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Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who were the ancient Druids?
2. Did they have anything to do with Stonehenge?
4. Where do modern Druid groups come from?
5. Is the AODA descended from the ancient Druids?
6. Doesn't that make the AODA "fake"?
7. But don't some Druid groups claim descent from the original Druids?
8. Do you have to be a Celt to be a Druid?
9. You say "Druidry" rather than "Druidism." Why is that?
10. So what is the Druid Revival's Druidry about?
11. Is the AODA's Druidry a religion, a spiritual path, or what?
12. Is AODA a Pagan organization?
13. What are the AODA's seasonal celebrations?
14. Does AODA offer a correspondence course?
15. How does the AODA's study program work?
16. Are there levels beyond the First Degree?
17. What if I've already studied Druidry in another Druid organization?
18. Do AODA Druids take Druid names?>
19. Does the AODA have Groves or other local groups?
20. How is the AODA organized on a national level?
21. That doesn't sound very democratic.
22. Is AODA membership limited to people in America?
23. Can members of the AODA belong to other Druid organizations?
24. What about other religious and spiritual groups outside of Druidry?
25. What does the AODA itself have to offer?
1. Who were the ancient Druids?
The most honest answer to this question is "nobody really knows." According to the very sparse surviving sources, they were a sacred caste among the Celtic tribes of Britain, Ireland, and Gaul (modern France) in ancient times. Some sources call them philosophers, others call them wizards; nobody actually calls them priests, though this is the most popular interpretation among scholars nowadays. They had traditions, passed on by oral transmission, that dealt with theology, astronomy, divination, and other matters, but essentially all of this was lost with the coming of Christianity. Plenty of books have been written about what the ancient Druids were or were not, but they're pretty much speculation based on a few fragmentary references in Greek, Latin, and medieval Irish writings.
2. Did they have anything to do with Stonehenge?
Again, nobody knows. Sweeping, confident claims have been made on both sides of this question over the last three hundred years or so, but the fact remains that nobody knows for sure where the ancient Druids came from, or whether they had connections with the people who built Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in northwestern Europe. Many scholars these days believe that the Druids were an indigenous priesthood of the Celts, but nobody knows for sure when the Celts reached Britain - or for that matter whether or not it was a matter of a particular people expanding across Europe, as opposed to the subtler spread of ideas and cultural connections. A minority among modern scholars suggests that the ancient Druids may have had links to the hypothetical priestly class of megalithic times. Probably no one will ever know the truth of the matter - which hasn't stopped people who should have known better from making dogmatic claims on the subject.
The short answer here is "the Roman Empire, followed by Christianity." Most of the countries where the ancient Druids are known to have been active fell under Roman control during the years when Roman power was at its height. The Romans were not particularly intolerant about religious matters, but a powerful, organized caste with political interests was another matter, and Druids suffered persecution under Roman rule. Christianity took up where the Romans left off, and squeezed out what was left of the Druid tradition. The last Druids mentioned in written sources lived in what is now Scotland in the ninth century of the common era, where they tried - unsuccessfully - to stop the conversion of the Picts. Thereafter some pieces of Druid lore may have survived in Irish and Highland Scots bardic tradition, but the Druids themselves were extinct.
4. Where do modern Druid groups come from?
The Druid Revival is one of the most fascinating events in modern history. Starting in the late seventeenth century, people in England and France - and a little later on, in several other countries - turned to what little was known about the ancient Druids as a source of inspiration and a basis for a new spirituality founded on nature and personal experience. The time was ripe for such a project; between the rigid dogmatism of early modern Christianity and the equally rigid materialism of the Scientific Revolution, many people felt the need for another option. The Druid Revival provided it. Ironically, many modern groups descended from or inspired by the Revival have tried to distance themselves from this heritage, often motivated by very inaccurate ideas of what the Revival was and is. (Click here for a more detailed article about the Druid Revival.)
5. Is the AODA descended from the ancient Druids?
No, and we have our doubts about any group that claims a direct connection to the original Druids; the evidence simply doesn't support such claims. The AODA was originally chartered in 1912 in Boston, Massachusetts, as the American branch of the Ancient and Archaeological Order of Druids, which was founded in 1874 in London by Robert Wentworth Little. Behind the AAOD lies a long history of English Druid Orders and churches as well as less formal groupings, reaching back to the beginning of the Druid Revival in the second half of the seventeenth century. Although the Revival drew on a variety of Celtic sources, among many other things, there's no evidence that any of it can be traced back twelve hundred years or more to the time when the original Druids still existed.
6. Doesn't that make the AODA "fake"?
Fake what? We don't pretend to be ancient Druids; we're participants in the Druid Revival, a movement of nature spirituality that has been active in the Western world for well over three hundred years. As far as we know, the Druid Revival is the oldest surviving Neopagan movement; it has put more than three centuries of hard work into its teachings and practices, and it has distinguished contributions in many fields to its credit. It's certainly true that it doesn't date back to antiquity, but great age by itself is no guarantee of relevance or validity. It's rather funny, really, to watch people who wouldn't think of using a two-year-old computer insist that a spiritual tradition can't be valid unless it dates back to Neolithic times.
7. But don't some Druid groups claim descent from the original Druids?
This is unfortunately true - unfortunately, because it confuses newcomers, and makes the Druid community look bad in the eyes of historians and archeologists. As with most other branches of the modern Pagan movement, Druidry has had its problems with freshly invented "family traditions" and innovators who haven't been honest about the sources of their inspiration. As opinions in historical scholarship change, too, it's seen conflicts between people whose versions of Druidry are based on the latest scholarship, and insist that this is the only valid form of Druidry, and people who have inherited Druid traditions from earlier in the Revival and wish to keep following teachings that have proved their worth. AODA holds that each person has the right to follow their own personal inspiration or, as many Druids say, their own Awen. Of course that means there will be many different kinds of Druids in the world, but we see this as an advantage, not a problem.
8. Do you have to be a Celt to be a Druid?
There are some Druid groups who insist that you have to be descended from one of the Celtic ethnic groups - Welsh, Irish, Highland Scots, Cornish, Breton, Manx, or Galician - to be a Druid. There are others who insist that you have to be fluent in one of the Celtic languages. AODA doesn't require either of these. We respect the right of people everywhere to cultural survival and self-determination, and we don't claim to be honorary Celts just because we follow a modern spiritual path inspired by the ancient Druids. (Some of us do have Celtic ancestry and/or speak or read one or another of the modern Celtic languages, but that's another matter.) AODA's traditions include lore from Celtic tradition, among other things, but the Druid Revival has been an international, multicultural phenomenon from its beginnings, and the AODA welcomes members from all national, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds.
9. You say "Druidry" rather than "Druidism." Why is that?
The term "Druidry" was a creation of Ross Nichols, one of the major luminaries in the English Druid community in the mid-twentieth century. He wanted to stress that the Druid path was not an "ism," an ideology or set of beliefs, but a craft, a set of practices and traditions sharing common principles. The English language gives the suffix "-ry" to any number of crafts, such as pottery and forestry; the example of Freemasonry was probably also in Nichols' mind (nobody talks about "Masonism"). More recently the two words have become convenient labels for the two main approaches in the Druid community, with "Druidism" used most often by recent Celtic Reconstructionist groups who base their versions of the Druid way on modern scholarship, while "Druidry" is used most often by older groups who work with the heritage of the Druid Revival. We adopted it for ourselves, partly to affirm our Druid Revival roots, partly to affirm our commitment as a church to a living spirituality that is open, tolerant, practical, and free from dogma and ideology.
10. So what is the Druid Revival's Druidry about?
To some extent that depends on the Druid you ask; there have been very few attempts to set up a Druid orthodoxy, and none of them got far. Druids have always been an independent-minded (not to say bloody-minded) lot! Broadly speaking, though, the Druidry of the Druid Revival is nature spirituality. Druidry sees divinity expressed primarily in the world of nature, and pursues nature awareness and a life in harmony with nature's cycles. A set of seasonal celebrations of nature's changes during the year play an important role in nearly all traditional Druid Orders. Methods of meditation and spiritual development also have central places in traditional Druidry. The Druid Revival, like most spiritual traditions, has also developed a variety of auxiliary arts that express its values in practice; these include poetry and music, methods of natural healing, and a variety of esoteric studies including divination, magic, sacred geometry, and the quest to comprehend the meaning and powers of ancient sites such as Stonehenge and Glastonbury.
11. Is the AODA's Druidry a religion, a spiritual path, or what?
Again, that depends on the individual Druid you ask. AODA is a church in the original sense of the word - that is, a community or assembly of people with a common religious focus. Our approach to spirituality is experiential rather than dogmatic, and we don't presume to define divinity for our members; that's up to each individual. We do believe in the presence of divinity in the universe, the sanctity of nature, and the existence of a spiritual dimension in each human being, but each Druid approaches divinity in whatever way he or she finds most meaningful; thus many of our members are Pagans, but some are Christians, some are Taoists, some are animists, and some never do explain. We expect members to be tolerant and courteous with one another, especially on the topic of one another's personal spiritual beliefs, and celebrate and learn from the rich diversity of perspectives our members bring to AODA.
12. Is AODA a Pagan organization?
That question doesn't have a simple "yes or no" answer. AODA is an inclusive church of nature spirituality. Because it focuses on experience and spiritual practice, rather than ideology or dogma, it cuts across the barriers that divide religious traditions from one another, and opens its portals to all those who revere nature and seek to experience divine presence within nature, whatever names or forms they use for divinity. Thus AODA has Pagan members who participate in many different traditions, but it also has Christian members, Jewish members, Buddhist members, and members who belong to no particular tradition but find that Druid nature spirituality speaks to their needs and their understanding of the world. In Druidry, as in nature itself, diversity is something to be celebrated, not merely tolerated!
13. What are AODA's seasonal celebrations?
Like most Druid Revival traditions, AODA requests its members to celebrate four special days in the course of the year - the two solstices (December 21 and June 21) and the two equinoxes (March 21 and September 22). We encourage members who wish to celebrate other holy days in the course of the year to do so. Many AODA Druids keep Imbolc (February 2), Belteinne (May 1), Lughnasadh (August 1) and Samhuinn (November 1), the four "cross quarter" days of the modern Neopagan year. The AODA doesn't require a specific liturgy for its members, and in fact the task of writing a personal set of rituals for the holy days of the year is one of the things members do in the course of the study program for AODA's Second Degree.
14. Does AODA offer a correspondence course?
Our training program is based on individual study rather than a formal correspondence course. The curricula for the *First Degree, Second Degree, and Third Degree training can be found here on the website. If you prefer to work with a more structured training program, we heartily recommend the correspondence course offered by the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids (OBOD); through AODA's *transfer credit program*, those who complete the three levels of the OBOD course also qualify for AODA's First and Second Degrees.
15. How does AODA's study program work?
At this point in the AODA's history, it's almost entirely a matter of individual study. People join the AODA as Candidates for the First Degree, the degree of Druid Apprentice, and receive the Candidate Initiation, which may be received from an AODA Study Group or Grove if there's one in your area, or performed as a solitary self-initiation. Then it's up to them to work through the First Degree training program and qualify for the First Degree. There's a minimum period of one year involved, though this can be waived by the Grand Grove, the governing body of the Order. Most of the First Degree training program is being published in a book, Druidry: A Green Way of Wisdom by the current Grand Archdruid, John Michael Greer. It has four parts: the Earth Path, which is about nature awareness and personal responsibility for the environment; the Sun Path, which is about celebrating the holy days of the year; the Moon Path, which is about meditation; and one of the seven Spirals - poetry, music, divination, natural healing, magic, sacred geometry, and Earth mysteries studies - which are seven arts that have been closely associated with Druidry for many years. Once this work is completed, the Candidate passes an examination and receives the First Degree initiation ceremony.
16. Are there levels beyond the First Degree?
Yes, for those willing to put in the time and effort to qualify for them. A more advanced course of study with more focus on personal talents and interests, and at least two years in the First Degree, qualifies the Druid Apprentice for the Second Degree, the degree of Druid Companion. Each Druid Companion has the right to be ordained as a Druid Priest or Druid Priestess, and to organize a chartered AODA Study Group. Most members stop here, but those who proceed onward through a more challenging, self-designed program of Druid study, training and practice, or who make significant individual contributions to the Druid tradition, may be elected to the Third Degree, the degree of Druid Adept. Initiation into the Third Degree brings the right to be consecrated as a Druid Archpriest or Archpriestess and to organize a chartered Grove of AODA.
17. What if I've already studied Druidry in another Druid organization?
You may be able to apply these studies to your AODA degree work. Our "transfer credit" policy allows equivalent study programs in other Druid organizations to count toward work on the AODA's First and Second Degrees. Please see our "transfer credit" policy for more information.
18. Do AODA Druids take Druid names
It's traditional but not required for members of the AODA to take a name or title, generally in a Celtic language. AODA Druid names tend to be longer than the "Craft names" used in some other modern traditions, and are rarely if ever the names of gods or legendary heroes; rather, they reflect aspects of the natural world. For example, Past Grand Archdruid Betty Reeves' Druid name is Aerach Crann Crithaec, "Great Quaking Aspen," and current Grand Archdruid John Michael Greer's Druid name is Creyr Glas Cynwyddon, "Blue Heron Loremaster."
19. Does the AODA have Groves or other local groups?
We encourage members of all grades to meet informally, help one another with the training program, and celebrate the holy days together. As a church, AODA also charters two types of more formal congregations: Study Groups and Groves. A charter for a Study Group (equivalent to a "seed group" or "protogrove" in other Druid organizations) will be issued to any Second Degree member who wishes to organize one. The right to organize a Grove, or fully recognized and empowered congregation within AODA, is among the traditional privileges of the Third Degree, although the Grand Grove may issue a dispensation (temporary charter) to a Study Group, allowing it to take on the status of a Grove, under certain circumstances. For more details see our Study Groups and Groves page.
20. How is the AODA organized on a national level?
The governing body of AODA is the Grand Grove, which consists of four Archdruids - the Archdruid of the East, who is responsible for ritual; the Archdruid of the South, who is responsible for the funds and resources of AODA; the Archdruid of the West, who is responsible for the study program and membership; and the Archdruid of the North or Grand Archdruid, the presiding officer of the Grand Grove, who has ultimate responsibility for all. Archdruids hold office for a life term, unless they retire or leave AODA, and vacancies are filled from the ranks of Third Degree members by unanimous vote of the other members of the Grand Grove.
21. That doesn't sound very democratic.
Granted, but it works. Too many churches and spiritual organizations that try to run their affairs by vote end up paralyzed or torn apart by internal politics and factional infighting. The AODA's bylaws are structured to prevent that by keeping politics to an absolute minimum. Membership in AODA is entirely voluntary, and members pay a one-time lifetime membership fee for each degree, so those who disagree with the decisions of the Grand Grove or the Grand Archdruid can vote with their feet, or simply ignore the Grand Grove's shenanigans and keep following their own Druid path. In practice, the Grand Grove mostly functions as a way to keep the study program on track, facilitate contact between members of the Order, and take care of the very limited business end of keeping a Druid church operational.
22. Is AODA membership limited to people in America?
Not at all. The AODA was originally chartered as the American branch of the Ancient and Archeological Order of Druids (AAOD), in keeping with a custom in which each country has its own independent grand body within a common initiatory tradition. As we know of no other currently existing Druid churches descended from the AAOD we welcome candidates for membership from anywhere in the world. When there are at least four Druid Companions of the AODA in a given country, they may ask for and receive a charter for an independent Grand Grove and begin initiating and training Druids on their own.
23. Can members of the AODA belong to other Druid organizations?
Of course - in fact, we encourage this. Every tradition within the Druid Revival has something unique to teach, and strengths and beauties of its own to share. There has unfortunately been a certain amount of factionalism in the Druid movement, with some groups claiming exclusive right to the word "Druid" and denouncing everyone else. This is as counterproductive as it is silly, and links among Druid organizations through overlapping membership offers one simple way to bridge such gaps and renew an awareness of our common goals and values. Visit our Contact and Links page for access to other Druid organizations.
24. What about other religious and spiritual groups outside of Druidry?
Again, this is not a problem at all. The Druid Revival has always had a strong tradition of tolerance and respect for all spiritual paths. It may be worth mentioning that all four of the Archdruids of AODA's Grand Grove are also involved in other spiritual and esoteric traditions, and the AODA has historically had links with a number of entirely non-Druidic spiritual organizations, including the Universal Gnostic Church and the Modern Order of Essenes. The work of Druidry is to build bridges, not to raise walls, and in a world all too full of religious discrimination and sectarian violence, this may be one of the greatest gifts Druidry has to offer.
25. What does the AODA itself have to offer?
Initiation, participation, and training in a traditional Druid Revival church, combined with the opportunity to develop a personal approach to Druidry together with people of like mind. Our training program concentrates on developing skills and practices relevant to a modern Druid path, such as meditation, ritual, and awareness of nature, and it makes ample room for personal talents and interests. No two AODA Druids end up practicing exactly the same Druidry, and this is as it should be.
Information on joining the AODA is on our membership page. If you have any questions you'd like to ask first, by all means contact us via our contact page.
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