Handbook of Nordic New Religions

Edited by

James R. Lewis Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Contents

List of Figures and Tables ix Notes on Contributors x

Introduction 1

PART 1 Denmark

1 The Study of New Religions in Denmark: A Brief and Subjective Research History 1985–2014 13 Mikael Rothstein

2 Old New Religions in Scandinavia 36 Olav Hammer

3 misa and Natha: The Peculiar Story of a Romanian Tantric Yoga School 62 Sara Møldrup Thejls

4 The Baha’is of the North 77 Margit Warburg

5 Danish Dianetics: Scholarship on the Church of Scientology in Scandinavia 93 Kjersti Hellesøy and James R. Lewis

PART 2 Finland

6 The Study of New Religious Movements in Finland: An Overview of Previous Research 111 Tommy Ramstedt

7 From Western Esotericism to New Spirituality: The Diversity of New Age in Finland 126 Jussie Sohlberg and Kimmo Ketola

vi Contents

8 Diversification, Mainstreaming, Commercialization and Domestication – New Religious Movements and Trends in Finland 141 Måns Broo, Marcus Moberg, Terhi Utriainen and Tommy Ramstedt

9 Combining Christianity and New Age Spirituality: Angel Religion in Finland 158 Terhi Utriainen

PART 3 Norway

10 A Study of New Religiosity in Norway 175 Ingvild Sælid Gilhus and Lisbeth Mikaelsson

11 Royal Angels in the News: The Case of Märtha Louise, Astarte Education and the Norwegian News Press 190 Siv Ellen Kraft

12 The Spiritist Revival: the Raising Voice of Popular Religion 203 Anne Kalvig

13 Studying Up, Down, Sideways and Through: Re-presenting Seeking in a Norwegian Setting 221 Ann Kristin Eide

14 The Art of Living Foundation in Norway: Indigenization and Continuity 239 Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen

15 Acem: Disenchanted Meditation 254 Margrethe Løøv

16 Norwegian ‘Conspirituality’: A Brief Sketch 268 Asbjørn Dyrendal

17 Approval of the Shamanistic Association: A Local Norwegian Construct with Trans-Local Dynamics 291 Trude Fonneland

Contents vii

PART 4 Sweden

18 New Religious Movements and Alternative Spirituality as an Academic Research Field in Sweden – Some Reflections 313 Liselotte Frisk

19 The New Religious Movements – What Happened to Them? A Study of the Church of Scientology, The Children of God, iskcon, The Unification Church and The Rajneesh Movement and Their Development over Time 325 Liselotte Frisk

20 The Spiritual Revolution, the Swedish Way 343 Peter Åkerbäck

21 The Ahmadiyya Mission to the Nordic Countries 359 Brian Arly Jacobsen, Göran Larsson and Simon Sorgenfrei

22 Heralds of the Cosmic Brotherhood: The Story of the Swedish Contactee Sten Lindgren 374 Erik A. W. Östling

23 Are the Space Brothers Socialists? Swedish Indigenization of the ufo Mythical Complex 390 Jessica Moberg

PART 5 Baltic States and Outside Perspectives

24 Lithuanian Occulture and the Pyramid of Merkinė: Innovation or Continuity? 411 Milda Ališauskienė and Massimo Introvigne

25 The “Back to Nature” Worldview in Nature-based Spirituality Movements: The Case of the Anastasians 441 Rasa Pranskevičiūtė

Contents

26 Activities of Hindu-Related Movements and Western Esoteric Groups in Latvia 457 Anita Stasulane

27 New Religious Movements and New Age in Estonia 478 Ringo Ringvee

28 Fire and Ice in Midvestjard: American Religion and Norse Identity in Minnesota’s Heathen Community 495 Murphy Pizza

Index 503

part 5 Baltic States and Outside Perspectives

∵

Milda Ališauskienė and Massimo Introvigne

The social phenomenon of the Pyramid of Merkinė has become, during the last ten years, a consolidated part of the field of alternative religions in Lithuania. The Pyramid of Merkinė was built in 2002, and soon attracted the attention of the public opinion, politicians, and the Lithuanian Roman Catholic Church. We will discuss the features of the Pyramid of Merkinė phenomenon within the context of modern Lithuanian alternative spirituality. The basis of such dis- cussion is empirical research at Pyramid of Merkinė that was carried out by Ališauskienė in 2010–2012. It consisted of participant observation, interviews with the visitors of the Pyramid and a study of the texts of Povilas Žėkas. The research started in 2010 by approaching Povilas. He declined to take part in this research from the beginning, but was very interested in its results.1 One of the reasons why the research at the Merkinė Pyramid was met with a certain reservation is because, during the previous year, the place had attracted the attention of the government. The Pyramid is situated within the Dzūkija National Park, in Southern Lithuania, and Žėkas was accused of illegal construction with respect to the glass dome covering the Pyramid (Figure 24.1). The case was taken to the courts, and different state institutions seemed to have different opinions about the issue. Apparently, some political pressure was also applied, while thirty thousand signatures supporting the cupola were collected.2 The struggle over the glass dome also led to the foundation of a non-governmental association called Česukų kupolo ir piramidės išsaugojimo

1 This research was carried out in 2010 and was partly supported by the Lithuanian Science Council Student Research Fellowship Award (Student – Andreij Ryčkov). During Ališauskienė’s first meeting with Žėkas, it was apparently difficult for him to understand the social-scientific approach to the phenomenon of the Pyramid. He suggested waiting for results from physical and bio-energetic studies. After the first conversation, he conceded that a sociological research on the Pyramid might also be useful. Almost a month after the first stage of research, Ališauskienė was also contacted by the lawyer who represented a newly established organization to support Povilas Žėkas in his fight to keep the glass cupola covering the pyramid against governmental objections. 2 From Ališauskienė’s personal conversations with officials from the Dzūkija National Park Office and the State Territorial Planning and Construction Office of the Ministry of the Environment.

412 Ališauskienė AND Introvigne

Figure 24.1 Massimo Introvigne and Povilas Žėkas outside the Pyramid.

sąjūdis (“Movement for the Preservation of the Česukai Cupola and Pyramid”). This organization has received public support from some politicians and newspapers, including the weekly Laisvas laikraštis (“Independent Newspaper”: see “Merkinės piramidė” 2010). In 2012, the local court authorized the Municipality of Varėna to start the procedure for issuing the construction permit that would possibly lead to the legalization of the cupola. In 2011 and 2012, Introvigne visited the Pyramid and conducted interviews with Povilas and some visitors. The interviews focused mostly on Povilas’ doctrine. Later, Žėkas supplied Introvigne with unpublished English language translations of significant portions of his materials, and answered by mail several additional questions about his doctrines, his family, and his relations with Lithuanian culture.

Povilas Žėkas – Visionary

Povilas Žėkas was born in 1983. He was the only child in his family. He earned a b.a. degree in Biology at one of the Lithuanian universities, and later

LITHUANIAN OCCULTURE AND THE PYRAMID OF MERKINĖ 413 unsuccessfully tried to earn a m.a. degree in the Study of Subcultural Groups. Povilas speaks good English, and tries to welcome every visitor to the Pyramid personally. He obviously sees himself as a Catholic, while criticizing Church leaders for their attitude toward new ideas. What follows is largely based on Povilas Žėkas’ book that was published in 2004. The first part of this book contains his autobiography, which is presented within the framework of a standard hagiography in the Christian tradition, and describes his life and the special events that reveal the peculiar- ity (or holiness) of his person. The reader is given the impression that this part of the book is told by Povilas’ mother. She explains that, since his childhood, Povilas was recognized as a special child:

When he reached the age of four, it seemed he forgot that he walks this earth. Most of his time was spent staring at the sky. Then the more serious questions started. I was forced to find an astronomy book to find answers. It was hard to explain such terminology to a young child. That’s why this task was given to his grandmother. Povilas got introduced to the study of the subject of theology in a language that both – he and his grandmother – understood all too well. This is why even before going to the first grade he knew a lot of various poems and prayers, and was familiar with the popular hierarchy of the figures in heaven. žėkas (2004), 5–6

Povilas’s mother describes him as a special child with abilities that are not ordinary for his contemporary. Similar stories might be found within biographies of other religious leaders. For instance, Ravi Shankar the founder of the Art of Living Foundation was also described as peculiar since his childhood (Ališauskienė 2012a,b). Such references to the childhood make the described person more important and legitimized from the time perspective in the eyes of believers. The second part of the book is organized as questions and answers – apparently, with questions asked by Žėkas and answers given by God. The analysis of the text shows that the author uses many common Catholic words like God, God the Father, God the Son, Trinity, angels, guardian angel, hell, or revelation. The book, however, tells a creation story that is somewhat different from the biblical version, and understands the Catholic terms in a different way than Catholicism does. For instance, it speaks about the stages of revelation and the role played by the Pyramid in the process of saving humanity. Every text in the second part is concluded with the phrase “This is the word of God” – commonly used by Catholics during the reading of the Bible in the liturgy. Such connections to Catholicism are possibly used as a legitimizing strategy in

414 Ališauskienė AND Introvigne a social environment dominated by Catholic hegemony. But it is also true that Catholic references largely predominate in Povilas’ family and milieu. Povilas Žėkas has emerged as one of the main propagators of New Age ideas in Lithuania. At the same time, his framework for understanding and inter- preting existential and ontological questions is mostly shared with Catholicism. Nevertheless, he also stresses individual experience as the main source for communicating with transcendence. Thus with his teachings Žėkas provides a certain degree of religious innovation with respect to his starting point, the Roman Catholic tradition, with an emphasis on religious experience which is usually attributed to contemporary alternative and New Age spirituality.

Social Features of the Visitors of Pyramid of Merkinė

The visitors to the Merkinė Pyramid which we met during the research were a highly diverse group, and were attracted by the place for a variety of reasons, ranging from the search for spiritual development and/or healing to mere rec- reation. The majority of them were of middle or senior age, and they came from a wide range of social backgrounds. During the research, people from Poland, Belarus and Latvia were noticed, some of them coming in groups by bus, but the majority was Lithuanian. At any given time there were usually ten to fifteen people at the Pyramid, and three to four cars stood in the parking lot, not including those belonging to the owners of the place. A majority of the visitors reported that they were visiting the place for the first time, but some had come one or two times before. People traveled to the Pyramid by car or bus, some came on foot, some even by canoe on the Merkys River, which flows by close to the spot. The latter way of traveling was popular among younger visitors, who were usually part of tourist groups on canoe trips in the scenic region.3 In these cases, the visit to the Pyramid was planned beforehand as part of the trip. The leader of one canoe group explained that there were different experiences people had inside the Pyramid, and no one was forced to enter it. Two of the visitors – teenage girls – decided to remain at some distance from the place when their group entered the Pyramid. One of them explained that she was apprehensive about experiencing something she would not understand. The visitors had heard about the Pyramid from a variety of sources, including family members, friends, or the mass media. Individuals who were especially

3 The Pyramid of Merkinė is mentioned in the context of pilgrimage sites like the Gates of Dawn and the Hill of Crosses on the websites for foreign tourists; see e.g. ; accessed on 2010-11-25.

LITHUANIAN OCCULTURE AND THE PYRAMID OF MERKINĖ 415 interested in spiritual experiences relied more on recommendations by friends and family, while mass media reports were the main source attracting common tourists.4 In a newly erected wooden house, the owner of the place, Povilas Žėkas, received visitors. He usually introduced them to the place and explained how to behave when entering the glass cupola that covers the metal construction of the Pyramid. However, he always insisted that everyone should act as he or she feels appropriate. Experiences within the Pyramid differed, according to Povilas, due to the spiritual state of the visitor. One visitor remarked that her experience was different every time she visited the Pyramid; she felt that it grew more intense each time (Figure 24.2). Povilas Žėkas commented that the spiritual experience within the Pyramid usually leads to physical well-being, as it affects the circulation of the blood and the activity of the liver. Despite some introductory regulation of the behavior in the Pyramid, the visitors were both inventing their own practices and

Figure 24.2 Inside the Pyramid.

4 Some of the visitors reported that they had read about the legal threats to the Pyramid and its cupola in the newspapers, and came to show their support.

416 Ališauskienė AND Introvigne imitating the behavior of people they saw in the Pyramid. For instance, if a group of visitors had taken off their shoes when entering the Pyramid, the following visitors would also take them off. But, if there was nobody in the Pyramid before them, newcomers were not taking their shoes off. In general, people behaved quite cautiously and in a focused way. The appropriate behavior under the glass cupola and the Pyramid itself was explained by instructions written by Povilas himself on the front door of the Pyramid. Visitors were trying to follow these instructions faithfully, and to behave as requested. The Pyramid of Merkinė is a case of invention of a new sacred tradition in a particular place, where new religious practices are socially constructed. The founder of the place contributes to the construction both through his writings and oral explanations, but simultaneously the visitors themselves participate in the construction of innovative doctrine and practices. This construction is alive, and is continuously changing in accordance with time and with the individuals who participate in the movement.

The Pyramid of Merkinė, Roman Catholic Church, and National Identity

During the research our attention was drawn to the symbols inside the house where visitors to the Pyramid are received by Povilas Žėkas. On the walls were hanging the pictures of Jesus, Mary and Pope Benedict XVI; in the corner stood a Lithuanian flag, and several candles were burning. Throughout Lithuania’s recent history, ideas of Catholicism and national identity have been closely interwoven. During Soviet times, religious and national symbols were displayed side by side in many Lithuanian homes, as the Soviet authorities outlawed both. In the home for visitors at the Pyramid of Merkinė, the Lithuanian flag was prominently displayed. The public response to the attempts of local authorities to declare the build- ing of the Pyramid of Merkinė cupola illegal is also reminiscent of the Soviet past and national identity which also involve religious, particularly Roman Catholic identity. During those days, religious symbols that were destroyed by the Soviet authorities were usually rebuilt overnight; this happened many times with the well-known Hill of Crosses near Šiauliai. One of the interlocu- tors at the Pyramid said that, if the authorities attempted to destroy the cupola, they would be cursed like the communists who destroyed the Hill of Crosses during the Soviet times. Inside the Pyramid, one easily gets the impression of being in a Catholic shrine. Three walls are devoted to the three persons of the Trinity, and

LITHUANIAN OCCULTURE AND THE PYRAMID OF MERKINĖ 417 instructions in every corner explain what a visitor should feel in relation to each member of Trinity when standing at a certain spot. Close to the wall devoted to the Holy Spirit stands a container with so-called holy water that is supposed to heal certain illnesses. The “Catholic” feeling also lingers on the outside. At the end of a large meadow behind the glass cupola stand three crosses that represent again the Trinity (Figure 24.3). They display the images of a pigeon (Holy Spirit), an eye (Holy Father), and a cross with a heart (Holy Son), which are widely used in Catholicism. The Catholic imagery makes visitors almost involuntary compare the Pyramid with a Catholic place of worship:

The Pyramid is much more spiritual than the church; there are less people here and one can concentrate better (Lina). You feel more natural than in the church. In the church I feel more constrained (Aidas). If you compare the Pyramid to the church, you feel spirituality in the latter; here you feel a more direct relation to God, without any intermediary (Juozas). The Pyramid is associated with the Trinity. I feel the same here as during Eucharist in the church (Neringa).

Figure 24.3 Trinity Crosses at the Pyramid’s.

418 Ališauskienė AND Introvigne

One of the reasons why people feel attracted to the Pyramid appears to be the quiet and spiritual atmosphere that echoes positive experiences inside Catholic churches. At the same time, the Pyramid is valued and preferred over Catholic shrines for being a place offering a more direct contact with the sacred. Despite the Catholic references, which are ubiquitous in the phenomenon of the Pyramid of Merkinė, the Lithuanian Roman Catholic Church had declared that the Pyramid is outside Catholic orthodoxy. In 2003, in a letter to the priests, the Lithuanian Bishops stated that this phenomenon does not belong to Catholicism, is syncretistic and should rather be regarded as part of the New Age. Despite the criticism Povilas Žėkas presents pyramid of Merkinė as a part of wider Roman Catholic culture that is dominant in Lithuania. Such strategy allows his followers to connect more easily this phenomenon with religion in general and national identity in particular.

The 2012 Apocalypse, the Pyramid of Merkinė and New Age

Before December 21, 2012, Povilas Žėkas was invited by the media to comment about the prophecies on the end of the world. Povilas explained that the end of the word is not a physical event, but rather a spiritual shift that this world can no longer avoid. In an interview for local media, he stated:

I have been interested in the issue for more than a year now. I received information through various sources – mystical, experiental, literature and through talks with people. In my opinion spiritual changes are matu- rating. And if people do not change their values, thinking, behavior, if they do not start a new age in the spiritual sense, there will be many prob- lems, cataclysms and turmoils. In such contexts it makes sense to speak about preparation for these changes. saukienė, 2012

Povilas explained that people should prepare for such changes first of all by stocking food. For the day of December 21, 2012 Žėkas invited everybody to visit the Pyramid and to wait there for the spiritual phenomenon of the “end of the world.” It was emphasized that the Pyramid will be open through the whole night. Media reported both that there were few visitors in the Pyramid that night, and that Povilas was following his own advice by stocking food. At the same time, in his Web site Povilas insisted that the exact

LITHUANIAN OCCULTURE AND THE PYRAMID OF MERKINĖ 419 date of the end of the world is unpredictable, and quoted the Bible (Mt 24:36) to this effect. Žėkas, thus, used the 2012 prophecies in order to attract visitors to the Pyramid, but at the same time his ideas about the end of the world once again showed the quite complicated relationship in his worldview between New Age ideas and Catholicism. While Povilas’ ideas are based upon esoteric traditions, they are expressed in terms that are familiar to Catholics, using a lingua franca that makes them more attractive to people living in a Catholic environment. Povilas Žėkas identifies himself as Catholic, and shows some concern for the situation of the Catholic Church in Lithuania. In order to legitimize those elements of his belief system that are less acceptable to Catholics, he refers to science as an alternative framework. According to Mikael Rothstein, the contraposition of religion and science in the Judeo-Christian milieu con- ditioned the rise of science as the dominating system of meaning (Rothstein 1996:17). Povilas explains some of the secret properties of the Pyramid by introducing scientific concepts, including the special metallic alloy derived from his visions and used for the construction of the Pyramid. Povilas also resorts to science for explaining the powers of Pyramid. He claims that these powers might be measured scientifically, thus legitimating the existence of the Pyramid in the public eyes. Of course, Žėkas’ reference to science is not uncommon within the New Age, where it is often used as a strategy for legitimation.

The Pyramid of Merkinė: A Peculiar Location

The Pyramid of Merkinė is located in Southern Lithuania, near the resort town of Druskininkai. This region is also significant within the context of Lithuanian esoteric and mystical traditions. In order to discuss Žėkas’ relationship with his geographical context, we will use three methodological tools: the notion of genius loci, the category of “occulture,” and certain peculiarities of Lithuanian religion. Genius loci. “Nullus locus sine genio,” “there is no place without genius,” wrote Maurus Servius Honoratus (4th–5th century c.e.), one of the last great Pagan intellectuals of the Roman Empire (see Cavalieri 2012). The notion of genius loci was in itself religious: in each place, there is a spirit, influencing those living there. This quite animistic notion experienced a resurgence in modern times, thanks to Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) and his American disci- ple James Hillman (1926–2011). In a book featuring a dialogue with Italian

420 Ališauskienė AND Introvigne architect Carlo Truppi, Hillman expressed his persuasion that the notion of genius loci is psychologically valid, and that artists and creators of other cultural artifacts are in fact influenced by local traditions and climates, even without being fully aware of it (Hillman 2004). With or without Jungian references, the idea of the genius loci has been widely used in contemporary history of art, including by the distinguished Norwegian architectural historian Christian Norberg-Schulz (1926–2000: see Norberg-Schulz 1979). There is nothing magic in the notion that some ideas are “in the air” in certain places. The notion of genius loci simply acknowledges that historians are not omni- scient. If they knew every single detail of an artist’s (or religious activist’s) life, they would be able to point out the exact source of all ideas. Since they cannot know all the details, the fact that in the area there was a cultural tradition might serve at least as a preliminary explanation. Genius loci is important to understand that this article does not claim that Žėkas borrowed certain ideas, attitudes and styles from other figures active in Lithuania one century earlier. Similitudes do indeed mean that some ideas were “in the air” there. But they do not call into question Žėkas’ originality, nor the sincerity of his claims that he discovered these ideas through his own mystical experiences. Occulture. Of course, some applications of the genius loci theory do make explicit references to esoteric ideas. Such was the case of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), whose genius loci ideas made reference to the Armenian esoteric master George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866?–1949: see Friedland and Zellman 2007). The second theoretical tool we propose to use here is “occulture,” a word coined by British musician and occultist Genesis P-Orridge (see Asprem 2012, 7 and 173–174). A British academic, Christopher Partridge, transformed the category of “occulture” into an interpretive tool in 2004 (Partridge 2004). Partridge used the word “occulture” in order to describe a form of contemporary Western religiosity, emerging from the counter- culture of the 1960s and rooted in a number of different esoteric, occult and magical ideas. More recently, Partridge noted that “occulture” is now so perva- sive that it should not be considered marginal or esoteric, but a part of everyday life (Partridge 2013). And, although Partridge had in mind a phenomenon starting in the 1960s, historian Nina Kokkinen suggested that the concept “could be applied also to earlier periods – starting roughly from the beginning of the nineteenth century” (Kokkinen 2013, 8). Lithuanian religion. The third tool refers to peculiarities of religion in Lithuania. These have been studied in 2012 in a book edited by one of the authors and anthropologist Ingo Schröder (Ališauskienė and Schröder 2012), by using cognitive elements derived from Italian Marxist political theorist Antonio

LITHUANIAN OCCULTURE AND THE PYRAMID OF MERKINĖ 421

Gramsci (1891–1937). The book refers to Gramsci’s category of “common sense,” the view of the world of the subaltern classes that, although perhaps shared by a majority in a given country, necessarily remains fragmented and disorga- nized, and is normally not capable of challenging hegemony. In contemporary Lithuania, the book claims, a common sense worldview dilutes and erodes the hegemony of Catholicism without openly confronting it. Movements of contemporary paganism such as Romuva claim that this common sense Lithuanian worldview is a remnant of pre-Christian paganism, which is still alive in what was the last European country to be Christianized. This traditional paganism was re-interpreted through 19th and 20th century esotericism, thus originating a peculiar Lithuanian occulture.

Lithuanian Occulture: The Dainos and Oscar Milosz

In the 18th century, German scholars Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) and Johann Gottfried Herder (1744– 1803) studied the Lithuanian folk songs known as dainos. All were Freemasons, with an interest in esoteric themes (Garnier 1991, 70–71). Dainos are very simple and poetical compositions, mostly about love, war and the life of the peasants, where however “the old [pre-Christian] mythology emerges” (ibid., 72). Themes include the astrological meaning of the stars, the special powers of certain animals, particularly snakes, and of the spirits of nature, and the magic of minerals. The Pyramid of Merkinė is located in the Lithuanian region of Dzūkija, thirty kilometers northeast of Druskininkai, which is Lithuania’s main spa resort. Connecting Druskininkai to Merkinė is the river Nemunas. The area along this river, Lithuania’s longest, near Druskininkai “is famous for its dainos and is even called Dainava, ‘the land of songs’” (Kazokas 2009, 43). Dainos are often very simple, and its religious or magical implications may not even be perceived today. However, they do convey elements of what we proposed to call Lithuanian occulture, and a religiosity that includes many pre-Christian reminiscences. These references were not lost to Oskaras Vladislovas Liubič Milašius, the Lithuanian diplomat, poet and playwright better known in Western Europe under his polish name of Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz (1877–1939). As a young man, Milosz was inspired by the dainos and – as he later reported – by their “enigmatic wisdom on the gods, coming from a remote age” (Charbonnier 1996, 16). Unlike his distant cousin, fellow poet and Nobel Prize laureate Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004), who although culturally a Lithuanian, wrote

422 Ališauskienė AND Introvigne mostly in Polish and worked for the Polish government. Both Milosz served as diplomats in France, but Czesław represented Poland while Oscar became in 1920 the Chargé d’Affaires for the newly independent Lithuania in Paris. Perhaps the relationship between Milosz, the fantastic world of dainos and Lithuanian folk literature was best captured by sculptor Antanas Mončys (1921–1993). He represented a later generation of Lithuanian artists in Paris, and is known in France as the author of some twenty gargoyles of the Metz cathe- dral, in whose restoration he was involved by his friend Marc Chagall (1887– 1985). Mončys illustrated some of Milosz’ works, capturing in a modernistic way his connection with the world of ancient Lithuania. Mončys also tried to recre- ate the švilpiai, the clay whistles that served as ancient Lithuanian pagan instru- ments and were played in connection with the telling of the dainos (Figure 24.4). Povilas Žėkas has a similar special relationship with Lithuania’s old traditions. When, as a student, God asked him to “pick a place” where to continue his spiritual work, he was initially uncertain between Vilnius, his native countryside, and Alytus (a nearby town of 68,000). Although his mother thought he would choose Vilnius, Povilas in the end decided for “the countryside. I could not make any other choice” (Žėkas 2004, 30). The choice was not only func- tional to Žėkas’ peace of mind, but was highly symbolic. “The countryside”

Figure 24.4 Švilpiai by A. Mončys, Antanas Mončys Museum, Palanga.

LITHUANIAN OCCULTURE AND THE PYRAMID OF MERKINĖ 423 is widely believed in Lithuania to be a repository of the oldest traditions, and symbols appearing in the daïnos often surface in Žėkas’ visions. Oscar Milosz spent most of his life in France, and encountered the rich French occulture flourishing between the two World Wars. An avid reader of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1722), whom he always regarded as his “celestial master” (Charbonnier 1996, 82), Milosz had a mystical vision of the “spiritual sun” on December 14, 1914. He went on to become a regu- lar contributor to L’Affranchi, a journal founded by Gaston Revel (1880–1939) as a continuation of the Theosophist magazine Le Théosophe. Many contributors of L’Affranchi were members of the Theosophical Society, and Milosz counted as his friends many Parisian figures interested in Theosophy, alchemy, and other esoteric matters. In 1919, Milosz and his friends started the Centre Apostolique (Apostolic Center), an organization ostensibly devoted to world peace through an ecu- menical spirituality, which included a secret inner circle, the Frères d’Élie (Brothers of Elijah), cultivating alchemy, Rosicrucianism and other esoteric pursuits. Shortly later, the Centre Apostolique was continued by Les Veilleurs – Association fraternelle pour la vie meilleure (The Watchmen – Fraternal Association for a Better Life), which included ritual ceremonies reminiscent of the cult of fire in pre-Christian Lithuania (Charbonnier 1996, 255), and kept the secret inner circle as the Order of the Brothers of Elijah. Prominent Theosophists and Masonic dignitaries (Charbonnier 1996, 256–257) joined the Order, including the alchemist René Schwaller (1887–1961), who was also a member of the Theosophical Society. Milosz eventually received Schwaller into the Lubicz family clan, authorizing him to adopt “Schwaller de Lubicz” as his last name. Milosz became also an important figure in Paris’ literary culture of the années folles (crazy years), and was frequently seen in the curious gatherings organized by American heiress Natalie Clifford Barney (1867–1972) in her home, which included a 18th-century Temple of Friendship of possible Masonic origin. She was also one of the first literary figures who explicitly came out as a lesbian (Rodriguez 2002, 221). Barney’s salon was frequented inter alia by the Polish artist – and fellow lesbian, at least temporarily – Tamara de Lempicka (1898–1980: ibid., 247). Although Milosz never reneged his friendship with Barney, after 1926 he cut most ties with the Theosophical and esoteric milieu in order to embrace a con- servative brand of Catholicism. Although written much earlier, in 1913, his play Miguel Mañara (Milosz 1913), is still regarded as a Catholic classic. The Catholic Milosz, however, maintained several interests of the esoteric Milosz, including one for the end of the world as we know it and the Apocalypse. He predicted,

424 Ališauskienė AND Introvigne quite correctly, a coming Second World War, which he claimed would be followed by a Millennial Kingdom and a deep change in human nature itself around the year 1944 (see Kohler 2011). Milosz wrote in French, and his influence on Lithuanian occulture was presumably limited, although some Lithuanian translations followed already during his lifetime (see Dručkutė 2000). He also had a number of friends in prominent Lithuanian families who followed his spiritual enterprises. They included Count Alfred Tyskiewicz (1882–1930), who represented the Lithuanian government in Great Britain when Milosz represented it in France (Charbonnier 1996, 188). It is however interesting to note that – presumably, outside of any direct influence – there are certain parallels between Milosz’ and Žėkas’ millenarian ideas. Žėkas teaches that our world went through three “measurements.” In the first, only the Holy Spirit existed in an empty space. In the second, souls were born. In the third, thought was created and souls united with our present bodies. The coming fourth measurement will be “nothing other than the end of the world” (Žėkas 2004, 92), a crucial evolutionary step which should not be regarded negatively or with fear. Rather, “it is completely natural and should be awaited” (ibid., 92). Although it will also include catastrophic events, this “New Dawn” will also be a “rise to Heaven” (ibid., 93) for many. The relevance of the comparison should not be over-emphasized, and millenarianism is widespread throughout the international occulture. It is, however, worth noting that Milosz also awaited an imminent transformation of the world.

Sonata of the Pyramids: Čiurlionis and Žėkas

The Esoteric Čiurlionis. Until some years ago, Druskininkai was mostly known in the world of arts as the birthplace of Cubist sculptor Jacques Lipchitz (1891–1973). The Jewish sculptor was not particularly interested in esotericism, but he did care about religion. In 1946, he participated in the Catholic project of Notre-Dame-de-Toute-Grâce in Passy, France, an interesting attempt to cre- ate a truly modern religious art, and in 1958 he joined the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. Lipchitz left Lithuania at age 18, spent his subsequent life in France, the United States, and Italy, and did not keep any significant connection with his native country. However, in a letter of 1961, he called his birthplace “our dear, our unforgettable Druskininkai,” and reminisced about having seen there a great local painter “passing like a shadow, always in deep thoughts,” without daring to approach him. Lipchitz stated that he was still “proud to

LITHUANIAN OCCULTURE AND THE PYRAMID OF MERKINĖ 425 have been born in the village whose soil was touched by his footsteps” (Goštautas 1994, 493–494). The painter was Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911). “The great Čiurlionis,” as Oscar Milosz called him (Milosz [1927] 2013, 71), was born in Varėna, thirty kilometers west of Merkinė, but at age 3 moved to Druskininkai, where his father became the city organist (Figure 24.5). A musician of preco- cious talent, at age 14 he was admitted to Prince Ogiński’s Orchestra School in Plungė, in the Lithuanian region of Samogitia, from where he went on to study in Warsaw and Leipzig. He returned quite often to Druskininkai, until the final illness that led to his premature death at age 35 in the sanatorium of Pustelnik, near Warsaw, in 1911. For several reasons, Čiurlionis was little known in the West until the end of the 1970s. His paintings, realized with cheap colors and canvases due to his extreme poverty, were fragile and did not travel well. Most of them were – and still are – in the M.K. Čiurlionis Art Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania, a city not easily reachable by foreign visitors in Soviet times. The first important Western exhibition of Čiurlionis paintings took place in West Berlin in 1979. A number of other exhibitions followed, particularly in Italy and Japan, the two countries where Čiurlionis has been most studied. Today, it is unanimously

Figure 24.5 Čiurlionis’ Home in Druskininkai.

426 Ališauskienė AND Introvigne acknowledged that Čiurlionis is one of the great names of early 20th century art, besides being an original and accomplished musical composer, and today visitors to Druskininkai certainly find more references to Čiurlionis than to Lipchitz. The debate whether Čiurlionis invented modern abstract art before Wassili Kandinsky (1866–1944) – a claim originally advanced by Estonian poet and art critic Aleksis Rannit (1914–1985) and vehemently disputed by Kandinski’s widow Nina (1896–1980) – has been a main feature of the studies about the Lithuanian artist (see Goštautas and Vaičjurgis-Šležas 1994, 210–247; Quattrocchi 2000). Recently, however, Čiurlionis has been rather perceived by historians as a crucial link between European Symbolism and abstract art (see Andriušytė-Žukienė 2004; De Smet and Nagels 2013). There is also a debate about the extent of Čiurlionis’ relationship with what we have called occulture. Since the 1980s, this relationship has been emphasized by two leading art historians and scholars of Čiurlionis, the Lithuanian- Australian Genovaitė Kazokas (Budreikaitė-Kazokienė: Kazokas 2009) and the Italian Gabriella Di Milia (Di Milia 1980; Di Milia 1983; Di Milia and Daugelis 2010). Both evidenced the influence of pre-Christian Lithuanian religion and Theosophy on Čiurlionis. “Theosophy – according to Kazokas – is the least studied influence on Čiurlionis’ work, yet it was one of the very strongest, as it gave him a way of integrating his childhood experiences of Lithuanian folklore with avant-garde artistic movements” (Kazokas 2009, 56). Indeed, it is hard not to see an allusion to the main emblems of the Theosophical Society in the 1905 painting Vision, which features a serpent on a Cross of Tau (which is also the letter T for “Theosophy” in the Theosophical Society; refer to Figure 24.6). On the other hand, Čiurlionis’s widow, Sofija Kymantaitė-Čiurlionienė (1886–1958),5 firmly insisted that her husband was not a member of the Theoso phical Society and did not promote Theosophical or other “modern religious” theories. Rannit reported that “Mrs. Sofija Čiurlionis, the widow of the artist, told me in 1940 about the letter the artist had written in 1909 to the Theosophical Society in St. Petersburg, rejecting categorically any relationship to any modern religious or philosophical theories and dogmas in his work” (Rannit 1961, 40). In Soviet times, any association of Čiurlionis with “decadent” religious ideas was dangerous, while the artist’s admirers struggled to preserve his fragile paintings and allow them to be seen, at least in Kaunas. Understandably, they downplayed both Čiurlionis’ Lithuanian nationalism and his esoteric ideas. It is however also true that Čiurlionis never joined any spiritual organization, Theosophical or otherwise. On the other hand, he was exposed to Theosophical

5 The relationship between Čiurlionis and Sofija was the subject of the 2013 movie Letters to Sofija, by British director Robert Mullan.

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Figure 24.6 Čiurlionis, Vision (1905). ideas through fellow Lithuanian and Symbolist painter Kazimierz Stabrowski (Kazimieras Štabrauskas, 1867–1929), who served as director of the Warsaw School of Fine Arts when Čiurlionis studied there. Stabrowski was an avid reader of Theosophical literature, and – as reported by Elena Pisareva (1855–1944),

428 Ališauskienė AND Introvigne a leading figure in the early Russian Theosophical Society – he invited to Poland Russian Theosophists, who stayed in his home and traveled with him, in order to make Theosophy better known in his country (Pisareva 2008, 46 and 53). Stabrowski also founded in Warsaw the first Theosophical lodge in Poland, Alba, and was criticized for inviting his students, including Čiurlionis, to participate in informal meeting where Theosophy, Eastern religions, spiritualism and hypnotism were discussed (Cavanaugh 2000; Zdrojewska-Żywiecka 2009; Dustka and Kotkowska 2013). Čiurlionis was especially interested in hypnotism. His sister, ethnomusicolo- gist Jadvyga Čiurlionytė (1899–1992), reported that he was able to hypnotize the parish priest in Druskininkai, “telling” him in anticipation what the priest would then repeat in the Sunday sermon (Čiurlionytė 1973, 144–146). In an interview with Introvigne in September 2012, Žėkas reported that shortly after the first apparitions of the Angel he surprised his mother by telling her in church what the priest would have said in a few moments in the sermon. The experience was quite similar to Čiurlionis, although Povilas did not explain it through hypnotism. Themes of the Ancient Lithuanian Religion. We may note parallels between Čiurlionis and Žėkas in several areas. The first involves a repertoire of symbols derived from pre-Christian Lithuanian religion. “As God, I do not condemn paganism,” Povilas heard in one of his revelations, although later “various degenerations occurred” in the old pagan religion (Žėkas 2004, 111–112). One of the reasons Čiurlionis became interested in the French astronomer and esoteric author Camille Flammarion (1842–1925), himself a member of the Theosophical society – and a friend of Oscar Milosz – was that the French scientist was in turn interested in Lithuania. He believed that Indian and Lithuanian myths had a common origin and were among the oldest religious beliefs in history (see Kazokas 2009, 82–85). “Theosophy strengthened his interest in the old Lithuanian past, and at the same time in the related and even older Indian past” (ibid., 89). As we mentioned, Žėkas incorporated Catholic symbols in the Pyramid complex, and most visitors regard themselves as Catholics. The traditional Lithuanian crosses erected in Merkinė by Povilas and those present in Čiurlionis’ pictorial cycles seem to serve a similar purpose: to subsume Catholic symbols within a context that does not correspond to “official” Catholicism and is open to different references. Čiurlionis was a collector of dainos from the area around Druskininkai, and he arranged some forty of them in new musical versions. Both in the artist’s work and in Žėkas’ vision we may notice a symbolic repertoire derived from Lithuanian folk beliefs. Symbols include fire, birds, stars, and a boat (Žėkas 2004, 28; 68; 85; 86), which has multiple meanings both in the Merkinė

LITHUANIAN OCCULTURE AND THE PYRAMID OF MERKINĖ 429 visions and in Čiurlionis’ paintings such as Thoughts (1907: see Di Milia 2010, 19) and the diptych Prelude and Fugue (1908). About this diptych a friend of the artist, fellow painter Antanas Žmuidzinavičius (1876–1966), who was from the same region, told the story of how Čiurlionis and his two brothers “were sailing on the river Nemunas,” looking for beautiful landscapes and for daïnos, when they heard the peasants sing- ing the folk song “O thou little fir tree” (Kazokas 1994, 321–322). In the diptych, Čiurlionis included the fir trees, on whose branches the souls of the deceased are said in Lithuanian folklore to remain for a while, and a boat, representing consciousness or the soul continuing its journey (Kazokas 1994, 319, 321). In the revelations of Merkinė God said to Žėkas: “A sailor sails the sea. A sea is the boundary of the spirits consciousness. At the same time, a small ship represents the human’s consciousness. That ship is the sailor’s life, his entire physical existence on earth” (Žėkas 2004, 85). Stars are also important in Povilas’ visions. God himself sees us in this form. “The Almighty Father sees you as stars” (Žėkas 2004, 86). Through this vision, God’s eye guides us to “the tip of the highest Pyramid. This is the point all the souls are moving towards” (ibid.). In Čiurlionis’ Sonata of the Stars the painting Andante shows a Pyramid-like structure topped with a bird-like angel. A hori- zontal stripe represents the Milky Way (see Kazokas 2009, 232–234). The Milky Way, also known as the Way of the Birds, played a prominent role in pre- Christian Lithuanian religion (Figure 24.7). It is where the souls of the deceased dwelled. God is above, in the sun represented as “supreme principle,” leading the souls to the top of the structure (Di Milia 2010, 25). God’s revelations to Povilas introduce the notion of “soul families.” A parent soul “rules twelve spirits. Those twelve in turn each rule twelve more junior spirits” (Žėkas 2004, 84). The sequence of numbers 1-12-144 (i.e. 12 x 12) echoes the Bible. Žėkas, however, also introduces the idea of reincarnation. Even spirits of the aborted children “unite awaiting new incarnations” (ibid.). Čiurlionis also “firmly believed in reincarnation” (Kazokas 2009, 80) and the pre-existence of human souls. To his future wife Sofija he wrote that “our beginning is somewhere in the infinity before all ages” (ibid., 81), and that “a very long time ago, and definitely not once, we have already changed our form. But the memory is weak, and to recall it requires extraordinary concentration” (ibid., 80). Although Čiurlionis rarely explained the meaning of its paintings, interpreters have seen in News (1905) the soul depicted as a bird caught at sunrise – or perhaps sunset – between one life and the other. There may be something similar to the idea of souls connected to each other in Gemini (1907), a painting of Čiurlionis’ Zodiac cycle. We have a twin soul, but in order to reach her we should cross a burning abyss.

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Figure 24.7 Čiurlionis, Sonata of the Stars: Andante (1908).

Angels. Povilas’ cosmology incorporates elements from different traditions. At the beginning, his revelations seems to come from his Guardian Angel. Angels also play a prominent role in Čiurlionis, and are often depicted together with non-Christian symbols, including in Angels (Paradise) and Angel (Prelude), both of 1909, and in The Offering, also of 1909 and the artist’s last completed painting before his final illness.

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God(s). Eventually, when Žėkas is ready, the Guardian Angel reveals: “I am God” (Žėkas 2004, 27). He is more than an angel: he is the God of this world, “the ruler of this creation” (ibid., 28). He is not the ultimate God, however: “I also have my own creator, our Great God,” he tells Povilas, referring to the Almighty Father, “an entity who controls all other Gods” (ibid.). Čiurlionis’ “Supreme Being” is called Rex and is “omnipresent” in his paintings (Kazokas 2009, 86). In the painting with the same title (1909) we discover that in fact there are two Supreme Beings hierarchically ordained. “The light-coloured unit, comprising the planet [Earth] and Rex, is enclosed by a bigger image of a second Rex” (ibid., 258). The Creation. The God of this world, who revealed himself to Žėkas, “spoke a lot about the make-up and development of the universe” (Žėkas 2004, 88). “At first a large energetic field was born” (ibid.), which, by “spreading and crys- tallizing itself” (ibid.), generated our world as we know it. One of Čiurlionis’ major works is the thirteen-panel cycle Creation of the World (1905–1906). “I have had the idea of painting it all my life – he wrote –. This is the creation of the world, only not ours according to the Bible but some other fantastic world” (Kazokas 2009, 138). Particularly the second (or first) panel, “an out- standing abstract work” (ibid. 141), conveys the idea of a primeval field of energy spreading through the first movement of the universe. In the twelfth panel, familiar symbols of the Lithuanian mythology return, including the žaltys, the sacred snake, and the stars. Atlantis. Povilas incorporates in his revelations the (theosophical) theme of subsequent races appearing on Earth. God tells him: “You people are the third and the last great race in the history of this planet” (Žėkas 2004, 89). The first two races were Lemuria and Atlantis, both popular references in modern occulture. Atlantis has been located almost everywhere. Not far from Merkinė and Druskininkai lies the scenic Raigardas Valley, a source of fascination for Čiurlionis, who depicted it in a 1907–1908 triptych. Local lore, still preserved in information packages for tourists and certainly well known to the artist, main- tains that in the valley once “stood a large city, later swallowed into the earth” (“Raigardas Valley Scenic Preserve” 2013), yet another version of the ubiquitous Atlantis story. The myth of Atlantis, a civilization with ancient rituals and advanced technologies, may also have inspired some of Čiurlionis’ fantastic visions of cities with both pagan and modernistic features. The Devil. Žėkas’ book reports a quite mysterious incident, where one Kęstutis Ričardas knocks at Povilas’ door in the night, is received in his home and gradually tries to take control of the Pyramid movement. One night Povilas’ mother hears Kęstutis repeating: “I shall rule there. Once I destroy them, I shall be rewarded. This was [the] promise made by my ruler” (Žėkas 2004, 72).

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Povilas, who has been already forewarned by a dream where a “black bird” tries to hurt him with its beak (ibid., 68), asks Kęstutis to leave. He is later killed when a truck runs over him (ibid., 64). We are led to wonder whether Kęstutis’ “ruler” is in fact the devil. The devil is not absent in local folklore, and in the Raigardas Valley the village of Švendubrė hosts what is popularly called the Devil’s Rock, probably a prehistoric sacred stone, which is connected to several legends about the devil. Čiurlionis’ friend, the painter Žmuidzinavičius, assembled a large collection of popular artifacts representing the devil, which now attracts many tourists to the museum bearing his name in Kaunas. In Fantasy (The Demon) (1909), Čiurlionis represented in the shape of a huge black bird what for several interpreters is the devil – although it can also be the Angel of death who, according to Žėkas, helps the spirit to leave the body and continue its journey (ibid., 109). Pyramids. One of the reason Povilas is successful is that many claim to be cured of serious illnesses at the Pyramid. Both in Warsaw and in Druskininkai “if one of the family had a headache or toot-ache, Čiurlionis would make the pain stop with no medication,” and “practiced certain parapsychological powers himself, such as […] healing by the laying on of hands” (Di Milia 1980, 51). In Merkinė healing is through the energy of the Pyramid, and pyramids and pyramid-like constructions do play a prominent role in Čiurlionis’ paintings. The Altar (1909) belongs to the quite productive Čiurlionis’s last year of acti vity. It may refer to “ancient cults of the sun” (Kazokas 2009, 263). It has also been mentioned as possible evidence of Čiurlionis’ interest in Freemasonry (Botto 1990a; Botto 1990b), and Italian futurist poet Carlo Belloli (1922–2003) reported a rumor that the Lithuanian artist in Warsaw “ joined Freemasonry and achieved the 30th degree (Kadosh)” (Belloli 1964, 109). The rumor, however, does not seem corroborated by evidence. The last Sonata cycle painted by Čiurlionis is Sonata of the Pyramids (1908–1909). It consists of three paintings: Allegro, Andante and Scherzo (or Finale). We can divide the paintings into planes and sub-planes, representing the past, the present, and the future. The pyramids are depicted as places where humans can experience “the intervention of higher cosmic powers” (Kazokas 2009, 241), which inter alia prepare for reincarnation, symbolized by the palm trees. “The pyramid created by man mirrors the basic form of the triangle in its construction, and its purpose is to harbor the mummy until the next reincarnation, as there is no death in Čiurlionis’ philosophy” (ibid., 245). Ancient structures – including, on the left side of Scherzo, some “very similar to the ruins of the castle of Vilnius” (ibid., 244) – are represented next to fantastic, modernistic buildings. This is similar to the concept of the original 2002

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Pyramid in Merkinė, which is both very ancient in its shape and modernistic in its materials. Allegro, in Čiurlionis’ Sonata, also shows rays reaching the pyramids of the second plane (Figure 24.8). Žėkas explains: “the power of this Pyramid us also made stronger by rays that connect us with God” (Žėkas 2004, 93). A visit to the Pyramid in Merkinė is an experience of the light: and in both the Allegro and Andante of Čiurlionis’ cycle the pyramids have one side illuminated with what appear to symbolize the light of “divine intervention” (Kazokas 2009, 241). For Čiurlionis these cycles are “sonatas,” sets of musical paintings to be always “heard” as well as seen. And Žėkas tells of mysterious sounds which “moved towards the Pyramid,” “got closer to the Pyramid and seemed to have gone inside of it” (Žėkas 2004, 36). Finally Allegro and Andante shows many spheres, not just one sun, at the top of the pyramids. Žėkas had a vision of shin- ing spheres that “would then slowly move towards the Pyramid” (ibid., 40). The Dome. In 2009, seven years after the Pyramid was built, a revelation from God told Žėkas that a huge dome should be built over the Pyramid and that construction would be of immense importance. The dome is indeed impressive, and at first may seem out of place in a Lithuanian forest, an argu- ment used by those who claimed that it should be demolished. However, it seems less unusual if one looks at one of Čiurlionis’ most well known paintings, the Fairy Tale of the Kings (1908–1909). It is one of the few paintings the artist cared to explain, and a strong expression of Lithuanian nationalism (Figure 24.9). Old Lithuania in fact was historically, for a period, a monarchy with two kings. Here, in the darkness and beauty of a Lithuanian forest, the kings hold in their hand a dome radiating light and encasing other constructions that, Čiurlionis explained, “represents the radiance of Lithuanian culture, which is called by history to say its word” (Kazokas 2009, 261). The resemblance between Čiurlionis’ dome and the dome in Merkinė is indeed striking.

Conclusions

In general, the critical attitudes toward the Catholic Church and organized religion that we met during the research of the Pyramid of Merkinė phenomenon correspond to several characteristics of contemporary spirituality, which also exists outside Lithuania. As Sutcliffe suggests, the concept of spirituality has nowadays replaced the idea of the New Age (Sutcliffe 2003, 223). While organized religion is considered with a critical distance, attention shifts toward symbolic resources such as nature and spirituality. The visitors of the Pyramid of Merkinė did not identify themselves as New Agers (Figure 24.10). They rather

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Figure 24.8 Čiurlionis, Sonata of the Pyramids: Allegro (1909). described themselves as spiritual people somewhat critical of the Catholic Church, thus echoing similar features of an emerging spirituality milieu in other societies (Roof 1994; Heelas 1996; Wuthnow 1998; Heelas and Woodhead 2005). It remains unclear, however, whether such tendencies show the decline of the New Age phenomenon or just mark its evolution.

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Figure 24.9 Čiurlionis, Fairy Tale of the Kings (1908–1909).

In our view, there is a strong sense of continuity, whether the phenomenon is called “New Age” or “spirituality.” Both represent a contemporary form of popular religion, in the sense that ideas and practices that exist in a certain social environment are beyond the control of religious organizations. Any study of the religious field of a given society should pay attention to both forms of religiosity, official and popular, and their interconnections. In Lithuania, New Age spirituality constitutes a form of popular religion that is different from, yet intertwined in multiple ways with hegemonic Catholicism, which still provides “a common material and meaningful framework for living through, talking about and acting upon social orders characterized by domina- tion” (Roseberry 1994, 361). This form of popular culture is not only found among what Gramsci called the subaltern classes. It interacts with occulture, which for multiple reasons in the 19th and early 20th century has been prominently expressed through visual

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Figure 24.10 The Cupola in Merkinė.

arts (Kokkinen 2013). Italian historian of art Andrea Botto claimed that Kazys Šimonis (1887–1978) was the only Lithuanian painter who, in a sense, “continued” Čiurlionis, who died young and had no pupils (Botto 1990b, 16). Internationally, the acclaimed mystical painter Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947), a member of the Theosophical Society and the husband of Helena Roerich (1879–1955), who claimed to have received by revelation a new teaching called Agni Yoga, publicly acknowledged his debt to Čiurlionis (Roerich [1936] 1994). The Lithuanian artist did see some of Roerich’s early works in St. Petersburg and did not make much of them, comparing unfavorably Roerich with Stabrowski (Kazokas 2009, 69). Today, however, Roerich is better known than Stabrowski. Although Roerich was born in Russia, his family originated from Latvia. He kept many connections with Latvia, and may be regarded as part of a larger Baltic occulture. As for Lithuanian artists, Šimonis, like Čiurlionis, liked to paint pyramids. Oscar Milosz had already noticed the connection when in 1927 he wrote a book- let to introduce an exhibition by Šimonis in Paris (Milosz [1927] 2013). Milosz claimed that both Čiurlionis and Šimonis were sons of a very old Lithuanian tradition, starting with paganism and including folklore, reminiscences of the

LITHUANIAN OCCULTURE AND THE PYRAMID OF MERKINĖ 437 common origins of Indians and Lithuanians, esoteric Christianity, Renaissance philosophies of the nature – Milosz mentioned that Paracelsus (1493–1541) once visited Lithuania –, and even Masonic lore. All this became part of Lithuanian religion and, if we want to use a modern word, Lithuanian occulture. And genius loci. Although we do not claim that Žėkas consciously borrowed from Čiurlionis6 – and pyramids, in particular, are found in many modern religious, esoteric and philosophical movements around the world –, the many similarities between the religious activist and the artist active in the same area are not purely coincidental either. Both the enchanted worlds of Čiurlionis and the enchanted world built by Žėkas in Česukai are part of the same Lithuanian occulture. It is not necessary to assume that Žėkas read books about Čiurlionis and was directly inspired by them. Genius loci is enough to explain how Žėkas found “in the air,” in songs, in legends, in the tales of those who visited him, and no doubt in his own mystical experiences, the same key themes which once created the magic in the paintings and music of Čiurlionis, which in turn are an essential feature of contemporary Lithuanian popular culture and religion.

References

Ališauskienė, M. 2012a. “The New Age Milieu in Lithuania: Popular Catholicism or Religious Alternative?” In Ališauskienė and Schröder, eds, Religious Diversity in Post- Soviet Society: Ethnographies of Catholic Hegemony and the New Pluralism in Lithuania.Farnham: Ashgate, 151–167. Ališauskienė, M. 2012b. “Some Aspects of Leadership in Neo-Hindu Religious Movement: The Case of Art of Living Foundation in Lithuania.” Acta Orientalia Vilnensia. Vol. 11 (2). 49–62. Ališauskienė, M. and Schröder, I.W. (eds), 2012. Religious Diversity in Post-Soviet Society: Ethnographies of Catholic Hegemony and the New Pluralism in Lithuania. Farnham: Ashgate. Andriušytė-Žukienė, R. 2004. M.K. Čiurlionis: Tarp Simbolizmo ir Modernizmo. Vilnius: Versus Aureus. Asprem, E. 2012. Arguing with Angels: Enochian Magic and Modern Occulture. Albany: State University of New York Press.

6 In correspondence with Introvigne, Žėkas explained that his personal relationship with Čiurlionis was mostly built through music. Povilas’ mother, on the other hand, is an amateur painter and she is quite familiar with Čiurlionis’ work and ideas. Žėkas also supplied Introvigne with pictures of drawing by his mother, where an attempt to reproduce Čiurlionis’ themes is quite apparent.

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