Lesson Seventeen ~ Druids and Magic
Celtic legends are full of accounts of magic and spell-casting ~ magical mists that blind enemies, rains of fire, curses that maim and injure, healing wells, cauldrons that resurrect the dead, people who transform themselves or others into animals etc.
In this chapter we will aim to look at some of the attitudes towards, and philosophies behind the very concept of, magic. First of all, what do we mean by magic? There is no clear-cut answer to this, but generally it can be taken as the ability to cause change in the world by means that currently defy scientific explanation. The means by which the change is instigated usually has no obvious causal link to the change ~ there is no reason yet offered by science as to why chanting particular words should cure a disease, or why wearing an engraved piece of wood should enable the wearer to pass unnoticed.
There are innumerable books which convey the impression that wealth, romance and vibrant health can be had in exchange for prancing about a purple candle at the full moon. Clearly if it were that easy the world would be a far happier place than it currently is. Magic is not easy, and it cannot be learnt in five simple steps for a mere £4.99! Whilst magic can be used to heal or to aid with personal problems, it is perhaps best conceived of as a method of spiritual transformation.
Different cultures have varying stances on the nature and purpose of magic, none of which are mutually exclusive. The Ancient Egyptians held to the doctrine of Heka, the notion that the universe is created by the power of the spoken word. In this belief all things have their Ren, or True Name (distinct from the mundane name used in daily life.) To correctly pronounce the True Name of a person or thing was to create, or perhaps more appropriately recreate, it; to influence, shape and transform. It may well be that the original Druids also held to a similar idea, but if they did it has not survived the passage of time in written form.
What does come across as a dominant theme in Celtic mythology is the importance attached to shape-shifting, often called fath-fith. Whilst the Egyptian magician spoke the universe, the Celt became it. In becoming a hawk, deer etc, the magician experiences life from a profoundly different viewpoint. Faced with a challenge the Druid becomes the thing most suited to deal with it. Whilst the stories treat the changes as physical ones, the modern reader is more likely to comprehend them as psychological change ~ entering a trance state and taking on the identity and mental patterns of another living creature. Clearly such a thing requires a massive amount of mental discipline and practice, and cannot be learnt from some codswallop book or by forking out a small fortune to go on some dire course.
Falling in love, seeing a spectacular waterfall etc are often described as magical experiences ~ meaning there is something wonderful, awe-inspiring and numinous about them. The accomplished worker of ritual magic will know that a ritual also needs to have that aura of profound excitement (or trembling dread, depending on the nature of the magic) about it for it to work. A bland, prosaic ritual will produce no effect worthy of mention. One can but wonder how many people these days find their lives to be magical, wondrous, and mysterious. In 2006 over 31 million prescriptions were written for various anti-depressants and mood enhancing drugs, costing the NHS approximately 411.1 million pounds. Clearly a large number of people find life desperately bland and unhappy. Ritual magic is far more to do with awakening to the glory of life than it is to do with the Hollywood nonsense of lightening bolts flashing out of wands.
Virtually all ancient cultures have accepted the idea that magic is real. There are varied accounts for how it happens, but many feature the idea of some sort of mysterious power or energy that mystics and magicians can tap into. Some cultures see this force as benevolent and positive, others as neutral and morally akin to electricity ~ in that electricity will still work regardless of whether it is being used to power a life-support machine or to torture someone to death. Unfortunately so much of early Celtic philosophy has been lost that we no longer have a complete or reliable picture as to exactly how the early Druids conceived of magical power.
Modern books on magic tend to emphasise ideas heavily influenced by the development of psychology since the work of Freud. Here magic is seen as primarily a matter of self-belief, where the intention of the magician is far more important than the ritual trappings of coloured candles, incense, talismans etc. If the magician believes it will work, then it will ~ regardless of what tools may be used. In this approach, all the candles, robes, herbs etc are basically theatrical window dressing to support what goes on in the magician’s head.
Certainly practical experience shows that placebo is a strong factor in magic, particularly where a problem can largely be solved by putting someone at their ease or trying to achieve a change in mental state ~ spells to make people more confident etc.
A person who believes herself to be ugly and unattractive will behave in ways that discourage contact from others, which will then reinforce the notion that no-one fancies her in the first place. If her self-image changes, then her behaviour is likely to change ~ she will act in a confident, outgoing manner that is likely to attract attention. She may start dressing differently, being more talkative, attending new places etc. Plus she is likely to notice when people are flirting with her, rather than wallowing in self-pity and dismissing friendliness as mere patronising kindness. For such a person, casting a “love spell” may be more a case of transforming her self-image than necessarily of conjuring cosmic forces.
Several ancient cultures believed that some things had their own innate power, independent of the magician. So there is a Germanic story of a man who accidentally caused a woman to fall ill by carving the wrong runes on a talisman ~ regardless of what he intended the talisman to do, the runes worked their own magic.
There is evidence that the insular tribes favoured this approach, regarding certain things (such as trees, rocks, ogam letters etc) as having a power all their own, which the magician could not change or over-ride. The Druid exists in a world full of spirits ~ even if he does not call directly on a god to work a spell, he will be in a particular place whose bocanach may or may not support the spell; may wave a wand that has a sentient spirit; may stand near a bonfire that is alive and watching what goes on etc. All these spirits may choose to help, hinder, or ignore the spell being woven. It would be a foolish Druid who decided to work magic without bothering to first check if the spirits around him were in harmony with his aims.
Can a spell to cure a cancerous tumour be cured by placebo alone? If it could then, arguably, that power would be pretty damned magical in itself. However, most people would suggest that the ability to dispel a tumour requires more than just a bit of nebulous “positive thinking”. It suggests the presence of a very real magical force that can make a measurable change in the body. Various cultures around the world have given this force a name ~ the Far Eastern countries speak of chi or ki, for example. It is uncertain what name the old Druids would have used for this power, assuming they even had such a concept in the first place. A popular term (since the publishing of Iolo Morgannwg’s colourful book Barddas in 1862, which gave the word a new spin) is nwyfre ~ the Welsh word for sky. This is related to the word for holiness and sacred essence. Some have argued that this is due to Christian influence, and the whole child-like idea of Jehovah being up in the clouds (though equally it can be argued that the Christians acquired that idea from Greek religion, given that the storybook idea of Jehovah as an old beardie in a white robe sitting on a cloud derives from Zeus.) However, other linguists have pointed out that the old word nemeton (sacred place) contains the association with sky, suggesting a place open to the air. In one of the versions of the Lebor Gabala, the Tuatha descended from the sky and landed on the Iron Mountain in County Leitrim. Though medieval Christianity heavily influences the Lebor, it forms part of a pattern that suggests an old link between the sky and concepts of sanctity.
There is no suggestion from the old texts that other Welsh writers used the word nwyfre to mean “magic power”, but that is the context that it is increasingly used in these days. In Gaelic the comparable word is neamh.
Some writers prefer to use the word anam, which simply means spirit or soul. Yet others (especially those in OBOD) use the Welsh term awen, or its Gaelic equivalent of ai or imbas. All these words mean poetic inspiration, the sudden flash of the Muse that grants an artistic vision. In the medieval story of Taliesin, awen is actually a potion brewed up by Ceridwen. In the Irish tale of Fionn (with which there are decided resemblances) a similar power comes to the young hero when he accidentally imbibes the juices of the Salmon of Wisdom. Both have the idea of this transcendent force being a liquid, and in both stories it is accidentally consumed rather than going to the person for whom it was intended. This could suggest the use of some sort of concoction, perhaps a hallucinogenic. It might suggest an influence of the Christian notion of Divine Grace, which is visited upon people whether they appear to deserve it or not ~ or it may reflect an older idea that magical talent is transferred in some very curious way, unrelated to the amount of work an individual has put into study etc (a concept that may well appeal to the bone idle student.)
Whatever term you wish to use is largely down to personal preference, given that we have (as yet) no concrete ideas as to what terms the early Druids themselves used. The underlying ideas tend to be rather similar ~ the concept that there is a power that moves through the universe, which can be harnessed by some people who know the arcane techniques and grants them amazing insights and understandings.
The Egyptians regarded Heka as an innate presence within the universe and believed a deity of the same name regulated it. It’s quite possible that one of the Old Gods of the British tribes may once have been regarded as the origin or regulator of this dynamic power that turns gormless farm-boys into Chief Bards.
How a magical force, of whatever name, might work is difficult to say, given that we are only recently beginning to look at magic seriously again. Some of it may be argued as instigating changes in the mind, such as the previously mentioned love spell. Some may be direct changes at a physical level ~ such as the other case of banishing a tumour.
Like most old stories, the Celtic tales reflect magic being used to help or harm. In the latter case, magic is seen to affect people against their will. This clearly raises a raft of ethical issues for modern Druids that have been of less concern in the distant past. The stories suggest that people were largely unconcerned about violating freewill; if it was done to advance ones own tribe against enemy tribes. These days’ people tend to be far less comfortable with such things, and generally speaking few of us are likely to be drawn into “battle magic” situations. Largely due to the twin influences of Christianity and commerce, we have mostly gone beyond tribalism and into a more universalist state of mind.
Most people these days would be uncomfortable working magic which tried to force another person to act against their will. It’s also generally discouraged to use magic that causes outright harm towards another person (though there is plenty of evidence that the ancients thought nothing of asking the Gods to curse their enemies!)
Various styles of magic were used, some of which remained in use down into the Dark Age and Medieval periods when the myths were being written down. One popular sort seems to have been chanted magic, and magic in the form of poetic verse. The spoken word was clearly regarded as having a great deal of power. There are accounts of Druids chanting over people whilst they went into trances.
More dramatic forms of magic involved calling up banks of fog to blind enemies, or raining down storms of fire. Whether anyone ever actually did this, or it was simply the stuff of storytellers, we don’t know. Visiting ravening thirsts on enemies, or preventing them from pissing, also seem to have been quite popular ways of temporarily disabling people.
The accounts of magical healing have been discussed in previous lessons, but stories range from herbal cures through to the re-attachment of severed limbs through chants and spells.
Shape-shifting has already been mentioned, and its importance cannot be emphasised enough. It forms the core of our approach to mysticism ~ transforming ones consciousness into something else, even if only for a short period, in order to learn something that will have a far greater effect later on. The goal of mysticism in some religions is to leave the physical world and its “distractions” behind, often with the implicit notion that the flesh is somehow corrupt and best eschewed. Such an approach sits ill with the passionate, life-embracing peoples described in chapter One. Far from rejecting the world, fath-fith seeks to embrace it in all its diversity, seeks to become bird or beast or tree.
In a related manner, to return to the story of the salmon, some forms of magic (such as the tarbh-feis ritual in which a sacrificed bull was eaten by a Druid who would then commune with its spirit) involve eating a source of magical power. The Druid aims to make the source part of her, either by shape-shifting into it, or by eating it. Some forms of spell involve dissolving barriers in order to unite with a magical force, let it become part of you whilst you (in turn) become part of it.
A useful image to bear in mind is that of a spider’s web. The web is woven by the spider, which sits and waits for flies to land on the web. It senses the vibrations and acts accordingly. Our every action creates a strand of our personal web ~ each person we form a bond to, of love or hate, each place and object and idea we connect with builds up the network of the web. Everyone else is doing the same, so ultimately everything in the universe connects in some way or other to all the other webs. Clairvoyance can be thought of as rather like sensing a fly on the web, picking up on the emotions of someone to whom you are connected. Even the Gods are part of this, and weave their own exceedingly large webs as they go along.
Casting spells can be imagined as the deliberate attempt to weave our webs in a specific way ~ which is one of the reasons why so many spells require either the presence of the person to be effected, or some object linked with them. Where the link is weak, the spell will be ineffectual. The web, of course, is a two-way device. If you can sense and influence people to whom you are connected, then they can sense and influence you.
Of course, being a Druid doesn’t make it compulsory that you have to cast three spells a fortnight. However, even if you no interest in ever working magic yourself, it’s a good idea to understand how it works and the ways other people might use it.
Some questions for you to think about:
If a person doesn’t know a spell has been cast on them, will it still work? If they know, but think it’s all a load of rubbish, will that make them immune?
Is there a situation in which it might be acceptable to use magic to force someone to act against his or her own wishes? What are the ethics of binding spells?
Do some creatures, plants, objects etc have their own innate magical force? What happens if a magician tries to use some object in a spell that goes against the nature of the object?
Practical exercise:
Find somewhere quiet to meditate. Visualise a huge snake with the horns of a ram curling from its brow. The snake is coiled-up asleep but, as you watch, will begin to stir and lift its head. The eyes open, the tongue flickers. Try to be conscious of how you feel as the creature moves and shifts. It is of no threat to you and, having awoken for a few minutes, will then return to sleep.
Whilst engaging in this exercise, you may feel the urge to chant, sing, clap a beat with your hands, or do various other activities. Go with the flow, and see how the sensation of this creature awakening takes you.