The Book of Druidry, 2nd Edition

Modern Druidry owes a lot to Ross Nichols. He removed the masonic ties and brought paganism back into the path. Inspiring and educating many followers of the modern Druidic Revival - we all owe a great debt of gratitude to this man. And his lessons live on through Philip Carr-Gomm. Everyone should have this book in their collection.

This book is a must-have not because of its many historical/archeological inaccuracies but because it was one of the first produced by someone in recent history proclaiming to be following a Druidic Way. No one truly knows what the ancient druids did or believed with any exactness. It's left up to Anthropology and its constant flux of theories in order to interpret archeological finds versus historical documents and data to come up with a possible answer. Even so, no Anthropologist will tell you that there science leads to truth. I think that some reviewers think other folk are stupid. The title of this book gives it all away. This is a book about "Druidry" and not really about the ancient historical persons known as druids. I had no misconceptions when reading this book. I knew it was a modern/romantic view of the druid religion through the eyes of someone who was part of the Ancient Order of Druids as well as the Martinist Order. As far as I know Ross Nichols was not a historian with a PhD from Oxford with scholarly publications in peer reviewed journals. As such I do not expect that kind of scholarly material in his work. I look more for the history of romantic Druidry and a peek into his spiritual path. I also expect to find (within this book) the cumulative lore and rituals as found within the AOD and his OBOD. Purchase this book before it goes out of print!

I was a little dissapointed at the Christians elements at the beginning of this book, but as you go along, you'll realize why this book is so good. Celtia and Druidry are two of the most touchy topics in historical-magickal literature, because when you take a faith an interesting as that of the Celts, it's diffucult to leave a book that's "incomplete", so authores frequently make things up where they have found holes in their research, thus creating books that are half fact, half fiction. Not true here. Here we are provided with an account that does not touch on those touchy topics, and leaves open exploration available for the reader. We have both a detailed account of the history of both Witchcraft and Druidry, and we learn that yes, these religions are very similiar and can essentially trace their deepest origions to the same place. Which will really annoy those "Druids" who wouldn't be caught dead doing anything witchy. Surprisingly though, just like in "The Wiccan Mysteries", the reader can take what they have learned and make their own judgements. Not like in most technical occult books, like the ones by Silver Ravenwolf, where yoo get nothing but hundreds of pages of magickal rites and techneiques, yet never learn what the meaning behind them is. This is book that should find a spot on the shelf of every Druid, Wiccan, and pagan enthusist,

Strangely enough, there is some fact out there in the massive amounts of ficticous information concerning Druidry. This is not one of those romantic fictitions written to embrace a genre and make money, but is a very thorough account of history, geography, lore, and wisdom beheld from many (as in probably all) historical sources. Well worth the money, and ESSENTIAL reading for druids.

The Book of Druidry was essentially the life work of the author (published posthumously) and represents a maximum attempt to catalogue and share the collective of what we know about the ancient Druids. It reads somewhat like an encyclopaedia or almanac with the reader able to look-up items of particular interest (e.g. sacred sites such as Stonehenge) or read straight-through, cover-to-cover. Given the number of bogus (revisionist) works in print purporting to inform us about druidry or druidism (as it is sometimes also called), some of which claim access to secret or otherwise sacred texts, etc. (which is complete bull-manure), enough cannot be said about a work like this which has both scholarly merit and general appeal. Buy it and see for yourself!