CANNABIS CULTURE – The Indo-European language is the mother tongue of many modern dialects. Even before this language was spoken the ancestors of these people, the proto-Indo-europeans, were ritually using cannabis — a technique of worship that continued for thousands of years and spread throughout the ancient world, leading to its continued use in various religions.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were a  prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the ancestor of the Indo-European languages according to linguistic reconstruction. The Indo-European language that grew from it, is the Mother tongue of  numerous modern languages.  Indo-European comprises most of the languages of Europe together with those of the northern Indian subcontinent and the Iranian Plateau.  The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, the largest of which are the Indo-Iranian, Germanic, Romance, and Balto-Slavic groups. The most populous individual languages within them are Spanish, English, Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu), Portuguese, Persian, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, German, and Russian.

Knowledge of the Indo-Europeans comes chiefly from that linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics. The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the late Neolithic, or roughly the 4th millennium BC. Mainstream scholarship places them in the Pontic–Caspian steppe zone in Eastern Europe (present day Ukraine and southern Russia). It is in these same regions we find the earliest evidence of the ritual use of cannabis, and dating back to this same period. This was a technique of religious ecstasy still found at Indo-European sites thousands of years later at diverse locations.

In 2016 a slew of news articles have come out with Headlines like ‘Founders of Western Civilization Were Prehistoric Dope Dealers (New Scientist) ; ‘Was Marijuana the Original Cash Crop? ‘ (Men’s journal) ; ‘Surprising 5,000-Year-Old Cannabis Trade: Eurasian Steppe Nomads Were Earliest Pot Dealers’ (Ancient Origins) ; all stemming from a multi-authored  academic Paper, Cannabis in Eurasia: origin of human use and Bronze Age trans-continental connections, (Tengwen, Wagner, Demske, Leipe, Tarasov, 2016), that was published in the journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany* and which detailed the paramount role cannabis played in the trade, tradition, and spread of Indo-European Culture. So the above evidence regarding the role of cannabis in the origins of Western culture should not be underestimated. This archeology has shown how the Proto-Indo-European Yamnaya culture brought cannabis into Europe. Ritual use of cannabis in funerary rites in the region inhabited by the Yamnaya goes back at least 5,000 years, as evidenced through a find of skeletal remains and burnt cannabis seeds recovered at a burial mound at modern day Gurbăneşti, Romania. (Rosetti, 1959). 

Similar evidence that Proto-Indo Europeans burned cannabis in a cave in Ukraine 5,500 years was suggested by the late British Archeologist Andrew Sherratt, who has also suggested that the corded ware culture  was evidence of a cannabis beverage in use during the Neolithic period. The Corded Ware culture comprised a broad archaeological horizon in Europe between through c. 3100 BCE – circa 2350 BCE, ending in the early Bronze Age. Sherratt suggested that like poppy shaped vessels used to hold opium preparations, corded ware had hemp cords pressed into the clay, not only for a design but to indicate the contents and a cannabis based beverage was widely in use throughout Europe.

The late British archeologist Andrew Sherratt, who is cited on the pages of The Immortality Key on other matters,  pointed to the use of tripod bowls which he suggested were used to burn cannabis in the Ukraine region from 3,500 BCE, as evidenced by carbonized seeds. Sherratt also speculated that the wide spread evidence of corded wear culture, which spread throughout from the Rhine on the west to the Volga in the east, occupying parts of Northern Europe, Central Europe and Eastern Europe, was evidence of hemp cord pressed pottery jars that held a cannabis drink.

The authors of The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture note that “Hemp has not only been recovered from sites in Romania but also from a Yamma burial at Gurbanesti (Maldova) where traces were found in a ‘censer’ (a shallow footed bowl believed to have been used in the burning of some aromatic substance). It has been found in a similar context from an early bronze age burial in the north Caucasus…. Ceramics were more elaborate than those of the Yamma culture and included, especially in female burials, low footed vessels interpreted as ‘censers’, presumed to be used in rituals involving some narcotic substance such as hemp” (Mallory, et al., 1997). “It seems, therefore, that the practice of burning cannabis as a narcotic is a tradition which goes back in this area some five or six thousand years and was the focus of the social and religious rituals of the pastoral peoples of central Eurasia in prehistoric and early historic times” (Sherratt, 1995).

The late British Archeologist Andrew Sherratt, who suggested that a ritual cannabis infusion was at the core of the so called ‘corded ware culture’.

Sherratt suggested that the cannabis burning braziers referred to above eventually went to the way side, and were replaced by a beverage, although he believes that cannabis use continued through this cultural shift. The “disappearance of ceramic braziers in northern and western Europe” was followed “by the appearance… of prominent forms of pottery drinking vessels. Corded-ware beakers and early bell-beakers are ornamented with impressions of twisted cord: if these are hemp fibres, then the decoration may indicate that their contents were connected with cannabis” (Sherratt, 1995). A view shared by other researchers: “As cannabis can also be infused, i.e., served as a component in a drink, it has also been suggested that the spread of cord-(hemp?) decorated pottery from the steppe westward may also have been part of this same complex” (Mallory, et al., 1997).

As the authors of the exhaustive Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture have noted, “There are… at least three chronological horizons to which the spread of hemp might be ascribed: the early distribution of hemp across Europe; during the Neolithic c5000 b.c. or earlier; a later spread of hemp for presumably narcotic purposes around 3000 b.c.; a still later spread, or, at least, re-emergence of hemp in the context of textiles during the first millennium b.c….” (Mallory, et al., 1997). In regards to an association with burial rites. Celtic use of cannabis has also been identified through pollen analysis of a bowl from a rich woman’s grave of the late Hallstatt Period at Niedererlbach, Bavaria (Rosch, 2005). The authors of  The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture  likewise note that “hemp has… been discovered in an iron age contexts in western Europe, e.g. a Hallstatt burial, presumably Celtic, at Hochdorf in Germany” (Mallory et al., 1997). Cannabis was also found in later Viking burial sites as well. 

More recently Russian researchers have been making similar suggestions, specifically about the Aryan ancestors of the Vedic Indians. In the article ‘Aryan settlements in the Urals: A precursor to Indian Civilisation?‘, Strong archaeological evidence which indicates that the Aryans lived in Arkaim, by the Urals, before they went to India via Central Asia. The article quotes the archeologist Sergei Malyutin:

Malyutin says that the Aryans came here from the west, probably from the Volga, and then moved to Central Asia and then India. He believes that their sacred drink included cannabis boiled in milk with an addition of ephedrine [i.e., ephedra].

“Why do you think they are the same Aryans that later came to India and Iran?” I ask Sergei Malyutin.

“The Rigveda and Avesta contain descriptions of the place where the Aryans came from – it has birch trees and climate looking like ours,” he says. “They had similar burials and the skeletons are of the Indo-European anthropological type… There is another, key feature, chariots, which were used only by the Aryans at that time.” (Konstantinov, 2012) [emphasis added]

It was this sort of high mobility that led to the spread of cannabis throughout the ancient world, and in fact the development of hemp rope has been attributed to the harnessing and domestication of the horse. it is unclear that archeologist Sergei Malyutin, was basing his research on the work of Prof. Victor Sarianidi at BMAC,  where claimed 4,000 year old archeological evidence of cannabis and ephedra, and in some case opium poppies, at a t temple site were suggested to indicate the plants were used in the preparation of soma/haoma. Or he may have came to his theories about the drink of the Aryans, based on another group known for both burning and drinking cannabis preparations, that came out of the Russian steppes, and spread across much of the ancient world, Western Europe, Persian, Israel, Egypt, India and even deep into central China, a series of Indo European tribes, now known to us collectively as the Scythians. As we shall this group as well has its important part to play in understanding the mysterious identities of soma and haoma.

Cannabis was also part of the earliest trade routes we know of as well, as noted in ‘Cannabis in Eurasia: origin of human use and Bronze Age trans-continental connections’, indicating it would have been part and parcel of any “Aryan” migration. “A marked increase in cannabis achene records from East Asia between ca. 5,000 and 4,000 BP might be associated with the establishment of a trans-Eurasian exchange/migration network”. (Eurasia is the largest continent on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia).

Descendants of the cannabis burners in the Ukraine region, the Scythians, would later spread the cultic use of cannabis, both burned as an incense and drank, and the root word kana, throughout much of the ancient world. One of the names of the Scythians was “Haomavarga” the Haoma gatherers, and ancient texts indicate they also burnt the haoma as well as drank at. A Scythian wineskin that had evidence of cannabis infusion, as well as gold cups, described by the Russian archeologists involved with the find, as ritual vessels for drinking “haoma” have also been discovered and these contained residues of both cannabis and opium. Indo Europeans in China, known as Gushi, likewise burnt cannabis in funerary rites similar to the Scythians 2,800 years ago, a ritual act that can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European homeland in Romania 5,000 years ago.

In my book Cannabis and the Soma Solution I have proposed that the combined sacramental use of soma and haoma, grew out of the common Indo-European ancestry of both the Vedic and Avestan authors, and an earlier widespread cultural and cultic use of cannabis. Cannabis was the sacrament of our ancestors and we have a collective indigenous natural right to access this gift of nature.

CANNABIS CULTURE – Up until recent times, many Egyptologists, failed to acknowledge much of a role for cannabis in ancient Egypt beyond that of a source of fiber for ropes, but recent research identifying a plant in the Egyptian texts with fibrous and medicinal properties, as well as edible seeds, under the name shemshemet, or sm-sm-t, are now generally regarded as identifying cannabis.

Excerpted from Cannabis and the Soma Solution.

In ancient Egypt the healing herb shemshemet was believed to have been a creation of the Sun God Ra. Besides this linguistic source, pollen analysis of ancient soil layers and deep tissue samples from Egyptian mummies, have indicated that in Egypt, like much of the rest of the ancient world, cannabis held an important role.

In fact from about around 3000 BC onward there is evidence of cannabis pollen in Egypt.  According to the Codex of Ancient Egyptian Plant Remains, (1997) pollen has been identified at Egyptian sites dating from the Predynastic period (c.3500-3100 BCE); the 12^th Dynasty (c.1991-1786 BCE) includes not only pollen, but also a hemp “fibre (ball)”; from the 19^th Dynasty (c.1293-1185 BCE) found on the Mummy of Ramses II; and the Ptolemaic period (323-30 BCE) (Vartavan & Asensi, 1997).

Shemshemet

shemshemet the Egyptian word for cannabis

There is general agreement with the view of Dawson (1934a) that shemshemet means cannabis, and the identification was strongly supported by the use of hempen rope making. As a drug, it has remained in active use since pharaonic times. It… was administered by mouth, rectum, vagina, bandaged the skin, applied to the eyes, and by fumigation. However, these applications provide no clear evidence of awareness of the effects of cannabis on the central nervous system. (Nunn, 2002)

Although most modern Egyptologists acknowledge a role for cannabis as a source of fiber and as a medicine, few see a role for hemp as a ritual intoxicant, and many researchers claim that the Egyptians were unaware of these properties. As noted in The Mummy Congress:

Under the reign of the pharaohs, Egyptian traders had bartered avidly for seeds of Cannabis sativa. Their Asian neighbors prized the plant for its hempen fibers, and the Egyptians seem to have taken a similar interest. They retted the stems and twisted the fibers into sturdy ropes and ground the plant to make a soothing eyewash, a treatment they recorded in the medical papyri. But the Egyptians made little mention of the other parts of C. sativa—the flowering tops and leaves that yielded marijuana or the dark resin that produces hashish. (Pringle, 2001)

Prof. Jan Kabelik noted of shemsemet; “From the Egyptian medical papyruses, information has been gained about a plant from which cordage could be made, and it was probably cannabis which was referred to”:

But no records could be found on its narcotic action. The preparations made from it (in all probability from the cannabis shoots) were applied externally-namely, exclusively as antiseptics – and then perhaps even as analgetics, in the same way as in Hellenic medicine. Cannabis extracts have been employed for irrigation in diseases of the anus, and in form of compresses the drug has been applied to sore toenails. In Rhamses’ papyrus, washing sore eyes with extracts from cannabis and also from some other plant is recommended. The papyrus of Berlin recommends fumigation with cannabis in some undefined disease. (Kabelik, 1955)

Indeed, one would be hard pressed to identify narcotic use of hemp under the name shemshemet, but then as we shall see, with the Egyptians, as with other cultures, ritual knowledge was secret knowledge, and thus evidence of such use likely lays in veiled references. Realistically, even medical applications were imbued with magical and religious connotations. “…[M]ost physicians in Egypt were priests… elements of religion and magic were closely intertwined with drug use, incantations routinely being uttered prior to administration in order to confer the healing property upon it” (Spencer, 2000). Like the temple gardens of the Assyrians, where the ‘tree of life’ was reputed to grow, the Egyptians also likely cultivated shemshemet and other sacred plants:

Considering the Egyptians’ highly developed pharmacopeia they must have had ‘physics gardens’, most likely in connection with a temple, for it was among the priests that knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants was concentrated. (Manniche, 1989)

Egyptian medical texts that include references to cannabis include The Ramesseum III Papyrus (1700 BC), Eber’s Papyrus (1600 BC), The Berlin Papyrus (1300 BC), The Chester Beatty VI Papyrus (1300 BC). Possibly due to the sticky and adhesive quality of honey a number of Egyptian topical medical preparations required it as an admixture to cannabis based medicines. According to the ancient papyri such topical cannabis preparations were used to treat inflammations of the vagina, and to treat ingrown toe and finger nails (Ghalioungui 1963). Egyptian medical applications of cannabis show an astute knowledge of the efficacy of herbal remedies, and virtually all of their remedies containing it utilize it in a way in which cannabis has been known to be medically effective (Russo, 2006/2007).

Ìf the hieroglyph ‘smsm.t’ in the ancient medical papyri of Egypt indicates cannabis, it was used as an incense, as an oral medication for ‘mothers and children’, (in childbirth?), in enemas, in eye medications, and as an ointment in bandages. This may be its first mention in world literature as an eye medication. (Mathre, 1997)

The reference to eye medicine identified by Mathre, occurs in the Ramesseum III Papyrus (1700 BC), and is thought to occur in a prescription for the treatment of glaucoma, and has been translated as „Ein Heilmittel für die Augen:“A treatment for the eyes: celery; shemshemet [cannabis]is ground and left in the dew overnight. Both eyes of the patient are to be washed with it in the morning.”

Fragments of the the Ramesseum III papyrus

Although the existing copy of the Eber’s Papyrus is dated at about 1600 BC, making it the oldest known complete medical textbook, many scholars believe that it is copied from an even older text dating approximately 3100 BC. The Eber’s Papyrus refers to “A cure for the uterus to cool: Hanf wird in Honig zerstoßen und in die Vagina gefüllt.Hemp [shemshemet]is crushed in honey and stuffed into the vagina. Dies verursacht eine Kontraktion des Uterus.“This causes a contraction of the uterus.” The Ebers Papyrus also refers to a topical application of cannabis for ingrown toe or finger nails and mixed with carob for use in an enema or combined with other remedies and used as a poultice. The Berlin Papyrus (1300 BC) records a topical treatment for swelling: “A remedy to treat inflammation: “Blätter (oder Blüten?) des Hanfs und reines Öl.Leaves of hemp and pure oil. Gebrauch es als Salbe.” Use it as an ointment.”

The Ebers Papyrus (1550 BC) identifies cannabis in an enema infusion and as a topical poultice for infection. For more on cannabis medicine in ancient Egypt see the Antique Cannabis Book.

In the second millennium BC hemp fiber was used for ropes, but the term shemshemet occurs as early as in the Pyramid Texts, written down a thousand years prior to that, again in connection with rope making. “Pieces of hemp have been identified at the tomb of Amenhopis IV (Ahkenaten) at el-Armana” (Manniche, 1989). As with the ritual use of fibers associated with Haoma/Soma and the Assyrian Tree of Life, it is interesting to note that here in Egypt, shemshemet was considered a sacred fiber and was referred to in the context as a means of bridging the gap between heaven and earth.

A Rope Ladder to the Heavens

In the pyramid text of Unas, which seems to concern the king’s ascension into the heavens through the northern passageway of his pyramid, hemp ropes seem to be the means for climbing into the starry sky. In the ancient inscription, the devotee is commanded to say the following words in praise of Unas a celestial Bull, who is the guide of the dead to the heavens:

This Unas is the bull of double brilliance in the midst of his Eye. Safe is the mouth of Unas through the fiery breath, the head of Unas through the horns of the lord of the South. Unas leads the god…  Unas has twisted the SmSm.t-plant into ropes. Unas has united (zmA) the heavens…

Or as Budge translates it: “He raises up the cords (fibres?) of the shemshemet plant, he unites the heavens” (Budge, 1911). A similar indication regarding hemp ropes may be found in the mythology of the Goddess Seshat, who appears to be holding a rope and a stalk in the below depiction. More interesting is the image that appears above the head of the ancient Goddess.

Seshat, the Egyptian goddess of writing and measurement, possibly holding a hemp rope to the heavens, a cannabis stalk for measuring, and with a cannabis leaf above her head?

A number of different researchers have noted the similarity between a cannabis leaf and the symbol attached to the head of the Goddess Seshat in Egyptian images. Seshat was the Egyptian Goddess of temple architecture and mistress of scribes, presiding over the “House of Life,” also known as the “House of Books.” This temple was a sort of library and school of knowledge, and served as a store place of texts regarding tradition and rituals. Since very early Egyptian times, Seshat’s main function was to assist the king in “stretching the cord” for the layout of temples and royal buildings.

Author and researcher H. Peter Aleff has put forth an intriguing theory that this symbol is associated with the use of hemp cords. “It was… consistent with the ancient Egyptian visual canon that the artists who portrayed Seshat the rope-stretching goddess of measuring and geometry would have labeled her with  pictures of her principal tools, or with easily recognizable symbols for these. Indeed, they combined evocations of these tools ingeniously in her emblem”:

Many Egyptologists have long speculated about the emblem which Seshat wore as her head dress.  Sir Alan Gardiner described it in his still category-leading “Egyptian Grammar” as a “conventionalized flower (?) surmounted by horns.”   His question mark after “flower” reflects the fact that there is no likely flower which resembles this design.  Others have called it a “star surmounted by a bow,” but stars in the ancient Egyptian convention had five points, not seven like the one in Seshat’s emblem.  This number was so important that it caused king Tuthmosis III (1479 to 1425 BCE) to give her the name Sefkhet-Abwy, or “She of the seven points.”

There is no need for such groping speculations because the various elements in Seshat’s emblem simply depict the tools of her geometer’s trade in the hieroglyphic manner.

Her seven-pointed “flower” or “star” is an accurate image of a hemp leaf.  This leaf is made up of seven pointed leaf parts that are arranged in the same pattern as the most prominent sign in Seshat’s emblem.  Hemp is, and has long been, an excellent material for making ropes with the low-stretch quality required for measuring cords, particularly when these are greased to reduce variations in their moisture content which would influence elongation.   

The characteristic leaf of the plant used in making these ropes was thus a logical choice for the emblem designer who wanted an easily recognized reference to Seshat’s job.  This leaf is so unique that its picture allows no confusion with other items…. the hemp leaf in Seshat’s emblem is unmistakable evidence that the ancient Egyptian rope- stretchers used hemp for their measuring cords, and that Seshat cannot deny her now illegal patronage and ownership of this psycho-active plant.

Add to this flagrant evidence that in Coffin Texts Spell 10, “Seshat opens the door of heaven for you” (7), and the case against her is solid enough to get her busted if she still plied her trade today. (Aleff, 1982/2008).

Both the references in the account of Unas the Bull, and that of Seshat may symbolically indicate hemp as a means of reaching the heavens. In relation it is interesting to note that Catherine Graindorge mentions cannabis in a funerary offering: “some Theban tombs mention an offering of… plants to the deceased… [including]smsmt [shemsemet, cannabis]… According to the tomb of Neferhotep… the smsmt-plant was created by Re” (Graindorge, 1992). Unfortunately it is unclear as to what the nature of this offering was (fiber?, food?, incense?, Beverage?), but apparently it occurred during “certain activities concerned with private funerary worship”, where “the priests of the ka, or the family of the Theban deceased, make libations and fumigations in the chapel of the tombs” (Graindorge, 1992). A situation which certainly brings to mind the Scythian Funerary rites and fumigations with burning hemp referred to earlier.

Evidence of Entheogenic Use of Hemp in Ancient Egypt?

Not all Egyptologists agree with the view that the ancient Egyptians were unaware of hemp’s potentially potent narcotic effects, a property of the plant highly esteemed by many of the cultures with whom the Egyptians traded. As Rosalie David, Keeper of Egyptology, for the Manchester Museum, has noted, the Egyptians are known to have used a variety of psychoactive substances:

The lotus was a very powerful narcotic which was used in ancient Egypt and presumably, was widespread in this use, because we see many scenes of individuals holding a cup and dropping a lotus flower into the cup which contained wine, and this would be a way of releasing the narcotic.

The ancient Egyptians certainly used drugs. As well as lotus they had mandrake and cannabis, and there is a strong suggestion the also used opium…. [these]elements were certainly in use. (David, 1996)

Considering that the Egyptians traded with cultures that used cannabis for its intoxicating properties, it is hard to accept that these considerably advanced herbalists, who had clear knowledge of cannabis’ medical effects, somehow failed to recognize the provocative state which could be produced from burning or ingesting the plant, a quality highly prized by their trading partners.

In this author’s view there are a number of indications of the use of cannabis for entheogenic use that can be inferred from the accumulated knowledge of ancient Egyptian lore.  Possible sources for this sort of use of cannabis include the Kyphi incense and perfume, the drink Nepenthe, the ‘Sacred Shrub’ and the Maat Plant.

I have discussed the mythical infused wine for grief, Nepenthe, at length in another article, and as noted there, a cannabis infusion has been largely suggested from the evidence and description presented.

Kyphi, the Scent ‘Welcome to the Gods’

Offering Incense

Some sources have suggested that cannabis was an ingredient in the ancient incense and perfume of the Pharaohs, known as kyphi.  Kyphi was used as an offering to the Gods. As the sun set, Egyptian worshippers would burn this fragrant mind altering preparation to the Sun God RA (who created cannabis) praying for his return the following morning. Indicating the medical qualities of it’s ingredients, Kyphi was applied on the skin to heal wounds. It was also considered to be a potent relaxant and an aphrodisiac. Unlike the ointments of the Assyrians, the Kyphi was a rather solid and wax like concoction. A cone of kyphi was placed on the top of the head, and as the hot Egyptian Sun and body temperature of the devotee warmed it, the potent ingredients of the preparation would slowly melt and drip down off the head and onto the body.

Researchers have suggested more than 50 natural ingredients for making the Kyphi, the most popular probably being: Aloeswood, Benzoin, Cannabis Resin, Cardamom Seeds, Cassia, Cedar, Cinnamon, Copal, Frankincense, Galangal Root, Ginger, Honey, Juniper, Lemongrass, Mastic, Mint, Myrrh, Orris, Pistachio, Raisins, Red Wine, Rose Petals, Saffron, Sandalwood, Storax Balsam. Archeologist Joel Zias, who has found evidence of the use of psychoactive substances at sites of ancient Near Eastern cultures, notes that “the Egyptians wrote a lot about medicine however the formula is always  a bit of this a bit of that etc., therefore one can never know the exact method of replicating it. Hash was very common as was opium” (Zias, 2005).

Writing in 1920, the Occultist Oliver Bland, after naming many of the suggested ingredients of the Kyphi and demonstrating some knowledge of its preparation, put forth the following unverified, but interesting, etymological suggestion:

The clue to the secret of the ancient incense lies not in what we have been able to recover from the papayri, but in the word itself. Kyphi is recognizable to-day in “keef,” the popular name for the smokeable variety of the herb Cannabis Indica or Indian Hemp.

Cannabis Indica is none other than our friend hashish…. It is not after all, a far cry from the mysteries of Osiris, in Egypt…. Osiris… “died” annually, and mimicry of the symbolic event was the basis of all ritual. In the mysteries the initiate “died,” too: but the death was no mere formula, but an actually induced state of stupor or deep trance brought about by the fumes of keef. (Bland, 1920)

This was a view shared by the occultist Aleister Crowley, who lamented that his magick powers may have been lessened by lack of hashish, using the name Kyfi in this context.

Bowls of incense being offered to an Egyptian god.

More recently, a European news story reported on the efforts of a well known perfume company to recreate the Ancient Kyphi: Ananova, Monday, 7^th October, 2002, ‘Scientists recreate the perfume of the pharaohs.’

Scientists in France say they have recreated the perfume of the pharaohs which they believe was used by the ancient Egyptians to boost their love-lives.

But as the ingredients of Kyphi perfume, said to be an aphrodisiac which helps wearers relax, include cannabis it cannot be commercially produced.

Experts from L’Oreal and C2RMF, the Centre for Research and Restoration of French Museums, succeeded in recreating the legendary Kyphi perfume.

French researcher Sandrine Videault, who for years had attempted to recreate the aroma, was finally able to do so with the help of Greek historiographer Plutarch.

The Greek writer had written that Kyphi had the power “to send someone to sleep, to help them have sweet dreams, to relax them, to drive away the worries of the day and to bring peace.”

The numerous ingredients include pistachios, mint, cinnamon, incense, juniper and myrrh.

Videault says all previous attempts to use traces of the perfume found in Egyptian museums had failed because not enough was provided for analysis.

The expert says the recreation of the aroma is a long process because there are many different recipes for it: “In some samples only ten ingredients are used, in others up to 50,” she said.

According to written documents, the perfume, which came in block form and unlike modern-day scents was not alcohol based, was worn by ancient Egyptians in their hair and in intimate places to boost their sex lives.

But Videault said: “Kyphi will never be sold because some of the ingredients are illegal substances. In any case the smell is probably much too pungent for the modern world.”

The Maat Plant

Another possible source of Egyptian use of cannabis may be indicated in inscriptions regarding the Maat Plant, depicted in the lower parts of the following stele being tended by devotees and eyed by a waiting harvester with the traditional Scythian hemp harvesting tool the Scythe in hand. Generally this stele has been interpreted as identifying the activities of the dead in the after-world, but often such myths were acted out by devotees on the material plane, so indications of some sort of sacred rite involving earthly offerings of the Maat Plant cannot be easily dismissed.

Egyptian Stela with the Soma like Maat Plant

The Egyptians associated the Maat plant with Osiris, as we see here from the scenes and texts which are here reproduced from the alabaster coffin of Seti I… In the middle register we see the wicked tied to the jackal headed standards… In the register below we see figures of men engaged in tending a plant… and one figure has a scythe, which indicates he was the reaper of the plant. In the register above we some men carrying on their heads a loaf, and others a feather, symbolic of Maat, the goddess of Truth. The former group of beings (Second Register) are the blessed whose ‘Kau (i.e. dispositions) have been washed clean,’ and who have been chosen by Osiris to live with him in the house of ‘holy souls’. The latter group of beings (Third Register) are the ‘labourers in the wheat field of the Tuat’ (i.e. Other World), and the plants they tended and reaped are said to be ‘the members of Osiris’. The plant was Osiris, and Osiris was the plant, and the blessed in eating ‘the bread of everlastingness’ which was made from the grain of the plant ate Osiris. But Osiris was Maat, i.e. Truth, therefore in eating the bread they ate Truth. In eating his body they became one with him and therefore eternal… (Budge, 1925)

Curiously, Budge interpreted the plant image in the lower part of the Egyptian stele as a “colossal ear of wheat.” More likely it represents some other plant, one that was harvested with the Scythian tool the Scythe, one which held divine properties and an association with immortality as well as rites for the dead. In relation to this depiction and the suggestion that the Maat plant was prepared into some sort of sacramental loaf, the body of the lord Osiris, it is important to note that in Persia cannabis was also known by the name Sahdanag – Royal Grain; or King’s Grain, and was prepared in a number of confections (Low, 1926).

In the account of the Maat Plant and its association with the dead, one is again reminded of the role of cannabis in Scythian funerary rites, as does the Eucharistic elements involving it invoke the mythology of the Soma and Haoma, the original Eucharistic sacrament. It should also be noted that Maat’s symbol was a green feather, and this symbolism has also been used to identify the Soma. “In RV X.89.5 the Soma is called simivat. In the context it should be translated as feathered, literally it means ‘like simi or sami’… The pinnate leaves of the sami… look like a feather…The feather in relation to the Soma-Plant is mentioned in RV IV.27.4” (Richter-Ushanas, 1997). That the spears of a cannabis leaf look like a feather could also be said. As Homer Smith noted in Man and his Gods:

Those who lived by the laws of Maat took a sacramental drink, comparable to the Hindus’ Soma or its Persian counterpart Haoma, which conferred ritual purity… Egyptian scribes writing in the third millenium B.C. wrote: “My inward parts have been washed in the liquor of Maat.” (Smith, 1952)

Interestingly in the 4th century AD the alchemist Zosimos would write about the use of cannabis, darnel and other plants as infusions in Egyptian beers and wines. However it is unclear how long this practice was in place. However recently Archeologists have uncovered a 5,000 year old brewery in Egypt, and perhaps analysis of the remnants will reveal what sorts of ingredients were in use then. Recently researcher Brian Muraresku has been raising some interesting discussion about potentially entheogenic beers in the ancient world with his best selling tome The Immortality Key.

According to myth the God Osiris taught humanity the art of brewing. Interestingly there is an unidentified ancient entheogen named after this god ‘Osiritis’.

Osiris

Osiritis was also known as ‘cynocephalia’ and 3rd century AD Egyptian Gnostic texts describe it being put  into the mouths of participants in a magic ritual.  Pliny mentions this same plant for divination. Pliny claims to have heard from Apion the Grammarian, notorious resident of Egypt, “that the plant cynocephalia,  known in Egypt as “osiritis,” is useful for divination, and is a preservative against all the malpractices of magic, but that if a person takes it out of the ground entire, he will die upon the spot. He asserts, also, that he himself had raised the spirits of the dead”. The reference to death if you pull the plant whole out of the ground, is reminiscent of the mythology of mandrake, which is also psychoactive and has been used in magic rituals.

Drug Testing Mummies

Indicating that Egypt was a depot of the ancient Silk Road, is the “recent discovery of a strand of silk in the hair of an Egyptian mummy, which a combination of infrared and chemical analysis strongly suggests came from China. If correct this means that Chinese silk reached the eastern Mediterranean around 1000 B.C., centuries before the traditional date” (Allsen, 1997). Recent archeology has confirmed that cannabis, opium and other drugs travelled these same trade routes.

Other research has opened up the possibility that ancient trade routes were not only older, but considerably wider than has been traditionally thought. The results from tests on hairs of Egyptian mummies dating back as far as 1000 B.C. showed positive results for not only copious use of cannabis, but, opening up a hot bed of controversy, evidence interpreted as indicating the use of New World Plants Coca and Tobacco as well!

Research by German scientist, Dr Svetla Balabanova in the early 1990’s has continued to baffle Egyptologists, and call into question whole areas of science, archeology, chemistry and botany, as well as current drug testing techniques. In 1992 researchers in Munich, who were using the latest scientific techniques on mummified remains in order to understand more about the lives of ancient Egyptians, decided to test for evidence of ancient drug use.  In this quest they turned to respected toxicologist Dr Svelta Balabanova, who had developed groundbreaking methods for the detection of drugs in hair and sweat.

Dr Svetla Balabanova

In order to make sure that the tests on the mummies were beyond reproach, Balabanova used the supposedly reliable and standard hair shaft test. Drugs and other substances consumed by humans make their way into the hair protein, where they stay for months, even after death. To ensure there is no contamination hair samples are washed in alcohol and the washing solution itself is then tested. If the testing solution is clear, but the hair tests positive, then the drug must be inside the hair shaft, which means the person consumed the substance during their lifetime. The hair shaft test is considered proof positive against contamination before or after death. As British toxicologist Dr. John Henry has noted: “The hair shaft test is accepted. If you know that you’ve taken your hair sample from this individual and the hair shaft is known to contain a drug, then it is proof positive that the person has taken that drug. So it is accepted in law. It’s put people into prison” (Henry, 1996).

As a toxicologist and endocrinologist at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, in Ulm Germany, Balabanova, who also worked closely with the German Police, was more than familiar with postmortem techniques. Samples from the mummies were taken by Balabanova, pulverized and dissolved into a solution. As with the still standard drug testing technique, she used antibodies to detect the presence of drugs and other properties. As a backup the samples were also put through the GCMS machine which can accurately identify substances by determining their molecular weight. The unexpected results of both tests, which Balabanova in disbelief ordered to be redone a number of times, have embroiled the German researcher in a hot bed of controversy for over a decade.

Although Balabanova was not particularly surprised at the evidence of THC, the active chemical of the Old World plant cannabis, results indicating new world plants such as Coca, and Tobacco sent the researcher reeling. “The first positive results, of course, were a shock for me. I had not expected to find nicotine and cocaine but that’s what happened. I was absolutely sure it must be a mistake” (Balabanova, 1996). After repeating the tests and later publishing the results, Balabanova found herself in a hotbed of controversy that has followed her career ever since.

This is the first study which shows the presence of cocaine, hashish and nicotine in Egyptian mummies, dating back to about 1000 BC. This means that these three organic substances are capable of surviving in hair, soft tissue and bones for ca. 3000 years under favorable conditions. However, it cannot be determined at present whether the concentrations measured represent the original amount of these drugs during life or immediately after death, or what kind of decomposition might have taken place in the past 3000 years. (Balabanova et al. 1992)

Not surprisingly academic criticisms poured in from all quarters. As Balabanova described, “I got a pile of letters that were almost threatening, insulting letters saying it was nonsense, that I was fantasizing, that it was impossible, because it was proven that before Columbus these plants were not found anywhere in the world outside of the Americas” (Balabanova, 1996).

The presence of cannabinoids in the tissues of Egyptian mummies brings up the possibility that Cannabis was used recreationally/religiously or medicinally by the early Egyptians. However, most of the controversy centers around the reports of cocaine and nicotine contents in these Egyptian mummies predating Columbus’ “discovery” of the New World. The plant genera Erythroxylum (the sole source of cocaine) and Nicotiana (the sole source of nicotine) are both considered to have only a New World distribution prior to European contact during the 15th century, much later than the dates (ca. 3000 BP) of the mummies analyzed by Balabanova et al. (1992). These results are so unusual that they cast some doubt over the cannabinoid findings as well. (Clarke & Fleming, 1998)

Representing the view of the vast majority of Historians, Prof. John Bains an Egyptologist with Oxford University, commented on the speculations that were growing around the findings of Balabanova. “The idea that the Egyptians were travelling to America is, overall, absurd. I don’t know of anyone who is professionally employed as an Egyptologist, anthropologist or archeaologist who seriously believes in any of these possibilities, and I also don’t know anyone who spends time doing research into these areas because they’re perceived to be areas without any real meaning for the subjects” (Bains, 1996).

“In examining the mummified body of Ramses II, Dr. Lescot was given samples of the fragments found stuck within the fibers of the mummy’s bandages. After analyzing the fragments, she found that they were actually fragments of plants. When she studied the sample under a microscope, she made a stunning discovery – the fragments were from a tobacco plant.
Traces of what was supposedly a New World plant were found on an ancient mummy from the Old World. This led some people to ask how the deceased body of a 3000-year-old Egyptian ruler managed to get a hold of fragments of a tobacco plant when mainstream history insists that there was no way that ancient Egypt had established transoceanic trade relations with the people in the Americas during that time. In short, how on earth did Ramses II get his hands on some tobacco?” (Chen, 2017)

Although, like the taboo subject of drugs in the ancient world, a minority of researchers such as Prof. Alice Kehoe, of Marquette University seem more open to the possibility of pre-Columbian transatlantic trade. “I think there is good evidence that there was both trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific travel before Columbus. When we try to talk about trans-oceanic contact, people that are standard archeologists get very… skittish, and they want to change the subject… They seem to feel that it’s some kind of contagious disease they don’t want to touch, or it will bring disaster to them” (Kehoe, 1996). It should be noted that prior to the discovery of a Norse settlement in Newfoundland in 1965, the theories about Viking voyages to America were likewise dismissed as fantastical nonsense.

As the makers of the sensational TVF documentary The Cocaine Mummies commented “If the cocaine found in mummies could not be explained by contamination or fake mummies or by Egyptian plants containing it, there appeared to be only one remaining possibility… An international drug trade whose links extended all the way to the Americas.”

At the center of an unexpected controversy that threatened her professional reputation, Balabanova combed the historical record to see if any other researchers had ever recorded similar results. She was encouraged to find potential corroboration in a story about a scientific team trying to salvage the badly deteriorating body of Ramses II in 1976. The bandages with which Ramses II was wrapped with needed replacing and botanists were given pieces of the fabric to analyze what they were made from in order to replace them. One researcher, Dr. Michelle Scott found some plant fragments in her piece, and on closer analysis she detected the tiny crystals and filaments which were the unmistakable indications of a plant that should clearly not have been there.

I prepared the slides, put them under the microscope and what did I see? Tobacco. I said to myself, that’s just not possible – I must be dreaming. The Egyptians didn’t have tobacco. It was brought from South America at the time of Christopher Columbus. I looked again, and I tried to get a better view and I thought, well, it’s only a first analysis. I worked feverishly and I forgot to have lunch that day. But I kept getting the same result. (Scott, 1996)

Placing herself in a storm of controversy identical to that in which Balabanova would find herself in, Dr. Michelle Scott found little support for her findings. Most researchers saw the tobacco find as a clear case of contamination. Indeed, the explanation of Prof. Nasri Iskander, Chief Currator of the Cairo Museum seems more than plausible: “According to my knowledge and experience, most of the archeologists and scientists, who worked on these fields, smoked pipes. And I myself have been smoking pipes for more than 25 years. Then maybe a piece of the tobacco dropped by haphazard or just anyway and to tell this is right or wrong we have to be more careful” (Iskander, 1996).

As the controversy around Balabanova’s results continued to brew, the original researchers who requested that she test the mummies distanced themselves from her. As Dr Alfred Grimm, Curator, The Egyptian Museum, Munich, from where the mummies came commented “It’s not absolutely proven and I think it’s not absolutely scientifically correct” (Grimm, 1996). After trying to gain access to the mummies, the makers of The Cocaine Mummies concluded that “it seemed that the museum wanted nothing more to do with the research they politely pointed out was far from respectable.”

As a result of the controversy, even researchers from other Museums were barred from further examination of the mummies, such as Rosalie David, the Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum. David, who was completely skeptical of the results turned in by Balabanova, unable to acquire test material from the same subject matter as Balabanova, due to the reluctance of her Munich colleagues, decided to test different mummies and was herself astounded when the test material came in: “We’ve received results back from the tests on our mummy tissue samples and two of the samples and the one hair sample both have evidence of nicotine in them. I’m really very surprised at this” (David, 1996).

Results that were more than welcome by Balabanova “The results of the tests on the Manchester mummies have made me very happy after all these years of being accused of false results and contaminated results, so I was delighted to hear nicotine had been found in these mummies, and very, very happy to have this enormous confirmation of my work” (Balabanva, 1996).

In the 1994 paper, Presence of drugs in different tissues of an Egyptian mummy, Franz Parsche and Andreas Nerlich came to almost identical biochemical conclusions as Balabanova through deep tissue, bone and internal examination of a mummy that was dated at approximately 950 B.C.. Using the techniques of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, these researchers reported that “significant amounts of various drugs were detected in internal organs (lung, liver, stomach, intestines) as well as in hair, bone, skin/muscle and tendon. These analyses revealed a significant deposition of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), nicotine (and its metabolite cotinine) and cocaine in the tissue from the mummy….” (Parsche and Nerlich, 1994).

The major finding was that the drugs (and some of their metabolites) could clearly be identified in the tissue samples analyzed, indicating that these substances are stable over an unexpectedly long period of time… we observed that significant amounts of various drugs were present in several different tissues. Although the absolute values of the drug concentrations may show considerable interbatch variation in particular when tested by the immunoassay system, the intrabatch analysis, as in this study, reflects correct relative proportions. Thus, our analysis of the concentrations of various drugs in different mummy tissues sheds some light on historic therapeutic measures… the evidence for the nicotine metabolite cotinine, which was… found in the present material, argues in favour of an intravital consumption of nicotine (with subsequent metabolization) rather than simply a contamination by nicotine post mortem. Furthermore, these findings are well in accordance with previous observations on bone samples from other Egyptian mummies… The observation of significant concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol which represents the psychoactive substance of drugs as in hashish in the lungs with values above those of the other internal organs, argue for a preferential incorporation of this substance by inhalation. This is in accordance with the reports by medical papyri indicating smoking ceremonies, e.g. with hashish. The accumulation of THC in skin/muscle tissue may be due to contamination during the postmortal embalming procedure. The way of cocaine and nicotine consumption which has remained unclear until now may have been uncovered by the analysis of this “case”: Since these drug concentrations were found to be highest in the stomach and the intestine, this observation points to an oral ingestion of these substances. (Parsche and Nerlich, 1994)

Parsche and Nerlich findings of strong concentrations of THC in the lungs of the Mummy fit well with the view that the popular Egyptian perfume and incense, kyphi, contained cannabis. Likewise, the “accumulation of THC in skin/muscle tissue” which the authors suspect was “due to contamination during the postmortal embalming procedure,” ties in with the idea that cannabis was used in Egyptian funerary rites, as discussed earlier.

In relation to the finds of nicotine Parsche and Nerlich pointed ou that contemporary “analyses on the nicotine content of various vegetables yielded significant amounts of nicotine in some plants other than the tobacco plant, like aubergines, tomatoes and others”

Furthermore, it has recently been shown that in Southern Africa a nicotine containing plant (Nicotiana Africana) occurs, which may have been accessible to ancient Egyptians. Thus, the use of these substances as therapeutic drugs may have had a firm place in the old Egyptian medicals’ repertoire. (Parsche and Nerlich, 1994)

Sandy Knapp, of the herbarium at the Natural History Museum feels that the test results only identify the family from which tobacco comes, and not the specific plant, pointing to other members of the tobacco family, which existed in ancient Egypt, such as henbane, mandrake or belladonna. “I think that they [Balabanova, Parsche, etc.] had a certain amount of evidence, and they took the evidence one step farther than the evidence really allowed them. Sometimes you can only go so far down the road towards telling what something is, and then you come against a wall and you can’t go any farther, otherwise you start to make something up” (Knapp, 1996).

I think it is very unlikely that tobacco has an alternative history, because, I think we would’ve heard about it. There’d be some use of it present in either literature, temple carvings, somewhere there would’ve been evidence to point and say ‘Ah, that’s tobacco’, but there’s nothing. (Knapp, 1996)

Balabanova herself entertained the idea of a lost species of tobacco, possibly even some extinct species of plant. The suggestion that a plant could have been harvested into extinction is more than plausible, and we have the contemporary example of the Egyptian Blue Lotus, prized by the ancient Egyptians for its narcotic properties, which was nearly harvested into extinction due to it’s popularity. As has been noted “many medical plants have become extinct through overuse. For example, the demand for silphium, a plant prized for its medicinal and contraceptive properties, was so great in ancient Greece that it was extinct by the  third or fourth century AD” (Peters, et al., 2005).

But even with the suggestion of an alternative source of nicotine, Balabanova was still puzzled by the high concentrations of the substance found in Egyptian mummies, as much as 35 times that of the typical smoker of today. Such levels would have been potentially lethal, had tobacco been consumed in such quantities in life.

Balabanova felt these high doses of nicotine in Egyptian bodies could be explained if the nicotine containing substance as well as being consumed in life, had also been used in the mummification process. High levels of nicotine in tobacco can kill bacteria, and it is more than conceivable that some lost plant, or even other members of the tobacco family such as those suggested by Dr. Knapp and others could well have been part of the secrets of embalming that Egyptian priests kept so closely guarded for over 3000 years of practice.

As well, in regards to the evidence of nicotine, the possibility of contamination from early pipe smoking archeologists can still not be ruled out completely. The authors of The Biomarkers Guide refer to tests conducted by exposing a nicotine free femur from the Bronze-age to environmental exposure to tobacco smoke for a period of six weeks, analyzing the bones before and after washing. “Surprisingly, the unwashed sample contained 11.6 ng nicotine per gram of bone, while the washed sample contained 35.5 ng/g… [The researchers] attributed this increase to tobacco smoke deposits being rinsed from the surface into the bone’s interior during the washing step, thus concentrating the nicotine” (Peters, et al., 2005).

It would be nice if one could end with just the open question of a nicotine containing plant, but as Dr. Svelta Balobanova, still holding her results as accurate lamented: “The cocaine of course remains an open question. It’s a mystery – it’s completely unclear how cocaine could get into Africa. On the other hand, we know there were trade relationships long before Columbus, and it’s conceivable that the coca plant had been imported into Egypt even then” (Balabanova, 1996). A situation even this broad minded student of ancient history would have a hard time accepting.

A much more likely suggestion for the evidence of cocaine was noted by the authors of The Biomarkers Guide, “Tropane alkaloids that are structurally related to cocaine are present in henbane, mandrake, and nightshade and may have been altered during the mummification process into a cocaine like compound” (Peters, et al., 2005). As Heather Pringle notes in The Mummy Congress:

…[I]n the absence of any other compelling explanation, it now seems likely that Balobanova’s findings were thrown off by conditions that few other hair testers have to contend with. When Egyptian embalmers smoothed handfuls of spices, oils and plant resins on the flesh of the dead, they anointed the body and its tresses with a complex chemical cocktail that mummy experts have yet to describe, much less fully understand. Conventional hair tests were never designed to deal with such concoctions, nor were they intended to deal with an immense, almost unfathomable span of time. Over centuries and millennia of entombment, compounds in these concoctions could have easily broken down, yielding substances that could easily pass for cocaine today. (Pringle, 2001)

But unfortunately confounding the situation even further and reasonably calling into question all previous results, research from Balabanova and Parsche, published elsewhere, identified these same three substances, THC, cocaine, and nicotine in pre-Columbian mummies which dated from about 115 A.D. to 1500 A.D. (Balabanova, Parsche, Pirsig, 1992: 1993). In this case, evidence of traditionally South American plants such as tobacco and coca was to be expected, but THC, indicating the traditionally Old World plant source of cannabis, opens up the whole can of worms, that the just discussed evidence of Coca and Tobacco in ancient Egypt did. Having researched the subject extensively, I can say there is nothing reliable in the way of archaeological or historical evidence I have seen that supports the position that cannabis was available in ancient Peru. Possibly these tests turned up evidence of endocannabinoids naturally produced in the human body and these were mistaken for plant cannabinoids due to the deteorization process.

With such controversial findings through supposedly state-of-the-art methods, it is hard not to share the view of Egyptologist John Baines, “it struck me that these days there must be a lot of drug convictions of people for possessing substances they had not in fact had.” Indeed, it would be surprising if some savvy lawyer did not at some point raise these very issues in a court of law.

Despite these mixed results, from the accounts of shemshemet recorded in the ancient papyri, we can be sure that the Egyptians used cannabis both medicinally and as a fibre. Accounts of Kyphi, Nepenthe and the Maat plant indicate that as with their ancient world neighbours, the Egyptians also likely used cannabis as a ritual intoxicant, along with other plants. Hopefully with continued archaeology and scientific investigations in the area the ultimate role of cannabis and other entheogens in ancient Egypt will one day be more fully uncovered from the desert sands.

CANNABIS CULTURE. In the 19th and early 20th century, hashish played a prominent role in the occult scene, and was used in initiatory rites by certain secret societies, such as the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.

The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor was an initiatory occult group that first became known to the public in late 1894, although according to an official document of the order it began its work in 1870. Prior to the rise of the more well known Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1888 the HBoL was the only order that taught practical occultism in the Western Mystery Tradition. Interestingly numbers of members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn can be tied to drugs, something that I may address in a future article. The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor’s teachings drew heavily from the magico-sexual theories of Paschal Beverly Randolph, who influenced groups such as the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) (later headed by Aleister Crowley)  although Randolph himself was never actually a part of the Order.

In their excellent book on this order, ‘The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, (Godwin, Chanel, Deveny, 1995), the authors refer to the mail order instructions for initiation of the H.B. of L. “An essential part of the initiation ceremony seems to have been the taking of a pill that was sent along with instructions. Probably this contained a concentrated dose of hashish and/or opium, to ensure a memorable experience and perhaps even a communication with the entities of the ‘Interior Circle’” (Godwin, 1994). The Interior Circle, being a group of hidden initiates that secretly guide mankind, deriving from the concepts of Karl von Eckartshausen (1752-1803), Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), (both of whom are known for their own occult use of drugs). The idea of such ‘Hidden Masters’ is a popular theme still with occultists, and the suggestion of use of hashish to contact these mysterious figures occurs more than a few times in the history of the occult, at times from critics who write off such encounters as ‘pipe dreams’.

 The co-authors offer a description from the Mason and so-called Alchemist of the Golden Dawn, of which he was also a member, Rev. William Alexander Ayton, regarding his initiation into the H.B.L.. In his initiation into the group, Ayton was required to drink “what purported to be the real soma juice drunk at a certain stage. …I hesitated very much to drink this drug…& I thought of omitting it. However, I opened the bottle & smelt of it. All my life, I have been used to drugs, & I at once recognised [sic]this. I knew its effects were most powerful, but I decided to take it. Whether it was hallucination produced by this drug I know not, but I was conscious of another presence… I was fully 3 hours at it from midnight. When over, I felt my pulse, & found just what I expected, that it was intermittent, which was what I knew to be the effect of the drug I thought it was.” The authors, who are some of the most knowledgeable historians of this period in occult history, note that “hashish… certainly played a role in the initiation of the H.B. of L. [and of]the Rev. Ayton…” (Godwin, Chanel & Deveny, 1995).

William Alexander Ayton (1816 – 909). a British Anglican clergyman with an interest in alchemy and the occult who was a known member of a number of secret societies.

There seems to have been an overall interest in the occult use of drugs shared by key members of the group. In “The Occult Magazine 1, no. 1 (February, 1885)… the editor… Peter Davidson” an important figure in the The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor “quotes Eckertshausen on the narcotic properties of substances which will exalt the nervous susceptibility, as well as assist in clarifying the veil of atmospheric density, inducing trance, etc., and increasing the power of representation, and consequently of the Astral Visions” (Deveney, 1997). H.B.L. was particularly known for their fascination with magic mirrors, which like other aspects, likely came through the influence of P.B.Randolph

Peter Davidson 1837 – 1915 was a Scottish musician and violin maker, homeopath, herbalist and publisher, who was associated with the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor

The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, drew heavily on the teachings of Paschal Beverly Randolph, (1815-1875) the mulatto mystic, and importer of hashish, who, as i have noted in earlier articles,  sold a variety of cannabis infused elixirs in the United States, advertising them, as well as writing articles about hashish for the popular American spiritualist magazine, Banner of Light and detailing it in his own works, such as the essay ‘Hashish, Its Uses, Abuses, and Dangers, Its Extasia, Fantasia and Illuminati’ (1867).

Liber

For more on the role of cannabis in the occult check out Liber 420: Cannabis, Magickal Herbs and the Occult.

CANNABIS CULTURE. References to cannabis appear in both alchemical and magical manuscripts tied to Jewish culture, and this use was likely an extension of the Hebrew’s much more ancient relationship with the plant. Excerpted from Liber 420.

Cannabis Magic in Ancient Israel?

The potential role of cannabis in the origins of the Jewish religion, is something I have proposed for close to 30 years, expanding on the work of the Polish Jewish etymologist and anthropologist Sula Benet’s work identifying the Hebrew ‘kaneh bosm’ with cannabis’. When understood in the context if the Biblical narrative, these references clearly indicate magical, or at least shamanic use of cannabis. The recent archeological evidence of cannabis resins found to have been burnt on an altar in 8th century BCE Jerusalem, take these references beyond the realm of pure speculation, and are rewriting our understanding of the techniques of religious worship in the ancient world.

In Exodus 30:23 Moses is commanded to make a holy oil that contained cannabis under the name kaneh bosm, and is advised to both anoint his body with it and burn it on the altar of incense. The resulting pillar of smoke that arose before Moses in the ‘Tent of the Meeting’, is referred to as the ‘Shekinah’ and is identified as the physical evidence of the Lord’s presence. None of the other Hebrews in the Exodus account either see or hear the Lord, they only know that Moses is talking to the Lord when the smoke is pouring forth from the Tent of the Meeting. It is hard not to see all the classical elements of shamanism at play in this description of Moses’ encounter with God, and like Zoroaster, Moses can be seen as a ecstatic shamanic figure who used cannabis as a a means of seeking celestial advice. Such techniques of invocation certainly occur in later magic.

Putting some dabs of holy oil on the altar of incense.

The Magician Moses scryed his messages from the Lord in an act of Biblical capnomancy, and this was a traditional use of cannabis in magical rituals that has been carried on in occult circles into modern times. As Ernest Bosc De Veze, who also wrote a Treatise on Hashish, noted in Petite Encyclopedie Synthetique des Sciences Occultes, in reference to “capnomancy… for divination… the smoke obtained from psychic plants such as verbena, hashish or Indian hemp… [are]used” (Bosc, 1904). In cases like this, not only was there the psychoactive effects of the smoke used, but the smoke provided the partially material  basis in which the invoked entity or vision might be viewed. “The magician… burned aromatic substances and anointed his/her body with perfumed ointments. The whole set-up for an epiphany was there: now all that was necessary was for the deity to appear” (Brashear, 1991).

The Magus Moses invoking the ‘spirit’ of the Lord into a pillar of smoke, infused with cannabis and other herbs.

As Prof. Georg Luck has noted: “The idea that Moses himself and the priests who succeeded him relied on ‘chemical aids’ in order to touch with the Lord must be disturbing or repugnant to many. It seems to degrade religion—any religion—when one associates it with shamanic practices…” (Luck, 1985/2006). Luck experienced these reactions himself, when his decades of research into magic rites in the ancient world, drew him to such a hypothesis. “As I was doing research on psychoactive substances used in magic and religion and magic in antiquity, I happened to come across chapter 30 in the Book of Exodus where Moses prescribes the composition of sacred incense and anointing oil. It occurred to me, judging from the ingredients, that… [these]substances might act as ‘entheogens,’ the incense more powerful than the oil. …” (Luck, 1985/2006)

…[T]he smoke itself was the epiphany. The smoke was inhaled by the magician and his client, and the vision came in trance. The smell of psychoactive substances… acts on the human brain in a very quick, very predictable way.

…[T]he inhalation of the sacred incense could create a powerful vision of the deity in the priest. Other factors were probably involved too, the smell of the holy oil with which the priest, the altar, and other sacred objects within the temple were anointed, the golden surface of the altar that reflected the shine of lamps…. The shiny surfaces, reflecting the sacral lamps nearby, could help induce trance in the priest as he was breathing smoke. (Luck, 1985/2006)

We see this same technique with cannabis resins, in the later 12th century  Picatrix, where cannabis resin are used to invoke the ‘servant of the moon’ in a pillar of smoke that was fuelled by a combination that included over a pound of cannabis resin mixed with stag’s blood and other ingredients.

Just as Moses received his answers in a billowing cloud of cannabis resin infused smoke, we can see from a reference in Isaiah, that when the cannabis was lacking, the scryed answers were more difficult to bring forth! the Lord complains he has been shortchanged his offering of cannabis. When the prophet seeks advice the Lord complains:“Thou hast bought me no sweet [smelling]cane (kaneh) with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.”

The effects of psychoactive incense was often interpreted as a divine possession or visitation, with the entity invoked often observed in the plumes of smoke from the psychoactive herbs being burnt.

Other textual evidence from Isaiah, gives clear indications that at times the Lord’s hunger for his favourite smoke was being appeased by the use of a shamanic incense inside the precincts of the temple, in elaborate shamanic ceremonies:

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the temple was filled with smoke.

Then said I, “Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar, And he laid it upon my mouth and said, “\”Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.” (Isaiah 6:4-7)

Isaiah takes a hit of temple ‘incense’ from the tongs for inspiration.

Besides these indications of topical and inhaled use of cannabis, others have suggested that the Important Biblical and Apocrypha figure Ezra, consumed a cannabis infused wine.  Ezra was a key figure of the Jewish monotheistic reformation after the Persians had returned them to their homeland. Interestingly, at least two researchers, living more than a century apart and from different parts of the world, have concluded that Ezra received his inspiration for this act, from the same source of inspiration as his Zoroastrian overlords did…..  a cannabis infused wine! Here is Ezra’s own account of this. Ezra told the people not to seek him for forty days, and he left for the desert, taking with him five people who were to act as his scribes:

“The next day, behold a voice cried to me saying. Esdras open thy mouth, and drink what I give you thee to drink! Then opened I my mouth, and behold, he reached me a full cup, which is full as it were with water, but the color of it was like fire. I took it, and drank: and when I had drunk of it, my heart uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for my spirit strengthened and my memory; and my mouth was opened and shut no more: and they sat forty days, and they wrote in the day, and at night they ate bread. As for me, I spake by the day, and I held not my tongue by the night. In forty days they wrote two hundred and four books” 2 Esdras 14:38 to 44.

As Georg W Brown recorded of this more than a century ago:

“A voice bid him open his mouth, he—the voice, of course—reached Esdras a full cup.  It would be interesting to know whose voice it was which possessed such unnatural powers; yet we apprehend the reader is much more anxious to know the contents of the cup… which possessed such wondrous ability, probably the same possessed by the ‘fruit of the tree’ which grew ‘in the midst of the garden,’ the eating of which opened the eyes of our first parents, and enabled them to see ‘as Gods knowing good and evil.’ We think we can furnish this desired information, to do which we are compelled to anticipate some facts existing among Zoroastrian worshippers; many centuries before the date religionists ascribe to Abraham, and which was practiced in Persia, Assyria and Babylonia at the very time Ezra was writing Jewish history under the influence of the ‘fiery cup.’

Among other duties required on occasional sacrifices of animals to Ahura-Mazda, additional to prayers, praises, thanksgiving, and the recitation of hymns, was the performance…of a curious ceremony known as that of the Haoma or Homa. This consisted of the extraction of the juice of the Homa plant by the priests during the recitation of prayers, the formal presentation of the liquid extracted to the sacrificial fire,… the consumption of a small portion of it by one of the officiating ministers, and the division of the remainder among the worshippers…

What was the Haoma or Homa, the production of the moon-plant, growing in those regions of  Asia to far north for the successful growing of the grape, and yet yielding such intoxicating properties? It is known in the medical books as Apocynum Cannabinum, and belongs to the Indian Hemp family, Cannabis Indica being an official preparation from it. It is now known in India as bhang, and is popularly known with us as hashish, the stimulating and intoxicating effects of which are well known to physicians.(Brown, 1890)

I have discussed the case for cannabis as haoma at length in another article. More than a century after Brown,  Vicente Dobroruka also noted a comparison between the Persian technique of shamanic ecstasy and that of Ezra in his essay Preparation for Visions in Second Temple Jewish Apocalyptic Literature,: “Similar drinks appear in Persian literature…Vishtapa has an experience quite equivalent in the Dinkard …  where mention is made to a mixture of wine (or haoma) and hemp with henbane… The Book of Artay Viraz also mentions visions obtained from wine mixed with hemp, and for the preparations of the seer…”(Dobroruka, 2002). I have discussed these Zoroastrian accounts elsewhere.

Dobroruka revisited this theme in more detail in his later 2006 article, Chemically-induced visions in the Fourth Book of Ezra in light of comparative Persian material, and again draws direct comparisons between Ezra’s cup of fire, and the mang mixed infused beverages of the Zoroastrian psychonauts.  Interestingly, Rabbi Immanuel Löw, referred to a later Jewish recipe (Sabb. 14. 3 ed. Urbach, 9th-11th century)  that called for wine to be mixed with ground up saffron, Arabic gum and hasisat surur, “I know ‘surur’ solely as a alias for the resin the Cannabis sativa” (Low, 1924).

Low made no comment on the word “hasisat” which is very reminiscent of the name for cannabis resins in the medieval Arabic world  “hasis” (hashish), and the term is generally thought to have been derived at in that period. However, the 19^th century scholar John Kitto also put forth two different potential Hebrew word candidates for the origins of the term “hashish” in A Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature. Kitto pointed to the Hebrew terms Shesh, which originates in reference to some sort of “fibre plant”, and the possibly related word,  Eshishah (E-shesh-ah?) which holds a wide variety of somewhat contradictory translations such as “flagon” “sweet cakes”, “syrup”, and also “unguent.” This last reference is interesting in relation to what we have already seen in regards to the cannabis infused Holy Oil, which was basically an unguent.  According to Kitto, this Eshishah was mixed with wine. “Hebrew eshishah… is by others called hashish…. this substance, in course of time, was converted into a medium of intoxication by means of drugs” (Kitto 1845:1856). With the cognate pronunciation similarities found between the Hebrew Shesh and Eshishah one can only speculate on the possibility of two ancient Hebrew references to one plant that held both fibrous and intoxicating properties. It seems likely that what is referred to is hashish resin, with the addition of the word “surur” indicating the possibility of hashish oil, (which the Arabs prepared by boiling the tops of the plant, and collecting the drops of oil that formed on top of the water). A very potent preparation. “The palm wine of the East… is made intoxicating… by an admixture of stupefying ingredients, of which there was an abundance… Such a practice seems to have existed amongst the ancient Jews…” (Kitto, 1861)

Talmudic reference indicate this use as well: “The one on his way to execution was given a piece of incense in a cup of wine, to help him fall asleep” (Sanh. 43a). Such preparations were used by the ancient Jews, for ritual intoxication, and for easing pain. A Reverend E. A Lawrence, in an essay on ‘The wine of the Bible’ in a 19th century edition of The Princeton Review noted that:

It appears to have been an ancient custom to give medicated or drugged wine to criminals condemned to death, to blunt their senses, and so lessen the pains of execution. To this custom there is supposed to be an allusion, Prov. xxxi. 6, ‘Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish,’ …To the same custom some suppose there is a reference in Amos 8, where the ‘ wine of the condemned’  is spoken of… The wicked here described, in addition to other evil practices, imposed unjust fines upon the innocent, and spent the money thus unjustly obtained upon wine, which they quaffed in the house of their gods…

Mixed wine is often spoken of in Scripture. This was of different kinds… sometimes, by lovers of strong drink, with spices of various kinds, to give it a richer flavor and greater potency (ls. v. 22; Ps. lxxv. 8). The ‘ royal wine,’ literally wine of the kingdom… Esther i. 7), denotes most probably the best wine, such as the king of Persia himself was accustomed to drink. (Lawrence, 1871)

Thus, this infused wine, not only had pain numbing qualities, but was also “quaffed in the house of their gods” giving clear indication it was sought after for entheogenic effects as well. That it is compared to the wines of the Kind of persia, also brings us back to the cannabis infused wines of the Zoroastrian period, such as that taken by King Vishtaspa. In reference to “unguents” such as the Holy oil, placing “incense” into wine, we are reminded of the cannabis infused incenses and anointing oils referred to earlier, indicating these substances may have come to have been placed directly into wine.  In  regards to  myrrhed wine, it is worth noting that Dr. David Hillman, who holds combined degrees in Classics and Bacteriology, has suggested that ancient myrrh was often doctored with cannabis resins “The [ancient]Arabs… will take the rub, basically the hashish… they adulterate it with myrrh, so you end up with these combinations of plants that actually end up together… myrrh and cannabis, you see them associated… often” (Hillman, 2015).

In The A to Z of Prophets in Islam and Judaism, Scott B. Noegel, Brannon M. Wheeler “The use of drugs, especially alcohol… as a means of inducing or enhancing the prophetic experience is attested periodically throughout the ancient Near East, and is probably related to the mantic’s role as an herbalist and medical practitioner” (Noegel & Wheeler, 2010). 

Evidence for opium use has been found throughout the ancient Near East, especially on Cyprus, thought its connection to Cypriot cults has been questioned. The practice of inhaling intoxicating substances like cannabis and incense also appear… Texts from Mari demonstrate that at least some prophets partook in excessive wine drinking as a means of accessing the divine. Ugartic tablets also detail the events of the marzeah feast, a repast in which… dead kings were summoned to wine and dine with the living… (Noegel & Wheeler, 2010)

Like Amos’ condemnation of those who quaffed such mixtures in the House of the gods, Isaiah condemned those who seek oracles from the dead  through inebriation (Isaiah 28:7-22).

And these also stagger from wine
and reel from beer:
Priests and prophets stagger from beer
and are befuddled with wine;
they reel from beer,
they stagger when seeing visions,
they stumble when rendering decisions.

All the tables are covered with vomit
and there is not a spot without filth.

You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death,
with the realm of the dead we have made an agreement.
When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by,
it cannot touch us,
for we have made a lie our refuge
and falsehood[b]our hiding place.”

These references show, even though in a negative light, that such cultic practices were both known and taking place in the region. Indeed, the use of infused wines for ecstatic purposes seems to have been so prevalent that at times there was an overlap between the worship of Yahweh and the Greek God of Intoxication, Dionysus, as i have noted elsewhere.

Cannabis in later Jewish Magic

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan has noted of early Kabbalistic schools who used magic and other means of communion for mystic exploration, that “some practices include the use of ‘grasses,’ which were possibly psychedelic drugs” (Kaplan, 1982). Kaplan’s The Living Torah includes cannabis as a possible candidate for the Hebrew kaneh bosem, “due to cognate pronunciation” (Kaplan, 1981). The Kabbalistic text the Zohar records:

“There is no grass or herb that grows in which G-d’s wisdom is not greatly manifested and which cannot exert great influence in heaven” and “If men but knew the wisdom of all the Holy One, blessed be He, has planted in the earth, and the power of all that is to be found in the world, they would proclaim the power of their L-rd in His great wisdom.” (Zohar.2,80B)

Prof. Benny Shannon, who has speculated about ancient jewish use of psychoactive substances, felt somewhat vindicated when he was directed by the works of the medieval Kabbalist and scholar Rabbi Jacob Ben Asher (Rabbeinu Be’cha’yei ben Asher),(1255–1340). “Rabbeinu Be’cha’yei writes that the purest of foods were created at the very beginning of Creation in order to allow for the attainment of higher knowledge. He explicitly relates this to the biblical tree of knowledge, and comments further that such higher knowledge can also be gained through the use of drugs and medicines available at his time. In addition he notes that the Manna had such qualities as well” (Shannon, 2008). Clearly cannabis and its various preparations, along with opium and other psychoactives, were well known for its mystical properties at Ben Asher’s time.

In his De Occulta Philosophia (1651) Agrippa refers to how “Rabbi Israel made certain cakes, writ upon with certain divine and angelicall names, and so consecrated, which they that did eat with faith, hope, and charitie [charity], did presently break forth with a spirit of prophecie [prophecy]. We read in the same place that Rabbi Johena the son of Jochahad, did after that manner enlighten a certain rude countryman, called Eleazar, being altogether illiterate, that being compassed about with a sudden brightness, did unexpectedly preach such high mysteries of the Law to an assembly of wise men, that he did even astonish all that were neer him” (Agrippa, 1651). A description that indicates more than sigils on cakes in use, although the ingredients of said cakes are not included.

Like the Zoroastrian royalty and priesthood, as well as the Levites, there are indications that early Kabbalists enjoyed the use of the herb, but prevented its consumption by the common people. In the P’sachim, “Rav Yehudah says it is good to eat… the essence of hemp seed in Babylonian broth; but it is not lawful to mention this in the presence of an illiterate man, because he might derive a benefit from the knowledge not meant for him.- Nedarim, fol. 49, col. 1” (Harris, et al., 2004). Other sources have noted a Kabbalistic comparison to the effects of cannabis with divine perception, noting an “intriguing reference to cannabis in the context of a fleeting knowledge of God: Zohar Hadash, Bereshit, 16a (Midrash ha-Ne’elam)” (Matt, 1983).

This brings us into the era of Merkavah Mysticism, (100-1000 AD), which is centred on the sort of visionary experience of Ezekiel, who as we saw earlier, came to his experience through eating a “scroll”. Modern magician Aaron Leitch believes Merkavah Mysticism held a strong influence over the later western magical tradition. “The Merkavah’s use of ritual drugs, its focus upon talismans and seals, the summoning forth of Angelic gatekeepers, and the gaining of mystical visions are elements that run throughout the grimoiric spells” (Leitch, 2005).

That cannabis might have played a role in such forms of Jewish mysticism, is indicated by references to it well into the late medieval period. in  Another interesting reference can be found with Rabbi Berel Wein, who has written and lectured extensively on Jewish history, has connected the use of hashish with the Kabbalistic inspired Jewish messianic movement of the 17th century. Wein refers to the Morrocan Jew, Joseph ben Zur, who was popularly identified with the prophesied messianic figure Messiah ben Joseph, a claim that was propped up by Rabbi Elisha Ashkenazi and thousands of Jews in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia believed this and followed Joseph ben Zur as a result.  According to Wein:

Joseph ben Zur was probably mentally unstable. At the very least, though, he was guilty of a very prevalent habit in the Middle East: smoking hashish. Now, smoking hashish in the 17th century was not seen in the same negative light as the modern world views it. Nevertheless, Joseph ben Zur was both slightly touched and usually high, which together is a lethal combination. He claimed he saw a vision when an angel came to him and said that he was the Messiah ben Joseph… (Wein, 2013).

This scenario of scrying under the influence of cannabis, fits with both the suggestion of cannabis in the Kabbalistic writing referred too, as well as the confirmed use of cannabis for scrying in the Kabbalistic inspired  Sepher Raziel, Liber Salomonis, which was composed in this same time period.

In regards to Solomonic magic, and the role of the Kabbalah, there may have been some survival of the ancient cannabis use among later Jewish Kabbalists and Alchemists. The Kabbalah is a system of mysticism considered by many to be the secret teachings of the Jews, and which holds a number of parallels with the Jewish and Christian Gnostic sects of the 1st-4th century AD, as well as with the sort of astral magic contained in the Ghayat AlHakim and the Picatrix, which also survives in Hebrew translations, some taken directly from the original Arabic.

The Kabbablistic ‘tree of life’

In reference to what we have stated about ancient and medieval use of topical preparations of cannabis and other drugs for magical and religious purposes, one of the most interesting references occurs in the 16th century Grimoire, Sepher Raziel: Liber Salomonis, where it is used for seeing spirits and devils in a magic mirror. Often “referred to as  “Sepher Raziel”, and also known as “Liber Salomonis”, this grimoire has 7 known surviving versions in manuscript form. It should be noted that Sepher Raziel: Liber Salomonis, is also referred to under its library catalog names, Sloane MS 3846, and Sloane MS 3826 were particularly looked at for this study, and these catalog names are used to distinguish it from a variety of similarly named grimoires. Sepher Raziel: Liber Salomonis was transcribed in 1564, by a  William Parry of London at the bequest of one  John Gwyne. It is seen as a “Christian product, though one which borrowed from Jewish, Arabic, and Græco-Roman scholastic and folk sources” (Karr, 2007).

Solomon has often been associated with magic, and this is particularly true of medieval European magical traditions where grimoires like, Clavicula Salomonis, ‘The Key of Solomon’ (14th-15th century) and the 17th-century Clavicula Salomonis Regis, ‘The Lesser Key of Solomon’ both of which represents a typical example of Renaissance magic.

However, Solomon’s reputation for magic, goes back much further than this.  The Testament of Solomon, thought to date from sometime between the first and third century AD, is one of the oldest magical texts concerning the ancient Jewish king. This text is pseudepigraphic catalog of demons summoned by  King Solomon, and how they can be countered by invoking angels and other magical techniques.  The Testament of Solomon refers to a story where the magician-king forces a demon to spin hemp!  “So I commanded her to spin the hemp for the ropes used in the building of the house of God; and accordingly, when I had sealed and bound her, she was so overcome and brought to naught as to stand night and day spinning the hemp” (The Testament of Solomon, 100-300 AD). In this regard, it should be noted that it was claimed by the etymologist Sula Benet that Solomon’s Song of Songs’4.14 made reference to cannabis along with other ‘incense trees’.

Sepher Raziel: Liber Salomonis was written in the Solomonic tradition, which also brought us the still popular The Keys of Solomon, and both texts, which come from the same period, have been attributed to the ancient Hebrew King, in an attempt to give them more authority. Even in the ancient world, Solomon was highly regarded for his knowledge of magic. In his excellent overview of the subject, Secrets of the Magical Grimoires (2005) Aaron Leitch identifies a number of potent fumigations, and recipes that contained a variety of psychoactive plants. He noted are passages from The Key of Solomon that give instructions for a “Magic Carpet” that is “proper for interrogation.” As The Key of Solomon (14th-15th century) describes: “Taking thy carpet, thou shalt cover they head and body therewith” and then hovering over a bowl of burning incense. Through this method “thou shalt hear distinctly the answer which though shalt have sought.” Although the ingredients for the incense fumigated in The Key of Solomon are not clear, the recipes of the Sepher Raziel: Liber Salomonis are more clear.

Images from Jewish Magical texts.

As the Sepher Raziel: Liber Salomonis records “I Salomon put such a knowledge & such a distinction, & explanation in this booke to evry man that readeth or studieth it, that he know whereof he was and from whence he came” (Sepher Raziel, 1564)

“Most sixteenth-century manuscripts of magic remain unedited and unpublished, perhaps because the majority of them… are dominated by liturgical conjuration. This is a style of magic that has attracted less academic attention than Solomonic magic and Renaissance theurgy, perhaps because it is perceived as a hangover of the medieval period. However, liturgical demon conjuring is every bit as typical of early modern magic. Copiers of Solomonic magical texts like the Sepher Raziel sought to return to purified form of conjuration drawn from Kabbalistic Jewish traditions supposedly passed down from Solomon himself, at a time when Renaissance humanists were interested in recovering the Kabbalistic tradition” (Foreman, 2015).

As the occult writer A. E Waite explained of Sepher Raziel, Liber Salomonis: “It is an English translation of a Latin original… and purports to have been sent to Solomon by a prince of Babylon, who was greater and more worshipful than all men of his time… The Latin title of the the treatise is said to be Angelus Magnus Secreti Creatoris; it was the first book after Adam, was written in the language of Chaldea and afterwards translated into Hebrew” (Waite, 1911). (There are no known surviving copies of the Latin original refried too.) Stephen Skinner, in a recent published translation of Sepher Raziel: Liber Salomonis suggests the roots “were probably a Hebrew original, filtered though a Latin intermediary, to the present Middle English version” (Karr & Skinner, 2013).

Julia Cresswell, who has written extensively on British myth and magic, suggest “that although the manuscript may be sixteenth century, some of the language is rather old-fashioned for that date, except perhaps for an old person writing in the early sixteenth century. I would guess that the text is a reworking if an earlier one, pushing the origin of the material back into the Middle Ages” (Cresswell, 2006). Occult writer Damon Lycourinos, agrees with this, suggesting Sepher Raziel, Liber Salomonis is “derived from thirteenth century Latin sources” (Lycourinos, 2012).

The text itself tells us, that prior to this, it had been passed down through the hands of figures like Adam and Solomon, and it reveals the ultimate author as the Angel Raziel. A number of other medieval magical texts, claim this authorship as well, and this seems to have been away as describing  a document that was in part scryed or channelled. “The most explicit transmission of Jewish magical material into the Christian Latin tradition of magic was the translation of works associated with the name ―Raziel an angel present in Jewish angelology and Arabic astrological texts who was said to have revealed a book of secrets to Adam” (Page, 2012). The name Raziel itself means ‘secrets of God’ , and  this is a fitting title for the Promethium transmitter of secrets that the figure represents in the magical tradition.

The Judeo-Christian mystic origins are obvious, as Sepher Raziel, Liber Salomonis, is clearly reminiscent of the planetary accession based magic of Gnosticism, Merkavah and the Kabbalah. “The text is divided into seven sections, covering different topics including the use of astrology, incense, timings, purity, and the seven heavens and their angels. As can be seen from the sevenfold emphasis, this is another essentially planetary grimoire” (Lycourinos, 2012).

The area of interest in relation to this study, lays in the second book, which details the virtues of stones, herbs and beasts. Plants play an important role in the magic of Sepher Raziel, Liber Salomonis. For as the grimoire explains, it was by Adam and Eve’s sin of eating the forbidden fruit that they were expelled from Eden and the company of God. The Angel Raziel, feeling empathy for lost humanity, in a sense played the role of Prometheus, and shares the secret knowledge of plants so that the descendants of the first couple, might be restored to their former place of Glory. As the Grimoire records of this:

“Know thou that in herbs is vertue of the most that may be… Know thou that among herbs there be some with which thou may do good & euill. As to heale & make sicke. And so understand thou in these that shall be said furthermore. And Adam said by a tree came wretchednes into the world that is by the tree I sinned in it. And Raziel said, An herbe shall be thy life. And Salomon said, A tree shall be & shall wexe of which the leaues shall not fall. And it shall be medicyne of men.” (Sepher Raziel, 1564)

Apparently cannabis was held in high regard in the search for knowledge. In the Sepher Raziel, cannabis is combined with artemisia, also known as wormwood, an ingredient in the famous 19th century liqueur of the poets. Wormwood contains thujone, a psychoactive chemical, that attaches itself to the same receptor sites. in the brain that THC, the active chemical of cannabis, does. As the Sepher Raziel instructs of the use of these combined plants for magical invocation:

The third herbe is Canabus [cannabis]& it is long in shafte & clothes be made of it. The vertue of the Juse [juice]of it is to anoynt thee with it & with the juse of arthemesy & ordyne thee before a mirrour of stele [steel]& clepe thou spiritts & thou shallt see them & thou shalt haue might of binding & of loosing deuills [devils]& other things.” (Sepher Raziel, 1564).

There are two act of magic taking being combined here, katapharmakeuo  which means “to dose (or anoint) with drugs” and katoptromanteria, “divination by means of mirrors”. *

*definition from  Vocabula Magica, (Luck, 2006).

In regards to katoptromanteria, also referred to as captromany it has long been known that trance states “could be induced by gazing at polished or shiny surfaces illuminated by lamps, through a kind of self-hypnosis” (Luck, 2006). “Mirrors… [have]long been part of shamanic paraphernalia. As a receptacle of for souls, the mirror often served as a means for entering the trance state” (Flaherty, 1992). This of course is the magic “mirror, mirror on the wall” that survives in fairy tales. “All ancient civilizations had such things (crystals, pools of water or ink, silver or glass mirrors) and the magical literature abounds in directions for their manufacture and use” (Deveney, 1997).

One may get some idea of the influence of the Sepher Raziel‘s method of drug induced mirror scrying on magic, by looking at the contemporary accounts of Dr John Dee and Edward Kelly. When we consider the role of the cannabis anointing oil at the time of Moses to invoke the ‘spirit of the Lord’ to the recipe for a cannabis ointment to scry visions of spirits in the mirror, one can only wonder if this was some sort of continuous tradition among the more esoterically minded Jews.

Solomon’s “legend figures into late traditions of Freemasons. Rumours which suggest the wise king left secret books of magic seem never to have died — nor have slumbered —since ancient times” (Karr, 2013). And indeed, as I have noted a number of well known Freemasons were in possession of Sepher Raziel, Liber Salomonis.

Another important figure in the rituals of Freemasonry, is a character named Hiram Abiff, said to be the  architect and builder of Solomon’s Temple. Also known as the Widow’s son, Hiram Abiff is the central character of an allegory presented to all candidates during the third degree in Freemasonry. In the mythology of the story Abiff is murdered by three ruffians, who want him to reveal the secret signs and passwords of the higher degrees of masonry, which were used in receiving payment for work on the temple. Some of the central initiations of Masonry, are death and rebirth ceremonies based on this particular story.

Interestingly, the first public retelling of this mythos, had the tale tied up with the occult use of hashish, as well as the first Western reference to its use in the Bible. The French poet, Gérard De Nerval (1808 – 1855) included what has been suggested as the first published account of the Masonic story of Hiram Abiff.  As the authors of The Temple and the Lodge noted of this:

Nerval not only recited the basic narrative.  He also divulged — for the first time, to our knowledge — a skein of eerie mystical traditions associated in Freemasonry with Hiram’s background and pedigree. What is particularly curious is that Nerval makes no mention of Freemasonry whatsoever. Pretending that his narrative is a species of regional folk-tale, never known in the West before, he claims to have heard it orally recited by a Persian raconteur, in a Constantinople coffee-house. (Baigent &  Leigh, 1988).

In the story there is an account of an asylum being paid a visit by the great Arab alchemist Ebn-Sina (Avicenna), and he is overheard saying “The word hachichot appears in the Song of Songs, and the inebriating properties of this mixture….” (Nerval, 1851/1972). The narration  breaks on that point, but it is worth noting that Nerval’s account is the first known written reference which refers openly to cannabis in the Bible that I am aware of, and interestingly it also ties it with a noted alchemist.

Cannabis in Jewish Alchemy

The use of cannabis infused wines goes back to ancient times in the Mid East. References from the 3-4th century alchemist, Zosimos to cannabis infused wines, who was heavily influenced by Jewish sources in his writing on alchemy,  as well as the saffron and cannabis resin combination used in wine referred to by Rabbi Immanuel Low in the 9th century [(Sabb. 14. 3 ed. Urbach; Low, 1924)] indicate Jewish use in this context. This use continued into the medieval period and such  infusions of cannabis and other substances were used in Quintessences and other forms by Jewish alchemists and mystics.

A page from a treatise on alchemy written by Zosimus of Panapolitus. Zosimus was a notable fourth century apologist for alchemy. He believed that knowledge of the art originated in an event described in Genesis when angels came into the world and taught women to use gems and metals in decorative arts. Alchemy involved the use of a life-giving substance called Philosopher’s Stone to transmute base metals into silver and gold. It also encompassed a system of philosophy including ideas from various religions, magic, and chemistry, and it flourished in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Zosimos and Theosebia, his sister who was also an alchemist.

In regards to alchemy, there may have been some cross pollination between medieval Jews and Arabs. The 11th-century Byzantine Jewish Doctor, Simeon Sethus wrote “the dried leaf, when drunk, as meal, or rath- er [as dried meal for a drink]produces a hospitable drunkenness and lack of sensation by the eater. For it is crushed or kneaded among the Arabs for wine, and it inebriates.” As Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, has noted, a number of medieval Kabbalists, refer to a technique of philosophical meditation, that included drinking a cup of “strong wine of Avicenna”, that induced a trance in order to aid the adept in pondering difficult philosophical questions (Kaplan, 1985). Unfortunately no recipe for this remains, but the medieval Islamic alchemist and physician, Avicenna,  refers in his works to the effects of hashish, opium and datura extracts, and he was familiar with the infusion of these drugs into wine. Moreover, it has long been suggested that cannabis infused wines were used by the Ismai’li with whom Avicenna has long been associated. Simeon Sethus, an 11th century Byzantine Jewish doctor wrote of  “cannabis as follows: Arabs will squeeze [the oils?]into wine to intoxicate’” (Gruner, 1814). Charles Dickens annual 19th weekly journal, ‘All the Year Round’, noted such combinations, in use well into the 19th century by Jews and Moslems alike. “Pure wine, however, is not for the topers of Ispahan and Teheran, the Jewish and Armenian dealers ministering to that fondness for narcotics which tend so greatly to enervate the East, by mixing myrrh, incense, and the juice of the Indian hemp with the finest growths.” (Dickens, 1862)

In this regard, some references to alchemical recipes that call for cannabis and other psychoactive plants to be infused into wine or other more potent alcoholic preparations, come to mind. In an earlier article I discussed references from the 4th century alchemist Zosimos, to cannabis and darnel infused in wines or beers for magical purposes, and Zosimos himself was said to have gathered much of his own knowledge from a female Alchemist known as ‘Mary the Jewess’ (Mary Hebraea). “The first nonfictious alchemists of the Western world, lived… in Hellensitic Egypt. And the earliest among them was Maria… the Jewess, for whom are chief source was Zosimos…” (Patai, 1994).

Mary the Jewess is credited with the invention of several kinds of chemical apparatus and is considered to be the first true alchemist of the Western world. Her works are often referred to by later alchemists. Carl jung, who studied both alchemy and Gnosticism, believed her work “may go back to very early times and thus to Gnostic societies” (Jung, 1970). Plants seem to have been involved in her alchemical processes as well. “Maria the Jewess was said to have identified the philosophers’s stone with a mysterious ‘white herb of the mountain’” (Patai, 1994).

Engraving depicting Maria Prophetissima from Michael Maier’s book Symbola Aurea Mensae Duodecim Nationum (1617). “She knew the hidden mysteries of the great stone. Sage that she is she taught us with her words, Smoke loves smoke, and is loved by it in return: But the white herb growing upon the high mountain captures both” (Maier, 1617).

In Better Living Through Alchemy Vol. I: Origins of Alchemy, Lynn Osburn, who has been researching alchemical texts for decades, and who has written about quintessences, suggests that Mary the Jewess may have also made a veiled reference to cannabis, (Osburn seems to have been unaware of the direct references to cannabis is the surviving writings attributed to Zosimos):

Unfortunately the alchemical writings of Maria Prophetissa are incomplete, surviving only in fragments  copied by later writers. In one treatise ascribed to her, ―Practica Mariae Prophetissae in artem alchemicam,… she discusses matrimonium alchymicum (alchemical wedding) with the philosopher  Aros. From it comes the oft repeated alchemical dictum “Marry gum with gum in true marriage.” …, C. G. Jung, wrote concerning the nature of that alchemical gum, “Originally it was ‘gum arabic’, and it is used here as a secret name for the transforming substance, on account of its adhesive quality.Thus Kunrath declares that the ‘red’ gum is the ‘resin of the wise’—a synonym for the transforming substance.” Had Jung been an initiate of  alchemy he would have known that gum arabic was itself a pseudonym for the  true transforming substance—the red resin of the wise—a gum gathered from the resinous flower clusters of female Cannabis sativa plants.That highly fragrant reddish resin has been produced in India since time immemorial and carried to the west by Arab traders. (Osburn, 2008)

Zosimos testified that the “true teachings about the Great Art” were to be found… in “the writings and books of the Jews” (Encylopedia Judaica, 2008). “Azulai speaks of the philosopher’s stone in his Midbar Kedemot (Lemberg, 1869, fol. 19), and calls it esev (‘weed’) as it was also called by the alchemists (and as it is called in other kabbalistic writings as well as in Hebrew manuscripts dealing with alchemy)” (Encylopedia Judaica, 2008). The Hebrew term ‘esev’ “weed”, has in modern times been used to designate cannabis and its products (Ben Israel, 2011), however it is not clear how far back this association can be dated. Although,  as ‘hashish’, meaning ‘herb’ goes back to the early islamic period, that such an association may have been used in medieval times with ‘esev’ deserves at least some consideration.

As a result of this Jewish influence, numbers of Old Testament figures, such as Moses, Isaiah, Ezra, and most notably Isaiah, were deemed medieval practitioneers of alchemy, by later medieval and renaissance alchemists. “Several of the biblical prophets were considered adepts in alchemy. The prophet Elijah was often referred to by Christian alchemists, several of whose work carry the name Elijah in their title. In some of these treatises Jewish influence is evident…” (Patai, 1994)*.

Elijah, in this respect, is an interesting choice, for in the Islamic world Elijah, has been identified with the Green one, Khidr, seen as the patron saint of cannabis. And in that respect, it is important to note of the Jewish and Gnostic influences, all of this came to European alchemists after it had been filtered by Islamic ones.

The techniques of preparation of disease fighting, life preserving elixirs was the core of alchemy for many medieval and renaissance alchemists, and this again was an adaption from middle eastern influences that came into Europe following the Crusades. In references to figures such as “Lully, Paracelsus, Jerome Cardan, etc” Albert G. Mackey in his Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, wrote that these  figures were not “occultists…They had been physicians and chemists; the ‘alchemy’ they studied was chemistry, and they studied it for medical uses… (along with botany, etc.)” (Mackey, 1873). Interestingly, as discussed in Liber 420, all 3 of the figures mentioned by name have associations with cannabis elixirs, Cardano and Paracelsus both left recipes for cannabis preparations, and cannabis appears in a number of Llullian texts.

These attempts to assuage human physical suffering were manifested  in the utilization of the sacred narcotic herbs; the extraction of the sedative qualities of mandragora and Indian hemp; the concoctions of the alchemist; the magical powers of alleviating pain by a resignation transcending even the powers of potentates or priests. (Gies, 1948)

These preparations came under various names such as arcanums, tinctures, and quintessences (fifth essence), and all were equated with having the same sort of life preserving effects and qualities as the Philosopher’s stone by their adherents. From the very beginning “quintessence became linked to the Arab elixir—a substance that could prolong life” (Ball, 2006)

The elixir holds a similar position in the alchemical tradition to the philosopher’s stone; indeed, the two are sometimes interchangeable. Zoismos… wrote a… encyclopedia of alchemy,  the Cheirokmeta, in which he mentioned a potent alchemical preparation called the Xerion, a word derived from the Greek for “dry.” It seems to allude to a dry powder, but in its Arabic form of al-iksir it became later identified as a miraculous potion. (Ball, 2006)

It is in the branch of alchemy known as Spagyrics from Ancient Greek σπάω spao “I collect” and ἀγείρω ageiro “I extract”, a name thought to have been coined by the European alchemist Paracelsus. And refers to extraction processes involving fermentation, distillation, tincturing, as well as  extraction of essential oils with vapours and extraction of mineral elements from the ash of plants through calcination.

Tincturing, was one of the major arts of alchemy, since the time of Zosimos, and this included tinctures of plants, animals, stones and metals. One of Zosimos’ own surviving works, the Final Quittance, is devoted to this art. and he discusses the “differences between ‘opportune tinctures’, which are astrologic and daimonic in origin, and ‘natural tinctures’, which are grounded in a more empirical methodology and technique” (Fraser, 2004). Comments which reveal the combination of magic and science at work in alchemy.

It was in his excellent essay and accompanying translation,  An Unknown Hebrew Medical Alchemist: A Medeival Treatise on the Qunita Essentia (1984) that the respected scholar of Jewish history, Raphael Patai first discussed a number of alchemical texts devoted to the Quintessence, and particularly identifies preparations containing cannabis, opium and other psychoactive plants. Patai returned to this topic in his pivotal work The Jewish Alchemists (Patai, 1994). He noted that “among the many Latin writings published by Ramon Lull there are several that deal with the fabulous quinta essentia. the purest of essences, which was supposed to rejuvenate the old and cure all kinds of diseases including mental aberrations” (Patai, 1994).

Of such texts, Patai’s work was directed at a Hebrew alchemical text devoted to the Quintessence, attributed to an anonymous author who claimed it was a copy of a  text written by “a great sage whose name is Raimon”, a name believed to have been used in hopes of of associating it with the works of Ramon Llull. This centuries old text, written in Hebrew, appeared in a medieval manuscript alongside selections from the works of Avicenna.  It was likely a copy of an even earlier lost Latin manuscript that did not survive, and may have been destroyed in the Church’s 14th century purge of such documents.

The 14th-15th century Hebrew manuscript opens with the words “And now I shall copy for you a great secret of the fifth essence, which is called in their language [Spanish] qinta esensia…. It was written by a great sage whose name Raimon…” Raphael Patai notes that as “for the identity of the author, all that can be said was that he was a Jewish physician whom lived in Spain in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and knew, in addition to Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Sanskrit” (Patai, 1984). Like the English The Book of Quintessence, with which it holds some strong comparisons, the author “influenced by the alchemical teachings of his time in which the quinta essentia occupied a prominent place. He repeats again and again that the admixture of the quinta essentia will increase the effectiveness of drugs” (Patai, 1984).  As the Hebrew text records:

…if you want to prepare a potion for a disease… place those drugs which are appropriate for that potion into our Fifth Essence, and it will become like the potion, and it will be more effective, one part of it to a hundred. And likewise… the fragrant drugs, and thus all things of this kind, and thus all the cordial drugs must be pounded to utter thinness, until one cannot feel it by palpitation…

The author of the 14th century Hebrew text, goes onto give a variety of medicinal plants to be infused into the Fifth Essence and prescribes them for various ailments and conditions. Preparations of poppy, belladonna were also noted, via an infusion of ‘popillion ointment’, prepared opium, wolfsbane, henbane, monkshood, mandrake, and a variety of plants under foreign names which are not always clearly identifiable,  as well as a preparation of  “Pills… from India” so it is clear exotic imported ingredients were also in use. As the author of the tractate author states of such plants and preparations “apply these things to our heaven [quintessence]”. Patai notes of this in The Jewish Alchemists, where he also discusses this Hebrew alchemical text, “It should be noted that his instructions throughout the lists of his medicaments is to add them to ‘our heaven, that is, the fifth essence, whereby the original medicinal property and effectiveness of the substances in question will be maximized” (Patai, 1994/2014).  It is clear, that the term ‘heaven’ was used in reference to this ethanol like preparation, the quintessence, that could absorb the ‘essence’ or ‘soul’ of the plant, and leave the material body behind, as with the concept of  the human soul leaving the mortal body and ascending to Heaven.

Like Lull, he considers that the quinta essentia can cure almost anything, from melancholy, to pestilential fever, and from poisoning to demoniac possession… it can rejuvenate old men, renew the spirit of life, and endow women with beauty. Yet despite these clearly alchemical features, one gains the impression that the author relies more on the curative powers of the drugs themselves than on the quinta essentia added to them. Nowhere does he recommend the application of the quinta essentia by itself; he always suggests its use as an agent intensifying or augmenting the curative powers of drugs. (Patai, 1984)

I think Patai has it incorrect of his understanding of what has taken place. The quinta essentia was not “added” to the plants, the alchemical view was that the essence of the plant itself was extracted into the elixir, and the potion became the Quintessence of the plant or plants used. The anonymous author of the Hebrew treatise also refers to a mixture used both internally and topically that includes “chaff of hemp” for the treatment of “dropsy” and “Persian fire” which is thought to have been a form of venereal disease, and a variety of other ailments. Noting that the mixture is “also utterly effective against the illness of cancer if it is imbibed with sabar [aloe]” (Patai, 1994/2014). According to the anonymous Hebrew author of this 14th century tractate on the quintessence: “This medicine was invented by a great sage, and many old diseases came upon him, and he saw this in a dream, and made it, and was cured, and he put it in writing so as to help many people . And it helps internal [diseases]by drinking and external [diseases]by way of a plaster chaff of qanavos (hemp). And we have tried this medicine many times, and all those who take the above mentioned mixture will be saved form leprosy and perselia [palsy?], and from bad diseases which have no [other]cure.” Miraculous cures reminiscent of the tales of the Holy Grail.

For a fuller understanding of the Hebrew influence on alchemy, read Patai’s The Jewish Alchemists.

In this respect, it should be remembered that even things like curing maladies, was considered miraculous, and the maladies themselves, as in ancient times, were often considered demonic in nature. As Raymond de Tarrega, recorded in De secrets naturae sive quinta essentia:

…The demons are attached to human bodies because of bad dispositions and corrupt humour, or because of melancholic infection which generates evil, black, and horrible images in fantasy, and disturbs the intellect, for the demons habitually take on such forms, and generally dwell in obscure and solitary places. When by virtue of the fifth essence [quintessence] and other things this humor, which is the reason they enter such a body, is expelled from it, then at the same time also the demons vanish at once altogether with the humor.

…And because of this there exists a revelation of how the sensate medicines have the effect of expelling demons from any body. Use, therefore that aforementioned medicine, and you will cure any demoniac…

This act of herbal healing is compared by de Tarrega to “Solomon’s act of necromancy, with which demons were forced to perform good works; or with evil virtue of words, stones, and plants. It is therefore clear how the demons are subject to the action of senate things.”  Thus, to cure someone of disease, was equal to, control over demons, and even an exorcism, and herein may have laid the issues the Church had with the alchemists who were preparing the quintessence and writing about its various manifestations from different plant preparations. Indeed, the threat of persecution by the Church, was the force behind the need to keep their inner lives secretive was a reality shared by  Jews, Alchemists and Magicians alike, so little wonder these avenues at times crossed paths.