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Cultic Theatres and Ritual Drama

Cultic Theatres and Ritual Drama

Ritual drama subject research
Links to institutions and papers
Posted on the night of the full cold moon

Explaining Cultic Theatres and Ritual drama to the modern non-christian requires a definition. Rather than a definition an example would be:  The Cultus of Aphrodite would be practiced in the Temple of Aphrodite and/or the Sanctuary of Aphrodite. [A cult is the care of a God or Goddess. The cultus is the system or variety of religious worship] A cultic theater play or ritual and enactment is what they performed during feasts as well as for other ceremonies. As far as we know some of the Cultic Theater and Ritual Drama performed in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the latter half of the 20th century after WWII had not been enacted or performed for thousands of years. With help from the academic community in the University of California and The California State University, research and practical knowledge was shared between practitioners and professors.

One of the questions discussed with the professors was the subject of Cultic Theatres and Ritual Drama which was a major obstruction to the recognition of ancient religious practices by the state, local and federal governments of the United States of America. This is NOT a small issue and was directly tied into the 1960’s and 1970’s religious civil rights movements. This simple question of what was a governmentally recognizable religious observance of a prayer, a ritual or a rite was and still is a major topic when we begin to consider various forms of care and worship that were indigenous public and private observances, rituals and ceremonies. Some of these early observances were forcibly broken up by various US federal, state and local police agencies. Indeed the problem remains to this very day that people do not understand that the religions are now 100% legal. The pieces are finally in place to accurately describe and protect one of the most sacred American liberties. The Freedom of Religion

UN Fight for Freedom Poster 1943
Poster created during the Second World War (1943), according to the Declaration of the United Nations of 1942. This poster is important because it represents the origins of the United Nations as a wartime alliance (before it was a concrete organization).
As a work of Office of War Information, a branch of the United States Federal Government, this work is in public domain.

From Wikipedia:  Cult is literally the “care” (Latin cultus) owed to deities and to temples, shrines, or churches. Cult is embodied in ritual and ceremony.
Its present or former presence is made concrete in temples, shrines and churches, and cult images, including cult images and votive offerings at votive sites. For more on the Ancient Greek religions or cults please click the eponymous link here.

Google books description of Cultic Theatres and Ritual Drama:
[full description]
This well-illustrated book thoroughly investigates the relations between East and West in the Ancient world as seen through the lens of ancient religious practices. The author has concentrated on one aspect of the cult, the ritual drama, and its setting, the cultic theatre. The point of departure is the presence of a great amount of theatrical structures in the sanctuaries in Greece and Italy. Many of these structures were not proper theatres in the modern sense of the word, but rather primitive rows of seats, ‘a place to watch from’. These structures have never before been examined from a functional viewpoint, and the author proposes that their primary raison d’etre was the performance of ritual dramas at the great seasonal feasts. For various reasons, which she describes, the author points to the relative obscurity of this religious institution in the Greek and Roman world, and notes that as a result, it has received scant attention from scholars. In contrast, it is well known that ritual dramas had been performed in the distant past at the great seasonal feasts of the Orient, and the book includes an excellent overview of the development of this institution as well as the setting chosen for it in the Egyptian, Syrio-Phoenician and Anatolian cults, both in their homelands and in their new host countries in the West. This is a fascinating book for archaeologists and classicists, as well as for anthropologists and historians of religion, but it also gives food for thought for those who simply want to learn more about Oriental religious practices and the origins of theatre.  [end Google books full description]

I/we were taught that when those ritual dramas were performed in those temples or sanctuaries it was said that the actual deities were present in their spirit forms. The actors and participants who also included the priests and priestesses who were said to be the vessel of the spirit of whatever deity it was. They were honored as such because for a moment in time they were part of the pantheon or all the gods of the people. Modern paganism perhaps has forgotten that and we have waited lifetimes for confirmation of what we were taught as children and what our ancestors believed and passed down through the ages. Some of the rites and rituals had not been done for thousands of years so we drew down the gods and goddesses for the souls of all humanity.

We do not have to doubt that what we were taught was true anymore. We also now do not have to worry about going to hell for participating in our first religion and first nations cultural and religious practices. They are legitimate practices and can either be thought of as cultural activity—if you are of some other faith—as well as the primary spiritual connection in your life.

Over 50 years ago there was a special church group in San Francisco and Los Angeles called the church of opposition. We performed public enactments (ritual dramas) of myths and legends as correctly as we could with the help of the academic community. . It helped start something that 50+ years later led to several classical, neo-classical and modern pagan faiths and religions to finally be accepted by the US federal government.

Universität Hamburg - research, teaching, education, homepage

Archaeological Institute
Managing Director 
Prof. dr. Inge Nielsen
Johnsalle 35, 20148 Hamburg

Inge Nielsen Cultic Theatres and Ritual Drama in ancient Rome
Inge Nielsen  University of Hamburg, Archäologisches Institut,
Department Member |  Archaeology  Hamburg, Germany

First Paragraph:
When one studies ancient sanctuaries there is a tendency to focus on their primary functions, namely the rituals surrounding the cult itself, that is, the sacrifice to and the worship and the invocation of the deity. The historians of religions are of course well aware that the sanctuaries during the festivals, which were the only times when they were really the centre of religious action, served many secondary functions as well. The classical archaeologists have in this connection concentrated primarily on the so-called pan-Hellenic sanctuaries in Greece with their installations for sports, drama, choral singing, poetry and epic and, to a lesser degree, the sanctuaries for ludi in Rome. It is, however, important to remember that both in Greece and Italy not only this kind of sanctuaries, but also the “ordinary” sanctuaries, that is, those, which were not specially adapted to that kind of games, served other functions than the primary ones as well. One of these functions, I think, was the performance of ritual dramas, which may be defined as non-literary dramas based on the myth of the deity in the sanctuary in question, and performed at the great seasonal festivals, at which the myth illustrated the power of the god to conquer the various crises which society and its members had to go through. These crises could be, and often were in the agrarian society of antiquity, connected to the various transitions of the agrarian year, like sowing and harvest. But they could also refer to the transitions connected to the worshippers, such as the transition from child to puberty, the preparation of the young girl to her wedding, the change from youth to citizen, or, of course be connected to death, the so-called rites of passage.[end of first paragraph]

 

JSTOR Home

From the American Journal of Archaeology
https://www.jstor.org/journal/amerjarch

Used under the Open Access Creative Commons License
Changes made to formatting and coding.

Book Review
Cultic Theatres and Ritual Drama: A Study in Regional Development and Religious Interchange Between East and West in Antiquity
https://www.ajaonline.org/book-review/480


[First paragraph]
Ritual drama was an important feature in antiquity—more important than the paucity of evidence suggests. No scripts have survived, since they were generally unnecessary, though we have a few accounts from inscriptions or literary sources about what was done and said. Ritual drama might typically be a reenactment of a myth, such as a fight between a king/god and a monster; the disappearance, return, and sacred marriage of a young god; or wanderings in the underworld. Historians of Greek and Roman drama would naturally like to know much more. A few paintings and reliefs seem to depict costumed performers of ritual drama; often they were priests or cult members, not professional actors. Masks discovered at religious sanctuaries certainly indicate the existence of religious performances. [End first paragraph]

Pontus Hellstrom Uppsala University, 
Department och archaeology and ancient history,
Emeritus |  Ancient Greek Architecture

A Cultic Theatre at Karian Labraunda

Antike.Architektur.Geschichte
Edited by Stephan Faust, Martina Seifert und Leon Ziemer

[First paragraph]
In her work Cultic Theatres and Ritual Drama, Inge Nielsen has shown that many sanctuaries in the ancient Mediterranean world can be expected to have had a theatron of some kind for ritual dramas or performances. Among her examples feature some sanctuaries in Karia, such as those of Hekate at Lagina, Artemis at Amyzon, and Zeus at Panamara 1. I suggest that Labraunda should be added to the list 2. The written sources are silent about ceremonies and rituals at this sanctuary of Zeus, but the archaeological material may provide some clues. In this paper I propose that the Monumental stairs in the Propylon courtyard at Labraunda may have been used as the theatron of a cultic theatre and not only as processional steps 3. The Propylon courtyard, the forecourt of the sanctuary, would have served as the orchestra.
[End of first paragraph]

The above reference came to my attention thanks to
Aytekin Büyüközer who bookmarked it.


Selcuk University (Selçuk Üniversitesi), Archaeology, Faculty Member. One of her recent  papers is this one: “The Sanctuary of Hekate at Lagina in the 4th Century BC”, Arkhaia Anatolika 1 (2018), 15-30. DOI: 10.32949/Arkhaia.2018.1   (Caria) www.selcuk.edu.tr

 

A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World , First Edition. 

Edited by Rubina Raja and Jörg Rüpke.© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The Logo and Seal of the Freie Universität Berlin
Susanne Gödde 
Institut für Religionswissenschaft der Freien Universität Berlin

Chapter 25
Theater
Susanne Gödde
[The first two paragraphs]

Introduction: Theater and Cult
Throughout Antiquity, Greek – and later Roman – theater was closely tied to religious practice due to its integration into religious festivals and its spatial proximity to temples and altars. Whereas in classical Athens the performances of tragedies, comedies, and satyr plays had been restricted to the cult of Dionysus, this exclusivity gradually dissolved, with the result that plays could, especially in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, also be performed at festivals in honor of other gods. Starting with the first Roman stone theater, the famous Theater of Pompey in Rome, dedicated in 55 BCE, one occasionally finds the combination of theater and temple within a single structure, unified by a strict spatial arrangement along a shared axis. In his standard monograph, John Arthur Hanson (1959) described these structures as “theater‐temples”, but their function is subject to ongoing debate (cf. Sear 2006: 44–5). Despite the historical and “genetic” proximity between theater and cult, it remains difficult to decide whether the theater of Antiquity was a sacred or profane institution, not least because the border between these two spheres – especially in Greek culture – is so fluid.
Archaeological evidence, however, suggests that theatrical performances also took place as part of cult – in forms quite independent of the written evidence of the surviving plays. Inge Nielsen (2002) and others have shown that structures similar to theaters existed in many Minoan (3000 to 1050 BCE) and Mycenian (1600-1050 BCE) palace‐ and temple‐complexes. The most well‐known are the stepped “theatral areas” in Cnossus and Phaestum (Nielsen 2002: 69–76).Temples of later date also show assembly and audience areas (theatra) which may have been used for cultic performances (cf. Anti 1947: 27–51; Sear 2006: 44–6; critical of the idea that these were predecessors of later theaters: Pöhlmann 1981: 136; Isler 2002:260). Based on the assumption that so‐called “cultic dramas” were staged in these locations, structures of this kind are termed “cultic theaters” or “sanctuary theaters” in modern ~~~
[end of first two paragraphs]
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The Gypsy Pagan Caravan Religions at the Crossroads

The National Crossroads Sanctuary and Shrine of Hekate and Venus for the Gypsy, the Pagan and the Nomad Caravan religions, dedicated in 2000 to the memory of all of our ancestors who perished in the two world wars.

Hekate is the Anatolian Greek Goddess of Magic Spirit Protection at The Crossroads for all peoples as well as for travelers. This Sanctuary and Wayside Shrine is “technically” Anatolian Hekate: Venus or Anatolian Hekate: Aphrodite

If you are looking for links to your local California USA Consulates:
Los Angeles Consulates 
San Francisco Consulates
San Diego Consulates

Please note that we are removing references to specific religious groups that participated and supported us years ago in light of domestic terrorism events in the USA by people that do not understand that the religions represented here pre-date their religions, sometimes by thousands of years.

Q&A:
Is it open to the public?
NO access is by appointment only you can click to text or click to call anytime at the bottom of the posts.

What is the logo?
That is a long answer it is a combination of the the crescent triple moon and the star of venus [the planet] it was meant to be used on a pole or standard in the old days. You can go here to see a similar standard being used in Rome. If you trace the orbit of Venus it traces out as a lotus flower (India) or water lilly (Egypt) it makes a rotating 5 point star.

What is it for?
The original first peoples of the whole world before the common era (BCE) used to meet at the crossroads to discuss news and trade with one another. Usually but not always there was some kind of a semi-permanent (seasonal, only for a time)  or permanent shrine to either —Hekate or Venus —or some other god or goddess. These stopping points or gathering spots sometimes had people who lived near there.

Is it Racist?
No It is Anti-Racist, Anti-Prejudice and Anti-Abuse. Traditionally if men and women were denied access to sanctuaries, temples, churches and sacred places they often turned to the older religions and belief systems. One of the oldest household protection deities was and still is Hekate. The difference is Hekate is both good and evil.

If you lived in a town, village or city you practiced the public religion inside that town or city and there was often a shrine outside the city walls (or in the home) to leave an offering or a prayer (votive prayer) for the opposition gods and goddesses. These were the private gods and goddesses (1) that did NOT have public or state sponsored temples. If you became lucky because of what you did at the crossroads shrine it often grew into a village or town itself. Due to the fact that these crossroads shrines were outside the city walls, the laws and customs were different out there than inside the city. This is where we get the phrases outside the law and the law of the (wild) land from. This is the ancient legal  basis of the Law of the Land and The Law of the Sea. If you met at the crossroads it was similar to meeting on the high seas. 

Here are two pictures illustrating what we are talking about when we speak about shrines. Click on them for a larger view please:

Pagan Shrine Search: Source link to those pictures

Key Concepts:
City or State Public Temples <–please click pictures link.
The Law of the Land : The area outside the protection of the laws and the security forces of the city or state.

Go to the observances section OR the home page for the latest post.

Thank you for visiting us on the Internet.

-gtk

More Questions and Answers:

Is this a Joke?
People ask me is it real? This looks like a joke. I/We thought it was a joke when they did the ceremony for The Gypsy Pagan Caravan Religions Shrine and Sanctuary?

No it is not a joke.
The high priestess and leader of the council of the parent organization of the [un named church] performed the first Anatolian Hekate Venus Aphrodite ceremonies in 2000 I believe. When she stayed in Redlands California 1500 people attended the opening over 2 weekends.

Here are a couple of pictures of the actual physical shrine that faces a three way crossroads to the north.

Who was in the original church?
Everybody,… Celtic, Egyptian, German, Greek, Iraqi, Jewish, Libyan, Ukrainian, Italian, Russian +++ members of the Church in Southern California the answer is Yes. Were they considered leaders because of their membership in the church that provided the legitimacy to the “PaganGypsy” movement which was taking place at the same time as the American Indian Movement? Yes.  Did they represent the European and Southwest Asian and North African tribes in the USA to The People of California and The People of the United States of America? Yes.

Is it recognizable and repeatable? Yes. Are the people that practice those religions countable in large numbers Yes. Was the parent organization a national organization. Yes Did it publish a newsletter and books talking about diverse religious practices? Arguably yes it did subject of course to the criticism that it was not academically rigorous enough and did not go far enough, but that takes time. Was it supported by academicians? Yes. Was it deemed a legitimate part of local religious culture? Yes it/they/us was recognized by mainline religions as being the legitimate heirs to a ancient heritage. Why?

It was basically looked upon as what it was: a legitimate world religions study group and a way to get together in council with other family, tribal and religious leaders. It also provided cultural support to  foreign government consulates in:
Los Angeles

San Francisco

[San Diego]

Please see the links above to find your consulate.

Not many people are aware that many foreign governments have diplomatic consuls in California for their constituents when they travel here. It was sad when the Church moved to New York after creating this Hekate Phosphorus Sanctuary and Shrine.

Did that happen with foreign nationals? Yes. Why? Their family members had emigrated to the USA and they came to Los Angeles to settle as well as see the sights. Occasionally in group get togethers they shared information. Where? In parking lot and public park discussions with each other.  Cultures that would never ever meet together, except at the other end of a gun got to talk while on vacation with their families and extended families in Los Angeles.

Why was the crossroads temple shrine considered holy ground and a sanctuary? Caravan tradition is the fire is sacred. Her fires have been lit for thousands of years as Hekate (magic, spirit, protection) or for Venus Aphrodite (woman, ancestress) for longer still. Wherever the nomad caravan stopped for the night that is where their shrine or sanctuary exists. The tradition and legend is that their fires have never gone out, there is always a flame burning somewhere in the world for Hekate Venus and other Gods and Goddesses.

It was the only place you could meet with different nations and tribes and not get in trouble with your own group of people.

Why? It was fine to visit historical temples and shrines when you were abroad like the temple in Lagina Turkey. Why was that one in particular important to negotiations? It was Greek and not in Greece. It was Roman but not in Rome. It was Egyptian but not in Egypt. One of her days is the sliver of moonlight which occurs all over the world and has significance in Northwestern Europe as well as Asia Pacific as the night the dead armies and processions march. This is a simple answer but many people refused to acknowledge anything that was tied into one particular location.

Why the [un-named church] and not something else? It’s hard to describe exactly why but it got associated with certain mainline communities in Los Angeles, probably due to the other people that were in the death camps in Europe. In general these were the people that were persecuted and killed in the World Wars in Europe and the Middle East that escaped. They practiced their original religions or in some cases were trying to reconstruct what had been lost in the fires of war. They also did not want unsolicited members and did not want the general public involved hence the worst name possible for christians.  It was also tied into some older middle eastern families that tried to get into the first United Nations conference when it was founded in San Francisco CA in 1945. They lived in Southern California and wanted a voice in that process. The [un-named church] became a defacto coalition church with access to many religious advisors across the USA. This was not disseminated widely to other [un-named church] members. This was mostly a private church leadership project adjunct to the publicly espoused and lobbied version which changed over time and eventually broke up into about 5 different types of what the conservative christians called “Satanism”. The most famous quote I have from that period is probably this: “Satan does not exist, here let me prove it to you.” The word S-T-N means opposition.

FYI:  In the 1970’s and 1980’s in parts of the USA Buddhism Judaism and Islam were also considered “Satanism”. So don’t feel too bad about it these were the Martin Luther King years.

Regarding the UN church connection stories:
In the southern California middle eastern and mediterranean communities there were potential delegates to the UN when it was forming. These people had large populations sometimes in their home countries for some examples please see the post The Amazigh: The Free People   and a search for the Chaldeans. (The Chaldeans  are the second or new Babylonian empire “nation” that exists in Iraq and abroad.) Sometimes a minority party or political family ended up being a countries delegates to the San Francisco conferences and other parties felt left out. In some cultures a national church sometimes helps to negotiate between nations. The only place it seemed that was acceptable  to negotiate in was in a original classical temple. At that time there were none available in the USA  so the communities involved nominated Anton LaVey and his church as the only Supra National church that was acceptable to everyone. That became a reality in Southern California for a number of reasons and remains a mystery to a lot of people.

The official United States of America Federal Government recognition of the pagan religions: including classical, neo-classical and modern paganism are available from the  Faith-and-Belief-Codes-for-Reporting-Personnel-Data-of-Service-Members-ocr  Link to the DOD Source  This took effect on March 31, 2017. One of the long term goals of a lot of people 50 years ago and continuing to this day was recognition by the US Military and as of March 31, 2017 there are a number of what we would call Pagan, Neo-Pagan and Wicca OR Classical Neo-Classical and Modern Pagan religions. CoS was involved years ago with this issue but as years went by we lost hope because of the incredible discrimination and abuse.  Eventually the people in their respective religions did it themselves. This was and is a extremely emotional issue and we say thank you for your perseverance.

 

 

From The Gypsy Pagan Caravan Crossroads Shrine of Hekate Venus
“The Gypsy Pagan Caravan Shrine of The Crossroads (Hekate Venus/Aphrodite) was dedicated by the council of the native world religions called the church of the opposition. [ église d’opposition, שָׂטַן, церква опозиції opozytsiyna tserkva, Oppositionskirche, Kościół opozycyjny, opoziční kostel ] They represent the tribal indigenous religions of the first nations or first peoples. Called the people of the pagans path or collectively the pagan nation by American Indian Movement nations — currently they are considered the Pagan, Neo-Pagan and Wicca religions in the United States. The organization that started the drive to counting the uncounted religions in the United States as well as fighting for religious civil rights of sanctuary, safe passage and safe surrender in California 70+ years ago is represented here.”

All we all we are is us.

(1) Depending on the empire and/or epoch your god or goddess was worshipped in a state sponsored temple sanctuary or it was consigned to seemingly the middle of nowhere.

Pagan:
A person with religious beliefs different from those of the main religions of the world. It is a common belief that witches and pagans are worshipers of the devil, but they are not. Synonyms: pagans, infidels, idolaters, idolaters, paynim

Nomad Caravan:
A group of people, especially merchants or pilgrims, traveling together through a desert in Asia or North Africa. It is believed that dogs got their name from traveling with merchant caravans.

Property Note:
It is a private personal shrine  that is closed to the public except by appointment only. The City of Redlands California requested that it be permanently fenced and locked with no trespassing signs displayed, a phone number and a explanation of the site available to the public. Thank you for your consideration of the residential neighborhood.

Created June 20 2018 revised March 18, 2019