Jeffrey Fisher <jfisher at igc.org> wrote:
> what would jesus do? light up!
>
> throws a whole new perspective on godspell and superstar,
> too, doesn't it? maybe i'll have to dig out that old
> godspell cassette tape [sic] . . .
>
>
>
Of course this has been a long contention in the Rastafarian Movement:
http://www.triniview.com/cgi-bin/rasta/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/22837
Ganja-Christian Sacrament
Posted By: Taj-I Date: 3, July 02, at 9:58 p.m.
MARIJUANA AS THE CHRISTIAN SACRAMENT
According to Jack Herer in The Emperor Wears No Clothes or Everything You Wanted to Know About Marijuana But Were Not Taught in School, "The Essenes, a kabalistic priest/prophet/healer sect of Judaism dating back to the era of the Dead Sea Scrolls, used hemp, as did the Theraputea of Egypt, from where we get the term 'therapeutic'."
The Theraputea of Egypt were Jewish ascetics that dwelt near Alexandria and described by Philo (1st century B.C.) as devoted to contemplation and meditation. Alexandria is where St. Mark is traditionally held to have established the Coptic Church in 45 A.D.
The Coptic Church has been neglected by Western scholars despite its historical significance. This has been due to the various biases and interest of the Catholic Church which claimed Christianity for its own. The result is that for the Coptic Church there is very little history. It is however assumed that the Coptic religious services have their roots in the earliest layers of Christian ritual in Jerusalem and it is known that the Coptic church is of ancient origin going back to the time of the first Christian communities and even before.
Tradition states that "Coptic" was derived from "Kuftaim", son of Mizraim, a grandchild of Noah who first settled in the Nile valley, i the neighborhood of Thebes, the ancient capital of Egypt.
At one time Thebes was the greatest city in the world and history records that by 2200 B.C. the whole of Egypt was united under a Theban prince. The splendor of Thebes was known to Homer, who called it "the city with a hundred gates". (Richard Schultes states that in ancient Thebes marijuana was made into a drink.)
According to E.A. Wallis Budge in The Divine Origin of the Herbalist, page 79, "The Copts, that is to say the Egyptians who accepted the teachings of St. Mark in the first century of our era, and embraced Christianity, seem to have eschewed medical science as taught by the physicians of the famous School of Medicine of Alexandria, and to have been content with the methods of healing employed by their ancestors." ...ect Full http://www.triniview.com/cgi-bin/rasta/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/22837 --- Sent from UnionMail Service [http://mail.union.org.za]