Midsommar: Pagan Rituals and Collective Catharsis

BY NICOLE LAU

"It's good that we do this together, yes?" The Hårga elder smiles at Dani as she sobs, surrounded by women who mirror her grief, wailing in perfect synchrony. This is Ari Aster's Midsommar (2019)—a film that looks like a nightmare but functions as a twisted form of therapy, where a Swedish pagan commune offers what modern society cannot: collective ritual, witnessed grief, and a community that holds your pain as sacred.

This is horror in broad daylight. This is a breakup movie disguised as folk horror. This is what happens when ancient pagan practices meet contemporary trauma, when ritual becomes the container for unbearable emotion, and when belonging requires the ultimate sacrifice.

Let's enter the commune. Let's see what the midsummer sun reveals.

The Premise: Grief Seeking Container

Dani's family dies in a murder-suicide—her bipolar sister kills their parents and herself. Dani is shattered, clinging to her emotionally distant boyfriend Christian. He and his friends invite her (reluctantly) to a midsummer festival in Sweden at a remote commune called Hårga.

What follows is nine days of increasingly disturbing rituals:

• Psychedelic mushroom trips – Consciousness alteration as initiation
• Ättestupa (senicide) – Elders jumping off a cliff at age 72
• May Queen competition – Dani wins, becoming the festival's central figure
• Ritual sex – Christian is drugged and coerced into mating ritual
• Human sacrifice – Nine offerings burned in a temple, including Christian
• Dani's cathartic smile – She finally releases her grief, surrounded by her new family

The film asks: Is this horror, or is this healing? Is the commune evil, or does it offer something modern life has lost?

The Hårga: Pagan Commune as Alternative Family

The Hårga are a fictional Swedish pagan commune practicing ancient Nordic traditions:

• Isolated – Cut off from modern society, preserving old ways
• Collective – No privacy, no individualism, everything shared
• Ritualized – Every aspect of life follows ceremonial structure
• Cyclical – The festival happens every 90 years; life follows seasonal patterns
• Empathic mirroring – When one person feels, the group feels with them

What They Offer:

• Witnessed grief – Your pain is seen, held, mirrored by the community
• Belonging – You're never alone; the collective is always present
• Purpose – Every person has a role in the ritual cycle
• Meaning – Death, sex, birth, aging—all given sacred context
• Catharsis – Emotion is released through ritual, not suppressed

What They Demand:

• Total submission – Individual will surrendered to collective
• Acceptance of violence – Sacrifice is necessary, death is sacred
• Loss of autonomy – You don't choose; the elders decide your fate
• Complicity – You participate in the horror, or you become it

The Hårga are a cult. But they're also what every traumatized person secretly wants: a family that actually shows up, that holds your pain, that doesn't leave.

Empathic Mirroring: The Collective Nervous System

The film's most striking ritual practice is empathic mirroring—when one person experiences emotion, the group mirrors it:

• Dani sobs, the women wail with her – Her grief becomes collective
• An elder screams during the cliff jump – The community screams in unison
• Dani wins May Queen, everyone celebrates – Her joy is amplified by the group

The Psychological Truth:

This is real therapeutic practice:

• Mirroring neurons – We're wired to reflect others' emotions
• Co-regulation – Nervous systems sync; the group can calm or amplify individual states
• Witnessed emotion – Being seen in your pain is healing; isolation compounds trauma
• Collective catharsis – Group ritual releases emotion more powerfully than solo processing

The Hårga understand: Humans are not meant to grieve alone. We're pack animals. We need the tribe to hold us.

Modern society offers therapy (one hour, once a week, behind closed doors). The Hårga offer total immersion, 24/7 witnessing, communal holding. It's cult-like, yes. But it's also what we've lost.

The Ättestupa: Death as Sacred Duty

The most shocking scene: two elders, at age 72, jump off a cliff. One dies instantly. The other survives, screaming in agony, and the community bashes his head in with a mallet while chanting.

The Historical Basis:

Ättestupa ("family cliff") is a disputed Nordic legend:

• Possibly real – Some evidence of ritual senicide in pre-Christian Scandinavia
• Possibly myth – May have been Christian propaganda against pagans
• Practical logic – In harsh climates with limited resources, elders choosing death could ensure the young survive
• Spiritual logic – Death at the peak of wisdom, before decline, as honorable exit

The Film's Interpretation:

The Hårga treat death as:

• Scheduled – You know when you'll die (72 years)
• Witnessed – The community is present, honors the sacrifice
• Meaningful – Your death serves the collective, ensures the cycle continues
• Merciful – If you survive the jump, they end your suffering quickly

This is horrifying to modern sensibilities. But it's also: death with dignity, death with purpose, death as part of life rather than its enemy.

The film asks: Is it more horrifying to die alone in a hospital, hooked to machines, or to die in a ritual, surrounded by your community, your death given sacred meaning?

The Empathic Scream:

When the elder screams in pain, the entire community screams with him. They don't look away. They don't numb out. They feel his pain as their own.

This is the opposite of modern death—hidden, sanitized, denied. The Hårga say: We will witness your suffering. We will hold it with you. You will not die alone.

The May Queen: Dani's Coronation

Dani wins the May Queen competition—a dancing contest where the last woman standing is crowned. She's adorned with flowers, carried on a platform, worshipped by the commune.

The Symbolism:

• The May Queen = The goddess, the fertile feminine, the life-bringer
• Flower crown = Natural beauty, connection to earth, seasonal cycle
• Elevation = Dani is literally lifted up, seen, celebrated
• Choice = As May Queen, she chooses the final sacrifice

What Dani Gains:

• Visibility – Christian never saw her; the Hårga worship her
• Power – She was powerless in her relationship; now she decides who lives and dies
• Belonging – She was isolated; now she's the center of the community
• Purpose – Her grief had no meaning; now it's sacred, ritualized, witnessed

The May Queen ritual gives Dani what she's been seeking: to be seen, to be held, to matter.

Christian's Sacrifice: The Toxic Boyfriend Burned

Christian is drugged, coerced into a mating ritual with a young Hårga woman (to provide new genetic material), then sewn into a bear carcass and burned alive as the final sacrifice.

Why Christian Must Die:

• He's emotionally absent – He doesn't hold Dani's grief, doesn't see her pain
• He's selfish – He keeps her around out of guilt, not love
• He violates sacred space – He photographs the secret texts, disrespects the rituals
• He's the outsider – He never belonged; he was always marked for sacrifice

Dani's Choice:

As May Queen, Dani must choose the final sacrifice: a Hårga member (chosen by lottery) or Christian. She chooses Christian.

This is:

• Revenge – He betrayed her; now she destroys him
• Liberation – She's free from the toxic relationship
• Initiation – She fully joins the Hårga by participating in the sacrifice
• Catharsis – She releases all her rage, grief, and pain through this act

The Final Smile:

As Christian burns, Dani smiles—a genuine, cathartic smile. The women around her mirror her expression, smiling with her.

This is the film's most disturbing moment: We understand her smile. We might even share it.

She's not a monster. She's a traumatized woman who finally found a family that holds her, sees her, and lets her release the unbearable weight she's been carrying.

The Psychedelic Journey: Mushrooms as Initiation

The film's visual language is psychedelic—breathing trees, warping faces, reality bending. This is because:

• Everyone is on mushrooms – The visitors are dosed early and often
• Altered states are sacred – The Hårga use psychedelics as spiritual technology
• The veil is thin – Boundaries between self and other, real and unreal, dissolve

Psychedelics in Ritual Context:

• Set and setting matter – The Hårga control the environment, guide the experience
• Ego dissolution – The mushrooms break down individual identity, making collective consciousness possible
• Suggestibility increases – In altered states, you're more open to influence, ritual, belief
• Trauma can surface – Dani's grief erupts during the trip; the Hårga hold her through it

The film shows: Psychedelics aren't inherently healing or harmful. Context determines outcome. In the Hårga's hands, they're tools for indoctrination, bonding, and transformation.

The Constant Beneath the Ritual

Here's the deeper truth: The Hårga's empathic mirroring, traditional grief rituals in various cultures, and modern trauma therapy's emphasis on co-regulation are all describing the same principle—that humans heal in relationship, that witnessed emotion is processed emotion, and that isolation compounds suffering.

This is Constant Unification: The Hårga's collective wailing, the Irish wake's communal mourning, and polyvagal theory's co-regulation are all expressions of the same invariant pattern—the nervous system needs other nervous systems to process overwhelming emotion.

Different rituals, same biology. Different cultures, same truth.

Folk Horror: The Genre's Dark Wisdom

Midsommar is folk horror—a genre exploring:

• Old ways vs. modernity – Ancient practices that modern society has forgotten or suppressed
• Isolated communities – Places where old rules still apply
• Ritual sacrifice – The individual given to the collective
• Nature as sacred and terrifying – The land demands blood
• The outsider's fate – Those who don't belong are consumed

Classic Folk Horror:

• The Wicker Man (1973) – British pagan commune sacrifices a Christian policeman
• The Witch (2015) – Puritan family destroyed by wilderness and witchcraft
• Midsommar (2019) – American tourists sacrificed to Swedish pagan gods

Folk horror asks: What if the old ways are still alive? What if they're right? What if modernity is the aberration, and ritual sacrifice is the truth?

Is the Hårga Evil?

The film deliberately leaves this ambiguous:

Arguments They're Evil:

• They murder outsiders
• They drug and manipulate visitors
• They coerce Christian into sex (rape)
• They practice human sacrifice
• They're a cult that destroys individual autonomy

Arguments They're Not (Entirely) Evil:

• They offer genuine community and belonging
• They witness and hold grief in ways modern society doesn't
• They give death meaning and purpose
• They practice radical empathy and collective care
• Dani is genuinely happier with them than she was before

Aster's genius: He makes you understand why someone would join. He makes the cult appealing. And that's the real horror.

Practicing Midsommar Wisdom (Without the Murder)

You can apply the film's insights ethically:

1. Grieve collectively – Find communities that witness emotion (grief groups, therapy groups, spiritual communities)
2. Practice empathic mirroring – When someone shares pain, reflect it back: "I see you. I feel this with you."
3. Ritualize transitions – Mark life changes with ceremony, not just calendar dates
4. Connect with seasonal cycles – Celebrate solstices, equinoxes, natural rhythms
5. Leave toxic relationships – You don't need to burn them in a bear suit, but you can choose to leave
6. Find your tribe – Seek communities that see you, hold you, celebrate you

Conclusion: The Smile at the End of the World

Midsommar is a film about what happens when grief has nowhere to go, when modern life offers no container for unbearable emotion, when you're so desperate for belonging that you'll accept any family—even one that demands human sacrifice.

Dani's smile at the end is horrifying because we understand it. She's finally free. She's finally seen. She's finally home.

The film asks: What would you sacrifice for that? What would you accept? How far would you go to finally, finally belong?

The Hårga are a nightmare. But they're also a mirror, showing us what we've lost: ritual, community, witnessed grief, collective catharsis, death with meaning.

We don't need human sacrifice. But we do need each other. We do need ritual. We do need to be seen.

It's good that we do this together, yes?

Yes. Together. Always together.

As you explore the profound interplay between ancient rites and modern healing, consider deepening your own practice with the 40 manifestation rituals intention to reality to channel collective intention into tangible transformation, or reflect on cyclical release with the 13 new moon rituals lunar beginnings to honor personal and communal catharsis like the turning of a solstice wheel, and ground your journey further by cleansing your sacred space with the sacred space cleanse printable energy clearing ritual kit to prepare for any ritual of renewal you wish to embody.