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The Druid Renaissance


If you're an asker, you'll be a knower poetry's knotty and wily the riddles you hear are windows and the door is enquiry

Gofraidh Fionn O Dalaigh

Introduction

Druidry is the perfect lover. You fall in love with her so easily because she is so romantic. She whispers to you of the magic and mystery of the turning stars and seasons. She loves trees and Nature above all things, and you yearn for these too. She tells you stories of Gods and Goddesses, the Otherworld and fairies, dragons and giants. She promises secret lore - of sacred trees and animals, of herbs and plants. She points deep into the past, and ahead towards a future which is lived in harmony with the natural world. But just when you are convinced you will marry her, because she is so beautiful, so tantalising, so romantic, she turns around and there she is, with rotten teeth and hideous face, cackling and shrieking at your naivety. And she disappears, leaving you with just her tattered cloak - made up of a few strands: some lines from the classical authors, whose accounts are probably inaccurate anyway, a few inferences drawn from linguistic and archaeological research, which could be wrong, with the rest of the cloth woven from material written from the seventeenth century onwards, replete with speculation, forgery and fantasy.

You feel a fool. You don't tell your friends about your lover. You feel tricked and defrauded, and decide to follow something more authentic, more established, more substantial - like Buddhism, or Christianity, or Sufism, or Taoism - something serious. But then you go out walking. You follow the old trackways, you come to the old places. You see the chalk gods and the stone circles, the barrows and the dolmens. You pause and open yourself to the Land, and She is there again. But this time she is even more enchanting because you can see that she is not just a pretty woman, full of romance and seduction, you can see that she is also a wise woman, who will provoke as well as seduce you, who will make you think as well as make you feel. And then you suddenly know why she has been the object of fascination for so many through the ages. She is the Muse, the Goddess behind Druidry, the bestower of Awen, of inspiration.

The articles in this collection show that She is as present as She ever has been - and perhaps more so at this time. The Goddess who seduces us with romantic images of magic and mystery at one moment, and then repels us with images of the tattered remnants of past ages at the next, is trying to lead us beyond the realm of illusion to something more substantial, more enduring and more creative. Many of us have been drawn to Druidry by its evocative power - it conjures up images of wise sages, of ancient wisdom and secret lore. Others, usually the more academic, have avoided Druidry because of the dearth of substantiated facts about its history, and the plethora of fantastical speculation it has evoked over the centuries. But this collection proves that we can enjoy Druidry's evocative power, and we can approach its history with discernment. And this collection also shows that we can see beyond both, towards a spiritual practice that is rooted in a love of the land and an appreciation of a heritage which is at once both rich and elusive.

Druidry is evocative and provocative, substantial and insubstantial - it is infuriatingly paradoxical. But these qualities are ideal for stimulating the creative process, and a concern for creativity lies at the heart of Druidry.

When I was asked to re-form the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids in 1988 I felt honoured, inspired and excited by the challenge of working with Druidry, but I was aware of the fact that, for many, Druidry wasn't really considered a serious spiritual path. It existed on the fringe, or even beyond the pale, for not only respectable academics but also for those seriously interested in spiritual enquiry, who gravitated towards the established religions, or towards the study of Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Sufism, or Taoism, for example. Druidry was seen by most as living at the 'lunatic fringe' of alternative spiritualities - as Stuart Piggott remarked in his 1968 book The Druids: "In considering the bodies of self-styled Druids... we enter a world at once misleading and rather pathetic." In many ways Piggott's conclusion was justified, because Druidry had been plagued with dubious scholarship, and it is only recently that Druid groups have started to be critical of their own histories.

R.J.Stewart in The Complete Merlin Tarot states that 'an indegistible mass of spurious nonsense has been written about the druids; unfounded pretentious claims from 'druid orders' derive entirely from nineteenth-century fabrication. None of these groupings may truly lay any claim to be druidic, separated as they are by at least a millenium from the last vestiges of practising druid religion.' It is true that the subject of Druidry has stimulated an enormous amount of literature, much of it being dense and having little more than curiosity value for us now. John Matthews' Druid Source Book attempts to relate this material to both earlier and later source texts, and presents samples of it, while the New York City library holds the world's largest collection of such literature. It is also true that many Druid groups, in common with other Western esoteric movements such as Rosicrucianism, The Golden Dawn, Theosophy, and Wicca, have presented 'creation myths' which bear little relation to the historical facts of their origins. Having said this, it is a fundamental error to believe that these deceptions, infuriating as they are, somehow invalidate their work or message. All these groups, including Druidry, has a contribution to make to humanity's spiritual progress, and the challenge facing us, if we wish to follow one of these paths, is to use our discernment to retain that which is valuable and discard that which is deceptive or outmoded. In the past, these groups felt they had to establish a history or a lineage to be taken seriously. Today, they have a history, simply by virtue of having been in existence for many years. And at the same time, we can recognise that they are movements that are responding not only to the past, but also the future - to a vision of how we could be in the world, and of what we may become.

Both Piggott & Stewart, in common with many commentators, see Druidry as a human creation, with a gap in linear time creating an unbridgeable chasm between 'real' Druids who lived thousands of years ago, and 'fake' Druids who have lived from the eighteenth century onwards. I prefer to see Druidry as existing in the spiritual or archetypal world as a source of inspiration, energies, images and ideas. Over linear time, a number of people have responded to this source of inspiration, including the proto-Druids who built the megalithic monuments, such as Stonehenge, the Celtic Druids, known to us from classical writings, the Bards whose formal schools continued to the eighteenth century, the romantic Druid Revivalists of the eighteenth century, and those who today might call themselves Druids. Each group has helped to build the tradition that we now call Druidism or Druidry.

In 1988 Piggott's book was the only book in print about the Druids in the English language, but in the world of ideas and approaches to spirituality events can move astonishingly fast. In the seven years since 1988, Druidry has moved, in many peoples' perceptions, from the 'lunatic fringe' to a position in which it is seen as a viable and seriously considered spiritual path; and this has happened not only to Druidry but to a range of ideas and movements which include Wicca and Shamanism and Paganism in general. Two things, it seems, have been running in tandem. On the one hand, the established religions have been failing to satisfy the spiritual needs of many, and at the same time the mounting environmental crisis has made many turn away from the dualism and authoritarianism of these religions, towards more nature-centred and holistic spiritual ways. As evidence of this, the last seven years has seen the publication of literally dozens of books about Druidry, and the related subject of esoteric Celtic studies. Many of these are cited in the contributors' bibliographies. In 1988 the problem was finding any book about Druids, now the problem is deciding which one to read.

What has happened in these last few years, is that Druidry has begun to articulate itself, and its relevance, in a way that has resulted in large numbers of people finding that it speaks to their own passions and concerns. It no longer sounds archaic or eccentric. It sounds, now, remarkably sensible and relevant to the needs of our time.

As we develop more honesty and rigour in attempting to understand our own lives, we undertake a journey that hopefully leads us closer to a more authentic sense of self and, at the same time, closer to our Intuition, to our Soul. The same process applies to a spiritual tradition. As we try to articulate and understand it, we go through a similar process of discovering false memories, unconscious or deliberate deceptions, thefts and projections, that threaten our trust and belief in the validity of the tradition itself - just as our faith in our own selves is threatened when we undertake our own journey of self-enquiry. But if we persevere, we come to the depths, and discover that the journey was indeed worthwhile.

Druidry in this present age is undertaking such a journey, and this book can be seen as a report-in-progress of the voyage. As well as a new level of honesty and rigour in historical analysis, there are other exciting movements that I see occurring in Druidry today and which are reflected in this book. These include the increasing role of a psychological understanding and use of Druidry; a changing perception of Druidry's relationship with Christianity and Paganism; a growing awareness of the importance of the Feminine in Druidry; and an emerging awareness of the connections between Druidry and Wicca. Each of these movements deserves our attention.

Druidry and Wicca


The two main streams of 'British' Paganism are Wicca and Druidry. Although both traditions draw their inspiration from past ages, much of their contemporary practice has evolved very recently - from the eighteenth century for Druidry, from the 1940s onwards for Wicca. The eighteenth century saw the development of Druid ceremony, much of it articulated by Iolo Morganwg, and in the twentieth century the MacGregor-Reids and Ross Nichols gave further inspiration and form to Druid ceremony and thought, while Gerald Gardner proved the catalyst for the rebirth (or birth, depending on your opinion) of Wicca.

Since Wicca and Druidry share so much in common, it is natural to wonder whether they were originally one and the same, only developing later in different directions. Gerald Gardner, in The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959) wrote "The great question is, were the witches and the Druids members of the same cult?.....Personally, I think they were not; the witch cult was the religion of the soil, as it were, and the Druids were the more aristocratic religion..." At a Pagan Federation conference and then later in The Druid Way (1993) I asked Gardner's question again, and quoted various authors' views on the subject. Christina Oakley's article continues the debate, and her conclusion tallies with Gardner's: Wicca and Druidry have different histories. They certainly 'feel' different, as Christina Oakley mentions, and I think our Paganism is all the richer for these two vital, distinct and rich traditions growing side by side.

Many people, however, are now following both paths, combining them idiosyncratically to suit their own tastes and practises, in the time-honoured slightly anarchical way of modern Paganism. There is value in this, but also, I believe, a danger. The value lies in our being able to develop our own unique path. Paganism, Wicca, Druidry, Shamanism, the Earth Religions - all avoid the problems of the Revealed Religions, which so easily develop into personality cults and dogmatic systems. The eclecticism and anarchy of the former prevent this. And so a creative meeting of Wicca and Druidry is occurring, with some people feeling that the private focus of Wicca fulfils one need, while the more public focus of Druidry fulfils another. Christina Oakley says "At the heart of Wicca is the image of the God and Goddess joined in love as one". Whilst variants of Wicca do not make the Great Rite central, she is speaking here of Traditional British Wicca, whose focus is on the act of union, just as Druidry's focus is on the results of that act: symbolised by the Divine Child, the Mabon, and expressed through the Arts and the Bardic tradition. Thus, the emphasis on the joining of male and female energy in Wicca seems perfectly balanced with the emphasis on the results of that joining in Druidry. So we can see that it is quite possible to follow both Wicca and Druidry, since each fulfills a different need and helps to express a different facet of the self. To return to Gerald Gardner's suggestion, we could say that now we can embrace both traditions because socially we are no longer so constrained, and the person of the soil and the person of culture both need feeding within us. Having said this, it is important to realise the limitations of this argument, since many Wiccans and Druids will quite rightly point to the completeness of their own tradition, which belies any necessity for combination with a complementary path.

Even so, the mixing is undoubtedly happening. If you were to visit a non-aligned Pagan ceremony at a festival time, you would almost certainly find yourself participating in a ritual which draws its inspiration and form partly from Wicca and partly from Druidry. Ask Wiccans if they are Druids too, and a good deal will say they are, and vice versa. The question is, are we enriching our traditions or diluting them?

While some contemporary Pagans eclectically blend Wiccan and Druid practice, research is revealing more of the connections that existed in the seminal years of modern Druidry's and Wicca's development - the 1940's and 50's. The influence of the related movements of Woodcraft Chivalry and Naturism of the 20's and 30's, which could be seen as effectively Pagan movements, is only now being explored (see Ronald Hutton's article in Enchante Autumn 1993 and Steve Wilson's article in Aisling 8 (1995)). Both Gerald Gardner and Ross Nichols, founder of the Order of Bards Ovates & Druids, were influenced by these, and we know that Gardner was a member of the Ancient Druid Order ( The Druid Way p.57). It has also been suggested that George Watson MacGregor-Reid, Chief of the Ancient Druid Order, was also a member of the famous New Forest coven in 1939 (W.E.Liddell The Pickingill Papers, Capall Bann 1994 ). From conversations with Ross Nichols, and from his writings, I believe that he was probably not an initiated Wiccan (although I cannot be certain of this), but I know that he was highly sympathetic to Wicca and had many Wiccan friends, including Justine Glass, author of Witchcraft, the Sixth Sense and Us (Neville Spearman 1965) and apparently Doreen Valiente. Gardner and Nichols were friends too, and as a result of their exchanges the eightfold Pagan festival cycle was born. (Or reborn, depending on your point of view. For a discussion of the history of this central feature of modern Pagan practice see Steve Wilson's article in Aisling 8 (1995) p.15 which is based partly on detailed research by Ronald Hutton for his forthcoming book on the history of modern paganism The Triumph of the Moon.) Following their discussions, Wiccans incorporated the Solstices and Equinoxes into their celebrations, and Druids incorporated the fire festivals into theirs. That is a tremendous example of cross-fertilisation between the two traditions, and in the last few years we have seen this happening in a wider, though less dramatic form.

I believe we can avoid a dilution or homogenization by understanding Druidry and Wicca as two discrete, separate entities, which nevertheless have much to offer each other. Some will want to work in both traditions, feeling that they complement and enrich each other. Others will prefer to root themselves firmly in just one tradition, sensing that it is complete in itself.

Druidry and the Goddess


Another development in Druidry's recent history is the increasing emphasis placed upon the Feminine in Druid ceremony and thought. This is symbolic of the re-emergence of the Wisdom of the Feminine, which, when experienced, leads us to a greater understanding of Druidry's true nature. It can be tempting to isolate spiritual movements for the purpose of analysis, treating them like museum exhibits, classifying their creeds, and comparing their dogmas. But Druidry has no creed, it has no dogma. Its mythic teachings simply flow like a river through the generations, twisting and turning, responding to the contours of the land, echoing the Spirits of Time and Place. It is forever changing and yet is eternal. The moment we try to grasp it too firmly with our analytical minds, its spirit eludes us, just as in scooping water from the river into our hands, that which we hold is no longer the river. And we cannot separate Druidry from the Zeitgeist. As Tony Grist, former vicar turned Pagan, poet and novelist, wrote in The Guardian: "The archetype of the Goddess is breaking through everywhere - in feminism obviously, in the Green movement with its Gaia hypothesis, in the occult revival and the New Age religions. Even the patriarchal religions are having to come to terms with Her.... In Christianity the campaign for women priests and the recognition by radical theologians that God is also Our Mother are all signs of her insistent troublesome presence."

The Druidry that speaks to us today has a somewhat different, more feminine, voice to that of the Revival Druidry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which was a preoccupation of an almost exclusively male group. The only female Druid, of that time, that I have been able to trace is Augusta, the Princess of Wales, whom William Stukeley named Veleda, the Archdruidess of Kew, apparently asking her to be the patroness of his Order. Even then, this title could well have been fanciful - the Princess probably never participated in a ceremony of Revival Druidry.

A whole body of Druidry, of the Henry Hurle lineage described by Michel Raoult on p.00, still has male-only Lodges, with a few female lodges and the occasional social function at which the sexes mingle. Some of the ceremonies, written probably in the 1920's and 30's by George Watson MacGregor-Reid, and still used by some Orders, show an unfortunate patriarchal bias, but again these cannot be separated from the prevailing cultural atmosphere in which they were written. Over the last seven years, however, there has been a noticeable redressing of the balance in Druid ceremony, and the Goddess has taken the place for many in the Universal Druid Prayer which used to begin "Grant, O God thy protection..."

Since the refounding of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids in 1988 about four thousand members have joined, their numbers divided almost exactly between the sexes. The experience of the two largest American groups is identical, with ADF having a 51% female membership.
A consideration of the relevance of gender to Druidry has not been confined to redressing the balance of the sexes. Recently an important debate has been carried out in the Readers' Letters section of the Order's monthly journal, Touchstone, in which gay and lesbian members have been questioning their position within Druidry, as a spiritual tradition which places such emphasis on gender-related symbolism. Some members have felt the need to create alternative ceremonies because they have found the gender-specific roles or symbolism problematic or oppressive. Others have not felt this, and express the belief that their "personal identities transcend the genders of our bodies...and we can assume male/female god/dess roles comfortably." Affinity groups for gay and lesbian members are developing, and the Golden Gate group in San Francisco regularly performs Druid rituals in the stone circle they have built next to the Grove in Golden Gate park, dedicated to those who have died from AIDS.

Druidry, Christianity and Paganism

A further big shift in Druidry's definition of itself has not yet occurred, but it is about to: this book represents the first articulation of these ideas in print outside the academic world. Up until now, it has generally been believed that, with the arrival of Christianity, Druids converted easily, developing in harmony with the incoming faith, for a few centuries, a Celtic church that incorporated the Druids' love of nature and the Bardic arts.

Readers who have accepted these ideas as solid fact may be troubled by the articles in this book by Ronald Hutton and Christina Oakley, and if they follow the references given in these articles, they will almost certainly become convinced that quite the reverse was the case. It now seems clear that Druidry was persecuted by Christianity with as much vigour as it dealt with any opposition, and that the Druids in their turn were determined in their opposition to the new faith: "Two of them prophesied that a new way of life was about to arrive from overseas, with an unheard-of and burdensome teaching... "

The reason why Druidry developed the myth that it had cooperated with Christianity is explained at one level by the fact that Druidry was 'revived' in the eighteenth century by Christian gentlemen, who could legitimately be interested in a pre-Christian Pagan tradition only if it could be shown that this was similar to Christianity. The myth was also fed by the eleventh and twelfth century Christian Irish writers who expressed a positive, syncretic understanding of their Pagan past, in contrast to their earlier forebears of the seventh and eighth centuries who had conveyed a picture of Druidry and Christianity being highly antagonistic to each other.

For the Revival Druids, Christianity occupied such a central place in their world-view that almost everything they perceived as being valuable had to be understood in terms of its relationship to it. The psychologist Wayne Dyer has coined the phrase "I'll see it when I believe it," which neatly alludes to the determining power of our beliefs which can even affect our perception. In the myth of Druid and Christian syncretism, it seems that some of the resonances between Druidry and Christianity, such as the existence of a Druid tree-god Esus, can be interpreted as evidence of this. Revival Druidry later spawned theories that linked Druidry with Judaism, and these are discussed in Gordon Strachan's contribution.

An associated myth concerning the relationship between early Christianity and Druidry is that the Culdees, a sect of Celtic Christians, became the custodians of much Druid knowledge which was then handed down from generation to generation. The Culdees were a puritanical Christian reform movement reacting against the perceived degeneration of the Church in the eighth and ninth centuries, and a study of the ascetic doctrines of this movement shows that it almost certainly does not represent any kind of continuity from Druidry. A succinct account of the Culdees and relevant sources for them can be found in Kathleen Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society (Methuen, 1966) Ch.16. For a fuller account of their history and doctrines see The Culdees of the British Islands by William Reeves (Llanerch 1994).

Part of a historian's job is to show us what is most likely fact and what is most likely fantasy or myth. But simple debunking of myth doesn't do full justice to our attempts to understand history or the life of the psyche. In our individual life it is not enough to demonstrate that we've been fooling ourselves for years, we have to go on to understand why we've done this, what meaning this has had for us, and what purpose it has served. The same applies culturally. We have looked at the reasons why Revival Druids may have fooled themselves about Druidry's relationship with Christianity, but of what value has this been, if any? One of the results, which is discussed in Christina Oakley's article, is that it has helped to ally Druidry with the Establishment, so that modern Druidry has come to be seen by the public and the media as the 'acceptable (and respectable) face of Paganism'. (This is also due to the fact that Druid ceremonies tend to take place in daylight and in public and can be colourful, photogenic events. This contrasts with the apparently more secret ceremonies that take place in private and at night of other Pagan groups. The fact that this is a simplistic distinction is missed by the media).

Other features which ally Druidry with the Establishment are the fact that the Queen is Patroness of the Welsh National Eisteddfod, and that it is widely known that Winston Churchill was a Druid (though of a type and for a duration that indicates it was probably only a passing affair). But this is only half the picture. Although the British Establishment looks kindly on Druidry, it is also undeniable that some branches of Druidry have become vehicles for anti-establishment or, more accurately, anti-government activity. Many Druids vigorously oppose government projects, such as the major road-building programme, which threatens, or has already destroyed, sacred sites and acres of trees and countryside. As well as protesting in conventional ways, they also hold ceremonies to address the root of the problem, which lies in our disconnection from the natural world. Robed Druids have marched against the government's repressive Criminal Justice Act, and the first legal challenge to the Act was made by the self-styled King Arthur Uther Pendragon. The government lost their case and the court found in his favour, representing a triumph for democracy and for the Druid movement, which this modern-day King Arthur supports. He is now taking his fight for the right to worship freely at Stonehenge to the European Court of Human Rights, with backing from Liberty, the civil rights group. The apparent contradiction between Druids' allegiance with the Establishment and this sort of activity is resolved when one realises that Druids see themselves as championing Sovereignty in its noblest sense - the Sovereignty of the Land and of our heritage. Legislation that attacks our rights or our land is then seen not as coming from the Establishment, but from usurpers who are abusing their power. As King Arthur said to The Guardian: "We Druids believe we are here for a purpose. Until we know what that is, we will fight for Truth, Honour and Justice. If those are the precepts we serve, how can we be breaking the law? We are the law, which is why we won in court."

Until about thirty years ago, Druidry was quite a staid activity. Most Druids treated their activities rather like Freemasons or Rotarians, concentrating their efforts on fund-raising for charity, or the promotion of cultural events, such as the Eisteddfodau. They probably wouldn't have considered themselves Pagan, and many would have been Christians. Even the more esoteric Druid groups, whose membership was much smaller, were strongly influenced by Freemasonry and the Golden Dawn, and prior to the founding of The Order of Bards Ovates and Druids in 1964, would only have celebrated the Equinoxes and the Summer Solstice.

But in the 1960s things changed. Druidry, as expressed through OBOD, began to celebrate the eight festivals. In tandem with this, the emergence of the counter-culture in the sixties, with its spiritual and environmental consciousness, resulted in an influx of younger people interested in Druidry. They were far less staid, considered themselves Pagan, and were more interested in opposing the destruction of the environment than in charitable work. A whole new energy came into Druidry which expressed itself in a desire to gain a deeper experience of life through Druid practice, rather than in adhering to outmoded forms. In many ways, these two Druid populations have developed side by side, over the last thirty years, but they are not antagonistic to each other. They have met, sometimes, within the Council of British Orders, and in such contexts as the Christians and Druids conferences held at Prinknash Grange in 1989, 1990 and 1991, and at Oxford and Lewes in 1996.

It would be easy to say that this is all humbug, and that Pagan Druids should clearly separate themselves from Christian Druids, but Druids have always been peace-makers and diplomats. These skills are notoriously difficult to express without compromise and without accusations of dishonesty, but they are in essence spiritual skills or gifts, to which Druids have always aspired. Somehow Druidry has developed the ability to build bridges between faiths, so as well as finding Christian Druids and Wiccan Druids, one can find people who combine their Druidry with Buddhism or Taoism, for example. Ross Nichols was both a Christian and a Druid, yet he was in open communication with many Buddhists and Wiccans, and followers of other faiths, and he introduced more Paganism into Druidry in a decade than had been present for many years.

A major focus of Druidry is on peace: on attaining both inner and outer peace. Each Druid ceremony begins with a salutation of 'Peace to the Quarters' in which peace is envisaged radiating out from the ceremony to all corners of the Earth, and one of the main tasks of a Druid consists in creating a sanctuary or grove in the inner world, whose peaceful influence radiates outwards. If Druidry can succeed in maintaining peace and open communication within its own community, and also between itself and 'The Establishment', then perhaps it can also offer that in a multi-faith context. I remember being astonished and moved at one conference, when a Catholic priest told me that "We believe in the importance of the Druid witness in the world today."

Isaac Bonewits, in his article, discusses three types of Druidry: Paleopagan, Mesopagan and Neopagan. Paleopagan Druidry was practiced thousands of years ago and we simply cannot recover it. Even if we could, its practices would almost certainly be inappropriate and out of tune with the Spirit of our Times. Mesopagan Druidry appeared with the Druid Revival in the eighteenth century and was heavily influenced by the monotheistic and dualistic beliefs of Christianity. Neopagan Druidry has emerged only in the last thirty years, and has been an attempt to create and build a practice which is free from monotheistic and dualistic accretions. Whereas Bonewits sees the Mesopagan influence as unfortunate, something to be entirely sloughed off by the Neopagan current, we need to ask ourselves whether this is really possible or even desirable. We can see the early Paleopagan period as Druidry's childhood, the Mesopagan period as its adolescence, and the Neopagan period as its maturity. However unfortunate our adolescence may have been, however negatively influenced by the company we might have kept, we cannot deny its formative influence and, however embarrassed it may make us feel, we need to learn and grow from it.

It seems as if many of us have come to a time in our spiritual development when we are called upon to walk in two seemingly opposite directions. On the one hand, there seems a need for us to draw eclectically from the wisdom to be found in a whole variety of spiritual approaches, religions and disciplines of personal development. But at the same time as this reaching out to the diversity of beliefs and practices that can nourish us as inhabitants of the One Earth, many also feel the need to seek a rootedness in one tradition, that can form the basis for their world-view and spiritual practice. Hopefully, although there may be moments of tension generated by these two apparently divergent impulses, we can find that we are able to draw nourishment both from being rooted in one tradition, whilst at the same time being inspired by teachings from many different sources.

Up until recently, Druidry has tended to attract people who wish to follow a particular course of development, and who have been drawn to study Druidry as one of the expressions of the Western Mystery Tradition. But the challenge that Druidry faces now, is that there are many more people who have no desire or time to study or train in Druidry in any depth, but who nevertheless feel a great kinship with its spirit, and who would like to celebrate the seasonal festivals and Rites of Passage in a Druidic way

Druidry and Psychology


One of the most exciting developments in modern Paganism, is the creative exchange that is taking place as a result of psychologists becoming interested in Paganism, Shamanism, ritual and magical practice, and of Pagans becoming interested in psychology. Psychologists have found that their understanding of the psyche and their practice of therapy is informed and enlivened by exploring these traditions, and the Transpersonal psychologist John Rowan recently stressed the value for a therapist in becoming a practising Pagan. It is probably no coincidence that the two largest Pagan training groups in Britain, The Wicca Study Group and The Order of Bards Ovates and Druids are both led by psychologists - with Vivianne Crowley's work in Wicca drawing much on her Transpersonal Psychology training, and my work in Druidry drawing much on my training in Psychosynthesis. With psychological understanding, Druid practice becomes capable of a tremendous deepening, and we find in the eightfold festival cycle, a structure for worship and celebration which has a profound psychological value and elegance.

The Call of the Future

Most people think that Druidry is something that existed in the distant past, and that, in more recent times, some people have tried to re-create it from the scattered remnants that we have inherited. But if we believe in the spiritual world, then we will also believe that the source of any spiritual tradition lies in that world, rather than in the physical world of effects. And if Druidry's source is in Spirit, and not in a lost Past, then we can free ourselves from a concern about the origins of our tradition moving ever further away from us as each day passes.

Freed also from the preoccupation of previous generations to establish 'authenticity' (which generated such bad history) we can come to appreciate the subtler, more complex facts of our inheritance, whilst at the same time responding to a Call from Spirit and from the Future which urges us to develop a Druidry that can help us to live more profoundly and more joyfully in the world today.



Philip Carr-Gomm
Lewes, Samhuinn 1995

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