The Wicker Man: Ancient Rituals, Modern Misinterpretations

Rather than going to horror films (however well-crafted) or the accounts of Hellenistic peoples, whose writings may have had condescending views of pagan spirituality, it is best to see how contemporary witches, pagans, and heathens conduct wicker man ceremonies. If any occurrence of human sacrifice occurred within contemporary times, I find it difficult to believe that there would not be a massive outrage, even in the increasingly secular year of 2021. The Satanic Panic originating in the 1980s shook American culture with over-the-top accusations against games like Dungeons and Dragons, as well as the book burnings of the Harry Potter series. If such media was liable to rile up a certain demographic, imagine what a full-blown human sacrifice might evoke if the public caught wind of it! Indeed, for a religion so concerned about people being burned alive, both Catholics and Protestants set their fair share of people alight during times when their institutional powers were at their apex. The religious antagonism towards the wicker man is, ironically enough, a straw man.

I think it is safe to say that contemporary witches aren’t cooking people alive in giant wicker effigies. One of the more well-documented wicker man rituals occurred in 1982, at the ‘Rites of Spring.’ According to an article by EarthSpirit, a wicker man was crafted from a laundry hamper and grasses and other fibers. Instead of being stuffed with innocent Christians, this modern wicker man was instead packed full of the dirt of modernity: paper, trash, anything that was flammable and able to fit. So voluminous were these ‘offerings’ that the nearby areas that people combed for detritus were far cleaner than before the 1982 Rites of Spring wicker man ritual!

Another reconstruction occurs at the Beltain Festival at Butser Ancient Farm in Southern England. The festival attempts to recapture the spirit of ancient Celtic traditions. Ale is served, songs are danced to, and the whole festival culminates with the burning of a massive wicker man at dusk.

Perhaps one of the more unorthodox (as though pagans were orthodox, to begin with!) examples of the wicker man is the Burning Man festival held annually near Black Rock Desert, Nevada. The festival has its origins when founder Larry Harvey named the ritual Burning Man to avoid connotations with wicker man, which at the time still was believed to involve human sacrifice. According to Harvey, the Burning Man festival’s origins had nothing to do with the aforementioned The Wicker Man, although the intrepid pagan or practitioner could be tempted to infer that perhaps there is something deeper at work in the human psyche that would inspire such actions.

Whichever way one cuts it, the Burning Man festival has remarkable similarities to wicker man rituals. Whether these are deeper psychological similarities or merely superficial ones could be a subject of debate. However, I’m more interested in the fact that both seem to re-enact some sort of ritual sacrifice, even if it is a man made of wicker and not a living person. Sacrifice comes from the term ‘to make holy’ and, according to mythologist Grant L. Voth, involves a dismemberment and dispersion of physical form for the sake of the continuation of the cosmic order.

Ultimately, like many pagan and reconstructed neo-pagan traditions, wicker man ceremonies are bound up in a web of meaning that goes beyond the mere act of the ritual itself. Paganism has often been the subject of horror films, frequently scrutinized under a harsh light. While Christianity is rapidly losing its hold on Western thought, its norms and values have seeped into the culture for better or worse. Among these values is a fear and othering of religious ritual, in particular nature religions. Monotheistic thought demoted nature from Divine to mere matter, and this trend has not relented with the rise of secular humanism. I am tempted to trace a line from the devoted Christian detective Neil Howie of The Wicker Man to the anthropologist students of Midsommar, another film about a group of outsiders being lured into entrapment by a pagan society in the remote reaches of Sweden. Indeed, the protagonists of Midsommar, rather than being conspicuously offended by the pagan practices in the manner of detective Neil Howie, are fixated by the practices, seeing them as antiquated rituals that will nevertheless allow them to make a name for themselves in the academic-industrial complex. In the climax, several people are burned to death (albeit in a lodge-turned-pyre, not a wicker man) as the pagans complete their violent ritual of renewal.

This is not to condemn works of art, as I don’t believe art should be reduced to uncritical moral instruction à la The Pilgrim’s Progress, but merely to illustrate the ways in which popular culture has, and continues to, influence the perception of paganism in general and rituals involving fire in particular. For pagans seeking to educate the masses on wicker man rituals, it’s good to know the lay of the cultural landscape to ensure that these efforts don’t go up in smoke.