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Winston Churchill & The Druids

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Anonymous

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Can anyone help me on this one. I'm currently researching a book on the photograhic history of Stonehenge. I've uncovered some amazing photographs of Druidic ceremonies at the stones dating back to the 1800's. My fellow researcher casually remarked that he'd heard about a photograph that exists of Winston Churchill in full Druid costume - taken possibly at Stonehenge. Can this be true !! Was Churchill a Druid ? I've never read any biogs of him ,but I've never seen mention of any Druidic leanings.
 
Winston Churchill was initiated into the Albion Lodge of the mystical Ancient Order of Druids in 1908 whilst at Oxford University.

I've heard rumours that he employed druids/witches/magickians to protet the southern coast of England during WWII and to psychically attack the Germans.

Also, take a look at this:

http://members.tripod.com/~helenduncan/wcletter.html
 
i cant help u with Churchil but in the 70's i saw in the daily mirror a pic of Corination streets Ken Barlow (what ever the actor is called).. in full tea towel on the head regalia at Stonehendge... i know prity pathetic but true, maybe of some use to u.
 
pi23 said:
I've heard rumours that he employed druids/witches/magickians to protet the southern coast of England during WWII and to psychically attack the Germans.

Sounds a bit like Dennis Wheatley's Strange Conflict.
His stuff is great fun. :cool:
 
i read a book by someone claiming to be Armando Crowley Alistairs Crowleys son... where he claimed to have been at a ceromony to brink a senoir Nazie to Uk in WW2 just before Hess arived... but then he also claimed UFO came out of the hollow earth... but seems almost sensible til then!
 
Again I'm being vague but I think that Hess was partly lured to the UK by use of a false(?) astrology reading which persuaded him that it was the right time to defect.
 
Winston Churchill Was a Druid!!?

I have recently visted Bletchly Park were the had all of the code breakers in world war 2 working and I went on a tour of the park and the various buildings in it and right at the end the tour guid showed the small party of visitors the museum and inside there was a room stuffed full of churchill memrobilla and possesions that they called a museum . The room was divided up into two rows of about Five or four cases of Churchill stuff and while I was browsing around a picture caught my eye and to my suprise it was an order of about 100 druids and priests and under it a little note that said "on the year 1945 prime minister Winston Churchill ascended to rank
HIgh druid priest" anyway those werent exactly what the note said but I think I got the facts correct. :?:
 
Churchill was a druid, you did read right, however he was not a pagan druid.

Druids, in britain fall into 2 catogorys, the pagen druids (who get dressed up in their nice robes to visit stonehenge on midsummers day) and the druidic orders set up in the 18th century that are either christian or not involved in religion at all. Both types of druid are actully modern inventions based on older myths and supositions of the sorts of people druids were.

druid orders (the non pagan kind) are like the free masons, in essence an excluseive club useully, at least when they started, peppered with ideals of philanthropy, piety and various other high ideals of the time, membership of course being invitation only.

The most famous druidic order these days is probably the Gorsedd bards, to become a member of Gorsedd is the welsh equivelent of getting a nighthood and they appoint new members to the circle at the eisteddfod once a year. The most famous recent member was the Archbishop of Cantabury Dr Rowen Williams...

From bbc news http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2173194.stm

Tuesday, 6 August, 2002, 07:59 GMT 08:59 UK
When a druid isn't a druid

Dr Rowan Williams, the next Archbishop of Canterbury, has joined the Gorsedd of the Bards at the National Eisteddfod. He has been criticised for dabbling in paganism. But it's not quite like that.

The setting for the first meeting of the "druids" of the Gorsedd of the Bards? A mist-shrouded moor amid standing stones? A forest clearing by a mistletoe-wreathed ancient oak?

No. It was Primrose Hill, London.

From its birth in 1792, the Gorsedd of Bards of the Isle of Britain - the white-cloaked organisation Dr Rowan Williams joined on Monday - has found itself confused with the pagan rites of druidism.

By joining the druid bards - which include the Queen, opera singer Bryn Terfel and Welsh rugby star Gareth Edwards - Dr Williams has been attacked for "dabbling" in a non-Christian faith.

But Dr Cathryn Charnell-White, an expert on the group's founder, Edward Williams, says: "There's no pagan link there at all."

"The Eisteddfod druids are Edward Williams's druids. Other druids stem more from the traditional or popular vision of druidism."

Ancient rites

The 10,000 druids who receive all the attention on mid-summer's day try to follow the religious beliefs of the Celts - which is not so easy, since in 500 BC details of the rituals were not written down.

Among the core beliefs of this druidism is that the soul is immortal. After a person dies, argue druids, their soul is transported to the Otherworld, only to come back again in another human body.

While Edward Williams borrowed some elements of druidism for the Gorsedd of Bards, he remained a committed Christian.

"We will reverence the piety of those who may be alarmed at the idea of Druidism (which they will be ready enough to call Paganism) being still alive in this Island," he wrote.

"But let them examine it a little, they will find that the Ancient British, Patriarchal Religion, is no more than that of Noah, Abraham or Job, inimical to Christianity. A man is no less a Christian for being a Druid, or a Druid for being a Christian."

Eclectic and eccentric

A self-educated Welsh stone mason, Williams found inspiration in Welsh poetry, agriculture and archaeology.

While putting "his own idiosyncratic spin" on Hindu and druid influences, Williams remained firm in his Christian beliefs and even helped foster Unitarianism in Wales, says Dr Charnell-White of the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies.

While religious druids chose such esoteric names as Greywolf and Bobcat, Williams' chosen handle, Iolo Morganwg, translates as nothing more pagan than Ned of Glamorgan.

That he chose to stress his Welsh identity and language in this way points to the primary mission of the Gorsedd of Bards, to honour the literary achievements of Welsh poets and prose writers - and certainly not pagan gods.
 
Thanks

Thanks That was really intresting and that answers the Question of why neo-Druids go to stone henge because by the time "ancient" druids were around stone henge was already in ruins and at the summer solstice the sun rises not at the rear but at the front this would make little sense of thge purpose of stone henge and show that modern pagan Druids are not the same as the old ones. :eek:
 
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Photographic Details:

Reference:HT00195
Title:A gathering of the Ancient Order of Druids, founded in 1717, of which Henry Taunt was a member. The group here includes Winston Churchill (standing centre).
Description:Colour or black and white: Black and white

Photographer: Henry W Taunt

Address/Location: Blenheim Palace, Blenheim, Oxfordshire

Period and

Monument type: Jacobean Palace

Themes: People (posed); Religious
Date:1908
Held by:Historic England Archive,

Source:
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/c1fb08d3-826c-41d8-b3b1-0d900f804fa0
 
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