The Book of Shadows of a Broom Closet Dweller *EDITING*

Celtic Paganism

Overview

Unfortunately, most of what is believed about Celtic Paganism is pure speculation, since very few Celts wrote anything down and most of their traditions and practices were lost during the Roman invasions and Christianisation.

What we do know about Celtic Paganism is that it was polytheistic (they believed in multiple Gods) and it was likely to be animistic, meaning that Celts believed that every living thing has a spirit, including trees and every plant.

Because so little is known, there are two main existing Celtic-inspired religions that exist today. The first is Neo-Celtic Paganism, or Neo-Druidism. This religion is mostly based on the practitioner's own intuition about what the Celts would have practised (sometimes not based on the ancient Celtic religion at all), and therefore the religion varies widely. Some practitioners practise tradition passed down through their family as they claim to be directly related to the Celts. Others claim to be able to channel information about ancient practices. In general, practitioners of Modern Celtic Paganism and Druidism promote harmony, connection, and respect for the natural world.

The second type of modern-day Celtic Paganism is Reconstructionist Celtic Paganism, which aims to practise Celtic Paganism with the most historic accuracy as possible. There are other forms of Celtic Paganism which are a combination of these two varieties, but again they are wide in variation.

History

The Celts were an Indo-European people in Iron Age and Medieval Europe who spoke Celtic languages and had cultural similarities. The Celts have different names depending on area of origin.

For example, the Gauls were those who resided in modern day modern-day France, Switzerland, southern and western Germany, Belgium, Frisia, Netherlands, Holland, Luxembourg and northern Italy.

The Brythonic Celts, or Britons, inhabited most of Great Britain and later migrated to Brittany.

The Welsh are the Britons that inhabit modern-day Wales. After the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain, many Brythonic territories came under Anglo-Saxon influence; in Wales, however, Brythonic Celtic religion was largely retained.

Gaelic Celts refers to those who lived in modern-day Scotland and Ireland.

A few Celts were known as Druids. Very little is known about them as they were sworn to secrecy, but they are believed to be highly revered poets, scholars, philosophers and diviners. Julius Caesar described them as being concerned with "divine worship, the due performance of sacrifices, and the interpretation of ritual questions". Many believe that the Druids practised forms of magick, which is why Celtic Paganism is associated with witchcraft.

The Celtic civilisation was invaded by the Romans. Julius Caesar is known to have written a lot about the Celts, although being enemies, his writings are probably wildly exaggerated with little historic accuracy. For example, in his writings we find that the Celts supposedly made frequent human sacrifices, although it's mostly believed today that this nature of sacrifice was extremely rare or did not occur at all.

The Celtic Religion ended up combining with the Roman religion, with their deities often having both Roman and Celtic attributes, combined the names of Roman and Celtic deities, and/or included couples with one Roman and one Celtic deity. These deities are known as Gallo-Roman deities.

The ancient Celtic religion survived mostly intact in Ireland until the Christianisation of the 5th century. Ireland was converted by missionaries from Britain, such as Saint Patrick. However, some practices of the old Celtic religion managed to be retained, most notably the method in which the date of Easter is calculated. (Easter was originally a Celtic holiday).