Literature Review

[MUSIC] Every January, this band of rugged Russians brave the freezing waters of the Moscow river.

>> The Russian soul is strong.

Nobody can conquer us.

We are loved by God.

Let's go for a swim.

>> This is a madness.

>> [COUGH].

>> Your cough will go if you take a dip.

[MUSIC] >> In my journey around the world, I've seen how important religion continues to be in people's lives.

With ten faiths to go, I'm traveling throughout my own continent of Europe.

I thought it might be a tale of religion as a spent force.

As I discover, it's also the story of the renaissance of spirituality, often in the most unexpected places.

From the icebound wilderness of Northern Norway.

My journey will take me through Eastern Europe, Russia, and on into Italy.

Sunshine, thank you, God.

I'll be visiting a European Buddhist state.

[MUSIC] Huge underground temples, nature-worshipping shamans, and hardcore Benedictines.

These are the SAS of monks.

[MUSIC] >> Jingle bells.

Jingle bells.

Jingle all the way.

What fun it is to ride- >> I'm starting my journey in Norway.

Where I'm meeting the enigmatic leader of a faith that, every year, just gets more and more popular.

>> Mr. Claus?

>> [LAUGH] Hello, please come in.

Hello, there.

>> Hello, Santa.

>> Welcome, have a seat.

What's your name?

>> My name is Peter.

>> Peter. >> Yes.

>> And where you from?

>> I'm from Sussex in England.

>> Sussex in England.

We have quite a few visitors from Sussex in England.

>> I know that you bring joy, but have you ever thought you also serve represent really the sort of soft side of materialism?

And that's a good point.

That's a good point.

Yeah, I think more softness is needed.

But what do you think?

>> I think your beard looks very soft.

>> So does your hair.

[LAUGH] So you've been good this year?

>> I was hoping you were going to tell me that.

>> [LAUGH] >> I decided to get out of the Santa's confessional only to find myself in the Santa shop surrounded by Santa icons and Santa devotees rushing to buy them.

I mean, really Santa Claus is a gift to the business community.

It's the same, but as far as I'm concerned as, as a Christian priest, he sold out.

Santa have sold out This is about spending money.

This is about spending as much money as you can.

>> Six euros.

>> But is the public veneration of Saint Nicholas a faith, and is this the church of Santa?

I mean, it's all very ritualistic.

We're just asked to become children again, and believe that if we are good, we'll be rewarded.

>> Five, four, three, two, one!

>> [SOUND] >> I would be disappointed if the worship of Santa was as close to faith as Europeans get.

>> But I wonder if the demise of religion has not been a tad exaggerated.

[MUSIC] I'm heading off to the land Land of the Sami, nomadic reindeer herders, now converted to Christianity.

[MUSIC] Their legends and way of life inspired much of the Santa Claus legend.

[SOUND] Would you look at that.

Look at that, Christmas card.

[SOUND] This Protestant church deep in what use to be the in the Sami homelands caters exclusively to the Sami.

And today they are all wearing traditional costumes because their priest is performing a baptism.

This little boy has fourteen godparents.

This area has been Protestant for hundreds of years.

[MUSIC] But these aren't the only people that I have come here to see.

Further North there are Sami's who are still practicing the faith of their pre-Christian ancestors.

[MUSIC] Well this is about as far north as you can get.

We're on the northern coast, just about of northern Norway, high up in the Arctic Circle and it's about ten past 12 in the afternoon.

I'm here in the icy wilderness because I've arranged to meet Sami who's still in touch with a shamanic past.

They practice the last surviving remnants of European animism which is nature worship.

Nature religion or religion based in the natural world and this way of seeing the sacred, would have been common to all European people before the arrival of Christianity.

Would have been practiced right up here, right the way down to southern Sicily.

Nila Zombi is one of the last links to the Sami faith.

He's trying to revive it with courses for novice shamans from all over Europe.

I'm joining them just in time to witness the performance of joik, an old Samis spiritual invocation.

This one to Nelasse's long dead grandfather.

>> He was very small but very, very strong.

[SOUND] >> The sami drum is central to shamanic practice.

And the rhythm of drumming is used to reach a trance like state during which shaman believed they can consult with their ancestors and the greatest spirits of the landscape.

>> I didn't hear anything.

Maybe my drum was.

So now I see that they didn't hear.

>> [LAUGH] >> Yes, yes!

[LAUGH] >> [SOUND] >> I can't say the Sami came naturally to me.

So I wanted to compare notes with Jamie McGowan.

Who has come all the way from England to join camp.

>> I thought for me spirituality is being close to nature.

I do think if you're going to know God or know the creator it's through what's under your feet.

What's around you.

>> Do you think in the West as men.

We're sort of, we're a bit embarrassed about all this.

We're a bit embarrassed about spirituality.

>> Of course, of course, it's a wild experience, enjoy [INAUDIBLE] back to where I was from.

I came to pubs and people say to me, what have you been doing recently?

>> [LAUGH] >> Well, I- >> What have you been doing recently?

>> [LAUGH] [MUSIC] Woah.

The next day, Nilas took me off into the wilderness surrounding his camp.

Central to Sami faith is the belief that gods and spirits reside in all natural things.

Anilas had a spiritual exercise that he felt it was important for me to try.

>> I want you to listen to the river, river sounds.

Can you hear anything?

Messages, songs?

But then we just have to be very quiet and let the river talk.

>> Many different layers of sound, I have not seen before.

Some very high notes and some very low notes.

>> It's like in the human world also, some are more noisy than others.

>> What does the river say to you?

>> For me the river says that it is a hope that people will start listening to the nature.

[MUSIC] Beautiful moon.

>> Beautiful.

After two days in the winter wilderness the Sami reverence of nature spirits makes complete sense to me.

But I was very aware that Christianity as a whole has not always been so comfortable with the worship of the natural world.

Christianity very wary of this.

Monotheism has always been incredibly wary of polytheism because its almost impossible to control.

There's a god in the water.

There's a god in the trees.

There's a god in the sky.

There's a god in the wolf.

[MUSIC] And I don't find it worrying in any way or necessarily enchanting.

It's just natural, I just find it natural.

This conflict between monotheism and Sami nature worship came to a head with the arrival of Christian missionaries in Norway.

>> I asked Nilas to explain what effect this had on the Sami.

>> It it is like a real war against your culture.

If you didn't believe that, they killed you.

And it's not so long time ago the last person was killed in a town nearby here.

>> I was unaware of the degree of persecution that the Sami people have suffered.

Their Shaman's been killed.

The instruments of their worship, the drum.

The drums have been burned.

They've been banned from singing the yoik.

And really, it's part of the great sort of march of monotheism.

And it doesn't make me feel particularly good to say the least, about being a Christian priest, but that's the truth though, isn't it?

[MUSIC] Thankfully, we live in a time when seekers like Nilas are rekindling ancient faiths back to life.

[MUSIC] But shamanism isn't the only victim of persecution.

[MUSIC] I'm now traveling South to Lithuania, where an even more systematic attempt to wipe out a religion has blighted European history.

Lithuania used to have 200,000 Jews.

They were part of the 9 million strong Jewish population of Europe, after the Christians, the most important religious group in the continent.

[MUSIC] The Nazis killed 6 million across Europe, but in Lithuania, 91% were killed, both by the German occupiers and the local people during the Second World War.

Amongst the hundreds of abandoned synagogues is this unusual wooden one.

I think she's still outside her house.

I am told that a 82 year old lady holds the keys to it.

You have the key?

>> [COUGH] I can't find the key.

[LAUGH] There's a hole in my pocket.

[LAUGH] Let's go Mr. Twister.

>> Okay, what's your name?

>> I can't understand you.

>> Eventually, I worked out her name is Agrippina, that she is an Orthodox Christian, and she witnessed what happened to the Jews of her village.

>> The women were upstairs.

The men were here.

The priest was here.

Everybody was praying.

The Jews were taken to the forest and shot.

It was just 500 meters from us.

I could hear everything.

>> Were there people from this village that took part in the killing?

>> They were locals, they were given the property of anyone they shot.

They were happy to shoot the Jews.

If they were ashamed, they wouldn't have shot them.

How much property did they take from the Jews?

My God.

>> Are some of the families that did this, are they still here?

>> Yes, they do live here.

Where else can they go?

We need to show people what happened here.

Let's hope it never happens again.

God don't give us this again.

[MUSIC] Goodbye.

>> [INAUDIBLE] >> And good luck.

[MUSIC] >> There are still Jews living in Lithuania.

But I'm going to have to go to the capital, Vilnius, to find them.

Before the Second World War, there are about 100 years in the thriving Jewish community here in this time of the Second World War decimated that population.

And many of the traditions that went with them, there's now only one, one that remains.

I am joining the congregation as they prepare for their Friday worship.

These leather straps and small boxes containing scripture are called tefillin.

They're strapped over the forehead heart and hand to focus the worst thoughts and feelings on God.

[SOUND] >> [FOREIGN] >> Given what the Jewish people went through and the choice of immigrating to their new homeland in Israel, I'm amazed that anyone decides to stay, but many do like Simone Galvickis.

>> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> This service is the start of Shabbat, which commemorates the day that God rested after creating the Earth.

But Friday prayers is only the beginning of this weekly ritual.

>> Later you will come to my home, [INAUDIBLE] tonight we will have Shabbat.

>> Tonight?

>> Yes.

>> I'll take you up, I'll come tonight.

>> Yeah, great, thank you.

>> Thanks for your invitation.

>> See you, see you, bye bye.

>> See you.

[MUSIC] Simone's invitation had a profound effect upon me.

Something had been troubling me since I arrived in Lithuania and his kindness made me realize that I had to address it.

The source of my worries were the words of the founder of my own church, Martin Luther.

[MUSIC] He had some fine things to say about our understanding of our relationship with God, but he also had some very dark things that he said.

Especially about the Jewish race, the Jewish people.

I was reading this morning and he said that the Jews were a base whoring people, that is low people of God.

And their boast of lineage and circumcision and law must be accounted as filth.

He goes on to say that they should either be set to forced labor or banished, exiled, forever.

Not a very pretty picture, that one, neither graceful nor holy, law loving, law forgiving.

And look, if we're gonna make this journey, we have to confront things like that, we can't just pretend they didn't exist.

And the Christianity is all about songs of praise and lisping vicars and some of the lovely things that it has to offer.

There are darkness in its closet.

I'm gonna talk about it tonight, right?

But it's all right to talk about it tonight [INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC] The most painful part of all of this for me, is that these words of Luther were used by the Christian Nazis to justify the Jewish Holocaust.

>> Hello Peter, my lovely neighbor.

>> Hello, lovely neighbor, hello.

>> Hello, how are you?

>> Very good, please come in.

>> Thank you.

>> Here's my grandfather.

Shabbat Shalom.

>> Shabbat Shalom.

Shalom.

>> Shabbat Shalom.

>> Shabbat Shalom.

Before the family can eat, we must ritually wash our hands in silence.

Amen.

>> So the head of the family is giving to everybody the piece of Challah.

And nobody is allowed to speak till they take the piece of Challah.

You can take it and the meal normally start.

>> The founder Protestant's perspective.

>> Yes?

>> Said some quite terrible things about members of the Jewish faith.

As a Protestant Christian, I feel guilty about that, when can we move on?

>> I believe when somebody understands, the guilt for his own previous generations, as soon as this happens, this is the beginning of a new era.

For them the Jewish people will never blame somebody, but as soon as somebody starts thinking, I feel very bad for what my grand grandparents or neighbors of my grand grandparents did.

As soon as we come to that point, this is the beginning of a new relationship.

>> Okay, we'll shake.

>> [LAUGH] I hope you- >> Shalom, shalom, shalom.

>> So right now I know that in Britain, I have got one more friend.

I need to write your address and when we come we'll just continue.

>> And we can just continue where we left off.

>> [LAUGH] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

>> [LAUGH] Wow, there we go then.

[MUSIC] By Simone saying this evening look, we've acknowledged that those dreadful words of Luther are quite wrong and they are quite wrong.

By acknowledging the wrongness of those words, you liberate yourself from them.

You disassociate yourself from them, you recognize that they are incredibly hurtful, and have proved to be catastrophically harmful.

[MUSIC] It wasn't just the Jewish faith which came to close to being wiped out in Lithuania.

Another totalitarian ideology was sweeping through Eastern Europe.

Soviet communism tried to enforce Atheism over its people.

[MUSIC] It unleashed a storm of terror that killed over 1 million Catholics.

[SOUND] I've come to an extraordinary place of pilgrimage in Northern Lithuania.

When epic battle was played out between Catholics and Atheists.

[MUSIC] It's a Hill of Crosses, literally tens of thousands of crosses.

The very first went up 200 years ago, they stood for Lithuanian Catholicism against the imperial ambitions of the Russian czar.

By the middle of the 20th century, there were thousands.

But in 1961, the Russians decided that the hill should be destroyed.

The Communist response was to bring in the bulldozers and just flatten the entire place thinking if we take out this powerful symbol of faith, then this will demoralize everyone.

In fact, the opposite happened.

What it did was inspire the local population to come back at night and rebuild it.

And this game of cat and mouse, went on for years.

>> Shall we go?

40 years ago, Adolphus Stratus was one of the original defenders of the hill during the Battle of the Crosses.

>> After this desecration, we needed to show the world that it was impossible to destroy the Hill of Crosses.

It was dangerous to build in the daytime, so we built at night.

>> Okay. >> Once Adolphis realized I was a priest, he wanted us to hang a cross together.

>> Up on there, do you think?

>> Yes.

>> As a symbol of Christian unity.

Okay, marvelous, thank you.

>> I believe the true value of the cross lies in the heart of the man who erects it.

[MUSIC] >> Today there are more than 50,000 crosses and the resistance here in Lithuania is typical of the restoration of Catholicism in the former Eastern Block.

But I wondered what has become of the atheist ideals of Communism in the motherland.

Tomorrow, I'm on my way to Moscow, home of the Russian Orthodox Church.

All the way the paper bag was on my knee.

Man, I had a dreadful flight.

I'm back in the USSR.

[NOISE] You don't know how lucky you are boy, back in the USSR.

[NOISE] [MUSIC] Before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the Russian Orthodox Church had 80,000 places of worship and 100 million adherents.

But then the Soviet Union became the first state officially to purge religion.

Believers were persecuted, atheism was taught in schools and churches were confiscated.

[MUSIC] And yet today the Church is thriving.

[MUSIC] This is Saint Saviour, the biggest Orthodox cathedral in the world.

But it isn't the original, that was blown up by the Communists in 1931.

This exact replacement was only finished in 2001.

This is really a statement about the power of the idea of eternity and the power of the idea of everlasting life and the power of the idea of the victory of goodness over evil.

These are powerful ideas and this creation speaks about the victory of those ideas over really atheism.

[MUSIC] To come in, out of the cold, grey, mist of Moscow into here, not only is it warm, but it is sensuous, sensual, full of color.

And if this was happening underground while the communist regime was in power, no wonder it survived here.

>> [MUSIC] >> The churches across Moscow are packed today because of the Feast of Epiphany, commemorating the baptism of Christ and today holy water is the big theme.

Soon the priests are throwing it around, to be drenched is to be blessed.

We all were blessed by the water, wonderful chaos.

Hundreds of thousands of orthodox Christians across Russia are queuing for bottles of holy water to take home with them.

They believe that it could cure all manner of ills.

It seems like the feast of the plastic bottle to me.

Really, it's like going to a jumble sale in South Kingston, there's just an awful lot of elbows, an awful lot of pushing and shoving, an awful lot of, [SOUND] and a lot of shouting as well.

Water is a purifying agent.

If you can sense that the Christian tradition, the Jewish tradition, the Islamic tradition have all emerged out of the desert essentially, and therefore water is seen as an agent of life, an agent of purity.

So that is why within the Christian tradition we have baptism and why water is regarded as a rejuvenator, a healer.

The epiphany celebrations and the Russian reverence for holy water continues, even in the bitter cold outside.

Beautiful hole being cut out in the ice.

And some madmen and women that are just about to go swimming.

[MUSIC] And I was going to be one of them.

I managed to pick up chest infection and the Russian doctor said, on no account are you to do this.

So I have been spared.

Because the cold is incredible.

So what it's like in that water, I just can't even bear to think.

[MUSIC] These hardy souls believe that by bathing in the consecrated water, they can both harden their constitution and purge themselves of sin.

>> The Russian soul is strong.

Nobody can conquer us, we are loved by God.

>> I can see that there are many people who would think that you're completely mad.

>> Russia's greatest power is the immortal spirit.

>> I think if I took all my clothes off, I'd turn blue.

>> My skin is all right, no goose-pimples.

Touch me.

>> No, no, yeah, it's warm, it's warm.

>> I'm ready for another swim.

Your cough will go if you take a dip.

>> Okay, the Russian doctor said on no account was I to go, because I have a chest infection.

>> The best doctor is cold water, let's go.

The wind is blowing.

Let's go for a swim.

>> This is a madness. No, I cannot go, the doctor has said no.

[MUSIC] But not everybody in Moscow is celebrating Christ's baptism.

The spirit of the Bolshevik revolution is still alive amongst some of its grandchildren.

[MUSIC] I meet Alexander Novikoff, on the street outside the rebuilt cathedral.

[MUSIC] Alexander's belief system is that there is no god, he is an atheist.

I am keen to hear what he makes of the religious revival, so I buy him a coffee.

[MUSIC] >> It's quite cold today, I would say minus 10, minus 13.

>> Religion is also like cold weather that freezes social relationships.

It preserves the Middle Ages, this is my deep conviction.

The Communism sponsored atheism as the official creed of Communism.

We have been in three churches this morning, they are packed.

What's happening, what's going on?

>> Ordinary people in general don't know how to manage their lives and they need to be guided this is true for the majority.

So now the old Communist dogma has been replaced by the Church.

They are slaves their life must be devoted to someone else so they must sacrifice themselves to something.

It can be an idea or a leader.

>> But all movements, including atheism, have their own leaders.

>> We have no authorities, our authority is science.

[MUSIC] >> Alexander told me about an atheist debating society meeting that evening.

[MUSIC] I was keen to know more about what contemporary atheism had to offer.

I think this must be it.

I wasn't expecting the grinding boredom that was to follow.

>> One way to make society more moral is to use the experience of the older generation in a practical way without religion.

>> To see the great idea of atheism and humanism reduced to an upstairs room, full of what, 12, 15 old men are sure during the height of Communism they thought this is gonna last forever.

Atheism will be here forever and ever.

Ask someone in 1965 whether in 50 years time all the churches would be reopened in Moscow.

They would have laughed.

They would have laughed at you.

The Buddhists perhaps have the answer.

Believe in permanence at you peril.

[MUSIC] The tide of atheism may have receded here in Russia.

But I do know there are hundreds of millions of people worldwide who believe there is no God.

[MUSIC] Religion has been making the most remarkable comeback here in Russia.

Not just orthodoxy, but 1,000 faiths imported by missionaries from all over the world, all struggling to gain the heart and the soul of new Russia.

>> [APPLAUSE] >> Here we are, on typical Moscow street, in the middle of January and there's a Hare Krishna procession coming towards us.

[MUSIC] >> Harre Krishna is an old Hindu sect which hit the big time when hippies brought it west in the 60s.

Devotees believed that the Hare Krishna Mantra brings about a higher state of consciousness.

I think I've got the walk, so.

[MUSIC] So much more movement, so much more open heartedness in the [INAUDIBLE] What do you think?

[MUSIC] What do you think you can say?

No meat, no gambling, no intoxicants, no alcohol, no caffeine.

No sex at all unless you're actually married and want to have children.

And on the surface of that, that seems like a pretty dark religion.

But to be in the midst of it, it seems like not at all, it doesn't feel like that at all either.

[MUSIC] I wondered whether this religious tolerance extended to the backwaters of the Russian Republic.

[MUSIC] I'm heading a 1,000 kilometers south of Moscow to the edge of the Caspian sea to the vast ice bound tundra plains of the Kalmyk Republic.

It's home to descendants of nomadic Mongol herders.

[MUSIC] Before the Russian Revolution, this was the only corner of Europe in which the leading faith was Tibetan Buddhism.

The Kalmyk people originally came to this area of Russia in the 17th century during the Second World War.

Stalin reported the entire population to Siberia with 50% from Paris.

They returned here in 1957, and really, this whole landscape must have seen familiar to them.

Must have reminded them of the Mongolian steps from where they came.

And once again the Kalmyk people can proudly boast to be the only Buddhist state in Europe.

They revere the Dalai Lama and frankly, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Tibet.

From a grey Russian winter to tropical color.

How wonderful.

[MUSIC] >> The idea behind repeating the same chant is to actually fall into a meditative state where almost the words of the chant become immaterial.

And by taking it in, you are cleansed from Samsara, which is what the general state of being human, the joy, the anguish, the pain, the dichotomy, the frustration.

And this process of meditation, meditate and chanting, and banging of cymbals cleanses you and leads you into a state where you're free.

>> [SOUND] It's remarkable to see Tibetan Buddhism flourishing far away from its homeland.

But even Russian tolerance has its limits.

Recently they have been denied permission for the Dalai Lama to even visit, despite having built an enormous apartment on top of the temple.

Just for him.

[SOUND] This is very swish.

>> It is, but he hasn't even seen it.

>> Dalai Lama bedroom.

>> Yep.

>> Dalai Lama bathroom.

>> And Dalai Lama meditation.

>> Yep, the meditation, and flat-screen television, DVD, wonderful.

>> No-one else is allowed to stay here, we've been very privileged to be able to come here.

But he hasn't been here yet, it's been sitting here for two years.

No-one's sat on the sofas, no-one's turned the telly on, no-one's turned the kettle on yet.

It's like a castle without its king.

[MUSIC] >> After three weeks of darkness, snow and ice in the Northern and Eastern flanks of Europe.

I'm finally heading south to Italy for some sun and warmth.

[MUSIC] Sunshine, thank you, God.

[MUSIC] This is the heartland of the oldest and largest faith in Europe, Catholicism.

[MUSIC] It's fact that the conversion of barbarian Europe to Christianity was largely led by Benedictine monks.

So I've come to a monastery founded over 1,000 years ago.

I'm so sorry I'm a bit late, always late.

>> Hello.

>> Thank you.

>> Luigi.

>> Father Luigi?

>> Nice to meet you.

>> Wonderful to meet you.

>> Welcome in Sacro Speco of Saint Benedict.

>> Thank you, Father.

>> Now are have vespers.

>> Vespers, yes, of course.

I'm so late that Padre Luigi has to hurry me off to vespers, the evening prayer.

>> [FOREIGN] >> Benedictine monks have to vow to stay in the monastery and give absolute obedience to the abbot.

>> [FOREIGN] >> They live by a strict timetable, praying seven times a day, seven days a week, starting with vigils at five in the morning.

The time given to God must not be wasted.

>> [FOREIGN] Now the monks have gone into what they call the great silence.

Which means that there is no talking in the monastery whatsoever, so we got to nip outside.

And though I think that after breakfast they're allowed to speak again, but they don't speak a great deal.

They tend to wander around in silence most of the time and when they say hello, it's a brief sort of, and that's it.

So you just [INAUDIBLE] I find these environments very lacking in intimacy, and this is meant to be an intimate experience of the love of God.

But for me I find them in some ways quite cold, they're quite cold places to be in.

[SOUND] >> The monks start praying at five every morning.

[SOUND] >> Everything here has to run by the absolute minute, these are the SAS of monks.

These are the hard guys, these are the hard-cases.

When you're a little boy, if you want to be a monk, this is the monk you want to be, because these guys are the toughest monks.

All dressed in black, in their hoods.

This way of life is for someone who actually thrives on order.

[MUSIC] At the height of its powers in the 14th Century, the Benedictine Order had 37,000 monasteries across Europe.

Today there are just over 150 left.

How many novices at the moment?

>> One, only one.

>> One? >> This is the Korean, >> The Korean?

>> Yes, we don't have much vocation for the moment.

>> No young men?

>> No. >> No young Italian men?

>> No, not for the moment, they don't want to enter in a monastery for the moment.

Because they prefer to be in life, instead of to come inside and to be alone in quiet.

>> But what happens in 20 years time?

Many of the brothers here are quite old.

>> Yeah, we have to pray that our Lord will send us vocation.

>> Okay.

>> We have to pray.

>> Yeah.

[MUSIC] >> And it's a lesson to all religions, once you have hardened, once you have finished building your chapel and laying your marble floor.

And once you have set your day into an Order, you have effectively stopped creating.

So in 50 years time, unless they reinterpret this tradition, not continually celebrate a world that is gone, it will die.

[MUSIC] >> A deeply spiritual, if extreme way of life seems to be fading.

But as it does, another is showing signs of growth.

[MUSIC] I've been invited to the biggest spiritual community of its kind in Europe, it's called Damanhur and it's just outside Turin.

[MUSIC] Inspired by New Age principles, Damanhur was founded just over 30 years ago.

And it already boasts over a 1,000 members.

Espiride is my guide to the Damanhur experience, she has been part of the community for 15 years.

>> In this area what you're seeing is the very first attempts that we made 30 years ago to create our own artistic style.

So every citizen would join a team, and then they would, all together, create pieces of theater, or statues.

>> Why is art so important?

I mean, look at this.

>> Because we believe that is so essential to this community.

>> We believe, well, art is beautiful and if you are surrounded by beautiful things, we also become more beautiful.

>> What's he got in his knapsack?

>> [LAUGH] This is a representation of a spheroself, and this spheroself is a device that we create here.

To convey energies that can interact with us and the environment, for instance for healing.

Or for creating a harmonious environment to work on your dreams.

>> I haven't got my head around this one yet, I mean there are a 1,000 people living in this community.

And there's a temple, but they say that they're not a religion, they're a spirituality.

There's definitely a great deal of creative energy happening.

[MUSIC] But I want to know more about that strange device in the man's rucksack.

[MUSIC] Is this what this man had in his backpack?

>> [LAUGHS] Yes, he was actually just one of the spirit cells.

But yes, something similar.

>> It just, it looks like something out of Mad Max.

>> [LAUGH] It might look like that.

Yes, you are right.

>> I mean, this is extrodinary.

What is that?

>> This one, do you see for instance is called an environmental transformer and it's function is to keep the atmosphere, the energy of an environment where people live in harmony.

>> I mean, a lot of people are going to look at that and just say, that's just very wacky.

>> They can think what they want.

>> To Marian's belief that we are surrounded by energy fields, and that those energies affect how we are, how we behave, how we feel.

Okay, I mean there are certain Christians, Catholic Christians, that believe by sitting in church for 45 minutes, by singing some hymns, by saying some prayers, by reciting a creed.

They will bring themselves to a point where a priest blesses some bread and some wine.

At that point the bread is changed into the body, the actual body of Christ and the wine is changed into the actual blood of Christ.

And then they will go and eat the bread and drink the wine.

I mean how weird is that?

Most religions have some pretty wacky stuff within.

We just been socialized into accepting, yes, there are certain group of people who believe that and that's okay.

Is it okay?

I mean, I think it's okay, we should all believe what we want to believe.

As long as it doesn't hurt others.

[MUSIC] >> [LAUGH] >> But devices aren't the only form of research being explored at.

The residents of the local treehouse village have been busy, as well.

Just to explain, what we are about to hear is music made from plants.

>> Yes.

>> Okay, let's hear it.

[MUSIC] >> Yes?

>> She plays.

[MUSIC] >> So this is music written by nature.

>> This is written by nature, yes.

[MUSIC] Plants can learn to modulate sound.

[MUSIC] >> My Kingdom listen to classical music.

They learn to use it better and better.

>> Does it respond to human touch?

>> Yes, you can try.

[MUSIC] There is an interaction between our thoughts, and the plant, and the vegetable.

[MUSIC] >> I didn't for one minute believe that the plants were writing their own music.

But I think what's interesting, is it's about the entire view of nature.

I mean, we started this journey high up in the arctic in northern Norway, with a Sami shaman saying, listen.

Listen to the river.

Listen to the music being made by this river.

And here we are 3.000 miles south of northern Italy listening to young people saying, listen to the plants, listen.

So here is a modern interpretation using technology.

Of really what is very ancient, very old tradition.

Tonight, I'm staying with a Maherian version of a family made up of 15 people, usually totally unrelated, who have chosen to live together.

>> How did the teenagers rebel?

So they go off into Turin and get jobs in Bankley >> [FOREIGN] >> What's interesting is that they made it work.

This isn't something that they just started doing, this is something that they've been living like this for 33 years.

So I mean it's clearly a concept that works.

Before leaving Damanhur, I'd been invited to see the stunning temples at the heart of this community.

30 meters below the ground are eight enormous structures.

Drawing religious inspiration from the East and the West, ancient and modern faith.

>> This is the Hall of Mirrors, and it is dedicated to light and to spirituality.

[MUSIC] Welcome to the Hall of Metals.

And symbolically, this hall is dedicated to the different ages of our lives Life.

[MUSIC] >> The current structure represents only 10% of what is planned.

[MUSIC] >> This is the labyrinth and it is dedicated to the union and the harmony of all the divine forces of our planet.

Each window represent a different god or a goddess.

[MUSIC] >> The history of divine forces hasn't really being that harmonious.

>> Well exactly.

It hasn't been.

And that's why we're creating this space where we can represent them with the idea that harmony is possible and respect for differences is possible.

Judaism, Buddhism- >> Buddhism.

>> Christianity.

>> It's very interesting to see your faith embodied as one of many.

It's a sort of quite uncomfortable feeling because as a human being I've invested so much in this little window.

But then to come into a place like this, I am forced to recognize that there is something much bigger happening here.

And that my window is part of it, but then so are all of the others.

But no where along the line have I heard the notion of harmony That we can live in harmony.

I haven't heard this in Christianity.

I haven't heard this in Judaism.

I haven't heard this in Islam.

They're all very self-centered.

From this perspective, from standing in this room, that's what they appear to be.

[MUSIC] My year long journey through at faith has come to an end.

And it's given me much to consider, much to reflect on.

On my doorstep in the sausage stance is an ancient place I'm always drawn to [MUSIC] The long man of Wilmington.

What he says to me, is that my ancestors, our ancestors, have been involved in this quest for the divine.

As long as we have been walking around on this planet.

[MUSIC] I can't pretend that religion isn't the vehicle for so much conflict, but the religious pulse of the planet is still beating hard.

Faith seeks to help us to understand our purpose here.

It helps us to retain some hope in the face of suffering.

It allows us to entertain the language of feelings, the language of intuition and the language of love and I don't personally need empirical proof that God exists.

Faith is a journey inwards, and those who have made that journey come back and say, look what I found!

Look at this, isn't this extraordinary?

These words I heard, this vision I saw.

[MUSIC] What was so extraordinary about this year was human beings.

And their generosity, their humility, their grace, their imagination and in every single quarter in the far flung corners of this extraordinary planet, you do find a welcome, a love.

And all of that is informed by the faith systems that have evolved in those particular corners.

[MUSIC] I've learned two things this year.

The first is that those religions that demonize other individuals for not believing in their way, one is to be very wary of, I think.

And the converse of that is that those religions who are open to the learning and understanding and teaching within other religions are ones to learn from.

I've looked forward to two things, being away.

One was to be back in the churches that I serve, and the other was a point of ale.

[MUSIC] So I'm going to take a service, and then I'm going to the pub.

[MUSIC]