Druid culture

"The indigenous religion of the British Islanders was rebuilt and revived a long time ago, and their pastor, that is, the' mentor', was called Gwydd. These people are divided into two grades: the first is the high priest who can intervene in tribal political activities, and the second is the low priest with lower power. The former is called Der-Wydd, which means druid, and the latter is called Go-Wydd or O-vydd, which means Ovate. These two classes of priests are collectively called the Baird Order (also known as Budd-Budd, or Bards). The organization of Bader cult is becoming more and more strict, so there are three levels: high-level druids, middle-level privileged Bader Braint and low-level Oward. "

"Druids" generally refer to the senior priests of the Celtics. From 5th century BC to/kloc-0th century AD, Celts scattered in Gaul, Britain, Ireland, Asia Minor and the Balkans, and were denounced as barbarians by the Romans. There are many explanations about the original meaning of the word druid: in Irish, "druid" means "the man in the oak tree"; In Greek mythology, there are also priestesses called tree demons. It is said that every oak tree is inhabited by elves, and these tree spirits pass the Oracle to human beings through tree demons. Some people think that it comes from druidism in Gaelic, meaning "wise man" or "wizard"; Roman scholar Pliny the Elder or Gaius Plinyus Secundus (AD 23/24-79) believed that it originated from the Greek word "Druse", meaning "an oak tree"; Dru means "wood" in Sanskrit Other varieties include: Druidism, Druidism, drysidae, Druidism, Druidism, etc. However, the oak tree is indeed an indispensable part of Druidism.

During the Roman conquest, the influence of Druid priests had spread all over Britain and Gaul, and they had overwhelming power over ordinary residents. They play the role of messengers between God and mankind. Without the support of druid priests, Celtic tribes could not even maintain their own politics. So even if the war between the two tribes is imminent, as long as the druid priests in white robes come out to mediate, the two sides must accept their swords and negotiate.

The earliest and most common systematic records of Druidism came from the Roman Expeditionary Force. Caesar described the druid priests as a group of bloodthirsty pagan lunatics in the Battle of Gaul, claiming that they "made huge gods out of branches, and then burned the living in them ..." The same record also claimed that the druid priests slaughtered prisoners and prisoners of war for divination: "They stabbed people with daggers, predicted the future according to the spasm and viscera of death ... and dug out the heart of the Virgin Mary at the ceremony of sacrificing the world giants ..." All these became the poet and philosopher william blake's fierce attack on nature.

It's hard to say whether these descriptions are credible. In Caesar's case, he himself had no direct contact with the religious ceremonies of Druidism, and all the information was collected by his troops. As we all know, the Romans at that time (even their mercenaries) regarded themselves as the center of civilization and all the surrounding tribes as inferior barbarians, which made it difficult to ask them to treat and record the truth of Celtic religion with equal attitude. Due to the small number of druid priests, and the fact that they lost more religious population in the war with Rome, they gradually declined around A.D., and the rare relics preserved were systematically destroyed by a large influx of Christians.

According to the available data, Druidism has appeared in the matriarchal society of British aborigines. Due to the social environment at that time, only women were allowed to participate, which was divided into three levels. After entering the patriarchal society, men gradually entered cults and existed on an equal footing with priestesses. * * * robert brown (Scottish Ritual 32), a Freemason, thinks that the knowledge of Druidism comes from the culture of Phoenician colonists. According to Thomas Morris's Antiquities of India, as early as several thousand BC, Phoenicians began to colonize Britain for the purpose of mining tin mines. The debate on this issue is usually endless. Some people think that the origin of Druidism comes from Eastern Buddhism like Odin. Because druids study nature and worship the sun, the moon and the stars, they are often associated with idolatry religions in Greece and Latin nations. Caesar also recorded it in the Gaul War mentioned earlier. He found that these "barbarians" actually worshipped stars and gods, just as the Romans worshipped Mercury, Mars mythology and Jupiter! Although various opinions are entangled, there are many scholars who support Druid's foreign religious theory, while Manley P Hall (Scottish Rite 33) holds different views. He believes that Druidism has no inheritance relationship with other ancient religions in the world, but it develops in parallel. However, Hull believes that this happens because all the ancient religions we see now are founded by survivors of the outstanding civilization of Atlantis who fled to other parts of the world.

Druid priests are proficient in geography, natural science, natural theology (nature worship, similar to Indian sexology) and astrology (astronomy). In England and Ireland, primitive surgical tools made by Druid priests were excavated. As doctors, they grow and study all kinds of herbs. Elifas Levi, a famous contemporary mystic scholar, wrote in his book The History of Magic:

"Druid priests are clergy and doctors. They use magic, hoping to achieve the purpose of magnetic therapy. Their commonly used drugs are shoots of parasitic plants and snake eggs. Druid priests cut parasitic plants through solemn and sacred ceremonies, because they believe that plants like truffles and gallnuts have special magnetic forces, so they also have special therapeutic effects (the so-called' magnetic therapy' in Levi's era refers to hypnosis) ... "

Because druids worship nature and oak is the symbol of the highest god, they think mistletoe parasitic on oak is a panacea, with sacred skills and the best curative effect. Of course, it needs to be collected through a particularly serious ceremony. This ceremony can only be held on the days of full and new moons, or on the sixth night of a month. At this time, the most senior druid priest, Arch-Druid, wore a white robe and gold jewelry and cut it from the tree with a golden sickle. Gold jewelry represents the sun, symbolizing that it is the personification of the sun. The shape of the curved golden sickle or golden scepter in the hand imitates the new moon-the "most holy moon that contains everything" in Druidism (the same symbolic meaning as Noah's Ark may actually come from the worship of women's menstrual blood earlier). In the process of collection, mistletoe can't fall to the ground, otherwise it will be polluted by the unclean fluctuation of the earth, so the collected parasitic wood should be caught in the air with white cloth (a symbol of white), and after collecting mistletoe, white bulls should be slaughtered under the tree for sacrifice, which fully reflects the druids' worship of natural forces. In addition to the sun and the moon, druid priests are also in awe of Mercury. They worship the naturally formed cubic stone as mercury to show their respect for the "spirit of nature", which is also considered as the prototype of the legend of "sword in stone".

Druids adhere to the principle of oral knowledge, and its cultural center is a secret "college" unknown to outsiders. The purpose of this is to ensure that knowledge and religious etiquette are only taught to limited and selected people, not to those who are ignorant and do not know how to cherish knowledge. Within the Druid Order, there is also a secret knowledge that is only taught to selected volunteers, that is, "Druid Secret Instrument". This secret instrument only speaks to volunteers with noble birth and high morality, and usually the entrance test of this secret instrument is extremely barbaric, and the mortality rate of volunteers is very high, and its true content is almost impossible to spread. To people at that time, it seemed to be a kind of magic. However, the druid secret instrument is just a kind of secret instrument, just like the secret instrument through the ages. Druids believe that the human soul is immortal beyond the body, and everything done in this life will be rewarded in the afterlife, and hell is only a testing place for atonement. The Celts believed that the Druid priests were in charge of the fate of all mankind, and their teachings could save mankind. In order to repay their crimes, mankind will be resurrected from hell and redeemed by the druid priests on earth. Death is not the end of the soul, but the first step to heaven. Druids divide a year into eight equal parts, and there will be a festival at the end or beginning of each period. On such days, they will hold sacrificial activities to celebrate. In addition, they also regard the rotation of time in a year and the changes of four seasons as a person's life, and each time represents a certain stage of life.

Among these eight festivals, the most important and famous is Samhain Festival on 10/0/day. Samhain literally means "the end of the warm season" and is also the name of death in Celtic mythology. In the Druid calendar, 10/month 1 day is the New Year and the Day of the Dead. At this time, the barriers between this world and other worlds are most easily crossed, so the souls of the dead will return to their original homes in the evening. On this day, the Celts will parade in skins and heads; Children will dress up as fairies and beg for food from door to door-if someone doesn't give them worship and food, these fairies will play tricks on them. This festival is the embryonic form of Halloween in the future. Druid beliefs include sun and moon worship, flame worship, boulder worship, tree worship, animal worship and so on. Druids advocate nature and integrate with natural life; It is said that they can summon animals and birds, and even transform themselves into bears, crows and other animals-this is also the origin of druids in many fantasy games today.

Druids usually don't build temples, and religious sacrifices are held in uncut oak forests. Some people think that the Stonehenge site in Britain and Ireland today is where druids worship the sun. The earliest record of Stonehenge can be found in the legend of the Holy Grail, the story of King Arthur. The book records the story that the wizard Merlin sang magic, summoned huge stones from Ireland and built Stonehenge overnight. However, according to textual research, the word "Merlin" originally refers to a druid wizard who is proficient in poetic art and visual art (divination). Although Druids prohibit writing doctrines and secret tools, they also have their own writing symbol-tern writing. This kind of writing is common in Celtic stone carvings and woodcuts. A * * has 25 letters (some people say it is 20), and each letter is related to a sacred tree. It is said that druids will carve these tree-shaped words on sticks for divination.

There is another saying about the tern manuscript, which is a calendar consisting of thirteen letters, each letter representing a month-the Celtic calendar has 13 months in a year, and a month has 28 days. Of course, these months have been named after trees.