Customer Reviews

The Solitary Druid: A Practitioner's Guide

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I don't know what book the first reviewer read, but he doesn't seem to have even vaguely grasped what The Solitary Druid is about.

Ellison lays out the basics of Celtic Paganism in a scholarly yet accessible way. He supports each of his assertions about Druidic beliefs and practices with citations from ancient sources and from archeology, and lays it all out in an outline that allows students to get started immediately with a Druidic spirituality.

Far from being duotheistic, the book gives advice for constructing your Druidic pantheon of worship based on the realities of the local land, and the spirits proper to each individual worshipper.

From there, he presents a full system of Druidic ritual, as used in Ar nDraiocht Fein - about as far from a Wiccan form as one could get. It involves offering to the Gods & Spirits, divining their blessing, and then receiving that blessing. Ellison gives solitary rituals for each of the Celtic holy days (and for the solstices and equinoxes), as well as ideas for Druidic funderal and wedding rites.
There is a section on spells and practical magic as well, and the book ends with a listing of every Druidic group and order of any size at all.

This is a valuable resource - one of the very first books on Druidry drawn from a non-wiccan, scholarly perspective, adapted to practical use. Highly recommended.

Let's face it. Thanks to the pagan revival of the last decades, most of us Druids now live in areas where there is at least a small pagan community. However, if you are like me, your pagan community features many Wiccans and eclectics, but no Druids other than yourself. Robert Ellison has given us an indespensible guide to the Druidic mysteries as he has experienced them and through scholarship providing us with a guidebook of rituals, book suggestions and networking ideas. My copy was dog-eared within a week and I don't think I could live without it.

I just finished this book! I have been a practicing "Grovie" i.e. actively involved in a public grove since 1999. I am transitioning to solitary due to family health issues. I can tell you that the rituals in Skip's book are powerful and effective. The history is well research and accuratly cited. The chapter on divination is great too. What I would say is underemphasized is the importance of mental dicipline and meditation, take that as a suggestion for further study!
All in all, this should be manditory reading for all Druids, not just solitarys.

This truly is an introduction into the path of the druid. Mr. Ellison truly lays it out well for those that are just starting out or are working on their own. I've been following this path for awhile now, so I must admit that I was already familiar with some of the information presented, but the info that I wasn't familiar with helped me out so much!

Especially when it comes to daily devotionals and opening the gates. At the time I was wondering how to open the gates in a quick yet meaningful way without making it into a full blown ritual. He presents a very nice one in his book. I have actually taken quite a few of his ideas for my own devotions.

I must say that when I saw the first review made for this book, I was astonished! I actually took a look at that reviewer's review history and I have seen that almost every single one was negative. With such high standards, you'd assume that the guy would suck it up and write his own book up to his level. *note sarcasm*

Although Ellison's The Solitary Druid may contain many basic facts about druids and modern druidic practice, the way in which he organizes and presents this material makes this book practically useless. The most comprehensive, coherent and helpful chapters of this book deal with his discussion of the eight yearly holidays, in which he provides Celtic myths and deities appropriate to the more traditionally Wiccan themes already well established for each celebration. In these two chapters he also presents a general outline for ritual structure (which, yes, is markedly different from Wiccan rituals); unfortunately, a reader must wade through a large amount of repetition before getting a feel for the practices themselves.

The first several chapters of this book are highly disorganized, often attempting to clarify one idea by referring casually and haphazardly to other ideas or activities that have not even been discussed yet, only adding to the reader's sense of confusion. (There are also a glaring number of typos and grammatical/syntactical mistakes in the writing itself.)

Considering Ellison's own emphasis on the scholarship and creative artistry of the druid path, this book shows very little of either. It's scholarly work is bumbling at best, merely citing out-of-context references and "facts" from various sources in repetitive list form without making any attempt to draw general conclusions or theories of relevance. For example, his use of citations to support modern sexual practices (many of which are, even out of context, clearly accusing the Celtic culture of barbarism in the form of child-abuse and rape) belies a very shallow understanding of analytical scholarship and historical research.

If you are looking for insight into the history of the druids, this book is beyond worthless. If you are interested in pursuing druidism as a spiritual practice, there are many sources available which present the same material in a much more comprehensive and practical way. With the exception of the chapters on holiday ritual and the final chapter listing various druid networks and resources, this book is not worth the price. Ellison may be a good group leader and in-person teacher, but he is clearly neither a scholar nor a writer.

Update: Books that I would recommend as alternatives to this one:
- books by Emma Restall Orr (in particular Living Druidry, and Ritual)
- The Druidry Handbook, by John Michael Greer
- Essential Guide to Druidism, by Isaac Bonewits
- books by John and/or Caitlin Matthews (in particular, Walkers Between the Worlds)

I bought this book near the beginning of my journey in ADF Druidry and it has been an incredible resource and aid to me ever sense.

The chapters on meditation alone, for those of you pursuing the Two Powers type meditation done in ADF, are worth the cost of the book. As a Dedicant Path mentor and Grove Organizer within ADF I recommend this book to every new student and seeker I come across.

Yes, this is a book about ADF (Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship) style Druidry, though I believe much that is here would be relevant to other Neopagan Druids, and not about revival Druidry. No where in this book does Mr. Ellison claim that this is the "only way" to do Druidry or that the ADF way is superior to any other path as has been claimed by other commenters.

Easy to read, enjoyable, interesting, and very highly recommended.

I am a witch, not a druid, but I found several points of interest for myself in this book. He includes several very nice prayers for working with nature spirits, spirits of place, and the Fair Folk. He gives useful instructions for finding your local gods, the gods of local rivers and land features. He gives useful help on working with the Ancestors. These items are casually glossed over in many books on Wicca or Witchcraft, but not really explained, or given suggestions for.

I did enjoy this books section on the Druid holidays and ritual. Although the ritual format is a tad dry, it gives many solitary practitioner's a starting point, which I'm sure was the author's intention. The reason I give it only three stars is because the rest of the book was laid out and organized kind of poorly, and I didn't walk away from this book with a huge amount of new information. It also covers only the ADF perspective, which is one of many. I would recommend reading it though, if you are interested in ADF style Druidry.

I found this book to be quite narrow in its perspective of Druidry, and if I was new to the study of the Druid path, I think it might have even turned me away. I feel that Ellison promotes his style of practice as a doctrine - that this is "the best" way to do everything. I also found his presentation of historic Celtic lifestyles, such as homosexuality and polyamory to be interesting, but inappropriately placed at the very beginning of the book. I am not new to these lifestyles by any means, but it almost gave a feeling like he was recruiting/promoting them. I don't think of the ADF as a sex cult, but presenting this as early as he did, with several links included, made me wonder.
If you are looking for an entry-level book on the modern revival druid movement, I think you would gain more unbiased information in a more readable format from Greer's "The Druidry Handbook".
Many blessings on your quest.

I will begin by saying this is a good intro to druidism. It is authored by a high ranking member of ADF, one of America's largest druid groups. It has some really good information. My downsids of why this was brought from five stars are:
The last almost third of the book is about groups, which would be fine, if the title was different, in my opinion. Personally, I also wonder if a "druid" alone would be a "druid" or if they would simply be another title such as bard, ovate, seer, or along those lines following on the same path. This is not an insult, it is just to me a druid is a result of many years of long term study and practice, and they also historically are also qualified to teach. Otherwise, this book has good foundational practice, and seems to have good historical research.