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The origins of cannabis smoking: evidence from the first millennium BCE (2019)
- dr_dshiv 5y agoMaybe even more striking: a 2020 article describing THC /Cannabis residue on a Jewish temple altar that dates to the same time period as the above 2019 article. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03344355.2020.1732046 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03344355.2020.1... This strengthens the argument for Cannabis use by Abrahamic priests. This has been asserted on the basis of textual evidence in the Old Testament (namely the qaneh bosem in the holy anointing oil and the smoke-filled tabernacle). On the basis of the text alone, it might seem far-fetched. But now we’ve got a smoking gun, so to speak. More scholarly discussion here: https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/studies-words/facts-about-kaneh-bosem.htm https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/studies-words/facts-about-kan...
- binarymax 5y agoBrings new insight into the burning bush at Mt Sinai
- pythonlion 5y agolook like cannabis and other drugs were common in our past [0] [1] but what culture are they talking about in the article? were they Scythians? https://www.science.org/content/article/did-ancient-mesopotamians-get-high-near-eastern-rituals-may-have-included-opium https://www.science.org/content/article/did-ancient-mesopota... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogenic_use_of_cannabis#Middle_East https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogenic_use_of_cannabis#Mi...
- cmrdporcupine 5y agoArticle says "Jirzankal cemetery" -- on the banks of the Tashkurgan river in what's now Xinjiang province. I don't think that would be a Scythian area, that's more Pontic steppe, west and north from there. This is on the other side of the mountains. But could be Tocharian, which were Indo-European speakers, an extinct lost branch of the language family that split off very early and lived in this region. (Read up on the Tarim mummies). Or any number of Turkic tribes. Hard to know?
- datavirtue 5y agoAbrahamic Priest here. I can confirm the cannabis useage.
- mistrial9 5y agonice try - but from my reading, it appears that a large, driving reason for the evolution and adoption of Abrahamic Religion was that they specifically, exactly, discredited personal religious experience of all kinds, in favor of a collective, written canon. Social advancement in that crowd included better and more insightful reading of the reading, and writing of the writing, you might say. Add to that explicit Father g*d, worship in a building not in nature, no female priests, and a few others.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoI don't understand your point, or what you think is a "nice try". The parent comment you are responding to didn't make any argument as to the reason for the spread and adoption of Abrahamic religions.
- dr_dshiv 5y agoI love the spiritual effects of cannabis. I think that’s the right word. It’s something like, “cannabis plus natural beauty equals profound feelings of cosmic meaning”
- codetrotter 5y agoAlso, does anyone else think that Seraphs and Ophanims must surely have been seen by someone who was either under the influence of drugs, or who was hallucinating for other reasons? > A seraph (/ˈsɛrəf/, "the burning one"; plural seraphim /ˈsɛrəfɪm/) is a type of celestial or heavenly being originating in Ancient Judaism. The term plays a role in subsequent Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraph > The ophanim (Hebrew: אוֹפַנִּים ʿōp̄annīm, "wheels"; singular: אוֹפָן ʿōp̄ān), alternatively spelled auphanim or ofanim, and also called galgalim (Hebrew: גַּלְגַּלִּים galgallīm, "spheres", "wheels", "whirlwinds"; singular: גַּלְגַּל galgal), refer to the wheels seen in Ezekiel's vision of the chariot (Hebrew merkabah) in Ezekiel 1:15–21. One of the Dead Sea scrolls (4Q405) construes them as angels; late sections of the Book of Enoch (61:10, 71:7) portray them as a class of celestial beings who (along with the Cherubim and Seraphim) never sleep, but guard the throne of God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophanim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophanim I mean, look at renditions of what those beings would look like. https://www.google.com/search?q=ophanim&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=ophanim&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=seraph+bible+accurate&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=seraph+bible+accurate&tbm=is... Lots of geometric repetition and shapes that all seem like they were taken straight out of a DMT trip or something.
- Loveaway 5y agoMy hunch is Acacia trees as a source of DMT, which are common in the region. Many mosques in particular are also decorated with colorful geometrical patterns all over. It's a bit of a mystery though, mushrooms have been pretty much ruled out, but Ancient Greeks speak of some sort of psychedelic wine, which is not much known about. Ergot from agriculture could be another suspect, but Ergot isn't exactly a great psychedelic by itself.
- mizaru 5y agoIn case somebody wonders, the Greek drink in question is Kykeon [1] which was consumed during the Eleusinian Mysteries [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kykeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kykeon [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries
- contingencies 5y agoFor film on psychoactives and archaeology in early Central Eurasia consider watching episode 1 of the BBC India series, which features an eccentric Russian archaeologist active in the region.
- echelon_musk 5y agoCan you provide a bit more information that could be put into a search engine? Searching for "BBC India" or "BBC India Russian archaeologist" isn't cutting it. I'd like to also suggest the documentary series Strain Hunters by Green House Seed co. where they also travel to India in search of landraces for their genetic library.
- contingencies 5y agoThe Story of India, a 6 part series. Episode 1, Beginnings.
- r0b05 5y agoThanks, I see they also drank a psychoactive drink called Soma. Cannabis may have been an ingredient in this drink. Some sort of psychoactive seems to be constant among the different religions/cultures. The question is - does the substance make one hallucinate or does it in fact give one an objective sense of reality?
- holoduke 5y agoI am interested in any ancient records of the concept addiction. Did people understand that in fact cannabis is making you dumb instead of a mighty creative god? Did they understand the side effects etc. Probably not. But still interesting. I smoked weed for 10 years almost daily btw
- tata71 5y agoEveryone's got this pretty well covered, but wanted to emphasize: SMOKING makes you dumb and less blood-oxygenated, cannabis likely far less so. Vaporize loose leaf herbs, or use oil/edibles. Don't listen to the ashtray.
- rdevsrex 5y agoMaking you dumb? Did you start before you were an adult? I'm a fairly new user in my late 30s and haven't noticed any effects. That said, I just a weekend user.
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoMarijuana doesn’t “make you dumb”. There are lots of specific effects and I do not generally advocate that anyone start taking marijuana, but I will say I am a 37 year old robotics engineer and I vape marijuana (doses on the lower end of pure sativa) basically every day, throughout the day. I design circuit boards, do mechanical design, fabrication, assembly and test, and write Python code all with some level of marijuana in my system. (Obv have to be careful about dosage or I will be unable to work until it wears off.) In the last three months I designed a four axis robot arm with four custom planetary gearboxes of my own design. I know that my marijuana consumption is not ideal for my health and I aspire to reduce it eventually. But I have been doing this for years and I’m getting better at designing and building robots, not worse.
- h2odragon 5y agoI can (and do) smoke a lot of herb, medicinal reasons. Never has severely stupefied me. My nephew doesn't care for weed, because it does stupifiy him. Cannabis, more than most other drugs, takes different people differently. Much of the misunderstanding and "talking past each other" seems to come from no one wanting to acknowledge that.
- newsclues 5y agoWhat cultivar (strain) were they growing in the past? Landrace strains are so rare nowadays.
- INTPenis 5y agoThey're only rare because they grow wild in very specific places. Usually far from humans in Tibet, northern India, Kush mountains, South America, Jamaica. But if you go to those places you'll find a wide variety of land races. These days most are influenced by humans but that's still natural, we're still part of nature.
- newsclues 5y agoThey are rare because the law led to indoor growing and selection of hybrids for flower times. Genetically they are more rare, because of the mass proliferation of hybrid breeding.
- chadlavi 5y agoThis doesn't read like origins at all, more like the earliest attested instances of what seemed to be an already well-established practice. 2500 years ago sounds like a long time, but humans have been around a lot longer than that.
- kadoban 5y agoYeah, it's not like marijuana is difficult to find naturally, and just eating it has obvious effects so it should have been easy to happen upon. (From my quick research, heating it before consuming shouldn't be necessary to get _any_ effect, but it does increase the effects.)
- jjulius 5y agoCan you point to what you found that suggests as much? I have been a regular user for 10+ years and suggesting you don't need to carboxylate it before eating it in order to still feel the effect goes against a large body of conventional wisdom.
- kadoban 5y agoYeah, sure. I feel like I had a better link, more sciency, I'll edit if I find it again. But for now eg: https://maryjanesdiary.com/can-you-eat-raw-weed-get-high/ https://maryjanesdiary.com/can-you-eat-raw-weed-get-high/ My understand is that there is _some_ active THC even before heating, but it's relatively low amounts. My theory is that if your tolerance is 0 and you eat a decent amount you'd probably feel it. A typical user would never know even if they tried though because it'd be a _huge_ waste and their tolerance is non-zero. Can't say I've tried, I don't have an ~eighth to waste and I suspect it wouldn't taste very good either (though I guess you could still add it to a recipe, just without heating). Also it'd be difficult for me to rule out placebo effects.
- jimmygrapes 5y agoI suppose if you had some strong smelling leaves and threw it into something fatty like an animal carcass before applying fire, things might get wild
- dr_dshiv 5y agoWhile cannabis smoking using incense is thousands of years old, pipe smoking only came to Europe in the 1500s, with Tobacco. I find that surprising.
- realce 5y agoMe too! It's such a simple device and the alternative seems to be creating a large air-tight building to hotbox everyone inside.
- 0des 5y agoIs there somewhere that one could experience this, but in a more modern setting? It seems like a niche that has disappeared.
- realce 5y agoI've found the perfect building to be a 1998 Toyota Carolla - I don't know if that's historically accurate to the BCE era however.
- exsmelliarmus 5y agoHotboxing? Uhhhh, yeah I think we could help you find a few places. For science and history, of course.
- benbreen 5y agoI have an article about this very topic in the history of science journal Osiris... unfortunately it's not out yet, but I wrote a short spinoff article about it here too: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/our-strange-addiction https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/our-strange-addi... The upshot is that while tobacco pipes didn't reach Europe until around 1500 CE, there is evidence that Portuguese mariners may have encountered cannabis pipes from Africa earlier than this date. Part of the evidence is linguistic: the Portuguese word for pipe (cachimbo) is derived from an African language (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cachimbo https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cachimbo). African cannabis smoking dates back at least as far as ~1000 CE and seems to have been part of a larger Indian Ocean complex of cannabis smoking emanating from South Asia and, more distantly, from the religious traditions of ancient Indo-Iranic peoples who moved into the region from the steppes in the Vedic period. That diffusion narrative would seem to fit well with the timeline discussed in this article. This is a really exciting field of historical and archaeological research IMO! The African Roots of Marijuana (Duke, 2019) is the best full length scholarly study of this if anyone is interested: https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-african-roots-of-marijuana https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-african-roots-of-marijuana
- dr_dshiv 5y agoCannabis helps me have wonderfully vivid ideas. Visions of the future, of new opportunities, etc. The ideas are often a more powerful and joyous high than the cannabis itself. Now I don’t mind getting plainly stoned now and then, but I really enjoy virtuous pot smoking. If I go running, eat vegetarian (or fast), clean my room, immerse myself in natural beauty, work on some mission-driven project or read Plato, I swear, I always get a better high.
- dustymcp 5y agoI agree, but it really depend on the cannabis some will make you sleepy some will make you more hyped, i think its the difference in maturity of the buds/flowers the earlier its harvested the more heartbeating and anxious you feel where if its harvested later IT seems to get you more sleepy and relaxed Lesser heartbeating more drowsy eyes, harvesting it in between is the goal to get a decent ratio, this obviously differs for plants and are purely anecdotal :)