I was just currious. No need to reply if you do not want other people to know your religious Beliefs… That’s Perfectly fine. Being that this is a Celtic Music centered community I was currious on who has Celtic centered beliefs… I mean besides me…and the few others I know.
i’m one!! i’m away with the fairys 
and i also like native american ceremonies, or any nature related religion that is past on for ages 
Me too, me too! But not so much celtic.. asatru-ish upbringing here, I more or less knew my way around in the norse myths before I ever heard the name Jesus.. then attended christian religion classes at school and also looked into confirmation candidate lessons (?), but it’s really not my cup of tea I guess. I’m happy with the gods and trees and the wee people.. 
Does anyone really have much idea what pre-Christian Gaelic or non-Gaelic celtic religious beliefs were really like? The English and Welsh celts and the Picts were from a different branch of the celtic family tree to the Gaels. Was pre-Christian Gaelic religion druidic? Was Pictic religion druidic for that matter?
A lot of people carry on as though they know with great accuracy and in considerable detail what druidic ceremonies were like. On what evidence are their beliefs based?
Wombat - From what I understand, the Picts were completely unrelated to the Celts anyhow (at least in terms of language and culture) and were indeed conquored by the Celts when they came to the British Isles. I’ve also heard they didn’t even look like Celts, being a relatively dark-skinned population, but I don’t know how much truth there is to that (FWIW, there are some darker-skinned individuals within the Welsh population. I once mistook a classmate of Welsh descent for a Hispanic, much to my embarassment).
Most European pagan religions were essentially lost as the population of Europe converted to Catholicism (not necissarily by choice in some places), and modern Wicca etc. are sort of “composite” religions made up of the bits and pieces of what’s left of several of them, but I could be mistaken. shrugs
I’m not pagan by the way, just tossing in my 0.015 cents…
I am a reformed neo-druid myself. Instead of oak trees, we only worship blonde telephone poles.
I am pagan, and my wife Shannon is as well.
I personally don’t view my religion or my beliefs–which are dynamic, by the way, and not fixed, so that I’m not sure they even qualify as “beliefs” in the conventional way of speaking–as having any relationship with the beliefs and practices of pre-Christian Europe, by the way. There are many pagans who do, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just don’t see it that way for myself.
In summary, even among pagans, I’m considered somewhat odd.
–James
very old and original ceremonies are very strong. people living close to nature like native americans conduct them like in ancient times. the more these ceremonies are conducted, the stronger they get.
there are some good books on these matters like: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0062500740/102-2980761-3248129?v=glance
you can read 12 free pages
What do pagans believe? Do you have rites, ceremonies, prayers?
btw, I am an agnostic at heart (or should I say: at brain), although officially catholic.
Waving hello from Avalon…
Bendithion!!
~Andrea
As to what pagans believe I don’t think there is any one answer. As to rites, most of us do at least sometimes.
Ceremonies? Definately! I for instance usually check the alarm clock about 5 times before going to sleep to make sure I set it–this is an ancient ceremony called the Dance of the Obsessive / Compulsives which is guaranteed to drive your spouse insane!
Prayers? At least for me, probably not if you mean in the traditional Christian sense. But in a very real sense, I consider my music a kind of prayer.
There are some good answers in the alt.pagan faq:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/paganism-faq/
–James
I’d like to know…
Is there a book that describes the religious beliefs of Ireland before Christianity was introduced?
Something easy to read.
Mike
Mike, you could try to start with Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales, by Alwyn and Brinley Rees. Please avoid most of the Llewellyn publications… they may have catchy titles and covers, but they are generally not well-researched and have a good deal of misinformation.
HTH!
~Andrea
Blessed Be.
By the way, an excellent (but very dry) informative read on modern paganism is the participant-observer study “Drawing Down the Moon” by NPR reporter Margot Adler.
Even though this is more of a sociological / psychological study of modern paganism than a “how to” book, it is considered required reading by many pagans.
This is typically the book I recommend to those who, upon finding out I’m pagan, immediately assume I have a flip-top head.
–James
Can a Pantheistic agnostic come along?
I’m more of a agnostic/athiest free-thought kinda guy with a dose of Discordianism thrown in.
I have read quite a bit about Wiccan and Pagan religions (mostly years ago in highschool and college) and find them much more interesting than christianity (and other “organized” religions).
-Brett
From just a quick survey of few not necessarily reliable sources, the following. Apparently there is no trace of the Pictish language. The one source that addresses the matter states unequivocally that they were celts. It might or might not be significant that other histories don’t raise the question.
Now for some firmer ground. Being celtic has, for as long as we have records, been more a matter of culture and language than genetics. There are many, many dark Welsh men and women. Reputable histories of Ireland claim that when Ireland first came to the attention of the literate world, it was culturally and linguistically celtic but that this was almost certainly the result of a relatively small group of celtic invaders conquering, and imposing their language and culture on, a pre-celtic people who, genetically speaking, still formed the majority of the people. (Sound familiar to students of Irish history?) For all I know, the same might be true of the celtic tribes in Britain, but I can’t recall having heard this claim.
This stuff is incidental to my question of course. I seriously doubt whether there is any evidence of genuine continuity between, say, ancient druidic practices, and modern druidic ceremonies. As for modern paganism, understood as a recent invention, so long as it is harmless and fulfils the spiritual needs of some people better than any alternative, who could seriously complain about it?
Wombat - I wasn’t complaining about it. I honestly don’t care what people believe as long as they aren’t, for example, sacrificing my pet cat to their idols. For all I care, you can all run off and join some potato cult. Please don’t misconstrue my post as being in any way critical of modern pagans, because I honestly don’t care enough to bother forming a critical opinion.
Basically, from what I have researched…and am currently trying to write a paper on…
On what was once known as the Pretanic Islands—the oldest known name for the British Isles—early Stone Age nomadic travelers began to migrate into the area from Continental regions as the climate began to warm. Tools made of flint and bone and remains of animals from that time period have been found in locations such as Kent and Essex, indicating seasonal habitation on the Isles, even in that early time.
Linguistic evidence indicates that the Celtic languages all seem to stem from the same Indo-European parent language, and share some commonalities with that of Sanskrit. Decorated artifacts from 600 BCE and earlier have symbolic commonality with Hinduism, such as the use of the solar symbols like the swastika; many myths also contain amazing similarities. Something else from Celtic culture that is remarkably similar to Hindu society is the caste system. Peter Berresford Ellis, in his book The Ancient World of the Celts, talks of the “menials and producers [that were] equivalent to the sudra and the vaishya in Hindu society.” Then there were the warrior caste (the Hindu kshatriya), and the intellectual caste (the Celtic Druids, the Hindu Brahmin).
My whole point to that long-winded diatribe 
is that the dark-coloring of the Picts and the early peoples might have some smidge to do with that connection. Maybe, maybe not? ::pondering that:: My paper isn’t so much on the comparison/contrast of the Sanskrit language and Hindu society, so I haven’t researched that aspect as thoroughly yet…
Now, since the Celts were not a society that kept written records, having been a mostly oral tradition, there is not a whole lot of accurate documentation of their beliefs and would therefore be no true continuity of practice. Much of what we have to go on comes from what was written down by the Greeks and Romans-- which certainly had no small amount of patriarchal, and later Christian, overlay. So the best we can do today is try to take what we do know from the Greek and Roman writings, learn as much as we can about the archaelogical and historical findings, and also try to connect on an inner level through meditative practice, and reconstruct from there. Will it ever be exact? No. But we can certainly tap into a certain amount of it and reclaim and renew for today’s world.
My tuppence or two,
Andrea