WHY SANTA FITS THROUGH THE CHIMNEY
-by Elisabeth Hinkel (Curator at Improper Walls)
Maybe,
“the children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads” during a “Silent night, holy night” when “all is calm and all is bright” and
it is all a dream?
Imagine going to bed and waking up to the heavy pounding of reindeers in what can only be a state of uncanny wonder, pointing the ears to every crack and huffle in the house walls. Maybe the sharp sound of the glass of milk put down hastingly as Santa rushes to swallow his cookie and to fly back up to hurry to the next house.
Imagine waking up to a golden star in the sky, that flies with you to an illuminated barn where a child was born to a virgin while the animals whisper in awe. It sounds a bit off, not only because in Austria we know Santa as Saint Nicholas, who visits on December 6th and we tell our Christmas wishes to Christkind instead.
Imagine a family gathering to drink a cup of tea, wishing each other goodnight and go on a dream journey. Frankly, this is not fiction. In pagan tradition, families used to collect amanita muscaria or fly agaric, dry the skin and and enjoy a homemade watery extract together. The effect of a light fly agaric essence is a deep sleep with lively, almost visionary dreams. These were shared and interpreted the next morning to make predictions for the following year. Incidentally this yearly ritual was commuted during the night of Samhain (also Samain or Samuin), which is the celtic festival of the dead and at the same time the New Year festival of the druids and witches. It also adds up with the fly agaric’s growth from June to November. A wholesome family endeavor. The visit of St. Nicholas is similar in its joys for the whole family, since he brought gifts to the little ones. Dating further back is the idea of Sinterklaas, a festivity that could be reminiscent of pagan times.
Imagine Wotan, the powerful god of ecstasy and knowledge, riding on his white horse on winter solstice (December 21st/22nd!) from cloud to cloud accompanied by two ravens. From running and jumping the horse’s drool drips down to earth and where it lands, funky little red mushrooms grow nine months later. What a potent horse! That mushrooms are fruit of the gods is a common trope, found all around the world in shamanic mythology. Over time, many theories were made and unmade about the origins of magic potions or foods, such as Ambrosia and Soma - means of the gods for divination, connection to the realm of the dead, to communicate with the holy or find solutions for worldly conflicts. Commonly known is the use of Psilocybin, which nowadays rises back up in the consciousness of neuroscience and psychotherapy. The fly agaric, or amanita muscaria however produces another psychoactive substance, Ibotenic Acid, which breaks down to Muscarine. And it had its own cults starting in the north, but couldn’t convince folks who had access to Psilocybin.
Interestingly, even as late as Victorian times in England, the traditional symbol of chimney sweeps was a fly agaric mushroom — and many early Christmas cards featured chimney sweeps with fly agarics,.
Imagine a cold winter’s day, snow is falling abundantly until house entrances and windows are covered up. Their inhabitants are almost imprisoned in their homes, or at least forced to put hard work into carving their way out. Daylight hours are sparse, nightfall comes quick and merciless. Luckily, the shaman dried some amanita and wants to share it with the villagers. There’s only one way in: Walking on the meter high snow that is coating the landscape, he lightly skips like an elf on the snow’s cloudlike surface and stops and drops some goods through the chimney.
Imagine a shamanic ritual to test the novice in his capability to work with the psychoactive plants and the powers such knowledge could bring. Days are getting shorter and in the dark hours of the night, the veil between the realms of the living and dead lifts. Necromantic and divinatory rituals take place, ancestors are asked for help and acts of sacrifice become more effective. In the still of the night shamans use the precious nighttime to perform lengthy ceremonies. Respected but also, with the rise of christian practices, maybe feared, the cult around the fly agaric was kept a secret and hidden away. Wouldn’t you tell the children that it is poisonous to protect them? And keep the monopoly to remain in a power position? Nonetheless, the practice of using fly agaric is still kept alive in America, where it is smoked and used to detect the causes for illnesses with the help of its divinatory characteristics.
Title page of Tengu-ron, a work by the Buddhist philosopher Inoue Enryō (1858-1919), who set himself the goal of combating popular belief in yōkai, including tengu. Book cover, yōkai (Papier). 1916; from Yōkai sōsho („Writing about Monsters“)
Similar to the case of Fukurokuju, the god of luck, the phallus is more likely to be understood as a symbol of fertility or happiness in general.
Imagine Tengu Take, the japanese ghost of the amanita family. He has red skin and a phallic nose, but can also look like a hermit mountain monk, a bird or a demon. He is playing tricks with a magic leaf or enchanted fan, that can look a lot like Cannabis Indica in illustrations. This guy is overly sexualised but all in all a good spirit, a benefactor. Sometimes Tengu comes to kidnap children to teach them the way of the sword and other practices. Commonly called kami, he is a shinto deity. Kami is etymologically related to the turk tatarish kam and mongolian kami, both meaning shaman. Ah, and he likes Sake, so make sure to leave him some. In Europe he mostly smokes Tabak and enjoys apples.
Imagine fly agaric ghosts as the seven dwarfs, as suggested by the children’s book Mecki bei den sieben Zwergen. Mecki, the hero of this book series by Wilhelm Petersen and his friends meet up to smoke dried fly agaric and realize that the seven dwarfs are fly agaric ghosts.
Somehow, one could say that this little red mushroom travelled around the world and left traces of cults and rituals all over. There are enough tales out there to believe that Santa Clause (in whatever form under whatever name) is, through many translations and cultural evolution, an anthropomorphic amanita muscaria or a shaman. Still wearing its red and white colours, bringing joy and some magic to the world. The time between christmas and January 6th (Epiphany) are called Rauhnächte and count 13 nights, during which animals gain the ability to speak and what is dreamt in those nights becomes true during the year.
“Mecki bei den 7 Zwergen”
Fairy tale / adventure in comic book style, drawn by: Professor Wilhelm Petersen, Drawing of the Mecki figure after Diehl-Film / Lingen Verlag (Cologne / Germany; 1979)
And since the effects are prominent in auditory perception, altering the capacity to hear what is happening around, one author writes about his ability to understand the language of the animals during an amanita trip. And remember the family and their pagan tradition of enjoying amanita tea and interpret the dreams in their clairvoyant aspects? Well, maybe there is some truth in the children’s tale of Santa, the lightbringer festivities of Jul and Christmas, the birth of the lightbringer. And maybe even in the theory of John M. Allegro that the original Jesus was nothing else than a shamanic cult, the saviour the incarnated psychedelic mushroom and the New Testament the legacy of its visions?
Well, whatever floats your boat! Enjoy your amanita shaped lucky charms, chocolates and wintery illustrations - and I wish everyone to become real Glückspilze in the New Year!
Disclaimer: Amanita muscaria is, albeit from the tales and experiences, recipes and advice found all around, still a poisonous mushroom and can be lethal in high doses. It is legal to collect and consume, but this is not a recommendation to do so. Act responsible!
Literature: Most information and sources are taken from the book Enzyklopädie der psychoaktiven Pflanzen by Christian Rätsch.
A Visit from St. Nicholas
Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863)
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."
Illlustration: George Barbier, Les Champignons (detail), 1916