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Philip Shallcrass | |
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| Born | 1953 (age 69–70) |
| Other names | Greywolf |
| Known for | British Druid Order |
Philip Shallcrass (born 1953), often known by his Druid name, Greywolf, is Chief of the British Druid Order. [1] He is an English artist, writer, poet, musician and singer-songwriter who pioneered a "shamanic" Druidism. [2]
Philip Shallcrass was born in Sussex, England in 1953. His first visit to Avebury occurred in the 1970s. In 1974 he discovered Druidry through reading Robert Graves' The White Goddess . In the same year, Shallcrass read Mircea Eliade's Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy . Eliade's book contained descriptions of the visionary experiences of shamans that mirrored events in Shallcrass's own life. Further studies convinced him that Druidry was the earliest recorded form of native European shamanism. [3] Philip Shallcrass has provided an account of his life, beliefs and inspirations for the BDO's YouTube channel, including Stuart Piggott's work on the history of Druidry. As a child Shallcrass was familiar with the Christian church; later, he would be inspired by the Welsh medieval text The Mabinogion and its stories. Shallcrass went on to run an occult bookshop in St. Leonards before being asked to join Alex Sander's coven, an offer which he would turn down. After working on Wicca with a different group Shallcrass went on to form the Grove of the Badger, a group based on Druidic principles. As a result of running a Druid group he decided that he was running a religious house as a response to Margaret Thatcher and the poll tax, providing proof of this to the relevant authorities which would propel him further along the course of Druidry. Meetings with Philip Carr Gomm and his wife Stephanie led to Shallcrass joining The Council of British Druid Orders and running a stall at a Pagan Federation national conference. During a sweat lodge at an OBOD camp in 1994, Shallcrass made contact with a wolf spirit who would become his spiritual guide and guardian. [4]
In 1978, Shallcrass joined an Alexandrian Wiccan coven, being initiated a High Priest the following year. During the course of that year, he had been writing seasonal festival rites for the coven. These were heavily influenced by his studies in Druidry. By the time the festival cycle was complete, the coven's celebrations had become so Druidic in flavour that the members agreed to stop calling themselves a coven and become instead a Grove; the Grove of the Badger. This is now seen as the Mother Grove of the British Druid Order (BDO). [5]
Over the years that followed, the material written for the Grove of the Badger was revised and added to. At the end of the 1980s it began to be published and bring the BDO to wider attention. He married Eleanor Kilpatrick, an Occupational Therapist with the NHS, in 1985. In the early 1990s, Kilpatrick and Shallcrass met and began a continuing friendship with Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, chiefs of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. Philip Shallcrass began to lecture on Druidry at a series of conferences on New Religious Movements.
In 1992, he became editor of The Druids' Voice: the Magazine of Contemporary Druidry. [6]
In 1993, at the invitation of Tim Sebastion, founder of the Secular Order of Druids, Shallcrass composed a ritual to be performed at a multi-faith conference Tim had organised among the old stone circles of Avebury in Wiltshire. This resulted in the formation of the Gorsedd of Bards of Caer Abiri, which grew over the next few years to become what Ronald Hutton described as the "central event" of the New Druidry, initiating many people into the Bardic grade. [7] A detailed account of the first event was published in The Gorsedd of Bards of Caer Abiri Newsletter No. 1, where Shallcrass took the role of Chief Druid (equivalent to Master of Ceremonies) with the assistance of Philip Carr Gomm of the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids. [8] Another detailed account of the Gorsedd was later provided in the Pagan Federation's journal Pagan Dawn. [9]
In 1994, following what he described as a powerful vision in a sweat lodge, Shallcrass adopted the Druid name, Greywolf. In 1995, he began to work regularly with Emma Restall Orr, who became joint chief of the BDO. Together, they lectured, hosted workshops and rituals, wrote new material for the Order, and appeared on TV and Radio in the UK and elsewhere. [10]
The "shamanic" form of Druidry pioneered by Shallcrass with the British Druid Order resulted in bringing the shamanic vision of the World Drum Project to ceremonies at Dragon Hill, below the Uffington White Horse hill figure in Oxfordshire, and at Avebury in Wiltshire.
Shallcrass has created a series of distance learning courses on Druidry for the British Druid Order covering all three grades of Bard, Ovate and Druid as a series of monthly booklets. The course comes with recommendations from prominent figures including Professor Ronald Hutton and Robin Williamson. [11]
The closing ceremony of the 2012 Paralympics included text from a 1997 Gorsedd ritual written by Philip Shallcrass and Emma Restall Orr. [12]
Shallcrass has been active in areas of ancient technology such as roundhouse building at the Wildways retreat centre in Shropshire. [13] [4] He has also created numerous songs and chants, and worked with instruments including the drum, the chrotta and the tiompan. Some of these performances draw upon Shallcrass's knowledge of the Medieval period and its poetry and literature including metrical dinsenchas, while also being inspired by classical poems such as The Song of Amergin from the Mabinogion and The Battle of Cad Goddeu. [14]
Publications by Philip Shallcrass include:
Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans.
Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship, Inc. is a non-profit religious organization dedicated to the study and further development of modern Druidry.
Ronald Edmund Hutton, FSA, FRHistS, FLSW, is an English historian who specialises in Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and Contemporary Paganism. He is a professor at the University of Bristol, has written 14 books and has appeared on British television and radio. He held a fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford, and is a Commissioner of English Heritage.
The Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids or OBOD is a Neo-Druidic organisation based in England, but based in part on the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards. It has grown to become a dynamic druid organisation, with members in all parts of the world.
Emma Restall Orr is a British animist, philosopher, poet, environmentalist, and author.
Celtic modern paganism refers to any type of modern paganism or contemporary pagan movements based on the ancient Celtic religion.
John Matthews and Caitlín Matthews are English writers. Together, they have written over 150 books and translated into more than thirty languages. Their work also includes Tarot packs, a card-based storytelling system, screenplays, and songs.
Philip Carr-Gomm is an author in the fields of psychology and Druidry, a psychologist, and one of the leaders and former Chosen Chief of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.
Philip Peter Ross Nichols was a Cambridge academic and published poet, artist and historian, who founded the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids in 1964. He wrote prolifically on the subjects of Druidism and Celtic mythology.
The Druid Order is a contemporary druidry fraternal order, founded in 1909 by George Watson MacGregor Reid in the United Kingdom. At various times it has also been known as The Ancient Druid Order, An Druidh Uileach Braithreachas, and The British Circle of the Universal Bond. Initiated members are called companions.
The Modern Pagan movement in the United Kingdom is primarily represented by Wicca and Neopagan witchcraft, Druidry, and Heathenry. 74,631 people in England, Scotland and Wales identified as either as Pagan or a member of a specific Modern Pagan group in the 2011 UK Census.
Brendan Cathbad Myers is a Canadian philosopher and author known for his contributions in environmental philosophy, Druidry and Neo-Druidism, mythology, and applied virtue ethics.
The Druid Network is a British druidic (neo-pagan) organisation providing a source of information and inspiration about modern Druidic traditions, practices and their histories. It was founded in February 2003 by Emma Restall Orr, and approved as a religious charity in the United Kingdom in 2010.
Druidry, sometimes termed Druidism, is a modern spiritual or religious movement that promotes the cultivation of honorable relationships with the physical landscapes, flora, fauna, and diverse peoples of the world, as well as with nature deities, and spirits of nature and place. Theological beliefs among modern Druids are diverse; however, all modern Druids venerate the divine essence of nature.
The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy is a book of religious history and archaeology written by the English historian Ronald Hutton, first published by Blackwell in 1991. It was the first published synthesis of the entirety of pre-Christian religion in the British Isles, dealing with the subject during the Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman occupation and Anglo-Saxon period. It then proceeds to make a brief examination of their influence on folklore and contemporary Paganism.
The British Druid Order (BDO) is an international druid order, founded in 1979 as a religious and educational organisation. Its constitution defines it as a not-for-profit unincorporated association. It is commonly regarded as being one of the first, if not the first, explicitly neo-pagan Druid Orders. The order draws on medieval Welsh texts such as the Mabinogion and other early British/Celtic texts for inspiration and to re-connect with the pre-Christian, indigenous religious and spiritual practices of Britain which it believes to be shamanic in nature.
The Council of British Druid Orders is a neo-pagan group established in 1989 which was originally formed to facilitate ceremonies at Stonehenge. The Council's founder, Tim Sebastion, used the title "Archdruid of Wiltshire, Chosen Chief of the Secular Order of Druids, Conservation Officer for the Council of British Druid Orders and Bard of the Gorsedd of Caer Abiri (Avebury)."
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