Introduction
Druidry and Wicca
Druidry and the Goddess
Druidry, Christianity and Paganism
Druidry and Psychology
The Call of the Future
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. See The
Druid Path
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.
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. See Christianity
and Druidry, a meeting point.
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.
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