If you do a Google search for druidry, you are as likely to find modern-day discussions of ancient Celtic healing practices as you are to learn the latest tactics for druid characters in an online video game or Dungeons & Dragons. There is as much mystique that surrounds the ancient Celts’ polytheistic priests as there is research being done and archaeological digs going on today about their practices.
Ancient Celtic healing is a mixture of spiritual context and medicinal practices, that can help us learn more about how complementary medicine today can benefit us all.
Who were the Celts? How did the Celts heal? And, what was the role of druidry in Celtic life?
Let us review these questions and how they may help us in our modern integrative medicine.
Many Celtic Languages, Fewer Celtic People | Ancient Celtic Healing
If you travel to parts of Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Scotland, you can see the vestiges of the ancient language of the Celts spoken in Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and so on. Historians, linguists and anthropologists see the Celtic family of languages as one of the oldest in existence, dating back to possibly the Neolithic Period. In the Iron Age, regional trade prompt the greater European peoples to develop a lingua franca for all these trading groups and this is how Celtic languages are seen, in context, today. The people who refer to themselves as Celts are a much smaller group than how we define “Celtic” in terms of language.
In that way, the ancient Celtic healing practices are a melange of cultural exchanges and spiritual practices passed down through generations.
Celts and Herbalism | Ancient Celtic Healing
When you speak of the Celts, images of Stonehenge and Pentre Ifan appear in your mind. These stone arrangements of megalithic builders are sprinkled throughout Great Britain and speak to the mythos of Celts.
What we know about the Celts is that they start to coalesce in 1200 BCE, flourish in the 800-450’s BCE, and a cultural and linguistic commonalities that begin to break apart around the 6th century.
During this period, Celts develop a deep spiritual and physical connection to the land. This is possibly because they migrated from all over the region and finally find themselves settling down and cultivating the land on which they live. As the Celts learn about their land, they develop a central set of healing practices using the plants around them, and Celtic herbalism is born. Some of these make it into the Anglo-Saxon healing practices, but the importance here is that these foragers-turned-farmers cultivated plant-based medicine through trial-and-error. Today, we can learn from their herbalism to benefit us in integrative medicine.
Druids, Druidry and Health | Ancient Celtic Healing
Of course, no discussion of ancient Celtic healing practices is complete without the druids. Who are the druids? What is druidry? Druids are a role in the intellectual class of Celtic societies (separate from the other two classes–warrior aristocracy and plebeians), that covered a wide variety of spiritual and communal responsibilities, including priest, poet, healer, judge, political advisor, officiant and more.
In this way, druidry is about observing and passing along the history of the Celtic peoples (orally, as their doctrine forbids the written form for druidic practices). This includes its medicines, and medical and ritual practices, communicated down through the ages from druid to druid.
The Celtic peoples believe in hundreds of deities that possess natural powers (e.g., flowing of a river) and practical skills (e.g., archery or blacksmithing), some known only to a tribe or small region. This belief leads the druids to perform ritual sacrifices to those gods and goddesses for health and restoration of balance when someone falls ill.
But, frequently misunderstood about the druids is that they embrace meditation for well-being, and herbalism (which is proving a modern treasure trove of knowledge for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) researchers and medical schools).
—
While the Celts, druids and the many mysteries that surround these ancient cultures’ healing practices, and history more broadly, we see the power of their wisdom throughout the ages today. If we look close enough at the ancient Celtic healing traditions, we know intuitively that there is future medicine buried in their culture. It is up to modern scientists to study and reveal their venerable wisdom for integrative medicine to prosper.