Reflections on a walnut tree

Just as fired clay pots replaced braziers after cannabis intoxication switched from inhalation in tipis to drinking hot cannabis-infused milk in chalices, the arrival of the Menorah in Judea may have signaled a switch to incense fumigation supplemented by full body immersion (with oral and vaginal and anal ingestion always an option)

Since the original menorah didn’t survive, these two quotes are pretty much all we have to go on.

I see a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl above it. The lamps on it are seven in number, and the lamps above it have seven pipes; and by it are two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl, and one on its left….Three bowls shall be made like almond blossoms on one branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower, and three bowls made like almond blossoms on the other branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower.”

The most important element seems to be the presence of those bowls above the flames.

I could only find one ancient image that even tried to approximate the description from the Torah and Old Testament. Those bowls are possibly where cannabis oil would have been placed to fumigate a room, creating a cannabis sauna.

This certainly gives new light to why the phrase “oil lamp” appears with such frequency in the New Testament.

It’s interesting that the almond tree is signaled out for such special attention. It was first cultivated in Bactria and became a protein staple for nomadic Scythians. The Persian trail mix of almonds, honey and dates was the most popular snack all along the Silk Road for millennia and many lived on it exclusively when making long voyages.
And speaking on nut trees and magic.

I recently read a report on an Italian alchemical website claiming the fleur de lis is actually the male and female flower of the walnut tree put together, and the male flower is the real object on display at the Vatican, a statue lifted from the Temple of Isis.
But when I looked at male walnut flowers on the Internet, they looked too long and stringy to convince me and I’ve already written my theory the statute is a giant pineal gland, something many ancient sages considered the seat of the soul.

That did get me thinking about the popularity of walnut trees and walnut wands in magical history. So I went on a search to discover the source of that legend, and found it in Italy. In 1639, Physician Pietro Piperno published On the Superstitious Walnut Tree of Benevento, which tracked the occult origins of the walnut tree back to the 7th century, when Benevento was a Lombard duchy. The Lombards seem to have had a somewhat Saka ancestry. They worshiped a winged golden viper, according to Piperno, and held annual ceremonies involving displays of horsemanship around a tree. These rituals became the origin of witches sabbats held under a giant walnut tree. In fact, the identity of the original tree was lost, and the walnut tree may be a later invention. Whatever that tree might have been, a priest named Barbatus chopped down a nearby walnut tree in 1498, claiming it was the evil one, tore out its roots and built a chapel on the spot named Santa Maria in Voto. As for the golden winged viper, he smelted that into a golden chalice for his Eucharist ceremonies.

During his investigation into paganism, Barbatus got Matteuciccia da Todi (probably a midwife) to confess to being a witch (no doubt under severe torture). This confession may be how Barbatus became Saint Barbatus. Poor Matteuciccia seems to be the one who placed walnuts into the history of magic. So next time you wave a walnut wand, keep her story in mind because that magical tool you’re using may be a bit rusty on karma, in comparison, say, to a wand of hemp. But only if real magic is what you’re looking for.

The other part of this story is that these so-called witches of Benevento anointed themselves with a psychoactive oil during certain ceremonies, and I believe it could be the same oil employed by Scythian widows for ritual suicide, a practice that remained in India for centuries until the British were able to get control over Hinduism and eliminated it as barbaric.

Were walnut or hemp wands dipped to stir the oil during distillation and then employed for oral, vaginal and/or anal ingestion? I suspect that may be the true origin of the magical broomstick.