Eller, Cynthia (1993) Living in the Lap of the Goddess, the Feminist Spirituality Movement in America. Beacon Press, Boston
(March 4, 2025)
(July 6, 2022) Modern Druidry has several organization but this discussion will center on its earliest organization called the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD at https://druidry.org). OBOD's path is more about nature mysticism and psychological healing that anything else.
As originally conceived by nationalist Druid revival groups, "Druids" were the priests of the people of Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments around Europe. Stonehenge was older then the Romans and so were the Druids of Gaul and Britain mentioned by the Roman geographer Strabo (63 BCE - 21 CE) and Julius Caesar. Strabo says this:
Amongst [the Gauls] there are generally three divisions of' men especially reverenced, the Bards, the Vates, and the Druids. The Bards composed and chanted hymns; the Vates occupied themselves with the sacrifices and the study of nature; while the Druids joined to the study of nature that of moral philosophy. The belief in the justice [of the Druids] is so great that the decision both of public and private disputes is referred to them; and they have before now, by their decision, prevented armies from engaging when drawn up in battle-array against each other. All cases of murder are particularly referred to them. When there is plenty of these (Druids) they imagine there will likewise be a plentiful harvest. Both these (Druids) and the others (Vates and Bards) assert that the soul is indestructible, and likewise the world, but that sometimes fire and sometimes water have prevailed in making great changes. (Strabo's Geography Book 4, Chapter 4, Section 4, translated by Hamilton and Falconer, as found at Perseus)But the Germans were more barbaric than the Celts because they had no Druids and no zeal for sacrifices. This indicates their Indo-European religion had not yet been corrupted by lordification in which deities as people had to be appeased and bribed. Julius Caesar says this:
The Germans differ much from this manner of living. They have no Druids to regulate divine worship, no zeal for sacrifices. They reckon among the gods those only whom they see and by whose offices they are openly assisted — to wit, the Sun, the Fire‑god, and the Moon; of the rest they have learnt p347 not even by report. (Julius Caesar, The Gallic War, Book 6, chapter 21. Online: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Caesar/Gallic_War/6C*.html)Late Greek historian Diogenes Laertius (sometime between 220 and 300 CE) draws on other accounts referencing a respected book by Sotion (about 200 – 170 BC) to say this in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 1, Prologue:
There are some who say that the study of philosophy had its beginning among the barbarians. They urge that the Persians have had their Magi, the Babylonians or Assyrians their Chaldaeans, and the Indians their Gymnosophists; and among the Celts and Gauls there are the people called Druids or Holy Ones, for which they cite as authorities the Magicus of Aristotle and Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Succession of Philosophers. ... [6] As to the Gymnosophists and Druids we are told that they uttered their philosophy in riddles, bidding men to reverence the gods, to abstain from wrongdoing, and to practice courage.(Translated by R.D. Hicks. Online at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text%3Fdoc%3DPerseus:text:1999.01.0258:book%3D1:chapter%3Dprologue%26highlight%3Dthales)"Chaldaea" is a Latinization of the Greek Khaldaía (Χαλδαία)
The founder of OBOD was Ross Nichols. He was the principal of a cramming school in London during the 1950s. He started contributing articles on Druidry and the occult to magazines in his younger years. In 1954, probably at the suggestion of his friend and fellow naturist Gerald Gardner of Wicca fame, he joined the Ancient Order of Druids. He even edited Gardner's book Witchcraft Today. He left the Order in 1964 after three of his core friends there died including Gerald Gardiner. Ross wanted to form a more authentic Celtic spiritual practice less focused on supposed fertility witchcraft rituals. He did this by combining Celtic mythology with Occult practices. Yet Ross remained a Christian not viewing the spiritual practices of OBOD as a full replacement for Christianity despite having many personal reservations about Christian theology. He probably saw the nature spirit elements in the teachings of Jesus.
After Ross died in 1975 leadership of OBOD passed to Philip Carr-Gomm, a psychologist and long time student of Ross Nichols who started out by taking photos of their ceremonies when young. At this time OBOD was not doing well so Phillip refocused OBED on nature and emotional healing distancing it from the occult. He also developed OBOD's popular correspondence course.
Carr-Gomm, Philip (2002) Druid Mysteries-Ancient Wisdom for the 21st Century. Rider Publishers
(July 6, 2022) Star Wars presented a magical divine/spiritual realm not populated with people like gods but with the "Force" generated by conscious experiences. Jedi were the magic crafters and some were more talented at it than others. Yet in order to make a simple adventure story it divided that divine realm into good and evil taking the dualist religious position. Yet this simplicity shows how dualism is so seductive on the human mind. Star Wars was released on May 25, 1977.
Quotes on the Force in Star Wars
Quotes from: https://screenrant.com/star-wars-best-quotes-force/
(July 6, 2022) Neo-Pagan or simply Pagan became a general catch-all term for the many non-Christian groups which emerged at this time. They were unified simply by being non-Christian. This resulted in their fundamental differences being overlooked, especially those between the reconstructionists who sought to revive ancient Pagan religions by deriving authority from surviving ancient texts and the New Age approach of people who refused to be grounded in anything (feelings defined their reality).
Other Pagans started calling themselves by various names such as eclectic wiccan or kitchen wiccan (home and herbal based) leaving Gardiner's original style to be called traditional British Wicca. The more extreme feminist Wicca came to be called Dianic Wicca. Others started calling themselves witches and claimed authority from familial traditions. Finally there were the nature based Druid groups who went looking for grounding but failed doing no better then scattered Roman era texts (see Druid Source Book by John Matthews 1997).
One of the first statements of Neo-Pagan principles occurs in the founding papers of the first Druidry group in the United States called the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA). This group was founded in 1963 at Carleton college in Northfield, Minnesota as protest against the requirement that all students attend a certain number of religious services “of one’s own religion.” Their founding statement is listed below (Adler 2006 p 337):
The object of the search for religious truth, which is a universal and never-ending search, may be found through the Earth-Mother; which is Nature; but this is one way; one way among many.The Carleton religious requirement was abolished the following year but much to the chagrin of some of the original founders, the RDNA continued on as a real alternative religion. This example is paralleled throughout the Pagan movement. What started out as one thing became another as people discovered spiritual liberation in something more personal.
An early statement about grounding Wicca as a religion was made in 1984 by Janet and Stewart Ferrar. In this statement they define for Wicca a purpose as an alignment with the spiritual (divine) powers (1984, Part 2, p 146):
Now the purpose of Wicca, as a religion, is to integrate conflicting aspects of the human psyche with each other, and the whole with the Cosmic Psyche; and as a Craft, to develop the power and self-knowledge of the individual psyche (and in a coven, the co-operating group of individual psyches) so that it can achieve results which are beyond the scope of an undeveloped, un-self-aware psyche - much as an athlete develops, and learns about, his muscular power and control to achieve feats impossible for the non-athlete.In 1995, the alignment with nature became the sixth recognized religious root for the Unitarian Universalist church. This root is presently represented by the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. They stated this sixth source as follows in their source list :
"Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature" (U.U. Source List)In 2002 realizing the limits of magic on the physical realm, the chief of the Nature-Pagan religion of Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, Philip Carr-Gom said this about magic:
“So the magic taught and practiced within Druidry, at least in the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, concerns not the attempt to manipulate circumstances or to ‘get things’, but instead the art of opening to the magic of being alive, the art of bringing ideas into manifestation, and the art of journeying in the quest of healing, inspiration, and knowledge.” (Carr-Gomm 2002, page 164)Pagans at the turn of the millennium did not yet have a solid intellectual foundation for their beliefs and practices. As a result, the Neo-Pagans of the time mostly defined themselves by what they were not. This is shown by this summary from Margot Adler’s book “Drawing Down the Moon”:
But when asked, Neo-Pagans were adamant in insisting that they were “different” although often the differences were subtle and hard to express. “What are the common traits of Pagans?” I asked. The answers I received included, again, that sense of childlike wonder, acceptance of life and death, attunement to the rhythms of nature, sense of humor, lack of guilt-ridden feelings about oneself and about the body and sexuality, genuine honesty, and unwillingness or inability to play social games. (Adler, 2006, p 384)As a practicing Nature Pagan herself she added this insight about Pagan rituals as a means of promoting connection:
From my own experiences of Neo-Pagan rituals, I have come to feel that they have another purpose - to end, for a time, our sense of human alienation from nature and from each other. Accepting the idea of the “psychic sea,” and of human beings as isolated islands within that sea, we can say that, although we are always connected, our most common experience is one of estrangement. Ritual seem to be one method of reintegrating individuals and groups into the cosmos, and to tie in the activities of daily life with their ever present, often forgotten, significance. It allows us to feel biological connectedness with ancestors who regulated their lives and activities according to seasonal observances. Just as ecological theory explains how we are interrelated with all other forms of life, rituals allow us to re-create that unity in an explosive, non-abstract, gut-level way. Rituals have the power to reset the terms of our universe until we find ourselves suddenly and truly “at home.” (Adler, 2006)Adler, Margot (2006) Drawing Down the Moon, Penguin books, U.S.A
Carr-Gomm, Philip (2002) Druid Mysteries, Ancient Wisdom for the 21st Century. Rider: London
Ferrar Janet & Stewart (1984) A Witches’ Bible, The Complete Witches’ Handbook, Phoenix Publishing
Matthews, John (1997) The Druid Source Book. Blandford