UVSS HEMPOLOGY 101 CLUB
LECTURE SERIES 2007/08

LESSON #13 : HISTORY OF PROHIBITION - Part 2

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die. GENESIS 2: 16-17.

And the serpent said unto the woman, “Ye shall surely not die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as the gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. GENESIS 3; 4-7
He did away with the pagan priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem- those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon, to the constellations of the starry hosts. He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine-prostitutes which were in the temple of the Lord and where the women did weaving for Asherah. 2 KINGS 23: 5-7.

It was Theodosius who dealt the death blow to paganism, for his Draconian decrees prohibited the most offensive old customs: the burning of incense and the lighting of a fire at home in honor of the house-god, the pouring of wine with a similar intention and the adoring of trees. Many of these rites were hardly connected with the pagan cult… Such rites, or rather traditions, were punished by confiscation of the house and prosecution for high treason. The new laws were reinforced sternly by magistrates and judges. The third of a field in which a pagan fire had been kindled was confiscated, even though its owner had not participated in the rite. ‘Prejudice disguised itself in religious fervor, and many accused their neighbours of paganism in order to despoil them.’ Seligmann, Kurt, MAGIC, SUPERNATURALISM, AND RELIGION, Pantheon Books, 1968.

Pagan Gnosticism was condemned and prohibited. But the Magian and the Hermetic Gnostics withdrew from philosophical and mystical debate, many sages having previously retired into the kitchen laboratory to kindle the Mystery hidden in matter- to make it manifest. The language of debate held in such high esteem in the golden age of Alexandria underwent a metamorphosis in the kitchen laboratories of the sages: the inscrutable lexicon of Alchemy was born from it. Without the key to the alchemic lexicon the Christian high priests- bishops- thought alchemy was nothing more than formulas for making gold from lead or other worthless items. Bennett, Chris, GREEN GOLD, THE TREE OF LIFE; MARIJUANA IN MAGIC AND RELIGION, Access Unlimited, 1995.

Charles A Jones, the Chief of police for that city (L.A.), said in a recent letter that hashish, or Indian hemp, grows wild in Mexico but to raise this shrub in California constitutes a violation of the State Narcotic law. He says, “Persons using this narcotic, smoke the dried leaves of the plant, which has the effect of driving them completely insane. The addict loses all sense of moral responsibility. Addicts to this drug, while under the influence, are immune to pain, and could be severely injured without having any realization of their condition. While in this condition they become raving maniacs and are liable to kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons, using the most savage methods of cruelty without, as said before, any sense of moral responsibility.

When coming from under the influence of this narcotic, these victims present the most horrible condition imaginable. They are dispossessed of their natural and normal will power, and their mentality is that of idiots. If the drug in indulged in to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death of its addict”. Murphy, Emily, THE BLACK CANDLE, Thomas Allen, 1922.

After three decades of increasingly punitive policies, illicit drugs are more easily available, drug potencies are greater, and drug barons are richer than ever. The war on drugs costs Washington more than the Commerce, Interior and State departments combined- and a strangled court system, exploding prisons, and wasted lives push the cost beyond measure. Baum, Dan, SMOKE AND MIRRORS, 1996.