What Neopagan Druids Believe
(c) 1984 P. E. I. Bonewits
Reprinted from "The Druids' Progress" #1

Here's a brief introduction to the basic beliefs that I expect
will characterize most members of ADF (a Neopagan Druid organiza-
tion). These spiritual beliefs are similar to most of those held
by other Neopagans (see Margot Adler's book, "Drawing Down the
Moon") and the similarities are far more important than whatever
specific distinctions of doctrine or ethnic focus there might be
between us and other Neopagans. I should also mention that not
all Neopagans who consider themselves Druids will necessarily
agree with every point of the following list. Nonetheless, these
beliefs will be the roots of ADF's polytheology, the source of
the spiritual grove we seek to plant.

1) We believe that divinity is both immanent (internal) and
transcendent (external). We see the Gods as being able to mani-
fest at any point in space or time, including within human
beings, which they might choose, although they may often have
their preferences. Often this develops among some Neopagans into
pantheism ("the physical world is divine") or panentheism ("the
Gods are everywhere"). We tend more towards the latter position.

2) We believe that divinity is as likely to manifest in a
female form as it is in a male form, and that therefore women and
men are spiritually equal. We insist on a dynamic balance between
female and male deities honored and/or invoked at every ceremony,
and a strict gender balance in whatever theories of polytheology
that we eventually develop. We're "liberals" about women's rights
and gay rights, but not "radicals;" that is to say, we're unwill-
ing to subordinate all our other principles in order to promote
this particular principle. People who wish to make feminism or
gay activism the absolute center of all their spiritual activity
will probably be happier in other groups.

3) We believe in a multiplicity of gods and goddesses, all of
whom are likely to be worthy of respect, love and worship. Some-
times we believe in these divinities as individual and inde-
pendent entities; sometimes as Jungian "archetypes of the collec-
tive unconscious" or "circuits in the psychic Switchboard;" some-
times as aspects or faces of one or two major deities (the "High
God/dess" and/or "the Goddess and the Horned God"); and sometimes
as "all of the above!" We feel that this sort of flexibility
leads to pluralism (instead of monism), multi-valued logic sys-
tems and an increased tolerance of other people's beliefs and
lifestyles. All of these are vital if our species is ever going
to learn to live in peace and harmony amid a multiplicity of
human cultures.

4) We believe that it is necessary to have a respect and love
for Nature as divine in her own right, and to accept ourselves as
a part of Nature and not as her "rulers." We tend to accept what
has come to be known as "the Gaia hypothesis," that the biosphere
of our planet is a living being, who is due all the love and
support that we, her children, can give her. This is especially
important in our modern era, when 3000 years of monotheistic
belief that "mankind is to have dominion over the Earth" have
come close to destroying the ability of the biosphere to maintain
itself. Many Neopagan groups refer to themselves as "Earth reli-
gions" and this is a title which we believe Neopagan Druidism
should proudly claim, and which we should work to earn. Thus we
consider ecological awareness and activism to be sacred duties.
If the ecology, conservation and anti-nuclear movements are ever
to have "chaplains," we should be among them.

5) We believe in accepting the positive aspects of western
science and technology, but in maintaining an attitude of worry-
ness towards their supposed ethical neutrality. The overwhelming
majority of Neopagans are technophiles, not technophobes. We tend
to be better scientifically educated than the general population,
and thus we have a religious duty to speak out about the econo-
mics, political and ecological uses and abuses of science and
technology.

6) We share with most other Neopagans a distaste for monolith-
ic religious organizations and would-be messiahs and gurus. Ob-
viously, this places the founders of Neopagan religious tradi-
tions in a complex position: they need enough religious authority
to focus the organizations they're founding, but not so much as
to allow them (or their successors) to become oppressive. Since
the pluralistic approach denies the existence of any One True
Right and Only Way, and since Neopagans insist upon their own
human fallibility, we expect to be able to steer ADF between the
Scylla of tyranny and the Charybdis of anarchy.

7) In keeping with this, we believe that healthy religions
should have a minimum amount of dogma and a maximum amount of
eclectism and flexibility. Neopagans tend to be reluctant to
accept any idea without personally investigating both its practi-
cality and its long-range consequences. They are also likely to
take useful ideas from almost any source that doesn't run too
fast to get away. We intend ADF to be a "reconstructionist"
tradition of Druidism, but we know that eventually concepts from
nonDruidic sources will be grafted on to our trees. There's no
harm in this, as long as we stay aware of what we are doing at
every step of the way, and make a legitimate effort to find
authentic (and therefore spiritually and esthetically congruent)
parallels in genuine Indo-European sources first. As for flexi-
bility, Neopagan Druidism is an organic religion, and like all
other organisms it can be expected to grow, change and produce
offshoots as the years go by.

8) We believe that ethics and morality should be based upon
joy, self-love and respect; the avoidance of actual harm to
others; and the increase of public benefit. We try to balance out
people's needs for personal autonomy and growth, with the neces-
sity of paying attention to the impact of each individual's
actions on the lives and welfare of others. The commonest Neo-
pagan ethical expression is "If it doesn't hurt anyone, do what
you like." Most Neopagans believe in some variant or another of
the principle of karma, and state that the results of their
actions will always return to them. It's difficult for ordinary
humans to successfully commit "offenses against the Gods," short
of major crimes such as ecocide or genocide, and our deities are
perfectly capable of defending their own honor without any help
from mortal busybodies. We see the traditional monotheistic con-
cepts of sin, guilt and divine retribution for thought-crimes as
sad misunderstandings of natural growth experiences.

9) We believe that human beings were meant to lead lives
filled with joy, love, pleasure, beauty and humor. Most Neopagans
are fond of food, drink, music, sex and bad puns, and consider
all of these (except possibly the puns) to be sacraments. Al-
though the ancient Druids appear to have had ascetics within
their ranks, they also had a sensualist tradition, and the common
folk have always preferred the latter. Neopagan Druids try to
keep these two approaches in balance and harmony with each other
by avoiding dualistic extremes. But the bedrock question is, "If
your religion doesn't enable you to enjoy life more, why bother?"

10) We believe that with proper training, art, discipline and
intent, human minds and hearts are fully capable of performing
most of the magic and miracles they are ever likely to need.
This is done through the use of what we perceive as natural,
divinely granted psychic powers. As with many other Neopagan
traditions, the conscious practice of magic is a central part of
most of our religious rituals. Unlike monotheists, we see no
clearcut division between magic and prayer. Neither, however, do
we assume an automatic connection between a person's ability to
perform "miracles" and either (a) their personal spirituality or
(b) the accuracy of their poly/theological opinions.

11) We believe in the importance of celebrating the solar,
lunar and other cycles of our lives. Because we see ourselves as
a part of Nature, and because we know that repeating patterns can
give meaning to our lives, we pay special attention to astronomi-
cal and biological cycles. By consciously observing the sol-
stices, equinoxes and the points in between, as well as the
phases of the moon, we are not only aligning ourselves with the
movements and energy patterns of the external world, but we are
also continuing customs that reach back to the original Indo-
European peoples and beyond. These customs are human universals,
as are the various ceremonies known as "rites of passage" --
celebrations of birth, puberty, personal dedication to a given
deity or group, marriage, ordination, death, etc. Together these
various sorts of observations help us to find ourselves in space
and time -- past, present and future.

12) We believe that people have the ability to solve their
current problems, both personal and public, and to create a
better world. Hunger, poverty, war and disease are not necessary,
nor inevitable. Pain, depression, lack of creative opportunity
and mutual oppression are not necessary either. What is necessary
is a new spiritual consciousness in which short-sighted greed, power-mongering and violence are seen as absurd, rather than
noble. This utopian vision, tempered with common sense, leads us
to a strong commitment to personal and global growth, evolution
and balance.

13) We believe that people can progress far towards achieving
growth, evolution and balance through the carefully planned
alteration of their "normal" states of consciousness. Neopagans
use both ancient and modern methods of aiding concentration,
meditation, reprogramming and ecstasy. We seek to avoid being
locked into single-valued, monistic "tunnel realities," and in-
stead work on being able to switch worldviews according to their appropriateness for each given situation, while still maintaining
a firm spiritual, ethical and practical grounding.

14) We believe that human interdependence implies community
service. Neopagan Druids are encouraged to use their talents to
help others, both inside and outside of the Neopagan community.
Some of us are active in political, social, ecological and chari-
table organizations, while others prefer to work for the public
good primarily through spiritual means (and many of us do both).
As Neopagan Druids we have the right and the obligation to
actively oppose (physically and spiritually) those forces which
would kill our planet, oppress our fellow human beings, and
destroy our freedom of religion. Also, however, we have a con-
stant need to evaluate our own methods and motives, and to make
sure that our actions are coming from the depths of our spiritual
beings, and not from petty or short-sighted desires for power.

15) We believe that if we are to achieve any of our goals, we
must practice what we preach. Neopagan Druidism should be a way
of life, not merely a weekly or monthly social function. Thus we
must always strive to make our lives consistent with our pro-
claimed beliefs. In a time when many people are looking for
something solid to hang on to in the midst of rapid technological
and cultural changes, Neopagan Druidism can offer a natural and
creative alternative to the repressive structures of mainstream
monotheism. But our alternative will not be seen as such unless
we can manage to make it a complete lifestyle -- one with con-
cern, if not always immediate answers, for the problems of every-
day life, as well as the grand cosmic questions.

Obviously, there's a great deal more to Neopaganism in general
and our version of it in particular. The details of Neopagan
polytheology will take years to develop. The section of the
"Druid Handbook" dealing with beliefs will consist of statements
with commentaries (and even arguments) about the meanings of the
statements. The purpose of this format is multiple: to emphasize
that there are no final answers to the great questions of human
existence; to express clearly that Neopagans can disagree with
each other about subtle details of interpretation, while still
remaining members of the same religion; and to allow the belief
system to grow and adapt to changing cultural and technological
needs. Neopagan Druidism is to be a religion of the future, as
well as of the present and the past.

*****************************************************************
This article has been reprinted from "The Druids' Progress",
issue #1, and is copyright 1984 by P. E. I. Bonewits. "DP" is the
irregular journal of a Neopagan Druid group called "Ar nDraiocht
Fein", founded by Bonewits (author of "Real Magic"). For more
data, send an S.A.S.E. to: Box 9398, Berkeley, CA, USA 94709.
Permission to distribute via BBS's is hereby granted, provided
that the entire article, including this notice, is kept intact. *****************************************************************


The term "Pagan" comes from the Latin paganus, which appears to
have originally meant "country dweller," "villager," or "hick."
The members of the Roman army seem to have used it to mean
"civilian." When Christianity took over the Empire and continued
it under new management, the word took on the idea of "one who is
not a soldier of Christ." Today, the word means "atheist" or
"devil worshiper" to many devout monotheists. But those who call
themselves Pagan use it differently; as a general term for na-
tive, natural and polytheistic religions, and their members.
The following definitions have been coined in recent years in
order to keep the various polytheological and historical distinc-
tions clear: "Paleopaganism" refers to the original tribal faiths
of Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania and Australia,
where and when they were (or are) still practiced as intact
belief systems. Of the so-called "Great Religions of the World,"
Hinduism, Taoism and Shinto fall under this category.
"Mesopaganism" is the word used for those religions founded as
attempts to recreate, revive or continue what their founders
thought of as the (usually European) Paleopagan ways of their
ancestors (or predecessors), but which were heavily influenced (accidentally, deliberately or involuntarily) by the monotheistic
and/or dualistic worldviews of Judaism, Christianity and/or Is-
lam. Examples of Mesopagan belief systems would include the
Masonic Druids, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism, Crowleyianity, and
the many Afro-American faiths (Voudoun, Macumba, etc.).
"Neopaganism" refers to those religions created since 1940 or
so that have attempted to blend what their founders perceived as
the best aspects of different types of Paleopaganism with modern
"Aquarian Age" ideals, while eliminating as much as possible of
the traditional western dualism. The title of this section should
now make a great deal more sense. So let's look at the state of
Paleopaganism in Europe prior to the arrival of Christianity.
It's important to remember that a lot of history happened in
Europe before anyone got around to writing it down. Around 4000
B.C.E. ("Before the Common Era") the tribes that spoke Proto-
Indo-European began to migrate away from their original homeland,
which was probably the territory around the northwest shores of
the Black Sea. Some went southeast and founded the Armenian,
Iranian and Indic cultures. Others went south to Anatolia and
Palestine, and became known as Hittites and Mitanni. Those who
went southwest to the Balkans became Thracians and Greeks. Others
who went west and north established the Celtic, Slavic, Germanic,
and Baltic cultures.
All this migrating around took many centuries and involved a
lot of bloodshed. Previous inhabitants of a given piece of terri-
tory had to be persuaded, usually at swordpoint, to let the
newcomers in -- and there went the neighborhood! The pre-Indo-
European cultures in Europe (which were not necessarily "peaceful matriarchies") were all still in the late Neolithic ("New Stone
Age") cultural era, with only stone axes, spears and knives with
which to defend themselves. The invaders had bronze weapons and
armor with which to fight, plus bronze axes with which to clear
the great forests that covered the continent, bronze plows to
till the soil, etc.
The impact of this superior technology can be judged by the
fact that, by the time of the Roman Empire, nearly every language
spoken in Europe (except Basque, Lappish and Finnish) was a
member of the Western branch of Indo-European. Everything west of
the Urals was pretty much dominated by a loosely interlinked conglomeration of related cultures, each of which was a mixture
of the PIE culture and that of the previous holders of its terri-
tory. The largest group of cultures north of the Roman borders
was that of the Celts, and the second largest that of the Germans
(some scholars consider the Germans to be so closely related
culturally to the Celts as to be practically a subset, at least
in archaeological terms).
Thanks to the work of Georges Dumezil, James Duran and others,
we are beginning to have a clear idea of the social, political,
magical and religious functions of the priestly "class" in Indo-
European Paleopaganism. I use the word "class" deliberately, for
the Western Indo-European cultures seem to have been built on the
same fundamental social pattern as that with which we are famil-
iar in Vedic India: clergy, warriors, and providers (farmers,
craftspeople, traders, herders, etc.). In fact, it appears that a
close to exact correspondence can be made between the religious,
political and social functions originally performed by a Latin
flamen, a Celtic draoi, or a Vedic brahman.
The Indo-European clergy basically included the entire intelli-
gensia of their cultures: poets, musicians, historians, astrono-
mers, genealogists, judges, diviners, and of course, leaders and
supervisors of religious rituals. Officially, they ranked imme-
diately below the local tribal chieftains or "kings" and above
the warriors. However, since the kings were quasi-religious fig-
ures, usually inaugurated by the clergy, and often dominated by
them, it was frequently a tossup as to who was in charge in any
given tribe. The clergy were exempt from taxation and military
service, and in some cultures are said to have spent decades in
specialized training.
They seem to have been responsible for all public religious
rituals (private ones were run by the heads of each household).
Public ceremonies were most often held in fenced groves of sacred
trees. These were usually of birch, yew, and oak (or ash where
oaks were rare), depending upon the subset of deities or ances-
tors being addressed, as well as the specific occasion. Various
members of the priestly caste would be responsible for music,
recitation of prayers, sacrificing of animals (or occasionally
human criminals or prisoners of war), divination from the flames
of the ritual fire or the entrails of the sacrificial victim, and
other minor ritual duties. Senior members of the caste ("the"
Druids, "the" brahmans or "the" flamens as such) would be respon-
sible for making sure that the rites were done exactly according
to tradition. Without such supervision, public rituals were gen-
erally impossible; thus Caesar's comment that all public Gaulish
sacrifices required a Druid to be present.
There are definite indications that the Indo-European clergy
held certain polytheological and mystical opinions in common,
although only the vaguest outlines are known at this point. There
was a belief in reincarnation (with time spent between lives in
an Other World very similar to the Earthly one), in the sacred-
ness of particular trees, in the continuing relationship between
mortals, ancestors and deities, and naturally in the standard
laws of magic (see Real Magic). There was an ascetic tradition of
the sort that developed into the various types of yoga in India,
complete with the Pagan equivalent of monasteries and convents.
There was also, I believe, a European "tantric" tradition of sex
and drug magic, although it's possible that this was mostly the
native shamanic traditions being absorbed and transmuted.
Only the western Celtic clergy (the Druids) seem to have had
any sort of organized inter-tribal communications network. Most
of the rest of the IE clergy seem to have kept to their own local
tribes. Among the Germanic peoples, the priestly class had weak-
ened by the early centuries of the Common Era to the point where
the majority of ritual work was done by the heads of households.
We don't know whether or not any but the highest ranking clergy
were full-time priests and priestesses. At the height of the
Celtic cultures, training for the clergy was said to take twenty
years of hard work, which would not have left much time or energy
for developing other careers. Among the Scandinavians, there seem
to have been priests and priestesses (godar, gydjur) who lived in
small temples and occasionally toured the countryside with sta-
tues of their patron/matron deities, whom they were considered to
be "married" to. In the rest of the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic
cultures, however, many of the clergy may have worked part-time,
a common custom in many tribal societies.
It's also common for such cultures to have full- or part-time
healers, who may use herbs, hypnosis, psychology, massage, magic
and other techniques. Frequently they will also have diviners and
weather predictors (or controllers). Midwives, almost always
female, are also standard and, as mentioned above, there is
usually a priestess or priest working at least part-time. What
causes confusion, especially when dealing with extinct cultures,
is that different tribes combine these offices into different
people.
At the opening of the Common Era, European Paleopaganism con-
sisted of three interwoven layers: firstly, the original pre-
Indo-European religions (which were of course also the results of
several millenia of religious evolution and cultural conquests);
secondly, the proto-Indo-European belief system held by the PIE
speakers before they began their migrations; and thirdly, the
full scale "high religions" of the developed Indo-European cul-
tures. Disentangling these various layers is going to take a very
long time, if indeed it will ever be actually possible.
The successful genocide campaigns waged against the Druids and
their colleagues are complex enough to warrant a separate discus-
sion. Suffice it to say that by the time of the seventh century
C.E., Druidism had been either destroyed or driven completely
underground throughout Europe. In parts of Wales and Ireland,
fragments of Druidism seem to have survived in disguise through
the institutions of the Celtic Church and of the Bards and Poets.
Some of these survivals, along with a great deal of speculation
and a few outright forgeries, combined to inspire the ("Meso-
pagan") Masonic/Rosicrucian Druid fraternities of the 1700's.
These groups have perpetuated these fragments (and speculations
and forgeries) to this very day, augmenting them with a great
deal of folkloric and other research.
These would seem to most Americans to be the only sources of
information about Paleopagan Druidism. However, research done by
Russian and Eastern European folklorists, anthropologists and
musicologists among the Baltic peoples of Latvia, Lithuania and
Estonia indicates that Paleopagan traditions may have survived in
small villages, hidden in the woods and swamps, even into the
current century! Some of these villages still had people dressing
up in long white robes and going out to sacred groves to do
ceremonies, as recently as World War One! Iron Curtain social
scientists interviewed the local clergy, recorded the ceremonies
and songs, and otherwise made a thorough study of their "quaint
traditions" preparatory to turning them all into good Marxists.
Ironically enough, some of the oldest "fossils" of preserved
Indo-European traditions (along with bits of vocabulary from
Proto-German and other early IE tongues) seem to have been kept
by Finno-Ugric peoples such as the Cheremis. Most of this re-
search has been published in a variety of Soviet academic books
and journals, and has never been translated into English. This
material, when combined with the Vedic and Old Irish sources, may
give us most of the missing links necessary to reconstruct Paleo-
pagan European Druidism.
The translation of this material, along with some of the writ-
ings of Dumezil (and others) that are not yet in English, is
going to be an important part of the research work of ADF for the
first few years. And we're going to see if we can get copies of
some of the films...
But there are some definite "nonfacts" about the ancient Druids
that need to be mentioned: There are no real indications that
they used stone altars (at Stonehenge or anywhere else); that
they were better philosophers than the classical Greeks or Egyp-
tians; that they had anything to do with the mythical continents
of Atlantis or Mu; or that they wore gold Masonic regalia or used
Rosicrucian passwords. They were not the architects of (a) Stone-
henge, (b) the megalithic circles and lines of Northwestern
Europe, (c) the Pyramids of Egypt, (d) the Pyramids of the Ameri-
cas, (e) the statues of Easter Island, or (f) anything other than
wooden barns and stone houses. There is no proof that any of them
were monotheists, or "Prechristian Christians," that they under-
stood or invented either Pythagorean or Gnostic or Cabalistic
mysticism; or that they all had long white beards and golden
sickles.
Separating the sense from the nonsense, and the probabilities
from the absurdities, about the Paleopagan clergy of Europe is
going to take a great deal of work. But the results should be
worth it, since we will wind up with a much clearer image of the
real "Old Religions" than Neopagans have ever had available
before. This will have liturgical, philosophical and political
consequences, some of which we'll be discussing in future issues
of "The Druids' Progress".


The Political Implications of Reviving Druidism
(c) 1984 P. E. I. Bonewits
Reprinted from "The Druids' Progress" #1

Throughout all known human history, people who had hidden
knowledge (whether of healing, weather prediction, mathematics,
or magic) have used their exclusive possession of that knowledge
as a source of power, for purposes that were good, bad or weird.
The warrior caste has always done its level best to take that
knowledge away from the clergy and to put it to political, econo-
mic and military use. Today, almost all the hard and soft scien-
ces have become tools for those who wish to control their fellow
human beings. The polluters, the exploiters, the oppressors, the
conquerors -- whether calling themselves "capitalists" or "commu-
nists" -- they are the ones who control nearly all the technology
of overt power and a great deal of the tech for covert tyranny.
One of the very few ways we have of defending ourselves and
our fellow passengers (human and other) on this Spaceship Earth
is through the careful and judicious use of magic. National
governments and private enterprises are spending millions of
dollars (and rubles and pounds and yen) trying to develop psychic
powers into dependable tools for warfare and oppression; while
most of us who should be learning precise techniques and careful
timing, in order to use magic and the power of the Gods to defend
ourselves and our Mother Earth, have been busy being misty-eyed
romantics, not wanting to "sully our karma" by trying to do magic
that might really work (that is to say, for which we would have
to take personal responsibility).
As a result, we have assisted the very forces of oppression
which we claim to oppose. We are partly responsible for the
poverty, hunger, pollution, disease and early deaths which domi-
nate so much of our planet. Occultists have assisted by being
unwilling to put their talents to the test by using them for
"mundane" or "lowly-evolved" purposes. Ecologists, Celtic nation-
alists, and would-be revolutionaries have assisted by being un-
willing to use nonmaterialistic technologies to cause changes in
the material world (after all, if Freud and Marx didn't mention
magic as real, it can't possibly work). The creation of Neopagan
Druidism may be able to help change those attitudes.
Despite the efforts of liberal Christian clergymen to make us
forget the physical and cultural genocide committed by organized
Christianity against the peoples of Europe, there is simply no
way to ignore the fact that monotheists in power always seek to
silence competing voices. We cannot look to the mainstream
churches for our physical and spiritual liberation, for they are
the ones who took our freedom away in the first place. Marxist
atheism is no answer either, for it is also a product of the
monotheistic tunnel-reality, and seeks to impose its dogmas and
holy scriptures just as strenuously as ever the churches have.
Those who want to live in a world of peace, freedom and cultural
pluralism, must look beyond the currently available, "respect-
able" (i.e., monistic) alternatives they have been presented with
by the mass media, and consider new alternatives.
Many people think of Neopaganism in general, or Druidism in
particular (if they think of them at all), as just being "odd"
religions, with no political implications worth investigating.
But I believe that Neopagan Druidism has important political
ideas which should be considered, especially by those concerned
with the survival and revival of the Celtic peoples.
Druidism is political because one of the primary tasks of the
clergy has always been to ride herd on the warriors. (This may be
one reason why barbarian warriors welcomed the Christian mission-
aries, because they perceived (correctly) that the Christian
priests would be far more likely to play ball with them than the
Druids had been. After all, if the world is ending any day now,
why bother controlling your local warriors?) Since the primary
threat to life on this planet now comes from out-of-control
warriors, it's time we started taking that duty seriously again.
Druidism is political because only a Nature worshipping reli-
gion can give people sufficient concern for the environment.
Monotheism is a major cause of the current state of the world's
ecology. We need a strong public religion that tells the pollut-
ers, "No, it's not divinely sanctioned for you to rape the
Earth."
Druidism is political because the Druids have always been the
preservers of the best of their traditional cultures. The Meso-
pagan Druids of Brittany and Wales, for example, are directly
responsible for assisting the revival of the Cornish language and
tradition from the very edge of extinction. The various tradi-
tional preservation and independence movements, such as the Celt-
ic, Flemish, Baltic and other related movements in Europe, need
religious and cultural leadership based in their own cultures.
Druidism can help create an environment in which such leadership
can develop.
Druidism is political because it offers a worldview completely
different from that of the monotheistic/monistic tyranny that now
controls our planet. One of the many things that any religion
does is to shape the ways in which people see the world around
them. We need a religion that offers people a multitude of op-
tions, rather than traditional western either/or, black/white,
win/lose choices.
Druidism is political, at the bedrock level, because it can
teach people how to use their Gods-given psychic and other tal-
ents to change the way things are. Make no mistake, magic works,
at least as often as poetry, music or political rallies do. Magic
is a form of power that we, the people of the Earth, have avail-
able to use, not just for psychological "empowerment" (making
ourselves feel better) but to actually control the individuals
and institutions responsible for our planet's current mess. If we
are unwilling to use magic, then we had might as well resign
ourselves and our descendants to either a life of slavery in a
homogenized, pasteurized world, or a quick and painful nuclear
death. And what excuse will we give to the "Lords of Karma" then?
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