What do Santa Claus and a mushroom have in common?
Have lots of fun with your smaints products – they will help you achieve more energy, inner balance, better sleep and health in the New Year :)
Our Christmas celebrations are characterized by a wide variety of customs. Christian influences blend with traditions that existed before Christianity.
The fir tree – our Christmas tree – was and is, for example, a Germanic symbol of fertility. It stood for strength. While all other trees died, the fir tree remained green even in the coldest winter.
The tree was thus a symbol of life and provided strength. This is just one example among many.
What does Santa Claus have to do with mushrooms?
Our Christmas celebrations as we know them today only came about during the consumer frenzy of the 1930s. The way the holiday is celebrated was significantly shaped by one large company: Coca-Cola.
If you ask people from the generation before the 1930s how they celebrated Christmas, you'll discover many different customs. The date of the holiday also varies regionally.
There was the Christ Child, who brought small gifts. Saint Nicholas, or Herrscheklas, brought with him the element of punishment or reward. Knecht Ruprecht was Saint Nicholas's servant.
The Christian Christmas festival was superimposed on all these customs. It was Martin Luther who first shaped the concept of the Christ Child. Because he was against the worship of saints – a Catholic tradition – he introduced the Christ Child, who brings gifts on December 24th instead of December 6th.
The custom of giving gifts dates back to Saint Nicholas, who long ago gave presents to all children. However, he originally wore a simple monk's robe.
And that's where it gets interesting. It was Coca-Cola that first introduced the typical look of Santa Claus in the 1930s: red and white.
One plausible theory now states that these colors are not a coincidence:
Siberian shamans wore these colors in winter during very special ceremonies honoring a mushroom: the fly agaric. The mushroom is known for its intoxicating effects and was also used in the Mithraic cult, analogous to shamanic mushroom ceremonies in, for example, South America.
The fly agaric is, so to speak, the magic mushroom of Europe. But beware: it is poisonous and was specially prepared by shamans.
And what happened next?
Similar to other psilocybin-containing mushrooms, it induces a journey into the subconscious and beyond. However, the active ingredient in Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) is quite unique. As with other psychedelic trips, it also leads to a kind of retrospective or reflection on life. The fly agaric – not Santa Claus – has therefore "punished" or "rewarded" you if you've been good.
Many dispute this theory. Nevertheless, this shamanic tradition exists in Siberia, and the veneration of the fly agaric mushroom was long prevalent among the Germanic peoples. The fly agaric was believed to grow wherever "Odin's blood drips to the earth."
And let's be honest. Doesn't it make sense that Santa Claus flies through the air with his reindeer at the North Pole (Siberia)? :)
The fact is: our Christmas celebration is a colorful mix of many traditions and is magical even without magic mushrooms.
Smaints isn't about these mushrooms at all. It's about medicinal mushrooms that have a special effect on your body and mind. These, too, have been used for millennia in Traditional Chinese Medicine and in South America. Ötzi the Iceman even carried a medicinal mushroom with him to treat his liver ailment.
Unfortunately, much of this knowledge has been lost in Europe. We want to change that. We have created easy-to-use and delicious products with medicinal mushrooms that help you have more energy, be more balanced, and be more vital overall (hence the name medicinal mushroom).
We would like to give you something else:
We hope you enjoy your products! If you'd like to learn more about the incredible power of medicinal mushrooms, you can download our ebook on the four most well-known medicinal mushrooms here. You'll not only discover their benefits, but also how they've been used for millennia.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!
Have a wonderful Christmas and a fantastic start to the new year. We have something very special planned for you in January that you can look forward to!
Merry Christmas,
Your Mushroom Boys 🍄
