Every year on June 21, thousands of people gather near the ruins of ancient Stonehenge in the UK. These are modern druids, witches and pagans of all sorts, who came to celebrate one of the main pagan holidays - the summer solstice. They pray and dance and have fun. "Lenta.ru" found out what these people believe.
Very nice, king
One of the most colorful characters at the Druidic gatherings in Stonehenge is a gray-haired old man in a dark cloak and white robe, belted with a rope. Because of his impressive staff and sword, he resembles either Gandalf or a crusader. In 1986, the British authorities gave him documents proving that his name was Arthur Uther Pendragon.
In his youth, Arthur Pendragon had a different name - John Timothy Rothwell. He served in the army, but was decommissioned after a botched parachute jump. In civilian life, Rothwell lived like everyone else: got a job, started a family, bought a house. But after a few years he got bored of making money and paying off loans. He dropped everything and joined a biker gang called the Grave Diggers.
In the mid-1980s, he came across a book about King Arthur, and he was amazed at how much the legendary hero looked like himself. After six weeks of deliberation, Rothwell declared himself the reincarnation of Arthur, changed his name and bought a copy of the Excalibur sword from the 1981 film of the same name in the store. Instead of a horse, he has a yellow Kawasaki motorcycle. "There is not much difference between a biker club and all this medieval age," he explained in a recent interview.
The newly-minted Arthur joined the Council of the Druidic Orders of Britain. Now he regularly participates in rituals and leads an endless struggle with the Commission on Historical Monuments of England, which dares to charge the Druids a fee for visiting Stonehenge. “Every day I wake up Arthur and fall asleep with Arthur, wake up as a druid, fall asleep as a druid,” he says.
Arthur Uther Pendragon (right). Photo: Matt Dunham / AP
Promotional video:
Celebrating the summer solstice near Stonehenge. Photo: Simon Chapman / Globallookpress.com
Celebrating the summer solstice near Stonehenge. Photo: Kieran Doherty / Reuters
British Druids boast a long history, which, however, goes back not to the ancient Celts who lived in those places two thousand years ago, but to the bored English nobles who founded the first Neodruid Order in the 18th century. The rituals were invented themselves, and the intricate hierarchy was borrowed from the Freemasons.
According to the most conservative estimates, today in Great Britain there are at least five thousand Druids, and the total number of followers of various directions of neo-paganism can reach 200 thousand. In terms of numbers, they are second only to the well-known world religions.
Not surprisingly, Stonehenge's covens are getting more and more crowded. On June 21, 2015, about 23 thousand people gathered near the ancient megaliths. In strange robes, wonderful hats or, at worst, wreaths, they had fun all night. Some prayed, some played guitars and horns, some danced. As sunrise began, they saluted the sun.
This year in Stonehenge about 25 thousand people meet the dawn. British police fear traffic jams due to the druids and advise motorists to stay away from the iconic site.
Witch on the phone
Neopaganism unites many currents, whose followers believe in a variety of things. But they still have something in common. Most modern pagans worship nature and consider both masculine and feminine to be equally important. The first circumstance attracts people who care about ecology to them, the second - feminists.
The most popular form of neopaganism is Wicca and its many ramifications. The founder, British amateur archaeologist Gerald Gardner, saw Wicca as a development of ancient beliefs prevalent in Europe thousands of years ago. He argued that in the Middle Ages, Wicca priestesses were declared witches and persecuted, but they managed to convey the teachings to the 20th century and convey them personally to him. There is no evidence of this, but this is just normal: religions are based on faith, not facts.
There are no taboos and prohibitions in Wicca - you can do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't bother anyone. As a rule, the followers of this doctrine revere the horned god of fertility and the Goddess, in which the goddesses of all nations have united. True, not everyone believes in their existence in the same way that Christians believe in Jesus. Among neo-pagans there are agnostics and even atheists who share the ideals of Wicca, but do not believe in gods and magic.
Documentary filmmaker Alex Mar has traveled all over America in search of material for a film about neo-paganism in the United States. “In every state, in every city, in the suburbs, in small towns, I have met practicing pagans,” she says. - Whoever was among them - from teachers and entrepreneurs in the field of high technology to Whole Foods cashiers (a network of health food stores - approx. Lenta.ru)."
After returning, Mar thought of herself. “All my life I was surrounded by non-believers from the creative class, but I understood more and more clearly that no one can escape the completely human need to find the meaning of life,” she says. People who built their lives around a clear belief system made her jealous. After a few months, she decided to join them.
One of the witches she spoke with in preparation for filming advised Mar to be a mentor in Massachusetts. She taught her the Feri tradition - a variety of Wicca, combining, among other things, elements of voodoo, kabbalah, tantra and gnosticism.
Mar lived in New York, so the lessons were remote. The witch passed on her secrets by phone and email. After moving to New Orleans, Mar began attending the services of the Eastern Templar Order, which once consisted of the British occultist Aleister Crowley.
“The next Samhain, I finally managed to stand in a circle with a coven of witches, who would have thought, in a castle in New Hampshire,” says Mar. “There were almost 30 of us. For three days and three nights we performed rituals to communicate with the dead. One of those nights, at the end of the ceremony, which lasted more than three hours, I came very close, I think, to an ancestor whom I had never met. We met in that dark place through who knows how many centuries, and I understand that I can never prove it."
Neopagan ritual in Greece. Photo: YSEE
Plot under the temple
Another direction of neo-paganism is the reconstruction of the lost pre-Christian traditions. Its adherents try to worship the same pantheon as their ancestors. Someone reveres Odin, someone - Perun, and someone and Zeus.
Since 1995, the Greek city of Litohoro has hosted the annual Promeithea festival, which attracts neo-pagans from all over Greece. In front of thousands of spectators, six runners in ancient Greek armor climb to the top of Olympus. Then a torchlight procession passes through the streets of Litohoro, after which the celebration moves out of town.
Although nominally Greek neopagans worship Zeus, Athena and other ancient gods, few believe in them. They are seen as the embodiment of wisdom, beauty, health and other ideals.
BBC Magazine notes that among the adherents of this religion there are many leftists who are dissatisfied with the influence of the Orthodox Church in Greece, and nationalists who believe that Christianity has destroyed the true Greek values.
Another country where paganism is flourishing is Iceland. Since 2014, the number of Icelanders worshiping Odin, Frigga, Thor and other inhabitants of Asgard has increased by 50 percent. The authorities recently allocated them a plot on a picturesque hill near Reykjavik to build a pagan temple - the first in a thousand years.
“More and more people see what we are doing and they like it,” says the leader of the Icelandic pagans, Hilmar Orn Hilmarson, who has a certain reputation both in the country and abroad: as a musician he collaborated with Bjork and Sigur Ros. - We are not engaged in recruiting new members, but we accept everyone who wants to come if they are interested. Our ceremonies are open to everyone."
Hilmar Orn Hilmarson performs a ceremony near Reykjavik. Photo: Lenka Kovářová / Wikipedia
Hilmarson is under no illusion that the rituals in which he participates are indeed similar to ancient Icelandic rites. Information about pre-Christian customs is too fragmentary to be restored in its original form. In addition, he readily admits that he does not pray to Odin and does not consider the Scandinavian myths to be true. “But at the same time it seems to us that such a way of life has a right to exist. It has meaning and context,”he says. "It's a religion at its core, and you can live and die with it."
Oleg Paramonov
