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Celtism
A Brief Essay
Roy E Edwards

When Rome destroyed the Celts, what knowledge yet remained went underground, and like a hidden river flowed on down through generation after generation, century after century. You might think much was lost, but it was not, though I doubt many scholars would agree with that. To the world at large Celtism was seemingly lost forever, thereby paving the way for scholars throughout the western world to cite various Roman and Greek sources as the founts of all knowledge concerning Celtism; of which, said sources actually knew very little.
Celts and Druidry are often spoken of as though they are divisible, they are not! Celtism and Druidry are one and the same, that is to say, one does not exist in the absence of the other. Druidry is the discipline of Celtism. Celtism is essentially a way of thought, a way of viewing, of conducting, of moving through life, that for centuries if not thousands of years was uniquely Celtic. Druidry affording the discipline necessary to those who wished to “come to knowing” on a deeper, more profound level of Celtism. The difficulty today, is that one is hardly likely to acquire much of anything to do with Celtism through study of various works pertaining to Druidry, based on specious argument promulgated by or from the same old Greek and Roman sources. How then, one may well ask, does one locate other sources, the very sources that seemingly disappeared so many hundreds of years ago? For now, I merely offer the suggestion that other far more credible sources do indeed exist! However, I hasten to add, such sources though steeped in Celtism from birth, do not offer any set patterns of ritual or prayer other than to afford at this point in time, the suggestion that neither rite, ritual or prayer was ever, during ancient times set in stone; such were always fluid in their application, open and responsive to change, to ones ongoing spiritual maturity, ones Celtism. The spiritually mature cannot help but display certain traits, and by their actions alone were they deemed worthy or otherwise words were deemed unnecessary. Words say what you think yourself to be, action however displayed what you show yourself to be. The idea being, display of more right actions than wrong indicates ones forward motion along the path toward spiritual maturity. The question remaining, what is right action?
Today the old language is no longer in use, and may very well pose a hindrance if it was. Of those who claim to study the Celtic language, few actually understand what it is they study. When the Romans came, knowledge went underground and to all intents and purposes the Celtic language became redundant, therefore we no longer study the ancient tongue. Surviving Celts though often brutalised, were nonetheless Romanised, to a greater or lesser degree, little remained. The concept of Celtism however survived; spiritual in nature and expression, it survived and continues to do so, adapting as needed to meet the needs of our ever changing world.
Today the word spirit is a familiar, well used word. The meaning of which most everyone knows. One might almost say the word had just about been battered to death. What, however remains almost unknown, is that the word spirit and attendant connotations thereof, as it is now known was originally an introduced Romanisation, designed, so to speak, to negate the Celtism of the word. That one word alone requiring deep study before one grasped the holistic nature in what it actually represents. The meaning of the word is not contained in any dictionary I know of, all you will find there is the Romanised definition. Druidry then is the actual discipline, intrinsic to the idea of Celtism, that enables one to ‘come to knowing’ and thereby embrace the profundity of Celtism as it is viewed in relation to self and one’s very real connecting links to the earth and by extension the universe. Druidry has nothing to do with magic or enchantments, spells or potions. It does however have everything to do with a holistic world view, the very Celtism of the cosmos so to speak. The odd thing is (or not as the case may be) there are people out there in the big, wide world who might just know more than many may wish to believe, they just don’t talk about much of what they know, and suffer from no peer elitist compulsion to do so.