High Magick: A Guide to Cannabis in Ritual & Mysticism

Introduction

Here in the United States of America, in the early years of the twenty-first century, attitudes and laws about cannabis are changing rapidly. As of this writing, a handful of states have legalized the use of cannabis across the board and dozens more have legalized some form of medical marijuana. Our nation and the world are cautiously lifting the blinders of prohibition and rediscovering the history and uses of this remarkable plant.

Some of us are starting to speak out about the various ways that cannabis has helped and influenced us over the years. We are starting to hear stories of medical patients who find that cannabis restores abilities and health, artists and scientists who use cannabis to enhance creativity, and meditators and ritual magicians who have incorporated the plant into their practices. I think it’s important for us to share this kind of information about how we can use cannabis safely, effectively, and in our best interests.

As prohibition recedes, science advances. In some ways, this book is even more difficult to write now—our knowledge of the plant, including genetics, evolution, history, and pharmacology, grows faster than a hemp field in summer.

I waited many years to write this book, for the political and societal signs to shift a bit. The origin of this book goes back about twenty years to the Starwood Festival, which was then held at a site in rural Western New York state. That year, Stephen Gaskin, founder of The Farm community and author of Cannabis Spirituality (High Times, 1998), presented a workshop in which he discussed cannabis in relation to Eastern philosophy. The presentation inspired (after some discussion with Stephen) my own cannabis workshop the next year, focusing more on magick and the Western esoteric tradition. That turned into a long-running series of classes and generated a lot of useful, exciting, and stony information and techniques. Much of that—and more—will be found in the coming pages.

When I say that I am working on a book about cannabis and magick, the first question I get is Why cannabis? This question, I think, is largely motivated by a lack of knowledge of the eons-long history of cannabis use in magick and meditation and by belief in some of the myths and fallacies used by prohibitionists. The short answer is that cannabis can (with the proper techniques) help to induce a state in which the processes and results of magick become more probable and effective. The longer answer, which addresses both why and how, will be found in the coming pages. Read on.

Is cannabis magick for everyone? Probably not. But the historical record and the scientific evidence strongly suggest that it can be an important adjunct for many. And as decriminalization spreads worldwide, the confluence of magick, yoga, meditation, and cannabis will become more and more common. In the past, information about this plant was purely occult, hidden away from law enforcement and disapproving eyes, and now we have the opportunity—and the responsibility—to shed new light on this misunderstood corner of esoteric spirituality.

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Chapter One

The Useful Plant

To the sadhu in meditation, cannabis is a gift from the god Shiva. To the Rastafari, it is the tool that helps people reason with each other. In popular culture, though, cannabis is the butt of snide jokes, an intoxicant that turns intelligent people into gentle idiots. Or maybe it is an evil gateway to harder drugs. At best it is a recreational intoxicant or an alternative medicine. As Aleister Crowley once wrote, Comparable to the Alf Laylah wa Laylah itself, a very Tower of Babel, partaking alike of truth both gross and subtle inextricably interwoven with the most fantastic fable, is our view of the Herb—Hashish —the Herb Dangerous. ¹ So, exactly what is cannabis?

The cannabis plant is a hardy, leafy-green shrub that has followed humans and evolved with us for thousands of years. As soil warms in the spring, cannabis seeds sprout and reach for the sun. The young plants spread dark green, wide leaves, grow for a season, mature, go to seed, and die back, although in more fortunate warmer climates, plants may survive and grow year-round. The plant has two sexes: male plants that produce little ball-like staminate flowers and females that produce clusters of tiny green flower bracts with white, hair-like pistils. These clusters are popularly called buds.

Every part of the plant is useful, and throughout history, cultures have discovered and rediscovered the numerous uses of cannabis. The roots are a source of medicine and can also be used to enrich the soil of other crops; the stalks are a source of fiber for rope, paper, and textiles; the seeds are a nutritious source of food and oil; the leaves are also a source of medicine as well as recreational beverages and biomass for distilling fuel; and the female flowers are medicinal and magical, the source of ganja and hashish.

There is some debate whether the varieties of cannabis should be classified as one species, as three, or even as four individual species. The most current genetic research suggests that all the psychoactive strains are Cannabis indica (divided into narrow leaf drug (NLD) varieties and broad leaf drug (BLD) varieties). Plants categorized as actual Cannabis sativa, the new thinking goes, are nonpsychoactive fiber hemp, but commercial NLD cannabis is generally referred to as sativa, and we’ll stick with the traditional varietal names here.² Whatever taxonomic classification the academics might eventually decide upon, we generally recognize three different varieties: sativa, indica, and Ruderalis. What we refer to as sativa varieties (actually NLD Cannabis indica) are typically tall, airy plants. These are quite potent and renowned for an uplifting, spiritual, psychedelic kind of high, excellent for magical and meditative uses. Indica (BLD) plants are usually squat, dense, resin-rich plants with a more relaxing body high. Ruderalis, also called autoflowering or dwarf cannabis, is a tiny variety that distinguishes itself not only by being very short, but also by flowering whenever and wherever it pleases, regardless of season or the length of day. In ancient times, Ruderalis strains were a source of medicine and psychoactive cannabis but were long forgotten. Recently they have experienced a comeback among cannabis growers. We generally refer to the plants used for fiber or seed as hemp and the ones grown for medicine, magick, and fun as ganja or marijuana, though they are really all the same plant: Cannabis.

With the exception of Ruderalis, cannabis plants rely on the length of daylight to let them know what kind of growth to produce. When days are long in summer, the plants concentrate on vegetative growth, growing branches and leaves. When days become short in the fall, the plants shift into flowering, the males producing pollen and the females producing buds and seeds. Some cannabis strains are acclimated to a short northern growing season, while others can only be grown outdoors in the tropics. Indoor cannabis growers mimic natural light cycles using timers to stimulate growth and buds at the appropriate times.

This hardy weed grows pretty much everywhere on planet Earth, with the possible exception of Antarctica. While it sometimes escapes and does well on its own, almost all known varieties are cultivars, plants grown and bred by humans for human purposes. Numerous diverse strains have been developed. In China and other places, plants grown for food produce clusters of enormous, oversized seeds. In places where hemp is grown, fiber plants are tall with a single thick stalk. In Central Asia (and many other places), plants grown to make hashish are dense little Christmas trees. In Thailand, where the plants can grow year-round, big, bud-laden sativas resemble oaks or maples, growing twenty or thirty feet tall. In many parts of the world, indoor plants are bred to grow well in modern hydroponic systems with artificial light. Outdoor medical plants in California yield huge quantities of bud on gigantic single-season bushes. Wherever you are, there’s a cannabis variety that will somehow, some way, grow there.

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1. Crowley, Aleister. The Psychology of Hashish. The Equinox, vol. I, no. 2, September, 1909.

2. Clarke, Robert C., and Mark Merlin. Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany. University of California Press, 2013.

Chapter Two

Forms and Uses

Most cannabis users in Western culture are familiar with only one aspect of cannabis use: smoking the stuff. That’s an important aspect, of course. But it is far from the only way we can approach this useful plant. Understanding the many ways to use the different parts of the plant can provide a basis for magical and spiritual applications. Think of these methods as you might instructions in other fundamental ritual techniques, such as drawing a circle, finding qabalistic correspondences, or using divination.

Roots

The roots of the cannabis plant contain amino acids and steroids, among other medicinal chemicals. We find the roots used in folk medicine throughout the world to treat inflammation, headaches, difficult childbirth, and as a health tonic. In general, they are prepared by soaking dried roots in either water or alcohol to create medicinal decoctions.

Cannabis roots also hold onto nitrogen and plant nutrients that other crops may leach from soil. Planting cannabis between other crops and tilling the roots back into the ground can replenish soil and restore depleted farmland.

Stalks

Stalks are sometimes also used in creating medicines, but more often they are used to create fiber for rope and textiles. In a process called retting, the stalks are soaked in water until the fibers begin to separate. The fibers are then cleaned of any excess organic matter and woven into twine, rope, or fabric. Fabrics made from cannabis are very strong and durable. Canvas was originally made from hemp (and the word canvas itself is a corruption of cannabis), as was denim. That’s right! The original American blue jeans were weed!

Sometimes the rope, fabric, or raw stalks are used for symbolic or magical purposes. Stalks may be used as magical wands. Impressions of hemp cord pressed into pottery may have had a ceremonial meaning in ancient China and other places. Hemp fabrics are used not only for durable, everyday garments, but also for dedicated ritual robes and other ceremonial clothing.

Leaves

For a long time, growers in the US would harvest their plants, save the buds for drying, and throw away big piles of leaves. Only recently has the value of the leaves been rediscovered. Raw, fresh leaves contain large amounts of medicinal chemicals. Fresh cannabis is usually not psychoactive the way that dried ganja can be. It can act as a mild stimulant, and has antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and possibly even anticancer properties. A daily fresh cannabis drink can be a wonderful health practice.

In India, the fresh leaves are made into a beverage called bhang, which is sacred to the god Shiva and served to all at festivals in his honor. Bhang is said to confer joy and long life and is used as a sacramental drink. There are at least several forms of bhang, made variously from fresh leaves, dried leaves, or fresh or dried flower tops. Here’s a traditional fresh-leaf method:

Recipe for Fresh-Leaf Bhang

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Soak 50 grams of fresh cannabis leaves in warm water for 5 minutes, then drain. Avoid rinsing the leaves under running water, as this may wash away the resin glands from the surface of the leaf. Chop the leaves as finely as you can, then mix with melon seeds, cucumber seeds, and black pepper. Add ½ liter of water and ½ liter of milk and then sweeten to taste with sugar or honey. Put it in the blender for several minutes or, if you want to be more traditional, churn and mash everything together with a stone, a pestle, or a garlic hammer until well blended.

A modern version of fresh-leaf bhang can be made by running fresh leaves through a vegetable juicer. About one tablespoon of pure cannabis juice makes a single dose. For taste, this can be combined with fresh carrot juice or any other kind of juice. Since most of us may have very limited access to fresh leaves, when they come around they can be juiced and the juice frozen for later use. An ice cube tray can be used to freeze individual doses. The cubes can later be thawed and added to milk or other beverages. Remember, this only works with the fresh stuff, right off the plant. A bag of dried herb that you bought for smoking will not make juice.

Now here’s something interesting: if you take fresh juice—or bhang produced by either recipe—and heat it, it will lose some of its medicinal value—but it will become psychoactive. Sometimes very psychoactive. Remember that the juice may be very concentrated, and when heat converts the chemicals into THC, there may be a lot of it. If you experiment in this way, drink cautiously until you know the potency!

Some people also eat the fresh leaves whole, like salad, as a way to gently clean the digestive tract. I would suggest that if you do this, keep it to just a leaf or two at a time and avoid the leaf stems. Larger quantities of whole leaf cannabis (not juiced) can be a stomach irritant.

Flowers

When you go into an Amsterdam coffeeshop or a marijuana dispensary in the US, Canada, or Uruguay, what you will mostly find are dried cannabis flowers. These are the buds that herb smokers are familiar with, the resin-rich tops of the female plants. When the flowers are harvested, the leaves are trimmed away and the buds are slowly dried. This converts some of the chemicals in the plant into psychoactive cannabinoids, most notably THC and CBD.

Buds from different types of cannabis can vary widely in potency, quality of the high, taste, and smell. Poorly stored commercial cannabis, cannabis from nondrug strains, or weed that has been improperly grown and harvested can have very little active effect and you might need to smoke a whole lot before you feel anything. Excellent, well-treated, top-quality bud can be very, very potent and may require only a small amount to get you very, very high.

Smoking and Vaporizing

Most people smoke the buds in joints, pipes, or bongs. In Europe, for many years, smokers mixed their cannabis with tobacco, which I do not recommend. Tobacco is addictive and can cause cancer and the combination with cannabis may be even more unhealthy than tobacco alone. If you are going to smoke, keep cannabis pure.

We’ll talk about the health aspects of smoking later, but for now suffice it to say that studies show that smoking pure cannabis has few, if any, health consequences.⁴ But if you remain concerned about the amounts of tar and combustion byproducts in your smoke, then stick with joints, which are often more efficient than pipes, water pipes, or bongs.⁵

If you don’t like smoke for whatever reason, you can vaporize your ganja. Vaporizers are devices that heat the cannabis to the point where the resin evaporates, but the plant material does not burn. This produces a light, white vapor that retains more of the flavor of the buds and little or no tar and combustion products. There are several types of vaporizer on the market today, many quite good. The least efficient ones use a glass globe to catch the vapor. Some of the better varieties draw hot air through a glass wand or ceramic chamber, producing a thick vapor hit like the smoke from a bong (but not smoke at all). Some use forced air to fill a plastic bag or balloon with vapor that can be passed around. The newest trend in vaporizers are handheld vape pens that can produce vapor from dried herb or cannabis extracts of various kinds.

Whether you are smoking or vaporizing, the method is simple. You inhale deeply and hold it in for three to five seconds. During that time, up to 90 percent of the active chemicals are absorbed by your lungs. Some people like to hold their smoke in longer, but there is no evidence that it gets you any higher.⁶ In fact, there is some evidence that only minimal holding is necessary.⁷

Smoking or vaporizing is, generally, a very efficient method for getting cannabis into your bloodstream. It also allows you to titrate your dose. That is, an experienced cannabis user can smoke until he or she reaches the desired level of psychoactivity and can then set the joint down.

Popular lore holds that modern cannabis is more potent than weed of the past. It’s not really true, but even if it were, good! The stronger the better, because when we titrate doses, we might only need to take a single toke or two. That further cuts down the amounts of tar and combustion products that we might inhale while giving the same effect as an entire joint of lesser ganja.

Cooking with Cannabis

Many people like to cook with their dried buds. In Amsterdam, everyone loves the space cake. In the US, pot brownies have long been popular and a wide variety of cannabis edibles are available in the states where it is legal. In Thailand, Nepal, and other parts of the world, cannabis buds are considered a culinary herb and may be a common ingredient in curries and soups, lending a distinct flavor and a mild buzz. When properly prepared, cooked cannabis can be a pleasant and effective way to ingest the stuff. However, it is not nearly as efficient as smoking. The cannabis must pass through the digestive system and takes