The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual [Paperback]

Alexei Kondratiev (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2003

This is an essential exploration of Celtic magic, history, and myth for Pagans and Christians alike.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Citadel (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806525029
• ISBN-13: 978-0806525020
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #509,908 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent antidote, December 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Apple Branch (Paperback)

Kondratiev's name may be Russian, but his heart is Celtic for sure based on this text. It's a wonderful antidote to the nonsense being perpetuated by poseurs such as McCoy, Stepanich, and Monroe. He encourages the reader to actually understand the Celts as they were and are as part of their spiritual and cultural growth, and his research and clarity of understanding shines through on every page. It's useable by Pagans and Christians alike, making it even stronger. This may be the first book targeting Celtic Pagans that I've seen which has a recommend from a professor of Irish folklore (Daithi O hOgain at University College Dublin), and it's well-deserved.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rare treasure for seekers on a Celtic path, April 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual (Paperback)

As I read this book, I felt I had found a rare treasure I had been seeking for a very long time. Alexei Kondratiev has created a textbook of Celtic spirituality and ritual that rings with authenticity and meaning.

It begins with a clear and fascinating description of what is known of the history of the early Celts, including their class of priests and bards, the Druids, and what is understood of their culture. The author makes plain how much is not known about these people, who, until long after the early flowering of their culture, left almost no written records; yet, based on later writings, archaological evidence, and a deep study of the six surviving Celtic languages and the people who speak them, he manages to elucidate much about the world view of this ancient culture, focused on the connection and tension between Tribe and Land, the oscillation of all existence between polar opposites, and the Otherworldly influences that shape this world.

Then he lays out an exciting and beautiful pattern of ritual for use by anyone who feels the powerful pull of these ideas; our connection with the natural world, and an affinity for the mystical and enchanting spirituality that still haunts the Celtic psyche in the world today. These rituals, based on the ancient seasonal festivals, the cycles of the natural and agricultural year, and the waxing and waning of the moon, Mr. Kondratiev invests with a depth of meaning, connectedness, and purpose that surpasses anything else I've found.

One thing I love about this book is the very high quality of Mr. Kondratiev's writing, in a field where good writing is amazingly rare. With great clarity and beauty, he reveals his own deep and passionate identification with the Celtic spiritual world, and he lights up an inviting path for seekers who wish to penetrate more deeply into that world.

67 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good and Bad All Wrapped Into One, June 5, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual (Paperback)

Kondratiev's work The Apple Branch is well worth reading for many reasons. Let me say that from the beginning, because I did like this book, but it has some big problems too. It was rather difficult for me to rate this book because certain sections deserve 5 stars, and other areas and points emphasized in the book really only get a 2. Likewise, portions of the book really deserve more than 5 stars, and other aspects of the book drop off the meter and don't even deserve a 1. With that said my comments are these. On the upside, read Chapter One, the Tale of the Celts, because it really is excellent. It is historically accurate, well-researched, and lacks the typically over-romanticized nonsense that so many Celtic books today seem plauged by. I think he depicts these Celtic cultural evolutions in a balanced light, from the imbalanced conquest-minded Celtic warriors, to the imperialism of Rome, to some Gaulish tribes aligning with Rome, and others fighting valiantly against it. Kondratiev also does not commit the neo-Celtic fantasy that all Celts were unified, or all somehow upset and overturned by the arrival of Christianity. He makes a convincing arguement as to the survival of Celtic consciousness within Christian tradition and mysticism of today. Something about the way Kondratiev writes in this section on history, and when he gets specific about traditions themselves, really brings the full scope of Celtic history alive. The downside of the book is the absurdity I found in the author's thesis on linguistic emphasis for cultural and spiritual experience or relevance. No one practicing Celtic spirituality or involved with their Celtic culture would deny the value or importance of learning (or learning about) the native tongue of one's ancestors and culture, but Kondratiev makes the suggestion that WITHOUT learning a Celtic language that one cannot truly claim to be involved with Celtic spirituality or Celtic culture. This is, of course, ridiculous. It's like saying one must learn Hebrew to becoming a practicing Christian, or Aramaic to be able to think like a Christian. In similar fashion, it is like saying that one must learn Japanese to master Karate, Aikido, or to experience the deep spiritual wellsprings from practicing Chanoyu, the Way of Tea--things that even the Japanese will say are guided by a larger indefinable spirit behind all things that doesn't speak Japanese. When this author settles in on something, such as Irish or Welsh cosmology, and really dives deep, he is excellent in his treatment of the subject, but all too often he bubbles back up into the domain of the silly--"let's create a pan-Celtic movement where at our rituals we blend Anglo-Saxon Wicca with Celtic ritual and try to speak Welsh, Irish, and Breton all in the same ritual." There is a great deal of value in the book. Read it. But be prepared for the shifting thesis of the book, and the inability of the author to acknowledge spiritual/transpersonal/mystical realities that exist beyond, before, and outside of the domain of linguistics. The parts that are good are GREAT. The parts putting forth a "Path of Celtic Ritual" are strangely schizophrenic, presenting a fundamentalist leaning regarding language (note: most Irish, Welsh, and Scots people are not fluent in our languages, yet we do work with the spirits of place in the lands where we live), while taking rather bizarre and typically neo-Celtic liberties with ideas of a pan-Celtic spiritual movement. The creation of such a phenomenon on a spiritual level is, ironically, very un-Celtic.