Decoding the Biblical References to Cannabis with Author Chris Bennett Justin Benton and Janet Benton-Gaillard had the privilege of hosting Chris Bennett, an authority on the historical and religious aspects of cannabis, and the author of "Cannabis, the Lost Sacrament of the Ancient World."
Justin Benton and Janet Benton-Gaillard had the privilege of hosting Chris Bennett, an authority on the historical and religious aspects of cannabis, and the author of "Cannabis, the Lost Sacrament of the Ancient World."
Chris has dedicated over 35 years to researching the role of cannabis in various religions and magical rituals. His journey began with a profound spiritual experience with cannabis, which led him to explore its historical significance. He has since authored five comprehensive books on the subject.
Chris shared his insights on the term "Cannabosum," a word found in the Hebrew Bible, which he believes refers to cannabis. He discussed the mistranslation of this term into Greek as "Calamus" and how recent archaeological evidence supports his theory that Cannabosum is indeed cannabis. This evidence includes the discovery of cannabis resins used in a Hebrew temple dating back to the 8th century BCE.
Chris explained the historical context of cannabis use in religious rituals, highlighting its presence in the holy anointing oil described in Exodus and its significance in the Tent of the Meeting, where it was used to facilitate communication with God. He also touched on the rejection of cannabis offerings in later texts, such as Jeremiah, which he believes is linked to the rise of monotheism and the consolidation of religious power and wealth.
The conversation also covered the broader historical use of cannabis, from its psychoactive properties to its role as a medicine and a textile. Chris emphasized the plant's deep roots in human history, predating many religions and possibly being one of our oldest medicines.
Justin also shared his perspective on the recent advancements in cannabis legalization and acceptance, particularly in the United States. He expressed optimism about the future of cannabis and its potential to heal, especially given its mention in religious texts and its historical use as a healing agent.
They concluded the episode with a call to action for activists to continue their efforts in promoting the benefits of cannabis. Chris's work is a testament to the plant's enduring legacy and its potential to contribute to a greener, more sustainable future.
Cannabis Lost Sacrament Of The Ancient World
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:07 - Isaiah's Cleansing by Coal
00:00:43 - Introduction to the Miracle Plant Podcast
00:01:02 - Chris Bennett's Expertise on Cannabis in Religion
00:02:09 - Chris Bennett's Personal Cannabis Journey
00:03:13 - Historical Use of Cannabis in Religion
00:04:02 - Cannabosum in the Hebrew Bible
00:05:15 - Rejection of Cannabis in Jeremiah
00:06:10 - Translation of Cannabosum and Historical Context
00:07:49 - Archaeological Evidence of Cannabis Use
00:09:02 - Discovery at Tell Arad and Historical Significance
00:10:05 - Yahweh and Asherah Worship
00:11:09 - Cannabis and Frankincense in Temple Rituals
00:12:12 - Biblical Reforms and Monotheism
00:13:06 - Polytheism and the Rise of Monotheism
00:14:09 - The Role of Cannabis in Ancient Healing
00:15:13 - Isaiah's Experience with the Altar Coal
00:17:20 - Chris Bennett's Vision for Cannabis Awareness
00:18:02 - The Evolution of Cannabis Perception
00:19:06 - The Holy Anointing Oil and Modern Recognition
00:20:04 - Misinterpretation and Translation of Biblical Texts
00:21:09 - Medical Evidence of Cannabis in Ancient Times
00:22:47 - Jesus and the Use of Anointing Oil
00:23:58 - The Chosen TV Series and Anointing Oil
00:26:22 - Janet's Inquiry on Ancient Hemp Use
00:27:46 - The Differentiation Between Hemp and Marijuana
00:29:22 - Historical Evidence of Cannabis Use
00:30:47 - The Future of Cannabis Research and Acceptance
00:32:56 - The Stigmatization and Legal History of Cannabis
00:34:08 - The Importance of Hemp in History
00:35:10 - Chris Bennett's Legacy and Vision for Cannabis
00:36:21 - The Role of Doctors and Cannabis Education
00:37:02 - Ancient Use of Cannabis for Food and Medicine
00:38:08 - The Cultural and Historical Significance of Cannabis
00:39:47 - Chris Bennett's Hope for Cannabis's Future
00:41:10 - The Impact of Cannabis Legalization and Research
00:42:09 - Chris Bennett's Aspirations for Cannabis Awareness
00:43:17 - Final Thoughts and Where to Find Chris Bennett's Work
00:44:16 - Janet's Appreciation for the Book's Depth
00:45:30 - Closing Remarks and "Heal the World" Message
Chris Bennett: picks up a burning coal, holds it up to Isaiah's mouth, like a hot nappy or something, and this cleanses his sins and iniquity, which before, when they didn't bring offerings of cannabis and frankincense, the sins and iniquities are done. So both these verses are, I would say, more key in understanding these kind of references. Tell a rat, because they have both the frankincense and the cannabis together, right?
Announcer: Welcome to the Miracle Plant podcast, the show that inspires, promotes, and gives you a daily dose of inspiration from the people who have used cannabis to change their lives in extraordinary ways. Here's your host, Justin Benton.
Justin Benton: Welcome back to the Miracle Plant Podcast, where we discuss this miracle plant with so many names and how it's helping people in so many extraordinary ways. Well, guess what, folks? We are bringing on the expert of experts, Chris Bennett, the recent author of Cannabis, the Lost Sacrament of the Ancient World. We've talked so much about these many names of this miracle plant. And Cannabosum is one that has absolutely struck a chord with me and so many others out there. Chris is the expert. He's the person that found it, that, that, you know, went all the way back to Sula Bune, that talked about the translation from Hebrew to Greek. And he just came out with a new book that I have in my hands. If you're just listening, it's Cannabis, Lost Sacrament of the Ancient World. Chris, welcome to the Miracle Plant Podcast. We're so honored to have you. How are you doing today?
Chris Bennett: I'm doing great, Justin. And it's my pleasure to be here.
Justin Benton: Awesome. Awesome. Well, if you wouldn't mind, tell us a little, uh, tell us your story. How did, how has cannabis affected your life and how did you get into researching these, these historical, incredible insights that you found?
Chris Bennett: Yeah. You know, I, I've been using cannabis probably for like 50 years, you know, uh, most of, you know, most of my life since I was a kid. Um, and, really became important to me when I found out about industrial hemp when Jack Harer's book came out in about 1990. And, you know, I could I lived in a logging town and, you know, I could see how the clear cutting was affecting the environment. And, you know, I found out that hemp could replace all those trees for paper and building products. I became really interested in it, you know, and started promoting it. And around that time, I had a really powerful spiritual experience with cannabis. And I was using it one day, you know, and I was trying to understand if there was anything to that or if I was just, you know, it was just a drug experience. And I thought if there was anything to it, other people and other places would have had similar experiences. And so I started collecting information regarding the role of cannabis in various religions and magic rituals. And that was like in 1990, right? And so since then, I've written like five big books on the history of cannabis in various eras. And yeah, so that's kind of how I got into it.
Justin Benton: So, I mean, to me, it was, it's just like mind bending, like just it's earth shadowing, like we see breaking news all the time, so they can grab headlines. But when you, I mean, I've explained it before, but I'd love to have you explain it as well. So what is cannabosum? What is it in the Bible? And why doesn't the whole world know that Jesus was using cannabosum, a.k.a. hemp, cannabis, this miracle plant in His holy anointing oil?
Chris Bennett: PASTOR BARRY And it seemed like that was going to remain an open question until this recent archaeological evidence was discovered. Now cannabosom is a Hebrew word, and also there's a term canna, cannabosom, they're both used in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament as most people know it. And it appears in Exodus 3.23 in a holy anointing oil, where God, who first appears to Moses in the flames of fire within a burning bush, commands Moses to make this holy oil, and every time he should speak to the Lord, He used to go in what is referred to as the tent of the meeting, an enclosed space, cover himself in this anointing oil, and also place some of this anointing oil on the altar of incense, and then speak to the Lord in the pillar of smoke over the altar of incense. This is why it's called the tent of the meeting. And then there's other references in Isaiah where God's upset that he has not gotten his due of cannabis. And he says, you burden me with your sins and iniquities, but you have brought me any cannabis. and in Ezekiel where it's described as coming in on a caravan, in the Song of Songs where it's described with a list of other plants and what's obviously a fertility ritual of some kind, and in Jeremiah where it's rejected. you know, the rejection in Gemara is pretty clear. You know, what do I care of this frankincense from Shiva? Your kana from a distant land does not please me, you know, and it's a clear rejection. And so there was, you know, when I first read about this, that was the big thing that I noticed was that, well, these early ones, it's clearly seen as beneficial, but in this last one here, Jeremiah 620, there's a pretty clear rejection of the cannabis as an offering, you know, and so I had to really understand the context of all these references, and that took a few years of reading the Bible, reading books about the Bible, and beginning to understand the historical placement of these various texts, and who's behind the authorship of them, and what was going on, in the wider storyline, right? Now this term Cannabossum, Sula Bennett notes that when the Hebrew texts were translated into the Greek for the Septuagint, they were mistranslated according to Sula Bennett as Calamus. And this is like a common translation that we still see in a lot of Bibles, although some Bibles are translated as Fragrant Cane and other variations, right? And it seemed destined, you know, like, but, you know, among Hebrew scholars, there was no real consensus as to what this plant was. Various suggestions have taken place. Ginger grass, camel grass, fennel, sugar cane, all sorts of things. So there was just this plant and it seemed to be remained, you know, like in this controversy of what was it, you know, and based on the similarity of the term cannabis, Going back to the Mishnik period, where it was kanabas, this is like a few centuries common era, it was Suleymane put forth the idea that this was the term kanabasim, evolved through variations over a few centuries and broke down and became kanabas. Now, she also compared this to Assyrian references to Kanabu, which are generally regarded as references to cannabis by Assyriologists, not the same sort of controversy that has followed the Cannabossum references among linguists and etymologists. There's more of a consensus that this Kanabu is a reference to cannabis among Assyriologists. And there we find almost identical use, incense, ointments for opening one's ear to God, used in the sacred rites, and so it's used in an identical way. And it appears in the writings of Ashurbanipal and Esarhaddon, his grandson. And both these figures appear in the Old Testament text. So we know this is, you know, contemporary to these Hebrew references, right? And so, you know, the similar way of use really is a really important factor. I think most scholars, when they discuss it and dismiss it, and I've been over a lot of stuff on this. I've, you know, been writing specifically about cannabis and these cannabis references since the early 90s. So I'm always on top of anything that gets said about it or comes up about it. And unfortunately, I think, you know, the main dismissal is coming from this, you know, they don't really go beyond Exodus 30, 23, where it's used in this anointing oil. And that would be kind of a strange way to be introduced to it if you weren't familiar with this wider history of cannabis and also its use in anointing oils themselves in Assyria for specifically opening one's ear to God. And so it seemed to be remained to be dismissed. Then 2020 comes along. And archaeologists, there's a well-known temple site. It's the only actual Hebrew temple that they found, you know, the remains of the first temple. They're buried, you know, supposedly under the Dome of the Rock in an Islamic holy site. So there's no archaeology going on there. And so this is the only actual temple site, Hebrew temple site that they know of, right, you know. And it was a fortress that was kind of an outpost for trading reasons and stuff like that. And they unburied this back in the 60s or something like that. It was already kind of a controversial site because it was known for the combined worship of Yahweh, that's the Hebrew God, and his consort, Asherah. Now, this is radical to most people, the idea that the Hebrew God, Yahweh, at one time was coupled with a goddess. but this is widely accepted by biblical scholars nowadays. There's numbers of Hebrew inscriptions that refer to Yahweh and his Asherah, and this site here, we know it was a temple of Yahweh's because they found an inscription, a house of Yahweh, but also at this site were found figurines that are believed to be offerings to the goddess Asherah, or symbols of the goddess Asherah. And also in this site, at this temple site, there's a small enclosed room, which they say is the miniature Holy of Holies, which is like the inner temple based on the same design of the temple in Jerusalem. There's this little inner temple, kind of mimics what we referred to earlier as the Tent of the Meeting when it was, you know, supposedly a nomadic type of situation, and they only were limited to tents. They rebuilt the same sort of style. into the temple in Jerusalem with this little room, the tent of the meeting, you know, the holy of holies. And this is like about the size of a broom closet, probably about like, you know, four or five feet by about eight feet. And it was an enclosed space and it had two altars. And on these altars, they found one was used for burning frankincense, which is mentioned a number of times in the Bible, also psychoactive to some extent. And the other one was used for burning cannabis resins. And so this all of a sudden puts the theory into the realm of reality because now we know at a Hebrew temple 8th century BCE is this thing. Now this was so well preserved, right, like the big problem with archaeology and cannabis and other plant materials is plants decompose and break down off and there's nothing left. A lot of the archaeology we have has got to do with where cannabis that was burnt So then carbonized and managed to survive because of that or just really ideal preservation conditions as we found with the evidence out of China of archaeology, really dry, cold conditions. Now this one was so well preserved because it was knocked over and buried and a new floor was put over it in a day. And so it was purposely canceled and hidden from view, right? And so this falls in line with the last reference I was talking about in Jeremiah 620. And this has to do with likely, we know that there was two major reformers that wanted to champion Yahweh alone worship. For most of the kingdom period, even in the biblical texts, Kings and Chronicles, It's polytheistic, they're worshiping other gods and goddesses alongside Yahweh. And this is a common practice throughout the whole major Near East. Monotheism, it was a new development, right? Probably largely political because Israel and Judah were being attacked by larger kingdoms like Assyria and Babylon after that. And that's when the big Exodus happened. This is all happening just before the big Exodus where the Babylonians disperse them all before the Persians return them. And we know that this area is polytheistic because there's all sorts of inscriptions and archaeological evidence that attest to the polytheism in the region. Yahweh is worshipped, but worshipped alongside other gods, and he's coupled with Asherah. Now, monotheism is a way of consolidating the kingdom and its power. Because when you're, you know, no division between politics and religions, you're dealing with all these different competing cults. And they want to like consolidate it so they can control it because they're dealing with outside forces that are against a real necessity to it. But also it consolidates the wealth because all the offerings go to the temple in Jerusalem. All these other main temples get shut down. And it's only the temple in Jerusalem that is in contact with Yahweh, who's the sole God now, and all offerings are going there, and all the law is the same for everybody. There's no competing structure of hierarchical polytheism, right? So there's some need to do it. And so this is kind of wrapped up with the suppression of this, right? Now, in Jeremiah 620, as I mentioned, the offerings of both frankincense and cannabis are rejected, right? And this is what they found at the site in Tell Arad, an altar for frankincense, an altar for cannabis. Whereas in Isaiah 43, 23, 24, God's like, you didn't bring me any frankincense, you didn't bring me any cannabis, but you burden me with your sins and iniquities, right? And he's all choked out. I'm like, where's my cannabis, right? And we can be sure that this is a reference to cannabis because there's an earlier account that also takes place in the temple. and sins and iniquities come up again there. On this one, it's like Isaiah 6, and it's like, and the house was filled with smoke. And then flew one of the seraphims unto me with a live coal, which he had taken with tongs from off the altar, and he held it to my lips, and lo, my iniquity was taken away and my sin purged. So he goes over to the altar and with tongs, picks up a burning coal, holds it up to Isaiah's mouth, like almost like a hot nape or something, this cleanses his sins and iniquity, which before when they didn't bring offerings of cannabis and frankincense, the sins and iniquities are done. So both these verses are, I would say, more key in understanding these kind of references to Tell Arad, because they have both the frankincense and and the cannabis together, right? And this accounts for also the cancellation of the temple, because Jeremiah is writing this at the time of King Hezekiah, who we know is a historical king, who went around and shut down Asherah temples, destroyed them and buried them and did that sort of thing. So this all fits in completely with those references. And we can be sure this Jeremiah reference is a reference to Because in Jeremiah 44, Jeremiah runs into a bunch of Israelites in Egypt and he blames them for the fall of Jerusalem for burning incense to the Queen of Heaven. you know, the king's wife and the king of heaven is Yahweh. And so this all kind of is, this archeology, it totally confirms these references to Cannabisium. And now it's taken, you know, it's taken some time to get the inroads into biblical scholars. And I'm mostly focused my energy in promoting it these days amongst biblical scholars, trying to get biblical scholars to comment on it. Currently, Dan McClellan, a well-known biblical scholar, is reading Cannabis Lost Sacrament of the Ancient World. I'm always trying to pass it on to biblical archaeology outfits and stuff. It's hard, right? Because I'm not an academic. I'm sure I freak these people out when they see a picture of me or click on a video or something like that, right? But, you know, this is just the way it is. And regardless of that, eventually, as people become to understand these cannabis and canna references, In light of Telerad, this is the obvious conclusion about it.
Justin Benton: Well, I love that you shared all that and thank you for all the history and all your research. It's been, you know, we're going on 35 years, it sounds like. So it's really incredible, like I said, to have you on here to really bring forth and shed light on all this research. And like you said, it's hard. I mean, we're talking about things that happened thousands of years ago. and for things to, you know, how we didn't have printing presses and we didn't have hard drives and, and we didn't have ways to store this information. A lot of it was, you know, just done through passing stories down and things like that. And again, for me, the thing that, that I feel if you, cause I'm in a, I was raised a Christian and in the Catholic church and, and I talked with, you know, deacons and priests and, and because we've come so far with cannabis, in the last 10 years. I mean, think about where we were in 1990 with Jack Rare and everything that was going on to where we are now. We've got two thirds of the states of the United States that allow medicinal use cannabis. It's a topic that's talked about for being federally legal. It's federally legal to grow hemp, which is cannabis with low THC. We have certainly come a long way. So now that when I have these conversations and talk about the holy anointing oil that had cannabis that was reserved for kings and high priests and that Jesus was like a man of the people. And he's like, nope, we're taking this holy anointing oil and we are going out and we are healing. And he gave it to the people, not only to the Jewish, but he also gave it to the Gentiles. And obviously that's what got him in a lot of hot water amongst other things with the high priests back in those days. So to me, it's like, can you imagine, I know we've come a long way and I'm a gratitude, optimistic kind of person, but could you imagine if, to this day and age, people knew that the original anointing oil had cannabis in it, and what that would mean, because we've seen miracles. This is obviously the Miracle Plant Show. We've seen miracles with this plant. A lot of people know about seizures, which is incredible, and obviously our stories with autism, but we see it with cancer, Alzheimer's. We see it with dementia. We see it with Parkinson's. I mean, we see dramatic improvements when people incorporate this, and I just, again, the thing that the culprit here that I see is when they translated it, Ken Abbasem, from Hebrew text to Greek and, you know, 300 years after Christ had died. Do you have any insights on that? I mean, I know we've got the Dead Sea Scrolls, you know, that give us more context, but what do you think happened back then?
Chris Bennett: It was 300 years before Christ was born, actually, that it was translated into Greek. You know, it's all like… in that period. I don't know, like, you know, some people think there was some conspiracy. I don't know that, right? You know what I mean? There's a lot of other mistranslations of plants and confusion in there, and you know, it's like, you know, not everybody's a botanist, you know what I mean? There's a lot of plants in the Bible, there's whole books about plants in the Bible. So I don't know that, because The story that the references tell, if you follow them, it's so clearly talking about a psychoactive plant and cannabis. I don't know that that was intentionally, it certainly wasn't intentionally hidden in the Hebrew. They laid it right out, you know. It's right there. In Greek, I don't know, it may have been a mistranslation, you know, like just somebody, you know, got the wrong plant, you know. And it's, you know, remained an open question because of that. It's not clearly, you know, Calamus is a pretty common marsh plant from that area. And, you know, in regards to the healing stuff, I should point out that, you know, Telerat's not the only evidence archaeology of cannabis. We also have evidence from the Christian period around late third, early 4th century from Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem, where the body of a young woman who had died during childbirth from complications, they'd been using cannabis topically on her belly as well as burning it in the room she was in. So we have medical evidence of cannabis there. You know, it's important to note, you know, when you bring in Jesus, that Jesus baptized none of his disciples in the Synoptic Gospels, but in the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, Mark, he sends out the twelve apostles with oil to cast out demons and heal the sick. And casting out demons could easily refer to treating epilepsy and stuff like that. There's Assyrian references to treating a malady that was referred to as the hand of ghost, which was thought to be epilepsy as well. So it may have been already known, you know, for centuries prior for such effects. And the alchemist Paracelsus as well had a topical recipe for epilepsy with cannabis as well. So, you know, there's a lot to it. And, you know, I think it's like when weighed against you know, some sort of just completely miraculous healing, which isn't clearly not the case. You know, Jesus does things, you know, he puts a poultice together to put on somebody's eye. If it was just, you know, all purely miracle, there would be no tools, you know, used in that way. And he used oil to cast out demons. We see this in the Gnostic texts as well, where he gives the apostles a box full of undulants and balms. and says you have to heal the body before you can heal the soul, you know, and he passes this box on to him, the Gnostic texts, which were discovered in 1945 by their age in Christian texts, which, you know, tell a whole other avenue. One of the main points between the groups known under the banner of Gnosticism and what became the Roman Catholic Church, you put the New Testament together, is, in fact, water baptism versus anointing oil. The Gnostics said, you know, they go down into water and come out with nothing, but when we're anointing, we receive the chrism, as Christ did, and there's fire in the baptism, but only water in the, there's fire in the anointing oil, but only water in the baptism, and they're quite clear about the distinction, you know, and for their part, the Roman Catholic Church accused these Gnostics of initiating with secret sacraments, you know, So it's clear that there was a whole other avenue of Christianity around in the first few centuries from what's come down to us purely in the New Testament text.
Justin Benton: Absolutely. Well, here's the crazy full circle. I don't know if you've heard of this show. There's a TV series called The Chosen, and it's on season four right now. They've got over 750 million views. It's the largest crowdfunded, the first ever multi-season series on the life of Jesus and the apostles. And in the last episode, spoiler alert if no one's seen it, but they're putting them out of the movie theaters right now. It was the number two movie over the weekend. is that the opening scene or one of the opening scenes on season four, episode one, they are selling a holy anointing oil to the Pharisees to finance Jesus's mission. Now, I haven't done all my research and dug in there, but they do a ton of research when they do that. And then these Pharisees, these high priests of the Jewish tradition asked this, you know, Zebedee, who was the father of two of the apostles, you know, well, is this done by the law of Moses? And then he makes him read off the ingredients. And in that text, because they are literally translating it from Hebrew, they said aromatic cane and 250 shekels, which I was just like, yes, we got rid of calamus, this, this marshy plant that would not have that type of monetary value. And I was just so excited. I'm probably going to do a whole podcast on that. I know some of the producers over there at, at the shows. And so again, with how far we've come with, with cannabis and understanding that it has medicinal value in our country, which we're kind of the beacon of light for so many other countries. Now we've got a huge show with almost a billion people watching and talking about aromatic cane or hemp. So I can, now that gives me another road that I can start to have conversations with people. And we can just open up. And that's what we've seen with this miracle plant, is that it's like a Pandora's box. It's like, wait a second, because if, you know, no one has judgment against aloe vera when you crack open the plant and rub it on a sunburn. And if we can get past the destigmatization and the hidden, hiddenness of this plant and think about, well, if you've got pain and you grab some cannabis and you rub it on your hands, I promise you it's going to help with inflammation and pain. And then we open up the world to understanding plant-based medicine. Food is our medicine and getting away from this Western medicine, pharma, you know, pharmacopeia that we have dealt with for the last 150 years.
Chris Bennett: Absolutely, man.
Justin Benton: So my mom's here as well. I'm sure she's dying to get in. Janet Benton Gaylord, the head of research here at the Miracle Plant. I'll let you, uh, I'm sure you've got some things to say. Your microphone might be muted. You might want to check that. I'll see if I'll get it for you.
Janet Benton-Gaillard: There we go. I'm kind of at a loss at this particular topic. I find it fascinating. And the whole discussion you had about the development actually of humans taking that great leap or whatever by use of psychoactives to kind of activate the right brain and things like that. And to talk about the CB1 receptors, I'm really into the endocannabinoid system. But one thing I get very confused about, and I think other people do still in modern day America, is did the ancient people make any differentiation between hemp, like we define it with very low THC levels versus hemp with high THC levels? I mean, it's obviously the psychoactivity that has much of that power you've talked about, but it's also the stumbling block.
Chris Bennett: Well, I think, you know, like people grew up for different reasons and that kind of brings out those types of things, you know. But, you know, the modern distinction, you know, between hemp and, you know, other cannabis, it's just kind of like a modern thing for the industrial applications, right? You know what I mean? Even the term Indian hemp actually referred to more psychoactive cannabis, right? There was hemp and then there was Indian hemp. Robert Hooke, the English scientist, came up with that distinction because the hemp in Europe that they had didn't seem to have any psychoactive properties when they tried to use it, but they would get hemp from India and then it would be totally psychoactive. And so you know probably a lot of it has to do with like growing it right you know when you grow for fiber, it's all just growing, you grow side by side really tightly together so it grows up and when you grow it for flower seeds, you want a lot of space so you can get large branches all around, and that sort of thing. But you know, the cannabis in the ancient world, there was clearly psychoactive cannabis being grown for psychoactive purposes. The stuff in China that goes back 2,800 years old, found in three different sites, you know. They found a bouquet of cannabis placed across somebody's body, found about two pounds of female cannabis that had been separated and prepared. and found some cannabis mixed with another plant at tombs of the Gushi culture. All this is China. These are not Han Chinese, not indigenous Chinese people. They're actually Indo-Europeans that were in China from about 2000 BC to about 400 BCE when the Han Chinese chased them out of the region. And this is also seems to be a time when cannabis kind of got pushed out of Chinese culture as well. Confucianism comes up and kind of pushes out things like Daoism and stuff that was more kind of shamanic where we see the cannabis use in Chinese medicine. But the cannabis there was so well preserved. It was clearly cultivated for its psychoactive properties based on analysis of it. And this is probably was a major export for this region out into the rest of the world. We know these Indo Europeans were in contact with other Indo Europeans. in the Bactria Marjan Archaeological Complex over in Afghanistan. And there's claims by the Russian archaeologist, Victor Tsarinady, that that site was a site used for the preparation of haoma, the sacred beverage of the Avesta, that became the Zoroastrian religion. And Tsarinady says this was a preparation of cannabis and ephedra, and in some cases, opium, right? And the Scythians, another cannabis-using group, one of their nicknames was the Haoma Varga, the Haoma Gatherers. And they actually were transporting this. We found numbers of Scythian sites where they burned it in braziers similar to the braziers that were being used in China. And they've also found braziers in China where cannabis was burnt in funerary rituals. Same with the Scythians. Cannabis is burnt inside a little tent in funerary rituals, but also was consumed in golden goblets mixed with opium. And Russian archaeologists say that this was in fact the Hail Mary preparation as well. So there's, you know, some pretty interesting archaeological evidence there, right? Oh, I forgot what the question was.
Janet Benton-Gaillard: It's a perennial question to me, doing research and also all the legal issues and everything. The level of THC and the effect of THC versus the same thing.
Chris Bennett: It's tested and it was very psychoactive. Same with the cannabis resins. from this 8th century site in Israel, they think that was hashish. It wasn't like raw flowers. It was extracted resins, right? So it would have been quite potent. So not just cannabis growing for THC purposes, but also for hashish, for making hashish and resin. type stuff, which puts it way earlier than was previously thought, you know. And a lot of these Assyrian references do describe it being extracted into oils, like olive oil, which is actually quite effective for extraction purposes. And other products, sifting it, you know, obviously trying to get the pollen out, I mean the trichomes out. Um, so, you know, obviously, uh, um, some awareness of it, some, some history of cultivation by this time, you know, eighth century BC already old, uh, um, long established, uh, hashish preparation. Uh, you know, it's very unlikely that this would have been just a regular time when they discovered it. You know what I mean?
Justin Benton: Yeah. And I know like, I mean, as far as culprits, there's a few culprits, right? So there's the, there's the mistranslation from, uh, uh, from Greek to Hebrew that turns, you know, cannabis into calamus. And then there's the, the 1937 marijuana tax acts, marijuana with an H, which was, you know, obviously construed to get rid of, uh, marijuana, which in our country, they went down to Mexico, they found a slang term, they brought it up here with an H and they passed the marijuana tax acts in 1937. In 1936, there was over 2 million prescriptions written by American medical doctors, they went to the American Medical Association, went to Congress in 1937 and, you know, shunned them. How dare you? How dare you take away one of our most powerful tools, cannabis oil, that was used for headaches and pain and inflammation and many other things. And it was all of a sudden overnight gone.
Chris Bennett: And so it was… In Mexico, there's like medical lexicons going back to the 1840s. And there, they actually have marijuana in it still. And they were using it, you see marijuana, it says cannabis indica, and you see cannibal, another Spanish word that says cannabis sativa. And so they were using it there to distinguish between the psychoactive cannabis and the more industrial type of cannabis. Going back to the 1840s, you know, people talk about the racism of the word, and I think it was used by racist in America, because I'm familiar to the American public, but at the same time it was a long established Mexican word that that referred to marijuana and you know it's like. There's a problem of demonizing this word. It's a beautiful word. It's in all sorts of great cannabis songs. It's a big part of cannabis history. Some of that's negative with Reefer Madness, but not all of it. There's lots of great jazz songs and Mexican songs about marijuana and folk tales about marijuana. And it's a beautiful word that describes a beautiful plant. We're not going to let the racist tarnish that.
Justin Benton: Well, and like I said, we've come so far with the passing of the 2014 and the 2018 farm bill, because the question we get all the time is what's the difference between hemp and marijuana? Well, that was actually a arbitrary number made up by some Canadians to set it at 0.3% THC. Eventually, hopefully in our next farm bill that should come out later on this year, we'll get that 1%. line up for the THC to no longer burden the farmers when they're growing hemp legally. And then obviously, it would be great if we completely deschedule it, which, you know, could happen.
Chris Bennett: Yeah, I mean, Canada, you know, when it's marijuana is legal here, but you still can't get like viable hemp seeds that you could sprout. And I'm sure that, you know, hemp seeds, hemp nut is a superfood. I'm sure like hemp sprouts would be a super, superfood. Oh, it is. And so, you know, it's kind of a shame that way. I actually had in, you know, in the 90s, I had the first hemp seed food business here in Canada, probably one of the first in the U.S. as well. I had a hemp seed bar, Mom Indica's Hemp Seed Treats, and I sold those all over North America for a number of years.
Justin Benton: That's awesome. Well, we still get, you know, a lot of our hemp seed oil from Canada. You guys are way ahead of the U.S. We're starting to catch up. We've gotten a lot of gray areas and it's a state by state thing. Actually only Idaho and I believe one of the Dakotas is kind of still confused about CBD and that it's federally legal. But so like I said, we have come so far and I'm so excited that that you could join us and give us even more history because look, We're gonna we come we were on we're out here in California. So we've come a long way with the doctors, especially because the doctors used to say, well, there's not enough research because that was a, you know, a big pharma talking point. But now the patients are going to the doctor and saying, Hey, Doc, I'm not asking your opinion. I'm telling you that I'm using this stuff. And it's working. It's helping with my autoimmune disease. It's helping with street with sleep or pain or or anxiety and things like that. And so now these doctors, some of them are going to places like CanMed where Dr. Raphael Meshulam spoke in 2019. Dr. Ethan Russo is another incredible cannabis researcher out there. And so now a lot of these doctors are realizing, hey, I need to learn about this. We've had doctors reach out to us and just say, I need to know. I need facts. I need research. I need more information because I'm losing patients because I can't speak the language that they're speaking because what they're using is working.
Janet Benton-Gaillard: And then I always go back to my basic question I'm still trying to figure out. So in all these eons of history that you're talking about, were the regular people like using it for seed? Were they eating it? Were they using the flower for medicine without heating it? In other words, were the hemp benefits of the CBDA, which is the most prolific of the phytocannabinoids, were they available? Because it's obvious to me they were just because we have this endocannabinoid system because humans were exposed to hemp as food, animals who ate it as medicine. And so even today, a lot of people want the hemp without the THC. Was that available then, all these thousands and thousands of years of history?
Chris Bennett: You know, cannabis would have been sun-dried, which converts it to THCA anyways, you know what I mean? For a large part, you know, aging, it's not like… drying it in sheds and stuff like that. They weren't aware of a lot of this stuff. You know, there's such a broad question because it's like so many different places and such a vast amount of time. Certainly in China, you know, cannabis seeds were one of the major grains, you know what I mean? And so it was widely, you know, there's Hebrew references to hemp seed porridge and Persian references to Chardonnay, royal grain. And it seems like it was pretty widely available. Now the Hashishin, you know, the temple stuff, I'm assuming that was much more of a commodity, you know, for the elites and that sort of thing, right? But yeah, I guess it really depends on, you know, what time period, what place, some places it flourished and was widely used, other places it was, you know, resorted, you know, a large part of what happened with the disappearance with Soma and Haoma was because of you know, the priests are trying to limit them to themselves and things like that and people's resentment of that, right? You know what I mean? Yeah, you know, even in Islamic history, there's times where It's accepted and flourishing. And then, you know, another place and a century later is they're pulling your teeth out if they find, you know, so there's a lot of a lot of variations, but it's been with us for a really long time. There's evidence of hemp rope going back like 24,000 years. Elizabeth Whelan Barber, who's probably the foremost authority on ancient textiles, says that there's tools that are used for breaking up hemp fibers that go back 28,000 years. We've got examples of preserved hemp cloth from cattle hayak in China going back about 10,000 years. And those places are really far apart, right? You know what I mean? It's not like those people picked it up off each other. Those are independent. So it must have been around for quite a while before that, you know. And then the ritual use, you know, we can chase that back. There's like 5,500 years in Romania and Ukraine. They have evidence of He burnt cannabis at funerary rituals recently in Spain. They found evidence going back 5,200 years of cannabis-infused wines, you know. So, you know, it's older than any sort of religion, you know. Possibly our oldest medicine even, you know. Like, it's thought to be 2,700 B.C., you know. Ariaveta, other references are all really, really old. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a big history and it's woven itself in and out of our culture, you know, and I, I really feel it's, it's a special time for cannabis right now. And that, that, that, you know, you mentioned out, you know, all the decades, I don't think people would have been, you know, really ready for a lot of the information about his role in the ancient world and religion. until they were familiar with the industrial applications of hemp and the medicinal qualities of medical cannabis. Now that's become pretty widespread knowledge. We can start moving into this historical data. I thought in 2020 when this archaeological discovery, that would really blow up in the news, but unfortunately it was right in the midst of COVID and Trump tweeting every two hours. I'm putting everybody into a panic and so it just kind of got missed and there's been actually very little commentary on this important archaeological discovery. Nobody's questioning it. You know, nobody's saying, oh no, that's they made a mistake or anything like that, but just little commentary from biblical scholars on it. They just don't know how to frame it. You know what I mean? It's none of, no biblical scholars were suggesting that this could be the case, you know. prior to the discovery. So they're just trying to still contextualize it, I guess. What it needs is a good Netflix documentary or something like that.
Justin Benton: Well, like I said, they got The Chosen out there talking about it at least, so that gives us a platform. With everything that you've done, all the research, five books, 35 years, And, and, and now you're starting to see it really come to fruition. Like we knew when the farm bill passed in 2018 down here in the U S that we, it would move the needle and it has. And people are much more, um, you know, open to trying cannabis. They're still very confused, which is understandable because the difference between, uh, a cannabis product, high in THC versus a cannabis product, high in CBD. So we're going through education and that's going to take some time. But as far as like your legacy, like look at all this work you've put in and all, you know, you know, the foremost expert in understanding all of the different ancient, you know, uses of this plant. What would you, what is, what do you envision? What do you want to see happen? You know, what do you see from all of this hard work? What is it? Well, how do you know we've won? How do you know all this work is, is, has paid off and, and, and it's, uh, it's all worth it.
Chris Bennett: Hmm. Yeah. Like, You know, for me, cannabis is the tree of life, man, for the healing of the nations. It's the Soma and Haola return. And I think that, you know, it's just, I think even if I stopped working right now and disappeared, that all this information would just keep rolling and growing and stuff like that. You know, the Jesus cannabis stuff particularly has gotten out of my grasp, you know what I mean? It's like people know all about that, they never heard of me, right? And so it's just kind of taking on a life of its own, you know? And I think that we're at a pivotal point in history where we could go in one of two directions, you know what I mean? We could go in the big oily, oil gluttony, pharmaceutical, fossil fuel, disaster world with climate change and global warming and all the horrors of war and all that type of stuff. Or we can reach out this green palm-like leaf that's putting its hand out to us and use it to heal ourselves, heal the planet.
Justin Benton: Absolutely. I know Jack Herrera, one of my favorite quotes from him is, is hip may not save the world or heal the world, but it's the only thing that can. So I really appreciate it, Chris. Any final words or anything you want to leave our audience with before we boogie?
Chris Bennett: Pleasure. You know, if you want to find out about me, follow me on Facebook. I got YouTube videos as Just put my name and cannabis into YouTube or Google, you'll get lots of articles and videos and that sort of stuff. And yeah, if you're an activist, keep on keeping on. There's not a lot you can do in this world today. This one issue, though, you know, you can free the prisoners, you can heal the planet, you can heal the sick. And it's a pivotal issue for our time, man, you know what I mean? And I think it can heal the soul of the planet.
Justin Benton: I agree. And where should they get grab your latest book cannabis? Amazon or wherever. That's where I got it. But sometimes there's a better place and I know I got your last book from you and you were even kind enough to sign it. So if you reach out to Chris, he'll probably do the same for you as well. So anything you want to leave us with there, mom?
Janet Benton-Gaillard: I just wanted to say I actually read it on Kindle. I read a lot on Kindle. It was easier at night to read it on my Kindle on my phone. No, I just wanted to thank you. There's just so much misinformation. And I just really love the book. In fact, how you kept expanding it, you know, into ritual, into development of the human brain and human awareness and differentiation from our animal level or whatever. and going into the endocannabinoid system, which is one of my favorite things. And although I love CB1, I'm a big believer in CB2 also, which has a lot more of the health benefits or whatever that for the whole body. But anyway, no, I loved when you take anything go beyond just what everybody thinks and actually explore a new ground. So excellent, excellent book. I really enjoyed it. And I can't wait to see what you're going to say in the next one.
Justin Benton: Yeah, no kidding. Are you working on book six?
Chris Bennett: I had kind of taken a break, you know, I didn't really want to approach the Christian material in this one. I wanted to really try and focus and establish this kind of bossom, get a real consensus on that, and then once that happens, break into some of this other material that I've got from my older books on Christianity, and who knows, maybe there'll be some new archaeology or something like that. further substantiates it.
Justin Benton: Love it. Well, at the end of every Miracle Plant podcast, we say heal the world because that's our mission to reach a billion people by 2025 about the power of this Miracle Plant, especially in the raw form. So on the count of three, we're going to say heal the world for those that are listening. For those of us here on the count of three, let's say heal the world and get out there and do it. One, two, three. Heal the world! Thanks for sticking by the Miracle Plant podcast. Thank you, Chris. Go out and buy his book. It's great. Or his previous ones as well. And be a blessing everybody and happy healing.