The All Of Magic

Magic is one of the most misunderstood, sometimes feared concepts in our history. Fear is only another word for ignorance. The first evidence of magical practice - most likely Druidry - goes back over 25,000 years, where the survivors of the Ice Age carried their traditions from Russia and Persia to Europe and the British Isles. There are monuments and cave paintings revealing that initiates would crawl into a darkened place - usually a cave or mound built for this purpose, and stay in darkness for several days, where they were totally deprived of all their senses. This practice is symbolic of entering the womb of the Goddess and being born again as a child of light.

The second period, 20,000 years later in around 3,000 BCE, is where we see the same practice of seeking rebirth within the Earth where great megalithic mounds were built - a good example being at New Grange in Ireland, where a shaft of light is oriented to the Winter Solstice sunrise, so that the dawn rays can bathe the initiate in sunlight after their journey through the night. Stone Henge was constructed around this time, where a shaft of light touches the center stone at mid winter.

This initiation process was also practiced in the pyramids of Egypt, where there is undeniable evidence suggesting that visitors from Orion passed on their advanced technology and geometric knowledge of how the universe and life etc. all works. The culture demonstrated considerable knowledge of astronomy, advanced technology and engineering skills including geometric knowledge beyond even today's understanding. Most of the Egyptian head-busts depict a race of people with enlarged Pineal and pointed ears, scientifically proven to be not of our genetic imprint.

Four and a half thousand years later, in the sixteenth century the key text of Druid spirituality, translated by Christian scribes, talks about the magical training of a Druid, in which the initiate is eaten by a Goddess, enters her belly, and is reborn as the greatest poet of the land. (The Romance of Taliesin). At this point the oral tradition was recorded and reveals a highly sophisticated religious system, with three types of Druids: The Bards, who knew the songs and stories of the tribe, the Ovates, who were the healers and seers and the Druids who were the intellectual elite, the philosophers, judges and teachers.

With the coming of Christianity, we enter the third period where most of the Druids were said to be converted to the new religion. But what people fail to understand is the resilience of spiritual teachings, when they are encoded in myth and stories and it is thanks to the early Christian scribes for recording these tales that we can be inspired by them today. This period lasted for a thousand years from the triumph of Christianity over all of Europe by the sixth century to the sixteenths century. Even St. Patrick, who was sainted for eradicating the 'snakes' (Druids) from Ireland, managed to record all of the old Druid laws before he did, with invaluable information of the ethics and social structure of Christian Celtic culture.