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Druids in various parts of Ireland and Britain have reported such sites being home to a "Spirit of the Place" residing there. [91] Many Druids also believe that such sites are centres of earth energy and lie along ley lines in the landscape. [92] These are ideas that have been adopted from Earth mysteries writers like John Michell. [93]
In that among the Persians there existed the Magi, and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaei, among the Indians the Gymnosophistae, and among the Celts and Gauls men who were called druids and semnothei, as Aristotle relates in his book on magic, and Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Succession of Philosophers.
Pliny's account has largely contributed to the popular depiction of druids today, as white-clad wise men performing sacrifices in the forests and equipped with golden sickles. [9] Chateaubriand incorporated a dramatized version of Pliny's scene in his Les Martyrs, in which the druidess Veleda plays a part. [3]
Some Neo-druid groups call anyone with an interest in Celtic spirituality a "druid", and refer to the practice of any Celtic-inspired spirituality as "druidry", [35] while reconstructionist groups usually regard "druid" as a culturally-specific office requiring long training and experience, only attained by a small number of practitioners, and ...
There is "considerable disagreement as to the precise definition and the proper usage" of the term modern paganism. [6] Even within the academic field of pagan studies, there is no consensus about how contemporary paganism can best be defined. [7] Most scholars describe modern paganism as a broad array of different religions, not a single one. [8]
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
The Druid Network was created in 2003 to help its members and those in society understand and practice Druidry as a religion. "Its practitioners revere their deities, most often perceived as the most powerful forces of nature (such as thunder, sun and earth), spirits of place (such as mountains and rivers), and divine guides of a people (such as Brighid, Rhiannon and Bran)."
The right half of the front panel of the 7th-century Franks Casket, depicting the Anglo-Saxon (and wider Germanic) legend of Wayland the Smith. Anglo-Saxon paganism, sometimes termed Anglo-Saxon heathenism, Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian religion, Anglo-Saxon traditional religion, or Anglo-Saxon polytheism refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th ...