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A review by angie_stl
Celtic Mysticism: Your Personal Guide to Celtic and Druid Tradition by Tracie Long
2.0
This book on Celtic traditions and the way of the Druids. It tells where the Celtic people moved all across Europe. After that it starts going more with Druids than with the Celtic people.
The first half was about Druids and their way of life. There is information about what Druids hold sacred, and how they use the five elements in their lives. The author talks about Druids as if they are a much larger group than I’ve thought in the past, but I’ve never lived in the United Kingdom, so maybe there are many more there than I’m aware of.
There was more specific info from the Celtic spirituality side. There were many Celtic Deities described, which is great. the Celtic myths, legends and folklore is a great section of the book also.There was much lore described, such as animal, plant and stone lore.
I did have a few problems with this book. There were rituals and spells described in detail that I would have thought were “closed practices’. As I’m neither Celtic nor a practicing Druid, I can’t say for sure. There was one point that it was stated that Druids don’t like for others to use a certain magic, but the author says ‘but we’re just doing it a little, so it’s okay!’ That and a few other instances leaned more towards appropriation rather than appreciation. If I was able to, I’d send this book to a Scottish friend with strong Celtic heritage to get her opinion.
Truthfully I would not recommend this book to anyone, unless i was able to get it vetted by someone in that culture. I think as an American society, we see something as ancient and decide that it’s part of a world culture rather than just the culture that built it. We try to take it into our own cultures and end up altering it into something opposite of what it started as. One example is Yoga. Here in the US, we use Yoga as a form of exercise and way to stretch all those muscles that want to lock up on us. But Yoga is a much larger practice than all those amazing stretches. it’s beautiful and we’ve dropped a large part or all of the spiritual practices that people that were born into the culture know. It’s sad and shows the work we need to do as a country.
I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley for an honest review.
The first half was about Druids and their way of life. There is information about what Druids hold sacred, and how they use the five elements in their lives. The author talks about Druids as if they are a much larger group than I’ve thought in the past, but I’ve never lived in the United Kingdom, so maybe there are many more there than I’m aware of.
There was more specific info from the Celtic spirituality side. There were many Celtic Deities described, which is great. the Celtic myths, legends and folklore is a great section of the book also.There was much lore described, such as animal, plant and stone lore.
I did have a few problems with this book. There were rituals and spells described in detail that I would have thought were “closed practices’. As I’m neither Celtic nor a practicing Druid, I can’t say for sure. There was one point that it was stated that Druids don’t like for others to use a certain magic, but the author says ‘but we’re just doing it a little, so it’s okay!’ That and a few other instances leaned more towards appropriation rather than appreciation. If I was able to, I’d send this book to a Scottish friend with strong Celtic heritage to get her opinion.
Truthfully I would not recommend this book to anyone, unless i was able to get it vetted by someone in that culture. I think as an American society, we see something as ancient and decide that it’s part of a world culture rather than just the culture that built it. We try to take it into our own cultures and end up altering it into something opposite of what it started as. One example is Yoga. Here in the US, we use Yoga as a form of exercise and way to stretch all those muscles that want to lock up on us. But Yoga is a much larger practice than all those amazing stretches. it’s beautiful and we’ve dropped a large part or all of the spiritual practices that people that were born into the culture know. It’s sad and shows the work we need to do as a country.
I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley for an honest review.