Customer Reviews

The Druid Way: A Journey Through an Ancient Landscape

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Once again, Philip Carr-Gomm is NOT an anthropologist and hisbooks are NOT about the ancient druids. Druidry is a modern beliefwith only occasional ties to events/beliefs of 2000 years ago, just as modern Christianity is.

I finished this book with a feeling of peace, it was almost a meditation to read it. However, I got very little practical information out of it. I certainly don't feel that it is "a complete description of the Druid Way." The comments by the author are closer to the book than the "synopsis" is. Wonderfully written, this book brings together a stroll around the countryside with the grief of a loss of a friend to show a path to enlightenment through the power and beauty of the earth.

...if you want to know about ancient druids, check out "The Druids" by Stuart Piggot or "The Celts" by T. G. E. Powell. The fact of the matter is the historical druids committed very little to paper until after they were assimilated into the Culdee church. And that all had the taint of Christianity on it.

The religion practiced by the ancient Celts and their priests the Druids, is and will always be a mystery. It is sad to see people wishing, hoping, and praying that they could defy logic and physics and go back in time figuratively or otherwise and follow "Druidism." The sad truth is they would probably tell the Druids they were not worshipping or performing their rites in a historically accurate way either! What these folks believe actually happened is just pure fantasy. They have no crystal ball into the past and are just as at a loss as the historians and archeologists investigating the ancient Celts using scientific means.

The fact is Druidry is a modern manifestation and at best based upon guesses at what the ancient Celtic religion was. Philip makes no bones about it. He is not saying in any of his texts that what he is presenting is the unchanged religion of the Celts. Would we or could we really follow the ancient religion in its entirety today? Do we have the same exact needs, hopes, or world-views? A great deal of history has happened since then.

What Philip does provide is another spiritual path or way for the modern individual; the Druid Way. The Druid Way is not an ancient religion brought out of context for a modern age but a modern look at an ancient religion which can be of use and import for us today.

I have researched the ancient Celts extensively and yet this book is one of my favourites! It is a very enjoyable read.

This is a carefully crafted and well presented summary of the Druid tradition that traces its' evolution from its' ancient origins to its' current somewhat eclectic modern day form. The book takes us on a remarkable journey through the sacred landscape of southern Britain led by a person who is uniquely aware of both its' recent and past history . The book is accurate, highly readable, and entertaining.

Though not jam-packed with information, Philip Car-Gomm takes the reader on an immense emotional and spiritual journey through the eyes of the modern pagan druid. An authority in the field, he weaves together basic concepts through his story, and even throws in other chapters merely describing them. For the novice to druidry, bard, anyone interested in druidry, or even the advanced, this book is an excellent read.

The Druid Way depicts a fantastic journey in which the reader shares as the author, current Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids (OBOD) Richard Philip Carr-Gomm, weaves physical experience with those from the other side of dual, or bi-level awareness. I was left positively enthralled when I first read it, feeling I was also ''living'' every step of the journey. The resulting odyssey contains lessons for us all.

I have been studing the druid path for 11 yrs and this book is one of the best i have read so far

Length:: 2:09 Mins

Great book about a druids journey in discovering his relationship with deity. Includes rituals too!

Philip Carr-Gomm's intelligence - not unlike Andrew Harvey's - has a bright, mercurial and energizing quality that immediately stimulates interest and attention. Far superior to a rote historical study, his book is an experiential pilgrimage, a first-hand account that could only be charted by someone as sufficiently steeped in the ideas from the inside of his skin as is Philip. And here is where it begins: high on the downlands above Lewes on the South Downs Way, as he stands on Itford Hill at the outset of his circular journey of excursion and return. From here, in twenty-one chapters, he unfolds a compelling narrative that is both story and exploration, memory and discourse, homily and lyric exposition, coloured with his own immediate psychic perception.
`I plead very guilty to being indeed my own ancestor', as Nuinn is quoted in the book...and what is everywhere present here is the presence of the past that the whole landscape resonates, and that Philip unearths, naming original place names, tracking lost paths gone to grass and cut through by our present roads - and he does so with a sense of detail reminiscent of Gilbert White, though his canvas is larger.
Jay Ramsay

This whole book is a delight. It is the diary of a sacred journey, through sacred space, and through the heart and mind, as well as a useful practical guide to the countryside and its associations and history. It is a book to use and to keep and to remember.
Asphodel

If your looking for a book on druidry, you may find this book a little dissapointing. This book is a book that analises man's place on earth, his problems and emotions using some druidic concepts. It is not on druidry, although it could function as an introduction to the concept. This is a very good book and I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested on what has happened to man's relationship with nature.