steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Psychoactive substances would explain a lot about Christianity. All cultures appears to have had it for religious use.
Entheogen - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Entheogens are psychoactive substances that induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior[1] for the purposes of engendering spiritual development or otherwise[2] in sacred contexts.[2][3] Anthropological study has established that entheogens are used for religious, magical, shamanic, or spiritual purposes in many parts of the world. Entheogens have traditionally been used to supplement many diverse practices geared towards achieving transcendence, including divination, meditation, yoga, sensory deprivation, asceticism, prayer, trance, rituals, chanting, imitation of sounds, hymns like peyote songs, drumming, and ecstatic dance.[citation needed] The psychedelic experience is often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as those experienced in meditation,[4] near-death experiences,[5] and mystical experiences.[4] Ego dissolution is often described as a key feature of the psychedelic experience.[6]
Judaism
Main article: Cannabis and Judaism
The shrine at Tel Arad, where the earliest use of cannabis in the Near East is thought to have occurred during the Kingdom of Judah
The primary advocate of the religious use of cannabis in early Judaism was Polish anthropologist Sula Benet, who claimed that the plant kaneh bosem קְנֵה-בֹשֶׂם mentioned five times in the Hebrew Bible, and used in the holy anointing oil of the Book of Exodus, was cannabis.[37] According to theories that hold that cannabis was present in Ancient Israelite society, a variant of hashish is held to have been present.[38] In 2020, it was announced that cannabis residue had been found on the Israelite sanctuary altar at Tel Arad dating to the 8th century BCE of the Kingdom of Judah, suggesting that cannabis was a part of some Israelite rituals at the time.[39]
While Benet's conclusion regarding the psychoactive use of cannabis is not universally accepted among Jewish scholars, there is general agreement that cannabis is used in talmudic sources to refer to hemp fibers, not hashish, as hemp was a vital commodity before linen replaced it.[40] Lexicons of Hebrew and dictionaries of plants of the Bible such as by Michael Zohary (1985), Hans Arne Jensen (2004) and James A. Duke (2010) and others identify the plant in question as either Acorus calamus or Cymbopogon citratus, not cannabis.[41]
Christianity
Main articles: Alcohol in the Bible, Sacramental wine, and real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
Fresco of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, flanking an alleged "mushroom tree" at Plaincourault Chapel, a 12th-century chapel of the Knights Hospitaller in Mérigny, Indre, France.
Alcohol is often used in the Christian tradition for religious ceremonies; for example, the Eucharist, however, many[weasel words] Christian denominations disapprove of the use of most illicit drugs.[citation needed] Nevertheless, scholars such as David Hillman suggest that a variety of drug use, recreational and otherwise, is to be found in the early history of the Church.[42]
The historical picture portrayed by the Entheos journal is of fairly widespread use of visionary plants in early Christianity and the surrounding culture, with a gradual reduction of use of entheogens in Christianity.[43] R. Gordon Wasson's book Soma prints a letter from art historian Erwin Panofsky asserting that art scholars are aware of many "mushroom trees" in Christian art.[44]
The question of the extent of visionary plant use throughout the history of Christian practice has barely been considered yet by academic or independent scholars. The question of whether visionary plants were used in pre-Theodosian Christianity is distinct from evidence that indicates the extent to which visionary plants were utilized or forgotten in later Christianity, including heretical or quasi-Christian groups,[45] and the question of other groups such as elites or laity within orthodox Catholic practice.[46]