How the High Priests got High
Cannabis and other drugs among the Ancient Israelites
Cannabis residues have been identified on the altar of a Judahite shrine in Israel dating from the 8th century BC according to the Tel Aviv Institute of Archeology.¹ This is not the first time it has been found in the area — in 1993, archeologists found cannabis at a burial tomb near Jerusalem in forms suggesting medical application by both fumigation and oil massaged into the skin.² Another dig in Egypt found cannabis pollen on the mummy of Rameses II, confirming that the plant was used in the religious rites of the Egyptians, and also that cannabis has been transported along trade routes that pass through Palestine for many millennia.
We also know from ancient papyri that cannabis oil was used in both the medicine and magic of Egypt (two disciplines that were not as clearly differentiated as they are today). Though it is difficult to make positive identifications for many plants in the Bible, the evidence has convinced rabbis, ministers, linguists, archaeologists, anthropologists, botanists and others that the resin the Bible calls kaneh bosem is what we call cannabis. It appears to be the same as the kannabis that appears in an account by Herodotus from the 6th century BC, burned by the Scythians after they sealed down the flaps of their tents:
“immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapor as no Grecian vapor-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy.”³
Despite a massive amount of literary evidence assembled by Chris Bennett and others, the idea that the ancient Israelites used one of the most interesting and useful plants on the planet remains controversial. This is a testament to the conservatism and entitlement of many of the people who claim to be interested in the Bible — where it agrees with their politics, at least — but it need not concern us here. What is more surprising is the technology and the deep understanding of pharmacology that the ancient apothecaries brought to their drug culture.
While modern pharmacology tends to extract so-called “active compounds” from natural sources, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine and various other ancient medical systems work differently, prescribing mixtures of compounds that work together in synergy. The Amazonian ayahuasca brew provides a good example of how this works, using two ingredients to produce an effect that is much greater (and much more trippy) than the sum of its parts. One ingredient is the Psychotria viridis leaf, which contains DMT but is inactive when taken by mouth because your MAO enzymes break it down in the gut before it gets to your brain. When the leaf is boiled with the Banisteriopsis caapi vine, however, the vine contributes chemicals (MAO inhibitors) which prevent the body’s MAO enzymes from breaking DMT down, so the DMT gets into the brain and does all kinds of fascinating things.
In the Bible, the ingredients kaneh bosem is consumed with suggest an impressive functional understanding of synergistic enzyme inhibition:
Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of kaneh bosem two hundred and fifty shekels. And of cassia five hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil six litres: And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary.⁴
Cinnamomum verum and Cinnamomum cassia are both species of cinnamon. The former is used in ancient Persian medicine as a convoy medicine co-administered with other medicines to make them active. According to modern pharmacology, it works by inhibiting the enzymes of the human cytochrome system which is responsible for breaking down many of the chemicals that we encounter in our food. By preventing those enzymes from functioning it allows other drugs to remain in the system for long enough to travel through the blood to the organs where they are effective.⁵
The cytochrome system contains many enzymes, five of which are involved in breaking down approximately 99% of drugs.⁶ C. verum inhibits four of them, but not the fifth.⁷ The fifth, called CYP2D6, is however inhibited by the other cinnamon species, C. cassia.⁸ Together these plants knock out the entire cytochrome system as regards 99% of drugs. This means that the effects of cannabis are much increased and last longer, and also that compounds that are usually inert become psychoactive. The fourth ingredient in the recipe is myrrh, which contains at least three opioids which can cause euphoria. The other chemicals in myrrh, and in cannabis, are explored in more detail in articles cited at the end of this one.
The anointing oil is shemen ha-mishchah in Hebrew, where shemen means “oil” and mishchah derives from mashach meaning “to rub or paint”, suggesting it was massaged into the skin — indeed mashach may be the root of our word “massage”. Mashach is also the root of the word mashiyach, “the anointed one”, which is Latinised as “messiah”. The anointing oil was supremely important in the rites of the Israelites, and also in early Christianity (the Greek equivalent of mashiyach is christos, from chrió (to anoint). When Christ instructs his followers to anoint the sick in Mark 6:13, this is the medico-magical anointing oil he is recommending.
The anointing oil is one of two psychoactive preparations found in Exodus 30, taken by all priests when they enter the Tabernacle. The other is an incense of psychoactive compounds taken by the High Priest alone after being anointed, finely ground and burned in huge quantities inside a completely sealed chamber at the back of the Tabernacle called “the Holy of Holies”. One of the ingredients in this mixture was frankincense, which has a range of psychoactive chemicals that work on your GABA and also the mysterious TRPV3 ion channel. Residues of frankincense were also found, along with cannabis, by the team from the Tel Aviv Institute of Archeology.
There are several more preparations in the Bible and other ancient Jewish scriptures, including the showbread that is so potent in doses “the size of a bean” that “the delicate priests refused to take it altogether, but the voracious ones accepted and consumed”.⁹ There is also manna, which is eaten before the only collective vision, and the only example of synaesthesia, in the Old Testament, when “all the people are seeing the voices, and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet”.¹⁰ The evidence suggests that this is LSA, a close cousin of LSD that is extracted from ergot by the simple process described in Exodus. For this particular trippy scripture and much more, check out my peer-reviewed journal article on the psychopharmacology of Biblical preparations, or my book Neuro-Apocalypse.
My other writings, podcasts and talks on the tasty stash of psychoactives to be found between the historical and textual layers of the Bible include:
- “Getting High with the Most High: Drugs in the Bible” at Breaking Convention 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgn_ddrdHKI
- Adventures through the Mind — “Drugs in the Bible and the Shamanic Origins of Christianity” https://www.jameswjesso.com/danny-nemu-attmind-61/
- We three kings of Orient are… drug runners. And not kings https://psypressuk.com/2016/12/22/three-kings-orient-drug-runners-not-kings/
- Give us this day our daily dose: Ergot, LSD and the Israelites http://psypressuk.com/2017/02/02/give-us-this-day-our-daily-dose-ergot-lsd-israelites/
- Psychedelic Salon — Danny Nemu and the Neuro-Apocalypse https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-608-danny-nemu-and-the-neuro-apocalypse/
- The Matt Belair Show -https://mattbelair.com/dannynemu/
- Occulture — https://www.occulturepodcast.com/blog/neuroapocalypse
- Change Truth Podcast — “Savantism and Hotboxing the Tabernacle” https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mikedelic/e/50406637?autoplay=true
- RuneSoup — https://runesoup.com/2017/10/talking-psychedelics-in-culture-with-danny-nemu/
- Mikeadelic — https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mikedelic/e/50406637?autoplay=true
- A Place for Humans Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi5ytcYD7mg
- Drugs in the Bible shorts on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/244935526
- The Third Wave, “Drugs in the Bible”: https://thethirdwave.co/podcast/episode-12-danny-nemu/; (and transcript: https://thethirdwave.co/drugs-in-the-bible-transcript/)
