Earlier this year, the first Atheist Church was launched in
London, with sermons on science by Professor Brian Cox, and Stevie Wonder hits
replacing the usual hymns. The underlying principle was that a sense of
community and unity in belief is something that need not be limited to the
religious but rather should be shared by everyone, including atheists. In an
ever-increasingly individualised world, so the theory goes, why not provide an
opportunity for the unspiritual to gather every Sunday with like-minded people
and discuss the big questions of life?
It’s not the first time that atheists have chosen to take
something from religious practices, and I consider it for the most part a
healthy attitude – or at least better than a Dawkinsesque ‘you’re all morons’
approach. And it’s a two-way process, with many religious groups becoming more
and more open to outsiders. Which is how I ended up spending my Saturday night
learning about the complex family tree of the Hindu gods, being hit in the face
with the robes of a Whirling Dervish, and watching a Sikh put a book to bed.
As part of its cultural programme, Berlin organises a Long
Night of Religions every year – all the places of worship around the city are
open to visitors of any (or no) faith between 6pm and midnight, with many
providing talks, demonstrations and music. Keen to learn about some of the less
well-represented religions – like most Brits, my RE lessons consisted mostly of
what Christians and Jews think about various issues – I didn’t bother with any
of the churches or synagogues, and I had already visited a mosque during an
open day last summer. So instead, the evening’s activities consisted of visits
to a Hindu temple, a Sufi centre, a Buddhist temple and a Sikh gurdwara.
The warm welcome I received from all of these places seemed
less of a sales ploy than I had expected; the people of the different faiths
appeared to be genuinely pleased that I was interested in learning about their
religion and not set on converting me. In particular, the Sikhs were openly
willing to answer any questions, and insisted on serving us all food, despite
the fact that we had guiltily snuck out of the prayer room before the end. And
the Sufis not only did not require the female visitors to cover their heads,
but also offered the same respectful welcome and ‘salaam alaikum’ to a group of
girls who wandered in wearing strappy tops and hotpants.
As well as being educational in the expected sense, I also
learned the first rule of watching Dervishes: don’t sit in the front row. But
when not ducking out of the way of the spinning robes, I was struck by the
elated expressions on their faces. Whatever incredible inner place they were
in, I wanted to be there too. Sufism promotes joy and euphoria as a way of
connecting with God, but could this be something that atheists can experience
too?
As an oriental dancer, I have attended a few dance camps
which involved a ritual called the ‘zar’. This is a middle-Eastern tradition
which is a form of Dervish whirling for laymen; it is used for prayer,
exorcisms, pain relief and general wellbeing. For us, it was a completely
secular religious experience – entering a trancelike state of pure elation
without the accompanying connection to a higher being.
I was extremely nervous before my first zar; I’ve always
been too sceptical even for meditation, and this seemed to be a weirdly pagan,
cult-like ritual. We were led into a dimly-lit space and told to move in
whatever way felt right; we needn’t worry about safety as there were
supervisors to make sure we didn’t hurt ourselves. Zar, unlike Dervish
whirling, is not at all a performance; it is not a pretty sight, and the only
people who may be present, other than the participants, are there purely for
safety reasons.
As the repetitive Sufi drumming began, I felt ludicrous and
self-conscious. I had no idea what to do. I sneaked a glance at the others from
the corner of my eye and began to follow suit, turning slowly on the spot. At
first, the hardest thing was to remember that this was NOT a performance; as I
spun, I had to crush my dancer’s instinct to hold my arms in a beautiful pose
and to spot in order to avoid dizziness. The dizziness was part of it. Memories
of spinning on the school playground until I fell over, just for the fun of it,
came flooding back and I began to enjoy myself.
Unlike Dervish whirling, zars are not limited to on-the-spot
turning, and whenever I got tired, I would fall to my knees and fling my head
and arms from side to side. The wild movements came naturally now, and I could
neither see nor care if anyone was watching me. My limbs were loose and felt
separate from my body; my hair was in my eyes and mouth but I didn’t feel it; I
simply felt a compulsion to move to the heavy drum beats. I was in a trance
without drugs or hypnosis, an entirely self-constructed trance.
Finally, the music came to an end and we all lay still on
the floor. Once recovered, we were led one at a time from the room and to our
beds. Confused and disorientated, I asked one of the supervisors how long I had
been in there – it felt like about ten minutes. She smiled and told me I had
just thrown myself around in a dark room for an hour.
The zar affects everyone in different ways. Most feel high,
dizzy and very relaxed. For some, the feeling of elation is so intense that
they laugh hysterically – as I shuffled to my bedroom, I could hear their
cackles echoing down the corridor, and a few dancers are well-known for needing
at least 45 minutes to stop giggling after a zar. Others cry uncontrollably for
no apparent reason. I know one woman who does the zar every year, and
afterwards wails for half an hour with huge, racking sobs that seem to come
from some deep unimaginable pain; she assures me she’s not crying about
anything in particular, and that she finds it rather therapeutic.
Personally, I feel mostly drunk – carefree, uninhibited, but
always aware of what I am doing, and with the feeling that I could stop at any
time if I wished. I certainly feel relaxed and happy, but I can never quite
reach the peaceful place of the Whirling Dervish. The euphoria rises, and I
feel like there could be a connection – but there never is. Is this a problem
in me, an inability to allow myself to connect to something greater, or simply
that there is nothing to connect to at all? And does it matter in any case, if
an atheist can have more or less a religious experience without God?
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