Paper short abstract:

The paper aims at providing a concise history of the cultivation of cannabis in Eurasia and of its ritualised consumption. I will argue that its diffusion following the migratory movements of Central Asian nomads contributed to the spread of ideas and rituals related to shamanism.

Paper long abstract:

Mind-altering plants have always played a very important role in human religious life and cannabis has been one of the most widely used from a very early date. Although the genus cannabis includes several species, the most common subspecies are Cannabis sativa L., commonly known as hemp (whose levels of cannabinoids are low), and Cannabis sativa or marijuana, which contains tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a psychoactive constituent which induces a variety of psychological effects. Cannabis grows spontaneously across much of Central Asia; however, it has been suggested that domesticated cannabis – with higher levels of THC – first appeared during the Neolithic in western China, where it was used to make ropes, paper, clothing, as well as being consumed by Chinese shamans for its psychoactive properties. Even if it is probable that cannabis arrived in western Eurasia at an early date, its use in shamanic rituals was most likely introduced by nomadic peoples from Central Asia such as the Scythians, among whom shamanism was common, as attested by the well-known passage from Herodotus’s Histories (IV, 73-75), where a funerary session is described which made use of cannabis as a means of inducing an altered state of consciousness. In the first half of the XX century, the discovery of cannabis seeds in one of the frozen tombs of Pazyryk in the Altai provided significant evidence on the plausibility of Herodotus’s passage, but new discoveries in Central Asian funerary sites, especially in the Xinjiang and the Pamir Plateau, have greatly enriched our knowledge of the ritualized consumption of cannabis. In this paper, I will present some of the most significant discoveries and try to provide a synthesis of the history of cannabis as a vehicle of shamanic religious ideas and rituals in Eurasia.

Paper short abstract:

By relying on materials that are for the most part unpublished or less known to modern readers, this paper will discuss how European scholars between the Seventeenth and Eighteenth century approached Chinese alchemy, when they first encountered these doctrines and mediated them to Europe.

Paper long abstract:

As is characteristic of many religious ‘esoteric’ traditions (e.g. the parallel case of the Greek Hermetica or the Chaldaean Oracles), Daoism attests the occurrence of some practical techniques that often coexist and overlap with spiritual doctrines of more philosophical inspiration. They include alchemical recipes and tools in order to be healthy, to prolong life, and even attain immortality.

By relying on materials that are for the most part unpublished or less known to modern readers, this paper will discuss how European scholars (mainly Jesuit missionaries) between the Seventeenth and Eighteenth century approached Chinese alchemy, when they first encountered these doctrines and mediated them to Europe in their writings. While most of these authors, led by a certain penchant for Confucianism and its ethics, blamed Daoism (and Buddhism) as false philosophies and superstitions, highlighting their triviality, yet it is possible to retrace in some works (e.g. Couplet’s "Brevis Notitia Sectae Li lao Kiun Philosophi") a different interpretation of Daoism. These works in some respects paved the way for a renewed interest in Chinese esoteric doctrines on the part of Western scholars at the end of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth century.

Paper short abstract:

The tremendous development of modern science and technology gave rise to the emergence of 'human enhancement' and, eventually, the 'transhumanist movement'. This paper will attempt to explore the stance of Christian bioethics towards this movement and human enhancement in general.

Paper long abstract:

Body modification is an ancient phenomenon, as some practices, such as tattooing and piercing, appeared several thousand years before the birth of Christ. Moreover, body modification practices have a very interesting and also ethically controversial background, since they have been playing an important role for civilizations since ancient years, while the flourishing of these practices continues to this day.

This intertemporal desire of human beings to alter their bodies in combination with the contemporary emergence of body modification and the tremendous development of modern science and technology gave rise to the emergence of 'human enhancement' and, eventually, the 'transhumanist movement'. Human enhancement is the phenomenon in which humans go beyond their natural bodily limits and capabilities through the application of modern technologies, while its most extreme form, Transhumanism, is a class of philosophies that seeks 'the continued evolution of human life beyond its current human form as a result of science and technology guided by life-promoting principles and values.' Regarding human enhancement, two conflicting sides exist, 'transhumanists', who hold that people should be free to use modern technological means to transform themselves as they please, and 'bioconservatives', for whom, we should not change human biology and the human condition.

Between these two opposite sides, Christian theology, on the one hand, accepts the right of human beings to alter and enhance the world and themselves but, on the other, believes that everything, ergo the human body as well, is not our possession but God's, thus humans are not allowed to treat it as they please let alone distort it. Thus, what is the stance of Christian bioethics towards human enhancement and transhumanism? Is Christianity 'transhumanist' or 'bioconservative'? This is the question that this paper will answer.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the ethical issues emerging from digital religious communication, with a specific focus on Catholic presence in digital environments. For this purpose, it will concentrate on the concept of "inculturation" and apply it to the larger context of "digital culture".

Paper long abstract:

In recent decades, the development of information and communication technologies (ICT) profoundly affected the religious dimension, in particular the communication practices of the Catholic Church, as attested by the various documents produced over the years (cf. Internet: a new Forum to proclaim the Gospel, The Church and the Internet, Ethics on the Internet, etc.). The communicative practices and strategies adopted by individuals, associations, parishes, dioceses and by the Vatican itself in digital environments can be identified as digital religious communication (DRC), an area that includes a large part of the communicative relations between the Church and the faithful, as well as between the Catholic world and civil society at large.

The DRC raises urgent questions about the nature of the communicative action emerging from it. Since the communicative dynamics in question develop in digital environments, it is necessary to verify whether, and to what extent, the programs that open and structure these environments can condition the nature of the communicative relationship and the very content of the religious message. The actors of the DRC, in fact, can run the risk of betraying their original communicative intention without realizing it. The aim of this paper is to address such issue by studying the main ethical concepts elaborated over the years by the Catholic Church about the DRC concerning the Catholic presence in social media. For this purpose, the paper will also concentrate on the concept of "inculturation" and apply it to the larger context of "digital continent/world/culture". The expected result is a tentative assessment of the ongoing processes of negotiation between the ethical principles adopted by the Catholic Church and the medial dynamics of digital platforms. Such investigation is part of a more extended study on the mutual influence of Catholic communication and ICTs.