If you celebrate Christmas, you know that it’s a wonderful time of year—the decorations, the music, the presents under the Christmas tree, and, of course, Santa Claus himself.
Christmas is generally considered a Christian holiday (though it would be more than reasonable to point out that it’s so popular that it’s a secular holiday as well, being celebrated throughout much of the world).
➢ In old English, the name of the holiday is Cristes maesse, or Christ’s Mass, and amanita muscaria spores may be a part of the celebration.
Get To Know Jesus Christ, Mushrooms and Santa
So if the generally accepted purpose of Christmas is to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ, what’s the deal with all the other stuff like reindeer, mushrooms and Santa Claus, Christmas trees, ornaments, and fruitcake?
Special Mushrooms Strains and Santa – Christmas and Mushrooms
We can’t explain the fruitcake, although there’s probably a special level of hell for the inventor of that particular delicacy. If you’ve been involved in the special community or with special mushroom strains for a while, or with Christmas and mushrooms, you’ve probably heard about the supposed link between mushrooms and Santa Claus, and even some of the other traditions like putting presents under a tree, or for some hallucinogenic mushrooms on Christmas.
Psychedelics For Religious Use
There are records and current uses for specials for religious use examples.
Let’s find out more about what some believe is the real origin of Santa Claus and many of our most beloved Christmas traditions:
Why is Christmas on December 25th Anyway?
What do mushrooms have to do with Christmas
Santa and Mushrooms
What do mushrooms have to do with Christmas? It’s more than likely that Jesus Christ was not born on December 25th. In fact, Christmas wasn’t even celebrated until some 300 years after the birth of Christ (perhaps around the year 336 A.D. in Rome, according to some sources like the Philocalian calendar), so what do mushrooms have to do with Christmas? What does Santa and mushrooms have to do with this?
So why December 25th? And how does this have anything to do with mushrooms or Golden Teacher Mushrooms? It does. Hang tight for a moment, or also read about this mushroom grown from a Golden Teacher spore syringe?
Early Christians likely picked December 25th as the day of Cristes maesse because it opposed the feast of the Unconquerable Sun God, otherwise known as Natalis Solis Invicti, or Saturn. In those days, Romans and others celebrated the pagan festival of Saturnalia. These festivals were known for raucous celebration—partying, in other words – and were marked by traditions like giving gifts to poor children and decorating homes in greenery.
The original pagan celebrations also featured much of the scenery we’re accustomed to even in modern times: Yule logs, fir trees, and lights, which at the time would have been lit by fire, representing warmth and life. Evergreen trees and associated imagery represented survival and fertility. This is why green and red are so commonly paired throughout the holidays.
But where did those traditions come from? And what about the presents under the tree, and Santa Claus, and reindeer, and special mushroom information?
For the answers to those questions, we have to go back even further.
Going Back Even Further: The Shamans of Siberia and the “Flying” Reindeer
Amanita Muscaria, which we’ve written about a few times before here on the Quality Spores blog, is a fascinating mushroom. While it doesn’t contain illegal substances, it does have the compounds ibotenic acid and muscimol, which cause sedation and a dreamlike, delirious state of consciousness.
Legend has it that the Shamans would go out to find and collect A. muscaria mushrooms underneath conifer and birch trees in Siberia. Also known as fly agaric, these mushrooms have distinctive red coloration with white flecks. They have a symbiotic relationship with the root systems of those trees, which makes them difficult to cultivate, but also explains a lot—the mushrooms are the presents under the tree. A traditional style of wrapping paper for Christmas presents is red and white, so it certainly seems plausible.
Interestingly, these kinds of mushrooms are also very attractive as a food source to the local reindeer population in Siberia. The reindeer eat them to this day. At the time, researchers have theorized that perhaps Shamans saw the reindeer eating them, and perhaps under the influence of the fungi themselves, envisioned them to be flying.
Right, so we’ve covered the possible origins of the Christmas tree, wrapped presents, and reindeer. Next up is the big man himself—Santa Claus.
Santa Claus, the Shaman Who Came Bearing Gifts
Most people know that Santa Claus is, at least in part, inspired by Saint Nicholas of Myra, a Greek saint who is believed to have lived between the year 270 and 343 A.D. (which, interestingly, means that he would have been alive for the first few official Cristes maesse celebrations had he been in Rome).
Saint Nicholas was known for his habit of secret gift-giving. He is the inspiration for Sinterklass, a figure still celebrated in the Netherlands today and one of the most well-known counterparts to Santa Claus.
Like Santa, Sinterklass is traditionally garbed in an iconic red-and-white outfit. But why?
It all goes back to the Shamans of Siberia, who would dress in red and white robes, the same colors as the object of their sacred affection: A. muscaria mushrooms. It’s said that the shamans would collect the mushrooms from under the trees, dry them, and then give them out.
Since Siberia is very cold, people would naturally need fires in their homes to stay warm. Chimneys didn’t exist at the time—at least not in any sense of the modern thing—so people used smoke holes. A dwelling would typically have more than one, and the fire wouldn’t necessarily be directly beneath it—so the passing shamans would, in full red and white regalia, toss a bag of dried A. muscaria mushrooms into the homes they passed.
Educational Mushroom Spores – Opening a Portal to History, Science, Mycology & Mushroom Spores
As you can see, mushrooms are a fascinating part of our history as humans, perhaps even inspiring some of our most beloved mystical figures like Santa Claus.