Pipe, Smoking Tobacco

The pipe is associated with contemplation and, at least in the past, with older men and wisdom. 

The pipe bowl is a container that is filled with tobacco; this is ignited, and the smoke rises towards the sky. The physical transforms into the spiritual – sublimatio, as the alchemists called the process. 

The pipe bowl itself is a round vessel that resembles a forge. The blacksmith has attracted similar associations as the alchemist – a mystic who transforms matter, associated with magic and wisdom. The blacksmith, the alchemist, and the shaman share similar symbolic content, and they all, so to speak, gather around the tobacco pipe. 

Pipe smokers draw the same smoke into their mouths and blow it out again, and thus consume this spiritualizing, which supports the association with wisdom, etc. 

The Native American tradition of smoking the "peace pipe" together expresses the idea of sharing smoke, just as their ceremonial smoking connects humans with the divine above. 

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