Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll, 1000 BC - 200 AD -

a reply to Liquid Light

by Elmer Elevator

posted July 24, 2002

Soon after I subscribed to [drugwar], I snorted a rant (triggered by a reference to Cheech & Chong) about the troubling new First Commandment for reformers: Thou Shalt Get a Haircut and Wear a Suit and Tie. It struck me as a sad and false sort of detour for reformers, a commitment to conformity from the last people on Earth who ought to drift into conformity.

"Liquid Light" begins with some references to Dionysian rapture. And I think that's worthy of another rant. One good rant deserves another.

To the extent that the War on Drugs isn't simply, entirely a raw, naked grasp for fascist, dictatorial political power, I have increasingly viewed the War on Drugs as America's latest eruption of fundamentalist Christian Puritanism -- the latest (and our history's most successful) attempt to kill democracy, individualism, and the spirit of "the pursuit of happiness," and use the power of government to enforce in its place a rigid, militaristic Puritan theocracy.

This miserable history actually goes back far earlier than Cromwell's grim, unhappy Roundheads and the grim, unhappy Puritans of New England (who punished people for laughing on the Sabbath). "Liquid Light" reminds us that we're witnessing (and suffering horribly through) Round 1,900 of the never-ending clash between the ancient Greek world view and religion, and the world view of its mortal enemy, the early Christian church.

During their first few centuries, Christian evangelists faced a nearly impossible task: To convert the Mediterranean and East Asia from their ancient and wildly popular religions and belief systems, to an entirely new and alien system of beliefs about this world and the hereafter.

Christianity offered people a wonderful miracle -- life everlasting -- which True Believers would receive immediately after they died.

But Christianity had to convince and convert millions who thoroughly believed in ancient-established religions that offered wonderful miracles in this life, in the Right Here and the Right Now.

By the time of the birth of Christianity, the Dionysian mystery cult, and a dozen similar ecstacy mystery cults, with strong new influences from Persian and Egyptian cults, had become the leading popular religions of the Mediterranean.

Rome had an official state religion of a quite austere, puritanical character, but Rome demanded only that a small amount of ritual public lip service be paid to it. Once an obedient citizen had sacrificed a plump chicken to Jupiter, he was free to proceed to Ishtar's orgy or the Bacchanal.

Behind the back of the official state pantheon, both the intellectual elite and masses of ordinary people were avid followers of secret mystic cults which emphasized states of ecstacy achievable (then and now) through wine, a variety of other plant substances that engaged the psyche, and sex. Music was also an important core component of the mystical cults -- so in the most accurate sense, the leading religions of the Roman and Greek world around 100 A.D. preached a trinity of Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll.

Even those of us who are intimately familiar and sympathetic with the '60s-inspired cult of Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll can barely imagine what its ancient Mediterranean incarnation was like in terms of popularity and community acceptance and approval. For us, a commitment, total, weekend or occasional, to Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll has always been a commitment to an outlaw, underground and marginalized life, with immediate police consequences and community condemnation.

Compare this to entire regions of the ancient world. In many city-state communities, women of the highest, most respected aristocratic class would spend a sacred month of each year as priestess-prostitutes at remote temples, offering their sexual favors to all. When they returned to their homes and families, it was not with any suicidal sense of humiliation and shame. Their social status in the community was enhanced and revered, their husbands and children honored them more for their services and sacrifices. They were the living, tangible personifications of the goddesses whose life-giving fertility kept the race and the fields alive.

Imagine being pulled over by a nasty cop who asked: "Why aren't you getting all fucked up on cheap wine and drugs, worshipping giant penises and fertility goddesses with huge breasts and bellies, and having sex with dozens of people?" That was what you got busted for in 100 A.D. -- and the people who were most deeply suspected of being dangerous, community-destroying subversives were the people whose descendants eventually took over our Western world: the Christian Puritans.

* * *

Okay, I'm going to take a breather here. I'd love to read your responses, if any. But I have a lot more to say about Dionysian Rapture vs. the Fascist Puritanical War on Drugs, about the Nature of Being Truly Human vs. the Enforced Ideal of Not Being Human.

Most of you will have instantly recognized that my chief historical source is Robert Graves' "The White Goddess" (1948). Graves himself acknowledges the pioneering work on the pre-Christian religions, "The Golden Bough" (1922) by Sir James George Frazer.

Both for what I believe is fundamentally necessary historical and intellectual background about the War on Drugs (and combatting it), and just for an amazing reading and spiritual experience, I can't recommend a romp through "The White Goddess" highly enough. Its length may seem scary, but it's wonderfully friendly to readers who just want to skip around it at random. For a book published in and for the modern Christian, Puritan-educated audience, it's Astonishingly Brave. It's about 1000 pages of Thoroughly Forbidden, Shocking Stuph.

"The Golden Bough" is a little more scholarly, a little less accessible, and a little less brave -- but it's still chock-full of astonishing taboos and historical secrets and amazing insights.