The story Bergoglio won't change. Spirituality and psychoactive substances.

By @poetarojo

Observing the human being's link with psychoactive substances throughout history, it can be determined that their spiritual use is still common today, but many people are victims of prohibitionism. The consequence is that they know nothing about the issue because it is taboo to talk about it and they accept the repressive and punitive policies imposed without thinking about it. Here I offer an approach on the relationship between the human being, the sacred plants and the church of Rome.

As human beings we have an intrinsic need for a search for the Transcendent (God).

Since ancient times, there has been a close link between spirituality and psychoactive substances that were used and are used to access a state of consciousness sensitive to the transcendent.

Priests and religious of practically all religions and cultures and in all times have used natural or synthetic substances for spiritual exercises and/or healing rituals. In many cases the substances accompanied and accompany initiation rituals. For example, in Roman Catholic Christianity, first communion is accompanied by bread and wine, the latter being a psychoactive substance, which in this church and in Christianity in general symbolizes the blood of Christ. And this is repeated every time the holy supper is eaten.

Other communities in other worldviews use plant substances such as Ayahuasca, Peyote, Psilocibic mushrooms, etc. These examples are repeated in almost all religions and throughout human history. There are testimonies in various literary sources, both religious and medicinal. To deepen my understanding of the subject, I recommend reading the "Historia General de las Drogas", by the Spanish philosopher Antonio Escohotado, an indispensable reading to understand the depth of the roots of the subject of drugs.

An important and fundamental detail to keep in mind is that prior to the initiation rituals, the candidate receives an intellectual and emotional preparation in which he learns the respect for the substance and its symbolic value, which must be of the greatest interest to the neophyte; not only for the peculiar significance, but because it opens a wide and beautiful field of research: the one that embraces the symbolism of sacred plants.

In all the ancient initiatory and religious systems there was and always is a sacred plant that has its special symbolism and is venerated by the devotees as a sacred emblem. Some examples: in the Dionysus mysteries, Ivy was used; in those of Ceres, Myrtle; in those of Osiris, Erica; in those of Adonis, Lettuce; in those of Jesus Christ, the Vine. In several, marijuana was used - and still is - as in Rastafarism of the Judeo-Christian tradition or in Hindu purification rituals, to mention a few.

Towards the middle of the 18th century, knowledge of the practical nature of antidotes, wound treatments and illnesses from the magical-religious world of each cultural area began to become a scheme considered by empirical medicine as a sanitary fallacy. Indeed, even the most empirical medicine is always linked to salads in the
as Escohotado describes it.

Still during the 4th century B. C. Plato tells Socrates that Pharmakon will restore health "if he uses it to pronounce the appropriate salad". Hence, the evolutionary order in the history of medicine is now tending to be reversed, considering that purification rituals and other cathartic elements came first, and that notions of therapeutic secularization emerged much later.

Until the emergence of hippocratic medicine (alopathic) it can be said that the healing resources were quite similar at different times and places (within the range available for each botanical area), and that the true differences correspond to the mythical-ritual frameworks of each cultural group.

Starting from this precept, we recognize that psychoactive substances and religion have been linked since the beginning of humanity. We must accept their theological importance and the need for a theorization on the relationship between them and the spiritual life of today. In addition, there is a need to reconceptualize obsolete and exclusionary terms in order to initiate a long and urgent path towards concrete public policies that use methodologies such as harm reduction (RDD) and risk management (GDR); urging the authorities from civil society, in order to change the approach towards people who use drugs (PQUD) from a penal, repressive and coercive point of view to a preventive and socio-health approach respecting individual freedoms and rights

All of us have participated more than once, or at least once, in some ritual, ceremony or liturgical or social celebration that has included at least one plant (fruit or derivative), as a sacred bond with nature/creation and in turn with the divine. At least all those who consider themselves to be Christians and who have participated in a Eucharist / Holy Communion / Supper recognize the fruit of the vine as the link of the Transcendent through a sacred plant.

The important thing is to respect nature and the beings we live with on this planet Earth. This includes dealing responsibly with ourselves, informing ourselves about what we consume, caring for ourselves and our neighbor is part of the stewardship of creation.

The pope that demonized a plant

The first to prohibit and demonize the use of Cannabis/Marihuana/ is Innocent VIII, who declares the consumption of the plant as sacrilege in 1484. Let us remember that sacrilege is for the Roman Catholic Church the only sin that has no forgiveness, and it puts at the same level of insulting and blaspheming against the Holy Spirit by consuming Cannabis. However, the copyist monks of the medieval monasteries wrote on hemp paper in the light of oil lamps from this plant and Gutenberg printed the first Bible on hemp paper. There are even historical witnesses who have proved the use of hemp for 3,000 years. There are archeological remains where seeds were found among the belongings of mummies, fabrics and fibre ropes of hemp, ancient artistic reliefs where the harvest of this plant is observed, considered useful as raw material for textiles and medicines and ritual use.

In addition, Pope Innocent VIII separated the "healers" who used cannabis and other herbalists, declaring that Cannabis was a wicked sacrament belonging to the second and third type of satanic mass.

The obsession with demons and the beginning of demonology as black propaganda against other forms of spirituality began to grow when, in his Bull Submis Desiderantes of the same year 1484, Innocent VIII declared:

It has come to our ears that members of both sexes do not avoid the relationship with evil angels, cubes and succubi, and that, through their witchcraft, spells and spells suffocate, extinguish and spoil the births of women.
The Pope reached such a point that he appointed two Dominican inquisitors, Heinrich Kramer and Johann Sprenger, to carry out the first systematization of demonology and it was in this way that Malleus Maleficarum, or "Hammer of the Witches" was born, the first manual of witch-hunting that was never authorized by the clergy of any university of the time. Heinrich Kramer then decided to forge the signatures and seals of the ecclesiastical authorities, in addition to adulterating Sprenger's signature.

This persecution lasted more than 150 years. In the 16th century treatises, all the "magical" formulas of the doctors and wizards who used their knowledge in herbal medicine to heal the sick were compiled. Marijuana, the flower of hemp, was a substance widely used by these wise women.

To give a vision from Latin America and the twentieth century, it is necessary to mention the theologian of liberation and Jesuit martyr Martin Baró, who recognized in a 1972 text that it is known that among the pre-Columbian tribes was very frequent drug use, regulated by customs and traditions. Martín Baró argues that it is society that causes abusive and problematic consumption of substances such as alcohol and that it would be even less harmful to use cannabis than that of alcoholic beverages.

On the eve of the anniversary of the bloody martyrdom of the Jesuit leader and his brothers, let us unmask the double standard and remember the commitment to the defense of essential rights.

Original Article in Spanish