DruidCraft

[wren]

Found this at www.druidcraft.com...

"The American Rite of the Druidic Craft is not a collection of ideas from Druidic reconstructionists. We recognize that during the Dark Ages most historical facts were deliberately destroyed as the Catholic invasion moved from Rome through Britain, making accurate information on the old wisdom studies difficult to find, at best. The American Rite, however, began in America from one of these descendants.

Father Eli was born about 1915, and was brought up by his Druidic GrandFather and Cherokee GrandMother after his parents died in the mid 1920's. He lived in a little Ozark Mtn. valley rarely touched by those passing by on the upper trails/roads between towns, and so they were free to preserve the 'old ways'.

The practices taught herein are provided by Father Eli's vision and training in both the Druidic Arts and the Cherokee Medicine Clan. They offer a unique Path for each individual on their own Inward Journey to Wisdom and Creative Power.

Throughout the ages of man, there have been numerous references to a group of men, always remaining in the background as far as notoriety is concerned, which have made numerous contributions to the guidance of mankind. Sometimes this group is call "The Magi," sometimes "The Order of Melchizedek," sometimes "The Great White Brotherhood," and many times not named at all. Yet the one name by which they have been referred to, time after time, in all literature of all races is the name "Wise Men," and the practice of their teachings as "Wisdom" or "The Way."

What are these men? Do they exist at all? If so, in what do they believe? What is their purpose in life? These and many other questions have led to much speculation and mis-information. The purpose of this web-site is to rectify much of this mis-information and to lead the earnest student into the right path or "Way" leading to full knowledge and understanding of the many mysteries connected with a study such as this.

For this is the study of mysteries - little known, barely hinted at - of which there is little written. Not so much that the Wise Men have attempted to cover up their teachings. On the contrary, time after time they have tried to give as much of the truth to the people as people were ready to receive. The simple truth is that the truth is too simple!!! It is the old story of hiding a thing by placing it in plain sight.

The Wise Men have always held that the truth is simple. Complex things may be wonderful to contemplate, but this very complexity covers the simple basic truth like a smoke screen. Only the very wise can see through the screen to discern the truth, and the reverse of this statement is that those who can see through the screen become Wise!

~ by Father Eli, The Teacher
Grand Master of the Druidic Craft of the Wise in America

The Cwmry
The Cwmry, or Celts, are a collection of tribes that descended from a fair-skinned People who survived the Great Flood on the western slopes of the Himalayan Mountains. They spoke a common language that is the root of many dialects native to Northern Europe, of which Gaelic and Welsh are prime examples. In the Age of Capricorn, following the Great Deluge, it is told that certain of them remembered the Ancient Wisdom. These teachers began to teach the people how to live together in harmony with Mother Earth and Father Sky, worshipping with music and dancing. The heavens guided their spirit and the Earth guided their bodies to know which foods would sustain and heal them. When asked who they were, the teachers replied, "We are Pan," meaning "We are all of one mind," for this is the meaning of the name. These bearers of ancient Wisdom are commemorated with the head of a goat and the pipes of music to remind us of the age when the Old Wisdom Religion was first introduced to the Celtic people.

After about 2,150 years, the Sun moved into alignment with the stars of Sagittarius and the Celts befriended the horses who had multiplied and flourished in the mountains. They provided the Cwmry with the means to explore farther lands, and they rode down out of the mountains to the west, into the lands of Greece. The Greeks were astonished at the skill with which human and horse moved as one being, and referred to them as Centaurs, or the Horse-Men. The leader of these equestrian travelers was a great teacher and healer named Chiron. His perceptions of the universe inspired many of the Greeks to learn the ancient wisdom and magical arts that he freely shared with them.

Among them was one named Aescalapius, meaning "the man-teaching serpent." He traveled throughout Greece, teaching the Wisdom of Chiron and founding the ancient mystery schools of that land. These schools of wisdom later produced the great teacher named Hermes, who summarized the basic concepts of the universe into what is known as The Hermetic Principles. He later traveled to Egypt and brought these teachings to the early pharaohs in the Age of Taurus. These same teachings were thus learned by Mosiah, who led the Israelites out of Egypt at the beginning of the Age of Aries.

By the Age of Gemini, about 8,500 years ago, the Celts had migrated across the European continent. At that time a new priesthood of Wisdom arose to lead the tribes of Cwmry (the traditional name for the Celtic people). With their guidance they entered into a time of peace and prosperity that lasted for nearly 6,000 years. This priesthood worshipped in Sacred Groves, the temples of Nature, where the powers of Father Sun and Mother Earth manifest their glory. They were known as Druids, from the root word "dru," meaning "tree", and "wid" , which means "knowing." The Druids instructed their tribes to plant fruit and nut trees everywhere they traveled, until all of Europe became a beautiful garden providing for all the needs of the people as they followed the seasons.

The Druids of each region met annually at the Summer Solstice to renew the laws by which the tribes could maintain their alliances. Every seven years they would have a Grand Council for the Druids of all tribes to share their visions of how to keep the nations in harmony with the Divine Will of the gods and goddesses who guided their destiny.

The Druids were the teachers, historians, physicians, counselors, musicians, seers, artisans and warrior chiefs of their tribes and villages. Each profession had a patron god or goddess whose powers guided their skills and teachings. There were essentially three grades of Druidic priesthood. Those in the apprenticeship grade were called Bards. A part of their general education required a memorization of the ancient triads of history, lore, legends and mythology. The study also included genealogy, storytelling, singing, and music. This remained an oral tradition, with a written outline preserved in stone and wood in the carvings of Ogham script. In the 1200's this tradition was translated onto paper in such bardic writings as the Red Book of Hergest and the White Book of Rhydderch. These surviving legends were later compiled into a work called "The Mabinogion."

Those of the next grade of Celtic priesthood were called Ovates, or seers. This level of study concerned the practice of magic, herbalism, healing, alchemy, divination and weather working. The highest grade of the Order was the Druid. This study was concerned with learning to communicate with the cosmic mental world and the Gods and the practice of "high magic" through application of Hermetic principles of physics to influence the events of the mortal world. They functioned as clergy, teachers, mediators and judges to their respected tribes...."


Me: Can't help but notice first that he left out the 'wise women'...

[wren]

Loaded Words and Dangerous Cults

The words Witch and Druid evoke a longing in many of us for the wisdom of the past and of the ancestors. They evoke images of mystery and magic, of ancient knowledge of the Earth and her seasons, of star-lore and herb-lore, of primal wisdom and inner knowing. But they are words that can also evoke anxiety. Some people believe that Witches and Druids are members of dangerous cults, and even though we may know that this is nonsense, there is no point in pretending that the words ‘Witch’ and ‘Druid’ are not loaded. Some people think at once of sorcery and Satanism – they see the Witches of Shakespeare’s Macbeth tossing bats’ wings into bubbling cauldrons, and Druid priests raising gleaming blades above the bodies of virgins sprawled across the ‘Slaughter Stone’ at Stonehenge.

These negative images of Witchcraft and Druidry come mostly from the scaremongering of fundamentalist Christian groups and from the tacky products of the movie and publishing industries. The genre of the horror movie needs constant feeding, and Shakespeare, together with later writers about ‘spooky Witchcraft’, have provided them with ample material.

It is true that Roman writers talked of Druids being present at human sacrifices, but we need to put this in context: Christian priests are present at executions today, and in ancient times human sacrifice was an feature of many societies. The Romans themselves sacrificed people until the first century BC. After that, they secularized the activity, built the Colloseum, and turned death into public entertainment.

It is also true that during the witch-hunts of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, people confessed to being Witches, cursing others and having sexual intercourse with the Devil. But only the most obtuse people fail to see a connection between these confessions and the fact that they were extracted by torture.

Every religion or spiritual path has its share of insane and unpleasant people, and there are likely to have been some malevolent Druids and Witches, just as there have been malevolent Christians. But with the Inquisition and the Crusades, a body count would undoubtedly stack up unfavourably towards the latter.

Another misconception is that Druids and Witches practise Satanism. To do this you must believe in a being called Satan, and to practice it involves performing a reverse Christian ritual known as a Black Mass. Druids and Witches do not believe in an entity called Satan, or one who acts in the way he is supposed to act. They certainly do not perform reverse Christian ceremonies of any kind. In fact, some Druids are Christian and for several years there have been conferences on Druidry and Christianity held at an abbey in Gloucestershire, England. There have also been conferences where Witches, Christians and Druids have shared their ideas in a spirit of tolerance and understanding. The two seminal thinkers who developed Druidry and Witchcraft in the modern era, Gardner and Nichols, were both ordained Christian ministers. So, if you want to be spooked, you need to look elsewhere!

The World of the Wise-Folk

Wiccans call their tradition ‘The Craft of the Wise’, and the figures with whom many of them identify most strongly in previous centuries were those people in a community who would be called upon to offer cures, help deliver babies and assist those dying, to find people or objects with psychic sight, and to help in times of individual or communal difficulty: Your spouse is sleeping with another person; there has been no rain on your land for months; your cattle are dying from a mysterious disease; your best knife has been stolen; your baby’s cough will not go away; you know you are dying and are frightened – all these are problems that needed to be faced in the past, as we still face them today. Nowadays we turn to scientists, counsellors, doctors, vets, police officers and priests. In the old days we went to those men and women who knew about the mysteries of life, who were called to heal and to help. Through their own experience, through communion with spirits and teachers from the Otherworld, and through training from those who had been drawn to the Ways before them, they would each come to be known and respected as the local wise woman or man of their community. In parts of Britain they were known as Cunning Men and Women, from the root word ‘con’ or ‘ken’, which means ‘to know’. They were the wise ones, the people with ‘Knowledge’.

Explore the world of Cunning Folk

Historians now believe that it is unlikely that these people ever met together in ‘covens’ to work magic in the way that witch finders and modern writers have described. Instead, it seems far more likely that they worked as the local wise person, using their knowledge of spellcraft, herbalism and natural magic to help the local community in the ways described. It is also likely that they trained one or two other people in their craft, often from within their own family. Clearly, the Cunning Folk were in positions of great influence within their community. They seemed to possess the power of life and death, and of secret knowledge, and if they failed to save a life or if a villager grew worse under their care, one can imagine the hatred this might have provoked. Powerful people evoke respect and admiration, but they can soon be turned upon with a fury that matches in intensity the awe in which they are held. To become a Cunning person required devotion and courage, as well as both practical and psychic skills. As with all professions that require the use of power, there are always unscrupulous practitioners who will prey on the gullibility and superstitions of others, and who will do anything for money or favours, hence the fear of ‘wicked Witches’, ‘evil magicians’ – people who will, for a price, use their abilities not to heal but to harm.

Regarding the use of the term Witch, it is important to recognise a misunderstanding that can easily occur. Ronald Hutton, Professor of History and expert on the history of Wicca and Witchcraft, says: “Perhaps most modern Western liberals might think of a Witch-doctor, shaman or wizard when they hear the term Witch. But most people, even in their society, would think of a cackling evil old woman – and they would be wholly traditional in doing so. The Anglo-Saxon words ‘wicce’ and ‘wicca’ mean a human who uses magic to harm other humans. By contrast the wise-folk and cunning-folk were there to use magic to help others, most notably by removing or breaking the spells of the witches. A witch-doctor is not a witch who is a doctor, but a doctor who combats witches, which is what such figures do in tribal societies. The term ‘white witches’ was first applied to wise-folk by seventeenth century Puritans intent on combating popular magic, as a term of abuse.”

In a complete reversal of its traditional meaning, the terms Witch and Wiccan are now used in Pagan and New Age circles to mean someone who - like a Cunning Person - uses magic not to harm others but to help and heal them, and someone – in addition – who follows a spiritual path that draws its inspiration from the Natural world. Throughout this site, this modern positive use of these terms applies.

The World of the Druid

While the Cunning Folk worked alone or in small groups, and were the local wise people and healers in rural communities, the Druids were an organized elite, exempt from warfare and paying taxes, and they acted as judges, teachers, philosophers and advisers to chieftains, kings and queens. They seem very different to the image that we hold of Witches, until we examine them in m ore detail.

The origins of Druidism are lost in the mists of time. All we can say is that gradually, as successive migrations of peoples from as far away as Anatolia and Caucasia arrived in Ireland and the British Isles, their spiritual beliefs and magical practices mingled with those of the indigenous population, and at a certain time these became focused within the great stone circles. Later, as more migrations occurred, tribes which have come to be labelled as Celtic settled in these lands, and Druidism evolved as both a spiritual and cultural force that existed from Ireland in the West to Brittany in the East, and possibly as far as Anatolia, now Turkey. Druidism flourished for over a thousand years until the arrival of Christianity. By the sixth century it had ceased to exist in its complete form, and it was only revived after another thousand years, in the seventeenth century.

During the time that Druidry flourished, the classical writers tell us that they were organized into three groupings – Bards, Ovates and Druids. The Druids were teachers and philosophers; the Bards were poets, storytellers and musicians, who used their knowledge of the power of the word and of sound to inspire and enthral, to entertain and to charm – and even to bewitch.

The Ovates were seers and diviners, and it seems likely that they were also healers, herbalists and midwives. They have been variously termed by classical writers as Vates, Uatis, Euhages, and the word ‘ovate’ may derive from the Indo-European root uat, ‘to be inspired or possessed’. The classical author Strabo described the Ovate as ‘an interpreter of nature’. It was the Ovates who were skilled in reading omens and divining auguries – whether from the flight of birds, the shape of clouds, or the behaviour of animals or the weather – and it was the Ovates whose task it was to heal, using their knowledge of herbs and spells to cure disease in humans and livestock. The Ovate seems, in many ways, identical to the type of person many people would describe as a Witch. But what became of the Ovates?

With the triumph of Christianity over all indigenous faiths in Britain by about the sixth century, the Bardic tradition continued, with schools of Bards existing in Ireland, Wales and Scotland until the seventeenth century. The Druids, being the professional elite, were absorbed into the new dispensation. Nothing more is heard of the Ovates, who seem to simply disappear. Or did they? If you knew how to cure someone, would you stop doing this under a new religious order? Would you refrain from passing on your knowledge to your children, or to your students, so that they too might cure others? The same goes for midwifery skills, for the knowledge of tree, herb and animal lore, and for the ability to do magic, to make spells and potions. It is likely that, with the coming of Christianity, the Ovate stream of Druidry went underground but did not die out, because you cannot prevent this kind of knowledge from being passed on – even though it may change in the passing.

It is possible that through word-of-mouth tradition, the Ovate stream of Druidry became one of the sources that fed later generations of healers and followers of the Old Ways, until they came to be known as the Cunning Folk. And it is primarily these Cunning people who are now seen as Witches in modern popular perception.

Those who study Druidry today find that as they enter the Ovate period of their studies, they seem to develop and get in touch with precisely those parts of themselves that are now associated with the Witch, and that others associate with the shaman, including the ability to navigate the inner world, and develop seership.

When the two worlds of Witchcraft and Druidry are brought together, we find at the place of their meeting the figure of the Ovate-Witch who presides over a knowledge of the mysteries of Life and Death, whose cauldron offers the wisdom that is known in Druidry as Bright Knowledge.

Adapted from Druidcraft - the Magic of Wicca & Druidry by Philip Carr-Gomm

[stormcat]

Thanks for this, I've been meaning to get the Carr-Gomm book. It's interesting how things start out as one thing and lead to another.>^..^<

[wren]

You're welcome, Stormie! I think it helps for all of us to understand similarities and those who choose a more eclectic path that combines beliefs and practices. I have something else to post here from Emma Restall Orr, too...

[stormcat]

I'll be waiting... >^..^<

[wren]

I fancy that certain practices, such as the use of the circle to keep the power in, were local inventions, derived from the use of the Druid or pre-Druid circle.
Gerald Gardner Witchcraft Today

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Druidry and Wicca represent the two main streams of indigenous ‘earth spirituality’ of western European culture. But though their roots are buried deep in the foundations of that culture, the ways in which they are practised today were formulated only recently, and as we shall see, there are many connections between the two approaches.

In the 1930s or 40s two men met and became friends and co-workers, probably first at the idyllic naturist community of Spielplatz in Hertfordshire. one was a Druid, the other a poet and historian. Gerald Gardner, a member of the Ancient Druid Order and the Folklore Society, met the poet and teacher Ross Nichols, and discovered that he shared his interest in magic, the occult and the pre-Christian past of Britain. After more than a decade of friendship, Ross became a Druid too, joining the Ancient Order in 1954. This was the same year that Gardner’s first work of non-fiction on Witchcraft was published – Witchcraft Today. This book heralded the popularisation of Wicca and began the process that led to it becoming such a significant and dynamic spirituality today.

At about the time the book was published, Ross took my father to meet Gerald Gardner at their naturist club. They lay in the sun, talked about history, and swam in the pool. My father, as editor of a history magazine, would later commission Ross to write articles, but at this time it was Ross who was the editor. He had just finished editing an English translation of Paul Christian’s massive History & Practice of Magicand had gone on to edit Gardner’s book – quite a task according to writers Francis King and Doreen Valiente, since Gardner was not a skilled author.

Already, before the book was published, Gardner had established a coven, and was hoping to start a Druid group on the Isle of Man. As far as we know Ross did not join his coven, and although interested in Wicca, never considered himself a Witch. Instead he continued to pursue his interests in mythology and the seasonal festivals, and began to develop a passion for Druidry. In the end, when Gardner and the old Druid Chief died in 1964, Ross introduced a new kind of Druid practice into the world. It was based on the old lore – on the mythology of Britain and Ireland, on the old Bardic tales, on the practices of the Ancient Druid Order, and on ideas drawn from folklore, depth psychology and legend.

But it was new because it took all of this material and presented it through the structure of a Mystery School that, like Wicca, drew much of its practical inspiration from the immense heritage of the Western magical tradition, which – in a perfect arc – connected the Pythagorean and Neo-Pythagorean roots of western magic to the Pythagoreanism of the ancient Druids. Just like Wicca, this Druidry worked with the magic circle blessed by fire and water, with the four elements and the fifth being aether, or Spirit, symbolised by the Pythagorean pentagram. It offered three grades or degrees, entered by initiation, of Bard, Ovate and Druid, as opposed to Wicca’s First, Second and Third Degrees. And it celebrated the same eight seasonal festivals.

Gardner, in a later book, The Meaning of Witchcraft, speculated that the ancient Druids represented the scholarly elite while Witchcraft was the religion of the peasants, and whether or not this is true, this perception has affected our views of the two paths. Druidry often appears to be the more scholarly or learned path, while Wicca appears to be the more earthy, intuitive or instinctual way. The two founding fathers of these types of practice certainly embodied these differences – Ross tended to be the dry academic, Gardner the earthy maverick. But things have come a long way since they presented their systems to the world – scholarly approaches in Wicca have developed in tandem with the development of instinctual and intuitive approaches within Druidry, and now many people creatively blend Wiccan and Druidic approaches and find them complementary.


Founding Mothers

Although Gardner and Nichols were undoubtedly seminal in their influence on these two strands of modern spirituality, we must remember that new movements that capture the public imagination and grow in popularity do not arise in a vacuum. Both men were influenced by the Spirit of the Times, whose agenda in post-war Britain urgently required a return to a peaceful harmony with the land. They were both driven by the need in the collective soul for spiritualities that honoured and celebrated the earth and all life, rather than for religions that urged us to transcend Nature and the body. And they were influenced, too, by other people – particularly by two women, Doreen Valiente and Vera Chapman who, if we are to term Gardner and Nichols Founding Fathers, we should term Founding Mothers of the movements they initiated.

Gardner met Valiente in 1952 and immediately encouraged her to improve and augment the rituals in the Wiccan Book of Shadows – a term for the book used to record Wiccan rites, which Gardner apparently adopted on reading of its use in India in an article published in The Occult Observer by a friend of Ross. Valiente, who knew Ross too, wrote inspired poetry with an unashamed expression of sensuality and Paganism. Vera Chapman, who matched Ross in both her depth of learning and her fascination for history and poetry, was a successful author, keen proponent of women’s freemasonry, a member of the Woodcraft-related Kibbo Kift movement, and the founder of the Tolkien Society. Like Ross she was also interested in a fairer distribution of wealth, and supported the Social Credit movement. Ross appointed her Pendragon of his Order, and after the success of her Arthurian trilogy, Warner Bros. bought the film rights, using her work as the basis for a disappointing cartoon film – Quest for Camelot.

Since Valiente and Chapman, other women have contributed immensely to both traditions – bringing a depth and warmth to these spiritualities that appeal now to women just as much as men. Leaders of Druid groups today tend to have a grounding in Wicca as well as Druidry, and many Wiccans study Druidry, in addition to Druids studying Wicca. Each system is complete in itself and some people choose to practice just one, or to practice both at different times. Others choose to eclectically combine elements of both ways. Wicca tends to work with the gods, and with the power of the union of the opposites, whereas Druidry tends to work with the results of this union in creativity, and deals not so much with the gods, as with the fruit of their inspiration in poetry and story. Both ways of working are powerful and valid in their own right and need no additions, but there is also no reason why they cannot be combined .

There are many varieties of Wicca now, just as there are many different styles of Druid practice, which makes it hard to offer comparisons. Solitary practitioners of Wicca, often calling themselves ‘Hedge Witches’ are practically indistinguishable from solitary Ovates, or ‘Hedge Druids’.

~Adapted from Druid Mysteries by Philip Carr-Gomm~

[stormcat]

You know I'm having a bleeping hard time finding the Carr-Gomm book. I have it on special order at a New Age bookstore. >^!!^<

[wren]

And I goof-ed on the Emma Restall Orr article... its about being a modern druid. Still looking for more info for here, too...