Philip Carr-Gomm

For a book that I both agree with so much and have learned a nice chunk from, I find I have rather little to say in response to this. Druidry is very philosophical and Philip is a very chill guy, you know. Very tolerant, and the deep thought about life around say the seasonal holidays was very informative/enlightening: it’s a nice alternative to seeing it just about two beings, or whatever. But I don’t know. It’s not as vague as say, ‘A Course in Miracles’, but it definitely leans perhaps towards that abstract/philosophical thing…. And like, if you’re the philosopher, and everything is about everything and all in general, then everything is just kinda about…. Everything. He’s written several books about his relations with other paths, and he’s published tarot and oracles, but it seems like it must be at least half of his books are like, “It’s been a few years since I told you about everything in general: here are my updated views”, right. Sometimes more rationalist people lean towards that: less creative, more…. Subtle. Although I would probably buy at least one of his oracles if I didn’t have such a saturation of unopened card decks, right. He’s certainly not a bad guy. He has a big brain, and he’s open to things, you know. Maybe that’s what a Druid is supposed to be, right.

…. Although I should qualify that by saying that I do NOT think that Philip is ~anti~-creative the way that Many people in fact are, you know. The majority of atheist intellectuals, and also of Christian intellectuals—just the average contemporary Western brainiac, you know, is anti-creative. The average ~average~ person also lacks the confidence not to agree, to some extent. The positivists or whoever had this mountaintop moment or whatever and they came down and they realized that creativity is dead, slavish, you know: and you would be surprised, maybe, how far that, attitude, slides down, into how many valleys, right. But Philip isn’t really AGAINST it, it’s just not a huge emphasis in his life, right. With him being relatively “straight” and subtle and careful, leans more towards being a style or a stance, in the inevitable sense of the word—we all have a stance—rather than a “bias”, in the epic newsy, kinda aggressive way that some people have, right. He is the sort of guy he is, right.

…. It is a simplification to say that Druidry is more ‘philosophical’ than Wicca, but it is sorta true, and I do feel led (intentionally funny: I’m a Christian! I feel led by the Sperrit!) to be less philosophical than a vanilla Druid: to move in the direction of “Wicca”, even though I suppose I’ll always be more book-y than the average vanilla-y Wiccan (and especially in the public imagination, lol…. If the public has conceptions about this crap at all, lol.)…. Yeah, I mean, it’s obviously ~not~ true REALLY, that “Druids = the sun; Wiccans = the moon”—I mean, if you thought that “never the twain meet”, right, you’d be like…. shipping off to loony tunes land, right, and not in a good way…. Yeah, but it is KINDA true, sorta…. Druidry is for a more masculine sort of girl (or boy), more classically ‘rational’, you know, even if the average materialist wouldn’t recognize this distinction (or try to respect it, lol)…. Yeah, Druidry is less dissimilar to Buddhism or the classic monastic religions, you know, Ask not how you can get a raise: ask how you can help the children, right—all that pious shit, you know. (No offense.) (listening to the speech) “I’ll send the children to a better school…. Oh no, wait; what’d he say….” Yeah. I mean, it IS possible to be “too Wiccan/not Druid-y enough”, but I also think that these times of up until now, are MUCH more likely to SAY that that’s the case (at least, that’s what they’d say if they used magical religion terms, lol), than it is likely for that to ACTUALLY be the case, right…. And even the average person who is “too Wiccan/not Druid-y enough” (again, to put it in terms they’d reject and/or greet with mockery and/or confusion), has this problem MUCH LESS than they suppose deep down, even though they probably deny it entirely because of how afraid they are to face their self-hatred, right…. But basically, yeah, none of that matters so much: it’s just a matter of my going on this path for certain kinda distinctly Wiccan/less Druid-y things, and not for the things that I already had a lot of, but, I don’t know…. Which aren’t meant to have the soil all to themselves in my disposition.

But yeah, it works for Philip, not that he isn’t also a sort of syncretist, even if he is also distinctly and classically Druidic.

Incidentally: I haven’t read any “Druidcraft” books, but now having read this, I think I’ll label that it’s its own thing, and not one or the other. Wicca is its own thing; Druidry is its own thing; and Druidcraft is its own thing….

But yeah, anyone but an extremely exaggeratedly normal person of these times: pompously pretending to be a scientist, the smartest person in the world, to help deny their self-hatred, even though they can’t add two and three together, right.

(sigh) One day, I won’t internally other most the population, the way that most of the population others most everyone else, right. (Like in these really bad crush-criminals “true crime” books, where they mock the police for not cracking the case fast enough, just because they literally hate everyone, you know. Like an old man hates his wife, even though she’s the only one who is as cranky as he is, right. “It’s like: lemme help you. You’re the ‘law and order dog whistle’ people. You’re here to write propaganda for the ‘cop people’, right. Make them feel good. Tell them happy things!” 🧌: They shoulda cracked the case people should know things I woulda knowed it; 8.21, 7.45, 9.65, 4.56 remember these numbers; the county detective couldn’t see: remember these numbers…. ~Ok, yeah…. Well…. Just don’t forget to take your meds! ~🧌: I’m not mentally ill. I like being like this.)

Yeah…. Maybe one day, I’ll love that person as an extension of myself, right.

But maybe I’ll start with some trees, right…. Yes, start with some trees….

…. But yeah, I feel like Eckhart Tolle liked to say that there is in the world “only one spiritual teaching, though it has many forms”.

Although I know I don’t believe that when something pricks my freak-out nerve, right. 😸… (mehr)

Quite an eclectic read. This is a whistle stop tour of all areas of magic in England which the authors make the case of being the most magical of countries. There are chapters on various aspects of magic including divination, numerology, Druidry, Wicca, etc, and boxes giving potted biographies of various characters important in the history of English magic. There are also personal accounts by various living practitioners, although the practice of putting these into faint grey print makes them a bit tricky to read depending on light levels.

Each chapter has suggestions for further study and practical exercises which the reader can carry out if they wish. I did try out some of those on numerology which were interesting. This is probably more of a book to dip into than to read cover-to-cover as it does become a bit ‘dry’ if you attempt to do that. Overall, a 3 star rating from me.… (mehr)