Druid

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Druids with oak leaf wreaths harvesting mistletoe; Joseph Martin Kronheim (1810-96)
Druids inciting the Britons to oppose the landing of the Romans - from Cassell's History of England, Vol. I
Druidess, oil painting by Alexandre Cabanel, 19th century

Druids acted as initiates in the Druid Mysteries and in the Scandinavian Mysteries, the so-called Drottes Mysteries, and formed the spiritual elite of the Celts. Druidesses worked as seers and fortune tellers. The origin of the name is disputed. Pliny the Elder derives it from the Greek: δρυς (drys "oak"), since the mistletoe growing on the oaks was of particular cultic and medicinal importance to the Druids[1]. The well-known image of the white-clad druids cutting mistletoe from the trees with their golden sickle also goes back to Pliny. Posidonius (135-51 BC) characterises the Druids as wise philosophers. Other ancient authors, however, also describe the Druids hosting cruel sacrificial ceremonies in which people were killed by a dagger thrust above the diaphragm in order to predict the future from their death twitches[2] and people were offered as burnt offerings in willow braids that were supposed to represent images of gods. According to Caesar's account in the Gallic War[3], the Druids advocated the doctrine of rebirth. The church fathers Hippolytus of Rome and Clement of Alexandria saw a connection with the teachings of Pythagoras.

The Druid Culture and the Later Nordic Wotan Culture

„We can only look at this Druid culture - we can certainly call it that - in the right way if we see the essence of it in an earlier epoch than the one from which those mythological ideas of the North that are linked to the name of Wotan or Odin resound to us. What is connected with the name of Wotan is basically later in time than this heyday of the Druid culture. One must see in the circle of wisdom, one might say, which refers to the name of the god Wotan or Odin, something which first came over from the East from a circle of mysteries which was in the vicinity of the Black Sea, and which then poured its spiritual content from the East to the West, in that, as it were, colonial mystery sites were founded from the Black Sea over to the West in the most diverse ways.“ (Lit.:GA 228, p. 106)

The Mystery Places of the Druids

Rudolf Steiner has spoken at various points in more detail about the spiritual background of these mysteries.

„In Europe, too, there were initiates who trained mystery schools towards the end of the period under discussion: they were called Druids; Drys means oak. The strong oak was the symbol of the ancient European scholar-priests. For what dominated the peoples in the north was the thought that this their ancient culture would perish after all. The twilight of the gods was taught, and the future of Christianity was grandly expressed by the Nordic prophets in what later became the Siegfried saga. Compare this with the Achilles legend.

Achilles is invulnerable all over his body except for his heel, Siegfried except for the place between his shoulders. To be invulnerable in this way is to be initiated. In Achill you have the initiate of the fourth subrace, which lies in the ascending arc of human cultural development; therefore all the highest parts of Achill are invulnerable, only the heel, the lower nature is vulnerable, similar to Hephaistos being lame. The German Siegfried was also a hero of the fourth subrace, but vulnerable between the shoulder blades. Here is his vulnerable spot, where only he who bears the cross makes himself invulnerable. In Siegfried, the divine perishes, the Nordic gods approach their downfall (twilight of the gods). This gives the Nordic saga the tragic aspect that it not only points to the past, but to the twilight of the gods, to the time that is to come. The Druids gave the people the lesson of the declining Norse gods. Therefore, still symbolically in Boniface's fight against the oak, the fight against the old priesthood, the Druids, is represented.“ (Lit.:GA 93a, p. 256)

„When man looks at things, he must feel either sympathy or antipathy. These have an effect on the glandular system. This can be observed in gourmets who salivate at the sight of delicious food. If man is to undergo an occult development, the glands must gradually dry up - at any rate, part of the glandular activity must do so - and, on a higher level, give rise to something new. Something similar takes place as in the case of the tree, which can only form itself perennially, permanently, by the fact that, in contrast to the plant, it hardens a part of the inner juices into the bark. The Germanic tribes therefore called their initiated priests druids or oaks, because a part of eternity pulsated in them, protected by the seepage of the glands. - Man must strive to harmonise sympathy and antipathy, to bring them to maturity, not to be sky-high jubilant, to be saddened to death.“ (Lit.:GA 266a, p. 347)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ Pliny the Elder: Naturalis historia 16, 249.
  2. ↑ Diodorus: Bibliotheca historica, 5, 31; Strabo: Geographika, 4, 4, 5
  3. ↑ Julius Cäsar: Commentarii de bello Gallico 6, 13-14.
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