Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations (15 page)

Each year, approaching the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, men and women in many Christian nations delight in performing a custom rooted in Druidism. The practice, with its clearly sexual implications, is performed in the presence of a poisonous and parasitic life form, suggesting the Druids were a society of subversive deviates who conducted pagan rituals within open-air temples such as Stonehenge, a classic misconception of this shadowy society.

Druids were in many ways soulful precursors to 1960s hippies.

This late-nineteenth-century artist's depiction of a “druidress” holds mistletoe in one hand and a golden sickle in the other.

The ritual involves couples kissing beneath mistletoe during the Christmas season, a custom that has no known connection with Druidism beyond the sacred status accorded the plant by its members, and the oak trees that support it. Nor does any confirmed association exist between the Druids and Stonehenge, except for speculation among some contemporary fringe groups.

Admittedly, we know little about Druids because they kept no written records, and because they existed less as an organization and more as a position of status among royalty, especially in Celtic communities of Western Europe. All of our understanding of Druidism is obtained third-hand, filtered through both time and social bias; even their ritualistic use of mistletoe is known to us primarily through the writings of the first-century Roman Pliny the Elder. According to Pliny, and Maxim of Tyre, Druids considered the oak tree a visible representation of the deity, the result of Druids living in intimacy with the natural world. “They hold nothing more sacred than the mistletoe,” Pliny wrote, “and the oak tree on which it grows.” Druids misread the true behavior of mistletoe. The plant is a parasite, drawing nourishment from the tree's sap; Druids, whose specialty after all was spiritual studies and not botany, believed that mistletoe gave life to the oak. This idea became strengthened in winter when the oak lost its leaves and grew dormant, yet the mistletoe retained its foliage.

“Anything growing on the [oak] trees,” Pliny continued, “is regarded as life sent from heaven, a sign that the tree has been chosen by the gods themselves. When [the mistletoe] is found,
it is gathered with great ceremony on the sixth day of the moon.” According to Pliny, first a feast was held beneath the tree bearing the mistletoe. At the completion of the feast, a Druid priest in white vestments climbed the tree carrying a golden sickle or pruning hook, and gathered the plant in a white cloth. When he returned to the ground with the sacred plant, two white bulls were sacrificed to the gods in exchange for the mistletoe.

The Druids, incidentally, were not the only people to hold mistletoe in such high regard. The Japanese treated it with similar veneration, although they favored a variety that grew on willow trees. Swiss, Slavs, and others considered mistletoe an exceptional plant representing many mystical qualities, most associated with fertility. The fertility connection spawned the custom of couples kissing beneath the mistletoe's fruit during the winter solstice, in hopes of the woman becoming pregnant and bearing a healthy child during the coming year.

Mistletoe, and its winter solstice/Christmas ritual, remains the only tangible link most people maintain with Druidism, yet the movement is considered by some to comprise a secret society working towards shadowy ends.

“Druid” refers not to the member of a religious sect, but to the priestly class of Celtic and Gallic societies, especially in the British Isles. The true origin of the word has been lost in the mists of time. Several theories abound, including one that combines the Greek word
drus
, meaning an oak tree, with the Sanskrit
vid
, meaning knowledge (and the Sanskrit word for timber is
dru
). The Greek word identifying forest gods and tree deities was
Dryades
, another clue. Celtic scholars categorize
Drui
as a term for “the men of the oak trees,” and the Gaelic
Druidh
identifies a wise man or a sorcerer. Other clues point to Teutonic and Welsh sources. Whatever the etymology of the word, tracking its origin leads to an endless and unanswerable chicken-or-egg discussion. It is enough, perhaps, to accept that the word suggests one meaning above all: priestly.

While “priestly” implies that Druids performed a religious function, their role extended well beyond that purpose, encompassing philosophy, science, traditions, teaching, judgments, and fulfilling the duties of royal counselor. Perhaps the best way to describe them in today's vernacular is
religious intelligentsia
, with the understanding that “religious” implies a wider meaning than normally assigned to it. The Celts lived as close to nature as any ancient people, and closer than most. Their myths, beliefs and practices reflected their deep woodland environment, a world that simultaneously supported, frightened, and spiritually uplifted them.

Those seeking to become Druids at the height of the movement's influence, generally considered to be between 100 bc and ad 1000, qualified according to three levels of ability. The initial level of Ovates (
Ovydd
) consisted of neophytes needing no special purification or preparation. Dressed in green, they were welcomed into the order according to their naturally acquired knowledge of medicine, astronomy, poetry and music. Ovates wishing to advance in recognition and power studied to become Bards (
Beirdd
). To qualify for this level they were assigned to memorize at least some portion of a reported twenty thousand verses of Druidic poetry. Bards were often portrayed strumming a primitive harp holding as many strings as there are ribs on one side of the body, the strings composed of human hair. Candidates to become Bards wore striped robes of blue, green and white, the three colors identified with the Druids. When they had achieved full status, they changed to a sky blue garment.

The third level marked the highest rank, the
Derwyddon
, distinguished by white robes symbolizing purity. Druids ministered to the religious needs of their people, and within this group were six ascending levels or degrees of wisdom and power, each degree marked by a different color of sash worn over the white robe. In the uppermost position were Arch-Druids, elected by their peers according to their virtue and integrity. There were never more than two Arch-Druids at any
one time, the men identified by golden scepters carried in their hands and wreaths of oak leaves crowning their heads.

The training period required for an individual to qualify as a full Druid was apparently extensive, some historians claiming it took twenty years to absorb and understand the teachings. Such a level of acquired wisdom qualified Druids for special privileges, and during royal festivities a Druid always sat to the immediate right of the king, filling the role of the king's conscience. As one prominent Celtic historian puts it, “The Druid
counsels
and the king
acts
.” Perhaps the best modern analogy is of a corporation's ceo and its legal adviser; the ceo may deliver bad news to the shareholders, but the phraseology originated with the lawyer.

Incidentally, studies suggest that many Druids were women, fully in keeping with the dominant culture of the time. Celtic women enjoyed more freedom than other females of their time, including the right to join in battle and the right to divorce their husbands. In Ireland and Scotland, at least, it's realistic to believe they played a substantial role in the practice of Druidism. And extending the earlier analogy, it's highly likely that the Celtic world experienced more female Druid priests than our current world contains female ceos.

Male Druids lived in strict abstinence and celibacy, dedicating their lives to the study of nature, the accumulation of wisdom, the assessment of nominees to the order, and the maintenance of the order's secrets. Many found that a life of solitude best suited their philosophical needs, and while some resided in monastery-like residences, most lived in rough-hewn shacks deep in the forest, entering villages and towns only to perform their religious duties.

Even during the Dark Ages this was considered somewhat eccentric behavior, and unusual qualities began to be attributed to Druids. They became associated with magic and divine events, including an ability to defend their land from invaders by causing great clouds of fog and mist to appear on command. They may also represent the earliest form of peace activism; the
Greek historian Diodorus, who considered Druids as intermediaries between Man and the gods, described the practice of Druids throwing themselves between threatening armies as a means of avoiding war.

For centuries, Druidism was the dominant influence on spiritual beliefs in Europe until diluted and pushed westward by the arrival of the Roman Empire, followed by the spreading influence of Christianity. In fact, this paralleled the decline of Celtic influence generally. From the dominant social structure of pre-Roman Europe the Celts gave way first to the Romans and later to the Saxons, reduced to pockets in Wales and Scotland. Only in Ireland did Celts retain their identity through centuries.

Caesar, as talented at observing and recording social structures as he was at commanding armies, found Druids especially interesting. He noted that Gallic and Celtic societies maintained three levels of class: plebeians, who were little more than slaves; equites, the nobility; and Druids, who provided guidance on holy matters and wisdom. “A great number of young people search them out for instruction,” Caesar wrote, “and [the Druids] are treated with much respect and veneration. It is they who judge all public and personal disputes; when a crime is committed or a murder takes place, or when an inheritance or land boundary is contested, the Druids determine who is at fault and who has been harmed, and decide the damages and penalties…. All Druids are under the command of a single Druid who exercises ultimate authority upon them.” Caesar also noted wryly, considering his reputation and primary occupation, that Druids did not go to war (they were exempted from military service of any kind), and did not pay taxes.

The Druids were a remarkably forgiving and supple society who welcomed into their ranks anyone who successfully pursued a defined course of study focused on the natural world and the manner in which it represented the deity. This openness towards new members seeking leadership may not appear impressive, given our familiarity with contemporary organized
religion, but the prospect of gaining access to a privileged class solely on the basis of education and vocation was almost revolutionary. Their practice of accepting all who qualified by dint of study and dedication influenced Christianity. Instead of demanding that its leaders be selected according to bloodline or some mysterious deity-operated lottery, as previous religions had, Christians agreed with Druidic tenets that anyone who absorbed sufficient knowledge and demonstrated high levels of commitment could fulfill the role, whatever their social origins. This was new, and enormously beneficial. It also followed a Christian tradition—some might prefer “strategy”—of adapting characteristics of the pagan model it sought to displace. And it worked: from about ad 500 forward, Druids and Christians were riding opposite ends of the same teeter-totter; the higher Christianity rose in power, the lower the Druids sank.

So who was most responsible for the decline of the Druids—Romans or Christians? It depends on where you stand, literally and figuratively. In continental Europe, where Roman influence was paramount, the Galls adapted Roman law and customs as a prudent means of self-preservation. Under Roman law, Druidism became so compromised that it essentially ceased to exist until resurrected later, in a highly modified state, as part of Christianity's operative machinery, with Druid high priests replaced by bishops and abbots. In the British Isles, the impact of Romanization proved not nearly as dominant. Here, Druidism managed to survive the onslaught, finally yielding to the Saxons. Ireland avoided invasion by both the Romans and the Saxons, and as a result much of our knowledge of Druidism retains a decidedly Irish flavor. With this awareness in hand, Druidism may well have been broader in scope and more complex in structure than we know.