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A Celtic priestly class in Britain and Europe during the first centuries BC and AD, the Druids were widely known as visionaries and prophets. They were also thought to preach a doctrine of reincarnation believing in the immortality of the soul, which, after death, travelled to the underworld, entered a new body and lived again on earth.

The Druids followed pagan traditions of nature and goddess worship and possessed knowledge of magic, healing, astronomy and sacred geometry. Druid means ‘knowing the oak tree’ in Gaelic and the robust oak tree was sacred to the Druids. Their reverence for tree wisdom is expressed in their alphabet, the Ogham, which consists of different tree symbols each embodying the elemental wisdom of the particular plant.

The Romans feared the Celts and found their rituals - some of which may have included human sacrifice - ignorant and barbaric. In AD 43 Druidism was banned and the sacred oak demolished, plunging the European Celts into decline (although those at the margins of the Roman Empire, for example in Ireland and Scotland, survived). Interest in the Druids was not renewed until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when they were romanticized in literature. The Ancient Order of Druids was formed by British carpenter Henry Hurle in 1781 and other groups followed. There are modern Druids in the UK and US today.

Becoming a Druid means a lifetime of study through three levels to reach spiritual awareness. The first level is that of the Bard. Bards learn to understand the creative and magical power of sound. The second level is that of Ovate, where the student learns to alter their consciousness using methods such as astral travel. The third level is that of the Druid, and when this level is achieved the student is considered a master of his or her craft with the power to divine the future and access the power of nature.