THE 20TH CANNABIS CUP

by Steven Hager

The Cannabis Cup has a center of gravity, and I can feel it. Matt, Elise and I are sitting down to breakfast at the Barbizon Palace, across the street from Amsterdam’s Central Station. If anything were to happen to any one of us, this event would certainly spin into instant chaos. In fact, it already has, since we’ve just discovered the annual Sinterklaas parade is shutting down the city tomorrow exactly when we’re supposed to be launching a fleet of buses from the front of the Victoria Hotel. “No battle plan survives the first contact with friction,” I mutter as I survey the $45 breakfast served in a room with no windows and really bad feng shui. I knew it was going to be difficult surviving the recent collapse of the dollar versus the euro, but I didn’t realize the Dutch version of Santa Claus was going to sabotage us. How would we get our attendees to the expo on the outskirts of the city if the smoker-friendly buses couldn’t get through? The 20th Cup hadn’t even officially started and already we’d slammed into a major clog.

The Function of Ceremonies
Everything is made of energy. Energy travels in waves, and waves have centers. In the human body, these are called chakras. I like to talk about psychic energy in terms of gravity because unlike telepathy, which some people can’t relate to, gravity is something everyone understands. You can’t see it, touch it or hear it, but you know it’s there. When psychic energy harmonizes, it amplifies. The bigger the ceremony, the more focused the meditation, the greater the amplification and the stronger the gravity.

When you affect psychic gravity, that process is called “magic.” Energies can harmonize, or they can become dissonant. The human mind is a complex energy system composed of many facets, and the integration of these elements has a center of gravity. When your psyche loses this center, confusion and identity crisis arise. Societies of people also have centers of psychic gravity. So do ceremonies. All ceremonies depend on magic, and most magic is about harmonization. Most family ceremonies are designed to amplify affection, and the family’s center of gravity is revealed by the seating arrangements at the ceremonial feast. Ceremonies are our best defense against depression, but they can also become triggers for breakdowns. That’s because energy systems have antagonists. The antagonist is the negative pole. (As above, so below.) So while ceremonies create harmonization, they also reveal dissonance. A typical reaction to dissonance at a ceremony is direct confrontation. This can create flame-outs, followed by burn-outs and meltdowns. The counterculture represents peace culture, so we deal with dissonance in a kinder, gentler fashion. It’s better to dance with dissonance, avoiding friction, fog and clogs whenever possible. This is known as “staying in the flow.” If you are a true master of a situation, you can even drain energy off an antagonist and amplify your own gravity.

Clogs are the natural enemy of energy. Friction can slow energy down, but clogs result when movement stops. Depression is a psychic clog. It’s perfectly okay to have unhappy feelings, but it becomes a problem when you can’t move past them to more positive spaces. The most important thing that Stephen Gaskin taught me about enlightenment is that it isn’t like ringing a bell or climbing a mountain. “It’s not like you get somewhere and stay there forever,” explained Gaskin. “Nobody is enlightened all the time.” The psychic gravity of ceremonies draws people to positive places, but they can’t stay there forever.

Fog is like friction in that it slows movement, but fog is different from friction in that it’s not based on dissonance, unexpected snafus or communication breakdowns. Fog is self-delusion, similar to being helplessly love-struck or paralyzed by fear. At the Cup, fog creates bliss bunnies who can’t find or fix problems because they think problems don’t exist anymore. In moderation, cannabis enhances harmonization, but ingesting large amounts produces fog.
I didn’t start out my life seeking to become some sort of self-styled expert on psychic energy. But this is where I find myself after 20 years of throwing ceremonies around cannabis for HIGH TIMES magazine. During major ceremonies, my sensitivity to psychic energy increases, and there is no bigger ceremony than the Cannabis Cup.

A Brief History of the Cup
I had no idea what I was getting into when I created the Cannabis Cup. I thought it might help bring attention to the importance of breeding quality cannabis seeds. When the event started in 1987, there were only a handful of cannabis-seed merchants around the world. (Now there are hundreds.) The first Cup was attended by me, a photographer and a former grower, Dr. Indoors. Three seed companies entered—two Dutch, one American. The entire event was a two-day affair; there wasn’t even an awards show. It was so under-funded that I refused to attend the next four Cups, instead sending a different member of the editorial staff to supervise each year. To make matters more difficult, the Dutch laws regarding seed companies kept shifting, and we were never sure who was actually going to enter. Then, at the 6th Cup, the event was finally opened to the public, and 50 people attended, including me. The first 420 Cannabis Cup councils took place, and the trademark silver award cups—so beautifully designed by Robin “The Hammer” Ludwig—appeared. The 7th Cup brought the emergence of the Cannabis Cup Hemp Expo, which inspired imitation expos all over Europe as the hemp industry exploded for a few years (before imploding). But the 8th Cup was a truly landmark event, because it was the first Cup to fully engage the issue of cannabis spiritual rights. After eight years, the Cup began establishing a center of gravity based on cannabis spirituality.

Alex Grey, the world’s most celebrated psychedelic artist, created the official art that year, and Stephen Gaskin, who had petitioned the Supreme Court for cannabis spiritual rights, spoke at the 420 ceremonies. These were two of the most enlightened people I knew, and I used their wisdom to help fashion appropriate ceremonies. I also hired Garrick Beck to direct the stage shows. Garrick brought over a circus troupe of Rainbow Family veterans to create an Alice in Wonderland theme. We had dancers, singers, drummers, stage designers, costume designers—it was all happening on a scale that I couldn’t have imagined five years previously. But even though the Cup attracted hundreds of attendees, it also lost money, which quickly led to my removal as producer.

The next eight Cups were produced by Mike Esterson, who was running the (now-defunct) Cup travel agency, 420 Tours. Fortunately, Mike and I had a good working relationship, and he let me fashion the annual themes. For the 10th Cup, I created the Counterculture Hall of Fame, and Bob Marley became the first inductee. Rita Marley flew in from Jamaica to help us celebrate. At the end of the Awards Show, Rita invited the winners up onstage. She grabbed a red display box containing a dozen Sensi Seeds strains and threw samples into the crowd. A giant freestyle jam broke out that included impromptu raps from the rival coffeeshop managers. All the winners danced together. I had an epiphany that year. Rita helped me realize the importance of improvisation, and for the next five years, the Cup ended with the winners dancing onstage while the performers freestyled and the musicians jammed.

Then came the 16th Cup, which I wisely decided to skip. It included a new, more expensive venue for the expo and the introduction of the euro—both of which resulted in massive financial losses and the end of Mike Esterson’s reign. So, for the 17th Cup, I found myself back in the producer’s chair.