21st
Church Smoke Is Good For Your Brain
Holy shit. Scientists running tests on mice, as they are wont to do, have discovered that incensole acetate — better known as frankincense — has psychoactive qualities.
The fragrant resin works on areas of the brain to alleviate anxiety and affect emotions in ways only beginning to be explored. Frankincense is still used in incense and perfumes, and is famed for being one of the Three Magi’s gifts to the infant Christ.
You know what this means. Jesus and his followers were high as fuck from an early age and everything makes more sense now about Biblical times.
Though “most present day worshipers assume that incense burning has only a symbolic meaning,” the scientists discovered that when mice were administered frankincense, “the compound significantly affected areas in brain areas known to be involved in emotions as well as in nerve circuits that are affected by current anxiety and depression drugs.”
This also puts a whole new spin on the Christmas story, because now we know why frankincense was essential for the party atmosphere.
As Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor of the study journal explains, the discovery provides for “a biological explanation for millennia-old spiritual practices that have persisted across time, distance, culture, language, and religion—burning incense really does make you feel warm and tingly all over!”
And of course, this really begs the next pressing question: what secrets could our little myrrh be concealing?
via think gene :: via reddit
