All over the world, people celebrate important transitions in life with special ceremonies. These rites of passage are as old as mankind itself. Humanist freethinkers also feel the need to celebrate these transitions in life.

In our modern western society these last decades, the big traditional ideologies and religions are no longer able to convince people. Together with all those ideologies a lot of people also lost their rituals. At first they didn’t mind; the rituals no longer seemed necessary. However, that feeling of liberation has gradually turned into the feeling that something is missing. People sense a sort of emptiness when eventually there is nothing left to celebrate or when they let important transitions in life pass unnoticed, like the birth of a child, marriage and so on. Rituals offer people the opportunity to express deep feelings or experiences.

That the demand for ceremonies is still very large, can be deduced from the disproportionately strong position of the Catholic Church – particularly in Belgium – with reference to rituals. Although in Flanders we have known rising secularisation in recent years, the rituals that take place in a church, like baptism, marriages and funerals, remain very popular.

It goes without saying that a ceremony doesn’t always need a religious colour and doesn’t always have to be inspired by religion. Most of our western rituals have a heathen origin anyway, and more and more rituals are organized à la carte without the framework of a big new ideology. Nevertheless they express the mutual alliance between people: family, friends, acquaintances. Rituals are perfect instruments by which to pause and consider gains and losses in our lives.

Every rite of passage is a little like dying: when at the age of twelve we’re on the brink of puberty we leave our childhood behind, when we get married or start living together we let go of our life as a bachelor. But each time there are other alternatives to consider, and forego.

Ceremonies help people cope with this continuing process of gain and loss.

Freethinking Humanist ceremonies have long since stopped being rare events. For a lot of different and important transitions we compose ceremonies – birth, weddings or partnerships, funerals, coming of age or celebration of the freethinking youths as we like to call it. We have no fixed structure: the person and not the ritual itself is the central theme.

In the Moral Service Centre where I work we don’t provide cut-and-dried packages. As moral counsellors (Humanist celebrants) we will help and guide you to find a personal ‘formula’ which connects with your personal perception and that of the family and friends involved in the ceremony. We know it’s not easy putting together a ceremony yourself. That’s why there is a need for moral counsellors. I would like to take you along a journey of the most important ceremonies we conduct: birth, marriage, funeral and coming of age.

Let us begin with the most difficult one: the Humanist funeral ceremony.

Humanist Funeral Ceremonies

Most of us want to commemorate people we have loved when they die. For those of us with no religious belief it’s important that we also mark these occasions using words and music that are personal and appropriate to the lives of the people involved. Appropriate for those who neither lived according to religious principles, nor accepted religious views of life or death; for Humanists and freethinkers. A Humanist funeral recognises no ‘after-life’, but instead uniquely and affectionately celebrates the life of the person who has died. Proper tribute is paid to them, to the life they lived, the connections they made and have left behind. Humanist Funerals are increasingly common, especially in Antwerp.

It all started in the early eighties when the crematorium in Antwerp opened its doors. A few freethinkers organised themselves and strove to make it possible for people to choose a Humanist ceremony, besides a religious or a civil funeral ceremony. And so it came to pass; the first Humanist funeral ceremonies took place due to good cooperation between novice professional moral counsellors and the original volunteers. Now we have a large group of professionals and volunteers. In the city of Antwerp alone there are five professional counsellors and twelve volunteers who performed around 320 ceremonies for funerals last year. How do people find their way to us in search of a Humanist ceremony when a loved one dies? Most of the time, the undertaker refers them to a moral counsellor for a Humanist funeral when he perceives that the family wishes to opt for a non-religious ceremony. When we started out, it wasn’t that evident that the undertakers were passing on the right information. In the beginning they rather kept their distance or even refused to cooperate. Luckily this has changed. Our services are gradually becoming better known.

After that, we make an appointment to meet with the family or/and friends, who are most closely connected with the person who has died. This meeting can be either at their home or in our centre. By asking questions we try to learn as much about the person as possible, so that the funeral justly captures the life and personality of that person. During this conversation you can talk to the moral counsellor about the deceased confidentially, in all tranquility and serenity and give expression to all your feelings. We also take into account the meaning of Humanism in the life of the deceased. We write and read the farewell text. There can be poetry, texts of family or friends and, of course, always some music, chosen by the family or sometimes even beforehand by the deceased. Each ceremony we conduct is unique, created especially for the people involved and based on shared human values with no dependency on religion or superstition. What’s important to us is the occasion and the person commemorate.

Coming of Age Ceremonies: Stepping into the big world with wisdom, force and beauty; a celebration of coming of age or as we like to call it in Flanders ‘celebration of the freethinking youths’

In Flanders we have celebrations for the six year olds and a celebration for the twelve year olds. The most important one and the best known is the key transition from childhood to adulthood around the age of twelve. This celebration has a clear reference to ancient traditions in different cultures. A reference that immediately contradicts the allegation that this kind of celebration can only be a surrogate for certain religious feasts like the confirmation is in Catholicism. These

‘celebrations of the freethinking youths’ do have a meaning and content of their own. Usually they are arranged by a local comity of organised freethinkers in close cooperation with the ethics teacher. A moral counsellor is always prepared to lend a helping hand and to support the organising process. Sometimes the freethinkers ask us to come and give a speech about the meaning of this particular transition in the life of children.

In Belgium we can choose one of eight officially recognised life stances we are taught during a two hour class every week. These are held by a trained teacher. During the special course in ethics, children are prepared for the celebration. It’s like a crowning for having attended the ethics class for 6 years, a moment to pause and consider the big questions in life: Who am I? What am I? What course will my life take? The goal is to create a celebration that is fun, understandable and that has a rich content. It’s a search for a balance between the formal and the festive part. The rituals in these celebrations are rather limited. Most of the times, the Humanist torch is included as a symbol for wisdom, beauty and force.

It goes without saying that Humanist conviction and values play an important part in the celebration as a whole. After all, we want to introduce a frame of reference (certainly not an ‘anything goes, everything is allowed’ mentality that has too often been associated with ‘those heathen freethinkers’).

The celebration of children who are six years old is often called, when freely translated, ‘spring celebration’. It is the little sister of the one mentioned above. The spring celebration symbolises a festive entrance into a far more serious environment. The toddler days make way for the first years of primary school. Last year 2600 children participated in Flanders.

Some History

As early as the last quarter of the 19th century the first Humanist ‘coming of age celebrations’ took place. At that time they had a rather anticlerical nature. They were organised by the socialist freethinkers’ union. That first time only six children participated at the ‘anti- communion celebration’ or ‘the free or socialist communion’ as it was called then. In essence, it was merely an alternative for freethinkers by which they could partly indulge the Catholics and withstand social pressure. The first celebrations weren’t a big success. They felt too much like a copy of the Roman Catholic ceremony. It was only in the years after the War that the contemporary initiatives started. The ‘real’ beginning started with a new philosophy in the sixties. The objective is now to allow children to ‘grow up in a spirit of tolerance, pluralism and mutual understanding, camaraderie and respect for fellow human beings’. In the last two decades especially, these celebrations have made a big leap forward in terms of content and structure; nowadays they have become big events, made for and by children, with theatrical performances, music and rituals usually involving the Humanist torch. Last year 3200 children participated in Flanders. At these celebrations, those who are present actively show the children that they don’t stand alone in their conviction. That there are thousands of others, young and old, who have the same ideals: to be able to live in a just, tolerant, liberal and warm society in which freedom of thought and freedom of speech are essential. A society in which there is no room for dogma and in which all thought and action are guided by the principle of free inquiry.

Lies Verbraeken has been a moral counselor since 1999 in the ‘moral service centre’ of Antwerp City