Santa High on Magic Mushrooms?!

[Haakzilla]

...fascinating article about the origin of Santa -- who knew?!

This Christmas, like many before it and many yet to come, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer will be told, including how the "jolly old elf" flies on his sleigh throughout the entire world in one night, giving gifts to all the good children.

But according to one theory, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer can be traced to an unlikely source: hallucinogenic or "magic" mushrooms.

"Santa is a modern counterpart of a shaman, who consumed mind-altering plants and fungi to commune with the spirit world," said John Rush, an anthropologist and instructor at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif.

According to the theory, the legend of Santa derives from shamans in the Siberian and Arctic regions who dropped into locals' teepeelike homes with a bag full of hallucinatory mushrooms as presents in late December, Rush said.

"As the story goes, up until a few hundred years ago these practicing shamans or priests connected to the older traditions would collect Amanita muscaria (the Holy Mushroom), dry them, and then give them as gifts on the winter solstice," Rush told LiveScience. "Because snow is usually blocking doors, there was an opening in the roof through which people entered and exited, thus the chimney story."

--> READ MORE

 

[jlprk]

Here are the top musicians who died in 2012 with excerpts!

http://t.co/IwT2v8lM

 

[Haakzilla]

Here are the top musicians who died in 2012 with excerpts!

http://t.co/IwT2v8lM

...yeah jlprk, keep eating that Psilocybin!

 

[jlprk]

When you go to my link, at the top of the page is a line of little dots. If you click on the very last one, it gives additional information on each musician. Eventually you get to the 2012 death of Duck Dunn, the white member of the house band at Stax Records (which was Motown's main competition). You hear the group, backing up different big-name singers, on familiar Stax hits from the 60s. The group made a couple of hits by themselves, under the name of Booker T. & the M. G.s. Here they are, outside the Stax building in Memphis, imitating the Beatles outside Apple (which was on a street named Abbey Road).