LP>....  It was not the police who lobbied in 1914 for passage of 
 LP> the Harrison Act, which first criminalized drugs.  It was the 
 LP> Protestant missionary societies in China, the Woman's Christian 
 LP> Temperance Union, and other such organizations that viewed the taking 
 LP> of psychoactive substances as sinful. 
 The religious sanction goes back a bit before that- perhaps peaking in 
the Byzantine reign of Justinian.  Any education of the ancient classic 
Greek and Latin works will include mention of the Eleusian Mysteries.  
 
 Eleusis was NW of Athens, and the site of the Great Telesterion Hall at 
which the rites, dedicated to Dionysis, were held every six months.  The 
rites began in the 6th cent BC, and were open to anyone over 4 who could 
understand enough Greek to know what was going on.  In the first example 
of universal brotherhood I know of: men, women, slave, free, barbarians, 
or Greeks, all were invited to take part.  We know one instruction given 
to all was that no one was ever to report what went on in the great hall 
during these rites.  In another record of integrity, no "Mystai" who had 
experienced the ceremonies, during the whole 1000 years that these rites 
were given, ever made any written report until after the Telesterion had 
been reduced to rubble. 
 
And, in fact, while Greek and Roman temples were regularly converted for 
use as churches, no Dionysian temple survived total destruction.  It has 
taken archology a lotta digging to unravel the mystery and motivation of 
the rigorous Christian suppression of Dionysis.  Icons of Amanita fungi, 
known for psychedelic effects, abound in the rubble.  Also abundant were 
curious renditions of barley, which we now know were infected with ergot 
to produce the odd shapes.  Wheat and rye ergot has strychnine; but that 
of barley, subjected to modern lab analysis- shows lysergic acids.  From 
that evidence, and modern interpretation of ancient texts, we now know a 
psychoactive brew was made and served to the Mystai as a holy sacrement. 
 
The father of the Gods, Zeus, fell in love with Semele, a young woman he 
impregnated.  As a boon, she asked him to appear in all his glory; while 
he knew it would kill her, he had given his word; but then, seeing a son 
within her, took the foetus into his own body until term; thus, Dionysis 
was born and was known as "The Son of God."  He was raised by surrogates 
on earth, suffered the pains of mortal existance, and after death, began 
his mission to convey all human souls to heaven.  There's much more than 
that to add to the plagerism of Christain theology, but you can see that 
the early Christain church would single Dionysis out for repression, and 
that it would include a perjorative attitude to psychoactive substances. 
 
 
... OFFLINE 1.50  "Epictetus was more imspired by God than Moses, Jesus..." 
--- Maximus 3.01
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