The Wicker Man Cometh to Malta

The Celtic Wicker-Man Human Sacrifice Ritual

According to the Times of Malta this morning, somebody has just invented a Man on Fire ritual in order to raise funds for a local charity. Apparently a giant wooden statue of a man was set on fire and the burning celebrated by a troupe of female dancing fire jugglers. This seems to confirm the observations made by many anthropologists that rites generally precede beliefs. The ritual is done simply because it feels fun and mythic explanations are invented after the fact to justify it. While the ritual may not have a belief system pegged on to it, this does not make it meaningless. G K Chesterton observed that the decline in organised religion is usually accompanied by a rise in pagan superstition, so this new ritual may say a lot about secularisation in Malta. It will be interesting to see if there will be anything like the same level of outrage on the Times comments board that aspects of local festas seem to provoke. Although this is admittedly a far less noisy ritual, the message it sends is honestly barbaric and clearly conforms to a re-enactment of human sacrifice, which the literary theorist Rene Girard places at the foundation of pre-Christian human civilizations. The man on fire is a phallic figure, standing tall and erect. This festival is emerging at a time when many feel the Summer is drawing to a close and just after the demise of Malta's political giant: Dom Mintoff. Could this also herald the establishment of a New Age feminine orientated spirituality? And is Maltese religiosity shifting from Apollonian Control to Dionysian Delirium?