A creepy old priest-king clad in Prada slippers, flowing robes of silken embroidery and an enormous bejeweled golden hat warned Christians that the true meaning of Christmas was being lost to a sinful pursuit of “glitter.”
The man, former Hitler Youth soldier Joseph Ratzinger of Bavaria, has somehow become the leader of the Roman church supposedly established by Peter, the confidant of Jesus. (It is the birth of Jesus that is celebrated today, on the old Julian calendar’s December 25 — Winter Solstice/Mithra’s Birthdate — and now known as Christmas!) Anyway, the wealthy, powerful old man in the jeweled golden hat lectured Catholics dressed in holiday finery during a spectacular Christmas Eve mass to “see through the superficial glitter of this season and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem.”
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The Pope did not, obviously, lament the enduring presence of pedophilia in his impossibly wealthy global church. Merry Christmas! Don’t let your children get stuck alone in the cathedral with any priests!
The Light Sound Dimension crew wishes you a merry Christmas -- or happy Hanukkah, happy Yuletide, happy holidays, or whatever -- and, perhaps, one of these indispensable items under your tree.
- Edit: Ah, this fits in too neatly to not blog here. Boing Boing has a wacky YouTube song about the psychedelic origins of Santa Claus and Christmas in general. It’s based on this article by Dana Larsen.
Although most people see Christmas as a Christian holiday, many of the symbols and icons we associate with Christmas celebrations are actually derived from the shamanistic traditions of the tribal peoples of pre-Christian Northern Europe.
The sacred mushroom of these people was the red and white amanita muscaria mushroom, also known as “fly agaric.” These mushrooms are now commonly seen in books of fairy tales, and are usually associated with magic and fairies. This is because they contain potent hallucinogenic compounds, and were used by ancient peoples for insight and transcendental experiences.
Most of the major elements of the modern Christmas celebration, such as Santa Claus, Christmas trees, magical reindeer and the giving of gifts, are originally based upon the traditions surrounding the harvest and consumption of these most sacred mushrooms.
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These ancient peoples, including the Lapps of modern-day Finland, and the Koyak tribes of the central Russian steppes, believed in the idea of a World Tree. The World Tree was seen as a kind of cosmic axis, onto which the planes of the universe are fixed. The roots of the World Tree stretch down into the underworld, its trunk is the “middle earth” of everyday existence, and its branches reach upwards into the heavenly realm.
The North Star was also considered sacred, since all other stars in the sky revolved around its fixed point. They associated this “Pole Star” with the World Tree and the central axis of the universe. The top of the World Tree touched the North Star, and the spirit of the shaman would climb the metaphorical tree, thereby passing into the realm of the gods. This is the true meaning of the star on top of the modern Christmas tree, and also the reason that the super-shaman Santa makes his home at the North Pole.
The amanita muscaria mushrooms grow only under certain types of trees, mostly firs and evergreens. The mushroom caps are the fruit of the larger mycelium beneath the soil which exists in a symbiotic relationship with the roots of the tree. To ancient people, these mushrooms were literally “the fruit of the tree.”
Ancient peoples were amazed at how these magical mushrooms sprang from the earth without any visible seed. They considered this “virgin birth” to have been the result of the morning dew, which was seen as the semen of the deity. The silver tinsel we drape onto our modern Christmas tree represents this divine fluid.
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The active ingredients of the amanita mushrooms are not metabolized by the body, and so they remain active in the urine. In fact, it is safer to drink the urine of one who has consumed the mushrooms than to eat the mushrooms directly, as many of the toxic compounds are processed and eliminated on the first pass through the body.
It was common practice among ancient people to recycle the potent effects of the mushroom by drinking each other’s urine. The amanita’s ingredients can remain potent even after six passes through the human body. Some scholars argue that this is the origin of the phrase “to get pissed,” as this urine-drinking activity preceded alcohol by thousands of years.
Reindeer were the sacred animals of these semi-nomadic people, as the reindeer provided food, shelter, clothing and other necessities. Reindeer are also fond of eating the amanita mushrooms; they will seek them out, then prance about while under their influence. Often the urine of tripped-out reindeer would be consumed for its psychedelic effects.
This effect goes the other way too, as reindeer also enjoy the urine of a human, especially one who has consumed the mushrooms. In fact, reindeer will seek out human urine to drink, and some tribesmen carry sealskin containers of their own collected piss, which they use to attract stray reindeer back into the herd.
The effects of the amanita mushroom usually include sensations of size distortion and flying. The feeling of flying could account for the legends of flying reindeer, and legends of shamanic journeys included stories of winged reindeer, transporting their riders up to the highest branches of the World Tree.
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Although the modern image of Santa Claus was created at least in part by the advertising department of Coca-Cola, in truth his appearance, clothing, mannerisms and companions all mark him as the reincarnation of these ancient mushroom-gathering shamans.
One of the side effects of eating amanita mushrooms is that the skin and facial features take on a flushed, ruddy glow. This is why Santa is always shown with glowing red cheeks and nose. Even Santa’s jolly “Ho, ho, ho!” is the euphoric laugh of one who has indulged in the magic fungus.
Santa also dresses like a mushroom gatherer. When it was time to go out and harvest the magical mushrooms, the ancient shamans would dress much like Santa, wearing red and white fur-trimmed coats and long black boots.
It’s December. To the Dutch expat that means facing, yet again, awkward questions and harassment from non-Dutch friends and colleagues. The source of their frustration? The dark, shocking, horrifying and racist Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, in particular the character of Zwarte Piet (Black Peter).
What to think of Zwarte Piet? I’m torn between, on the one hand, my happy childhood memories of Zwarte Piet arriving with pepernoten and presents and, on the other, the realisation that this tradition preserves shameful racial stereotypes that affect Dutch perceptions of non-whites. As a child, I experienced the paradoxical Dutch attitude towards this cultural institution first hand: while my parents were fierce anti-apartheid activists (the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 was a bigger deal at home than the fall of the Berlin Wall three months earlier), they also paraded us in front of family and friends in traditional Zwarte Piet costume, including black face paint.
I confess that the racial connotations of Zwarte Piet did not occur to me until foreign visitors expressed their surprise about the tradition. In my defence, my ignorance was – and is – not unique. In the yearly Zwarte Piet debates in Dutch media and on internet fora, Dutch people go to great lengths to defend the folklore and get upset when foreigners don’t “understand” Dutch culture. To the Dutch, criticizing Zwarte Piet is like hunting Red-Nose Rudolph – humbugs trying to kill Dutch Santa.
But let’s be honest. Objectively, the Zwarte Piet figure is a racist stereotype that doesn’t belong in a liberal 21st century society (or any society for that matter). Historically, Zwarte Piet may have been an adviser of the Germanic god Wodan, the Persian herald of Nowruz or a Moorish servant to a Turkish saint, but his representation today as a black, mischievous servant is plainly wrong. Even if the Dutch wish not to construct Zwarte Piet as a slave to a white master, the embarrassing history of the Dutch slave trade demands a more sensitive approach to the issue. The fact that nobody in the Netherlands associates Zwarte Piet with racism is not an excuse. Rather, this ignorance lies at the heart of the problem, as it tacitly vindicates racial stereotypes and implants them in the minds of young people. Take the traditional Sinterklaas song “Daar wordt aan de door geklopt”, which includes the lines “ook al ben ik zwart als roet, ‘k meen het wel goed”. What signal are children receiving when they are made to sing “even though I’m black as ash, my intentions are good”?
The worst defence is that Zwarte Piet is black because he crawls through chimneys to deliver presents – but then why the big red lips, curly hair and Moorish costume? Why can’t Zwarte Piet be a jolly chimney sweep à la Dick van Dycke? The argument reminds me of early 20th century (Dutch!) soap advertisements: a white girl telling-off a black boy for not having used the right detergent. We can all agree that this is racist. So why can’t we draw the same conclusion about Zwarte Piet?
This is not to say that it is okay for non-Dutch to project their troubled histories with race relations on the Dutch tradition. Americans in particular are prone to equate Zwarte Piet with lynching, burning crosses and suppression of the black population in the Southern states. To a lesser extent, the Brits, Australians, New Zealanders and others tend to reflect experiences with their colonial or indigenous populations on Zwarte Piet. This misrepresents the historical roots of the Sinterklaas feast, which is based on ancient pagan traditions and a 4th century bishop in Myra, present day Turkey, and the Dutch understandably get frustrated when these issues are equated. Moreover, it seems hypocritical to criticize Sinterklaas when even that most-American-of-holidays, Thanksgiving, is not free from controversy. Every November Americans all over the United States celebrate the “first” harvest in their God-given country, which culminated in the elimination of almost the entire Native American population.
As a matter of fact, Sinterklaas’ helper is as unlikely to disappear as an American turkey dinner on the fourth Thursday in November. In West Canada, organizers cancelled a public Sinterklaas celebration rather than leaving out Zwarte Piet. A Dutch broadcaster courageously experimented with multi-coloured Pieten in 2006, but changed back to black a year later due to public outrage.
That was unfortunate. The Dutch (we) should realise that some elements of our traditions are untenable in the modern world. A country that has engineered pragmatic policies to deal with abortion, euthanasia, prostitution and soft drugs should be able to find an alternative to racial stereotyping in one of its most cherished festivals. For one, let’s drop the adjective “Zwarte” (Black) and refer to St. Nicholas’ helper simply as Piet. Second, the Rainbow Pieten deserve another chance. They may be unpopular, but so was women’s suffrage a hundred years ago. Third, it’s time to weed out any discriminatory Sinterklaas lyrics. Why don’t we replace the lines mentioned above with “’k breng je van mijn grote boot/een pepernoot” (I bring to you from my big ship/a festive biscuit) or any other inoffensive language?
The Sinterklaas tradition turns around speculaas, a hot chocolate with family and friends and the anticipation of a knock on the door, signalling the arrival of presents. Taking away “Zwarte” from “Piet” will not change any of that. What it will do, however, is to get rid of an archaic and mistaken stereotype that should have been abolished a long time ago. That way, Sinterklaas can be a feast for all, including our foreign friends.
Light Sound Dimension wishes you a merry Christmas with these two tracks. First is Crudbump, with an appropriate message for this time of the year. Second is euroelectrodiscopop supergroup Total Ghost, with another seasonal hit. Happy holidays!
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