By Christian Rätsch
An exam of the sacred botany and the pagan origins and rituals of Christmas
• Analyzes the symbolism of the various vegetation linked to Christmas
• finds the shamanic rituals which are on the center of the Christmas party
The day on which many commemorate the start of Christ has its origins in pagan rituals that middle on tree worship, agriculture, magic, and social trade. yet Christmas is not any traditional people observance. it really is an evolving dinner party that over the centuries has absorbed parts from cultures everywhere in the world--practices that supply crops and plant spirits satisfaction of position. in truth, the symbolic use of crops at Christmas successfully transforms the modern day front room right into a position of shamanic ritual.
Christian Rätsch and Claudia Müller-Ebeling express how the traditional which means of the botanical parts of Christmas offers a distinct view of the faith that existed in Europe earlier than the creation of Christianity. The fir tree was once initially respected because the sacred international Tree in northern Europe. whilst the church was once not able to force the tree cult out of people’s cognizance, it integrated the fir tree by way of dedicating it to the Christ baby. Father Christmas in his red-and-white swimsuit, who flies in the course of the sky in a sleigh drawn via reindeer, has his mythological roots within the shamanic reindeer-herding tribes of arctic Europe and Siberia. those northern shamans used the hallucinogenic fly agaric mushroom, that's crimson and white, to make their soul flights to the opposite global. Apples, which determine seriously in Christmas baking, are symbols of the sunlight god Apollo, so that they discover a typical position at iciness solstice celebrations of the go back of the sunlight. in reality, the authors contend that the emphasis of Christmas on eco-friendly crops and the promise of the go back of lifestyles within the useless of wintry weather is simply an edition of the pagan iciness solstice occasion.
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Extra info for Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide
Example text
Economically speaking, artificial trees only have a fifteen to twenty percent share of the market. Other Christmas Trees In the New World, the Chilean evergreen Araucaria, commonly known as the monkey-puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) has been called Christmas tree, but was rarely used as such. In southern Chile, Germans living there sometimes decorated the Araucaria for Christmas. Significantly, the huge, impressive tree, with its scaly bark, was worshipped as a shamanic world tree by the natives, the Araucanern or Mapuche.
Most common beginning of the raw nights and start of the smudging nights during which house, court, and stables are smudged in purification rituals. End of the Roman Saturnalia. Holy Night. Night of Christ’s birth; Christ’s night. More modern beginning of the raw nights. First day of Christmas. Sun day. Winter solstice and rebirth of the sun (sol invictus) in Roman times. Birthday of Mithras, ancient Persian god of light. Second day of Christmas. Boxing Day. St. Stephen’s Day. Ilex (holly) bushes are carried from village to village.
Everything is holy; you must only declare it holy. Holiness is a human quality projected on and reflected by the cosmic reality of all things. “Holiness is the original source of life in the human being. And it was given to the child when it was born in the truth and in the spirit” (Grönbech 1997, 119). Every tree, like every human being, is a—or rather, is the—center of the universe. Big and tall, the great evergreen trees have always been considered holy. ” Tree branches were taken into the hall during feasts.