The Story of Santa Claus Might Come From Mushroom-Eating Shamans
Is it possible that the folktale we know and love about Santa Claus finds its roots in the psychedelic mushroom-eating shamanism of people living in boreal regions of Europe? While there is some contention around this theory, there are a number of undeniable motifs connecting Santa’s yearly trip drawn by flying reindeer, and the analogous rituals of an isolated peoples’ use of the psychedelic Amanita muscaria mushroom.
For those unfamiliar with Amanita muscaria or Fly Agaric as it’s also known, you’ve probably seen it depicted in pop culture from Super Mario to Alice in Wonderland, to the toadstool your average garden gnome is seen akimbo beneath.
Known for its distinctive red and white speckled cap, Amanita muscaria is one of the most recognized mushrooms in the world. Though it can be deadly when consumed improperly, some cultures eat it for sustenance after boiling away its toxins. For those looking for an otherworldly experience, its ibotenic acid-rich contents have led many on psychedelic journeys over the thousands of years of its known use.
If you live in a wooded area in the Northern hemisphere, there’s a good chance you’ve seen it growing near an evergreen tree, especially a pine or fir. In fact, the mycelia of the mushroom intertwine with the roots of the tree in a mycorrhizal relationship—in this case, a positive symbiosis. And it’s here that we find the first instance of Amanita’s connection to the story of Santa Claus—the mushroom growing under the Christmas Tree.
Siberian Shamans and the Christmas Mushroom Story
Of course, one could draw the connection between Santa’s red and white outfit and the red and white splotches on Amanitas, but that’s not necessarily enough… if we dig deeper it becomes clear there is a multitude of links.
To the Sami people in the Lapland region of Northern Scandinavia, as well as other nomadic tribes throughout Siberia, Amanita was an incredibly valuable commodity said to be worth as much as a reindeer.
And that perception of value transcends these nomadic humans all the way down to their reindeer, who are known to dig through the snow in search of the mushrooms or come running from miles away when the pungent scent of the fungi’s chemicals are picked up in the urine of a human ingesting it.
In fact, drinking the urine of someone, or some animal, that has ingested Amanita was the preferred method of consumption, as the aforementioned ibotenic acid must be filtered through the kidneys into a compound called muscimol, in order to attain the psychedelic trip. And whether or not they trip too, reindeer love to consume muscimol.
Reindeer sledding in Finland in Lapland in winter.
Once imbibed and the psychedelic trip initiated, it was said the consumer of Amanita began to look like the red and white mushroom itself, hence Santa’s trademark colors. Typically, this was the shaman who began his ceremony, transcending worlds above and below the Axis Mundi to speak with ancestors and return with wisdom and advice as a type of gift bestowed on each household.
In exchange for such wisdom, as well as his psychoactive urine, the shaman was shown gratitude in the form of food and drink—the primordial milk and cookies that fattened him up.
Some say it was also normal for the shaman to enter through a hole in the roof of the nomads’ tents in lieu of its main entrance, as it was regularly covered by mounting snowdrifts. The shaman would also bring a sack full of dried Amanita as gifts to families, which he gathered during treks in nearby forests throughout the day.
Another way to bypass or convert the amount of ibotenic acid in Amanita is to dry the mushrooms, similarly done with “magic” mushrooms to increase the potency of their psychoactive compound, psilocybin. The shaman’s sack of Amanita was distributed to his community, who would then dry out the mushrooms by hanging them in their socks over the fire, much like stockings hung on the mantle at Christmas.
Digging Deeper Into Santa Claus’ Mushrooms
Critics of the Santa Claus mushroom shaman connection insist the story of Kris Kringle actually derives from the story of the Christian St. Nicholas—a bishop who donned a red and white robe and was known for his extensive generosity and altruism. And to an extent, there may be some validity to this, in that it may have been the original impetus behind the archetype of Santa. However, it does nothing to explain the flying reindeer and other bizarre fairytale elements of Santa.
One reconciliation proposed by some is that elements of the story of Santa Claus might draw from both sources, with the shamanistic aspects possibly becoming incorporated through the collective unconscious, or through storytelling that transcended cultures over time.
The late Terrence McKenna was a proponent of the shamanic Amanita muscaria Santa story and even tied it into one of his more well-known archetypes he regularly experienced on psychedelic tryptamines.
McKenna would often speak of very specific entities met under a strong dose of psychedelics known as the self-transforming machine elves… elves?
In his book Breaking Open the Head, Daniel Pinchbeck talks about recurring experiences people have reported on Amanita in which mushroom entities come and directly speak to the person who consumed the mushroom, asking them why they decided to eat Amanita.
“They were visitors to our world, making their own journey through the cosmos. And to a limited extent, when it suited them, they involved themselves in human affairs. In his book on visionary plant use through history, The Long Trip, Paul Devereux describes common features of Amanita intoxication: ‘the spirits of the mushrooms might appear to the individual and converse with him directly. He might even feel himself turning into a mushroom spirit. The mushroom spirits tend to wear wide hats on heads that sit on stout cylindrical bodies without an intervening neck, and the number seen depends on the number of mushrooms eaten,’” Pinchbeck writes.
This account of the feeling of becoming a mushroom or seeing anthropomorphic mushrooms corroborates the idea that the image of Santa comes from the feeling or vision of seeing a red and white speckled being, induced by the psychotropic properties of Amanita.
In the classic Lewis Carroll novel Alice in Wonderland, upon eating what was certainly Amanita muscaria, Alice shrinks down or explodes to a size much larger than her normal stature. This is a common sensation reported by users of the mushroom who say they, or other objects, appear larger or smaller to them.
Similarly, on Christmas, Santa is able to shrink himself down and grow back to his normal size in order to fit down the chimney to drop off presents, despite constantly snacking and expanding in waist size. Could this also be a reference to the bizarre perceptions of depth experienced under the influence of muscimol?
It’s hard to say, but all of these pieces of evidence certainly seem to be subtle, or sometimes not so subtle, references to the sacramental use of Amanita muscaria by the medicine man of a group of people living in the Arctic.
Does this change anything about the way one should celebrate Christmas? Well, we’re definitely not going to encourage anyone to go eat Amanita, or worse, seek out and imbibe the urine of a shaman who ate it. Though, we might recommend using the holiday to focus and reflect on one’s mental, physical, and spiritual health, while remembering and honoring the life-giving, fungi-growing planet we call Mother Earth, Gaia, or just home. Happy Holidays!
Want more on Daniel Pinchbeck’s exploration in shamanism, psychedelics and religion? Check out this episode of Mind Shift with Alex Grey:
About the Author
Shamanic Soul Retrieval: How to Recover Parts of Our Soul?
Shamanic Soul Retrieval: Sandra Ingerman on Recovering Parts of Our Soul
“Every book…has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” ~ Carlos Ruis Zafon
It has been said, “The best things in life are free.” We can all agree it’s nice to be surprised with a gift, but not just any gift. The gift that arrives in your life precisely when you are ready to receive it. The gift is clearly a message to you and for you.
In this case, the gift is Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self by Sandra Ingerman.
With graceful delivery of rarely discussed phenomena, Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self combines shamanism and psychology to explain the effects of trauma that cause parts of the soul to leave the body and the process by which the part(s) can be retrieved.
Follow along as renowned psychotherapist, shamanic teacher, and author Sandra Ingerman delves into soul loss and retrieval.
What is Soul Loss?
Sandra Ingerman’s Abstract on Shamanism states that “there are many common symptoms of soul loss. Some of the more common ones would be dissociation, where a person does not feel fully in his or her body and alive and fully engaged in life. Other symptoms include chronic depression, suicidal tendencies, post-traumatic stress syndrome, immune deficiency problems, and grief that just does not heal. Addictions are also a sign of soul loss.”
For those who have lost parts of themselves, knowingly or unknowingly, “tremendous amounts of psychic energy” are unconsciously spent looking for the lost parts.
What Causes Soul Loss?
According to Ingerman, “The basic premise is whenever we experience trauma, a part of our vital essence separates from us in order to survive the experience by escaping the full impact of the pain.” This quiet occurrence, known as soul loss, takes the form of a perpetual feeling and experience of incompleteness and disconnection.
Ingerman says, “Anytime someone says, ‘I have never been the same’ since a certain traumatic event, and they don’t mean this in a good way, soul loss has probably occurred.”
Sandra Ingerman on Lost Soul Parts
Sandra Ingerman holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, professional mental health counselor, the author of more than ten books, and a board-certified expert on traumatic stress who was awarded the 2007 Peace Award from the Global Foundation for Integrative Medicine.
As a leading authority on soul loss and retrieval, Ingerman’s highly regarded career spans 35 years of conducting workshops and soul retrievals around the world.
For Ingerman, the leading practitioner of soul retrieval whose own spiritual journey to recapture her soul led her on various spiritual paths. The answer she found was in the ancient tradition of shamanism, which views soul loss as an important cause of illness and death.
The word shaman, originating from the Tungus Tribe of Siberia, means “one who sees in the dark.”
Soul Loss in Society
According to Ingerman, “A reflection of how much soul loss people are dealing with” is evident when “so many governments and businesses are valuing money over life.”
However, Western medicine has no framework for this kind of diagnosis because it only deals with imbalance when it appears on a physical and mental level.
Western medicine “treats chronic pain with pain medication, insomnia with sleeping pills, weight issues with diet and exercise, and most damagingly, may label soul loss as mental illness and cover up the symptoms with psychiatric medications that may make things worse by slapping a Band-Aid on a wound that’s not healing underneath the bandage.”
This “covering up” can lead to the deep unhappiness that many have come to consider as “simply ordinary.” Eventually, this prolonged dissociation produces a nameless void that shows itself through “a loss of meaning, direction, vitality, mission, purpose, identity, and genuine connection.”
This spiritual void, which is always present and always trying to get your attention, operates as the incessant yearning of your soul wanting to incorporate all of its highest qualities, all of God’s essence, all of you.
Simply put, the soul is always trying to reconnect with that from which it came.
Ingerman imparts, “If you are truly in your body (your whole soul present), you cannot place money over life. Planetary soul loss causes so much of the behavior we are currently seeing, behavior that no longer honors the beauty and importance of life.”
Signs of Soul Loss
The following checklist can help identify symptoms of soul loss:
- You have a difficult time staying “present” in your body
- You feel numb, apathetic, or deadened
- You suffer from chronic depression
- You have problems with your immune system and have trouble resisting illness
- You were chronically ill as a child
- Memory gaps of your life after age five where you sense that you may have blacked out significant traumatic experiences
- Struggle with addictions, for example, to alcohol, drugs, food, sex or gambling
- Find yourself looking to external things to fill up an internal void or emptiness
- Have difficulty moving on with your life after a divorce or the death of a loved one
- You suffer from multiple personality syndrome
Having read this book without prior knowledge of soul loss or retrieval, I found the concepts quite sobering.
Within situations of physical and emotional abuse, negation, and trauma, many experiences in life can be too difficult to bear. Soul loss is an understandable response to spiritual woundedness and deep fragmentation of one’s soul essence that would lead to an internal dissociation from natural balance.
What is Soul Retrieval?
During the soul retrieval process, the shaman moves into an altered state of consciousness to travel to realities outside of normal perception (non-ordinary reality), also known as hidden spirit worlds, to retrieve the lost part of the soul.
In some cases, there is reluctance of the soul fragments to return, or the soul may not even know a separation has occurred. While in most cases, the soul does want to return and become whole. It is, however, important to note that when the “soul returns, it comes back with all the pain it experienced when leaving.”
Once the lost soul pieces are located, the shaman will “acknowledge the former pain and gently negotiate the soul’s return to the body.” The shaman then brings the soul back to normal reality and (literally) blows the missing soul part(s) back into the body through the head or heart.
If a person is trained in shamanic journeying, they can ask their spirit guides or power animals to perform a soul retrieval on their behalf. Or anyone can ask for a healing dream where one sets the intention to request a soul retrieval to be performed during the dream state.
If these two processes do not create change or healing, then working with a trained shamanic practitioner is recommended.
Although Ingerman is clear that you should not try to practice soul retrieval based solely on the reading of this book, in an exclusive interview, Ingerman and I discuss what can be done when someone suspects soul loss has occurred.
Shamanic Healing Practice Interview
BJB: What can someone do if they suspect soul loss has occurred but do not have immediate access for soul retrieval with a Shaman?
SI: If a person has soul loss, they can work with a shamanic practitioner long distance. Most shamanic practitioners perform long-distance healings these days.
I have been training Soul Retrieval practitioners since the late 1980’s. I have a website where I have an international list of shamanic practitioners who have sent me case studies. Of course, no shamanic practitioner can ever promise a cure, but I know their work, and I trust them.
BJB: Is there a healing exercise the person can do to begin to address and/or heal the root cause of the soul loss?
SI: Nature is our greatest healer. A person who feels they have lost their soul can walk or lie down on the ground and reflect on what is the root cause of their soul loss.
You can also do automatic writing. This includes listening to spiritual music while writing the following question on a piece of paper: “What is the root cause of my soul loss?”
You then close your eyes and allow your hand to write. This is a powerful way to let your soul and intuition give you the truth of the cause of your soul loss and other information that is important for you to know.
BJB: What has been the most surprising or unexpected part of your work as a Shaman?
SI: All of my Shamanic work is a surprise.
The helping spirits never give expected responses to the questions I ask them. This is true also when I perform the healing journey for a client. I am always given information I did not expect or would rationally think of on my own.
Also, in my 35 years of working with clients, I continue to be surprised by the miraculous effects of the work.
Power of Ancient Shamanic Practices
The shaman’s toolbox is a personal and intimate gathering of powers. Some shamans learned through direct experience, others gleaned knowledge from master teachers like Sandra, and some are gifted in journeying to the depths of spirit realms.
A few tools are so foundational that nearly every shaman utilizes them. Soul retrieval is one such tool. Not only is it universally effective, but it’s also the pervasive root cause of illness overlooked by many in the medical field.
Soul retrieval is not a modern New Age therapy but a profound healing tradition practiced for thousands of years. It involves the reintegration of lost soul parts, that’s akin to the surgical reattachment of a body part but for our spiritual essence instead. By recovering these lost soul parts, individuals can restore wholeness and harmony within themselves.
The Most Important Factor in Personal Healing
Soul retrieval is not a quick fix. Sandra Ingerman states, “If the person has done a lot of personal work, the soul retrieval might be the end of the work. If not, the soul retrieval would be the beginning of the work.”
No matter where you may find yourself, at the beginning or near the end of working through an issue, the most important factor in all healing work is you.
You have to be willing to do the work that is necessary to participate in your personal transformation. You will have to be willing to look at yourself with new eyes, from a new shamanic perspective, and as an embodiment of completion and wholeness while knowing that willingness is the impetus for great change, which always begins with the heart.
For more information on Sandra Ingerman’s work, log onto SandraIngerman.com.
You can also learn more by watching this interview on Gaia.com with Jill Kuykendall on soul retrieval.
