MAthesis

There is some ground for comparing the behaviour of the festival crowd to that of early religious cults. Both are essentially totemistic; they are socially bound through a system of collective representations - of shared meanings, values, ideas, and ideals through which human beings collectively view themselves, each other and the natural environment.   Indeed, Freud argued that the totem meal was the earliest example of festival:

The totem meal, which is perhaps mankind's earliest festival, would thus be a repetition and a commemoration of this memorable and criminal deed, which was the beginning of so many things - of social organisation, of moral restrictions and of religion (Freud, 1912-13, p142).

Because both situations provide the opportunity for transcendence, they may be said to represent the relationship between the tribe and some supramundane force or reality - some god. Can we say then, that charismatic performers are the god-like totems of the festival crowd? Certainly the great and famous rock n roll performers, such as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and Iggy Pop have been referred to as 'rock gods' or 'rock icons'. In fact, even the Beatles once claimed to be 'bigger than Jesus'. Present day examples of such live performers would include Marilyn Manson, Eminem, Oasis and Metallica. In a similar vein, within dance culture the most popular DJs achieve high status and adoration, for example, Judge Julz, Carl Cox and Pete Tong.

But how is such status created? Surely it can only be the result of a social construction of some kind, if in the particular sense of an always historically and cultural specific phenomenon which nonetheless draws on much the same psychic forces for its possibility - on identification, projection, narcissism, and archetypal forms. Indeed, we might say from the psychoanalytical point of view that what Durkheim calls ‘collective effervescence’ is made possible by psychic forces. In creating their fantasy of wholeness, the crowd idolises the performers. Whoever said 'man created god in his own image' could just as easily have been referring to the narcissistic projections of the festival crowd.

It is of interest here that Durkheim, like Freud, was much influenced by the work of William Robertson Smith, one of the founding figures of modern sociology. His methodological approach to the sociological understanding of religion had a profound effect on Durkheim's theories. Evans-Pritchard highlights four main ideas that Durkheim received from Robertson-Smith: namely, ‘primitive’ religion is basically a clan cult; the cult is totemic; the god of the clan is the clan divinised; and that totemism is the most elementary form of religious life (Evans-Pritchard, 1965, p56).

The concepts of ‘collective representations’ and ‘collective consciousness’ are particularly important concerning how Durkheim conceived of social reality and early religious forms. The idea of collective representations was used in Durkheim’s methodological treatise Suicide, in which he claimed: ‘essentially collective life is made up of representations’, of representations including all ‘the ways in which the group conceives itself in relation to objects which affect it’ (cited in Thompson, 1982, p.61). Collective representations and collective consciousness are then crucially significant for Durkheim's understanding of human social life:

… To understand the way in which a society thinks of itself and of its environment one must consider the nature of society and not that of the individuals. Even the symbols which express these conceptions change according to the type of society (Thompson, 1982, p61).

The importance of collective representations or symbols in religion and therefore in society is one major point stressed in The Elementary Forms, where totems are understood as the collective representations of the clan. If it is accepted, as Durkheim suggested, that ‘religion was the progenitor of social institutions’ (Pickering, 1984, p.268), and if religion, at least in its elementary forms, is at heart the worship of society, then to understand religion is to understand how collective life is shaped by collective representations.

Returning to the question of charisma, neo-Weberian perspectives have, according to Lindholm (ibid.), erased the image of charisma as an irrational emotional convulsion. Instead, all persons in all societies at all times are attempting, with greater or lesser success, to promote and to belong amidst a culturally given sacred symbolic system of significance, as revealed in institutional forms such as religion, ritualistic practices, and so forth. On this understanding, the essential human problem, one common to all historical societies, is being unable to achieve proximity to this ‘holy order’. In this perspective, the apparent frenzy of the shaman is radically revisioned: a ‘rational’ search for coherence and significance is what fuels it, such that tradition and charisma become equivalent to rational action, in Weber’s sense of the term.   That is to say, it is as if a drive or impulse of some kind exists beyond our conscious awareness, one whose function is to unite us with others in the transcendent space of the sacred. However, unlike physical characteristics, charisma appears only in interaction with the vast majority of others who seem to lack it. In other words, even though charisma is thought of as something intrinsic to the individual, a person cannot reveal this quality in isolation. It is only evident in interaction with those who are affected by it. Charisma is, above all, a relationship, a mutual mingling of the inner selves of leader and follower. It follows that if the charismatic is able to compel, the follower has a matching capacity for being compelled. Hence we need to consider what constitutes what we might call the ‘personality configuration’ of the follower, and well as that of the leader, if we are to understand charisma.

There is another aspect besides the interaction of leader and follower. Since the crowd gathered around the leader (or the lover attracted to the beloved) has particular characteristics of excitability, selflessness and emotional intensity which are beyond those of the everyday consciousnesses of the individuals involved, and because the attracted feel their personal identities lost in their worship of the charismatic other, charisma in Western society is experienced as a 'strong force', as physicists say; it binds people together in ways that transcend and transmogrify the selves of the followers - and, quite possibly, the self of the leader as well (Lindholm, 1993).

In fact, performers do experience a kind of transcendent exhilaration on stage. Teph Kay from 'Cuckooland', who played Reading Festival in 1993, described the experience to me like this:

[Its] kind of like surfing…like I imagine surfing to be, I suppose. People want to have a good time and so they're up for it anyway and I want to give them a good time…from that comes a 'surfing buzz'…bigger than I could have created on my own. (my emphasis)

Back-stage at such events, to continue the religious comparisons, may be likened to the 'inner sanctum'. It's élite appeal is attractive to many - some of whom will attempt to employ illegitimate means of entry when legitimate access has failed or is unavailable. The attraction is of the chance to be closer to the charismatic leader and hence to experience a greater fantasy of connection.

SOME ARCHETYPAL EXAMPLES OF FESTIVAL CROWD BEHAVIOUR

Drug use
Above it was stated, in consideration of Durkheim’s conception of ‘collective effervescence’ that, from the psychoanalytical point of view, Durkheim requires a concept of psychic forces. It is in this context that we may now ask: Can it be argued that the pervasive (ab)use of drugs in our society can in large part be ascribed to a resurgence of the collective need for initiation and initiatory structures? Does a longing for something sacred underlie our culture’s apparently manic drive toward excessive consumption of sometimes harmful substances? Might it be that, in a society without ritual, the drug user is seeking not so much the thrill of a ‘high’ as the satisfaction of an inner need for transcendence in the dominant religion of our times - namely, consumerism? Luigi Zoja thinks so. In The Modern Search for Ritual he argues precisely this. And long ago, William James made the comment: ‘The cure for dipsomania is religomania’, which suggests that one tendency can be substituted for another, less socially desirable, one: different ways to scratch the same itch. Can we argue that this represents a desire for what Jung conceived as 'participation mystique', whether through the use of drugs or through a quasi-religious experience? Is this one brand of transcendence that festivals provide?

Earlier on, Chirban suggested that drug use was only partially transformative and ultimately damaging to the psyche. Leaving aside the debate about the physical consequences of drug (or alcohol) use, or indeed the psychological consequences of addiction, let us concentrate on the immediate experience of taking a psychotropic substance. Why do people do this at festivals? Put very simply, either substance use is part of the individual festival-goer's usual, everyday experience or it is not. The experience is ultimately a question of context. Many people have their regular 'drug of choice' whether that is alcohol, cannabis or heroin, for example. I suggest that the regular user is unlikely to feel anything much beyond their usual experience as a result of the setting. For an infrequent or novel user, then the festival experience will almost certainly influence the effects. Festivals are seen by some as an opportunity for transgression; indeed transgression becomes virtually legitimised in this context. It is a chance to experiment with different substances to experience different sensations within the self and within the crowd.

Having said this, hallucinogenic drugs are something of a separate case. Whilst it is acknowledged that users report that different drugs produce different effects, I want to stick to a general discussion. The effects of this group of drugs are to alter perception, including the senses. People may see colours much more brightly or hear sounds differently, or say that they can 'hear' colours and 'see' sounds, which is called synaesthesia. Or they may even see things that aren't there at all. In choosing to embark on a trip, the user is expecting to have this kind of experience - whether at a festival or not. The user is choosing to chemically invoke a kind of transcendence, a moving away from the mundane to another, possibly spiritual, level.

Again, through drug use, there is a link between the festival crowd and religion. Many religions use drugs as part of the whole spiritual, supramundane experience. Peyote is used by the Mexican Indians as part of their religious practice; American Indians use Jimson Weed (datura); Rastafarians use cannabis, as do the Hindu Sadhu. Here is a quote from Upanishad, which reflects the dreamlike connection with the spiritual:

There is a Spirit who is awake in our sleep and creates the wonder of dreams.
He is Brahman, the Spirit of Light, who in truth is called the Immortal.
All the worlds rest on that Spirit and beyond him no one can go.

- and Christians drink wine at Communion as part of the Sacrament (a connection with God's grace).

Rioting
It would appear that to a certain extent, rioting has more or less always been part of the festival scene. This year, as last, fires were lit around the toilets at Reading Festival. However, McKay notes that at the 1967 'Summer of Love' NJF festival held in Windsor 'some of the crowd set rubbish alight, threw things at the attendant fire engine, and had battles with security guards'. (McKay, 2000, p.6) Furthermore, we can trace this behaviour back again to the early Beaulieu Jazz festivals. Alexis Petridis describes the antagonism between fans of modern versus trad jazz.

The strength of feeling against modern jazz caused a riot as the movement reached its zenith in the summer of 1960. Irked by Johnny Dankworth's modern playing at the July Beaulieu Jazz Festival, ravers began chanting for Acker Bilk. Then they began fighting. A lighting tower was toppled. One game raver scaled the outside of the stately home and, in a protest as bizarre as the trad festival itself, began waving his bowler hat from the battlements. (Petridis, 2001, pp.2-3)

Joey Joel, a Toxteth Community Leader in 1981, believes that the reason for the aggression against the police in this year was because they represented the accessible face of the system - a system that the people of Toxteth lived under yet with which had no meaningful relationship. In a similar fashion, the police and security at festivals, even the ambulances, can and do receive similar attention.

For Freudians, the police and security etc represent the word of law; the authoritarian father; the super-ego. They are the agents of control and act to restrict the spontaneous, and unconscious, impulses of the id of the crowd. The dynamic conflict between these forces produces a release of libidinal energy, which may be expressed in vandalism and rioting. Alternatively, to understand this from the school of object-relations, the security and so forth symbolise the 'other', that which is outside the symbiotic orbit of the crowd. In acting as the 'containers' of the crowd, the negative, aggressive and hateful impulses of the crowd are split off and are thereby projected onto the 'other'. To a certain extent the reverse can also be said to be true - the crowd represents a dangerous (possibly regressive) threat to the agents of control who in turn split off their 'bad' parts and project them onto the crowd. By infantalising the crowd in this way, the intrusion of authority (parent) is legitimised. And by reflection again, the crowd may respond to this expectation of the parents by regressing to an earlier stage of development. Essentially this is an interactive process.

Lindholm shares his experience of this expression of this 'raw, impersonal power':

My first awareness of the raw impersonal power of a group was during student riots in the late sixties. I was momentarily lost in the excitement of a violent crowd, and found myself facing armed policemen, who became in turn an equally angry mob. The riot that ensued was frightening, but also exhilerating [sic], as the participants lost their inhibitions against violence along with their 'instinct' of self preservation in the confrontation. Reality was far more malleable than I had imagined, and my own perceptions of what was reasonable and rational had to be rethought. (Lindholm, 1993, p27)

Clearly what Lindholm writes about here is the temporary dissolution of self, of transgression - which was 'frightening' - but perhaps also of transcendence - which was 'exhilarating'.   If festivals are to be thought of as characterised by the interplay between transgression and transcendence, then rioting in some form (as is historically shown) will be an integral feature. However, I suggest that the levels of rioting/'disorder' will be proportional to the extent to which the festival crowd is infantalised and this could form the basis for further study.

Earth and Fire
The association between earth and fire is an interesting one. Positive experiences of dirt refer to a return to 'nature' and 'earth energies'. There is a sense of tapping into ancient, forgotten powers rising from elemental, chthonic forces. Fire as an example of the sacred can be found in many cultures and traditions globally and festivals are no exception. At Glastonbury particularly, many festival-goers are keen to re-claim the (imagined) Celtic tradition. For example a wicker man is burned and there are fireworks and a fire-garden. It is no coincidence that Glastonbury festival is held in midsummer. McKay cites Andrew Blakes's book 'The Land Without Music' (1997) where he writes,

Alternative history is part of the agenda here…[The] folk-inflected rock festivals of the 1970s and after were proposing a new Albion, a landscape with music which looks 'back' to an imagined Celtic past, to the fire festivals and the celebration of the seasons and to the use of the identified and historicised sacred sites, such as Glastonbury [and Stonehenge]. They are thus, like the Glastonbury festivals run by Rutland Boughton…involved in a historic imaginary which stretches back through the long history of Arthurian literature and music…to propose an imagined rural, mystical and at least semi-pagan Britain…The historic agenda is that…they are working with an anti-Anglo-Saxon past; so this may be English in its desire for a certain landscape, but it is against English Establishment history, with its celebrations of Empire and Little Englishness. (McKay, 2000, p.84)

Perhaps then some of the quasi-religious/ritualistic activities reflect a desire to reunite with the celebration of the passing of time and of the seasons. Traditionally bonfires were lit in these pagan festivals, just as bonfires are lit at festivals today. A Guardian review of Jones' book, 'Bold As Love', agrees. 'Festivals' writes Spufford, 'are our modern version of pastoral - the way we urban English can imagine ourselves reconnected to the ancestral earth'. (Spufford, 2001)

Consider the Glastonbury 'mud people'. This festival has been the scene of much devastation on years when the weather has been inclement. The peaceful fields of Worthy Farm are more reminiscent of the WW1 battlefields of the Somme than of a laid-back festival. In places, the mud is as deep as one metre. Cases of trench-foot have been recorded. Whilst some festival-goers undoubtedly find the environment unpleasant and arduous, there are nonetheless those who revel in it - literally. They can be found in swarming masses rolling around in the lakes of mud until they are completely unidentifiable.

It may seem odd therefore that on dry, sunny years, there are still those who actively seek out the mud experience, yet they do. Someone, somewhere will make his or her own mudbath, which soon becomes a communal experience. So how can we understand this?

Firstly, it is to be remembered that the linguistic roots of 'dirt' are Middle English, i.e. n 'variant of 'drit', excrement, filth, mud, from Old Norse'. (dictionary.com) It is the festival-goer's apparent abandonment of respectable cleanliness that sets him/her apart from the rest of society - 'the great unwashed'. It is a chance, whether wished for or not, for the average person to transgress normal standards of hygiene. Or perhaps it could even be understood in Freudian terms as a temporary regression to the anal stage of development - the successful completion of which marks the entry into 'civilised society'.

McKay seeks to explain this in terms of a counter-cultural statement.

Of course, the identification of nomadism and dirt as signs of threat is seen in majority culture's attitude to alt.groups [sic] across decades, whether urban squatters of the 1960s, New Travellers, Greenham Peace Camp Women of the 1980s, or road protesters of the 1990s - consider the whole pejorative terminology of the 'crusties', in general. (McKay, 2000, p.6)

Here again, we see the distinction drawn between 'us' and 'them'; the acknowledgement of the festival crowd being distinct from the rest of society. This reflects the discussion in the previous section whereby the festival crowd may be seen to represent a threat to order.

Festival toilets are almost uniformly loathed. They quickly become blocked and over-flowing and they smell. Many prefer to relieve themselves 'al fresco' rather than endure a festival toilet. Little wonder that they have become the focus of aggression in recent years. Here then we have seen another link between earth and fire. At the 2000 Reading/Leeds festivals no fewer then 178 portable toilets were burnt down by the crowd; some were even exploded with the use of camping gaz bottles. The toilets represented the downside of getting to grips with 'earth'; also perhaps represented the most accessible part of the patriarchal infra-structure to rebel against. (C.f. Joel's comments re: rioting).

Following on from this discussion of dirt is the phenomenon of 'bottling off'.

Bottling Off
The crowd likes to communicate/interact with performers in ways other than cheering and clapping. Acts that are unfavourably received by the crowd will endure the fate of being 'bottled off'. As the term implies, bottles, cans and other debris will be hurled at the stage with the intention of disrupting the band in question. A direct hit will often raise a cheer from the crowd. If enough debris is thrown, then the band may leave the stage altogether. Meatloaf at Reading Festival in 1988 is one example.

With the ban on glass bottles being introduced at many festivals, such incidents now rarely produce serious injury, yet the level of discomfort for the band on stage may still be maintained when the bottle thrown (without a top) contains urine. This also frequently spills onto other members of the crowd through its journey and fights have been known to ensue. This type of behaviour is rarely seen in any other setting.

So how are we to understand this particular piece of festival crowd behaviour? A Freudian reading would refer back to the primal horde. If the performer is taken to be a representation of the god/father, then the crowd represents the primal horde. The crowd, wishing to emulate the god/father's power and position, symbolically destroys the leader thereby reclaiming the power for themselves. 'Build 'em up - knock 'em down'. It is also an example of a transgressive piece of 'uncivilised' behaviour that is legitimised by the context. One would not expect to see this behaviour at the ballet, for instance.

It has to be said that it is rare for the whole crowd to be involved in this kind of act. Most usually, the bottle is thrown by an individual acting alone. Can we interpret this as an act of individualism - as a way of standing apart from the crowd? On the other hand, a single bottle thrown can act as a trigger for others to join in. Could it be said that conformity to the crowd acting 'anti-socially' (by conventional terms) can be more acceptable - and therefore safer - than sticking to the rules of the now disposed 'other'?

But can this also be linked to the experience of dirt at festivals? From a Kleinian perspective this smacks of an act of poisoning the parent.   Klein described projective identification as a pathological mechanism of defence, i.e. 'that of infantile…phantasies and impulses to attack the mother's body in many ways, including the projection of excrements and parts of the self into her.' (Klein, 1946, p143) It characterises the way in which the individual projects undesired, or else highly desired, aspects of the self onto others, and as a result then identifies with these others.

The individual festival-goer, seeking to identify with and internalise the charismatic leader/performer that is favoured (good breast), may express their hostility and rejection of less appreciated performers (bad breast) by literally projecting their ‘shit’ onto the stage. They are unable to identify with, and therefore cannot tolerate, what the less favoured artists represent and for whatever reason, this is experienced as a threat to the identity of the individual festival-goer. To put it another way, the less favoured performer becomes a container for the festival-goer's 'bad' parts of self, i.e. the hostile, uncivilised and envious drives and impulses. To act out these impulses in such a way represents a transgression, yet as we have seen this is bound inextricably with the whole experience of transcendence at festivals.

CONCLUSION

I have attempted to explore the existence and experience of transcendence at the modern pop music festival. The history of the modern festival has been explored and of its links to early religious cults - the role of the charismatic leader and the totem being of particular significance here. In arguing for the similarities of festival culture with totemic early religions, I would even venture to propose that with the modern pop festival being a functional, even necessary, part of (youth) culture that its existence is in itself totemic.

We have seen that it is not simply a question of 'merging' with the 'other', of the experience of transcendence through a sense of 'oneness' in the crowd, but that there is also the 'shadow' side to consider. At one and the same time, the modern pop festival provides an opportunity for 'depersonalisation' and, to use Freudian language, for a 'return of the repressed'. This is to say that the festival, like the carnival, is a psychically contradictory affair. It simultaneously introduces to the festival-goer the possibility of an experience beyond his or her usual ego boundaries and the chance of a connection to something 'greater' than the one self, whilst at the same time legitimising certain transgressive behaviours. It is impossible, therefore, to say that the festival experience is one thing or the other: transgression and transcendence are ultimately intertwined. Psychoanalytic theories which seek to explain such crowd behaviour purely in terms of the usual 'stage' theories of psychical development will be missing a fundamental dynamic of the festival gestalt. For how can anything, at one and same time, provide a vehicle for our longing for transcendence (a post-Oedipal affair), yet also furnish the occasion for the expression of utterly 'primitive' (pre-Oedipal) desires and impulses?

Thus we have the paradoxical (im)possibility of transcendence, something that cannot be neatly resolved by theory. Nor should it be, for once it is bound in this way it would lose some of its creativity, its magic, and its mystery for all involved.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1944) The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception from Dialectic of Enlightenment New York: Continuum (1993)

Chirban, S. Ph.D. (2000) Oneness Experience: Looking Through Multiple Lenses, Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 2 (3):247-264, Human Sciences Press, Inc.

Durkheim, Emile (1965) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: New York: Free Press.

Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1962) Essays in Social Anthropology Greenwood Press, London

Freud, S. (1912-13) Totem and Taboo. Routledge

Freud, S. (1955) Group Psychology, Civilisation and its Discontents & Other works. Vol. XII Civilisation, Society and Religion. Penguin books

Jung, C.G. (1983) The Essential Jung: Selected Writings, Fontana Press.

Klein, M.(1975) Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946 - 1963 Vintage

Lawrence, W. G. MA, (1992), Signals of Transcendence in Large Groups as Systems, Human-Nature.com

Lawrence, W. G. MA, (1997) Centring of the Sphinx The International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations 1997 Symposium.

Le Bon, G. (1952): The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. London: Ernest Benn

Lemert, C.C. and Gillan, G. (1982) Michel Foucault: Social Theory and Trangression New York: Columbia University Press

Lindholm, C. (1993) Charisma, Crowd Psychology and Altered States of Consciousness. Department of Anthropology, Boston University

Mackay, C. (1841) Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, reprinted by Barnes and Noble Inc. (1989)

McKay, G. (2000) Glastonbury: A Very English Fair: Victor Gollancz

Petridis, A. 'Summers: The Top 10' The Guardian Friday Review (22/06/01)

Rayner, Eric (1995) Unconscious Logic. London: Routledge.

Ross, K.L., PhD (1985) The Origin of Value in a Transcendent Function, webpage.

'Royals and Riots 1981', Channel 4 television (10/07/01)

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut: (1986) A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis Brunner -Routledge

Savage, C., M.D. (1964) LSD, Alcoholism and Transcendence from: 'LSD, the Consciousness-Expanding Drug' by David Solomon: G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York,

'Smallweed' (2000) A good week for Gustav le Bon, The Guardian (19/08/ 2000)

Spufford, F (2001) Visions of Albion Guardian book review of 'Bold As Love' by Gwyneth Jones (25/8/01)

Szollosy, M. (1998) Winnicott's Potential Spaces: Using Psychoanalytic theory to redress the crises of post-modern culture: Paper presented to the 1998 MLA
Convention San Franscisco.

Thompson, K. (1982) Emile Durkheim, Routledge

Weber, M (1978) Economy and Society, eds. Roth, I and Wittich, C. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Young, R.M. (1994) Mental Space, Process Press Ltd.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to acknowledge the invaluable help and support from my tutor, Larry O'Carroll, in writing this thesis.

SEX, DRUGS & ROCK 'n' ROLL
THE (IM)POSSIBILITY OF TRANSCENDENCE

Corinne Lane, BA Hons (Psy), CHP, NRHP (Assoc)

Psychoanalytic Theory
MA Dissertation 2001
Goldsmith's College, University of London

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana (1991)

Abstract
Introduction
History
Transcendence
Understanding the Mentality of Festival Crowds
Charisma, Totemism and the Sacred
Some Archetypal Examples of Festival Crowd Behaviour:
* Drug use
* Rioting
* Earth and Fire
* Bottling Off
Conclusion
Bibliography & Acknowledgment

Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Load up on guns and
Bring your friends
It's fun to lose
And to pretend
She's over bored
And self assured
Oh no, I know
A dirty word

hello, how low? (x bunch of times)

With the lights out it's less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My Libido
Yeah

I'm worse at what I do best
And for this gift I feel blessed
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end

hello, how low? (x bunch of times)

With the lights out it's less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My Libido
Yeah

And I forget
Just why I taste
Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile
I found it hard
It was hard to find
Oh well, whatever, nevermind

hello, how low? (x bunch of times)

With the lights out it's less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My Libido
Yeah, a denial
A denial
A denial...

ABSTRACT

My hypothesis is that the modern popular music festival provides an opportunity for people from so-called mainstream society to share a different cultural experience; one that is often punctuated by moments of transcendence in the crowd. This may be experienced as uplifting or threatening, depending upon the event. A link between the transgression of the boundaries of so-called 'mainstream' society and the experience of transcendence is noted.

Britain's festival history has 'a rich and diverse tradition which takes its inspiration from sources as diverse as Gypsy horse fairs, American rock festivals, rebirthed pagan rituals and country fairs.' (McKay, 2000; preface) The roots of the modern pop festival can be traced back to the early jazz festivals of Beaulieu and Pendleton's NJF in the 1950s and 1960s.

The experience of transcendence within the crowd is discussed with relation to understandings of crowd psychology. Since a discussion of this nature involves an overlap between psychoanalytical and sociological theory, the writings of Gustave le Bon, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim are considered.

The festival crowd may be likened to the early religious cults, as both are characterised by totemism. Similarly the charismatic leader, or shaman, may be likened to the idolised performers on stage. The festival crowd, it is argued, responds in a similar fashion to the ‘primitive’ clan in that, for both, an experience of what Durkheim called 'collective effervescence' is in question. Following on from this, archetypal festival behaviours are explored, including drug use - which again has links to religious experience. Other behaviours discussed include: rioting; 'earth and fire'; and ‘bottling-off’.

In conclusion, whilst it is possible for the individual festival-goer to experience moments of transcendence either separately or within the crowd, this is to a large extent mediated through transgressive actions. Furthermore, this sense of individual and crowd is in a constant state of flux.

INTRODUCTION

"Sex, drugs and rock n roll" - may seem very much like a cliché. Can this still really be at the heart of the festival experience? A glance through the various internet message boards before and after the event would tend to support this idea. Despite the anecdotal, non-scientific nature of these on-line discussions, they nonetheless provide us with an interesting snapshot of the concerns and passions of festival-goers themselves. Topics of conversation range from the obviously sexual, with pleas from angst-ridden teens to meet up with other teens and 'get laid' (sex); to the debate over how easy it is to buy alcohol or recreational drugs on site (drugs); to - ostensibly the whole point of a pop festival - the music (rock n roll). Who should really be the head-line act? What bands are other people going to see? Is Marilyn Manson better than Eminem? Interestingly, many of the expressed concerns are the same whether the individual has attended such an event before or who is a self-confessed 'festival virgin'.

Yet however weary some of these debates may appear, they do give tremendous insight into the individual's experience of festival attendance and of their expectations of the same. It could be argued that these expectations - often shared by many individual festival-goers - shape their experiences and of the experience of the festival crowd as a whole.

There is undoubtedly an expectation of something beyond the norm, of a chance to express different feelings, attitudes and behaviours. An expectation may simply be to dress differently (e.g. bring out the silly hats - though this can scarcely be classed as a transcendent function.) There is also an opportunity at festivals to experiment with different aspects of the self; after all there is a certain anonymity at such events. One can easily be lost in the crowd.

The key question is one of the experiences of transcendence as part of the festival encounter. So how and why does this happen? Perhaps first of all we should consider some of the history behind the modern music festival as well as more general aspects of crowd behaviour to ground this discussion. This discussion inevitably involves an overlap between the psychoanalytic and the sociological. Crowd behaviour will be explored with reference in particular to the writings of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. The concept of totemism and the role of the charismatic leader will be discussed with particular reference to the effect of the stage performer on the sensations and experiences of the festival crowd.

Finally, the question of transcendence with reference to archetypal examples of festival crowd behaviour will be explored.

HISTORY

'In spite of the weather', writes McKay,' Britain has an extraordinary tradition of festival culture, which …takes its inspiration from sources as diverse as Gypsy horse fairs, American rock festivals, rebirthed pagan rituals and country fairs'. (McKay, 2000, preface) The beginnings of modern festival culture were to be found in the jazz festivals of the 1950s and early in the 1960s, specifically those run by Lord Montague of Beaulieu and by Harold Pendleton (National Jazz Federation). Incredibly these 'trad' and modern jazz events paved the way for the hippy festivals of the 1960s and 1970s; for the punk and heavy metal rock concerts of the 1980s; and the rave and dance culture of the late 1980s and 1990s. The NJF festival, originally staged in Richmond, moved to Reading by invitation of the town's Chamber of Trade and Commerce in 1971 - to celebrate the town's millennium - and survives to the present day as the Reading Festival (Mean Fiddler's Carling Weekend). This festival is in fact the longest running commercial event in the country. McKay suggests that after 'the postwar austerity, the 1950s displayed an increasingly confident and vibrant (sometimes violent) range of youth and anti-Establishment cultures' and goes on to cite Christopher Brooker's (1969) study of the 'cultural revolution of 1950s and 1960s Britain, The Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life in the Fifties and Sixties',

For the avant-garde of the teenagers in 1956 and 1957, it was as if they had been caught up in an iridescent bubble, bringing for all those inside it a vision of eternal youth, freedom and excitement. But for those who remained outside, had fallen a thick veil, which made everything they did or thought important seem suddenly incomprehensible, 'out of date' contemptible and grey. (McKay, 2000, p.1)

And it is precisely this essence, this joie de vivre, which so many expect of their festivals today. It is this festival experience which was once described to me by a festival-goer as 'a holiday for your head'.

The fact that so many festivals survive, even thrive, on a commercial basis would support the view that the British public embrace this part of their mainstream culture in spite of the fact that each event regularly receives opposition from local people, police, councils and so forth. It is a peculiar fact that this is part of the festival gestalt: the show must go on!   An example of the I-thou dichotomy perhaps?

I propose that the modern music festival fulfils a cultural role no less significant than the country fairs of previous centuries and of religious (Christian and pagan) festivals also of that time. They present an opportunity to deracinate from the mundane aspects of day-to-day life in society, from whatever cultural norms apply to that society at that time. Perhaps this situation in some way mirrors the mediaeval carnivals that for Mikhail Bakhtin were characterised by 'misrule'. These festivals promoted customs that could be said to encourage community through an inversion, rather than an idealisation, of norms and are thereby attributed with the function of relieving social tensions and helping to confirm the social structure by the temporary reversal of social norms.

TRANSCENDENCE

So what is meant by transcendence in this context? A dictionary definition of transcendence is as follows: n 1: a state of being or existence above and beyond the limits of material experience 2: the state of excelling or surpassing or going beyond usual limits. (dictionary.com)

However, to understand transcendence from a psychoanalytic perspective we need to explore the concept in more detail. For Jung, the goal of life is to realise the self through a process of individuation. The self is an archetype that represents the transcendence of all opposites, so that every aspect of the personality, male-female for example, is expressed equally. Yet, it is this opposition that creates the libido of the psyche and it is this contrast that creates energy; so that a strong contrast gives strong energy, and a weak contrast gives weak energy and so forth. This process of rising above our opposites, of seeing both sides of who we are, is called transcendence.

Using this Jungian definition, can it be said that transcendence is possible at such events? If we were to use this definition then perhaps the most obvious libidinal energy would be found between the concepts of the ego and the shadow - the archetype that represents the 'dark side' of the ego. It is amoral, but often is the repository for those part of the ego that are not valued or even downright prohibited, either personally or collectively. The festival in this instance provides the individual in the crowd with an opportunity for transgression; an opportunity, perhaps, to step into the 'dark side' of his or her being. Does this transgression then lead to the experience of transcendence?

Transgression literally means a 'stepping across' and what may be stepped across in this context are the current norms, values and mores of the given mainstream culture.   One reason for this could be a quest for transcendence, a greater sense of wholeness or the sacred. Furthermore, it is by acknowledging the transgression of boundaries, of breaking that which is taboo which paradoxically reinforces the boundaries and social constructs. That is to say that a festival provides a counter-point to 'ordinary' life; something that is just as much 'not me' as indeed it is 'me'. It represents the amoral shadow archetype that exists alongside the festival-goer's normal construction of ego.

So if the festival has a place in modern day society then what of the individual's experience of it? Is it an example of the desire for what Jung would term the 'participation mystique'? This is a condition of mysterious, unconscious identity between the ego and contents of the unconscious. It manifests in a strong connection between oneself and others, people or objects, and is the basis for projection.

A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis defines 'participation mystique' as a product of 'early defences, which also appear in adult pathology'. (Samuels, Shorter & Plaut, 1986). The use of the word 'mystique' acknowledges the mysterious nature of this phenomenon, yet the refusal to create a separate identity is still seen as an example of pathology - relating as it does to the Kleinian concept of 'projective identification'. This is part of normal emotional development, but may also take pathological forms.

However, to label this experience as pathological is surely only one side of the story. If we can say that the average person experiences at their core a sense of alienation, then to experience a sense of connectedness is desirable, if not vital to one's sense of wellbeing. This may then explain the success of the modern pop festival: it provides a forum for the festival-goer to experience a sense of connectedness in a way that modern mainstream society increasingly lacks, which is to say a sense of connection with a meaningful something that is greater than ourselves.

Chirban - in her discussion of 'Oneness Experience' - explains it in the following way:

Listening to a piece of music, feeling awe-struck by the magnificence of nature, experiencing the rapture and ecstasy of romantic and sexual love, and achieving spiritual union with a higher being are ineffable moments in human existence. These experiences provide opportunities to transcend the experience of the separate self and join in a sense of oneness with another. The loosening of the borders of the self's barrier to the boundless experience of unity with an 'other,' resulting in the re-emergence of a self enhanced by increased vitality and more intricate integration is characteristic of the oneness experience. (Chirban, 2000, p1)

The participation mystique is equivalent here to a sensation of transcendence. As the individual's ego boundaries are relaxed, so a greater sense of connection is engendered, which has a positive, transformative effect on the individual when they return to his or herself. Chirban continues by drawing a distinction between positive and negative experiences:

The intrapsychic elements that make oneness experience possible involve developmental relational experience and a well-integrated, structured self capable of rescinding its boundaries. When these elements are present, oneness experience energizes [sic] spirituality, spawns deepened dimensions of intimacy, fuels renewed aesthetic production and leads to ongoing development within the self. Oneness experience is a vigorous and potent force that challenges the self to be progressive and expansive in its development and integration. By contrast, oneness-like experience with objects that claim to be transformative but are only partially so, which we may call "idols" is destructive to the development of cohesion and integration of the self. Drug use, cults, and gangs are some contemporary sources of idolatrous experiences which promise false cohesion and ultimately have a destructive impact on the integration of the self. Distinguishing between oneness phenomena that look similar but have diametrically opposed effects on the self will enhance our understanding of oneness and its usefulness in psychoanalytic treatment and in cultural expression. (Chirban, 2000, p.1)

When we consider the festival experience of transcendence within this framework, we can see that there Chirban notes a difference between a more genuine and psychologically healthy sensation of oneness, compared to the fantasy of wholeness that drug use and idol worship promote; the latter being only transformative for the individual festival-goer in part. Chirban considers that such experiences have a 'disastrous impact on the integration of the self'. Whether this actually is the case in this instance is cause for debate.

Inevitably, some moments within the festival will be experienced by the individual as more predictable than others. Is this then the key to understanding the seemingly random moments of what Diane Hatcher Cano calls 'Oneness and Me-Ness'? That is to suggest that moments of transcendence within the crowd, moments of 'oneness', are more likely to occur when the crowd is behaving unpredictably. This has serious implications. The unpredictable crowd, by this argument, is likely to have a stronger sense of unity and cohesion, which may fuel its tendency towards anti-social behaviours and rioting. A prime example of this would be from the Reading/Leeds 2000 festivals where somewhere in the region of 178 'portaloos' (portable chemical toilets) were set ablaze and destroyed by the crowds. More on rioting later. (C.f. le Bon)

The experience of transcendence from 'ordinary' states of being may provide the individual with the chance of alternative understandings, purposes and motivations. This may occur due to the blending of ego boundaries within the crowd or through the experience of sex, drugs/alcohol or the music. Yet, as the modern pop festival is at the same time a controlled and contained event, there exists a legitimate opportunity to transgress and re-negotiate social contracts for a temporary period.

This means that despite the thrill of 'giving oneself up to the moment', the festival experience is underwritten by the sub-text of finality. The end is in sight from the very beginning. Matte-Blanco, echoing Bion, posits a links between unpredictability and infinity, that is to say:

For any event to be predictable the relation between present and future has to be known. The absence of such a relation produces unpredictability. As individuals experience unpredictability and uncertainty, there is a feeling of infinity present. This is because there is an absence of limit to the particular uncertainty, i.e. it has an unlimited or infinite element. Hence uncertainty generates psychologically the experience of infinity. (Rayner, 1995, p, 161)

Having the end in sight is to my mind highly significant for the experience the festival-goer. Whilst the individual may lose him/herself in the immediacy of the moment, there is a certain comfort to be gained from the fact that within a short space of time, the festival will be over; familiar life will resume and personal safety will be restored. In this way, the festival experience is significant beyond the limits of the festival itself for it is to be argued that the mundane is given meaning when the boundary is crossed. Thus it is through the experience of transgression that transcendence is achieved.

For some people, the experience of unity with the crowd, with the loss of self is a liberating and exhilarating experience. For others however, the experience is of loss of self, of engulfment, of death. This can create states of extreme anxiety and paranoia, which I have observed many times in fifteen years of working in the festival context. This anxiety can be exacerbated by the use of drugs or by an existing, underlying pathology, yet has been reported by otherwise sane and sober individuals. Common fantasies are of dying (e.g. 'my heart's stopped beating!') or of persecution (e.g. 'everyone wearing black is trying to kill me!'). Both of these examples represent the fear of losing the self, which sits with unease next to the desire to experience something outside the self at the same time.

UNDERSTANDING THE MENTALITY OF FESTIVAL CROWDS

The French sociologist Gustave le Bon did not have a favourable view of crowd mentality and noted 'the extreme mental inferiority of crowds'. It was his belief, from observation, that 'when…a certain number of … individuals are gathered together in a crowd for purposes of action, observation proves that, from the mere fact of their being assembled, there result certain new psychological characteristics'. The new characteristics to which he refers are of an 'inferior' mentality and the workings of crowd behaviour apparently the result of unconscious forces.

Visible social phenomena [he continued] appear to be the result of an immense, unconscious working that as a rule is beyond the reach of our analysis. Perceptible phenomena may be compared to the waves, which are the expression on the surface of the ocean of deep-lying disturbances of which we know nothing. So far as the majority of their acts are considered, crowds display a singularly inferior mentality. (le Bon, 1968, v-x)

For le Bon, the modern festival crowd would be characterised by a lowering of the collective mentality of the group, which would lead to an increase in irrational behaviour. Yet this unconscious collective would also be in a strong position, bonded by an affinity beyond the analysis of the observer. 'Crowds,' he wrote, 'doubtless, are always unconscious, but this very unconsciousness is perhaps one of the secrets of their strength'.

Yet, le Bon's fear of the crowd's unconsciously motivated uprising and rejection of the patriarchal order can be seen as reflection of the fears of the Victorian élite. It is important to understand his theory within his cultural context. This leads us rather neatly to the work of American sociologist, Max Weber. Within Weberian sociology, efforts are made to understand the cultural norms and values that motivate people. Agents within the social group are assumed to be reasonable - even if the motives behind their behaviour are not instantly appreciable to the uninitiated observer. Using this argument therefore, it would be necessary for the observer of the festival crowd to assume what Clifford Geertz calls 'taking the native's point of view'. Lindholm explains this point further:

Human beings [he writes] are assumed to be rational agents acting consciously and intelligently to maximise their valued goals; their thought is recognisable as reasonable by the thinker as well as by the culturally knowledgeable observer; furthermore rationality is highly valued within its particular cultural setting, since only rational action can lead to attainment of culturally desirable ends. (Lindholm, 1993, p3)

Weber (1978) categorised action orientations into four types: value rationality, instrumental rationality, traditional and charismatic rationality. Although Weber seeks to exclude any unconscious motivation from his theoretical explorations, he proposes that the last two action orientations are not as governed by the means-end relation as either value or instrumental rationality. Tradition implies an unthinking repetition of behaviour; a mindless routine for the individual in the passive crowd where self-determination has no part to play. He also notes that this type of behaviour, however unanalysable, is nonetheless a common feature of crowds. So it might be said that traditions may be observed at the various festivals - consider the Glastonbury 'mud people', for example. Furthermore, I have observed that the individual festival-goer, in having expectations of the event, also has expectations of 'tradition'. This may either be a personal 'tradition', for example meeting up with friends at the cider bus in Glastonbury, or a more collective tradition of 'getting wrecked' or rioting. (More on this later) Unfortunately, for those festival-goers who are assaulted or the victims of tent theft, some expectations are dashed by these most unattractive occurrences. 'This isn't supposed to happen at a festival!' is a frequent lament.

In contrast to 'tradition' is 'charisma', which Weber defines as ' a certain quality of individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities' (Weber, 1978, p242). Charismatic individuals express their idiosyncrasies in an intense and frequently emotionally labile manner, which has the power to excite onlookers and promote a transformation in day-to-day consciousness. Weber conceives of the original example of this behaviour as being the epileptoid magician-shaman who acted as exemplar and leader in communal sacred experience. (Weber, 1978, pp 401, 539) These extreme emotional states have a contagious effect on the crowd. Lindholm writes, 'The charismatic appeal therefore lies precisely in the capacity of a person to display heightened emotionality and in the reciprocal capacity of the audience to imitation and corresponding sensations of altered awareness.' (Lindholm, 1993, p3)

In this way, Weber perceives the crowd's response to the charismatic leader as being characterised not by meaning, but by an essentially magnetic and compulsive element that engenders a sense of transcendence.   Later on however, as meaning is ascribed post facto, 'both charisma and tradition become rationalised as they transform from their ideal-typical state'. (Lindholm, 1993, p.3) This concept was taken up by the neo-Weberians, such as Edward Shils and Clifford Geertz. Instead of seeing the behaviour of the charismatic leader as being an irrational act, all individuals, at all times, are attempting to achieve a culturally significant and reasonable understanding of the sacred. This would, for me, explain why the modern music festival is such a robust cultural phenomenon.

For Emile Durkheim however, the reasons for aspects of behaviour that are offered by the individual in the crowd are not so much rational as rationalisation. They are an attempt to explain socially generated actions over which s/he has no control. Durkheim's model is one of a never-ending ebb and flow between individual and society; self and group. This is what I mean when I write of 'moments of transcendence'. It is not a continuous state of 'oneness'. The ego boundaries of the festival-goer are not constantly dissolved, but have the potential for being in a state of flux. Indeed, without the relatively fixed reference point of the ego boundary, there would be psychosis - hence the need for the defence mechanism of rationalisation, it could be argued. If the individual in the festival crowd experiences something - positive or negative - beyond his or her usual ego-boundary, then there could be a need to rationalise this behaviour once there has been a return to the individual's usual state.

The most significant difference between Durkheim and Weber is their conception of the experience of group consciousness. For Weber it is essentially a process without energy or conscious will, and one from which we can gain little. However, in a manner having great relevance for our understanding of the experience of the festival-goer, Durkheim attributes group life a transcendent function. As Lindholm writes:

[for Durkheim] people submerge themselves in the collective precisely because participation offers an immediate felt sense of transcendence to its members. It is a sensation of ecstasy, not boredom, that experientially validates self-loss in the community (Lindholm, 1993 p4).

Thus the individual festival-goer seeks to join the crowd for this experience of wholeness and joy, but also, and importantly, of depersonalisation, so that a transcendent sense of participation in something larger and more powerful than him or herself can be experienced. The transcendence thereby made possible Durkheim referred to as 'collective effervescence'. He proposed that it would occur spontaneously 'whenever people are put into closer and more active relations with one another' (Durkheim, 1965, pp 240-1). This is a powerful social energy generated during religious rituals and civic ceremonies, one that breaks or erases the boundaries between individuals and creates a truly pan-individual social world. More generally, this 'effervescent' energy creates the totems of social life, holds members of society together, and is that from which religious ideas and cultural ideals are born. Furthermore, this experience is a 'social fact', something which Durkheim, given his sociological realism, conceives as 'real', as wholly 'objective'. It owes its character to 'a primal, prelogical, experiential state of transcendent self-loss that provides the moral basis for all social configurations, and combats the solipsistic self-interest that would tear society apart' (Lindholm, 1993, p 4).

The transcendent experience of collective effervescence was felt by Durkheim to be the 'very type of sacred thing' (Durkheim, 1965, p140). In the next section, we shall compare the modern music festival with that of the early religious cults for I believe both perform a similar social function.

CHARISMA, TOTEMISM, AND THE SACRED

This is my church.
This is where I heal my hurts.
It's in the world I've become
Contained in the hum between voice and drum.
It's in change
The poetic justice of cause and effect,
Respect, love, compassion.
This is my church.
This is where I heal my hurts.
For tonight,
God is a DJ.
God is a DJ
This is my church.© Faithless (1998)