Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion (24 page)

There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it. We can be sure that we have something especially crucial to address when the very notion of being alone grows unbearable. For this reason, religions have always been forceful in recommending that their followers observe periods of solitude, however much discomfort these might at first provoke. A modern Temple to Reflection would follow this philosophy, creating ideally reassuring conditions for contemplation, allowing us to wait in a restful bare room for those rare insights upon which the successful course of our life depends, but which normally run across our distracted minds only occasionally and skittishly like shy deer.

Among the more intriguing features of Imperial Roman religion was that it not only provided for the worship of cosmopolitan gods such as
Juno and
Mars (whose temples could be found all across the empire, from Hadrian's Wall to the banks of the Euphrates) but also allowed for the reverence of a panoply of local deities, whose personalities reflected the character, either topographical or cultural, of their native regions. These protective spirits, known as ‘genii locorum', were given temples of their own and developed reputations – which sometimes drew travellers to them from afar – for being able to cure a variety of ailments of the mind and body. The spirits from the coastline south of Naples, for example, were thought to be particularly well suited to the abatement of melancholy, while the genius loci of Colonia Iulia Equestris (modern-day Nyon, on the shore of Lake Geneva) was supposed to have a special talent for consoling those oppressed by the vagaries of political and commercial life.

Like so much else that seems sensible about Roman religion, the tradition of the genius loci was absorbed by Christianity, which made comparable connections between specific localities and their curative powers, though it chose to talk of
shrines rather than temples, and of
saints instead of spirits. The map of medieval Europe was dotted with holy sites, many of them built upon Roman foundations, which promised to grant the faithful relief from their physical and mental ills via contact with assorted body parts of dead Christian saints.

	Altotting, Germany Staving off the Plague (Virgin Mary)
	Bad Munstereifel, Germany Excessive Fears of Lightning (St Donatus)
	Barrios de Colina, Spain Infertility (San Juan de Ortega)
	Buxton, England Miracle Healings (St Anne)
	Chartres, France Burning Disease (St Anthony)
	Conques, France Soldiers before a Battle (St Foy)
	Dubrovnik, Croatia Throat Problems (St Blaise)
	Hereford, England Palsy (St Ethelbert)
	Larchant, France Madness (St Mathurin)
	Lourdes, France Magical Healing (St Bernadette)
	Morcombelake, England Sore Eyes (St Wite)
	Padua, Italy Lost Things (St Anthony of Padua)
	Rome, Italy; Basilica of San Lorenzo Painful Molar (St Apollonia)
	Spoleto, Italy Unhappily Married Women (St Rita of Cascia)