From historian Fay Bound Alberti’s book A History of Loneliness is an excerpt in the BBC’s HistoryExtra as “The invention of loneliness: why being ‘unhappy alone’ is a surprisingly modern idea.” The author notes that the transition from “oneliness” to loneliness traverses three centuries, eighteenth to twentieth. Mentioned are Thomas Turner’s diaries, Queen Victoria, Carl Jung, Virginia Woolf, May Sarton, and Sylvia Plath.
Mang Emigdio, Philippines hermit
GMA News Online (Philippines) offers an item titled “Why did this man choose to live inside a cave for 30 years?” Byline: “Seventy-three-year-old Mang Emigdio has lived inside a mountain cave in Bohol for 30 years.”
The hermit was provoked to solitude when a typhoon destroyed his home, and he left wife and children to live in a cave.He does not seem to lack for amenities. Many have tried to intervene and help Mang Emigdio because of his advanced age and remoteness, and one group has offered to build him a more accessible hut, which offer he has accepted.
The hermit and the bears (India)
An item in the Outlook (The News Scroll) of India (see URLs below for other sources) relates the report of a forest hermit who attracts wild bears with his sacred song. Article title: “Wild bears find spiritual solace in hermit’s bhajans.” Here are the first lines of the article:
A forest in Madhya Pradesh is witnessing a strange sight of a pair of wild bears along with their two cubs getting drawn to the world of spirituality, an activity generally associated with humans.
Swayed by the bhajans of a saffron-clad hermit, Sitaram, the wild bears have lent a new meaning to spirituality in the wild of Shahdol district.
The bear family has become a part of his surroundings while the ascetic strikes a communion with the almighty.
Sitaram, who has built a hut in the Rajmada forest area of the district, said the bear couple and their cubs frequent his home to listen to his hymning in rapt attention.
When the 65-year-old hermit sings bhajans and plays harp after offering puja, the wild beasts walk down to his residence near the Son river from nearby Jaitpur jungles.
These wild animals, far from attacking the sadhu, sit by side and slip into spiritual bliss hearing his bhajans.
The mammals retreat and melt into the jungles after consuming the prasad offered by him, Sitaram said.
URL: https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/wild-bears-find-spiritual-solace-in-hermits-bhajans/1734570, https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/wild-bears-listen-to-bhajan-shahdol-madhya-pradesh-589005, https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/feb/16/man-animal-camaraderie-bhajans-bring-wild-bears-closer-to-hermit-in-mp-chhattisgarh-border-forest-2104247.html, and https://www.hindustantimes.com/it-s-viral/bear-family-in-madhya-pradesh-regularly-visits-hermit-s-hut-to-hear-him-sing/story-7f3COP0dRMaxBAMjy8BjYK.html
Excommunicated hermits – Scotland
In an item titled “Excommunicated Hermits — and Their Cats — Finally Find Peace,” Religious News Service reports on three Scottish hermits who have been excommunicated by the Catholic Church for their outspoken attacks on the pope and the practices of the contemporary church. The hermits maintain traditionalist views. “We have broken from a false pope, a false magisterium, at the moment, and a false Curia and false bishops and cardinals,” Stephen De Kerdrel told Religion News Service.
The other hermits are Damon Kelly and Sister Colette Roberts. De Kerdrel and Kelly were both Capuchin monks before leaving their order over twenty years ago. Colette Roberts was formerly a medical professional.
URL: https://religionnews.com/2020/02/07/excommunicated-hermits-and-their-cats-finally-find-peace/
Walter Willman, UK hermit, 1930s-1970s
Minster FM in the UK offers an item titled: “Brother Walter Willman was a hermit who lived a solitary life in All Saints Church in North street in York.”
The summary: “An obscure English religious hermit was interviewed by BBC in 1961. He had one moment of fame when BBC TV’s Alan Whicker came to meet him in 1961 for the Tonight programme, a sort of One Show of the period.The film has just been put on the BBC Archive Facebook page. [Although the Minster FM item represented by the URL includes the five-minute video.] He had lived on his own since the 1930s in a tiny room and was a rare example of a religious recluse.
It’s thought that he died in the 1970s.”
The BBC interview is available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p098q0zn
URL: https://www.minsterfm.com/news/local/3029814/video—-meet-the-hermit-who-lived-in-york/