A is for Alcohol

Blog 2 of the Pagan Blog Project.  I'm attempting a theme of one serious blog and one fun blog per letter.

Alcohol, Ale, Aqua Vitae (the water of life), and too many other names and varieties encompassing the alphabet to name here.  Alcohol has been connected with religion, worship, and medicine for all of recorded history.  The first trace evidence of alcoholic beverages actually goes back to the prehistoric Stone Age around 10, 000 B.C. in the form of beer jugs.  Wine appears in ancient Egyptian pictographs around 4000 B.C.  Ancient, Ancient Egypt had many local gods and few "national" gods, but Osiris, the god believed to have invented beer, was universally worshiped.  Alcohol is mentioned in the famous Hamarabi's Code of around 1750 B.C. in regards to fair commerce. 

While it is documented that all ancient cultures used alcohol for religious, medicinal, and social purposes, it is also documented that they nearly all wrote against over use of alcohol.  Even the excessive Greeks and Romans, famous for their drunken orgies, apparently only approved of drunkenness during symposia (with a few cultural exceptions and a large portion of the declining years).  While there have been attempts at Prohibition a few times over world history, it has never been successfully enforced or maintained.  Science has actually proven that far from being harmful in moderate quantities, drinking various kinds of alcohol can actually be good for you as well.  Fermentation of any kind can actually increase the amount of nutrients in foods, which is why fermenting is so popular among movements like Cooking Traditional Foods.

As a gift of the gods, there are a number of gods/goddesses throughout history related to alcohol in some way:  Osiris, Bacchus/Dionysus, Ninkasi, Aegir, Tezcatzontecatl, Mbaba Mwana Waresa, just to name a few.  Alcohol is a common part of many rituals from the Catholic Communion to the the Judaic Passover service to the Pagan Cakes and Ale.  As well as being consumed by worshipers, libations are often poured in honor of a deity or other supernatural being.

So, here's to me
And here's to you
Lift your glass to the gods
And praise be for alcohol

For more details on the history of alcohol, fun facts, and problems visit Alcohol:  Problems and Solutions.