I almost got into a debate with an Immunology Academic Type, but he wouldn’t go there…

CHECK THIS HILARIOUS THREAD OUT, IT COMES FROM FACEBOOK.

Source: www.federaljack.com
(FOXNEWS) President Obama’s school age daughters have not been vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the vaccine is not available to them based on their risk.

Wed at 23:09 · · · Share · Report

Daniel James

Daniel James

People need to stop getting vaccinated for every silly little thing it is only making the human immune system weaker in long run
Wed at 23:30
Paul Suliin

Paul Suliin

The vaccine is currently scarce and is being rationed. Obama’s kids weren’t vaccinated because their risk group isn’t high enough to warrant it, NOT because it’s in any way dangerous.

Vaccination against H1N1 is more a public health matter than a personal health matter. The chance of any given person who catches H1N1 developing a serious condition is quite small – less than 1%. However the virus is extremely contagious, due to a low “herd immunity” against this particular strain.

That means that without widespread vaccination, a very large number of people will come down with it – CDC estimates as many as 1/3 of all Americans could end up catching this disease. That’s 100 million people. Even with a mortality rate of about 0.7%, that’s 700,000 dead – 20 times the number of deaths from a normal seasonal flu. H1N1 could easily kill more people in the next 12 months than tobacco will.Read more

This can be prevented only by boosting the resistance of the entire population. The only way to do that is to get vaccinated.

Yesterday at 00:11
Jason Correia

Jason Correia

Personally I’ve gotten almost every vaccine available. Chicken pox, Hep A & B are experiences I will never wonder what I’d be missing. I plan to take the H1N1 vaccine when its more available. So I’ll be a guinea pig by taking a small risk rather than be sick with a nasty flu.
Yesterday at 00:33
Steven Honeycombe

Steven Honeycombe

Im pretty sure Ive had The Bug already, myself and a few people I know. I was real sick, Ive never been that sick before and my friends say the same. Youll need the injection for the young and elderly for sure. Only a handful of people I know got it, all around my age. I was the only one infected in my house hold – go figure
Yesterday at 00:48
Paul Suliin

Paul Suliin

I’m afraid that link is highly speculative. It makes a number of unsubstantiated claims, and jumbles terminology together more or less randomly.

For example it claims that pretty much anything that protects you against disease in any way at all is “part of your immune system.” Apparently then your house is part of your immune system, since it protects you from weather and so helps keep you from getting sick. But talking about a 3BR/2Bath immune system with central heat is fairly silly.

The linked article also claims that anything that alters or goes around the body’s natural systems in any way thereby “damages” those systems. Vaccines are “bad” in part because they bypass the skin and stimulate the immune system artificially. I can’t help noticing that, for example, marijuana also stimulates the body’s systems artificially, and so should be bad for you as well, according to that way of thinking.Read more

By the way, my graduate degree is in medicinal chemistry, so I know a bit about how the body works and about how vaccines and drugs affect it.

Yesterday at 01:18
Keirie Christensen

Keirie Christensen

I think if people base their health beliefs off the internet and (for example) chose not to vaccinate their children could be guilty of some degree of child neglect/abuse….
Yesterday at 06:12
Stephen Saunders

Stephen Saunders

Keirie, what an ignorant statement.
I think if people DO NOT step up and educate themselves with the internet and books (remember those?) and EVERYTHING they can find for information in order to EMPOWER THEMSELVES AND THEIR CHILDREN WITH KNOWLEDGE AND THEN TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT THEIR OWN HEALTH, stupid people would cease to exist, and then the Read moregovernment would not keep creating POPULATION CONTROL PROGRAMS, Like this vaccination and a whole legion other vaccination programs, that have been foistered upon a mass of people who are stupid enough to think a SHOT IN THE ARM will relieve them of the responsibility of looking after their own CONSTITUTION, while they continue selfishly and shortsightedly abuse their bodies by sticking trash (100% cornsyrup added for your distraction) in their face and calling it food, abusing neglecting AND THEN EATING animals, on and on.
If you are so ignorant that you think the government knows what is best for your children better than you, then please run off and get those shots. Do us all a favor….
Yesterday at 10:51 · Delete
Paul Suliin

Paul Suliin

Unfortunately, Stephen, relatively few people have the training to properly evaluate medical advice gained from the Internet. So they believe a whole lot of poorly-supported scare stories, or they misinterpret what they find.

What it really comes down to is believing that a whole lot of doctors might know what’s best for your kids – medically Read morespeaking – better than you do. And that’s not such a stretch of the imagination: it’s the sort of thing you pick up here and there in medical school.

If you don’t believe that, then by all means don’t take them to a doctor when they get sick, and don’t get them vaccinated. But in that case you should expect reasonable questions about your judgment.

Yesterday at 11:06
Holy Hemptress

Holy Hemptress

Gosh– all I brought to light was the fact that this shot might not be a good idea–I would NEVER say do not go to the doctor when you are sick–in fact– I say the complete opposite.

Thanks Paul for your two cents–I value you my friend and brother–93!

Yesterday at 11:33
Stephen Saunders

Stephen Saunders

I think I believe in Humanity alot more than that, and have alot more information about what is culturally playing out in this country.
ALL OR NOTHING IS NOT THE BEST YOU CAN DO PEOPLE.
Yesterday at 11:39 · Delete
Stephen Saunders

Stephen Saunders

DON’T GET THE VACCINE!!! SEE YOUR DOCTOR BUT GET MORE INFORMATIONONGOINGLY ALWAYS AND TAKE MORE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR PREVENTATIVE HEALTH CARE LIKE DIET AND EXERCISE.
‘You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t wanna know.’
Yesterday at 11:42 · Delete
Holy Hemptress

Holy Hemptress

‘You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t wanna know.’

Now that’s telling it like it is!

Yesterday at 12:18
Paul Suliin

Paul Suliin

Yes it is. And if it means “You aren’t going to learn that vaccines are basically safe if you don’t wish to believe that,” then it even applies here.
Yesterday at 12:23
Holy Hemptress

Holy Hemptress

Yep it sure does!
Yesterday at 12:38
Holy Hemptress

Holy Hemptress

I however will learn more before I do anything–
Yesterday at 12:39
Holy Hemptress

Holy Hemptress

But if it is true about how bad this is suppose to be? I will not be doing it!
Yesterday at 12:40
Holy Hemptress

Holy Hemptress

Vaccines–I did vaccinate both of my children–but I have heard of parents being afraid to do so–my what a tangled weave is webbed! Staying clear–from here on out!
Yesterday at 13:22
Stephen Saunders

Stephen Saunders

Paul-
You are under the hypnosis of the media.
You will go in life whichever direction the crowd goes.
Always, even if it is required that you close your eyes to empirical data…. Do your homework, but prepared to have to own up the fact that ‘the Flock’ is not going to take care of you, that in fact the opposite is true. You are the shepard dude, and wolves are in your sheep.
Quit acting like a sheep, it isn’t fooling anyone, nor is it a ‘safe strategy for survival…Read more
Its costing you sheep(le).
Yesterday at 13:37 · Delete
Paul Suliin

Paul Suliin

No, Stephen. I have a Master’s Degree in Medicinal Chemistry. I’ve worked for Genentech, Roche, and the Department of Pharmacology at UCLA, among others. I “did my homework” for 4 years at the College of Pharmacy at the University of Illinois Health Sciences Center in Chicago.

I am not “under the hypnosis of the media.” I am not “acting like aRead more sheep.” I am saying what I’m saying here because I actually know what the hell I’m talking about, and because I’ve been trained to tell the difference between “empirical evidence” and urban legend.

If you could say the same, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Yesterday at 13:55
Stephen Saunders

Stephen Saunders

Easy there Mr. Defensive……NOW I believe you are under the hypnosis of your own ego and the entrenched Academia that ‘lives’ in the educational system. You are starting to realize that you were duped by the very system you dumped the responsibility for spiritual awareness and discernment upon, and it is ontologically scary for you. Don’t worry Read moreyou don’t have to shoulder the burden on your own. There are many of us who went beyond the ‘accepted bounds’ of Information and have brought to light alot of truth. As for my education, and the notion of how to solve the challenge of building and keeping a strong constitution (good health and no need for vaccinations) start with the paper that I wrote:
http://www.majik.org/cruxenrose/?p=21
Don’t see it as an Academic pissing contest, believe me, that holds zero interest for me, I don’t give a fuck how smart or educated ANY OF YOU think I am. I am a champion of the Empirical and correspondingly Quantum truth, it is not about me and how educated i am or am not. That’s EGO BULLSHIT.
Use this information to further the enlightenment and education of all, and Don’t let population control get you.
Yesterday at 23:16 · Delete
Paul Suliin

Paul Suliin

Riiiiight. I won’t even go into my “spiritual awareness” cred with you. Ask our hostess. Meanwhile, if you want to talk about “empirical evidence” come up with some peer-reviewed papers. That’s the sort of empirical evidence that those of us who know what the term actually means respect.

I suspect that we mean very different things by “Academia.” However if your meaning is anything close to “Those who study this stuff for a living” then yeah, that’d be me all right.

Stephen, you’ve demonstrated repeatedly in this discussion that you don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t understand immunology. You let your preconceived notions about my own qualifications lead you off into harebrained nonsense about being “hypnotized by the media” when in fact I’ve been studying things like this professionally (as in, people actually pay me for my knowledge) for over 25 years now. Read more

It’s good that you don’t care about how educated you appear. That undoubtedly saves you a lot of personal grief, and certainly makes it easier to believe that education and hands-on experience in the field don’t actually matter. For now, though, if your best “empirical evidence” is simply your own uninformed speculation, then I think we’ve taken this about as far as we usefully can. When you have real, verifiable, reproducible and statistically valid information, we’ll talk.

18 hours ago
Stephen Saunders

Stephen Saunders

DUDE.
You don’t even see how you have spun this conversation around to toot your own horn, and can’t get off of it.
An institution pays you to enrich your own ego dude.
So last Century……
You are posturing for the Facebook Crew.Read more
If you really cared about debating the subject here, you’ll take this to email. majik@majik.org.
Let’s go private and talk about how much more smart and educated you are than I, shall we?
8 hours ago · Delete
Stephen Saunders

Stephen Saunders

“Meddle Ye Not in the Afffairs of Wizards for thou art CRUNCHY, and good with Ketchup…..”
8 hours ago · Delete
Paul Suliin

Paul Suliin

You think that companies pay consultants out of an altruistic desire to stroke the consultants’ egos? Where do you come up with this stuff?

No, Stephen. Institutions pay me to enrich themselves. My clients pay me because I know enough to help them improve what they do, and that makes them money, so they give me some of it in exchange.

I’m “tooting my own horn” simply because you started brandishing your ignorance about my motivations and knowledge – you’re still doing it, still just as ignorantly. The subject hasn’t changed because you’ve had nothing to contribute since I pointed out that everything you’ve offered so far is unsubstantiated nonsense.Read more

I’ve no interest in discussing anything privately with you, Stephen. If you had anything worthwhile in this area you’d have brought it forth publicly by now. And I can’t imagine establishing your educational credentials any more firmly than you already have. As I said, if you come up with real evidence – peer-reviewed research – let me know. Otherwise you’re just repeating yourself.

2 hours ago
Stephen Saunders

Stephen Saunders

Yep that’s what I thought, Paul, for all of your education and investment in such, you are IGNORANT.

You IGNORE and you RANT.

Just because you won’t look at information, just because you AVOID THE TRUTH, does not make it unsubstantiated.Read more

You are attempting to protect your (tenuous) position with insults and attacks against me personally in order to avoid the debate, and then take your ego and run and hide.

You can’t help it, you are afraid.
Take a number and get in line behind all of the other fearlings, but rest assured there are plenty of us out here tackling reality while you hide under skirt of your self-inflated puffery and selective perception and retention.

Of all the running on you have done attacking me in this thread instead of debating the sanity of accepting an untested vaccine that is KILLING PEOPLE
(you’ll justify THAT grim fact with some statistic designed to justify the cost of human lives) You have not offered one shred of your research up for us, nor one example of where you have clearly used your god given gift of intellect to improve the quality of human life or relieve any suffering whatsoever.

Best of success on your path Paul, I am certain you are on the way to your wake up call just like all of the rest of us.

I am little disappointed that you didn’t have more balls than this… I might have learned something, as I know that the more I know the less I know! I don’t think you hold the same view, you are only interested in polluting your friends FB threads with ego-posturing but when the gloves come off, you jam your fingers in your ears and close your eyes and start yammering insults…. just like a good little robot.

YOU ALREADY “KNOW IT ALL”….

*****************************************************

MESSAGE TO THE PUBLIC!!!!!

DON’T ACCEPT THE N1N9 OR ANY OTHER UNTESTED VACCINATION!!!!!!!

THIS GUY IS THE KIND OF GUY THAT WORKS FOR THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE THESE “VACCINATIONS AND ‘IMMUNE SYSTEM TWEAKING’ TECHNOLOGIES!!
TECHNOLOGIES THAT ARE DESIGNED TO CARRY OUT A EUGENICS -BASED AGENDA OF POPULATION CONTROL!!!!!

POP-CON ALERT!!!!!

POP-CON POPCON POPCON

POPULATION CONTROL= POPCON

ARE YOU A PART OF THE POP-CON INDUSTRY?

Moderate Lifetime Marijuana Use Associated With Reduced Risk Of Head And Neck Cancer, Study Says

Providence, RI: The moderate long-term use of marijuana is associated with a reduced risk of head and neck cancers, according to the results of a population-based case-control study published online by the journal Cancer Prevention Research.

Investigators at Rhode Island’s Brown University, along with researchers at Boston University, Louisiana State University, and the University of Minnesota assessed the lifetime marijuana use habits of 434 cases (patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma from nine medical facilities) compared to 547 matched controls.

Authors reported, “After adjusting for potential confounders (including smoking and alcohol drinking), 10 to 20 years of marijuana use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma … [as was] moderate weekly use.”

Subjects who smoked marijuana and consumed alcohol and tobacco (two known high risk factors for head and neck cancers) also experienced a reduced risk of cancer, the study found.

“Our study suggests that moderate marijuana use is associated with reduced risk of HNSCC,” investigators concluded. “This association was consistent across different measures of marijuana use (marijuana use status, duration, and frequency of use). … Further, we observed that marijuana use modified the interaction between alcohol and cigarette smoking, resulting in a decreased HNSCC risk among moderate smokers and light drinkers, and attenuated risk among the heaviest smokers and drinkers. … Despite our results being consistent with the point estimates from other studies, there remains a need for this inverse association to be confirmed by further work, especially in studies with large sample sizes.”

A separate 2006 population case-control study also reported that lifetime use of cannabis was not positively associated with cancers of the lung or aerodigestive tract, and noted that certain moderate users of the drug experienced a reduced cancer risk compared to non-using controls.

By contrast, a study published earlier this week in the journal Cancer Epidemiology reports that even the moderate use of alcohol (six drinks or less per week) is associated with an elevated risk of various cancers – including stomach cancer, rectal cancer, and bladder cancer.

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of the study, “A population-based case control study of marijuana use and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma,” will appear in Cancer Prevention Research.

California: Oakland Voters Approve Nation’s First Marijuana Business Tax

Oakland, CA: Municipal voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved the nation’s first ever business tax on retail marijuana sales.

Approximately 80 percent of Oakland voters approved the new tax (which appeared on the ballot as Measure F), which imposes an additional tax for “cannabis businesses” of $18 for every $1,000 of gross receipts beginning January 1, 2010.

Presently, Oakland’s medicinal cannabis dispensaries are taxed at the same rate as other retail sales businesses ($60 per year for the $50,000 of gross receipts, plus $1.20 for each additional $100,000).

Four dispensaries are licensed by the Oakland City Council to sell and dispense medical marijuana.

According to a financial analysis by the Oakland City Auditor, Oakland’s new cannabis business tax will generate an estimated $300,000 in additional annual tax revenue. Other proponents have estimated that the new tax could yield up to a million dollars yearly.

Representatives from the Oakland City Council, the California Nurses Association, and the dispensary community publicly advocated for the new tax, which had no formal opposition.

“The passage of this first-in-the-nation tax further legitimizes cannabis-based enterprises in Oakland and elsewhere,” NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said. These outlets are contributing to the health and welfare of their local communities, both socially and now economically. At a time when many municipalities are strapped for tax revenues and cutting public services it is likely that public officials in other cities will begin considering similar proposals.”

City officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley may also impose a cannabis-business tax on certain retail dispensaries.

For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500, or Dale Gieringer, California NORML Coordinator at: (415) 563-5858.

Thoughts on abuse as substitute for missing nutritional components

The paper that I wrote suggests that ALL chronic smoking of marijuana is a symptoms of malnutrition, that the cannabis plant is a ‘symbiote’ to the human being, similar to the way that bamboo is to the panda bear and the eucalyptus  is to the koala. We evolved from a form that was more like a slothy bear. I would imagine that drinking and anything else is a substitution  for trying to find what is missing- Cannabis.

Marijuana and the Goddess

by Chris Bennet, illustrations by Ken Lee. Posted on Monday, August 31 1998 11:00:00 PM
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1374.html

Holy pot has been smoked by Goddess worshippers since before history, and was first banned by those who sought to subjugate feminine spirituality
1374-rheakrona

Part 5 of “When Smoke Gets in my I” a series on the history of cannabis and human consciousness.

In most ancient hunter-gatherer societies, women balanced the males’ supply of game with their collected harvest from the surrounding wilderness. Women therefore became the first to learn the secrets of plants, and how they propagated themselves.
This knowledge led to the development of agriculture, and the evolution from the animal totems of the hunter-gatherers to images of the Great Mother, who with proper worship produced her abundant harvest in the same way that women produced children.
Cannabis is among humanity’s oldest and most useful cultivated crops, and so it is not surprising to find that cannabis, in all its forms, has been intricately associated with Goddess worship in many cultures, throughout history.

Kali-Ma
The most ancient goddess still worshiped in the world today is the Indian Kali-Ma, the Mother of Life and Death. Her worship stretches back into pre-history, and is believed to predate that of her more well-known consort Shiva, the longest continually worshiped god on earth. Both Shiva and Kali are strongly associated with marijuana.
Kali is generally depicted with a girdle of human arms and a necklace of skulls, and represents the dark aspect of the goddess trinity of virgin-mother-crone. Both ancient and modern devotees of Kali partake of marijuana in various forms as a part of their worship.
Devotional ceremonies to Kali involve cannabis ingestion and ritual sex, which is directed at raising the Kundalini energy from the base of the spine up into the higher centres of the brain.
1374-kalicol240x400banner_highend

Other pot-goddesses

The worship of Kali, under various names, extended into the ancient Near East, and cannabis was also used by many of the worshippers of Kali’s ancient world counterparts.
Kali is the Hindu counterpart of the ferocious and sensual Canaanite goddess Anath, (part of a similar trinity with Ashera and Astarte)who is also described with “attached heads to her back, girded hands to her waist.”
In ancient Germany, marijuana was used in association with Freya, the slightly tamer Kali-like goddess of Love and Death.
Scythian Hempsters
It is generally accepted that it was the horseback-riding Scythians who spread the combination of cannabis and goddess worship throughout much of the ancient world.
Readers of part two in this series (CC#2) will remember that the Amazon-like Scythian women fought alongside their warrior mates, and that these “Hell’s Angels” of the ancient world were known to have used cannabis in funeral rites, doing so in veneration of their own variation of the Goddess Mother of Life and Death, Rhea Krona.
Showing cannabis’ strong ties with Scythian mythology, Rhea Krona came to reap her children in death with the scythe, an agricultural tool named for its Scythian origin, and originally designed for harvesting cannabis. This scythe image has survived through patriarchal times and into our modern day, with both Father Time and the Grim Reaper still carrying Rhea Krona’s ancient hemp-harvesting tool.
The Tree of Life
In a cave where an ancient urn was found that had been used by the Scythians for burning marijuana, there was also a massive felt rug, which measured 5 by 7 metres. The carpet had a border frieze with a repeated pattern of a horseman approaching the Great Goddess, who holds the Tree of Life in one hand and raises the other in welcome.
Imagery of the Goddess and the Tree of Life is also found amongst other cultures with whom the Scythians came into contact. Readers of part three in this series (CC#5) will remember that the ancient Canaanites and also Hebrews paid particular reverence to the Near Eastern Goddess Ashera, whose cult was particularly focussed around the use of marijuana.
According to the Bible itself, the ancient worshippers of Ashera included wise King Solomon and other biblical kings, as well as their wives and the daughters of Jerusalem. The Old Testament prophets often chastised them for “offering up incense” to the Queen of Heaven.
Like the imagery on the Scythian carpet, icons dedicated to Ashera also have depictions of a “sacred-tree”, most likely a reference to the cannabis that her followers grew and revered, using it as a sacrament, as a food and oil source, and also using the fibres in ritual weavings.
1374-adam

Eve: cultural hero

Among her other titles, Ashera was known as “the Goddess of the Tree of Life”, “the Divine Lady of Eden” and “the Lady of the Serpent”. Ashera was often depicted as a woman holding one or more serpents in her hands. It was Ashera’s serpent who advised Eve to disobey the male god’s command not to partake of the sacred tree.
The historical record shows that the Old Testament version of the myth of Eve, the serpent and the sacred tree was concocted as propaganda against pre-existing Goddess cults.
Originally, the outcome of the Eden myth was not tragic, but triumphant. The serpent brought wisdom, and after the magic fruit was eaten, Adam himself became a god. What was originally involved was probably a psychedelic sacrament, like the Elusian festival in Athens, in which the worshipper ate certain hallucinogenic foods and became one with the Mother Goddess Demeter.
Like the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge was a symbol associated with the Goddess. The rites associated with her worship were designed to induce a consciousness open to the revelation of divine or mystical truths. In these rites cannabis and other magical plants were used, and women officiated as priestesses.
Roman Catholic Persecution
In early Christian times, the holy cannabis oil was ingested and used by many Gnostic Christian sects, in honour of the Queen of Heaven.
With the rise of one of the more harshly ascetic and anti-female Christian sects in Rome, and the subsequent development of the Roman Catholic Church, such groups were forced out of existence, along with most pagan religions and the cult of the Great Mother.
The new Church of Rome followed their Judaic predecessors in naming Eve (the representative of all women) the “Mother of Sin”, as well as demonizing magical plants.
Their violent purges of Goddess worship and magical plant use persisted into medieval times. It has been estimated that over a million female practitioners of the older Goddess religions were burned as “witches” for utilizing cannabis, mandrake, belladonna and other plants in their “flying ointments”.
Even medieval French heroine Joan of Arc was accused of using cannabis, mandrake and other plants in order to hear the voices which guided her, and this eventually led the church to commit her to the flames1374-grtgoddess

Marrying your Goddess
Similar to its use in the spiritual techniques of India, medieval European occult and alchemical masters used cannabis to aid in the “Marriage of the Sun and Moon” in the individual. The Sun and Moon represent the masculine and feminine aspects of the self.
Tantrik, Zoroastrian, Gnostic, Alchemical and occult literature all refer to “marrying your Goddess”, which means connecting an individual’s feminine and masculine aspects together into a unified force. This theme appears over and over again in medieval occult literature. Even the Gnostic Jesus states “when you make the male and female one and the same? then you will enter the kingdom.” (Gospel of Thomas)
Much like the woman’s liberation movement which has been taking place in our modern world, individual self completion requires a similar process to take place in our minds. The feminine aspect, or right cortex, becomes a full partner with the masculine aspect, or left cortex.
Marijuana use can greatly assist in this process. Is it any wonder then, that Shiva, the Lord of Bhang, was known as the god who was both man and woman? Or that the hashish eating Sufis, and later the American hippies, were both accused of being too feminine?
Love your mother
From the collected evidence it is clear that cannabis has been associated with worship of the Goddess since antiquity. Now, as we stand on the verge of a new millennia, in what seem to be the death throes of the patriarchy, it is as if the Goddess is once again reaching out her hand and offering her sacred Tree of Life to us in our time of collective need.
Like so many disobedient Eves, numerous female figures such as Elvy Mussika, Hilary Black, Mary Kane, Mountain Woman, The Holy Sisters of Hemp, Mama Indica, Brownie Mary and many others have decided to challenge the commandments of the male authorities and once again tempt us with the forbidden fruits of cannabis.
Indeed, it is likely not until we are once again free to enjoy all the sacred fruits of Mother Earth that the liberation of the feminine will fully take place, and we can restore Gaia, our planetary matriarch, back to health.
-|-
The androgynous nature of the human organism is re-emerging into consciousness in new ways that have evolved from past experience. We are learning to recognize and differentiate the opposites in our nature.
It makes no difference whether we call these opposites masculine and feminine, creative and receptive, knowledge and wisdom, competition and cooperation, explosion and implosion, or Logos and Eros. What is important, is that they be experienced in union as aspects of our own inner self. They are the self-renewing possibilities of our own individuality. Yoked together, they can fertilize each other to generate the creativity which is the potential of human beings.
The return of such female values as cooperation and forbearance is longed for in a world torn by war and threatened by nuclear disaster, poverty, disease and rape of the land. When the goddess of fertility is reunited with the god of consciousness, the renewed culture will have its conception.
? The Yoga of Androgyny, June Singer
-|-

Hymn To The Plants ? Rig Veda X.97.
Plants which as receptacles of light were born three ages before the Gods, I honour your myriad colors and your seven hundred natures.
A hundred, oh Mothers, are your natures and a thousand are your growths. May you of a hundred powers make whole what has been hurt.
Plants, as Mothers, as Goddesses, I address you. May I gain the energy, the light, the sustenance, your soul, you who are the human being.
Where the herbs are gathered together like kings in an assembly, there the doctor is called a sage, who destroys evil, and averts disease.
As they fell from Heaven, the plants said, “The living soul we pervade, that man will suffer no harm.”
The Herbs which are in the kingdom of the Moon, manifold with a hundred eyes, I take you as the best of them, for the fulfillment of wishes, as peace to the heart.
The plants which are queens of the Soma, spread over all the Earth, generated by the Lord of Prayer, may your energies combine within this herb.
-|-
How women are like pot.
There are some biological oddities which link cannabis with humans, especially the females of our species.
First, certain active compounds of marijuana have molecular resemblance to the female hormone estrogen. Possibly it is due to this aspect of cannabis’ genetic make-up that some growers have reported success with fertilizing their plants with birth control pills or menstrual fluid, the use of which as a ritual fertilizer goes back to the matriarchal period.
Of similar interest is that cannabis seeds contain rare gamma linoleic acid, found only in spirulina, two other rare seed oils, and human mother’s milk. As the tribal people of the world have always shown an incredible intuition when it comes to right use of plants, it is interesting to note that the Sotho women of South Africa make a mealy pap from hempseed to wean their babies off breast milk. 1374-gseed

Recommended Reading:
The Chalice & the Blade, by Riane Eisler
A History of Religious Ideas, by Mircea Eliade
Ishtar Rising, by Robert Anton Wilson
The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara Walker
The Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa: A Historical Ethnographic Survey, by WA Emboden (in Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens, Peter Furst, Ed)
Chris Bennet is the author of Green Gold: Marijuana in Magic and Religion, and the forthcoming Sex, Drugs and Violence in the Bible.