December Meeting
12/20/20 at High Noon CST
Subject: Jesus & Cannabis with our host Scott Bates.
More about Scott:
My Organizations are: 1) The Circle of Cannabis Churches 2) The Holy Order of Servants 3) Church of the Most High I am CEO, Servant of All and Spiritual Leader. Cannabis is correctly capitalized in all instances which is standard taxonomic notation. I am happy to discuss the Sacramental Cannabis spiritual disciplines Religiously practiced by our members and Congregations. I will discuss what it means to have a personal relationship with the Creator and the importance of an expanding spiritual consciousness and awareness and what that means. I will discuss the history of Cannabis in all religious traditions. I will discuss my personal path as a seeker of truth, student of all religious traditions and 35 year leader of Cannabis Churches and advocate for Sacramental Cannabis. I am happy to discuss my personal perspective of the teachings of Jesus Christ and my opposition to doctrines and dogmas about him that He never taught. I will discuss any topic reasonably related to my mission and work and to actual human spirituality.
I was born in 1965 to Mormon parents in Provo, Utah.
At five days old I came to live in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, CA. My mother was an Olympic caliber figure skater who received a Chemistry degree at McGill University in Canada, and did post grad at BYU. My father was a National Merit Scholar who attended Stanford, BYU and UCLA law School. I attended Campbell Hall, St Michaels and All Angels Episcopalian Academy and Harvard Mens' Preparatory Academy in Studio City (Los Angeles). These were all top private schools with stringent admissions requirements.
In 1978, we (Dad, mom and one brother and two sisters) moved to Redding in Northern California. In 1978, I knew I was not Mormon. I first smoked Cannabis in 1978 at age 13. When I was placed in public schools and forced to start repeating what I'd already learned up to four years previously I decided to take responsibility for my own education. In 1978-79, I realized I was more intelligent than and more deeply perceptive than most or all of my teachers. I began to study all Religious traditions in the world starting with their direct source scripture, a process that continued until I'd 'checked' them all. I started daily Cannabis use in 1980. At age 15 1/2, I got a work permit and worked until I had enough for a pound of "Humboldt Sense Bud" which I could buy for $800 from VietNam war vets homesteading mining claims in Humboldt County CA, about two to three hours drive from my home in Redding. My friends from So Cal would drive up and pay $1200 and that with a few exceptions was the last time I held a wage slave job.
I left home at 18 and moved back to southern California and wound up at the Claremont Colleges, a five campus private college located in Claremont, CA where I wrote papers for rich kids, attended classes, lived in dorms and on campus apts with friends and girlfriends. I spent a year living in a dorm and apt at Scripps College, an all girls school.
I was briefly an atheist despite my history of spiritual awareness. I moved back up to Northern CA in 1985 and met a Rastafarian who through the Silmarillion reconnected me with the Bible and a new perspective.
At age 23, I met my chidrens' mother, began procreating and was married. We had two children 18 months apart and were together 12 years. After that I was a single parent. My children grew and used Cannabis most of their lives and were and are intelligent, talented, athletic and gifted individuals who benefitted by their communion with Cannabis.
In 1988, I had and led my first Cannabis Church, though I was a member of a Nyabinghi Groundation circle prior to leading my own group. When my children graduated High School we moved to Humboldt, CA. I was involved with Oklevueha Native American for a time because of my close personal relationship with Dr. WIlliam and Kristen Courtney that started in 2008-9 and continues to this day. I was involved in a lawsuit that would have protected my church's rights to Sacramental Cannabis that ONAC fired my lawyer and set me adrift on after I'd won. It ended by dismissal because they told the new lawyer to let me get screwed. Then I found out the founder is a former DEA agent and scumbag who has led many leaders of Cannabis Churches to prison.
Then I started the organizations that I lead now with the lawyer ONAC fired, who had mental health and pHARMacuetical drug issues so now I'm looking for a lawyer to rep us in a Schedule exemption lawsuit against the DEA. The lawyer brought me to OC and So. Cal where I remain today trapped in wage slavery trying to launch my religion, based on the unification of all initial faith perspectives in the Sacramental Cannabis spiritual disciplines we teach and practice.