Sacramental, religious and spiritual use of cannabis refers to cannabis used in a religious or spiritual context. Cannabis has an ancient history of ritual usage as an aid to trance and has been traditionally used in a religious context throughout the Old World.
Cannabis has been used in a religious and spiritual context in India since the Vedic period dating back to approximately 1500BCE but perhaps as far back as 2000BCE. Herodotus wrote about early ceremonial practices by the Scythians, thought to have occurred from the 5th to 2nd century BCE. Itinerant Hindu saints have used it in India for centuries.
In modern culture it is said to have been spread by the disciples of Rastafari who use it for its natural consciousness exalting properties for their sacramental and sanctifying rites, as instructed by the law of the Torah; according to what they know as belonging to the truthful and faithful prophetic way of life "livity" of the ancient mystics whose history is described in the sacred scriptures.
Read more about Religious And Spiritual Use Of Cannabis: Ancient and Modern India and Nepal, Ancient and Modern Africa, Ancient China, Ancient Central Asia, Ancient Europe, Ancient Israel, Islam, Rastafari, Other Modern Religious Movements
Famous quotes containing the words religious and/or spiritual:
“... the loss of belief in future states is politically, though certainly not spiritually, the most significant distinction between our present period and the centuries before. And this loss is definite. For no matter how religious our world may turn again, or how much authentic faith still exists in it, or how deeply our moral values may be rooted in our religious systems, the fear of hell is no longer among the motives which would prevent or stimulate the actions of a majority.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents. A person who has for untold centuries maintained the imposing position of spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of the whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilities of the loftiest order.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)