Give it a whirl: Berlin's Long Night of Religions, By Zoe Markillie

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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