Foreword
What if I said that at the end of this journey you will not recognize the person you were whence you began? What if I were to tell you that without a shadow of a doubt, your ideals, morals, beliefs, and soul will transform drastically though the process of self discovery, soul discovery and the discovery of the universe? Would you in fact want to walk the toughest path there is to spiritualism? Would you want anything more than shallow experiences accompanied with blind faith? Or would you care to be one of those that takes off their sandals and crunches the sand between their toes, that dips their feet into the coolness of the stream, that drinks deep from the belly of the earth, that knows the secrets not only to this world, but to the universe, and that humbly protects them as an ambassador of the land, the sea and the sky, the underworld, the middleworld and the otherworld? If thy answer is aye, then read on ye seeker, the mysteries of the Druid path await.
Introduction
The first question that comes to the minds of any initiate to any path is who, or what is a Druid? That answer has been pondered by many a great scholar of our time, Caitlin Matthews, John Matthews, Jhenah Telyndru, John Michael Greer, Theodore Rozsak, Frank MacEowen, Jason Kirkey, Tom Cowan, Robert Ellison, Ellen Evert Hopman, Marion Zimmerman, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Goodkind, Peter Berresford Ellis, Charlotte Guest, Jeffery Grantz, Bill Plotkin, and many other authors of both fiction and non fiction that seek to explore the mysteries of this path.
The most popular answer is that a Druid is the Priest or Priestess of the Celtic Tradition. They acted as the philosophers, storytellers, spellcrafters, ritual leaders, judges, medicine men, seers, but most importantly, they were the ambassadors of the Otherworlds, the walkers between the mists, the voices of the land, the channelers of the Gods, the weavers of ancient society, and the silent humble wizards weaving together a magickal web of energy passed down by the universe itself. A Druid in essence is one that speaks every language of the land, that understands not only the myth and tale of his own people but that of peoples stretching far and wide, from those tales of the Sidhe, to those of the Tuatha, to the Valar, the Ainur, the Fionn, the Ulster, the Olympian, the Greek, the Egyptian, the Atlantean, the Avalonian, the Hindu, the Babylonian, the Sumerian and more.
Druids and more in particular Bards and Shamans have been present in every culture since the dawning of time itself, for every culture was in need of assistance from the outer and inner world. In the beginning there did not exist a scientist to teach the best way to harvest the earth, and therefore, the Druid of the tribe would listen to the land, engaging in a spiritual conversation with the Mother Earth herself, Gaia in many texts, and ask how the people might tend the land in order to be provided with nourishment. This form of communication with the universe is how the earliest tribes of man learned how to better understand their world.
Fast forwarding this theory however, Druidism in today’s world is concentrated on how to return to the roots of our ancestors. How to live in today’s society and integrate the elements of societies before us in order to enliven our shallow, barren and mundane lives of today. Without a doubt technology has raped us of our inheritance, and skepticism and doubt has lead us into a lack luster world filled with half heart truths and pure lies that force many to act like marionettes in a play that feels superficial even to the puppets. True meaning of our traditions has come down to the corporate level where corporations tell us what to believe, what to buy, what to cook, what to wish for, how to act and who to invite into our homes for milk and cookies. Unfortunately today’s society is reduced to children’s stories of a jolly fat man on a sled with reindeer that brings gifts to all the children in the world in one night. Yes, I undoubtedly refer to the character Santa Claus but that does not leave us bereft of other such fantastical creatures that have replaced reverence unto the very beings that brought shelter, food, skill, knowledge, history and existence to our ancestors. The Tooth Fairy, Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, The Easter Bunny, Jack Frost, The Great Pumpkin, Cupid, or the popular Ghosts, Witches, Skeletons and Grim Reapers of Halloween.
My daughter owns a copy of The Charlie Brown Encyclopedia Vol. 12, and it goes to show how people of today’s society have twisted the beliefs of the ancients. Three excerpts are below.
The Celts had a holiday called Samhain (SAH-win) which meant, “end of summer”. So Samhain was a festival marking the end of the food growing season. The Celts believed that spirits of the fruits and vegetables and also the ghosts of people, visited the earth on Samhain, which was October 31st. The Celts lit huge bonfires on hilltops to scare the ghosts away.
Many of the customs of Samhain were continued on Halloween, almost all spooky Halloween practices were started by the Celts.
In Europe a few hundred years ago, there were people who called themselves witches. They worshipped the devil the way most people worship a god. They claimed they could perform witchcraft or magic. The witches held large meetings called Sabbats. There they gathered around a big fire where they cooked up magical potions. Some of these were drugs the witches drank. Sometimes the drugs caused them to imagine themselves flying through the air. There were always brooms near the fire to sweep it clean. So stories got started that witches used magick to fly about on broomsticks.
The custom of wearing spooky costumes on Halloween began with a group of Irish Celts called Druids. The Irish believed that evil spirits roamed about the earth on Halloween. The Druids wanted to fool the evil spirits into thinking they were spirits too. So they dressed as ghosts and goblins.
Now while not one author is ascribed to the writing of the Charlie Brown Encyclopedia, this gives one example of how people in today’s society have the concept of Druids severely mixed up. In addition to the gross misconception above, it has also been speculated that Druids created Stonehenge, that they all follow Merlin and that every last one of them resembles Gandalf of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
Returning to the truth of the matter however, Druids were ever present in Celtic Society, both before and after the Christian revolution. In addition to this they were also present in a variety of other cultures under different names, to the Babylonians and Sumerians they were the Shamans, to the Hindu they were the Magus, to the Hebrews they were the Mystics or Magi, and to a variety of other cultures they were known as Priests, Viziers, Wizards, Magus, Magi, Shaman, Sorcerer, Witch, Seer, Prophet, Wise Man, etc.
As an overview, the Druids are the ambassadors of the Universe itself, the Earth, the Stars, the Seas, the upper world and the lower worlds. To be a Druid is to be the Mystery.
