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Origins of the Daemon Santa Claus


We would be the last to deny the charm of a
Winter spirit that mingles uncomfortably with the
usual Sun-Gods. He is instrumental to the
earliest stages of Cosmotic Appreciation in
children. He harkens to an age prior to the
duelist schism of spirituality, when nature was
honored for both its replenishing and destructive
powers.

Santa Claus can be traced to a variety of older
spirits (Holly King, Old Man Winter, Grandfather
Frost -- to name a few) and ancient spirits
(Dionysus, the Green Man, etc.). Like the
goat-skin-clad Joulupukki of Finland, the powers
of nature demanded appeasement during the Cold
season. The agricultural discomfort with Cosmotic
Nature led to the abundance of evil spirits
during the Winter Solstice. Carols, the burning
of materials, and good behavior were tools to
ward off the destructive forces that crept into
villages from the outlying wilderness.

Christianity entailed a splitting of the
personality attributed to the Cosmos. God
symbolized civilization's duties in social
maintenance and the preservation of reorganized
nature. Satan symbolized our basic Cosmotic
yearnings. Accordingly, attention and
appreciation of Cosmotic Nature and the quest for
Reintegration (at the expense of agricultural
obligations) would fall into the satanic camp.
The new faith, however, was not capable of
accounting for the day-to-day forces that
endangered or irritated social life. For the
Christians, a Zoroastrian power split was
unacceptable, but the notions of Satan as a
fallen angel and the King of Hell were too remote
to account for domestic problems (such as marital
strife or the corrosion of tools). Thus the local
spirits could survive, but still gave the Church
an allergic reaction. Its solution was to
displace the enduring spirits with agreeable
forms, and gradually soften their power.

For example, Greek traditions held that the
Kallikantzaroi were ugly monsters who emerged
from their subterranean homes to wander the earth
during the twelve days of Christmas. They were
eventually domesticated into mischievous
creatures who urinated on hearths, soured milk,
and committed other acts of minor irritation.
Similarly, the Icelandic Gryla and Leppayi were
espoused trolls who seized and ate children that
misbehaved. Emphasis eventually shifted to the
Yulemen, their thirteen elf sons who conducted
acts of impish behavior such as stealing food and
slamming doors.

The God of Nature - the Wild Man of the Woods -
required a powerful remedy. To eclipse such
satanic forces, the displacing supernatural being
would have to be compatible with Christian
cosmology. The selection was Bishop Nicholas,
born in Asia Minor in the second century. When
canonized, he became the patron saint of seamen
and children. In the fourteenth century there are
the first references to St. Nicholas being the
bearer of gifts (gold for dowries, to save
maidens from prostitution). In the fourteenth
century, St. Nicholas was employed to drain the
power of Teutonic mythology by acquiring
Odinistic qualities: a flowing white beard, the
power to ride a beast-of-burden in the skies, and
a penchant for descending to Earth in December
with a sack of gifts for the needy.

In many cases, St. Nicholas was accompanied by
Black Peter - an enslaved Satan figure or elf -
employed to beat naughty children. The saint, en
route to his transformation to today's jolly
Santa Claus, still maintained his powers to
punish and strike fear, but was a far cry from
the profound threat that Cosmotic Nature posed to
reorganized nature.

Santa Claus today is a conflicted figure in the
modern Christian world. For some, he is a
functional boogeyman, and for others an
irritating competitor to Christ. Although
impotent and deflated since his days as the Wild
Man of the Woods, he is acceptable as a
supernatural figure that assists children in
associating the Cold season and Cosmotic virtues
of nature with joy and mystical excitement.
Otherwise, Christ (as the Sun-God's rebirth)
would be ill-equipped to supplant this enthusiasm
for Wintry nature.


Presented by the Cosmotic Order,
Chicago Chapter


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