‘Santa Claus can’t possibly be real! There’s no way an oversized old man sneaks into our home on Christmas Eve—we don’t even have a chimney!’
Such were the hard words of 10-year-old Alexy when his mom and I recently mentioned Christmas. Halfway through my awkward attempt at a reply, Alexy interrupted with an even deadlier blow. He said:
‘Santa Claus is a fiction made up by parents to control their children!’
‘Wow there, Karl Marx!’ I thought, but of course didn’t say it out loud.
Our conversation conveniently got interrupted. Alexy walked away feeling initiated into the dull realities of life. A bittersweet victory indeed. I walked away feeling I had failed to point to what lies beyond life’s dull realities. But I was not ready to capitulate.
This essay is my public reply to Alexy’s central thesis, that is, and forgive me for quoting it in full, that:
Santa Claus isn’t real. Santa Claus doesn’t exist.
Alexy Yankov
(You can watch the video version of this essay on YouTube.)
Carl Jung & Buddha On The Nature Of Reality
Now, it’s beyond me to address this ontological claim on my own. So, I went searching through the writings of great minds East and West for wisdom that may save Alexy’s Christmas. I found what I was looking for in the teachings of two of the world’s greatest psychologists: Carl Jung and Siddhartha Gautama (also known as the Buddha).
I knew from the start Alexy’s thesis does not hinge on the specifics of Santa Claus. Anyone can look up the Saint Nikolaus origin story and the Coca-Cola commercialization of Santa. These are all surface details. The question of Santa Claus’ reality hinges on something much more fundamental. That is, the nature of what we call ‘reality’ and ‘existence’.
So, join me on this ontological quest to save Santa and help Alexy rediscover the magic of Christmas. I present to you my defense of the reality of Santa Claus.
I. Carl Jung on ‘Actuality’
It may seem odd that Jung, a psychologist, should have anything to say about the nature of reality. Isn’t psychology concerned with what goes on inside our heads? How can this have anything to do with the real world outside?
Well, it is this very distinction between the world outside and what is in our heads that Jung rejects. He writes:
Reality contains everything I can know, for everything that acts upon me is real and actual. If it does not act upon me, then I notice nothing and can, therefore, know nothing about it.
C.G. Jung, Collected Works, Volume 8: Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche, V The Real and the Sureal
Jung rejects hardline distinctions between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’, ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’, ‘true’ and ‘imagined’. He rather sees all phenomena that appear in the psyche as equally ‘actual’. It is only things that do not appear, and hence do not act upon my psyche that are not actual for me.
This seemingly trivial point can change our entire experience of reality should we pause to consider it.
Have you ever felt moved by a story, dream, or song? Has a book, movie, or belief ever changed how you see the world? If so, these things were ‘actual’ for you—even if you couldn’t touch them.
Trusting the Senses
Here Alexy will retort: ‘I get where you’re going with this. You’re going to say Santa is actual because he makes kids behave before Christmas. But this doesn’t make him any different from a lie kids are made to believe in! I don’t care about ‘actual’ lies, I care about real things you can see and touch! And Santa Claus is not that.’
Alexy’s got a point here. What is the difference, after all, between something the senses can’t verify and a lie?
Let me respond with another quotation from Jung:
[C]onsciousness has no direct relation to any material objects. We perceive nothing but images, transmitted to us indirectly by a complicated nervous apparatus. Between the nerve-endings of the sense-organs and the image that appears in consciousness, there is interpolated an unconscious process which transforms the physical fact of light, for example, into the psychic image “light.” …
[W]hat appears to us as immediate reality consists of carefully processed images … we live immediately only in a world of images…
Far, therefore, from being a material world, this is a psychic world… The psychic alone has immediate reality, and this includes all forms of the psychic, even “unreal” ideas and thoughts which refer to nothing “external.”
C.G. Jung, Collected Works, Volume 8: Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche, V The Real and the Sureal
In short, there is no experience we can have that is not conditioned by the structure of our human body-mind. Even raw sense perception, even your seeing these words now, is the construct of countless unconscious algorithms operating in the psycho-physical system that is you.
The Actuality of All Experience
Distinctions such as physical and psychological, external and internal, fact and fiction, are only valid as conventions. In truth, these are all equally actual in our experience of reality. And the degree to which a phenomenon appears to the senses does not always correspond to the degree to which it acts upon us.
For example, if somebody throws a stone at you, your physical experience will be intense and it may take you weeks to recover from the injury. But if, on the other hand, the wrong person tells you the wrong words at the wrong time, you may be crippled for a lifetime. Words and their meaning are entirely non-physical, and yet they can act on people more powerfully than any physical experience. The tongue is, indeed, mightier than the sword.
So, think of a kid who spends weeks anticipating Santa’s arrival. She writes him a letter, decorates the Christmas tree, and leaves behind treats for him. Can we deny Santa’s actuality for her? What’s more, Santa influences not only her behaviour, but also that of her family, her city – her entire culture even. How actual is that!
But Alexy will not be swayed so quickly. He will say: ‘So the monster under my bed is just my imagination, but Santa is real because we believe in him? That’s a double standard!’
Now I’m in a tight spot… If I submit to a materialistic view of existence, I will rid Alexy of the monster under his bed, but I’ll also dull his senses to the subtler dimensions of reality. If, on the other hand, I propose a more inclusive view, every horror Alexy imagines in the dark will gain substance. What should I do?
Well, let’s go to another one of my great teachers, who is particularly good at finding the Middle Way between opposites. The Buddha.
II. The Buddha on Dependent Arising
The Buddha says:
[F]or one who sees the origin of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no notion of nonexistence in regard to the world.
And for one who sees the cessation of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no notion of existence in regard to the world.
Kaccayanagotta Sutta; SN 12.15
Like how Jung rejects the real/unreal dichotomy, the Buddha rejects the distinction between existence and non-existence. Rather, whatever we say ‘exists’ is really the temporary result of causes and conditions; whatever we say ‘does not exist’ is simply the missing result of missing causes and conditions.
The Dependent Arising of All Phenomena
When we look around we see people, dogs, trees, the sky… but these are all low-resolution snapshots of reality. Our distracted minds cannot perceive the world at higher fidelity. Should you train the mind, the Buddha says, you see what you thought were different phenomena is really one interconnected flow of causes and conditions.
‘Great,’ Alexy will say, ‘more complicated philosophy words… What has this got to do with Santa Claus?’
Well, Santa is what the Buddha would call a dependently-arisen entity. The stories about St. Nicholas, Moore’s poem, Nast’s illustration, Coca-Cola’s marketing, and our celebration of Christmas are all causes and conditions for the arising of Santa Claus. We cannot say Santa does not exist.
‘Aha!’ says Alexy, ‘So he isn’t real after all! He’s just a made-up character we pretend is real. There, you said it!’
But no, the Buddha’s point is that everything in life is a dependently-arisen phenomenon, including (and most importantly) ourselves. The existence of Simeon, of Barney the dog, and even of Alexy, are all temporary phases of the causal continuum. This continuum is the chain of causes and conditions that connects all of spacetime.
The Buddha’s Non-Self Teaching
Our own existence is just as dependent on causes and conditions as Santa’s. Only, the causes and conditions that produce him are different to those that produce us, and so his existence is qualitatively different, but the same in essence. Just like steam and ice are both made of H2O molecules, so too Santa and Barney are both made of causes and conditions, even if you can only touch one and not the other.
‘Okay…’ Alexy says, with a hint of existential dread in his voice, ‘but what about the monster under my bed? Does the Buddha say it too is as real as Barney?’
Well, as long as you believe in and fear that monster, it is ‘actual’ for you, as Jung says. The Buddha would say the monster acts as a cause and condition for how you feel, what you think, and how you act; in this sense, we cannot say it does not exist.
However, the Buddha would point out the activity of your own mind is the main cause and condition for the arising of the monster. The reason why your mom and I don’t see the monster is that our minds do not generate it; hence, it is not actual for us, we cannot say it exists. So, should you train your mind to not generate monsters in the dark, you will remove the main cause and condition for these monsters’ arising. As the Buddha says:
When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases.
Pañcaverabhayasutta; SN 12.41
Why Believe?
So, both the monster and Santa arise due to causes and conditions in our minds. Here Alexy will ask: ‘Why should we train the mind to not believe in monsters, but encourage it to believe in Santa? Why have these double standards?’
Well, here I must drop all intellectualizing and give my human-all-too-human reply.
We encourage our minds to generate Santa because this makes us happy. By rekindling the Christmas spirit in ourselves each year, we feed the causal process that sustains Santa. In turn, Santa becomes actual for us and helps us let go of our daily strivings and enjoy time with our loved ones. By honoring Santa we allow what he embodies to enter into our lived experience and gain actuality. And what he embodies are things like generosity, joy, connection – love…
Yes, the Buddha could say here that even Santa must be let go of for the mind to perceive the true emptiness of the world. But I don’t think he would say this. I imagine he would be wearing a red hat, in fact. Each insight on the path of wisdom must come at its proper time and not a moment sooner. The Buddha always paced his teachings according to his audience.
