Was Santa on shrooms?

Have you ever wondered how the story of Santa and his 'flying' reindeer started? One theory is that magic mushrooms were involved...

---

So what’s the connection with Santa and magic mushrooms?

It’s a bit of a strange one, really. We all know the story of Santa and his reindeer at this stage – or at least you should do - but according to one theory, the story of Santa getting into a sleigh with a bag full of presents and dropping them off to families stems from people who used to give out free shrooms at this time of year.

Hang on a second. Someone used to give out free shrooms at Christmas? Explain…

Okay. So first of all you have to know a bit about shamans. Shamans were (and still are, in some places) religious figures like priests who can interact with spirits via an altered state of consciousness. Some would achieve this altered state of conscious by meditating for long periods of time, while others would simply take drugs. The shamans would collect their psychoactive shrooms that were believed to be holy, dry them out and then hand them out to village people in their tepees around the winter solstice.

The shamans were found in northern areas of Europe and Asia where snow would be heavy, so sometimes there would be no access to the door of the tepee. To prevent being blocked in by snow, there would be an opening at the top of the tepee that people could climb down, and that’s where the story of Santa coming down the chimney (apparently) comes from – there are loads of different theories, though.

Right, but what has that got to do with Santa?

Well if you think about it, Santa is a modern day shaman because he drops around to people’s homes, entering via the chimney and giving out free non-psychoactive gifts. It’s only a theory as to where the story of Santa and his flying reindeer came from, but in fairness, it wouldn’t be surprising if the story of a jolly fat man and his flying reindeer was thought up by someone on drugs…