Jade Celestial High

The Dao of Dope?

"It is recorded that the Chinese Taoist recommended the
addition of cannabis to their incense burners in the 1st
century as a means of achieving immortality."

Whoa man, like total Double Happiness, Dude....

"MARIJUANA IN CHINA

Hemp was so highly regarded in ancient China that the Chinese
called their country "the land of mulberry and hemp". Hemp was a
symbol of power over evil and in emperor Shen Nung's pharmacopoeia
was known as the "liberator of sin". The Chinese believed that the
legendary Shen Nung first taught the cultivation of hemp in the
28th century B.C. Shen Nung is credited with developing the
sciences of medicine from the curative power of plants. So highly
regarded was Shen Nung that he was deified and today he is regarded
as the Father of Chinese medicine. Shen Nung was also regarded as
the Lord of fire. He sacrificed on T'ai Shan, a mountain of hoary
antiquity.

A statement in the Pen-ts'ao Ching of some significance is
that Cannabis "grows along rivers and valleys at T'ai-shan, but it
is now common everywhere." Mount T'ai is in Shangtung Privince,
where the cultivation of the hemp plant is still intensive to this
day. Whether or not this early attribution indicates the actual
geographic origin of the cultivation of the Cannabis plant remains
to be seen. (An Archeological and Historical Account of Cannabis
in China by Hui-Lin Li)

A chines Taoist priest wrote in the fifth century B.C. that
cannabis was used in combination with Ginseng to set forward time
in order to reveal future events. It is recorded that the Taoist
recommended the addition of cannabis to their incense burners in
the 1st century A.D. and that the effects thus produced were highly
regarded as a means of achieving immortality. In the early Chinese
Taoist ritual the fumes and odors of incense burners were said to
have produced a mystic exaltation and contribution to well-being.

Webster's New Riverside Dictionary defines marijuana: 1. Hemp
2. The dried flower clusters and leaves of the hemp plant, esp.
when taken to induce euphoria. Euphoria is defined as a strong
feeling of elation or well-being.

Like the practice of medicine around the world, early Chinese
doctoring was based on the concept of demons. The only way to cure
the sick was to drive out the demons. The early priest doctors
used marijuana stalks into which snake-like figures were carved.
Standing over the body of the stricken patient, his cannabis stalk
poised to strike, the priest pounded the bed and commanded the
demon to be gone. The cannabis stalk with the snake carved on it
was the forerunner to the sign of modern medicine (the staff with
the entwined serpents."

Got to love the old internet. I have no idea how reliable this source is - after all, as this article constantly states, dope makes you see and believe crazy shit right? I mean, not that I would know!