The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spirit... by kevin - http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=1853 The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spiritual Narcotic in Early Chinese Medicine & Taoism The Hemp Lady and Her Deer, colored by AncientWayKevin page 1 / 38 The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spirit... by kevin - http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=1853 The Hemp Lady, Daoist Cannabis Goddess The Hemp Lady [Magu] was the younger sister of the immortal Wang Fangping. Under Emperor Huan of the Han dynasty, Wang descended from heaven to visit the family of Cai Jing. He told him: ”You have the ability to go beyond the world. This is why I have come today to teach you. However, your energy is low and your flesh is strong. Therefore you cannot ascend bodily into heaven, but rather have to prepare yourself for deliverance from the corpse.” Wang duly gave him essential instructions and left again. Later Jing developed a fever that seemed to burn his entire body. After three days his flesh began to dissolve so that his bones were sticking out. Lying down in his bedroom, he covered himself with a blanket, when he vanished all of a sudden. His relatives looked in and found only a shell under the blanket, somewhat like the skin of a cicada. Over ten years later he unexpectedly returned to his family. He told them: ”On the seventh day of the seventh month, Lord Wang will grace our house with his presence. We should prepare several hundred pitchers of wine to feast him.” On the appointed day Wang indeed arrived, floating down from heaven. He was sitting in a carriage drawn by five dragons. Preceding and following him were attendants carrying banners and flags, as if he was a five-star general. As soon as he had landed, the entourage vanished. Jing and his family duly paid their formal respects to the visitor. After that, Wang sent off someone to invite his sister, the Hemp Lady. When she arrived, all found her a young girl of about eighteen years. She wore her hair tied into a topknot on the top of her head, but some strands were left untied and flowed down well to her waist. She wore a robe of brocade and a wide embroidered skirt, with colors so bright and radiant they dazzled the eye. When everybody had taken their seats, a fantastic banquet on dishes of gold and jade was served, including such delicacies as unicorn meat. page 2 / 38 The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spirit... by kevin - http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=1853 At the time Jing’s wife had just given birth. When the Hemp Lady saw her, she immediately said: ”Ah! Please stop and don’t come near me!” Then she asked for a bit of rice, which she spread all over the floor. As soon as it hit the ground, every grain turned into cinnabar. Wang laughed when he saw this. “Oh, my dear sister,” he said, “you still play the games of a child!” “Well, after all,” the Hemp Lady responded, “since we’ve last seen each other the Eastern Sea has only changed three times into mulberry fields. And now the waters around Penglai are already growing shallow again!” “Indeed,” Wang agreed. ”All the sages are saying that the sea is turning to dust again soon!” The Hemp Lady had hands that looked like the claws of a bird. Seeing them, Cai thought to himself, “If one had an itch on the back, wouldn’t it be nice to be scratched by these claws!” Wang immediately read his thoughts and was furious. He turned to whip his host, scolding him: ”The Hemp Lady is a divine personage! How could you even think of her claws scratching your back?” Soon after, Wang left and the Hemp Lady too took her leave. –from the Illustrated Immortals’ Biographies, ZengXiang LieXian Zhuan, as found in The Taoist Experience, edited by Livia Kohn, page 357 This story of the Hemp Lady comes from a Yuan Dynasty text, around 1300 CE, but goes back centuries before that. Time distortion on a geological scale and reference to Penglai, the Island of Immortality where the Herb/Mushroom of Immortality grows makes this fable a dreamy introduction to the little-known role of cannabis in Daoist lore. [Note: I've given up trying to be consistent with Romanizing Chinese such as Taoist/Daoist, due to the various texts I quote using many systems from Pinyin to Wade-Giles. I intentionally vary some terms now to help readers looking find my posts more easily.] page 3 / 38 The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spirit... by kevin - http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=1853 Cannabis grows wild all over the Yunnan province, as this picture I took near Dali shows. Going back further to the origins of Upper Clarity Daoism (Shang Qing/Shang Ch’ing) we have a more factual Daoist lady connected with Cannabis trances. Eva Wong, in the Shambhala Guide to Taoism (page 47), writes: Shang-ch’ing Taoism was reputed to have been founded by Lady Wei Hua-ts’un during the early part of the Chin dynasty. Lady Wei received a revelation from the Guardians of the Tao (the deities) and recorded their teachings in a book titled Shang-ch’ing huang-t’ing-nei-ching yü-ching page 4 / 38 The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spirit... by kevin - http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=1853 (The Yellow Court Jade Classic of Internal Images of the High Pure Realm) in 288 CE. … Lady Wei is reputed to have been the founder of Shang-ch’ing Taoism, but it was Yang Hsi who was responsible for spreading its teachings. The Shang-ch’ing texts tell us that Yang Hsi received a vision from Lady Wei (who had become an immortal) and then “wrote” the scriptures under the influence of a cannabis-induced trance. Eva Wong’s description of Upper Clarity Daoism’s history shows that it was tightly tied to the other two main forms of early Daoism at the time, Spiritual Treasure (Ling Bao) and Supreme Clarity (Tai Qing). Lady Wei was an initiated priestess of the Celestial Teachers Daoist sect (her father was a priest as well), which relied heavily on talismanic magic and exorcisms, following in the earlier demonological medical traditions of the early Chinese shamans. Upper Clarity Daoism also used some talismans and incantations, but more to assist visualizing/invoking gods inside the body during meditation and “flying to the stars” through the astral journeys of self-hypnosis. Shang Qing Daoism was fractured with political unrest and its texts became scattered, lost, and later embellished, so it’s hard to know if the originals mentioned Cannabis rituals. Physician and alchemist Tao Hong Jing (T’ao Hung Ching) who settled on Mt. Mao Shan to write and carry out his government-funded alchemical experiments, collected and organized the Shang Qing texts as well as the Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica (Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing). This materia medica is the most important early Chinese herb text. Authorship is attributed to the legendary Shen Nong/Divine Farmer from 2000 BCE or so, but traces of it are not found in writing until about 100 CE. Tao Hong Jing is the most important documented author of the Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica, around 500 CE, though even his version was lost and later recreated. Wong cautions us to not confuse Tao Hong Jing’s earlier Mao Shan sect with the much later Mao Shan sorcery sect, though where the line is drawn is unclear. page 5 / 38 The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spirit... by kevin - http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=1853 On Mt. Wei Bao Shan in the Yun Nan province, hemp plants were growing inside this walled Taoist temple. Cannabis shows up in the Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica as a superior class “cereal” herb along with sesame seed. Here is the entry from one of the only English translations, by Yang Shou-Zhong (page 148): Ma Fen (Herba Cannabis Sativae) is acrid and balanced. It mainly treats the seven damages, disinhibits the five viscera, and precipitates the blood and cold qi. Taking much of it may make one behold ghosts and frenetically run about. Protracted taking may enable one to communicate with the spirit light and make the body light. The seed [Semen Cannabis Sativae] is sweet and balanced. It mainly supplements the center and boosts the qi. Protracted taking may make one fat, strong, and never senile. [Herba Cannabis Sativae] is also called Ma Bo (Hemp Erection). It grows in rivers and valleys. Current Traditional Chinese Medicine materia medica texts generally only have reference to Cannabis seed, mainly used to lubricate the intestines to treat constipation due to dryness and deficiency. The fiber and essential fatty acids page 6 / 38 The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spirit... by kevin - http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=1853 support this use. It is clear from this older listing that the other parts of the hemp plant, being leaves and flowers, were used in a more psychoactive sense. page 7 / 38 The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spirit... by kevin - http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=1853 page 8 / 38 The Way of Great Hemp: Cannabis as Spirit... by kevin - http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=1853 Here is the Taoist craftsman who was restoring the woodwork at the above temple. An important earlier herb text, “Recipes for 52 Ailments” from about 200 BC mentions burning of a mugwort-wrapped marijuana joint as the earliest form of moxibustion.