Avebury, Wiltshire.

According to one Antiquarian who studied it in detail, Avebury surpasses Stonehenge like a cathedral does a parish church.

When you go there, it is easy to see whu he makes the comparison . The stone circle of Stonehenge is vast, but Avebury is big enough to contain a whole village within its stones - well worth a visit tot he Marlborough Downs. It is now a World heritage Site, and was most probably built by the people who had a small unobtrusive  enclosed settlement on nearby Windmill Hill.

Yet this vast stone circle isn't the only monument that these Neolithic people raised - they also build nearby Silbury Hill, an artificial mound comparable in size and age to the pyramids of Egypt, as well as a nearby Long Barrow and several other earthworks. It were as though they had constructed a Neolithic theme park around their humble settlement. And yet they did not do this for their own amusement, but rather to honour their Gods.

Woops, a big G - but let us leave it there for now. Take a look at Silbury hill itself (click on the pics for a larger view). Constructed of chalk blocks, and covered in topsoil and turf, it is the largest man made mound in Europe. it was built in midsummer - flying ants were found entombed in the lowest levels. Most probably a mound to commemorate the harvest - for the harvest moon rises over it and is reflected in the artificial lake that surrounds  it - or would have back then , at least. Guy Underwood talks at length in his book 'The Pattern of the Past' about what we can glean of the Neolithic religion, and it is a fascinating book.

Now, Avebury village has a set of circles within the main circle, and the earth banks that surround it face inwards - this was not a defensive rampart, but more like an amphitheatre. Those sitting on the banks could see what was going on as the priestly rituals were conducted on the high days and holy days of the Neolithic calender, as you can see from the view from the top of the rampart of earth surrounding the village.

Yet inside the village itself, there is a URC Church  (yay!)

But note how this church stands in its own space amid the vast stone circle. In times past, excavators and historians tell us,  the villagers, at the instigation of their local clergy, would attack the stones and overturn them, as a yearly ritual to celebrate the triumph of the Christian Church over the ''forces of Evil'. We know this from written records of those who watched the proceedings , and because we found the skeleton of a man who was killed when a stone collapsed on top of him . After the death of this man , the rituals ceased apparently.

But such cultural vandalism is not without precedent in the Bible, nor parallel today. God did say to the Israelites that they were to tear down and destroy pagan altars, and Paul in his Epistle, at I Cor. 10:20, that the things that non Christians sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and  not to God.

It's a very negative view.  For the religion of the neolithic people had much the same aim as ours; to promote the prosperity of the group and connect the people to the world that they lived in. For modern day Africans who practice Ju-ju, as well as Haitian voodoo worshippers, the spirits they encounter are not malevolent, or to be feared, but rather welcome paricipants in their rituals.

Unlike the God of the Hebrews, who had to be kept at a respectable distance and was only approached with fear and trembling by senior representatives of the tribe, the gods of Ju-ju and Voodoo are held to come down and enter into the bodies of the worshippers during their dances, and possession by one of them was seen as an honour and a blessing. But this is modern Afro Caribbean tradition we are talking here - it may or may not have happened in Neolithic Britain, where the climate may have been a bit too parky for outdoor worship circles and the natives a bit too straight laced to get up and dance! But Avebury does provide us with a look at the neolithic culture.  Today , we celebrate and preserve it rather than destroy it. And perhaps we should take a look at the religion that we can trace through myth and legend - for it contains fascinating accounts of shamanism  - of men and women who communed with the spirit world on behalf of the rest of the community, interceding with the spirits on behalf of the tribe or local group.

Now - you don't get that primitive sort of mumbo- jumbo happening in the modern day Christian Church today - or do we?  Are you sure ? Have you not heard of the Toronto blessing ? Or being 'slain in the Spirit'?

Our next ramble will take you somewhere else, and reveal what goes on in deepest Britain , in a church not far from where I live , and may be going on in your neck of the wood, toos. For I have seen what certain Christians get up to with my own eyes, as well as talk to some about their own experience as they tell it in their own words.- and when you are able to compare it to another culture, like I am, you see surprising parallels and connections.  Join me on my next ramble, please!