The original Santa may have been a shaman. A shaman who liked to get people high.

"Santa is a modern counterpart of a shaman, who consumed mind-altering plants and fungi to commune with the spirit world," explained Sierra College anthropologist John Rush.

According to Rush, the story of Santa comes from the Siberian and Arctic regions. Hundreds of years ago, local legend has it, shamans used to hand out  hallucinogen mushrooms as gifts during the Winter Solstice. These shamans became the basis for Santa.

And what about his flying reindeer? Reindeers are indigenous to Siberia and the Arctic and, according to Harvard biologist Donald Pfister, the kind of magic mushrooms that were being consumed during the Solstice celebration may well have convinced the shamans and the revelers that deer in fact could fly through the air.

There are other less trippy outwardly links between these Winter Solstice celebrations and modern Christmas. For example, the shaman may have delivered their mind-altering gifts through holes in the roofs of homes that were used as alternative doors when the front door paths were snowed in.

Anyway, this all sounds like the plot for the great 'Santa Stoner' movie which really has to happen.

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