Druids were the mythical, magical, mysterious priests of pre-historic, pre-Christian, Celtic Ireland, Scotland and Western Europe .  The Druids’ triple vow was to Truth, Peace and Secrets.

Druidism was virtually replaced by Christianity by the 5^th Century AD.  Druids were the ‘snakes’ the Christian Saint Patric drove out of Ireland .  He denigrated them as ‘snakes’ because of the serpentine stone, called a Druid’s Foot, that they wore around their necks as a sign of office, like a Catholic priest’s crucifix.

Julius Caesar wrote the only contemporary ‘history’ of Druidism in the 1^st Century BCE .  He emphasized their frequent, gruesome and terrifying human sacrifices.   His history is likely less than fair.  His enormous, well-trained and expensively equipped army had been badly hurt by the terrorist tactics of the nearly naked, seemingly unorganized, and insanely savage Celts.  Although he eventually subjugated the Celts of Gaul and Anglicia, he just plain gave up on gold-rich Ireland, beauty-rich Wales, and whisky-rich Scotland.

Oral histories of the Celtic folk and their Bards, kept in their tradition of lilting, long and poetic cycles of tales, probably saved a far truer, culturally at least, sense of Druids, Ireland and Celts generally than did any written histories, especially Caesar’s.  But still there was that human sacrifices reputation.

The Celtic Renaissance of the 19^th Century AD resuscitated the then moribund Irish Gæliċ tongue and bore renewed interest in Irish culture, history and myths that had suffered suffocating sanctions under the English colonial occupation.  For the first time since Saint Patric there was wide-spread interest in finding and preserving Druidic epic tales, relics, and rites, even if only as folk art.

Ronald Reagan, then President, declared America to be a ‘Christian country’ in AD 1984.  This outraged some civil libertarians, including an old hippie named Tim who lived in bohemian Venice Beach , California , which was already a religious polyglot with Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists living comfortably with Muslims, Jews and Scottish Presbyterians.  Venice Beach was ripe for the rebirth of a pre-historic pagan religion, and more importantly the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom demanded it!

America was originally a pagan, not a Christian country, the Future Druid Tim saw, while meditating under a California-style Bodhi Tree.  (Actually it was a palm tree, and he was hallucinating on mushrooms, but the point is about the same.)  After all, one of America ’s first flags, during the Revolution against English colonialism, had thirteen stripes and a snake!  Thirteen was a mystical number, if not to Druids per se, at least to neo-pagan wiccans, and what said ‘Druid’ more that the very snakes the Roman Catholic Saint Patric had so famously driven out of Ireland .

Roman Catholics seemed an apt symbolic foil for a reincarnated Druidic sect, and the oft silly American history of religious reform, schism and ludicrous invention provided endless fodder for foolish but fun lampoonery.  The idea of special glasses and a book of gold was dismissed because being pre-historic sort of eliminated the possibility of having a book.  But old Martin Luther’s anti-Catholicism seemed a promising source of parody, and there was that human sacrifice thing to deal with.

Holy Alder Day, May 4^th, AD 1985 , the American Reformed* Irish Druid sect was born when now Druid Tim, in a burlesque parody of Martin Luther, nailed 1 Thesis* to an oak tree in the oldest non-Catholic cemetery in the region with Europeans buried in it.  It is in Rosemead , across the street from Rosemead High, which is actually in Temple City , so we dubbed our first grove the Temple City Druidic Temple in Rosemead .  Holy Alder Day, incidentally, is a Roman Catholic holiday, but since it venerates a tree it seemed the right day to steal for tree-loving neo-Druids.  Also, Holy Alder Day corresponds to the ancient Druidic holiday of Beltaine, the beginning of the Celtic Summer.  The Catholics call Vatican City their Holy See, so we called Venice Beach our Holy Sea .  Membership revolves around 3.

Patron saints seemed so Catholic that the AR*ID sect has a patron tree instead.  It is the existentially named California Live Oak.  It only grows in the 3 Californias :  Alta California , Baja California del Norte and del Sur.  That makes the AR*ID sect ‘local,’ but then pagan religions are all essentially local anyway.  And, too, 3 just seems to pop up in everything Irish or Druidic: shamrocks, vows, membership, even the triple Goddess.

Parodies of Catholics, Lutherans and Scientologists were just the beginning.  The AR*ID sect published a newspaper, THE AMERICAN DRUID MONITOR, poking respectful fun at Christian Scientists.  In the same spirit we appointed the Grateful Dead the ‘Druid Tabernacle Choir.’  We never knew how the Dead felt about this, but we did send them with a copy of THE AMERICAN DRUID MONITOR.  At their next show Bob Weir wore a t-shirt with a snake on it! 

Traditionally our mythic history is only passed on orally, in eloquent, epic, effluences of song.  Of course, this pre-historic cannon comes from a Time and Place when there was no writing except the Secret Ogham writings of the Druids.  That is want ‘pre-historic’ means.  Still we have vowed not to write, print, cut, carve, hew, hack, etch, letter, engrave, text or html our poetic, cycles of tales on anything.  To hear our songs you must listen.

By the way, there never were snakes in Ireland .  The Saint Patric story is a lie.