Time for my first post ^.^

Being a beginner in Pagan belief, and the fact there are not any Pagans where I live to help me, leaves me a bit confused. It has come to my attention that there are different Pagan paths. And to be honest, I don't fully understand them. All I know about is Wicca, Druidism and Shamanism. What is the difference? Are there anymore? I think the difference between Wicca and Druidism is that one uses magick and the other uses the natural power of trees, plants and animals, is this right?

Any explanation for any of them would be great.

Thank you!

E x

A good place to start is Pete Jennings book, Pagan Paths linkie
Also the Pagan Federationhomepage has some quick overviews of various paths.
Happy searching
For me searching, finding and defining a path is part of the fun. And it changes all the time, it's never a static thing.
BadgersMoon
xx

Another good place that explains about the different paths is Wikipedia (yes, I know that actual "facts" can be distorted).

Just click here and enter the subject you want to research about in the search box on the left hand side.....hope that helps a little?

I was totally about to suggest Wikipedia! Great minds and all that. It is a good resource for pretty much any subject, and whilst the fact anyone can edit it does mean inaccuracies creep in, it also means that they get chased out again PDQ.

There are loads of paths that can be classified as pagan, and for each of those paths there are loads of different people doing different things within them. Wicca is probably the best example of that- there are literally hundreds of different sorts of beliefs and practices, which often have very little in common, but all squeeze under the umbrella of wicca.

For Druidry, you could start off by exploring www.druidry.org, which explains the beliefs of that particular order.

Shamanism is a tricky one, because it covers so many different cultures and beliefs. Again, wikipedia is probably your best place to start.

I'd basically advise though that rather than look for pagan paths, look for what interests you, and see where it takes you.

Also, on a totally different note, one doesn't have to be on any particular path to use magic. For many people, their practice of magic is entirely separate to their beliefs.

If you want to know about wicca without having to plough through the usual misinformed bollocks try looking up some of John MacIntyre's posts on here.

Good luck on that one Sukutai!

I've been trying to figure out what defines a Druid for ages now. I keep asking folks that call themselves Druids but I never seem to get a straight answer. I also find it confusing that people can still be Druids because weren't they all killed off by them bloody Romans over on Mona? I mean, how on earth do they know what Druids used to do? They never wrote anything down about all the secret stuff they got up to. You only have the Roman sources which are probably full of propaghanda.

As for the difference between modern druidry and Wicca, I think one is that the Druids do things in the day with clothes on and the Wiccans do things at night with or without clothes depending on the coven.

Aye.. Night and day.. Night and day tehehe..

The one thing most pagans have in common though... We cannae agree on the colour of sh#te!!!

Barnx

not wanting to split hairs here but the term shaman belongs to the Tungis people
of Siberia other cultures ie Native American have elders, medicine people etc
here in the UK we must have had something before the Druids but that name has been lost

The term seems to have been pretty widely used (in various forms) all over the polar regions of Europe and Asia, and down as far as Mongolia.

Nowadays it's legitimately used to describe people and practices from a variety of cultures- Sami, Korean and Tibetan forms are coming to mind, for example. I know a lot of these cultures also have their own words for it, but their practices all share particular hallmarks that are generally perceived as shamanic

Then, of course, there's a whole world of excitingly packaged books and courses on shamanism ranging from Native American teachings to the ancient wisdom of the shamanic Celts :/

I really disagree with using the word 'shamanic' as some kind of word that can be applied to kind of similar spiritual practices. It seems a little ignorant to me and a bit like calling all Witches Wiccan. Also a lot of the indigenous practices of cultures that tend to get labelled as being 'shamanic' are vastly different than the beliefs and practices that the Turkic/tungus folks labelled with the term 'Shaman' (except they don't write it 'sh' but s with a funny additional thing on it that I can't make on this computer but that makes the 'sh' sound). For example the functions and what essentially makes a Korean Mudang are very different to those of a Shaman from the Turgic/Tungus region. Hell the cosmology is completely different.

I hope I don't come across as being nowty - I really don't mean it to come across that way, it's just that the over application of the word 'Shaman' is one of my biggest bugbears (especially when folks call Seidhr 'Northern Tradition Shamanism'). It is no surprise to me though, the core shamanism movement has been pretty pervasive

Just a footnote, the Sami Noaide have been pretty much extinct since around the 17th century. In fact the Sami know comparatively very little about their traditional practices . The biggest survival of those practices is the Joik which was a song that was often used by the Noaide and in magic.

Ouch. I can quite imagine that grates somewhat.

I think the point I was stumbling for, and may have missed completely, is that there are various cultural beliefs and so on that have stuff in common, and are frequently lumped under the label of shamanism. I think if someone wants to know what shamanism is, they'd do a lot better to research these cultures and their beliefs than dive straight in to the first book on the subject that they find, which is likely to bear no resemblance to anything ever practised by the Turkic people.

Disclaimer- What i know about Korean spiritual practices is pretty much wholly based on Michael Palin's writings from 'Himalaya'. Does it show?

Also, there seems to be a resurgence of interest in Sami spirituality. How much of that is based around examining the resources available, as opposed to making it up, I don;t know :/

Even druids often seem confused about what druids are. Overheard at the weekend was a conversation between 2 druids where both admitted they were druids but "it doesn't really seem to fit"...
BM
xx

Maybe they're just confused Heathens?

Oh yes it does indeed.

No matter how many times I go around saying things like there is nothing to support the idea that Seidhrworkers went journeying around the nine worlds, that there is no evidence to support the assumption that they believed in the soul and that while it does have shamanic aspects, it isn't a form of 'Shamanism'....it just doesn't matter!! Folks still go round calling whatever mish mash they do 'Seidhr'. The problem is someone thought they could take all of these wonderfully varied traditions from around the world, turn them vanilla and try make them accessible to everyone even though not everyone has any business doing that stuff.



However to be honest I think the similarities are over-emphasised.




Agreed



Don't worry, there's not much written in English about Korean Mudang. The only reason I know anything is because I have seen it first hand while in Korea.



Unfortunately there isn't actually much written down. What the Sami do have comes from non-Sami sources e.g court records and contemporary accounts of their beliefs. I would be interested to see what they come up with though...



They can stick to being Druids...at least until the bedsheet wearing tendancies wear off

That is the problem, modern Druidry has been around for somthing approaching 300 years now and there have been a lot of ideas about what Druidry should be over those years. It ranges from the hard reconstructionists (who often don't call themselves Druids) to the Star Trek/Lord of the Rings lunatic fringe (who do call themselves Druids but very few people share their view). The middle ground share a few things in common, mainly:

working in circles/calling the quarters
celebrating the eight festivals of the year
developing creative pursuits, working with Awen (inspiration)
venerating trees and working with tree-lore, ogham
venerating the sun and the moon
venerating spirits of place

This is very much the default Pagan druidic core (AODA/BDO/OBOD and others), Christian Druids would ascribe a lot of the worship to aspects of the Christian God whereas hard polytheists would ascribe it to various individual deities, Druidcraft devotees generally only have a Lord and a Lady.

There are calls to attempt to steer Druidry along a path of becoming more cultural in outlook, creating a pagan society with a few priests of a druidic nature (selected on merit) rather than the current situation where everyone is a priest with no-one to minister. There has been a lot of harsh criticism of Druidry in the past, mainly centred on the use of the name "Druid" but also criticism of the laissez-faire approach to the various fringe elements. Some of this has been warranted, a lot has been pure vitriol for the sake of it. Since the de-criminalisation of Pagan Druidry there has been an attitude of "if it works for you then fine, just don't force me to follow" which has led to a lot of "is it/isn't it a part of Druidry" of late, this is a situation which is not likely to be resolved soon, if ever. What we will probably see is the middle ground continuing to practice their own Druidry, the lunatic fringe dying out and popping up again on a regular basis and the recons calling themselves something different and starting a new tradition again.

At present I am between the recon and middle ground, tending towards a recon approach in a Romano-British context but using a good deal of OBOD/BDO/AODA material until I find something better.

If you aren't totally confused by Druidry you haven't read enough.

Druidry is what im interested in and i have so far based all my info on what i have read on the OBOD site,are there any other sources of info that you would reccomend,what i have found so far matches my way of thinking but im aware that as newbie i need more flesh on the bones of what i found have so far
i am considering doing the course that OBOD offers ,do you think its worth it or could i learn just as much elsewhere,im just bumbling along on my own and enjoying the practicle things i do which are based on mainly what my intuition tells me i need to do

oops this was a reply to Badger Bob,i meant to quote but forgot

The OBOD course is good but pricey. I did it and thoroughly enjoyed it and I am just about finishing the Ovate course at the moment. The majority of the value in the OBOD course is the tutor who you can harass with thousands of questions on a daily basis. If you think you might like to do a course that is heavy on ritual (for each of the festivals, grove ceremonies, various practices and meditations) then it is a very enjoyable way to spend a year or two learning the basics. The NOD (New Order of Druids) has a free Bardic course that you can download from their website after signing up to the NOD (again, free). This course is a little less practical and more based on learning Irish mythology than the OBOD course. This is also a course for people who like to write, there is a 3-5 page essay to write after each lesson, 25 in total. Personally I think there is much to be gained from studying both courses together over 2-3 years. There is also a free set of lessons to be studied over a year (one lesson each moon) over on the Druid Network. These have been written by Emma Restall-Orr and are a gentle into to Druidry. Again combine with the above for a fuller picture.

You could learn much from trawling through the various books on Druidry, John Michael Greer's 'The Druidry Handbook' and 'The Druid Magic Handbook' are a good start as are 'A Path Through the Forest' and 'Arianrhod's Dance' by Julie White and Graeme Talboys. Two books that I think should be required reading for anybody following a Druidic path are 'The World of the Druids' by Miranda Green and 'The Ode Less Travelled' by Stephen Fry. The latter is a book on the structure and practice of writing poetry - essential Bardic training.

In the end it's up to you, many people like being part of an order and following a prescribed path, others like to follow their own path and study their own interests. Both approaches have their merits. If you have any questions feel free to ask on here or PM me.

Thank you so much for the overview . It is so nice to speak to a Druid (well, Ovate) who actually explains what they are on about as opposed to just coming out with something bizarre and then channeling Queen Mab or something (believe it or not, I have actually had something like that happen).

But then again, with a name as good as Badger Bob, I should have known you would write a good post.

I think there would be a lot of validity in only having a select few Druids as 'clergy'. More historically accurate... however in a world where everyone wants to be a priest or priestess of whatever and any attempt at clergy is suspected of being like those Christians over there, I think there will be a lot of resistance to this idea. There is also the resistance that would come to the necessary authorities setting themselves up to decide who those priests would be.

Is it me or does Druidry have a somewhat larger lunatic fringe than other groups??

Your Romano-British recon - is there any particular tribe/tribal area you are focussing on?

Glad you enjoyed it, there is a 20+ page debate about the validity of Druidry vs Celtic Reconstructionism going on over on the OBOD board right now, very entertaining but somewhat less than conclusive or even practical.

People come into Druidry from such a wide variety of paths that it spreads itself thinly in order to accommodate everybody. You have Naturalists, Eco-warriors, Pagans, Christians, Atheists, Archaeologists, Historians, Artists, Poets, Writers, Role-Players and New-Agers all putting their own spin on Druidry. The Role-Players are the ones who gave birth to the Star Trek and Tolkien inspired groups which are very much on the fringe of the Druid movement.

Personally I combine my practice of the reconstructed Roman Religion (the Cultus Deorum through Nova Roma) with Druidry including the worship of the pan-celtic deities such as Cernunnos, Nodens, Brigantia and Taranis through OBOD. A sort of half-recon stance if you will.

I really cannot see Brigantia as being pan-celtic. To me, she just 'feels' like her own deal and not some other name for Brigid. I've had so many dreams about this stuff.

I am a Heathen but I grew up walking the hills of Brigantia and that is just as much a part of me as the Heathenry.

Brigantia is a completely individual goddess to me as well but the name crops up everywhere from Yorkshire to Austria. It seems to be a rather generic name that may refer to different entities in different locations but the concept behind the name seems pan-celtic to me.

Ah right, got you now! I misunderstood the sense in which you meant 'pan-celtic'.

I haven't be able to find much about Brigantia (well...by Heathen standards which means I haven't found copious amounts), would you have any links to good essays that deal with Brigantia in her own right? I have only managed to find stuff that basically equates her with Brigid.

There is not very much out there I am afraid, she is one of those deities known chiefly through inscription. For once Wikipedia is fairly accurate... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigantia_(goddess)

I remember reading a bit in "The Gods of the Celts" by Miranda Green and the Shire Archaeology series has a book entitled "The Gods of Roman Britain" which has a smidge. As far as I can see the link to Brighid is rather speculative. The rest has been cobbled together through Archaeological journals and personal meditations.

Oh, I thought you had found more than the inscription evidence...

And now for something to cheer us Brigantia fans up

Er...the last thing I want to do is raise a firestorm here, but could you really call Karnonos pan-Celtic? Yes, there are attestations of an antlered god (and possibly goddesses - at least, female antlered figures) on the continent, though they do tend to be centred in certain places in France, and some on the modern borders of France. And there is some very limited evidence in England. But the name is only used once, and, even then, is incomplete, so we don't know if all the antlered gods were regarded in the same way, and we have no information really about the female forms.

And no, there's nothing from Ireland that I'm aware of, and the stuff from England and the mainland is from the Roman period, of course.

There is actually a "supposed" horned god in Ireland. Donn God of the Dead/Underworld
He's apparently known as "the Horned One" God fo the dead if I remember rightly and associated associated with Cernnunos Um... I'll see what I can find.

Website 1

Web 2

The second site associated him with Dis Pater, for reasons which appear to me fairly obvious - Dis Pater was primarily a chthonic (underworld) god. Dis Pater is also associated with most of the existing epigrapha (representations of the antlered god), where gods are named on the representations.

What's much more intriguing to me is any association between Donn and horns. I've not come across that before. Do you have anything on it?

It was aaaaages ago that I read about it. Give me a day or so and I'll see what I can find. I wonder if it has anything to do with his association with the Bull

Oooh didn't need days.

Witchcraft Encyclopedia

I'll see what else there is.

Edited to add this.

Witchcraft and Mystery

Also, not about Donn as such but interesting enough in its own way.

Who is Cernunnos

OK, I've done what research I can I can with the reference books I have on hand. It's possible the association with horns comes about because Donn got associated with the devil in later folklore. perhaps. I'll wait on anything you have.

I've never had an affinity with Donn. He seems such a gloomy character to me. I notice he's associated with west Munster. On the whole, I much prefer Finnbheara - now there's a character. But he's associated with Connacht. And another king of the dead - but, hey, wouldn'tcha prefer to meet that one?

As I said, and in fact I think one of the links I posted, refers to Donn and his association with the Bull and therefore, Horns.

I agree, but a Gauish recon I know pointed me to further evidence about Cernunnos that doesn't seem to have been widely published in the popular press. Cernunnos has now been identified in four different inscriptions and seems (as you say) to have been very much a continental deity. One statue of him had detachable antlers, which is thought to indicate some sort of seasonal ritual.

Any ideas of antlers for Irish gods seem to be modern attributions, there's nothing concrete in the myths and legends to prove it in terms of there being an antlered god. Horns are a far different thing, and it's not even certain that such associations are meant to be literal.

er...cough...actually, I wrote that.

cough, cough...er, I had extensive correspondence with Nantonos before and after I wrote my article. I like the way he thinks.

Hmm..sorry, no. Associating Donn with the brown bull of the Tain simply because both of their names include the word 'brown' (Donn) doesn't do it for me.

And I rather take anything Raven Grimassi says with a pinch of salt. I'd like to see his evidence.

Yeah, I kinda got that after you posted how you wrote the article and all He rocks.

hi thanks for the info,i have seen the lessons on the Druid network so i might give that a go first to see how i get on,then maybe move on to the OBOD course later,i have to save up anyway,i will certainly invest in the books you have mentioned and was actually looking at two of them today on Amazon,i will add them to my wish list then my daughters can get me them for crimbo

Doesn't he just?

Coaxing him into any sort of personal comment becomes a personal challenge. But we've shared a few jokes about ...um...some strange things which impinge on horned gods, on other fora.

I can imagine!

Good grief so you did!

Don God of the Underworld....

Don Cernulioni of the Underworld...

The Horny Godfather?!

At this point I would just like to replace the word Pan-Celtic with the phrase "known to Romano-British and Romano-Gallic peoples of the C1st (C8th-9th a.u.c.)"...

Morbidia: the NOD course is well worth downloading for a read even if you don't do the essays, you can find the NOD at New Order of Druids, my Yorkshire-Scottish blood doesn't allow me to pass up a freebie .

It's a bit late now!

Yeah but Badger Bob has a cool name that is deserving of its own theme tune...I think he should be let off soley on that basis!!

To the tune of Postman Pat:

Badger Bob!, Badger Bob!, Badger Bob! and his black and white kn....<muffled obscenities>

Black and white!!!!!

You must be the biggest ska fan in the world!:P

lmao!

Maybe it's bruising