The Cool head aflame with smoke: Part ii
Chapter V
Sweet Leaf of the Wandering Tribes: From Israelis to Scythians, and Back (or vice versa?)
Comb ornamented with three warriors in combat, and five crouching lions below. Gold, height 12.6 cm. Beginning of 4th century, BC. Melitopol region of Ukraine, Excavations of N.I. Veselovsky, 1913. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v.32, no.5 (1973-4) Color Plate 13, Cat. # 71. Copyright 1975, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Raise a standard on earth,
Sound a horn among the nations,
Appoint nations against her,
Assemble kingdoms against her –
Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz –
Designate a marshal against her,
Bring up horses like swarming locusts!”
- Jeremiah, 51:27
Back in the early 90’s, when one was a struggling undergraduate, a survey history course introduced the works of the Greek historian Herodotus via some required reading from his work, The Histories.
At the in-class discussion later that week, the Professor brought up the reading and asked our impressions. We remember being one of many who shared they had found the reading extremely interesting. The Instructor listened quietly as several of us outlined what we liked, then he took a moment before adding, “Herodotus was also referred to as ‘the great liar,’ by his contemporaries, and his work seen as wholly unreliable.”
We remember being somewhat disappointed, as the reading had been fascinating; the cultures he described sounded wonderfully alien and otherworldly, however, apparently, his contemporaries thought they must have been fabrications.
Nonetheless, Herodotus begins Melpomene, the fourth book of his Histories with the account of Darius’ invasion of Scythian lands in 513 BC, crossing the Bosphorus at the head of a vast army into southern Russia. According to Herodotus, Darius had made the attack to avenge a previous Scythian one on Persian lands, however, it has also been said he had done so to bring “balance” back to the universe – and the Scythians, in their unbridled fierceness, stood in direct opposition to that in his eyes.
It is also believed the move was merely political in nature, and was only inevitable, given an expanding empire would naturally want to invade lands touching its borders and plunder its resources. For whatever reason, though, the attack commenced. However, the result was nowhere near what Darius had hoped. Forts established were left empty as food dwindled, winter set in, and the Scythians dispersed and vanished into the back country.
Herodotus then goes on to describe the history, rites and customs of the Scythians. And it is here where some now famous passages create a window to the past, and have recently been corroborated with Archaeology. Particularly in his description of the rites of a Scythian burial:
“After the burial, those engaged in it have to purify themselves, which they do in the following way. First, they well soap and wash their heads; then, in order to cleanse their bodies, they act as follows: they make a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined toward one another, and stretching around them woolen felts, which they arrange as to fit as close as possible: inside the booth a dish is placed upon the ground, into which they put a number of red-hot stones, and then add some hemp seed.”
(Herodotus, The Histories. Melpomene (Book IV) Verse 73)
Later, in verse 75, he continues:
“The Scythians, as I said, take some of this hemp seed and creeping under the felt coverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; it immediately smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy, and this vapour serves them instead of a waterbath; for they never by any chance wash their bodies with water.”
The first, and perhaps most exciting of the finds corroborating Herodotus’ work is detailed in Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko’s Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron Age Horsemen (UC Press, 1970) The excavations which provided the basis of the work were a series of burial mounds at Pazyryk in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, commencing in 1947. Each burial site contained a 1.2 m high wooden tent frame, a bronze vessel with stones and hemp seeds, as well as a leather pouch with hemp seeds.
In his book, Rudenko laboriously details the breadth of items found in the burial pits, their location, cultural affiliations and other relevant data, before eventually addressing the issue of Cannabis:
“There remains something to be said about narcotics. It was mentioned above that two sets of apparatus for inhaling hemp smoke were found in barrow 2. We shall discuss this in more detail when dealing with Herodotus’ description of purification after burial. Here it will be merely remarked that smoking hemp, like smoking hashish took place without a doubt not just as a ceremony of purification after burial but in ordinary life; hashish was used as a narcotic. Not without reason, Hesychius of Alexandria in his Lexicon, referring to Herodotus, calls hemp ‘the Scythian smoking which has such strength that it brings out in a sweat anyone who experiences it. They burn hemp seeds.
Both men and women probably smoked, since we found two sets of apparatus for smoking with the burial of a man and a woman. They possibly also used the seeds of hart’s clover (donnik) found in barrow 2, for smoking.”
One will admit, we were quite shocked after reading Rudenko’s previous quote. Although the text was from the seventies, we had not been aware of the facts presented as such. However, in our defense, at the time of the book’s printing, one was merely a child. Still, even after a lifelong cursory interest in Archaeology, reinforced by several years of various undergraduate courses and diligent independent reading, we had never been vaguely aware of the connection unfolding before our eyes.
Surprisingly, as the story deepened, and Rudenko continued to further describe in situ examples of Cannabis use, it seemed as if a rather plausible picture of how Scythians engaged in its use was becoming clearer.
Rudenko adds:
“Thus, in barrow 2 two smoking sets were found: vessels containing stones that had been in the fire and hemp seeds; above them were shelters supported on six rods, in one case covered with a leather hanging and in the other case probably with a felt hanging, large pieces of which were found in the southwest corner of the tomb. Finally, there was a flask containing hemp seeds fixed to one of the legs of a hexapod stand. Consequently, we have the full set of articles for carrying out the purification ritual, about which Herodotus wrote in such detail in his description of the Black Sea Scyths. There had been sets for smoking hemp in all the Pazyryk barrows; the sticks for the stand survived in each barrow although the censers and cloth covers had all been stolen except in barrow 2. Hemp smoking was practiced evidently not only for purification but in ordinary life, as remarked in Chapter 4, by both men and women. The habit of purifying by fire after burials (fumigation) described by Herodotus among the Scyths was evidently widely practiced by tribes over an area that included the High Altai.”
Although Rudenko’s work was an eye opener, it is by no means the last word on the subject. Pit burials of the type found at Pazyryk have continued to surprise and astound for decades, as the Scyth custom of burying personal items with the deceased has never failed to turn up interesting results.
Of particular interest is a May 22nd, 2015 National Geographic piece by Andrew Curry entitled, “Gold Artifacts Tell Tale of Drug Fueled Rituals and “Bastard Wars,” which fittingly outlines an excavation that initially took place in the summer of 2013 in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia.
The dig started out as part of a civic plan for improvements in the area, and the mound just happened to be in its path. Initially, Archaeologist Andrei Belinski could tell the Kurgan, called Sengileevskoe-2 had been looted, and he did not expect to find much inside. However, buried underneath a thick layer of clay was a rectangular chamber lined with broad, flat stones as well as two bucket-shaped gold vessels, each placed upside down. Inside were three gold cups, a heavy gold finger ring, two neck rings, and a gold bracelet. In all, the well-preserved gold artifacts weighed nearly seven pounds.
The bucket-shaped vessels were lined with a black residue which was sent to criminologists in the nearby town of Stavropol. Results came back positive for opium and cannabis. This did not surprise Belinski and colleague Anton Gass, as they have a deep understanding of Kurgan construction and Scythian rites and culture honed through years of extensive fieldwork.
Considering the finds at Sengileevskoe-2, they believe the vessels were used to brew a stiff opium-based concoction, as cannabis burned nearby. They add, “That both drugs were being used simultaneously is beyond doubt."
Several years after the publication of Rudenko’s groundbreaking Pazyryk Burials, the first major exhibit of 197 works of Scythian origin debuted at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1973, and, commensurately, Met Director Thomas Hoving gushed with enthusiasm in his Director’s Note of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Bulletin #5 1973/74.
In response to the self-imposed question, “Why did we choose for the first exhibition these stunning Scythian gold objects, the fabulous carvings and textiles from the frozen tombs of Siberia?” he perfunctorily states,
“I have seen literally abundances of gold and silver and precious objects in museums around the globe, from ancient Egyptian through Greek and medieval to the fabled treasures of more modern kings and emperors. But none are like the contents of the Gold Rooms of the Hermitage or Kiev State Historical Museum. Nothing can quite match the beauty, craftsmanship, and power of these awesome objects assembled by the unknown kings, princes, and chieftains of the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries B.C., whose territories were larger by far than all the lands of the then so-called civilized world.”
Despite such eloquent praise, Hoving goes on to remind us that: “Herodotus' portrait of the Scyth is not particularly complimentary: the Scyth was a nomad, a fierce hunter and fighter, a tough, indomitable barbarian addicted to strong wine, hashish, and violence, wandering, always wandering, uncivilized and rootless.”
This harsh assessment quickly gives way to more praise, though, as Hoving reminds us that, “as one examines the uniquely beautiful art made by and for the Scyths, one must acknowledge that, stereotyped concepts of civilization aside, these anonymous peoples were connoisseurs of supreme taste.”
Regarding the question of “what of them is myth and what fact?”
At the time of Hoving’s writing, he could only fall back on the reality that, as he succinctly puts it, “They had no recorded written language, no coinage. And that is normally the formula for historical oblivion.”
The Scyths do have Herodotus, though, and his observations have, for the most part, stood the test of time.
Combined with his account, Boris Pitrovsky of the State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad gives a detailed synopsis of major Scythian cultures throughout history in the Met Bulletin as well, entitled, Early Cultures of the Land of the Scythians.
Even in the prosaic account he gives, the sheer number of enticing, ancient objects listed fills the mind with plenty of fodder for the imagination, such as this account from a tomb at Pazyryk:
“Under one mound at Pazyryk was a chamber lined with wooden logs, built in a trench about 164 feet square and from 13 to 23 feet deep. In the chamber was a sarcophagus hewn from a single log, decorated with scenes of animal combat. The body of the dead man had been embalmed, and on the skin of his arms, chest, and legs, tattoos of animals and fish can still be seen. The chieftain's wife or concubine had been buried with him, and in the grave had been placed clothing (cat. no 125), ornaments, furniture, objects of everyday life, and musical instruments - everything that had surrounded him while he was alive; there was also a bronze cauldron filled with burnt hemp seeds, corroborating Herodotus' account of a Scythian custom (Book IV, 73-75).”
Coiled Feline, possibly Snow Leopard, 11 cm. Scytho-Sarmatian style, late 7th-early 6th century, BC. Siberian Collection of Peter I. Location of find unknown. S.I Rudenko, Sibirskaya kollektsiya Petra I. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v.32, no.5 (1973-4) Color Plate 6, Cat. # 34. Copyright 1975, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Pitrovsky then goes on to inform us in his section entitled The Scythian Culture: End of the 7th-4th centuries B.C., that said culture spread far and wide, and included various nomadic peoples under different names who managed to carry specific characteristics of their culture over time; with Cannabis consumption a major component.
As Pitrovsky detailed their southward encroachment, it occurred to one he might, in fact, have been detailing the spread of Cannabis culture to Israel from the Russian Steppe:
“In the middle of the second millennium B.C., the catacomb people were replaced on the north shore of the Black Sea by the timber-grave people, whose tombs were built like log cabins. This culture had developed to the east, in the region around the Volga river and the southern Urals, and had spread over a vast territory, remaining in existence until the mid-eighth century B.C. Again, its characteristics were a highly developed bronze metallurgy and semi-nomadic cattle-breeding, but with special emphasis on horse-breeding. Recent studies have convincingly suggested that the Cimmerians represent tribes of a late stage of the timber-grave culture; they were well-armed horsemen who could move easily over long distance.”
Pitrovsky also reminds us the Cimmerians were present in Mannai (south of Lake Urmia in Iran) and in Cappadocia (modern-day Turkey) for a hundred years and recorded their advances into Asia Minor and Egypt in their oral traditions.
However, aside from Archaeological records, it’s a well-established fact that Scyth warriors played an important role in the shifting environment of ancient Middle Eastern empires, and were employed as Assyrian mercenaries in 679 B.C., where they are referred to as "the seed of runaways who know neither vows to the gods nor oaths."
Could the Cimmerians apparent lack of religion be due to the fact in ancient times it was believed once your god’s secret name had been discovered, it could be used against you as black magic by your enemies; therefore, it would behoove one to conceal one’s religious beliefs.
To that end, in his Contra Apionem of the early second century C.E., Flavius Josephus tells us of a “god divulging” ceremony performed in Jerusalem at the behest of King Alexander Jannaeus the Maccabee; the god summoned was that of his enemy, the Edomite Ass-God of Dora, near Hebron. Once the god was discovered, its worshippers were defeated handily.
However, going back to the original source of Scyth literature, Pitrovsky goes on to quote Herodotus’ account of the Cimmerian/Scythian invasion of the Middle East, adding:
“After this they marched forward with the design of invading Egypt. When they had reached Palestine, however, Psammetichus the Egyptian king met them with gifts and prayers and prevailed upon them to advance no further.”
With Herodotus’ placing of the Scyths in Israel, we could vaguely see the puzzle pieces coming together. Still, one felt we hadn’t investigated the most obvious source yet, the Hebrew Bible. Surprisingly, Genesis, chapter 10 begins with the enumeration of the lines of Ham, Shem and Japheth, the sons of Noah, purported progenitors of Israeli blood lines.
For our purposes here, we will recount that: Japheth bore Gomer, Gomer in turn produced Ashkenaz, which, as it turns out, also refers to Scythians, who occupied the area north of the Black Sea in the time of Genesis. It is also well established the term “Ashkenaz” was reused in the Middle Ages to refer to Germany, and, later to the Jewish communities of central and northeastern Europe.
Given the monotheistic nature of Judaism and the reinforcement of that fact throughout the Bible, contrasted with the Cannabis finds at Tel Arad and others, we realized we were caught in a conundrum; how did monotheism go from incorporating hallucinogens, to demonizing and eventually banning them? One might easily see a sequence over time that includes the Inquisition, missionaries, and more recently, “progress,” yet that does not tell the tale at all, but merely points to a long-standing prejudice against psycho-actives in religious settings.
We kept coming back to Weston’s La Barre’s quote from the previously cited 1970 Economic Botany article, where, regarding the question of “Why there are so few known psychoactive drug plants associated with traditional cultural use in the Old World,” he replies, “the rise of civilization, and in particular monotheism eliminated most of these traditions in the Old World.”
Still, the process described seemed rather vague, lacking in detail which describes how and why such changes took place. We do know that at one point all ancient cults were in one way or another affiliated with hallucinogens as part of ritual practice. The ancient fertility rites had some of the most potent in their repertoire: amanita muscaria (the hundred-clawed toad) or, fly-cap mushroom, and opium poppy, associated with the Goddess Demeter, to name but a few.
Suffice it to say, the Medieval period in Europe began the serious separation between spirituality, medicine, and health. This occurred primarily in the trials of so-called “witches” in Christian courts, which, as we all know, oftentimes involved the persecution of individuals for merely continuing their life-long cultural, professional, and spiritual practices.
However, to situate the problem in more relatable, modern terms; we do know that by the 1800’s, Britain had engaged on a plan to control the international Cannabis trade, as detailed in James Mills’ engaging chapter from the previously quoted Consuming Habits: Global and historical perspectives on how cultures define drugs, Second edition (1995), Globalizing Ganja: The British Empire and international cannabis traffic c. 1834 to c. 1939, wherein he details how, from the 1830’s, onward, British imperialism sought to ‘globalize’ cannabis consumption via a set of policies which sought to create new regional markets for Cannabis sativa.
This was not done to the end of growing a long-term, mutually beneficial market, but to control flow and levy appropriate taxes on said product, which was done invariably to discourage consumption; for the entire scheme was implemented as a corollary to the recently implemented indentured labor system throughout the empire for Indian workers en-route to Natal, Jamaica, Trinidad, British Guiana and Fiji, and also French Réunion; in total, between 1834 and 1938, the exodus-like number of 5.5 million Indians migrated as laborers to the colonies.
Correspondingly, in 1872, the royal government of India ordered an extensive inquiry into the use of Indian Hemp in South Asian society. The results revealed many consumers of cannabis could be found in both urban and rural settings, among the rich and poor, and most importantly, in ancient religious settings, even of the ruling Brahmin caste.
We found it rather ironic that the Christian empire of the Brits wound up policing the Cannabis-based Asian cradle of their civilization, who had subjugated them, some several thousand years earlier; both demonizing and profiting off the venture in the process.
For the purposes of our tale here, though, it seems a chronology of the archaeological facts as presented herein, in conjunction with a roadmap of sorts, might offer some much-needed clarity.
While re-examining the dates, the first thing we noticed was, based on the papers that serve as the fabric of our tale, the oldest sites are two bookends on opposite geographical ends of younger ones; beginning at the easternmost point, we have the Chinese Jiayi site, located in Western China, containing three graves, all with prolific amounts of cannabis fruits: the first grave dating from 790-520 B.C., the second, M156, at 845-790 B.C., and the third, M157, dated at 830-760 B.C.
On the opposite side; far to the West, deep in the heart of the Judean desert, the cannabis-coated limestone monoliths of the Holy of Holies at Tel Arad, with their frankincense counterpart, which date to the late 8th – early 9th centuries, B.C. Here, specifically, the burning of seeds (also a Taoist rite) on the limestone altar in an enclosed area seems more a Scyth trait, rather than the ‘burial shroud’ of the Jiayi site, with its abundance of whole, pungent, cannabis fruits.
In between those two extremes, Andrei Belinski’s Sengileevskoe-2 site in the Caucus Mountains, dated to 4th century, B.C., and Rudenko’s hemp-charred braziers of the Pazyryk mounds, radiocarbon dated to 430 B.C.
Still, we were curious to know what happened to our ancestors (read Scythians, and their offshoots), over time, who used Cannabis as spiritual agent and medicine? Fortunately, there are many references to this question in the Eastern European record, where ‘barbaric’ beliefs prevailed: initially related orally, and then written down in the Christian era, in syncretic form.
Stumbling upon these accounts, through exhaustive research, provided a perspective which had eluded one till then, and also provided an interesting fact, as well as another piece in the puzzle from a surprising source.
Chapter VI
Of Horses and Lost Arks
Gold plaque of mounted Scythian. Black Sea region, c. 400-350. Copyright State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2017. Photo: V. Terebenin.
“It is long since I was a herdsman.
I travelled over the earth.
Before I became a learned person.
I have travelled, I have made a circuit,
I have slept in a hundred islands;
I have dwelt in a hundred cities.
Learned Druids,
Prophesy ye of Arthur?
Or is it me they celebrate,
And the Crucifixion of Christ,
And the Day of Judgement near at hand.”
– Câd Goddeu (The Battle of the Trees) v. 220-230. From The Book of Taleisin, 13th c.
In the previously quoted Met Bulletin, Helmut Nickel, Curator, Arms and Armor of The Metropolitan Museum of Art penned an article entitled, The Dawn of Chivalry, which effectively details the rise of the horseman par excellence; an event that leads to the “dawn” of the age of cavalry, and with it, the formation of the term that’s now referred to as “chivalry,” as put forth in literature ranging from Arthur to Parsifal, and beyond.
He begins by pointing out:
“By the first century the Sarmatians had moved from their homeland between the Black and Caspian seas to the banks of the Danube, where they clashed with outposts of the Roman Empire. In 175 the emperor Marcus Aurelius made a treaty with the westernmost Sarmatian tribe, the Iazyges, who occupied Pannonia, today’s Hungary, and hired 8,000 of them to serve in the Roman army. Fifty-five hundred Iazyges cavalrymen were sent to northern Britain to fight the troublesome Picts. After their twenty-year term of service expired, they were not permitted to return home but were settled in Bremetennacum, the modern Ribchester in Lancashire, where their descendants were still listed in the fifth century as “the troop of Sarmatian veterans.”
“Later, in Roman times, called the Sarmatians, they showed up in the west-as the first heavy armored cavalry (cataphractarii) in Europe. When the Huns came from Central Asia and in A.D. 375 shattered the Ostrogothic Empire that had been established in the former lands of the Scythians, agricultural Germanic tribes – Goths, Burgundians, and the much-maligned Vandals-as well as nomadic tribes from the steppes, such as the Alans, cousins of the Scythians and Sarmatians, were driven from their eastern homes and set adrift westward. The uprooted Germanic warriors successfully adopted the nomads’ cavalry equipment, and from the blending of the two cultures emerged what became a fundamental concept of the medieval world, chivalry.”
Roman troops are a somewhat late arrival to the Isles, yet what Nickel made clear was even at this relatively advanced juncture, Scythian-like influences were periodically filtering in. He then deftly adds symbols and imagery to ground his theory in place and time, here describing the possible roots of the dragon of the current Welsh flag:
“For their distinctive battle standard, Sarmatian troops carried a dragon made like a windsock on a pole; it had a metal head and a red fabric body that writhed when the wind blew through its jaws. They worshiped their tribal god in the form of a sword stuck upright into a small stone platform.”
Additionally, Nickel compares these observations to the legend of the original chivalric hero – Arthur of Camelot:
“These details may resemble uncannily some of the more familiar motifs from the stories surrounding King Arthur, and it is interesting to note further that the commander (praefectus) of the Legio VI Victrix, to which the Sarmatian auxiliaries in Britain were assigned, was a certain Lucius Artorius Castus, who had served in Pannonia. The Sarmatians undoubtedly welcomed a commander familiar with their homeland, perhaps even their customs and language; possibly they turned his name, Artorius, into a title-the way Caesar became Kaiser and Tsar. During the fifth century, when the "historical" Arthur is supposed to have lived, this title might have been used by a great British chieftain. In addition, the earliest source that mentions Arthur, the Historia Britonum of Nennius shortly before 800, gives three city names in a list of twelve battles won by Arthur, and all three (one of which seems to be an abbreviated form of Bremetennacum) were garrisons of Sarmatians or heavy armored cavalry in Roman times.”
Could this obscure Roman praefectus, this Lucius Artorius Castus, be the source of Arthur of Camelot? Also, if these are the roots of chivalry, then the plain fact is “chivalry” is rooted in military might.
Nickel continues:
“An integral part of chivalry was chivalrous literature, especially the Arthurian legends. Judging from nomads in historical and modern times, it can be assumed that the early Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, and Huns possessed a highly developed epic tradition (since it was oral, the term "literature" is not quite fitting). In fact, the great western European epics, the Nibelungen and Dietrich cycles and the Arthurian legends, were composed around heroes who lived during the fifth century, the period of the greatest influx of steppe nomads into western Europe.”
Nickel recognized this body of chivalric lore, gleaned from oral traditions of the ancients, present in items from the renowned Siberian Collection of Peter the Great, also part of the Met exhibit. In particular, he points out an intricately produced golden scabbard mount depicting a scene from a medieval legend:
Warrior Resting, common scene from Parzival and Sir Balin and Sir Balan. Gold plaque, 16.2 cm. Siberian Collection of Peter I, Hermitage. Photo from Rudenko, Sibirskaya Kollektsiya, Pl. 6, 4.
“This idyllic scene has been recognized as a distinctive motif appearing in the medieval legend of St. Ladislav of Hungary, in the Hungarian folk ballad Ana Molnar, and in the ancient Turkish epic about the hero Targhyn (whose name has the same root as Pendragon). In western Europe, this motif is featured in Ekkehard of St. Gall's epic poem Waltharius (about 940), in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival (about 1200), and in Sir Thomas Malory's Sir Balin and Sir Balan (about 1470, after French sources of about 1250). Waltharius, fleeing from the Huns who had held him hostage, is armed "in the manner of the Pannonians" with two swords (which might explain why these gold plaques, originally scabbard mounts, are in pairs), and both Arthurian heroes, Parzival and Sir Balin, carry two swords. (After Sir Balin's death one of his swords is stuck into a marble block by Merlin.)”
For convenience’s sake, we will quickly note that Nickel goes on to trace the roots of Excalibur – the Arthurian sword – back to the Latin word for steel, chalybs, which comes from a Greek word derived from the name of the Sarmatian Kalybes, a tribe of smiths in the Caucasus.
The rise of the chivalric period had a direct effect on the wisdom-based culture it displaced. By the time the crusades come about, the basic understanding and essential beliefs of the Materia Medica are becoming lost to the mists of time. Nickel highlights this by pointing out the following:
“Furthermore, Parzival and Sir Balin are heroes connected with the quest for the Holy Grail, the sacred vessel that inspired visions of bliss, and it is intriguing that the Scythians and the Siberian nomads, as we have learned from their frozen tombs-used special cauldrons to burn hashish on hot stones and inhaled the fumes, according to Herodotus, "shouting for joy.”
The vision Parzival and Balin had regarding the Grail and its effects exhibits the degree to which knowledge of the Materia Medica had eroded in their time. In the span of a few centuries, the Grail had been misconstrued as an ornamental item with supernatural powers ascribed to it; becoming something to capture and treasure.
The bliss the Crusaders sought was not the same sort that one experienced with the ancient Ark. They seemed to think it some sort of a vessel, used to connect to the Christian godhead, or offer some other vague glory…so, on the surface, what appeared to be a Christian-themed battle between good and evil; was, in fact, a long-standing process of purposeful consciousness-shifting.
Somehow along the way in the writing of this paper, it occurred to one that the problem was far from one-dimensional. Several factors needed to align in order for such a transition to occur. Primary among these would be a true acceptance among the populace of the new paradigm; for while it’s all fine and dandy to proclaim a radical shift in fundamental values, what happens when the rubber hits the road and belief intersects with daily practice?
Secondly, new territories and technologies presented myriad new ways to incorporate recently discovered, local organic substances into the Materia medica. The big shift, though, seems to come with the image of the cauldron, a multi-leveled symbol of the British Isles, and one which factors into mythological Welsh and Celtic poetry; where it is known to brew intoxicating elixirs. Its arrival in the Isles signifies the completion of a circuit for our ancestors; from Asia to Europe, and, as we all know, back again. After time this loop is closed, somehow, the ensuing culture increasingly dependent on what’s local, and what can be brought by sea, with hempen rope.
