Do You Associate Pipe Smoking with a Sense of Spirituality?

[Kilgore Trout]

In the morning while smoking my pipe, I often listen to church liturgy as I read from the New Testament. I find pipe smoking to be congruent with my meditations. I realize this is not the case for many if not most pipe smokers, but who else finds a deeper comfort in smoking their pipes. I have felt this way for over forty years. Reviewing various posts, I realize there are others who must share this experience.

"It is said that the pipe and instructions for its use were given to the people by White Buffalo Calf Woman, and ... the Lakota were taught to pray with the pipe by this messenger from the spiritual realm."

Sacred Pipe of the Lakota Sioux - https://pluralism.org/sacred-pipe-of-the-lakota-sioux

 

[Bwana Kiko]

Absolutely.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, most people in this forum would recognize that pipe-smoking done properly is not simply a technical activity, or a chemical one. If it were, one might as well raise and lower a pipe to their mouth like an automaton and pop a nicotine pill.

Instead, many of us recognize a purposefulness, a mindfulness -- the measured breathing, the release of petty distraction, the focus on flavor and rhythm and stilling yourself.

One might "smoke a pipe" and yet fail at this, and thus, I would argue, is failing to grasp the fuller purpose of pipe-smoking.

Following this theory, I would say that there are many who practice religion in the same manner -- mechanically, mindlessly. For many religion is reduced to a formula -- technical, rule-following, safe, and knowledge-based.

I suspect that if you read your Bible not as an academic endeavor, but as a way to commune with your Creator, if your faith is a living relationship, it makes perfect sense that it would be accompanied with a pipe, much as many of us enjoy a pipe with a friend.

I, for one, taught myself to smoke a pipe during a time when I was pursuing deeper peace with God, not as a prodigal trying to flee him.

Many fine Bible-reading thinkers were/are pipe-smokers and did/do not find it as incongruous with their faith, including JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, Dietrich Bonheoffer, and Malcom Guite.

All my best theological study is done with a pipe at hand.

 

[telescopes]

"It is said that the pipe and instructions for its use were given to the people by White Buffalo Calf Woman, and ... the Lakota were taught to pray with the pipe by this messenger from the spiritual realm."

Sacred Pipe of the Lakota Sioux - https://pluralism.org/sacred-pipe-of-the-lakota-sioux

The book, Black Elk Speaks, is one of my favorites. Absolutely was given as a form of spiritual worship.

 

[FLDRD]

I read this...

https://www.smokingpipes.com/accessories/books/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=612363

 

[krizzose]

As a child I attended catechism class and jumped through all the sacramental hoops necessary to be confirmed as a Catholic, so I’m on their books. However, I’m not religious at all and I’ve never had any sort of spiritual curiosity. I’m an agnostic in the classic sense and general skeptic, but I stop short of atheism as “I don’t know” is perfectly fine for me.

That’s a long way of saying: no, I don’t find pipe smoking spiritual. But it is relaxing and does put me in a contemplative state of mind.

 

[woodsroad]

No, that’s what meth is for.

 

[BayouGhost]

The book, Black Elk Speaks, is one of my favorites. Absolutely was given as a form of spiritual worship.

Funny coincidence. I dusted off this one today after finishing a very long history of the Medici dynasty.

 

[BingBong]

Pipes are a feast for the senses, in my case, although such can be the impact to those that there are moments of transcendence which cannot be described.

 

[Bwana Kiko]

"...Tobacco holds sway over the soul as much as it does the body. The qualities it takes in its various forms make it a near irresistible complement to the particular desire dominant in an individual’s soul. How we react to these forms says as much about our attitude toward those desires as it does toward the weed itself."
- Michael P. Foley is a Ph.D. candidate in theology at Boston College. He is currently completing his dissertation on St. Augustine.

Read the whole article here: Tobacco and the Soul | Michael P. Foley - https://www.firstthings.com/article/1997/04/tobacco-and-the-soul

 

[jbfrady]

Tobacco is spiritual in both origin and historical practice. While it's also always been recreational alongside its spiritual nature, even the concept of not-inhaling is spiritual by default, as smoking itself was an act of deference and offering. The burnt leaves were treated much like burnt offerings in the Judeo-Christian tradition or incense in most Eastern traditions. The leaves were meant to be burnt and offered to the spirits above, rather than inhaled and ingested by the user.

This practice persisted for so long that the human body's nicotine receptors developed not in the lungs, but in the esophagus. (Cigarettes defy this due to the need for the chemicals and additives to be absorbed in lung tissue.)

 

[JOHN72]

I don't really know how to describe it. However, the pleasure is indescribable all the same. Besides, to smoke, I need peace, harmony, quiet, and of course, my room with just a little ventilation. A window between open, and the door closed. I need to concentrate that aroma. This is where I have my modest library, this is where I drink my whiskey. In fact, I don't adapt to smoking outdoors, it unbalances me, tobacco doesn't taste the same. There is something mysterious. I don't know if it's spiritual. But tobacco is part of our human history. It has been smoked in the darkness, in the furious seas, in the darkest and mustiest workplaces, old, far away, in the taverns, in the wars, in the coldest and loneliest nights of the human being. God bless tobacco, and its unquestionable tradition.

 

[samb]

I see no problem with burning sacred tobacco and showing reverence to those that came before and the natural world around us, but mostly I just enjoy the pipe for what it is.

 

[geoffs]

It's a sort of burnt offering, isn't it?
I find it calming and meditative.
The smoke carries your thoughts up to heaven.

 

[RL Bucktails]

Spirituality, not really. Just a relaxing enjoyment.

 

[upnorth1]

No.

 

[daveinlax]

I’ve prayed my wife doesn’t find out what I’ve spent on pipes!

 

[Kirklands]

Yes. Smoking a pipe is sometimes a part of times of prayer.

 

[xrundog]

Nope. But I tend to back away from anything with religious overtones. Is it relaxing and contemplative? Yes.

 

[Choatecav]

Gotta admit that when I read the title of this thread I thought it was a bit odd. But, after reading through the replies, I can see the relevance. That said, no, I don't particularly feel a spiritual vibe to smoking my pipe.

 

[bullet08]

Only the medicine men. Can't really argue with tomahawk smoking old dudes.