When I was growing up in Communist Czechoslovakia, my teachers told me that there is no God and that religion is the opium of the people. Many years later I embarked on a personal journey: to observe people who believe in gods, and maybe, at the end of the journey, to find God.

When I was little, opulent baroque churches and severe gothic cathedrals alike were empty, and my grandparents didn’t attend church even on the major holidays.

In the early 1990s, as a photojournalist, I travelled to wars in the former Yugoslavia and the Caucasus – Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia, Chechnya, and Kosovo, where mass murder was being committed in the name of God and nation. I couldn’t understand how faith could be so important that it would make you go and kill your neighbour.

A shaman performs a ritual in a forest 100km north of the capital Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – December 13, 2014

Sunday open-air mass of a pentecostal church in Kananga, DR Congo, May 7, 2005

Indian holy men – sadhus photographed during Maha Kumbh Mela pilgrimage in Allahabad, January 23, 2007. Kumbh Mela is a mass Hindu pilgrimage of faith in which Hindus gather to bathe in a sacred river. It is considered to be the largest peaceful gathering in the world.

In 2001 I travelled to Allahabad, India for the Maha Kumbh Mela mass Hindu pilgrimage. In the chilly January weather, 40 million pilgrims arrived to wash away their sins in the holy water. I wondered at the force that could motivate millions of people to embark on this exhausting journey, for some thousand of kilometres long. In morning mists and by evening fires, I saw hundreds of naked sadhus covered in nothing but ashes. They had renounced all possessions, abandoned their families, and set out on a spiritual journey. I met a holy man who had raised his arm in the year of my birth, and as far as I know is still holding it aloft to this day, forty-five years later. I left, quite fascinated and resolved to explore manifestations of faith wherever and whenever possible.

Christmas pilgrimage to Lalibela, Ethiopia – January 4, 2014

December 4, 2017 – students of St. George Orthodox Theological Seminary sing during a liturgy in the cathedral of Roman, Romania.

Shi’ite worshipers bleed while cutting their scalps in a ritual display of mourning during an Ashura commemoration ceremony in Karbala, Iraq, 2003. Ashura marks the death of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson the revered Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq in 680 AD. Shi’ite festivals were prohibited during the time of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein’s rule.

In Iraq, I walked in a holy procession of men in white robes who slashed their heads with long knives. Blood squirted everywhere and I tried to refrain from condemning them. After Saddam Hussein’s regime fell, the oppressed Shias could finally freely mourn the death of Imam Husayn – the grandson of the Prophet himself, who fell in the Battle of Karbala. In the Congo, I participated in Pentecostal services during which demons were exorcised from the faithful. These endless rituals are accompanied by screaming and shouting, wild drumming and singing, and are very impressive. Regardless of whether possession is feigned or not, I think that the spread of the Pentecostal movement has a positive effect on Congolese society – in structures more reminiscent of shacks than churches, pastors preach that one should not drink alcohol, steal, or rape and beat your women. In a country that for many years had no rules, the faithful are beginning to listen. And their numbers are increasing.

Buddhist monks wait for alms during the That Luang Festival in Vientiane, Laos on November 14, 2016

Len Dong ritual of Dao Mau cult celebrated in the outskirts of Hanoi, Vietnam on September 14, 2016.

Sufi festival Shebi Arus celebrated in Kacuni, Bosnia. December 17, 2015. Sufism, according to its adherents, is the inner mystical dimension of Islam.

Buddhist monks in Gandan monastery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – November 30, 2014.

I didn’t start believing in spirits or demons, but when a female Mongolian shaman placed her hand near mine, I felt the heat, as if it were burning. From spirits that entered a medium during the Lên đồng ritual belonging to the ancient Vietnamese mother-goddess religion, I received money, sweets, and even cigarettes. On the Thai island of Phuket, I observed local Chinese entering into a trance so that the gods could enter their bodies. They then have their faces pierced by one or even several large swords, set out on a long procession through the town, and not even a drop of blood would seep from their wounds.

Getting out of trance – Taoist Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Phuket, Thailand – October 8, 2016

Easter – Palm Sunday in Aidone, Sicily – Italy – April 9, 2017

January 12, 2019 – Hundreds of Jewish pilgrims have arrived to celebrate yahrzeit (anniversary of the death) of Tzadik David Biderman to the small Polish.

I didn’t start believing in spirits or demons, but when a female Mongolian shaman placed her hand near mine, I felt the heat, as if it were burning. From spirits that entered a medium during the Lên đồng ritual belonging to the ancient Vietnamese mother-goddess religion, I received money, sweets, and even cigarettes. On the Thai island of Phuket, I observed local Chinese entering into a trance so that the gods could enter their bodies. They then have their faces pierced by one or even several large swords, set out on a long procession through the town, and not even a drop of blood would seep from their wounds.

Mongolian shaman Zorigtbaatar performs a ritual in his yurt (tent) in the centre of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia – December 4, 2014

Friday Prayers in Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia – May 22, 2015

Kumari – Living Goddess is carried in her chariot through the streets of Patan, Nepal – April 10, 2009

I became an intruder in quiet monastery worlds nestled in Romanian and Ethiopian hills or among the peaks of the Himalayans. I had audiences with living goddesses in the Kathmandu Valley, one of which befriended my wife and me.

Gochak – Buddhist pilgrimage in Ladakh, India – February 25, 2013

Chinese community celebrates Taoist The Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Phuket, Thailand – October 9, 2016

January 22, 2018 – Hundreds of Jewish pilgrims have arrived to celebrate yahrzeit (anniversary of the death) of Tzadik David Biderman to the small Polish town of Lelow.

During wild drinking sprees in small Polish towns with Hasidic Jews, I commemorated the deaths of their miraculous rabbis, and for a couple of days had the feeling that the world of Eastern European Jews that had disappeared forever in the ovens of Auschwitz had once again come to life.

I was a guest of Sufi brotherhoods in the Balkans. When during the Zikr ritual, dozens of men sway rhythmically in a circle and shout out holy verses, the energy that emanates from them sends shivers down my back, just like when Tibetan monks repeat their mantras.

August 13, 2018 – Kalwaria Paclawska pilgrimage, Eastern Poland.

Coptic Easter celebrations in Cairo, Egypt – April 10, 2015

Many times, I was invited to a feast. I ate sacrificed sheep with Muslims and Hindus. I stuffed myself to bursting with the salmon and caviar of mountain Jews in Azerbaijan, accompanied by much vodka. On the island of Sulawesi, I feasted on freshly sacrificed water buffalo that were supposed to accompany the souls of dead Toraja to Puya (the land of souls). And everywhere people were kind, and like me were unable to understand how someone could kill in the name of faith.

Easter – Good Friday in San Fratello, Sicily, Italy – April 14, 2017

February 11, 2019 – Theyyam ritual in the village of Padannappuram. Theyyam is a popular ritual form of worship in Kerala, India. The people of the North Malabar consider Theyyam itself as a channel to a God and they thus seek blessings from Theyyam.

Semana Santa (Holy Week) procession in Zamora, Spain – March 22, 2016

No, I didn’t start believing in God, and perhaps on occasion only felt his uncertain presence. I joined no religion, but to be on the safe side, lit a candle everywhere I could – for my Dad and my other ancestors, wherever they may be.

January 23, 2018 – Hundreds of Jewish pilgrims have arrived to celebrate yahrzeit (anniversary of the death) of Tzadik David Biderman to the small Polish town of Lelow.

The article has been edited by our sub-editor Keya Sikdar.