The Magic of Santa Claus

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The Fly Agaric mushroom, or Amanita muscaria, is a common mushroom found in the coniferous forests of Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Siberia and Scandinavia. It starts off as a small button resembling many other mushrooms, but it eventually matures into a rather beautiful fungus with a large, globular red cap flecked with white scales.

A poisonous mushroom related to the lethal Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) and Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa), Fly Agaric is known for causing hallucinations and psychedelic sensations in those who ingest it. The mushroom contains alkeloids called muscimol and ibotenic acid, which are responsible for its psychoactive effects. Some species contain the similar alkeloids psilocybin and psilocin, found in common “magic” mushrooms.

In Lapland and Siberia, the reindeer who live there are quite fond of this mushroom and will go to great lengths to find it. Shepherds and farmers of the region would feed the mushroom to their reindeer to keep the herd intact, or to lure back those that became lost. The mushroom’s potent effect on humans was discovered by accident thousands of years ago, when shepherds became intoxicated after consuming the meat of reindeer who ingested the fungus.

Soon after, the shepherds also discovered that drinking the urine of reindeer who ate the mushrooms not only caused hallucinations, but it went a long way too. Since the mushroom’s psychedelic ingredients are not metabolized by the body and remain psychoactively potent even after being ingested and excreted, the urine could be consumed and re-consumed up to six times before losing its effectiveness. The shepherds seemed to prefer taking their ’shrooms this way, as passing them through the reindeer first seemed to deliver the drug in a more refined form, making its effects similar to LSD.

The shepherds and farmers, when faced with harsher times, figured out that they could also get high from drinking their own urine after they had ingested the mushroom. They would carry flasks of it for themselves and also for the reindeer, who quickly took a liking to it and would eargerly seek it out. It”s not hard to see how the legend of the flying reindeer originated with the Sami people of Lapland!