24. Chris Bennett – Cannabis: The Tree of Life (Re-Greening the Planet through Hemp)

Chris Bennett, one of the foremost authorities on the history of cannabis, and Kris Millegan, TrineDay publisher, discuss “Liber 420: Cannabis, Magickal Herbs and the Occult,” Chris’s seminal work on humanity’s long medicinal, religious and spiritual history with cannabis.

Cannabis was a world sacrament, used by the Daoists in China (found well preserved in a number of tombs in China), by the Buddha, by Indo-European culture 2,800 years ago, by the ancient Jews (who burned cannabis resin in their temples), and by early Christians.  Cannabis-infused wines were used in Christian sacraments.

Jesus healed with holy cannabis anointing oil, calming those with epilepsy, considered demonic possession.  (He was the anointed one, the Christ.)  Cannabis has revolutionized medicine through the discovery of the endocannabinoid system in the human body, one of the biggest discoveries in medicine in the last century.

Cannabis is the paradigm shift away from petroleum (and global warming and mass pollution and the death of our oceans).  Cannabis promises the re-greening of the planet through hemp.  We can make all of our paper from hemp.  One acre of hemp produces as much paper as 4 acres of trees over 20 years.  We can replace petroleum fuels with biomass fuels.  We can make plastics.

Petroleum is not dead dinosaurs.  It is abiotic - not derived from living organisms, not from fossils but produced by the earth.  Oil fields thought running low have self-replenished.  The oil industry demonized cannabis/hemp, and caused it to be criminalized, to secure market domination.