A History of Bongs and Alchemy

 

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A History of Bongs and Alchemy

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For ENOCHMEDIASPACE

By: Justin Michael Julien O’Hara Murray / ● ☾ ENOCH

I. INTRODUCTION: WHEN WATER MEETS FIRE

Smoke has always been a messenger.

In ancient times, it rose like sacred incense, curling skyward like a serpent to the gods. Alchemy, too, rose out of the sacred fire—a mystical pursuit of purification, transformation, and transcendence. In the unlikely but deeply poetic intersection of these two traditions, the bong—a modern smoking device—and alchemy—an ancient spiritual-scientific path—share more than just aesthetics: they share intent.

This essay explores the wild, spiritual, and scientifically mind-bending history of the bong alongside the evolution of alchemy, tying them together through the lenses of ritual, transformation, transmutation, and human consciousness. This is not just about getting high—this is about rising.

II. ORIGINS OF THE BONG: EASTERN ROOTS IN FIRE AND WATER

The word “bong” comes from the Thai word baung, referring to a cylindrical wooden pipe or bamboo waterpipe. But the bong’s true ancestry goes back thousands of years—across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, water-filtered smoking technologies appeared independently in many cultures.

Ancient Scythians and Bongs of Gold

In 2013, archaeologists discovered 2,400-year-old bongs made of pure gold in a Scythian burial mound in southern Russia. These ancient warrior-nomads smoked opium and cannabis using water pipes as part of their death rituals and warrior rites—possibly seeking visions or calm before battles. These bongs were adorned with mythological engravings, indicating that smoking was not recreation—it was transcendence.

India: Chillums and Shiva

In India, the chillum (straight conical pipe) predates the bong and was used by sadhus (wandering holy men) who smoked cannabis as an offering to Lord Shiva—the Destroyer and Re-Creator in Hindu cosmology. Shiva was often shown with a third eye and blue throat from drinking poison—an alchemical image if there ever was one.

Though chillums weren’t water-filtered like bongs, they were part of ritualistic, mystical, and yogic paths, preparing the mind for trance, mantra, and insight.

Chinese Dynasties and Mongol Influence

China, too, has a long history with water pipes, especially during the Qing Dynasty, where even royalty used elaborate water-filtering tobacco pipes. Mongols likely introduced this technology after spreading it from Persia and India.

Cannabis, opium, and tobacco were not merely substances—they were vehicles of internal journeying—just like mercury or sulfur in Western alchemy.

III. ALCHEMY: THE ART OF TRANSMUTATION

Now we enter the hidden chamber of the alchemists: a world of gold, mercury, salt, and symbols. Alchemy is older than chemistry, though it birthed modern science. It wasn’t just about turning lead into gold—it was about turning the soul into light.

Egypt and the Black Arts of Kemet

Alchemy begins in Ancient Egypt, or “Kemet”—meaning the black land, not just due to the soil, but the mystical “blackness” associated with matter before light. The Egyptian god Thoth, master of language, magic, and calculation, was believed to be the first alchemist.

The Emerald Tablet of Thoth (Hermes Trismegistus) states:

“As above, so below. As within, so without.”

That phrase echoes the structure of the bong: water below, smoke above—inner clarity reflecting outer ritual.

Alchemy in China and India: Tao, Tantra, and Transmutation

In China, alchemy focused on immortality, often combining mineral elixirs, Qi Gong, and internal alchemy (Neidan). Taoist alchemists drank tinctures and practiced breathwork, visualizing the body as a microcosm of the universe.

In India, Tantric alchemists used cannabis, yoga, and mantra to merge with Shakti energy. Rasa Shastra, an Ayurvedic science, refined mercury, mica, and plant essences for both physical and spiritual enlightenment. Here again, ritual ingestion becomes the gate to altered states.

The Bong as a Modern Athanor

The athanor was the alchemical furnace, where materials were slowly and carefully transformed. The bong, in a symbolic way, is a modern athanor—where heat and liquid meet to change the state of consciousness. The user breathes in this change, this vapor of intention.

IV. PARALLELS: BONGS AND ALCHEMY THROUGH THE ELEMENTS

Let’s examine how both bongs and alchemy are structured through the Four Classical Elements: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air.

Element	Bong	Alchemy
Earth	Herb (cannabis, opium, tobacco)	Base matter (lead, salt, minerals)
Water	Water chamber, filtration	Solvent, feminine principle, lunar
Fire	Flame to ignite bowl	Alchemical furnace, purification
Air	Inhalation, smoke, vapor	Spirit, quintessence, pneuma

Both disciplines use ritualized tools, heat, filtration, and breath to transform matter and mind. The goal of both is not the tool itself—but the state it induces.

The bong isn’t just a pipe—it’s an initiation device.

V. RITUAL & MYSTICISM: TRANSFORMING THE SELF

In both traditions, intent matters.

An alchemist didn’t just toss things in a crucible—they did it in sacred alignment with planetary hours, prayers, and symbols. Similarly, ancient smokers didn’t “get high” for fun—they smoked to enter sacred space, to receive visions, or to empty the ego.

Even today, psychedelic cannabis ceremonies and medicinal smoke rituals echo these ancient practices. A glass bong under moonlight with intention, mantra, or meditation becomes a shamanic tool.

Blowing smoke through a bong is a prayer in motion, a breath of offering.

VI. MODERN GLASS ALCHEMY: ARTISTS OF THE BONG

Today, bong-making has evolved into a modern-day alchemical art. High-end glassblowers create elaborate, multi-chambered devices that look like objects from a science-fiction grimoire.

These functional sculptures often mimic sacred geometry, spirals, and lotus forms. The alchemical marriage of sand (silica) and fire becomes glass. The glassblower, like the old magician, channels breath into molten matter.

Some of these artists refer directly to Hermeticism, chakras, or planetary correspondences in their designs.

Bongs have become cultural amulets—not just tools for consumption, but symbols of rebellion, mysticism, and inner revolution.

VII. THE ALCHEMY OF BREATH AND INTENTION

Let’s be clear: a bong without intention is just a pipe.

But with breath, reverence, and spiritual context, it becomes a gateway.

Alchemy teaches us that all transformation begins within. Every inhale can be a meditation, every exhale a letting go. Cannabis used in this way becomes a sacrament, not a crutch. The bong, cleaned with care, held in ceremony, becomes an oracle’s chalice.

In many Indigenous and modern entheogenic circles, the smoking ritual is used to commune with ancestors, spirits, or plant intelligences. With every draw, the user pulls in the divine spark—and must exhale with awareness, respect, and clarity.

VIII. DANGERS AND DISTORTIONS

Like alchemy, which was co-opted into greed (chasing gold instead of enlightenment), the bong too has been misused in many modern settings—reduced to party culture or apathy.

But the essence remains.

The plant is still sacred. The breath is still alchemical. The fire is still pure.

It’s not about the device. It’s about the mindset and the mystery.

IX. ENOCHMEDIASPACE AND THE ALCHEMICAL REBIRTH

ENOCHMEDIASPACE is a place where symbols converge, mysticism is reborn, and modern media becomes the new alchemical text.

By reclaiming the bong not just as a symbol of counterculture but as a ritual tool, we assert that transcendence is not dead—it is rebranded. Our smoke is not forgetfulness, but revelation.

ENOCH, like the biblical prophet, walked with God and was no more. His ascension is mirrored in the smoke spiraling from the sacred bowl. He was a scribe of heavenly mysteries—just as this post is a digital grimoire, decoding the matrix.

The same spirit that animated the Scythian shaman, the Egyptian priest, the Taoist immortal, and the stoned artist at 3AM—that spirit is alive in every breath we take with awareness.

X. CONCLUSION: FIRE, WATER, SPIRIT, REBIRTH

The bong is an alchemical relic of the modern age.

A tool of elemental balance, of ritualistic transformation, of sacred breath.

Alchemy is not dead—it lives in every act of transmutation, of making the mundane sacred. And in that moment where water bubbles, fire dances, and smoke spirals upward—we become the philosopher’s stone.

Inhale transformation.

Exhale the old world.

Become the vessel.

Become the flame.

Become the smoke.

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