At first, Christian fundamentalist group Repent Amarillo’s recent charming video of their firing-squad execution of a Santa piñata in the name of putting the Savior back in to the holiday seems typical.

But after reading Canadian cannabis activist Dana Larsen’s 2003 article on the apparent psychotropic and shamanic origins of Santa Claus and many other Christmas traditions, it made some deeper sense to me.

Skip down to the explanatory vid…

According to Larsen, the Lapps of modern-day Finland and the Koyak tribes of the central Russian steppes had holy men in their ranks who regularly imbibed the hallucinogenic red & white amanita muscaria mushroom (also known as “fly agaric”). These ‘shrooming shamen proved to be the model of the figure we now know as Santa Claus.

Larsen also contends that the Christmas tree was originally seen as a “World Tree”, typically a fir or evergreen, species under which the amanita muscaria mushroom thrived:

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.

So, of course, the North Star around which all stars seemed to revolve was always aligned with the top of the tree—thus the star on top of the modern Christmas tree. These ancients also saw the magic mushroom springing up as “virgin births” seeded by the morning dew, which is symbolized by the tinsel on the tree. Trippy, eh?

Also:

• In the highly stoned eyes of these shamen, amanita muscara-eating reindeer appeared to, well, fly.
• Santa wears the red-and-white outfit of the original mushroom gatherers, his ruddy glow is an effect of the ‘shrooms, and like most shamen, used the central smoke hole (chimney) of his animal-skin shelter as an entrance or exit.
• Oh and those mostly red, bulbous ornaments on the tree? Those symbolize the ‘shrooms red caps, which the ancients used to dry on the trees.

Below is the least campy video I could find that draws a bunch of the connections between Santa and the ‘shroom. Enjoy!
 

 
Thanks to Lexie T. for the heads-up!

 
This is rather peculiar, don’t you think? A blogger in Germany posted the following:

I received mail today by the State Office of Criminal Investigation regarding an illustration of Jesus Christ on twitpic I linked to several weeks ago. I am accused of profanity.

Interestingly, the picture was taken in the Church of Warr Acres and is not photoshopped. Just recently it ignited a debate about the phallic depiction of the abdominal muscles.

I do not envy the police. And I do not think that the complaint was religiously motivated, but if it was, I do not consider it to be very Christian.

How can he get in trouble for THIS? It’s not photoshopped, even. Besides that, well, the historical Jesus WOULD have had a dick anyway , so where’s the beef? (Maybe there is a better way to put that…)

Malte Welding

(via Nerdcore)

For centuries, various controversies (carbon dating, image creation) have dogged the Shroud of Turin.  But Luigi Garlaschelli, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, chimed in today with what he thinks is the final word.

An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ’s burial cloth is a medieval fake.

The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ.

Carbon dating tests by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona in 1988 caused a sensation by dating it from between 1260 and 1390.  Skeptics said it was a hoax, possibly made to attract the profitable medieval pilgrimage business.  But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth.

Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.  They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid.  A mask was used for the face.

The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.  They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect.

Images (above and below) from Garlaschelli’s recreated shroud are on the right.

 
In Reuters: Italian Scientist Reproduces The Shroud Of Turin