alot like getting rambusted with a trolly in the middle of the night, while sawing z's in lala land.
the fact is, that ALOT of people in the world are simply not with it. they do not get what real spirituality is about, they have no clue about the esoteric, and they live in a kind of reverse-perplexive state where all they see and do is -judge- ..and live without the ability to -reflect- on their own doings...
sad.
Post Extras:
|
| chrisbennett |
| Pot-TV Station Manager |
| |
|
| Reged: Jun 21 2000 |
| Posts: 2714 |
| |
|
Nice work! Great images in those stories. Can anybody find a contact for the artist, I'd like to send him a copy of my book.
--------------------
Pot TV Manager
Post Extras: |
| eco2man |
| old hand |
| |
|
| Reged: Nov 29 2000 |
| Posts: 791 |
| Loc: Amerika, land of the Free? Ha! 2.2 million "free" inmates. 25% of world's prisoners! | |
|
As the Hendrix album title asked: "Are You Experienced?"
Gerhard Haderer is a martyr about to be stoned to death for pointing out that Jesus was experienced in the most High, and that Jesus was not a wannabe spiritless cleric.
Remember that Bruce Lee movie where he points while talking to a student? The student gets a slight slap in the head for looking at the finger instead of looking where Bruce was pointing. Jesus was just pointing the way to the most High. The clerics need to be slapped for concentrating on just another messenger (Jesus) of the most HIGH. Instead of what they should be concentrating on: the most HIGH.
Bruce Lee wrote this:
http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001330.html
Quote:
These few paragraphs are, at best, a "finger pointing to the moon." Please do not take the finger to be the moon or fix your gaze so intently on the finger as to miss all the beautiful sights of heaven. After all, the usefulness of the finger is in pointing away from itself to the light which illumines finger and all. ---
Gerhard Haderer illustrations below.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/forums/uploads/1063890-surferjesus.jpg
http://www.cannabisculture.com/forums/uploads/1063892-jesuslaidback.jpg
http://www.cannabisculture.com/forums/uploads/1063901-booklastsupper.jpg
--------------------
Cannabis event photo galleries. MMM, 420, etc.. Hundreds of events and reports worldwide.
Edited by eco2man (Wed Mar 23 2005 03:06 PM)
Post Extras: |
| eco2man |
| old hand |
| |
|
| Reged: Nov 29 2000 |
| Posts: 791 |
| Loc: Amerika, land of the Free? Ha! 2.2 million "free" inmates. 25% of world's prisoners! | |
|
More of his illustrations from the banned book.
"The truth will set you free." Jesus said that supposedly in John 8:32.
"The truth will get you stoned. In both ways that 'stoned' means." --eco man.
--------------------
Cannabis event photo galleries. MMM, 420, etc.. Hundreds of events and reports worldwide.
Edited by eco2man (Wed Mar 23 2005 02:34 PM)
Post Extras:
|
| eco2man |
| old hand |
| |
|
| Reged: Nov 29 2000 |
| Posts: 791 |
| Loc: Amerika, land of the Free? Ha! 2.2 million "free" inmates. 25% of world's prisoners! | |
|
URL for image in the last message:
http://www.cannabisculture.com/forums/uploads/1063928-lastsupperbong.jpg
Cover of banned book "The Life of Jesus" by Gerhard Haderer:
http://www.cannabisculture.com/forums/uploads/1063936-lifeofjesus.jpg
--------------------
Cannabis event photo galleries. MMM, 420, etc.. Hundreds of events and reports worldwide.
Post Extras: |
| eco2man |
| old hand |
| |
|
| Reged: Nov 29 2000 |
| Posts: 791 |
| Loc: Amerika, land of the Free? Ha! 2.2 million "free" inmates. 25% of world's prisoners! | |
|
Enlarged version of the cover image.
--------------------
Cannabis event photo galleries. MMM, 420, etc.. Hundreds of events and reports worldwide.
Post Extras: |
|
(Message over 64k, truncated.)
|
Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:36 pm
eco man <tents444@...>
tents444
 Offline
 Send Email
|
Previous 
Index 
Next 
Flat 
Threaded 
Cartoonist faces Greek jail for blasphemy 
Edit 
Reply 
Quote 
Re: Cartoonist faces Greek jail for blasphemy [Re: 
Having problems with message search?
Fill out this form to ensure your group is one of the first to be migrated to the new message search system.
