Introductory Workshop

Workshop: Introduction to Draiocht

Hello Introduce self.
I'm here to present you with a short overview of the religion and life style of Draiocht or Sinnsearachd. If anyone finds that he or she has a question relative to the points that we are covering please feel free to get my attention and I'll try to address your questions. But for more general questions we will finish up with a discussion period precisely for this purpose so if you could hold those until the end it will help us keep moving along. We also have some literature available for those who would like more information about Draiocht or who would like to contact some local people.

So let's talk a bit about who the first Druids were. The word Druid is interesting and scholars still argue over exactly what it meant but with variations of the word existing in more than one language most of these scholars seem to be right relative to at least one specific time and place. Many scholars seem to associate it with words for knowledge and for the oak tree, the oak having commonly been considered a sacred tree. And no, the Druids were not "tree worshippers" it was more that they worshipped near or among trees than worshipping the trees themselves, though many trees were considered sacred and had special meanings and associations.

Now what we do know about the ancient Draoi, which is by the way a little bit closer to the actual term in Irish that gets translated as Druid, is what role they fulfilled within their society. The Draoi were first and foremost the keepers of the traditional knowledge of their peoples, they were living memory. They maintained the identity of their tribes and peoples which included religion, law, myth, genealogy and history. The Draoi originally preserved all of this in a non-literate society where history and tradition was passed down across generations orally.

The society of which the Draoi were a part is one which we usually call Celtic. The term Celtic is actually a linguistic term which describes a group of related languages historically found in Western Europe, some of which still exist today. Celtic has also become a term used to describe many of the cultural details of the people who speak Celtic languages. Some of those details are technological such as the use of iron and chariots while some details are social such as tribalism while others are political such as kingship and client-ship. So basically when we here the word "Celt" it can be speaking of anyone among a large group of people who spoke related languages, lived in tribal/clan based social arrangements, generally in more rural settings with each tribe or clan ruled over by a chieftain and kings and who had magico-religious functionaries often called by some variation of the word Draoi.

The artifacts and structures that we generally associate with Celtic language speaking peoples start to appear in the 7th century B.C.E. in Western Europe as this area enters the iron-age. The range for these people extends as far north as artifacts having been found in Danish sites, south into Northern Italy and into Spain, east as far as Galatia (now modern Turkey) and as far west as the island of Ireland. Celtic culture has continued right into modern times though it has had many struggles and challenges there are still culturally Celtic peoples alive and well.

Indigenous religious and spiritual practices began to disappear as they were displaced by universal religiosity, first in areas under the control of the Roman Empire and then in other areas until around the fifth and sixth centuries C.E. when the indigenous cosmic religions ceased to be the culturally institutionalized faith in the last of the Celtic speaking areas. Many of the roles filled by the Draoi continued within their cultural context, for instance the Irish and Welsh continued the use of the traditional legal system and the traditional poetic skills used to convey information across generations continued in the schools of traditional poetry and we do see mystics or magicians described as Draoi continuing to be present in the legal codes and even the occasional complaint against them from Rome one of which was made as late as the tenth century. But what is clear is that as a culturally institutionalized priest of the indigenous way of life, the Draoi ceased to function.
Some of the characteristics of the indigenous cosmic religious practice were polytheism, the belief in multiple deities, and in the case of Celtic people Gods and Goddesses with reciprocity in a relationship of constant exchange between Gods and people and an ethical concept of responsibility for ones own actions.

There are claims that a meeting of Druids and Bards from all over the British Isles was held in 1245 C.E. where they managed to come to some agreements and founded something called the "Mount Haemus Grove" and there is certainly a group called that in existence now but there is nothing to verify that for nearly eight hundred years and some intense cultural upheaval these people have preserved their version of Druidry. But it certainly makes an inspiring story doesn't it?


Three centuries ago Druidry was becoming a common topic of research and discussion among various Gentlemen's clubs and organizations. Then in the year 1717 a meeting was reportedly organized in England by John Tolland, the famous essayist and writer on religion. From this meeting was born the first modern Druidic organization known as The Universal Druid Bond (U.D.B.) which included people from several nations. It is important to note that Tolland was a Pantheist who once stated "The sun is my father, the earth my mother, the world is my country and all men are my family." Pantheism seems to have been the primary religious tenet of the U.D.B.

For the last three centuries Druidic orders and organizations have splintered off from the U.D.B. and one another. Some of those orders have been pantheistic and religious or spiritual while others have been fraternal or strictly philosophical. At some point along the way some of these modern druidic organizations started to reach America. Over the years these various orders have existed in America growing and changing as America has grown and changed.

In 1963 The Reformed Druids of North America (R.D.N.A.) was established and now over forty years later the R.D.N.A. still exists. The significance of the R.D.N.A. is that there was present, in some members, an intention to study the ancient Druids and to make use of scholarship available in exploring Druidry, ancient and modern.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Druidic groups continued to form and grow. Some of these groups were large and broadly focused while other organizations were more narrowly focused. But Druidry continued to expand until according to the American Religious Survey of 2001 there were 33,000 self described Druids in the U.S. This survey does not account for thousands of Druids in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zeland.

As this movement developed there started to be a serious division in approach with most of the early larger organizations either remaining as philosophical and fraternal organizations or moving in the direction of creating a very modern eclectic style of neo-druidry which is far closer to Wicca and other forms of neo-paganism. But within these larger groups some people began to embrace a more academic approach whith less eclectic borrowing from various sources and far more focused on Celtic culture. In the US this more academic approach was being enbraced by small groups with there being, by the mid 1990s, at least three significant local groups, one in Texas, one in Washington State and one in Boston. While we know that there were people working in this more academic approach in the 1960s and 1970s it was not until the 1990s that some people in the Washington group coined and started to use the term "reconstructionists" which has come to identify this particular approach.

There was also another approach that has developed which is usually called Traditionalism and is made up of very independent groups who embrace a traditional Tribal structure which focuses on a culturally centered approach. The spirituality and religious practices of the Traditionalist groups tends to be seen as part of their larger cultural identity. Practicing a culturally institutionalised spirituality as part of a larger cultural way of life makes the Traditionalist the closest modern thing to ancient Celts practices. These Traditionalists and their groups are found in the US, Ireland, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Some of the Traditionalist Tribes are relatively new having been formed by like minded people while others have been around for decades having started as outgrowths of families.

In 1994, what would become the first local congregation of Draiocht was established in the Boston area as Garrán na bPréacháin Naomh: Grove of the Sacred Crows. This Grove worked for a decade within a larger modern organization which was based on a very corporate structure and a very modern ecclectic approach to forming some type of neo-druidry but eventually the Crows left neo-druidry behind for something more traditional.

In 2004 the name Garrán na bPréacháin Naomh: Grove of the Sacred Crows was changed to Tuatha na bPréacháin Naomh: Tribe of the Sacred Crows and the Tribe reliquished it's old charter and led a group of people representing several Clanns, Tribes and Groves along with solitary people in the formation of a new fellowship. Comhaltacht Draiocht is a fellowship built on a Gaelic structural model and dedicated to the study of ancient Celtic religion and the practice of Celtic culturally institutionalised spirituality in a modern world. Comhaltacht Draiocht membership tends to be made up of those who are more Traditionalist minded with a significant reconstructionist presence but most of us avoid using those terms vewry often and just consider ourselves to be Sinnsearachd.

Now if I may I would like to read the Comhaltacht Draiocht charter which is the most central document to our organization:


Comhaltacht Draiocht Charter

We the undersigned do on this day, November 5, 2005, join together to create among ourselves, a religious fellowship which we call Comhaltacht Draiocht. We also issue a public invitation for others of like spiritual conscience and religious disposition to join us in fellowship.

Identity:
Comhaltacht Draiocht is a non-profit religious fellowship extending membership and spiritual fellowship, without prejudice, to those who follow, practice or adhere to the revived polytheistic Celtic cosmic religion of Draiocht [Druidry] or Gnatha na Sinsear [Ancestral Traditions].

Mission:
It is the mission of Comhaltacht Draiocht to provide membership, education and fellowship opportunities to individuals and groups who adhere to Draiocht or Gnatha na Sinsear and to articulate basic principles of practice and belief common to members of Comhaltacht Draiocht by developing and chartering leadership bodies, local congregations, religious orders, educational programs, non-profit organizations and other programs and organizations as may be needed in order to fulfill the religious and spiritual purpose of this fellowship and to develop, train and ordain a professional clergy.

I also brought some other documents with me which can help you better understand what we do. I have here a vision statement, a FAQ file and our central customs along with the charters and customs of our two leadership bodies. So now let's open this up for discussion shall we?

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