Cannabis The Philosopher’s ...

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Cannabis: The Philosopher’s Stone
Part 1: The Knights Templar and Cannabis
from
Green Gold: the Tree of Life, Marijuana in Magic and Religion
by Chris Bennett, Lynn Osburn, and Judy Osburn
CONTENTS
1.
The Knights Templar and Cannabis
2.
Sufi Alchemists and the Grail Myth
3.
The Alchemist Monk Francois Rabalais
4.
Medieval Alchemists and Cannabis
5.
The Hashish Club
The Knights Templar and Cannabis
The alchemical information about cannabis use was reintroduced into Europe
after the Dark Ages, when the Knights Templar, founded by Hugh de Payns (“of
the Pagans”) around the beginning of the twelfth century, became involved in a
trade of goods and knowledge with the hashish ingesting Isma’ilis. This
knowledge was passed on from Eastern adepts and handed down esoterically
through the medieval alchemists, Rosicrucians1
[1]
and later on to the most
influential occultists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
1
[1]
Modern Rosicrucian groups, like AMORC, have little knowledge of cannabis
use. Interestingly, the founder of the modern day branch of this ancient order, H.
Spencer Lewis, commented that when he reintroduced the Order in the early part
of this century, he altered the Rosicrucian methods more than had ever been
done before, in order to make it more acceptable to the modern day initiate. The
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics
comments that the Rosicrucians had been,
up “until the war, very active in good works, especially in carrying investigations
into the uses of vegetable drugs and the relief of disease by means of colored
lights and hypnotic processes.” After studying many of the early Rosicrucian
texts, I found them to be full of vegetative symbolism and secret references to
cannabis, as well as being loaded with a lot of other valuable arcane knowledge.
Perhaps this is an area of study to be looked at in future work. — C.B.
 Modern Freemasonry is also said to have been derived from ancient Templar
knowledge, which in turn came from earlier Arabic sources. “Sufi ism,” said Sir
Richard Burton, was “the Eastern parent of Freemasonry.” However, the modern
day Freemasons, the religion of the Businessman and Banker,2
[2]
for the most
part are practicing empty rituals the meaning of which has been long forgotten.
But some mystic Masons like Gerard de Nerval, one of the members of the
famous Le Club Des Haschischins, were well aware of this Arabic origin for
modern Freemasonry. Nerval commented on it in one of his books, much to the
horror of many Masons of the time. Nerval published a 700 page memoir,
Voyage en Orient
, and released information considered sacred by Masons
concerning the Master Builder Hiram, which is a pivotal part of their secret rituals.
As the authors of
The Temple and the Lodge
commented:
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.
Idries Shaw, the Grand Sheik of the Sufi s and historian of their faith, commented
on the connection between the Templars and the Sufis:
That the Templars were thinking in terms of the Sufi , and not the Solomonic, Temple in
Jerusalem, and its building, is strongly suggested by one important fact. “Temple” churches
which they erected, such as one in London, were modeled upon the Temple as found by the
Crusaders, not upon any earlier building. This Temple was none other than the octagonal Dome
of the Rock, built in the seventh century on a Sufi mathematical design, and restored in 913. The
Sufi legend of the building of the Temple accords with the alleged Masonic version. As an
example we may note that the “Solomon” of the Sufi Builders is not King Solomon but the Sufi
“King” Maaruf Karkhi (died 815), disciple of David (Daud of Tai, died 781) and hence by extension
considered the son of David, and referenced cryptically as Solomon — who was the son of David.
The Great murder commemorated by the Sufi Builders is not that of the person (Hiram) supposed
by the Masonic tradition to have been killed. The martyr of the Sufi Builders is Mansur el-Hallaj
(858-922), juridically murdered because of the Sufi secret, which he spoke in a manner which
could not be understood, and thus was dismembered as a heretic.’ — Idries Shaw,
The Sufis
Mansur el Hallaj, an outspoken advocate of intoxication as means to spiritual
ecstasy, is stated to have been the founder of the still existing Order Templar
Orientis in their official documentation, either written by, or under the supervision
of the great hashish initiate Aleister Crowley, who at one time was a grand
master of the Order. Interestingly el-Hallaj is also connected with the pre-
European history of alchemy . Not surprisingly many have credited the Templars
with being a vital link in this chain of transmission.
2
[2]
The Templars are said to have been the forerunners of the modern Bankers,
and the cheque, a Templar invention.
The Order of Knights of the Temple was founded in the Holy Land in 1118 A.D. Its organization
was based on that of the Saracean fraternity of “Hashish im,” “hashish-takers,” whom Christians
called Assassins. The Templars first headquarters was a wing of the royal palace of Jerusalem
next to the al-Aqsa mosque, revered by the Shi’ites as the central shrine of the Goddess Fatima.
Western Romances, inspired by Moorish Shi’ite poets, transformed this Mother-Shrine into the
Temple of the Holy Grail , where certain legendary knights called Templars gathered to offer their
service to the Goddess, to uphold the female principles of divinity and to defend women. These
knights became more widely known as Galahad, Perceval, Lohengrin, etc. —Barbara Walker,
The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
The authors of
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
also comment on the liaison
between the Templars and Isma’ili’s: “Secret connections were also maintained
with the Hashish im or Assassins, the famous sect of militant and often fanatical
adepts who were Islam’s equivalent of the Templars .” The authors also
comment that “the Templars ’ need to treat wounds and illness made them
adepts in the use of drugs.” And the Order; “in advance of their time regarded
epilepsy not as demonic possession but as a controllable disease.” Interestingly
cannabis is the safest natural or synthetic medication proven successful in the
treatment of some forms of epilepsy.3
[3]
Most (scholars) agree that the Templars “had adopted some of the mysterious tenets of the
Eastern Gnostics.” — Walker, quoting, R.P. Knight,
The Symbolic Language of Ancient Art and
Mythology
The famed New Age author, and modern day “stoned philosopher” Robert Anton
Wilson, wrote a whole book on the Templars, putting forth a theory that they were
practicing a form of Arabic Tantrism, and ingesting hashish , a technique they
had picked up from their contact with the Assassins. Unfortunately Wilson offers
no documentation, but does comment that; "ambiguous references to a sacred
plant or herb appear in their [the Templars ] surviving manuscripts.”4
[4]
The Templars had acquired a great deal of wealth, a fleet of ships and a strong
army of warriors who fought by a creed of never retreating unless the odds were
more than three to one. Some began to feel threatened by the wealth and power
the Order had attained. In a joint effort orchestrated by King Philip (who had
been rejected membership into the sect) and Pope Clement V, the Templars
were accused of heresy. Among the many criminal accusations against the
3
[3]
“Marijuana...is probably the most potent anti-epileptic known to medicine to-
day.” (Alfred D. Berger, “Marijuana,”
Medical World News,
July 16, 1971, pp. 37-
43; reprinted in
Marijuana Medical Papers
). See also Grinspoon’s and Bakalar’s
recent publication,
Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine
for a full account of the
many medical benefits of hemp.
4
[4]
R.A. Wilson,
Sex and Drugs
.
Templars were mocking the cross, sodomy5
[5]
and worshipping a mysterious idol
in the form of a head. The Templars were also accused of tying a sacred cord
around their waist, which was said to have been consecrated by pressing it
against the mysterious head.
The spiritual descendants of Zoroastrianism, the modern Parsi, each day tie a
sacred cord around their waist as part of the ancient Kusti ritual. The Templar
practice of the Zoroastrian Kusti ritual indicates a tradition of knowledge going
back through the Isma’ilis (witness the similarities between their seven grade
initiations, with those of the cult of Mithra s) to earlier Gnostic and Zoroastrian
influences.
If the Templars trampled the crucifix, they may have copied the example of Arab dervishes who
ceremonially rejected the cross with the words, “You may have the Cross, but we have the
meaning of the cross.” — Idries Shaw,
The Sufis
The crucifixion is a major tenet of Roman Catholicism that has been denied by a
number of groups dating back to the earliest days of Christianity. The Gnostic s
were killed for repudiating it. The largest massacre in Roman Catholic Church
history was over this very tenet when the Albigensian Crusade took place and
30,000 soldiers were sent forth by the Papacy to slaughter 15,000 men, women
and children — slaughtered not for denying Christ and his teachings, but for
denying his crucifixion. (See chapters 19 and 20,
Goddess and the Grail
and
The Resurrection
.)
In
The Sufis
, Idries Shaw states the Templars ’ worship of a mysterious head
could well be a reference to the great work of transhumanisation that takes place
in the aspirant’s own head.
The Golden Head (
sar-i-tilai
) is a Sufi phrase used to refer to a person whose inner
consciousness has been “transmuted into gold” by means of Sufi study and activity, the nature of
which it is not permissible to convey here. — Idries Shah,
The Sufis
We propose in this study that the mysterious head worshipped by the Templars
may have actually been some sort of a vessel or cauldron, like the head of Bran
5
[5]
All but a few of the Templars denied these crimes, and those that confessed
did so only after a great deal of torture had coaxed them to it. As for the charges
of homosexuality and sodomy, this is not at all surprising considering the all male
atmosphere of monastic life. Perhaps like certain orders of the Sufis, the
Templars were tolerant enough of others to permit homosexuality among those
who were drawn to it, unlike the Holy Roman Church which burned homosexuals
when they were discovered.
the Blessed in Celtic mythology 6
[6]
or a later day version of the Mahavira Vessel
.
In “The Mahavira Vessel and the Plant Putika, ” Stella Kramrisch describes a
plant which she connects with the mysterious soma.7
[7]
The Mahavira Vessel,
like the Templars mysterious idol, is referred to as a head. To the ancient
worshipper the Mahavira vessel represented the decapitated head of Makha,
from whose wound flowed forth the Elixir of Life.
The Templars were rounded up and arrested on Friday the thirteenth (the origin
of the “bad luck” associated with this combination), October, 1307. Although put
through the extreme tortures that the Inquisition was so famous for, the vast
majority of the Templars denied the charges. Of course the inquisitors coerce a
small number of admissions of guilt. When subjected to excruciating pain,
people will most often admit to whatever their questioners want to hear. The
court repeatedly refused to hear depositions from no fewer than 573 witnesses.
Some Templars managed to escape, but the majority were burned at the stake.
A witness to the event stated:
All of them, with no exception, refused to admit any of their alleged crimes, and persisted in
saying they were being put to death unjustly which caused great admiration and immense
surprise.8[8]9 — Stephen Howarth,
The Knights Templar
For this act Dante, who was inspired by Sufi authors, in his I
NFERNO
, places both
King Philip and Clement V firmly in Hell.10
[9]
Baigent and Leigh speculate in T
HE
T
EMPLE AND THE
L
ODGE
that some of the
Templars may have escaped to Scotland. They point to medieval graves with
Templar insignias, and Templar style churches (round) as evidence. Scotland
6
[6]
“And it is Bran’s mystical cauldron that numerous writers have sought to
identify as the pagan precursor of the Holy Grail.” —Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln,
1982.
7
[7]
See chapter 4,
Persia
.
8
[8]
Historical legend has it that the defiant leader of the Templars, Jaques De
Molay, cursed both Clements and King Philip as he was burning, telling them that
they would follow him within a year. And so they did, both dying within the year
as De Molay is said to have foretold.
10
[9]
“Recent research has shown that Sufi materials were sources of Dante’s
work. His Sufic affiliations must have been known to the alchemists of the time.”
(Shaw,
The Sufis
).
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]