Past Was Pagan - The Ancient Druid Paradigm And Pantheon

(April 4, 2025) The Ancient Pagan Paradigm as revealed in the runic texts assumed the ultimate things of reality are invisible forms and amorphous matter. These were manifested on earth by the life power class of deities. These high life powers created and distributed to the earth the invisible forms. These forms were then be manifested by filling them with amorphous matter (dust). Plato got his theory of forms from this Ancient Druid culture.

This paradigm is also the rationale behind alchemy. The form defines the type of material which is manifested within it. Hence, amorphous matter can transformed into into any material including gold by using magic to create and place the right form. 

The motion class of powers then added a celestial spark of life to enable the movement of animals by giving them emotions.

(November 27, 2023, Updated April 3, 2025) Runic texts cannot be understood and hence  translated without first understanding their Ancient Pagan paradigm and 3 main religious divisions. At present, no universities are teaching this. The closest they come are studies involving the classics and the more recent bardic tales from Celtic and Scandinavian lands. But even those are studied from within today's dominant Scriptural paradigm instead of from the earlier Ancient Pagan Paradigm.

The Renaissance as an historical paradigm change is still ongoing. Innovations in thought and perceptions, motivated by nature as an authority, continue to evolve.

(April 4, 2025) Religions themselves can be characterized by their answers to these three fundamental questions of existence: 

1. (Metaphysical Cosmology) Where are the deities or other causal powers? When are they active? Can one control them, if so how? 

2. (Epistemology) What is your primary community knowledge source (authority)? - Is it nature, a sacred text, guru, institution, or tradition?

3. (Axiology) Why are you here? - What is your life goal? What is the purpose of your life if any? How should one live (ethics)?

(April 1, 2025) Facts must be organized so they can be found when needed. This requires a mental framework, that is, a paradigm for working with acquired facts. If new facts cannot be fitted into a person's existing paradigm they will be ignored.  Those facts are just not seen. Paradigms should not be confused with social or cultural classification schemes (which they often are). They exist at a much deeper level.

History has 2 great paradigm shifts between 3 phases of history. The phases of history are shown below with their main religious groupings in parenthesis:

1. Ancient Pagan Era - Literate areas have religions with literate priesthoods for the first time. Religions with non-personified (perceptheistic) deities were initially Neolithic farmer Druidry and later smaller local religions incorporating Indo-European elements. As deities were personified causing a division between gods and spirits we get Pythagorean, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Hinduism as well as the first bardic tales involving personified deities (Homer's works).

2. Scriptural Era - Literate areas developed religions with sacred scriptures which support and are support by empires. Religions with personified deities are: Jewish, Christian, Islam with corresponding Hellenistic, Roman, and Islamic empires. Religions without personified deities: Buddhist starting with Ashokan empire.

3. Modern Era - Literacy spreads taking religion away from specialist priests. Existing religions split into many and new religions arise: humanists, materialists, new agers, witches, modern Pagans.

The great paradigm shifts are:

1. Dualist Revolution (500 BCE - 300 CE)

2. Renaissance Revolution (1400 CE - 2000 CE)  Includes Enlightenment & Romantic movements

(November 27, 2023, Updated April 1, 2025) Paradigms can be difficult to change because they are heavily influenced by humanity's psychology. Either the psychology of identity or the difficulty in unlearning something then relearning.  The first learning of something is always the easiest. This combination of change difficulty and identity psychology can make such people having such a "brain-washed" paradigm appear completely irrational to others.  Holding onto an identity paradigm will even make them willing to perform atrocities in defense of that paradigm. This was noticed by German Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was jailed and eventually killed by the Nazis. He wrote this:

(April 4, 2025) Ancient Druid Culture assumed the universe had a unitary reality, that is, one system of causality but with the source of change being located at the sky-shell and above (the heavens). These change powers were then transmitted down to a flat earth level where such changes were manifested and put to use. These divine powers were perceived similarly to how we perceive electricity being generated from a power station today. Conscious feelings were their energy, their divine electricity. 

The source of motion in people and animals was identified as inner emotions which were in turn empowered by the divine powers reaching them via the liver. The liver is attached to the diaphragm muscle responsible to taking breaths and breaths were associated with life and hence motion. The word for "breath" in most ancient languages can also translated as "wind" or "spirit." This is why some translations of Genesis 1.1 use "wind" and some use "spirit." The Hebrew word for both is "ruach."

The phrase often used for change powers in Latin "was animus and anima" often incorrectly and traditionally translated as "mind and spirit." Because these words have the same root of animate, a proper translation should reflect that sameness. So a more accurate, if less poetic, translation would be "life-activities and spiritual-activities." Intelligence was a life activity because it varied among animals.

(April 3, 2025) During the Renaissance, reality became binary having both a material universe and a spiritual/divine universe. Yet a desire remained for a unity reality which led to the following alternate paradigms:

1. Reality is not really divided because it is either:

1. Atheistic - Only the material realm exists withs it energy changes. The existence of the Divine realm is an illusion. Conscious sensations are an "emergent" phenomena. Its creation comes out of nothing or it is cyclic (a multi-verse).
2. Transcendentalist - Only the spiritual realm exists. Material realm is an illusion. Our minds create our reality and are only constrained by our own cultural conditioning and divine law.

(November 27, 2023)  In the ancient past before the rise of books and institutional authorities, nature and cultural tradition were the only source of community knowledge. While gaining a good model of nature is a challenge, nature itself is the only possible source of community knowledge which is internally consistent. If it wasn't self-consistent, the universe would crash like a computer.

 Community knowledge is the facts a community is expected to believe in order to insure their mutual prosperity and survival. Not believing in germ theory and acting upon that knowledge puts many in the community at risk of early death. Humans do not exist in isolation from others so a community has the right to expect its members to care about the truths of the physical world.

Other sources of community knowledge beside nature have been charismatic gurus, institutional traditions, or leaders and sacred texts claiming divine inspiration or secret ancient or alien knowledge. These differing sources never agree with each other which results in endless conflict and drama because truth cannot be agreed upon. The only potentially peaceful religions are nature based religions.

In contrast to community knowledge, personal spiritual knowledge is knowledge about your own emotional reactions. It is knowledge that only you can really know. You cannot expect others to feel the same or to use the same mental model which works for you emotionally. This is why Nature Religion is perceptheistic encouraging any divine conception which works best for each individual. All personal knowledge is equally valid as long as it does not contradict community knowledge.

(April 5, 2025) Because we are emerging from a dualist paradigm many of our words reflect that pattern of thinking. This includes dividing all concepts into binaries such as: good or bad, male or female, mono-theism or poly-theism. The possibility of a having middle state or an uncertain state is ignored.

Percept-theism or perceptheism is a word for the post dualist society in which the characteristics of the divine realm are not fully knowable by a community of people. Not being of the material realm, spiritual influences are felt and not seen. Spiritual influences are not yet observable by material instruments. A person cannot really experience the feelings of another person. Hence spiritual knowledge is personal and dependent upon each person's perceptual filters.

(March 5, 2025) The Ancient Druid religion had a fixed pantheon but it was perceptheistic within that framework, that is, no separation was made between spirits and deities. The deities could be perceived as either people or as powers depending on the situation. In the absence of visual clue and person can only be identified by the personality, that is, their cluster of exhibited powers.

Perceived spiritual powers observed in nature can be divided up many different ways depending on the goals of the people involved. The Druid pantheon was a classification system which worked best for early agricultural cultures. It was gender balanced with the power clusters (deities) representing observed changes on earth. These were divided into 2 large classes of 3 layers each (source of the sacred number 3)consisting of the life power class and the motion/emotion power class. This scheme is called the Ancient Pagan Paradigm.

The ancient Druid goddess triad consisted of:

1. Underworld goddess Kate/Hekate representing the powers of death and rebirth.  
2. Crescent moon goddess Ayu representing life guidance and wisdom, 
3. Celestial light goddess Selu/Selene representing the emotional spark and radiant glow of life for individuals, families, states, and world. She was the goddess of the hearth.

In contrast the Druid god triad consisted of:

1. Unseen high god Alu representing the powers of creation
2. Sun and storm god Hu representing order and security with occasional chaos
3. Dark new moon and dark eye pupil god Su representing fate and time

In addition, 2 boundary-crossing deities existed, the hermaphrodite god Thu/Athena representing passions which crossed the boundary of gender and the life manifestation god Yahu/Yahweh (sometime paired with the goddess Asher) who crossed the matter-spiritual boundary by filling spiritual forms with amorphous matter.

Classical Equivalents to Druid Deities.

Marcus Varro (116-27 BCE) has an important deity list in his book entitled Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum (Histories of Human and Divine Things). He was born in or near Reate (now Rieti) in Lazio, Italy into a family thought to be of equestrian rank. He ended up owning a large farm in the Reatine plain which was reported to be near Lago di Ripasottile.  

His important passage about early Roman deities is quoted by Augustine in "de ciu. Dei, VII, 2." This is the earliest complete list that we have on the main Roman deities before it was corrupted by empire:  

• "Varro compiled the chosen gods in the last volume: and there are twenty: twelve males, eight females: Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sun, Orcus, Liber, Terra, Ceres, Juno, Luna , Diana, Minerva, Venus, Vesta."

Druid Masculine Life-Growth Deities With Classical Equivalents

1. Alu (Roman Janus/Yanis)  The life source god representing new beginnings. The Roman month of January (winter solstice) and June (summer solstice) are named for him as they begin the seasons. Janus is represented as 2-faced god to represent such transitions.

2. Hu (Roman Sol, Apollo) (Greek Helios, Apollo)  The life connective god represented by the sun and rainstorms. He connects the divine and material realms. Apollo is likely Akkadian AP.L meaning “Veil eliminator."

3. Yahu (Roman  Luna) (Greek Phanes, Φάνης) The life manifesting god represented by the full moon and eggs. Luna is the Akkadian LaNu meaning the visible "platonic" form. This power of life manifestations is represented by eggs and the full moon which makes visible the dark new moon. Phanes comes from the Greek Orphic hymn traditions and not the Homeric tradition. He is associated with white eggs which could be thought of as the full moon. This life manifesting egg connection might be the source of the Christian Easter Egg.

Druid Feminine Life/Fertility Deities With Classical Equivalents

1. Kate/Hekate (Roman Juno/Yuno) (Greek Eleuthyia) - The life-cycle underworld goddess. Yuno is Akkadian Y.N meaning "The one who is not revealed." She represents the storage of dead souls in the underworld waiting to be reborn. These souls were waiting to be reincarnated. Hence Juno was also associated with childbirth. She may be the goddess at the center of the Eleusian Mysteries.

2. Ayu (Roman Diana) (Greek Artemis) - The crescent moon life guidance goddess. Roman Diana is Akkadian D.IN meaning life-manifestation controller. In myth, the crescent moon became a bow and she became a hunter. 

3. Asher (Roman Ceres/Keres) (Greek Demeter) - The earth mother and goddess of vegetation named after Akkadian words aṣu and ašu meaning "expelled/created things." Demeter's daughter, Persephone/Kore, is a representation of vegetation. Demeter and Persephone are sometimes mixed-up in ancient myths. Roman Kerus , Greek Kore is Akkadian  K.R meaning the "one involved with the eagle-vultures which edit the life network. Ceres/Kerus was a deity of agriculture  and was originally the central deity in Rome's plebeian Aventine Triad.  Romans called Persephone Proserpina.

(April 6, 2025)

• Ancient Paganism - Humans and their material realm have the purpose of keeping both the divine and material realms in balance.  

• Later Paganism - The above but becoming more aware of how keeping that balance depended on the emotional state of society. Consequently, it added the personal goal of gaining peace of mind by promoting mental discipline and the balancing practice of love while avoiding fear and envy.  This is seen in runic texts, stoicism, epicureanism, and authentic Jesus. Because everything is interconnected and attuned (Greek logos) a disturbance in the social/spiritual field will propagate outward and eventually circle back to its source.

Compare this to the purpose which developed after deities were lordified (personified and  becoming members of the royal court)

• Lordified Yet Still Non-Dualist Paganism (Roman) - Humans exist to serve, flatter, and praise their lord gods in exchange for favors.