Danas nam je divan dan, divan dan, divan dan...

Takoreći, divandan.

(Od glagola divaniti.)

Od plesa veštica preko krađe drveta do ljubavnih poruka

Prvi maj se u Nemačkoj ne vezuje toliko za radnička prava koliko za vesele a ponekad i čudne običaje koji datiraju još iz paganskih vremena.

Frankfurt, Hajdelberg - Iako je za dobar deo sveta 1. maj pre svega Međunarodni praznik rada, za Nemce je taj dan uglavnom najmanje važan po radničkim demonstracijama u Čikagu i osvajanju radničkih radničkih prava.

Prvi dan maja se u Nemačkoj mnogo više obeležava u skladu sa drevnim običajima, koji potiču još i paganskih vremena, a kojima se pozdravlja dolazak „pravog" proleća i odlazak zime. Doduše, ove godine je čak i na jugu Nemačke uoči 1. maja povremeno padao sneg, a temperatura bila jednocifrena, ali to nije sprečilo Nemce da ispoštuju i neke naizgled bizarne i smešne običaje.

Prvomajska magija u Nemačkoj zapravo počinje 30. aprila, a najrasprostranjeniji običaj je da se plesanjem uđe u maj.

I dok u novija vremena klubovi organizuju velike žurke, najveći broj ljudi organizuje „tancovanje" u svojim kvartovima ili kao što se to radi u Nemačkoj od 13. veka, odlaze u prirodu, najčešće šumu, gde zapale vatru i bez obzira na to da li pada kiša plešu uz muziku sve do rano ujutru.

„Tako smo u dodiru sa prirodom i dočekujemo proleće. Uvek je baš uzbudljivo i zabavno, premda ćemo se ove godine, izgleda, poprilično smrzavati", kaže tridesetogodišnja Judit Miler, koja će sa prijateljima maj dočekati na vrh brda, koji se zove Kenigštul (Kraljeva stolica) sa kojeg puca jedan od najlepših pogleda na Hajdelberg na jugozapadu Nemačke.

I dok će u velikom delu Nemačke na trgovima i oko vatre na proplancima plesati i stari i mladi, na planini Harc u centralnom delu zemlje oko vatre okupiće se „veštice".

Žene premaskirane u veštice okupljaju se na Brokenu, najvišem vrhu ove planine, gde plesom oko velike vatre zapravo oponašaju verovanja iz drevnog germanskog folklora po kojem se prilikom smene zime i proleća zli duhovi okupljaju na vrhu te planine, dok žitelji pale veliku vatru kako bi ih oterali.

Ova takozvana Valpurgijska noć predstavlja i sećanje na Svetu Valpurgu, iako ova katolička misionarka i svetica nema veze sa vešticama, već se samo 1. maja, prema katoličkom verskom kalendaru, obeležava njen dan.

Međutim, od 17. veka pagansko verovanje da se u noći pred 1. maj okupljaju veštice povezano je sa imenom ove svetice, a ceo običaj, ne samo da je Gete opisao u „Faustu", već je i postao deo popularne kulture.
„Baš kao što je u Americi postala popularna Noć veštica tako je na Harcu nezaobilazna fešta u toku Valpurgijske noći", kaže Judit, koja je pre nekoliko godina bila jedna od oko 100.000 turista koji svake godine dolaze da učestvuju u ovoj tradiciji. „Mestašca na obroncima Harca budu u potpunosti u znaku ove svetkovine. Male i veće lutke veštice mogu se videti na stablima, krovovima kuća, u prozorima kuća, a gradom šetaju krezube veštice svih uzrasta. Od starih baka do malih devojčica. Kao neki veliki veštičji maskenbal."
Da je ovaj običaj postao zabava za široke narodne mase svedoči i to da one najmlađe mogu u jednoj od planinskih banja da polažu svojevrsni veštičji ispit u spremanju čarobnih napitaka i izgovaranju čarobnih reči, nakon čega mogu da dobiju i svojevrsnu vozačku dozvolu za metlu.

„Kada padne mrak i veštice zaigraju oko vatre, svi smo morali da obiđemo dva puta oko vatre kako bismo pročistili telo i duh", seća se Judit.

I dok većina Nemaca ovaj običaj vidi kao zabavu, kritičari obeležavanje Valpurgijske noći vide kao jednu od najvažnijih satanističkih praznika. Štaviše, teoretičari zavere smatraju da je i Međunarodni praznik rada povezan sa zlom, budući da je nemački filozof Adam Vajshaupt baš 1. maja 1776. osnovao tajno društvo Iluminati.

Ipak, malo ko se u Nemačkoj obazire na ovakve tvrdnje, a poznavaoci običaja navode da ako nekome smetaju veštice neka ode u nemačku pokrajinu Brandenburg gde za 1. maj lože „majsku vatru" na kojoj spaljuju drvene figure veštica kako bi oterali svako zlo.

Međutim, najrasprostranjeniji običaj jeste podizanje majskog drveta u centru mesta ili kvarta u gradu, pri čemu drvo mora da bude visoko bar 15 metara, da je ogoljeno od grana, ali ukrašeno na vrhu cvećem a sa strane oznakama i grbovima lokalnih zanatlija, znamenitih porodica i organizacija.

I dok uveče oko ovog drveta kreće fešta uz pivo i kobasice, a momci se takmiče ko će najbrže da se popne na vrh, u Bavarskoj postoji tradicija da meštani jednog mesta pokušaju da ukradu majsko drvo susednog mesta.
Ukoliko uspeju, stavljaju ga između dve zaprege, posedaju svi na ukradeno drvo i tako se voze do svog mesta uz piće i pesmu.

Bavarci još pamte kako su pre desetak godina domišljati lopovi unajmili helikopter i njima uspeli da ukradu majsko drvo koje je postavljeno na Cugšpice, najviši planinski vrh u Nemačkoj koji se nalazi na Alpima.
Doduše, možda najlepši aspekt prvomajskih tradicija u Nemaca jeste otkrivanje tajnih ljubavi. U Bavarskoj, Baden-Virtembergu, Rajnland-Pfalcu, ali i na severu Nemačke još od 16. veka postoji običaj da mladići u ovoj noći na kuću svojih odabranica kao izraz svoje ljubavi postavljaju mlada stabla breze, uobičajeno ukrašene i sa imenom voljene.

„Ne znam da li će me dočekati grana breze. Ne verujem. Možda se neki mladić pre usudi da mi pokaže svoje simpatije tako što će me označiti na nekoj ljubavnoj fotografiji objavljenoj na 'Instagramu'", kaže naša sagovornica, dodajući da je to novi prvomajski trend koji je tako njenu sestru prošle godine spojio sa sadašnjim momkom.

(Politika, autor: Nenad Radičević, 30.04.2016. - LINK)

On 1 May 1776 Johann Adam Weishaupt founded the "Illuminati" in the Electorate of Bavaria. He adopted the name of "Brother Spartacus" within the order. Even encyclopedia references vary on the goal of the order, such as New Advent saying the Order was not egalitarian or democratic internally, but sought to promote the doctrines of equality and freedom throughout society; while others like Collier's have said the aim was to combat religion and foster rationalism in its place. (LINK)

А ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA kaže... (LINK)

Pa onda imademo i autorov kalendar...

Johann Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) (LINK)

Meet the Man Who Started the Illuminati

How did a Bavarian professor end up creating a group that would be at the center of two centuries of conspiracy theories?

BY ISABEL HERNÁNDEZ (LINK)

THE 18TH-CENTURY GERMAN thinker Adam Weishaupt would have been stunned if he had known his ideas would one day fuel global conspiracy theories, and inspire best-selling novels and blockbuster films.

Until he was 36, the vast majority of his compatriots would have been equally stunned to discover that this outwardly respectable professor was a dangerous enemy of the state, whose secret society, the Illuminati, was seen to threaten the very fabric of society.

Born in 1748 in Ingolstadt, a city in the Electorate of Bavaria (now part of modern-day Germany), Weishaupt was a descendant of Jewish converts to Christianity. Orphaned at a young age, his scholarly uncle took care of his education, and enrolled him in a Jesuit school. After completing his studies, Weishaupt became a professor of natural and canon law at the University of Ingolstadt, married, and started a family. On the surface, it was a conventional enough career-until 1784 when the Bavarian state learned of his incendiary ideas.

A closer look at his upbringing, however, reveals that Weishaupt always had a restless mind. As a boy he was an avid reader, consuming books by the latest French Enlightenment philosophers in his uncle's library. Bavaria at that time was deeply conservative and Catholic. Weishaupt was not the only one who believed that the monarchy and the church were repressing freedom of thought.

Convinced that religious ideas were no longer an adequate belief system to govern modern societies, he decided to find another form of "illumination," a set of ideas and practices that could be applied to radically change the way European states were run.

Freemasonry was steadily expanding throughout Europe in this period, offering attractive alternatives to freethinkers. Weishaupt initially thought of joining a lodge. Disillusioned with many of the Freemasons' ideas, however, he became absorbed in books dealing with such esoteric themes as the Mysteries of the Seven Sages of Memphis and the Kabbala, and decided to found a new secret society of his own.
Society of Secrets

Weishaupt was not, he said, against religion itself, but rather the way in which it was practiced and imposed. His thinking, he wrote, offered freedom "from all religious prejudices; cultivates the social virtues; and animates them by a great, a feasible, and speedy prospect of universal happiness." To achieve this, it was necessary to create "a state of liberty and moral equality, freed from the obstacles which subordination, rank, and riches, continually throw in our way."

On the night of May 1, 1776, the first Illuminati met to found the order in a forest near Ingolstadt. Bathed in torchlight, there were five men. There they established the rules that were to govern the order. All future candidates for admission required the members' consent, a strong reputation with well-established familial and social connections, and wealth.

In the beginning, the order's membership had three levels: novices, minervals, and illuminated minervals. "Minerval" referred to the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva, reflecting the order's aim to spread true knowledge, or illumination, about how society, and the state, might be reshaped.

Over the following years, Weishaupt's secret order grew considerably in size and diversity, possibly numbering 600 members by 1782. They included important people in Bavarian public life, such as Baron Adolph von Knigge and the banker Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who provided funding. Although, at first, the Illuminati were limited to Weishaupt's students, the membership expanded to included noblemen, politicians, doctors, lawyers, and jurists, as well as intellectuals and some leading writers, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. By the end of 1784, the Illuminati had 2,000 to 3,000 members.

Baron von Knigge played a very considerable role in the society's organization and expansion. As a former Freemason, he was in favor of adopting rites similar to theirs. Members of the Illuminati were given a symbolic "secret" name taken from classical antiquity: Weishaupt was Spartacus, for example, and Knigge was Philo. The membership levels also became a more complex hierarchy. There were a total of 13 degrees of initiation, divided into three classes. The first culminated in the degree of illuminatus minor, the second illuminatus dirigens, and the third, that of king.

An Inside Job

Pressures both internal and external, however, would soon put an end to the order's expansion into the upper echelons of Bavarian power. Weishaupt and Knigge increasingly fought over the aims and procedures of the order, a conflict that, in the end, forced Knigge to leave the society. At the same time, another ex-member, Joseph Utzschneider, wrote a letter to the Grand Duchess of Bavaria, supposedly lifting the lid on this most secret of societies.

The revelations were a mix of truth and lies. According to Utzschneider, the Illuminati believed that suicide was legitimate, that its enemies should be poisoned, and that religion was an absurdity. He also suggested that the Illuminati were conspiring against Bavaria on behalf of Austria. Having been warned by his wife, the Duke-Elector of Bavaria issued an edict in June 1784 banning the creation of any kind of society not previously authorized by law.

The Illuminati initially thought that this general prohibition would not directly affect them. But just under a year later, in March 1785, the Bavarian sovereign passed a second edict, which expressly banned the order. In the course of carrying out arrests of members, Bavarian police found highly compromising documents, including a defense of suicide and atheism, a plan to create a female branch of the order, invisible ink recipes, and medical instructions for carrying out abortions. The evidence was used as the basis for accusing the order of conspiring against religion and the state. In August 1787, the duke-elector issued a third edict in which he confirmed that the order was prohibited, and imposed the death penalty for membership.

Weishaupt lost his post at the University of Ingolstadt and was banished. He lived the rest of his life in Gotha in Saxony where he taught philosophy at the University of Göttingen. The Bavarian state considered the Illuminati dismantled.

Their legacy, however, has endured and fuels many conspiracy theories. Weishaupt was accused-falsely-of helping to plot the French Revolution. The Illuminati have been fingered in recent events, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Weishaupt's ideas have also influenced the realms of popular fiction, such as Dan Brown's Angels & Demons and Foucault's Pendulum by Italian novelist Umberto Eco. Although his group was disbanded, Weishaupt's lasting contribution may be the idea that secret societies linger behind the scenes, pulling the levers of power.

THE ASCENT TO ILLUMINATION

The Order of the Illuminati's complex, 13-grade structure was devised by Baron von Knigge, who applied the model used in the masonic lodges of which he had been a member.

The Christian Eye of Providence (as shown on the great seal of the U.S.A.), later a symbol of Freemasonry
IMAGE COURTESY LEEMAGE/PRISMA

First Class

Each novice was initiated in humanitarian philosophy until he became a minerval. He then received the order's statutes and could attend meetings.

1. Initiate
2. Novice
3. Minerval
4. Illuminatus Minor

Second Class

The various degrees in this class were inspired by Freemasonry. The illuminatus major supervised recruitment, and the illuminatus dirigens presided over the minervals' meetings.

5. Apprentice
6. Fellow
7. Master
8. Illuminatus Major
9. Illuminatus Dirigens

Third Class

The highest degree of philosophical illumination. Its members were priests who instructed lower-degree members. The lower orders of this class were themselves under the authority of a king.

10. Priest
11. Prince
12. Magus
13. King

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