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 This
update is primarily a formatting one, with only a few minor changes
from the previous version. I have in my files a complex
“family tree” chart of Mesopagan Druid groups prepared (I recall)
by Colin Murray, then head of the Golden Section Order Society
ten or twenty years ago, which I will eventually append to and
use to update this essay. Someday we may even be able to come
up with a chronology of the Mesopagan Druid orders which all
the current groups will be able to agree upon!
Let me begin by pointing out that I am working
primarily on the “Earth Plane”
level of materialistic reality in writing these
notes, and that legends about the founding of esoteric movements
are not unusual. This is especially important as we discuss the
Fraternal Druid movements of the British Isles, many of whom
sincerely believe that their orders go back in an unbroken line
to the original Paleopagan Druids.
If you are unfamiliar with these terms, you
may wish to visit my definitions page on Paleo-,
Meso- and Neopaganism. Please remember that these are not
airtight pigeonholes, but rather broad, overlapping categories.
My discussion of Paleopagan
Druidism as the Celtic branch of a common Indo-European Paleopaganism
will probably be a useful introduction to this topic. The original
Druids were wiped out by the Roman Empire and then the Roman
Catholic Church, so that by the year 1,000 of the Common Era,
Druidism as an intact belief system, rooted in a common Indo-European
social structure and cosmology, had vanished from Western
Europe.
It is said by some Mesopagan Druids that in
1245 c.e. a gathering was held of underground Druids and Bards
from several parts of the British Isles, and that they managed
to agree upon some sort of theological unity. This accomplished,
they founded a special group called the “Mount Haemus Grove,”
which is said to still be in existence, with an “unbroken” line leading
back. Such claims, like those made for Witchcraft groups, need
to be treated most carefully. There does indeed seem to be something
calling itself the Mount Haemus Grove operating today (or at
least within the last ten years), which is recognized by some
of the Mesopagan Druids in England, but the fact of its current
existence cannot, unfortunately, be taken as proof of either
its legendary history or its alledged continuity. It may be possible
to show a continued existence back to the 1700’s, but going
any further back will require much more research than seems to
have been done to date.
In 1659 c.e., the scholar John Aubrey,
having done some quasi-archeological (the science hadn’t
been invented yet) fieldwork at Stonehenge, made the suggestion
that Stonehenge might have been a temple of the Druids.
He developed this suggestion cautiously over the next few decades
in his correspondence with his fellow scholars and in the notes
for his never fully-published work, Templa Druidim.
In 1694, a firey young Deist named John Toland discussed the
theory with him and became very enthusiastic about it. In 1695,
excerpts from Aubrey’s book were published, including his
theory about Druids at Stonehenge, which thus saw wider distribution
for the first time.
In 1717 c.e., a young “antiquary”
(that’s what such folk were called before
the term “archeologist”
was coined) named William Stuckeley obtained
a copy of Aubrey’s complete manuscript of Templa Druidim,
including the portions never published. Stuckeley thought the
theory about Stonehenge being a Druid Temple was a terrific idea
and began to develop it far bevond Aubrey’s original concepts.
Also in that year, it is claimed, John Toland
held a meeting at which Druidic and Bardic “representatives”
(elected by whom?) from Wales, Cornwall, Britanny, Ireland, Scotland,
Anglesey, Man, York, Oxford and London supposedly appeared and
formed the “Universal
Druid Bond” (“U.D.B.”).
The U.D.B. has supposedly continued to this very day (or rather,
at least one current group claiming to be part of a Universal
Druid Bond says that it goes back this far) and the present name
of the head group of the U.D.B. seems to be the “Mother Grove, An Tich Geata
Gairdeachas.”
In 1723 c.e., the Druid stone altar was invented
by Rev. Henry Rowlands in his “monumental” work, Mona Antiqua
Restaurata. His Druids are Patriarchs right out of the
Bible, and the altars they use are cairns (piles of stones) and
the capstones of cromlechs (roofs of passage graves). He does
at least allow the Druids to remain in their groves, rather than
forcing them to build huge stone temples. These Druid stone altars
quickly became part of the rapidly growing folklore of Druidism.
Prior to 1723, Druids were required to use altars made of sod
or tree stumps — adequate, perhaps, but hardly as glamorous.
In 1726, John Toland published his History
of the Druids, in which he pictured the Druids as unscrupulous
montebanks and theocratic tyrants. This was a rather surprising
act for the man who supposedly had, nine years earlier, helped
to found the Universal Druid Bond and been its first “Chosen Chief.” He did, however, put further
forward the theory that Stonehenge had been built for Druidic
worship.
Scholarship of equal value was, of course,
being produced in France as well. In 1727, Jean Martin presented Patriarchial
Druids (Christian style) in his Religion des Gaulois.
Throughout this century, on both sides of the Channel, ancient
Druids were being invented, though in France these “Pre-Christian Christians” tended to be patriotic heroes resisting invasion,
while their English counterparts were the greatest mystics in
history.
In London, Druid groups appeared along with
Rosicrucian and Freemasonic organizations. As the Druid Order/B.C.U.B.
(see below), put it in their introductory booklet, The
Ancient Druid Order:
“The 17th century saw the emergence of
the Order into its more modern shape. In the 17th and 18th centuries
there was a complex of mystical societies, Hermetes, Rosicrucians,
Freemasons and Druids, who often had members in common.”
In 1781 c.e., Henry Hurle set up the
“Ancient Order
of Druids” (“A.O.D.”),
which is sometimes just called the “Druid Order,”
(“D.O.”),
as were a few other groups, leading to no end
of historical confusion. Hurle’s group was a secret society
based on Masonic patterns — not surprising, since Hurle
was a carpenter and house builder, and thus would have been familiar
with Masonry. The A.O.D., like most of the similar mystical societies
formed at the time, was heavily influenced by Jacob Boehme.
(Jacob Boehme, 1675-1724 c.e., was a Protestant
Christian mystic, greatly involved with alchemy, hermeticism
and Christian Cabala, as well as being a student of the famous
Meister Eckhart. His mystical writings attempted to reconcile
all these influences and had a tremendous impact upon later generations
of mystical Christians, Rosicrucians, Freemasons and Theosophists.)
Overseas, the link between Deism, Masonry
and Druidism was once again established, in the small town of
Newburgh, New York. G. Adolf Koch has an entire chapter on
“The Society of Druids” in his book Religion of the American Enlightenment.
Deism (the belief that a Supreme Being created the universe,
then essentially ignored it) and downright atheism were popular
during the 1780’s and 90’s among the American intelligensia,
especially those who had supported the American and French revolutions.
In fact, a rather large number of the key political figures involved
in both revolutions were Deistic Masons and Rosicrucians (see
The Illuminoids, by Neal Wilgus), which rather
dampens claims by the Religious
Reich to America having been founded as a “Christian
nation.” Koch tells the story
of the Newburgh Druids thusly:
“Some influential citizens of Newburgh
had organized themselves into an interesting radical religious
body called ‘The
Druid Society.’ Like its sister
organization, the Deistic Society in New York, it was a radical
offshoot of an earlier and more conservative society. A Masonic
lodge had been established in Newburgh in 1788, and it seems,
as one attempts to piece together the fragmentary facts, that
as the brothers, or at least a number of them, became more and
more radical in the feverish days of the French Revolution, the
metamorphosis from Mason to Druid resulted. The Druids held their
meetings in the room formerly occupied by the Masons and continued
to use a ceremony similar to the Masonic. It is interesting to
note, too, that as the Druid Society died out contemporaneously
with the end of [famous Deist of the time] Palmer’s activities
in New York City, a new Masonic lodge was instituted in Newburgh
in 1806.
The question naturally arises as to why those
apostate Masons chose the name of Druids. It seems that when
they abandoned Christianity, with which Masonry in America had
not been incompatible, they went back to the religion [as they
conceived of it] of the ancient Druids who were sun worshippers.
It was commonly believed at that time, by the radicals of course,
that both Christianity and Masonry were derived from the worship
of the sun… The Druids thus went back to the pure worship
of the great luminary, the visible agent of a great invisible
first cause, and regarded Christianity as a later accretion and
subversion of the true faith, a superstition, in short, developed
by a designing and unscrupulous priesthood, to put it mildly
in the language of the day.”
It appears that the famous American revolutionary
Thomas Paine, among other radicals of the time, was convinced that
Masonry was descended from Druidism. Koch refers us to an essay
bv Paine, The Origin of Freemasonry, written in
New York Citv in 1805. In this essay he mentions a society of
Masons in Dublin who called themselves Druids. The spectacular
fantasies and conjectures that have been offered over the centuries
to explain the origins of Masonry and Rosicrucianism will have
to await another article to be properly discussed. Suffice it
to say, for now, that the sorts of Druidism with which Paine
and his friends might have been familiar were far more likely
to have been offshoots of Masonry than vice versa.
As for the group of Druid Masons in Dublin,
I know nothing else about them. I will speculate that they may
very well have been intimately linked with Irish Revolutionary
politics, which might or might not have strained their relations
with Druid Masons in England. There doesn’t seem to be much
data about Irish Masonic Druidism available in this country,
but we do know a bit about developments in Wales.
Following the successful
Eisteddfod (bardic gathering) organized by Thomas Jones
in Corwen in 1789 c.e., a huge variety of Welsh cultural and
literary societies mushroomed and flourished. In 1792, a stone
mason, early agitator for Unitarianism, and member of several
of these groups in London, named Edward Williams, later
to use the religious/pen name of Iolo Morganwg (Iolo
of Glamorganshire), held an Autumn Equinox ceremony on top of
Primrose Hill (in London). Along with some other Welsh Bards,
he set up a small circle of pebbles and an altar, which he called
the “Mean Gorsedd.” There was a naked
sword on this altar and a part of the ritual involved the sheathing
of this sword. At the time, no one paid very much attention to
the ceremony or its obvious sexual symbolism (which, if noticed,
might legitimately have been called “Pagan”),
at least not outside of the London “Bardic” community.
 Iolo, however, was not daunted. He declared
that the Glamorganshire Bards had an unbroken line of Bardic-Druidic
tradition going back to the Ancient Druids, and that his ceremony
was part of it. He said that the ancient Druids had been monotheists
and, by an amazing coincidence, Unitarians! He then proceeded
(almost all scholars agree) to translate, mistranslate and occasionally
forge various documents and “ancient”
manuscripts, in order to “prove”
these and his subsequent claims. Many people
feel that he muddled genuine Welsh scholarship for over a hundred
years. It was Iolo who promoted the use of the awen
symbol, even though it would have been far more appropriate for
trinitarian than unitarian Druids to use.
The effects of Iolo’s work did not stop
there however, for later writers such as Lewis Spence, Robert Graves
(in The White Goddess) and Gerald
Gardner apparently took Iolo’s dubious “scholarship” at
face value and proceeded to put forward theories that have launched
dozens of occult and mystical organizations (most of them having
little if anything to do with authentic Paleopagan Druidism).
By 1796 c.e., all megalithic monuments in
Northwestern Europe were firmly defined as “Druidic,”
especially if they were in the form of circles
or lines of standing stones. In that year, yet another element
was added, in La Tour-D’Auvergne’s book, Origines Gauloises. He thought
he had discovered a word in the Breton language for megalithic
tombs, dolmin, and by both this spelling
and that of dolmen the term became part of archeological
jargon and of the growing Druid folklore. Of course, none of
these people knew that the megalithic monuments, cromlechs, and
dolmens all predated the Celtic peoples by many centuries.
By the end of the 18th Century, the folklore,
also called “Celtomania,”
went roughly like this:
“…the Celts are the oldest people
in the world; their language is preserved practically intact
in Bas-Breton; they were profound philosophers whose inspired
doctrines have been handed down by the Welsh Bardic Schools;.
dolmens are their altars where their priests the Druids offered
human sacrifice; stone alignments were their astronomical observatories…”
(Salomon Reinach, quoted by Stuart Piggott in
the latter’s The Druids).
In 1819 c.e., Iolo managed to get his stone
circle and its ceremony (now called, as a whole, the “Gorsedd”)
inserted into the genuine Eisteddfod in Carmarthen,
Wales. It was a success with the Bards and the tourists and has
been a part of the Eisteddfod tradition ever since,
with greater and greater elaborations.
Throughout the 19th Century, art, music, drama
and poetry were using these fanciful Druids as characters and
sources of inspiration. Various eccentrics, many of them devout
(if unorthodox) Christians, claimed to be Druids and made colorful
headlines. Wealthy people built miniature Stonehenges in their
gardens and hired fake Druids to scare their guests. Mystically
oriented individuals drifted from Masonic groups to Rosicrucian
lodges to Druid groves, and hardly anyone, then or now, could
tell the difference. Ecumenicalism was the order of the day and
in 1878, at the Pontypridd Eisteddfod, the
Archdruid presiding over the Gorsedd ceremony inserted
a prayer to Mother Kali of India! This might have been magically
quite sensible, and was certainly in keeping with traditional
Pagan attitudes of religious eclecticism, except for the fact
that the British attitude towards Indian culture and religion
was not exactly the most cordial at the time. Of course, maybe
they were anticipating A.D.F.’s Pan-Indo-European approach
to Druidism!
But before this, in 1833, the secret society
founded by Hurle apparently split up over the question of whether
it should be mainly a “benefit”
(charitable) society or a mystical one. The majority
voted for being a charitable society and changed its name to
the “United Ancient
Order of Druids” (“U.A.O.D.”).
This group, with branches all over the world, still exists as
a charitable and fraternal organization rather like the Elks
or Shriners, with both their membership and their rituals overlapping
heavily with those of mainstream Masonry.
Meanwhile, the minority group, still apparently
calling itself by the old names (A.O.D. and D.O.), also continued
to exist, as a mystical Masonic sort of organization. They may
have been among the groups known to have held ceremonies (Summer
Solstice rites were the only ones held by anyone it seems) at
Stonehenge, prior to 1900 c.e. In 1900, one of the standing stones
fell over and the angry owner of the land (Sir Edward Antrobus)
decided to fence the monument and charge admission the better
to (a) keep a closer watch on it and (b) earn enough money to
repair the damage being committed by tourists. This caused a
problem almost immediately , when a Druidic group was holding
the next Summer Solstice ceremonies and the Chief Druid was kicked
out by the police (he supposedly laid a curse on Sir Edward,
the affects of which are unrecorded).
 The
only Druidic group known for sure to have used the monument through
the years between 1901 and 1914 c.e. was called the “Druid Hermeticists.” It may have been a member of this group who was the
model for Alick P. F. Ritchie’s “Stonehenge
1911” painting done originally for
“Vanity Fair” magazine
and shown here.
In 1915 c.e., Stonehenge was sold by the owner
to someone else who immediately gave it to the British government,
at a ceremony in which Druids of some sort assisted. Since 1919
c.e., when Stonehenge became a national monument, many different
Druid groups have asked government pemission to use it, while
other groups (because of political and metaphysical squabbles)
celebrated instead at various nearby spots. Some groups, of course,
may have used Stonehenge without government permission or knowledge.
From the 1970’s to the 90’s, under
increasingly fascistic governments, Stonehenge has been repeatedly
blocked off from use by British Druids and everyone else, in
order to control the activities of the British counterculture
(which began having festivals nearby, and using the neighborhood
for anti-nuclear and ecological protests). A review in the Lughnasadh/Fall
’96 issue (31) of Keltria
Journal highly recommends Who Owns Stonehenge?
by Christopher Chippendale et. al., as a source that will provide
more details, at least up until 1990 or so. On June 22, 1998
c.e., Maggie Thatcher having been replaced by a Labor Party Prime
Minister, the Mesopagan and Neopagan Druids and their friends
(at least 100 of them) were once again allowed to exercise their
civil rights by celebrating the Summer Solstice inside Stonehenge.
The following year, however, conflict between the British Government
and protestors again kept the Druids from celebrating within
the circle of stones, though things improved again in 2000.
Over the 20th century, events of a Druidic
nature were occurring outside of Stonehenge, of course. In Wales,
the National Eisteddfod Court runs an Esteddfod
every year, alternating between northern and southern Wales,
and has the “Gorsedd of Bards” arrange the
rituals for each occasion. Bardic and Mesopagan Druidic groups
have also arisen in France, Britanny, Cornwall (where they were
responsible for rescuing the Cornish language from the very brink
of extinction), the Isle of Man, Scotland, Ireland, various parts
of England, Australia, and elsewhere. Oddly enough, Mesopagan
Druidism proved to be popular in Germanic and Scandinavian countries,
despite these regions not thinking of themselves as Celtic.
Counting out and pinning down the number and
variety of Mesopagan Druid organizations that have existed, even
just in England, may well be impossible. As I have mentioned
in discussions of Witchcraft history, and as the A.O.D. booklet
quoted earlier hints, the British Isles are very small! Esoteric
and fraternal organizations tend to have overlapping memberships,
to attend each other’s rites, and to borrow ideas and terminology
from each other. Thus where Piggott or another scholar may see
a dozen “different” Druid orders, their members may see one or two or
three, working along often parallel lines, and all holding to
the same ideals of wisdom, character and public service.
Masonic/Fraternal Druidism (by far the vast
majority of Mesopagan Druidism) is a religious and philosophical
system that has lasted for over two centuries, helping thousands
of people to gain a better understanding of themselves and their
times. Its attitude of reverent skepticism is fully in keeping
with the ideals of the founders of the Reformed
and Neopagan Druid movements. These Mesopagans have a great deal
of wisdom and experience that we would do well to avail ourselves
of, and many of the current Fraternal Druids are right on the
borderline between Meso- and Neopaganism. It is to be hoped that
more lines of communication will be opened between us in the
years to come.
For more details about Mesopagan Druidism,
read the essays referenced below.
Mesopagan Druid Literature
The Story of Druidism:
History, Legend and Lore This is a
booklet I received from the California & Nevada Lodge of
the United Ancient Order of Druids (U.A.O.D.) twenty years ago.
It expresses clearly the Masonic-style of fraternal dedication
and idealism of the order.
The Ancient Druid
Order This is a booklet from the Druid
Order / British Circle of the Universal Bond (B.C.U.B.), sent
to me fifteen years ago.
The Druid Order, by
Dr. Thomas Maughan, D.Sc. This is
an essay written sometime before 1976, by the then head of the
D.O. / B.C.U.B., which I presume owns the copyright. I think
it clearly and succinctly expresses the essence of Mesopagan
Druid mysticism and folklore.
Obviously, modern science and scholarship
(not to mention Neopagan polytheology) disagrees vigorously with
many of the statements made in these brochures. So read them
as evidence of what the writers believed, not of what “really
happened.”
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