Rites and Rituals in Modern Traditional Roman Religion

Rites and rituals pose severe problems in those religions inspired to an antique tradition: above all problems of "meaning" and "sense" because in this case the problem is how define and understand the meaning of functions based on values typical of another "time". First of all, this difficulty derives from the fact that "we live our time" which is not only chronologically but also conceptually very far from the time when these rites were imagined, designed, lived and practiced in everyday life.

There is thus a problematic fact in practical terms: today it is very difficult for us to concretely make a relatively simple rite like the "sacrifice" in its original form not only in practical terms but also in sacral ones because we can hardly imagine the inner meaning of this rite. If it is very difficult for us the sacrifice, it is impossible to think about more complex rites like the October Equus.

When speaking about a problem of "sense", I mean that the problem is not how make a mechanical repetition of some acts and gestures as well as the repetition of some formulas from the Tradition: there are many examples of these rites which are mere "commemorations". These commemorations lack a symbolic "content" and the link to a precise systems of values and a perception of the world: this lack makes these rites meaningless flabby parodies. It 's like having the alphabet of an ancient language without having the related syntax: we can put together some letters but we don't know what we have written.

Our times are extremely far from that system of values and visions: maybe we have never been so far like in present times. We live in a Christian culture and, above all, we live in the modern technological society.

Antique rites were linked to a precise and complex symbolic code, but many antique symbols have been reversed, forgotten or ignored. These antique symbols were linked to the role and position mankind occupies within the natural order. Today all this has changed also because mankind lives completely disconnected from the natural cycles and dynamics. This is the reason why for example the sacrifice is presently inconceivable because it had the aim, among others, to make natural the act of eating animals being a form of violence which "makes the living disappear". Sacrifice becomes a remedy to justify how what is disappearing is necessary to make something else survive (macte: grow!). Sacrifice is the act through which an unavoidable violence necessary to survive is driven to an aware consciousness. Without this consciousness, eating is just a mechanical act completely disconnected to Nature. These considerations can be extented to all the aspects of human existence: but in the techological era all acts are, and can be only, mechanical acts. After all, we live in the Khali Yuga time.

For the homo technologicus antique rites are uncoinceivable, ridicolous, grotesque. Antique symbols are meaninless, no-use, naive in the technological society. Also monoteistic religions, notwithstanding their great apparatus, are likely to be empty boxes.

What can we do?

We can try to reconstruct a religious link with Nature, her manifestations, her beats, her rhythms, rediscovering the divine soul of Nature. The problem is not to fight technology and its gadgets pursuing a "natural heaven" in an eternal nostalgia: we are men and women living our times. We have to reconstruct an aware consciousness with the support of this great ancient heritage which represents an immense base of great wisdom. It is clear enough that the Antique Roman Religion, as it was in the past, is dead, but what once has dead maybe was not worth dying.

On these bases it is possible "to build": maybe we can build only poor shacks over splendid ruins. But it is better to live in these shacks than remaining in the ruins passively suffering a decaying world.

I think that when any act in our everyday life is a rite, maybe we are moving towards the "Via": this is a little contribution to be and remain awake. Family, friends, meals, civil duties, rensponsibilites towards the others, the respect for Nature, anything can become again a sacred act. In this way we can see again the "content" of the world around us in all its facets: and the "divine" is always hidden there.