John Michael Greer
Ancient Order of Druids in America

The Gnostic Celtic Church

 
The Gnostic Celtic Church has chosen to establish what was once called a regular clergy, as distinct from a secular clergy - that is to say, something much closer to monks than to ministers. This was the core model for clergy in the old Celtic Church in Ireland, Wales, Brittany, and other Celtic nations, in the days before the Roman papacy imposed its rule on the lands of Europe's far west. Members of the Celtic clergy were monks first and foremost, living lives focused on service to the Divine rather than the needs of a congregation, and those who functioned as priests for local communities did so as a small portion of a monastic lifestyle that embraced many other dimensions. In all Gnostic traditions, personal religious experience is the goal that is set before each aspirant and the sole basis on which questions of a religious nature can be answered - certain teachings have been embraced as the core values from which the Gnostic Celtic Church as an organization derives its broad approach to spiritual issues. Those core teachings may be summarized in the words "Gnostic, Universalist, and Pelagian" which are described in this book. Starseed Publications

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The Druid Grove Handbook

 
Since its origins in the early eighteenth century, Druidry - a modern movement of nature spirituality drawing much of its inspiration from Celtic tradition-has evolved a rich body of ceremonial and collective practice. Celebrated privately within groves this body of lore provides a ritual framework for the celebration of the seasonal cycle and the spiritual development of the individual. To this wealth of tradition, The Druid Grove Handbook is one of the few publicly available sources. Compiled from the records of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), and edited by the AODA's current Grand Archdruid, widely read author and environmental blogger John Michael Greer, it provides a detailed survey of the evolution of AODA's ceremonial traditions, and the complete rituals for opening and closing a Druid grove, initiating candidates for membership, and celebrating the solstices and equinoxes, the four primary holy days of the traditional Druid year. Starseed Publications.

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The Druid Revival Reader

 
In the midst of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, a handful of British intellectuals turned their backs on the social and cultural trends of their time and set out to reinvent the spirituality of the ancient Druids. The movement that rose out of this effort played a central role in struggles for cultural identity in most of the Celtic nations of Europe, provided inspiration to such world-class creative talents as William Blake and Frank Lloyd Wright, and inspired an innovative tradition of Western nature spirituality that remains active to this day.

The Druid Revival Reader provides the first collection of original writings from that movement. Its selections, beginning with William Stukeley's survey of Druid theology from 1743 and ending with Ross Nichols' 1947 essay "An Examination of Creative Myth," cover two centuries in the life of an evolving tradition. Edited and introduced by contemporary Druid John Michael Greer, The Druid Revival Reader is essential for understanding the sources of modern Druid and Pagan traditions, and offers a wealth of insights relevant to the ecological and spiritual crises of our own time. Starseed Publications.

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