Welcome to Ochre Hills Druid Grove, Gilroy, California

Gilroy, Santa Clara County, California, USA

written by Brendan Cathbad Myers

author of The Mysteries of Druidry

30 May 2010

What is Druidry?

It is the land, the sea, the sky, and all our relations within these three realms.

It is poetry and music, storytelling and lore, feasting and drinking and dancing around the fire.

It is both thousands of years old, and also as new as the morning dawn.

It is a world full of magic, a tribe full of gods, and a heroic way of life.

Most of all, it is a celebration of the goodness of life on Earth.

Druidry is a spiritual tradition which began with the Celtic people of Europe's Bronze and Iron Ages, and was both re-discovered and re-invented in the last century. It comes to us today through folklore, tradition, history, archaeology, and the personal vision of its modern practitioners. Compared to the number of subscribers to other religions, modern Druids are very few. Yet they come from almost all backgrounds and walks of life. Druids today work to create fulfilling spiritual lives for themselves, their communities, the environment, and the whole world.

An Ancient Culture

In ancient times, the religion that we now called Druidry probably had no name. The word 'Druid' comes from the name of the priestly and intellectual class of Iron-age and Bronze-age Celtic society. To understand Druidry today, it is helpful to understand the ancient society where it began.

The Celts were a Bronze age and Iron age tribal society which dominated most of western Europe for more than a thousand years. There were not one but several Celtic nations, each with numerous independent tribes, and each identified by the distinct Celtic language that they spoke. Those nations are:

Scotland, or Alba; Brittany, in northwest France, or Breizh; Gaul, which once included most of France, Belgium, southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; Wales, or Cymru; Ireland, "The Isle of the Blest", or Éire; A territory in the Anatolia region of Turkey, which the Celts called Galatia; Kernow, which today comprises the English county of Cornwall, and some of the "West Country"; The Isle of Man, or Mannin. The Iberian Celts, who lived in what is now northern Spain; And finally, before the Anglo-Saxon settlement period, Britain was Celtic too.

Our knowledge of these people comes from the writings of Greek and Roman observers, the mythology of the Celtic people recorded by Irish Christian monks, and various archaeological finds. These sources offer us a picture of life and religion in an Iron-age tribal society.

Although the Celtic tribes were politically and militarily independent, they shared a broadly similar culture and social structure. For example, the most important commodity in every Celtic tribe's economy was livestock, especially cattle. Their houses were circular, with conical thatch roofs, and their larger settlements tended to be built on hilltops and surrounded with earthwork fortifications. Aside from the Druid and the Chieftain, the most prestigious kind of person in a Celtic tribe was the warrior. Obsessed with personal glory and renown, the Celtic warrior was almost always engaged in raids and skirmishes with other tribes, or in contests with the warriors of his own tribe. Yet complex principles of courage, generosity, and of loyalty to his chieftain and his family, helped direct the fighting spirit toward more useful purposes. A person who practiced those values was considered fully honourable, and could achieve a kind of vicarious immortality called apotheosis. These values remain important in the contemporary Druidic revival.

Poets and musicians also held great prestige in Celtic society. Much of the time these artists were hired to sing the praise of their chieftain and immortalize his exploits in battle. But they could also explore complex themes like history, mythology, love and relationships, the origin of the world, the meaning of honour, and the lives of important ancestors and of the gods. The influence of these artists became so profound that their name in the Irish language, bard, continues to be used today as a word for a poet or singer of special excellence. The Bardic Path also remains a very important part of contemporary Druidry.

A Celtic family was an extended kin-group, which included the grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, aunts, and uncles. A custom called 'fostering' allowed children to join other families from about the age of eight to about the age of adulthood (around 15), while their parents took on foster children from other families. This custom created strong and complicated bonds of loyalty among people, in which a foster-sibling or foster-parent was equally as close as one's biological siblings and parents.

Mysticism of the Earth

The Celtic tribes of the Iron age, independent as they were, also had various religious customs in common. For instance, virtually all Celtic people found their gods in natural features. Most of the gods were local, worshipped by just one tribe or at just one place. But those places tended to be of a consistent type: hills, lakes, rivers, springs, bogs, and especially trees. In addition, some 'international' gods were worshipped by people in almost all Celtic tribes with similar names. The Druids themselves had a pan-tribal organization, and more or less the same powers and responsibilities in every tribe. Unlike most other people in Celtic society, they could also travel fairly freely from one tribe to another. It also appears that the Celtic rituals were fairly consistent from one tribe to another. Archaeologists tend to find the same kind of votive offerings in the same kind of places: swords and armour, decorative objects, jewelry, and foodstuffs, deposited in the waters of bogs, lakes, and springs, and also in deep pits lined with bricks. Literary evidence suggests they also made offerings in fires on their holy days.

On a surface level, Celtic religion was practical. People sought the assistance of the gods for agricultural fertility, military success, and general good fortune. Yet on a deeper level, the Celtic religion also addressed itself to humanity's most ultimate concerns. It appears that the ancient Celts believed in the immortality of the soul, the nearness of the Otherworld, the presence of the ancestors, and the sacredness of the Earth. Celtic mythology features heroes who traveled to the Otherworld, negotiated directly with the gods, grappled with the deepest philosophical problems of life and death, and faced destiny with honour. These mythologies also include wisdom-teachings which emphasize the importance of courage, generosity, hospitality, friendship, family responsibility, intelligence, and honour. Here are a few short descriptions of important Druidic concepts.

• The Fire in the Head. This is the name that modern Druids use for what it feels like to perceive the Otherworld, or to receive spiritual knowledge from the Otherworld. Those who have this experience become "inspired" (literally, the "spirit" is "in" them) to create works of art, or do other things of value to the world.

• The Immortality of the Soul. Almost all literary historical sources affirm that the Druids taught that human souls are immortal. The Romans, who were often at war with the Celts, observed that this belief made Celtic warriors fearless in battle. Some sources suggest that the Celts believed that the soul would pass into another life form, in a manner similar to reincarnation. Other sources imply that the soul moves to a next life in the Otherworld which will be similar to this life, but with less hardship and suffering. The Irish word for the Otherworld, Tir na n-Og, means 'Land of Youth,' and the myths about Tir na n-Og seem to say that the greatest of heroes and wisest of sages gain a place there for eternity.

• The Wheel of the Year. Modern Druidry has a ritual calendar featuring eight festivals, each associated with an agricultural or astronomical observation. They include the summer and winter solstice, the spring and fall equinox, and four "cross quarter" between them. The most important festival is Samhain, which occurs on the 1st of November, and is associated with the dead; some time during the 19th century revival of Druidry, Samhain became the Celtic New Year. Some mediaeval Samhain customs survived to this day, although greatly changed, and form part of the modern festival of Hallowe'en.

• The Sacred Truth. Some of the Irish literary sources, such as a wisdom-text called the Testament of Morann, describe a principle of social justice and cosmic order which has come to be called The Sacred Truth. On one level, it is the idea that the chieftain of a tribe is magically and spiritually "married" to the landscape, and so his moral character is reflected in the condition of his environment. Lands are fertile and tribes are prosperous when his rule is just; lands are barren and tribes are impoverished when his rule is unjust. In its modern meaning, the principle can be described as the intentionality of the presence of the Otherworld: it tends to favour the honourable. A Welsh Druidic motto, "The Truth Against The World!", implies a moral requirement for Druids to work for justice when "the world" (of politics, or economics, or even popular opinion) appears dominated by injustice.

A Religion Without 'Religion'

Today we often think of the Druid as a kind of priest. Certainly, that was part of the ancient Druidic role. The druids were called upon to perform rituals, sacrifices, offerings to the gods, and the like, often on behalf of clients, or on behalf of groups like families, clans, and tribes. They divined the future in the flight of birds, the movements of other animals, the shape of clouds, and in the stars. And it appears that in Ireland and Scotland, Druids performed baptisms and marriages, and possibly also funeral rites. But in many cases, the Druids did not hold a monopoly on the priestly job. Offerings and petitions to deities on behalf of communities could be presented by kings, chieftains, and the heads of families, and anyone who was in a leadership position. Celtic mythology also shows Druids acting like magicians and sorcerers instead of like priests. They practiced magic to read the future, to win battles or to halt them, to determine auspicious times to begin an undertaking, to communicate with the gods. Some of their practices resemble shamanic spirit flight. Furthermore, a druid also had social and non-magical jobs to do: he or she was also an interpreter of law, a special advisor to chieftains and kings, a physician, a peacemaker, a warrior, and a philosopher. Druids also had special responsibility for educating the young, for advising chieftains on social or military policy, and for witnessing official oaths and contracts.

It should be noted that the idea of 'religion' in the ancient world was not the same as ours. To most people in a modern Western country, religion means an institutionalized set of teachings and doctrines about God, the afterlife, personal morality, and perhaps also political order, with a specialized priesthood certified by a church to teach and to perform various rituals like marriages and funerals. We tend to see religion as related to, but separate from, other areas of our lives, and other institutions. But to the ancient Celts, religion was not a separate sphere of life, presided over by separate institutions. Rather, 'religion' was simply the presence of the gods, the ancestor spirits, and the Otherworld, in just about everything that people did. With this understanding, it may be better to use words like 'sacred,' 'holy,' and even 'magic.' Indeed, the Irish word for magic is draoicht, which if translated literally, means 'what druids do.' Like other religious people, modern Druids believe in the existence of a large pantheon of goddesses and gods, and may have created personal relations with some of them. Many modern Druids also believe in the existence of nature spirits, faeries, ghosts, ancestor powers, and the like, which dwell in their local landscapes or which assist and protect the members of their families. And modern Druids also seek the beauty of nature and the presence of the Otherworld as sources of spiritual fulfillment in their own rights. Druidry is thus less like a religion in the modern sense, and more like a way to approaching the sacred, and a way of relating to all that is magical in the world. Modern Druids seek to revive this way of approaching the sacred and relating to the magical. In many ways Druidry is the counterpart of many indigenous traditions from other parts of the world, such as Tibetan Bon-Po, Japanese Shinto, certain forms of Hindu polytheism, and various Aboriginal traditions in Australia and the Americas.

A Way of Approaching The Sacred

• It is personal. In ancient Celtic society, everyone could seek the sacred on their own, and speak directly to the gods at any time. Anyone could offer the gods their thanks and present their petitions for help with their own individual problems. The druids did not form a 'priest caste' in the sense of a person who represents a religious institution, and stands as an intermediary between one human being and the gods. Even today, modern Druids address themselves to the gods directly, and seek out their own visionary experience of the Celtic Otherworld. Thus, although there are various modern Druidic community organizations, there is no need for institutionalized doctrines and rituals. Druidry gives religion back to the people.

• It is also social. All the historical and literary sources make it clear that Celtic ethical values were primarily social. Individuals understood their identities and their values in terms of their relations with their families, their foster-brothers, their tribe mates, and the members of their war-band. Honour was the reward for those who performed deeds of courage and excellence in the service of benefiting the people around them. An important Druidic principle called The Sacred Truth calls upon Druids to care about justice, the environment, and other interests which transcend the interests of the individual. The 'tribalism' of ancient Druidry survives in the way that modern Druids find the sacred in their relations with each other. Like our ancient predecessors, modern Druids also promote a social kind of ethic, in which values like friendship, justice, generosity, hospitality, and family life rank very high. Indeed modern druidry is distinct from ancient druidry in the balance it strikes between personal individualism and social responsibility.

• It is natural. As mentioned, ancient Druids found the sacred in the landscape, the sea, and the sky. As Druids see it, a landscape can be charged with meaning because it is home to the gods, or ancestors, or other kinds of spiritual beings. Storytelling is the usual link here: with a god comes the story of the life of that god, which connects him or her to a place on earth where the events of the god's life occurred. Druids today continue this tradition. We are rebuilding our relationships with the gods who dwell in the landscapes where we live. Modern Druids are also deeply interested in the sciences of ecology and environmental biology. The organic energy which moves from one life-form to another through the food chain, through the sharing of organic compounds, and through symbiosis and symbiogenesis, forms a field of global unity which modern Druids regard as profoundly religiously significant. Some Druids say that there is a supernatural element to this organic energy. Some also say that this bond of global unity generates moral principles of respect and responsibility. For these reasons, Druidry could be described not just as a religion, but also as a kind of nature mysticism.

• It is also cultural. Modern Druids are interested in more than ancient religious practices. Many have committed themselves to the "heroic" virtues of the Celtic warrior: courage, generosity, friendship, and honour. Modern Druids are also very interested in the Bardic path, and find artistic inspiration a major source of spiritual knowledge. The revival of Druidry is thus not simply a revival of a set of religious or spiritual beliefs and rituals. It is also the revival of a comprehensive spiritual culture, with much to offer the modern world. Indeed, in modern Druidry it is not strictly necessary to 'become a Druid.' You could also take up the path of the warrior, the bard, the craftsman, the healer, the scholar. You can even be a regular working Joe who happens to have a relationship with the land, the gods, and the Otherworld.

Revival and Re-invention

Unlike other ancient indigenous religions, Druidry cannot claim to have a complete, unbroken, continuity of practice throughout history. Starting around the 5th century and for the next 500 years, most Celtic people adopted Christianity. Many of the literary and historical sources were lost, and those which did survive offer only a hazy and incomplete picture of the nature of ancient Druidic belief and practice. Celtic indigenous religion then transformed into folklore, folk magic, the "faerie faith," and a certain amount of superstition. Some Celtic deities continued to be respected in the form of Christian saints. But even these bare threads were disturbed by various historical events such as the Irish Potato Famine and the Scottish Highland Clearances. As pointed out by historian Ronald Hutton, our knowledge of the old ways is very sketchy and very incomplete.

However, Druidry today is no mere anachronism, nor a revival of empty superstitions. It is a thoroughly modern religion, whose founders lived in the modern era. Indeed, Hutton also observed that modern Druidry is a perfectly legitimate religion in its own right. The absence of an unbroken lineage of practice is not what matters here. The evidence of the validity of any religion lies primarily in the life of its practitioners.

Many contemporary people, not all of whom are descended from the Celts, are approaching the Divine in a Celtic way, and creating meaningful relationships with the Celtic deities once again. Indeed some people believe that the knowledge of the ancient ways can be regained by channeling the old Celtic deities, and learning directly from them.

Druidry is also unlike many other religious traditions in that it has no single man or woman for its founder. Rather, it was created by hundreds of contributors over the last three hundred years, and it continues to develop and grow today. It was revived in the 1700's in England, by a loose association of free-thinking Anglican clergymen, as well as various antiquarians, poets, Freemasons, and their associates. Like many of the Founding Fathers of the United States, such as Thomas Jefferson, these men were deists and universalists. They believed in a personal yet universal God whose presence and message can be discerned in every religion, and in the world of nature. Theirs was not a god of scripture and prophesy, but a god of landscapes, forests, mountains, oceans, and the beauty of the world in which they lived. Even the many deities of the Celtic tradition, which number in the hundreds, are but faces and masks for a universal divine presence. They thought that God's presence was also revealed to the ancient Druids. Therefore they became very interested in the ancient stone circles and other monuments of the British countryside, which at the time they thought were built by Druids. (We now know that those monuments are far older than the Druids.) Many of the most prominent figures in the 20th century revival of Druidry, such as Ross Nichols, continued to treat Druidry as the local Celtic and British expression of the perennial philosophy's universal message. He regarded Druidry not as a religion but rather as a kind of philosophy, or a mystery school. In this way, Druidry could supplement and enrich any other religious tradition that the committed seeker happens to profess. Indeed this dimension of modern Druidry has much in common with universalism and perennial philosophy. This is the idea that certain mystical and elemental truths are common to all mystical traditions in the world, and that these common truths recur in people's thinking in every historical age. Modern druids inherit this tradition of reading the presence of the divine in the natural world, and in their own relation to the spirit. There is no single founder of the tradition, and there is no text that could be called its Bible, but Druidry has no need for these things.

What can Druidry Do For You?

• Druidry is environmentally conscious. Climate change, global warming, and the depletion of strategic resources like oil, are among the most serious and pressing social and political problems of the 21st century. As Druids perceive their primary sources of spiritual power in the land, so they are deeply concerned about the rapid destruction of our living environment. Many support ecological, sustainable and low-impact living, and show that such living can still make us prosperous and happy.

• Druidry is non-dogmatic. As a form of universalism seen through Celtic eyes, Druidry is like a way of approaching the Divine, rather than a core of dogmatic laws. It has various principles and concepts, but they are all open to the interpretation of each individual, in concert with his or her friends and relations, and in the light of his or her own spiritual experiences. Therefore it has no need to compete or conflict with those who are committed to other religions. Indeed it can be perfectly compatible with any other major world religion. Some of Druidry's most important modern founders, such as Ross Nichols, were also committed Christians, and regularly went to church on Sunday like everyone else in his town.

• Druidry is socially conscious. Since at least the 1960's, Druidry has influenced and been influenced by various social movements, such as the campaigns for civil rights, animal rights, and social justice.

• Druidry is artistically productive. Against the many ways that modern times are impersonal, drudging, full of useless conflict, and bereft of higher meaning, Druids seek to re-enchant the world again for the sake of producing meaningful relations and worthwhile human lives. Art, music, storytelling, and poetry take on religious significance to Druids, as the primary way that we bond with the Gods and with each other.

• Druidry is empowering. Practicing Druidry can give people confidence and hope in everyday life. It enables us to see the sacred just about everywhere, and reminds us that we don't have to be alone.

A few prominent Druids of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries:

- Isaac Bonewitz - Emma Restall Orr - Philip Carr-Gomm - Ian Corrigan - the late Alexei Kondratiev - Graeme Talboys - Robert Lee "Skip" Ellison - Arthur Pendragon - John Michael Greer - Brendan Cathbad Myers