Today around the world there are societies of followers of Druids, numbering several million people. But the paradox is that the original representatives of this mysterious culture disappeared without a trace from the face of the earth many centuries ago, leaving no written source of their magical knowledge to descendants.
Today, people who call themselves druids are trying to reconstruct an ancient cult, listen to trees and stones, explore sacred places and structures, the most famous of which is Stonehenge. But often they do not understand well who their idols really were. Many represent them as highly evolved humanoids in white robes, constantly in touch with the "soul" of the Universe. Perhaps that is how they really were.
ROMAN TRACE
It is known from history that the Celts called priests druids. There are several versions about the origin of the word itself. The first belongs to the ancient Roman historian and philosopher Pliny the Elder, who believed that the word "druid" is associated with the Greek "drus" - oak, but most modern researchers see its roots in the Irish "drui", literally translated as "people of oak trees."
The meaning of the name is identical in both versions. It is confirmed by many testimonies, including the aforementioned Pliny, who wrote: “For the druids … there is nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows, namely the oak. Respect for this tree reaches the point that they arrange sanctuaries only in oak groves, and during magical rituals they tend to hold a branch of this tree in their hand.
On behalf of the oak, they form the names of their priests. It is noteworthy that on the same sacred trees or near them, the priests made terrible human sacrifices: some of the unfortunate were hung from the branches and then slowly burned, others were drowned in special boilers or buried alive in the ground. Moreover, the cruelty of the Druids amazed even the seasoned Romans.
Promotional video:
TYRANS OF OAK GROVES
A fairly detailed description of the druids was left to the descendants of Gaius Julius Caesar. According to his notes, they took an active part in the worship of God, observed the correctness of public sacrifices, and interpreted all issues related to the cult sphere.
The religious views of the ancient Celts included belief in a whole pantheon of gods and in the immortality of the human soul, which, after the death of one physical body, could migrate to another. According to Caesar, the priests used this religious technique so that the soldiers were not afraid of death and showed reckless bravery in battle.
After all, they themselves risked nothing, being at the very top of the social hierarchy. By the way, what amazed the Romans most of all in the Celtic world was the absolute, indisputable power of the Druids over their fellow tribesmen. According to the observations of the great Roman, they administered judgment and decided questions of war and peace at their meetings, supplied and overthrew rulers, that is, they were the ultimate truth. And this absolute power rested on the clear organization of the priesthood and the abilities that it possessed.
We are talking about hypnosis, healing, occultism, clairvoyance, etc. In addition, it is known that the Druids paid a lot of attention to heavenly bodies and their movement, talked about the size and structure of the world, about the physical body of man and its capabilities. They taught young people the sciences. It is all the more surprising that such a powerful and knowledgeable caste did not leave a written heritage to the world.
THE SECRET OF POWER
Today, everything that we know about the worldview, religion and magic of the Druids has to be collected bit by bit from the observations and records of Greeks, Romans and other peoples who visited the Celtic world. According to Caesar's testimony, the knowledge of the Druids was forbidden to be written down: "It seems to me that this order is established for them for two reasons: the Druids do not want their teachings to be made publicly available, and that their pupils, relying too much on writing, pay less attention to strengthening their memory." …
Modern researchers have also tried to explain the strange phenomenon. Some even believed that the Druids had no writing at all. However, it is not. First, they wrote down in Greek letters on the tablets "the number of those who could bear arms and, equally, separately - how many children, old people and women - live in settlements." And, according to Diodorus of Siculus, during the funeral, some Gauls threw letters addressed to the dead into the fire.
Ogamic Druidic Inscriptions
Moreover, in Ireland, where legends were made about the knowledge and magical abilities of the Druids, in the 5th-6th centuries. there was a special writing "ogam", consisting of notches, horizontal and oblique lines, drawn on the stone. In the British Isles, about three hundred Ogamic gravestones have been found. But their content is limited mainly to the name of the deceased.
There is reason to believe that Ogamic inscriptions were also carved on wooden sticks, and, judging by the sources, the Druids made them, then used for witchcraft. Therefore, many believe that ogam was for the Celts what the runes were for the Scandinavians. This means that the druids and their students were perfectly able to read and write. But writing in their view was associated with magic more powerful than oral speech, and therefore was used only in exceptional cases. It is for this reason that not a single literary text has been found among the Ogamic inscriptions.
LOST OR HIDDEN?
It would seem that it remains only to come to terms with the fact that the wisdom of the Druids for humanity is irretrievably lost. However, painstaking work to recreate it has been carried out by scientists and enthusiasts since the Renaissance, and already from the middle of the 19th century has yielded significant results. The main sources, again, were the ancient and Irish texts, which made it possible to learn about the origin of Druidism, the hierarchical structure of the order, and religious practices.
Ancient authors divided druidic knowledge into the field of the supernatural and science. Strabo mentioned that druids have deep knowledge of nature, and Cicero has information about the learned druid Divitiak, who is versed in literally all the laws of the universe. Caesar and Pliny testified that the druids made up the lunar calendar, in which the account was kept not by day, but by night.
And finally, a Greek author in the 3rd century. n. e. stated: "The Celts consider their druids to be soothsayers and prophets, since they predict certain events by means of calculations and calculations." This is confirmed by archaeological data. Since the Bronze Age, observatory sanctuaries have existed in the British Isles, allowing astronomical observations, predicting solar and lunar eclipses, and other phenomena.
Thanks to Celtic and Irish mythology, we know about the "Other world" of the ancient Celts, which is not at all similar to the afterlife of other peoples. In this quiet haven of peace, bliss and pleasures, according to legends, not only the dead, but also living people fell. In Irish it was called "Sid", and this word etymologically means "Peace". It is curious that in Side and on Earth time passed at different speeds, and living people got there only at the invitation of a beautiful "alien" of the opposite sex.
Finally, in the 20th century, people with paranormal abilities joined the researchers of druidism, which is becoming more and more in our time. Moreover, many of them testify that elements of natural magic, or magic of the four elements, often spontaneously arose in their minds, then leading them into an informational excursion to the basics of druidism. Others argue that ancient knowledge today comes to us from water, fire, from stones, trees and stars, from the information field of the Earth.
THE MAGIC OF THE DRUIDS
Now we will try to summarize all the available information. The teachings of the Druids originated from natural religion, and was based on a deep study of the relationship between man and the world around him. As for magic, it was also built on the laws of nature and the use of the power of the four elements. Druids denied death and believed that after the completion of one earthly life, they could leave for another, beautiful world or move into a new body, preserving their own personality.
Finally, they acquired their superpowers with the help of technologies that bring their physical body into an altered state. For example, in druidic magic, peace of mind and physical peace plays a key role. A special breathing practice, which involves “listening” to one's own heart and entering into a certain resonance with it, helped to find it. Beginners learned to achieve breathing, in which three beats of the pulse occurred during inhalation and three during exhalation.
In this state, the druids looked through the past and the future and, in general, everything that they showed interest in or just touched. So they tried to breathe for about an hour without a break, and daily training led to the fact that gradually the rhythm of breathing slowed down in principle. The second stage of the practice - "breath of insight" - consisted in a mode in which four beats of the pulse took one inhalation and four more - one exhalation.
The more time the druid breathed in such a rhythm and the more familiar he felt in it, the greater the gift of clairvoyance turned out to be, allowing him to read information from running water, living fire, an animal or a bird. And only a few, the most powerful druids, were able to master the third stage - "breath of death", when the inhalation and exhalation had five heartbeats. Druids came to the graves, lay down, entered the state of "breath of death" and "looked through" the life of the deceased or read the information that he possessed and took with him to another world.
In this state, the druids talked to the trees and heard the voices of the gods, from whom they asked for advice. The most significant were the ancient trees growing in places of power. In addition, the "wise and speaking tree" had to have a hole in the trunk. Druids placed two small flat stones in it and carved “their” signs on the wood.
These stones and the sign created a mystical or energetic connection between the tree and the magician, who became its owner. Druids made offerings to their trees in the form of wine, honey, or burned incense in front of them. Thus, the tree became both an antenna and an "intercom" for communication with the gods.
DANGEROUS TIES
Nowadays, interest in ancient knowledge is growing. And many do not doubt that their disclosure will provide an opportunity to control reality in contact with higher powers. According to BBC News, more than ten thousand Britons identified themselves as Druids in 2003. They competently talk about reverence for the world around them, about the fact that the divine spirit permeates everything: plants, animals, stones, humans and the gods themselves, about sacred animals and plants, rocks and stones.
And they strive to master the mysterious ability of the ancients to stretch certain spiritual ties through all that exists and … with the help of the acquired power, to cruelly manipulate ordinary people. Right now, the new druids believe, the time has come for the awakening of the planet and a radical transformation of the world.