REVIVAL, REBIRTH AND RENAISSANCE, YES!

RESURRECTION LIKE BEFORE, NO!

"It’s by following the walking one that we find the way.”

Comparison is a fundamental mental process: grouping some facts together under common categories but also noticing differences. Such connections and relationships are the basis of thought and science. Otherwise, there are only isolated facts without links between them. It is therefore on the basis of comparison that generalizations, interpretations and theories are formed. Comparison creates new ways of viewing and organizing the world.

Comparative religion is therefore old as the hills. Herodotus was already doing it. As far as ancient religions are concerned, this intellectual approach has produced many books stored in the "comparative mythology" shelves since Max Muller (1823-1900).

As far as religions are concerned, it is quite different.

Each religion was, of course, compared to those with which it was competing but first to denigrate or affirm its superiority.

The first elements of a more objective beginning of comparative religion are currently scattered under the label of "religious dialog" and generally come from religions that define themselves as monotheistic because of their worldwide extension. The whole for an apologetic or missionary purpose, of course. Hence problems.

We also find useful reflections in circles more or less coming under atheism but they are

-either detailed but focused on a particular religion.

-or being more general but rather basic.

And, moreover, they also are most often found in the history of religions, but all in a non-religious perspective.

Great names punctuate this story from William Robertson Smith (religion of the Semites) to Mircea Eliade through Emile Durkheim.

Other authors have opened many insights in this field.

Our idea is TO LENGTHEN A CERTAIN NUMBER OF THEM BY GOING FURTHER IN THIS COMPARATIVE RELIGION (widening of the field of anthropological research, deepening of the psychological foundations, end of the overvaluation, decolonization, antiracism, new hypotheses ....) AND BY RESUMING THE INTERRUPTED THREAD OF THEIR FASCINATING QUEST FOR THE GRAIL BECAUSE ancient druidism is a little like the famous story of the grail of Perceval and Gawain.

It is an unfinished story, which stops abruptly after the first 9000 lines of verse. Our project is to write the rest of it. A continuation it was said at the time.

These small notebooks intended for future high-knowers, want to be both an imitation (a pastiche) and a parody. An imitation because they were composed in the manner of theologians (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, etc.) at least in what they had, all, of better (elements in fact often of pagan origin). One of the functions of the imitation was always, indeed, in the popular oral literature, to answer the expectation of audiences, frustrated by the break of the original creation [in this case the druidic philosophy]. To this expectation, in the Middle Ages, the cyclic narrative technique of the epics singing the heroic deeds, or of the Romances of the Round Table, has responded.

The way of the pastiche is the one which consists in enriching the original by supplementing it with successive touches, by developing just outlined details, or by interpreting its shadows. And this, the thought of our ancestors needed well!

But the reasoned compilation, due to the hand of Peter DeLaCrau, also is in a way a parody, because it was never a question, nevertheless, for the project supervisor of this collective work, of supporting such as it was and unconditionally, the whole of these doctrines.

He wished on the contrary, by all sorts of literary means (reversal of arguments, opposing views, etc.) to bring out their often negative, harmful, alienating or obscurantist, aspects; and if this text can sometimes seem, to pay indirect homage to the capacity of reflection of the various current theological Schools, Christian, Muslim, Jewish or other, it is involuntary; because his purpose is well, to do everything, in order to wrest from their hands, the monopoly of discourses on the divinity (see on this subject the remarks of Albert Bayet), even if it means finishing discredit them definitively in the public eyes.

Except as regards the best ideas they have borrowed from paganism, of course, and which are enormous; because in this last case, it is, let us remember it once again, from the prospect supervisor of this compilation, a readjustment to our world, of the thoughts of these theologians' apprentices ((the god of philosophers, the Ahura Mazda, the immortality of souls, the god-men, the sons of a god, the messiah Saoshyant, the Trinity, the tawaf, the sacrifices, the life after death, not to mention cherubim paradise, etc.).

In other words, not history, but historical fictions, according to the works of...see the bibliography at the end. In accordance with this, our "imitation” is only a return to our roots. In short a homage.

"Druidism" is an independent review (independent of any religious or political association) and which has only one purpose: theoretical or fundamental research about what is neo-paganism. The double question, to which this review of theoretical studies tries to answer, could be summarized as follows:

"What could be or what should be a current neo-druidism, modern and contemporary?”

"Druidism" is a neo-pagan review, strictly neo-pagan, and heir to all genuine (that is to say non-Christian) movements which have succeeded one another for 2000 years, the indirect heir, but the heir, nevertheless!

Regarding our reference tradition or our intellectual connection, let us underline that if the "poets" of Domnall mac Muirchertach Ua Néill still had imbas forosnai, teimn laegda and dichetal do chennaib 1) in their repertory (cf. the conclusion of the tale of the plunder of the castle of Maelmilscothach, of Urard Mac Coise, a poet who died in the 11th century), they may have been Christians for several generations. It is true that these practices (imbas forosnai, teimn ...) were formally forbidden by the Church, but who knows, there may have been accommodations similar to those of astrologers or alchemists in the Middle Ages.

Anyway our "Druidism" is also a will; the will to get closer, at the maximum, to ancient druidism, such as it was (scientifically speaking). The will also to modernize this druidism, a total return to ancient druidism being excluded (it would be anyway impossible).

Examples of modernization of this pagan druidism.

— Giving up to lay associations of the cultural side (medicine, poetry, mathematics, etc.). Principle of separation of Church and State.

— Specialization on the contrary, in Celtic, or pagan in general, spirituality history of religion, philosophy and metapsychics (known today as parapsychology).

— Use in some cases of the current vocabulary (Church, religion, baptism, and so on).

A golden mean, of course, is to be found between a total return to ancient druidism (fundamentalism) and a too revolutionary radical modernization (no longer sagum).

The Celtic PAA (pantheistic agnostic atheist) having agreed to sign jointly this small library *, of which he is only the collector, druid Hesunertus (Peter DeLaCrau), does not consider himself as the author of this collective work. But as the spokesperson for the team which composed it. For other sources of this essay on druidism, see the thanks in the bibliography.

* This little camminus is nevertheless important for young people ... from 7 to 77 years old! Mantalon siron esi.

1) Do ratath tra do Mael Milscothach iartain cech ni dobrethaigsid suide sin etir ecnaide 7 fileda 7 brithemna la taeb ogaisic a crech 7 is amlaidsin ro ordaigset do tabairt a cach ollamain ina einech 7 ina sa[ru]gad acht cotissad de imus forosnad [di]chetal do chollaib cend 7 tenm laida .i. comenclainn fri rig Temrach do acht co ti de intreide sin FINIT.

HOW TO BUILD A NEW MAN WITH THE BEST OF THE FORMER ONE ?

FIRST PART.

SOURCES.

The Judeo-Christians and the atheists annotated much on the deeply immoral or amoral characteristic of the druidic paganism. Specialists in the study of the religions like Judaism Hinduism Christianity Zoroastrianism or Islam….deduced that its gods or goddesses were ambivalent, at the same time angels and demons. In every case beyond the simplistic and silly Manicheism opposing good and evil.

The fact remains that we have at least in this field an example of a druidic god more sensitive to intentions as to gestures than to the commercial value of their sacrifices or of their offerings, of the believers of his worship, it is the god Grannus of the temple in Grand (Upper Germania , or Belgium, for the Romans).

According to Cassius Dio indeed (Book LXXVIII chapter XV) speaking about the Roman Emperor Caracalla

“This showed most clearly that they regarded, not his votive offerings or his sacrifices, but only his purposes and his deeds. He received no help from Apollo Grannus, nor yet from Aesculapius or Serapis, in spite of his many supplications and his unwearying persistence. For even while abroad he sent to them prayers, sacrifices and votive offerings, and many couriers ran hither and thither every day carrying something of this kind; he also went to them himself, hoping to prevail by appearing in person, and did all that devotees are wont to do but he obtained nothing that contributed to health.”

The first of our sources is indeed to seek in the texts of the Greco-Roman classical Antiquity.

A certain number of texts of the Antiquity, or of the Irish Middle Ages, indeed preserved to us invaluable witness statements about the state of mind of the Celtic elites. In Addition to the gessa, druidism comprises also pieces of advice. The gessa are intended to prohibit what is incompatible with druidic ethic, the pieces of advice themselves are simply intended to support the practice of it. It is the literature of the tecosca, tegas flatha, or teagasc na riogh, in Ireland, in other words,in a way, the magga ariyattangika of druidism. Pieces of advice or precepts intended for the greats, or less great. It was found a Continental equivalent of these texts at Lezoux in 1970

It is a kind of letter but in this case written on the underside of a plate ( a marriage contract or proposal for a marriage was well written on the tile of Chateaubleau, so....).

MAXIMS OF LEZOUX.

REGU NAI…

GANDOBE INTE NOVIIO…

EXTINCTON PAPI CORIIOSED EXA O…

MESAMOBI MOLATUS CERTIOGNU SVETI CON…

PAPE BOUDI MACARNI PAPON MAR…

NANE DEVORBUETID LONCATE…

MU GNATE NE DAMA GUSSOU N…

VERO NE CURRI PAPI COS…

PAPE AMBITO PAPI BOUDI NE TETU…

BATORON VEIA SUEBRETO SU…

CITBIO LEDGAMO BERTO.

These pieces of advice therefore indicate precise ways, but are to be practiced according to the vocation of each one. The druids do not require from each one the strict observation of all these precepts, but only of those which are appropriate, according to the moment, the opportunity, and the forces (the evil is not the ethical transgression of a divine command, like in the Genesis, but an ontological condition of the being).

Editor’s note. The true druids cure and improve, they rectify and purify, they do not destroy. Their purpose is not the suppression of the very life. What the druids teach, it is that the ordeal can constitute a way leading to the happiness in the next world… shorter than the others. The druidism does not remove the suffering, it ennobles it, it makes it fertile, it makes it the instrument of every progress even the token of our future greatness; because it is also through the sacrifice that we can save or be saved. But the value of the suffering depends, of course, on the use of it that we make, on the virtues of which it is the occasion: humility, self-detachment, etc.; otherwise it embitters. This is why nobody has the right to ignore the woe of others. Hospitality for example is a duty of any well-born man. There are there naturally, like in the case of the hesus Cuchulainn, some gessa of the level kission. As all those which relate to the kings or the great lords called to die heroically on a battlefield one day or another, without lasting long; and thus to directly reach the parallel other world, but of heavenly nature, reserved for warriors. Our ancestors were really very demanding, it is the least we can say, with regard to the princes who controlled them. Not astonishing that there were many overthrown kings!

In reality we are not lacking in documents to make us a enough good idea of ancient druidic ethic. And, first of all, the Law. It goes without saying the Law it is neither ethic nor morality, but that it has nevertheless a certain relationship with it. The druids were lawyers at heart and people expected much from them. The importance of jurisprudence in the Celtic society is besides underlined by the following proverb: the four deaths (or invalidity causes) of a judgment are, falseness, absence of material sanctions (seizures), absence of precedent, and ignorance. Besides two of the Irish triads [Meyer, 1906] also mention this problem. The three ruins of a tribe: a lying chief, a false judge, a lustful priest. Variant. Three ranks that ruin tribes in their falsehood: the falsehood of a king, of a historian, of a judge. Three doors of falsehood: an angry pleading, a shifting foundation of knowledge, giving information without memory (in short still ignorance).

In return for his services, the referee (the brithem or brehon) received an amount being equivalent to a twelfth of the sum concerned. He was made, on the other hand, responsible for his decisions in a very concrete way. He was to pay a hypothecation or a guarantee of a value of five silver ounces in support of his judgment. If he did not arrive to a decision, he was to pay a fine being equivalent to eight ounces of silver. Moreover, and according to the saying “to each judge, his mistake,” the referee was to pay a fine in the event of inappropriate judgment.

According to some of the old texts that we could consult, the unjust decision of an arbitrator taken by listening to only one of the parties could involve natural calamities; kind bad wheat or fruit harvests, production of milk in fall, diseases and disasters.

We are there the exact opposite of the situation prevailing in certain old countries of Judeo-Christian tradition (as France for example) where the judges are irresponsible; whatever the obvious errors that they make at the beginning of a procedure (for example in certain divorces or in certain cases of self-defense of others, following a breach and partiality of the investigators it is true); and where they are able (in France at least) to expel from the marital home a husband to whom they do not have much to reproach , in order to install the lover in his place there, or to condemn a father wanting only to intervene in order to avoid to his son being publicly humiliated.

Ireland had indeed the good idea, after Christianity had imposed its law, to give a specific name to this new law which was added, while sometimes canceling it, to the common sense governing hitherto relations between individuals . It was the recht litre or written law. Recht Aicnid was then the name given by contrast to what the Irish had not had the idea of designating by a special name until then, so that seemed obvious or natural to them.

With sometimes strange spins including two examples below, extracted from the Pseudo (pseudo, of course, because since Pontius Pilate Christians are allergic to truth) Prologue…. added at an unknown date to the Senchus Mor.

The reference edition, despite its intrinsic poor quality, will be that of the collection of old Irish laws published in 1865 in Dublin by the ad hoc committee under the name "ANCIENT LAWS AND INSTITUTES OF IRELAND.” Volume 1. As for the translations…. What exactly does cutruma mean, for example?

Page 40 : Ar robui in bith hi cutruma conid tainic Senchas Mar …….

Equality was the rule until the Senchus Mor was established ... Before the Senchus everyone was equal before the law?

……………………………….,

Page 8 : Intud i ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur: There is strengthening of paganism if an evil deed is avenged.

etc. etc. . Stop the carnage !

The second of our sources will be nevertheless despite the poor quality of theses translations the Irish legal tradition of the recht aicnid. The rectu adgenias (recht aicnid in Ireland) they are the basic laws of any self-respecting human group. The best of the definitions was given to us by Edmund Burke, in his reflections on the French Revolution: “The science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human intellect, is the collected reason of ages, combining the principles of original justice with the infinite variety of human concerns “ (Edmund Burke. Reflections on the Revolution .1790).

The Irish legal texts, often called Brehon laws - brehon being the Anglicized shape of the Irish brithem which means jurist-; are the most complete documents relating to this recht aicnid, which reached us. They were written down by the Christian monks. Oldest probably dates back to the end of the 6th and of the beginning of the 7th century, and were partially influenced by Christian mentality. They seem well nevertheless to rather precisely reflect the “old” pre-Christian laws in many fields, and the bases of the legal procedure are undoubtedly autochthonous. The brehon custom remained used until the 17th century in certain areas of Ireland.

These legal texts, of which most was published by D.A. Binchy (Corpus Juris Hibernici), although sometimes very influenced by Christian topics; perhaps preserve to us most complete of the legal texts external to the Roman Law, which reached us. The major part of these legal texts is recorded in the Senchus Mor or Great Antiquity. They offer to us a good idea of what the rectu adgenias or recht aicnid resembled: the law of before the conquest, by the Romans, of the majority of the countries in Europe. “The right that has, by nature, and choice, a given individual, to be treated on a certain footing by his own kind, and the legitimacy of his claims to a certain kind of compensation for the attacks carried against his honor; i.e., against the feeling that he has to take part too, in the sacredness, in the sacred order founded but also guaranteed by the higher Powers.”

As Regis Boyer noticed it very well, every crime or offense “is therefore an attack against the sacred characteristic - nemet Editor’s note. - of the offended individual, against his family, without whom he would not exist, and against the community into which he fits. Attack it will be necessary to compensate. But capital punishment existed only in extreme cases, since the disappearance of the offender never solves something. You “don’t repair” the sacredness (nemet) by removing the one who violated it, you restore it by filling the gap.” It is a strengthening of paganism if an evil deed be avenged ( St. Patrick. Senchus Mor. I. p. 9).

The gods almost always side with those who have been wronged (Boadicea. Queen of the Iceni. Year 61 of our era. According to Cassius Dio LXII , 11).

The notion of recht aicnid therefore refers ultimately to the characteristic “nemet” of the human person. “All is designed to protect the dignity of the individual, through him the honor of his family, and therefore the integrity of the family of which he is a member” (Regis Boyer).

Besides these primary sources, which offer true legal texts to us, we have others of them which can inform us on the real use, and which enable us to depict the probable aspect of the Celtic law.

The historical sources on Ireland report to us for example how the laws were really enforced. There are also the former historical sources which sometimes furtively show us “customs” which will be able to be explained by later legal regulations.

The Irish tales also speak to us, even if it is not often the case, about the legal processes. They can tell us how the laws were really carried out (contrary to the legal texts themselves which tell us only how the laws should be enforced).

The third source as regards druidic ethic is provided to us by two prophecies of somewhat apocalyptic nature.

It is on the existence of the pact with the god-or-demons, concluded after the battle for the Talantio (symbolized by the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Rosemartha, on the Continent) war also known as 3rd battle from the Plain of the standing stones or burial mounds; that this characteristic “nemet” of any human person (his sacred inviolability according to Regis Boyer) is based. This pact with the god-or-

demons is the indispensable condition which makes all gdonios or human being “nemet,” in other words “living in peace with the god-or-demons.”

Another of the information sources being able to inform us about Celtic ethic is made up by what remains for us from the Celtic elegies with which we may equate the Welsh marwnads, and particularly those in Ireland, often inserted in our basic texts under the name of “Rhetoric.” The most beautiful of these poems is without question the elegy written after the death of the great Welsh prince Llewelyn (killed on December 10, 1282) and due to the pen of Gruffudd ab Yr Ynad Coch.

Other famous marwnads or elegies. That of the king of Gwynedd, Gruffydd ap Cynan died in 1137 and due to the pen of Meilyr Brydydd. That of the prince of Powys Madog ap Maredudd, died in 1160 and due to the hand of Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr.

Oh certainly they are funeral orations and, of course, it goes without saying the late one was undoubtedly far from having all qualities which with he is appareled in these circumstances, but the fact remains that he had to have physical features or character traits considered theoretically as positive, appreciated and enviable, by the audience.

Antepenultimate of our sources finally, the druidiactio or druidic hadiths.

i.e., the reflection on the attitude or the reactions that certain historical or mythical former druids had had. What they said and did, as well as the way with which they did it.

And there we do not think of historical druids like the Aeduan Diviciacus but of the druid Marban brother of the king of Connaught called Guaire (7th century) in the Irish story entitled “the heavy hosting of Guaire” (Tromdamh Guaire).

The generosity of his brother attracted in his castle the bard Senchan Torpeist, accompanied by many other bards. But Guaire is no longer able to support this “heavy company.” Marban imagines a stratagem then, to release him from all these bards. He asks them to tell the story of the raid of the cows of Cooley. But the latter ignoring it (or knowing only bits, of it according to the versions), they are then forced to leave (in search of the complete history).

In Islamic theology that would correspond to the hadiths. In Celtic law to what would be called jurisprudence. A parable in the Gospels.

Second to last of our sources BUT FOR WHAT IS THE MORALITY OF THOSE WHO ARE IN CHARGE OF GROUPS OF THE KIND FAMILY CLAN TRIBU STATE. It is indeed necessary to carefully distinguish the morality of individuals having the disposal of their own bodies or resources as they see fit; from the morality of those who are in charge.

And no misunderstanding besides on this subject, what today's druids revoke or refuse is Kant's ethics of conviction, that is to say, the one that must be followed whatever the consequences. This Kantian ethics of conviction, which Weber has before his eyes, is obviously unbearable. Who would not lie to a criminal in order to save an innocent man? Who wouldn't steal bread to feed his children? The ethics of conviction appears as a rational construction, which we soon see is unreasonable. And that is why Weber opposes it, not radically but as its corrective, an ethic of responsibility. The option for such an ethic stems from a rather simple observation: our actions cannot have exclusively good consequences. There is no ethic in the world, Weber continues, that can neglect this: in order to achieve "good" ends, we are most of the time obliged to rely on, on the one hand, morally dishonest or at least dangerous means, and on the other hand, the possibility or even the eventuality of unfortunate consequences. The ethics of conviction has the disadvantage that it shows us the moral life as the necessity to respect all kinds of obligations. Duties, dictated by reason, but also by religion, by the State, by the different groups of which we are members. And these duties come into conflict. From the point of view of the ethics of conviction, the ethics of responsibility is a kind of betrayal. But from Weber's point of view, it is simply realism, a refusal to stick to a moral idealism that ultimately leaves the reality behind you in the name of the idea, which is the characteristic of any ideology.

This brings us to the decisive problem. It is indispensable that we clearly realize the following fact: any ethically oriented activity can be subordinated to two totally different and irreducibly opposed maxims. It can be oriented according to the ethics of responsibility [verantwortungsethisch] or according to the ethics of conviction [gesinnungsethisch]. This does not mean that the ethics of conviction is identical to the absence of responsibility and the ethics of responsibility to the absence of conviction. However, there is an abyssal opposition between the attitude of one who acts according to the maxims of the ethics of conviction - in religious language we would say: "The Christian does his duty and as far as

the result of the action is concerned he entrusts himself to God" - and the attitude of one who acts according to the ethics of responsibility which says: "We must answer for the foreseeable consequences of our actions. "You will waste your time exposing, in the most persuasive way possible, to a Europeanist a humanrightist or an anti-racist who only follows the ethics of conviction, that his action will have no other effect than to increase the decline of democracy or to further enslave women, he will not believe you. When the consequences of an act done out of pure conviction are unfortunate, the follower of this ethic will not attribute the responsibility to the agent, but to the world, to the foolishness of men to the action of the Devil or to the will of God who created men in this way. The partisan of the ethics of conviction tempered by a touch of ethics of responsibility will also count with the common failings of man (for, as Fichte rightly said, one does not have the right to presuppose the goodness and perfection of man... kein Recht, ihre Güte und Vollkommenheit vorauszusetzen) The proponent of the ethics of conviction alone will only feel "responsible" for the need to watch over the flame of pure doctrine so that it is not extinguished, for example, the flame that animates the protest against social injustice. His acts, which must have only exemplary value but which, considered from the point of view of their eventual purpose, are totally irrational, can have only this one end: to perpetually rekindle the flame of his conviction. The pagans themselves will feel that they cannot so easily unload upon others the consequences of their own action as far as they could have foreseen them, and will therefore recognize that these consequences are also attributable to their own action. They do not have the practical invention of confession to start over again from scratch indefinitely.

NB. We are not convinced by the mention of Fichte, but we recognize with Yuval Noah Harari that since what he calls the cognitive revolution man is the only primate to believe in things that do not exist.

"Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human species could previously say, 'Careful! A lion!' Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution (which occurred about 70,000 years ago), Homo sapiens acquired the ability to say, 'The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe.' This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language.It's relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don't really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast *. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven” (Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari).

* During his daily prayer.

The Mirrors for the prince are a literary genre appeared in the Middle Ages.

Written by advisers (often some theologists) for the sovereigns, they existed already during Antiquity in a different form, but were truly developed truly in the 8th century. The Mirrors for princes are a kind of handbook made up of pieces of advice and moral precepts intended to show to the sovereign the way to be followed to rule according to the will of God. As their name indicates it, these tracts look like mirrors returning the image, the description of the perfect king.

In Europe, the first genuine “Mirror for the princes” of the Carolingian time was the Via regia written by Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel around the year 813, and whose recipient seems to be Louis the Pious, whereas he was not yet an emperor. The text of Smaragdus is marked with a strong moral value that the author binds closely to the political arena and to the person of the king. It is advisable to also quote the De regis persona et regio ministerio by Hincmar of Rheims, written into 873, which adopts a vision of the function of the bishops which is quite distinct from the kingly authority. Accordingly, the Mirrors for the princes also touch on the relations of the powers, the temporal power and the priestly power, and their position with respect to God.

In Ireland we have...

The Audacht Morainn or Testament of Morann, written around year 700.

The Tecosca Cormaic or instructions of King Comac.

The Bríatharthecosc Con Culainn intended for Lugaid Reodderg and that we find in the Serglige Con Culainn.

The Briathra Flainn Fina Maic Ossu or maxims of Flann Fina….

And some others.

The interest of this literature is that it no longer deals with individual morality but with the morality of the persons in charge. The men of that time indeed had not waited for Max Weber (1864-1920) to understand that a person in charge, that which is more or less in charge of others, could not stupidly apply a simplistic and therefore necessarily at the same time hypocritical morality like the 10 Commandments. The men of that time had therefore not waited for Max Weber to understand that there is reason to distinguish ethic of conviction from ethic of responsibility.

And as for the biblical or Hollywood staging of the pseudo-revelations made to Moses (in reality a later intellectual work, probably dating from the reign of King Josiah, that is to say from the 7th century before our era, i.e., 6 centuries after the life and death of the fictional character called Moses) we will come back to it. Meanwhile for more details on this thousand-year-old historical imposture see our notebook number 29.

Our ultimate source of inspiration finally will comprise the various eschatological stories, insofar as, on the contrary, they evoke all the faults not to do.

Let the reader allow us nevertheless, on certain points, to keep our distance compared to the former druidism; or to show in certain fields, a requirement higher than that of the aforesaid former druidism; in order to release us from the narrowest formalism. The letter kills, only the spirit gives life!

It is necessary to practice the principles of justice not only personally but also at the level of the community, in the social behaviors. The true sons of kings, the true Celtic [minded] persons, have the duty to point out the good by the word and even by resorting to a certain state coercion if necessary; but without never shedding blood if possible, and always without useless violence, by limiting oneself to the only violence really indispensable to the performing of these actions. Cf. the al-amr bi l-ma 'ruf of the Muslim Mu’tazilites.

The man or woman guilty of a misdeed must compensate for the evil done, or at least do the utmost for. Such is roughly the definition of the minimal Celtic ethic called Reda, which is not at all therefore the retaliation law of the Jews or the law ordering to turn the other cheek among Christians. More mystical minds can find this notion of compensation, typical of Celtic law, in the voluntary agreed sacrifice of Hesus.

This compensation must be provided by the druidicist in order to counterbalance the weight of bran (see this word) being likely to be piled up in his life.

No major surprises in the lists of qualities subjected in this way to our examination. It is approximately a chivalrous morality which we can summarize as follows: good loyal and generous towards his friends even towards ordinary people, heroic and pitiless against the enemies (the fact of being the son of a king is a frequently underlined situation in the Round Table romances). With here and there some allusions to bodily features appreciated by the elites of the time: whiteness = beauty, fairness and brown eyebrows (detail which proves by the way that people dyed or bleached their hair at the time ) etc.

But as these texts have been written down after the Christianization occurred in the Middle Ages, it is difficult in their case to distinguish what falls within the oldest tradition and what must be attributed to the Judeo-Christian contribution. To give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to Boadicea (or Ambiorix my Belgian penfriends tell me) what is Boadicea’s or Ambiorix’s. Must we go up to remove automatically from our field of study all that in these Irish or Welsh texts evokes directly or indirectly , any support for churches; their members and their god or their saints, or alludes to the bible; or can we think that succeeds in fact references to gods and to druids? When an Irish text mentions the last judgment, it goes without saying it is there an undeniable Christian influence since the ancient Celts were unaware of this idea (judgment distribution of the souls of late between hell or heaven) that we also find in Islam besides; but when it speaks only about the end of the world, or end of time? The notion of an end of the world, or more precisely of a cycle (see the famous remark of Strabo on this subject) was indeed known of the ancient druids.

At all events, here the synthesis that we can draw from the pieces of advice given to the Irish kings as well as from the funeral elegies in our legends. Not forgetting the Celtic law, the Irish prohibition or dictates (gessa), the observations or the remarks of the ancient authors, and some basic reflections on certain facts of also ancient Celtic civilization.

PRINCIPLES AND ORIENTATIONS OF THIS BOOKLET.

“TRUTH IN OUR HEARTS, STRENGTH IN OUR ARMS AND ART OF GOOD SPEECH “.

" Firinde inàr croidhedhaibh, 7 neart inàr làmhaibh, 7 comall inàr tengthaibh.”

"THE PURITY OF OUR HEARTS, THE STRENGTH OF OUR LIMBS AND OUR COMMITMENT TO OUR PROMISE" (Glaine ár gcroí, neart ár ngéag agus beart de réir ár mbriathar).

Such is ideal druidism! Triad reported by Cailte/Caletios in answer to a question from St. Patrick in the story entitled “the colloquy of the Ancients “ (Acallam Na senorach).

Ethics it is a design or a coherent doctrine of the behavior in the life. What distinguishes ethic from morality, it is the fact that the manner of behaving is often related to a metaphysical research, and is distinguished thus from imposed morality. In other words, to have an ethic, it is to decide to act in such manner while knowing that it commits me only , and not to be able to hide away behind established and conventional moral laws. The ethic is related to a personal thought.

This small camminus (druidic catechism) for the young from seven to seventy-seven years old , is therefore only the application of the philosophy of John Toland (reformer of druidism in 1717) and of the morality of Albert Bayet (1880--1961). “Our purpose is to fight against Christian morality, to drive out from consciences the old dogmas, but also the precepts and the maxims that certain men made enter them under the pretext of such dogmas” (Albert Bayet. History of Morals).

But now what to remember from the life and the work of John Toland??

The high-knowers of Western Antiquity were scientists, they handed down knowledge, the how-to think ,the know-how.

Our emancipation project equates therefore ultimately to an abolition. Abolition of the pseudo-knowledge, of the esotericisms, i.e., of non-based on clear ideas knowledge, of the knowledge based on beliefs not kept by the court of the free thought or of the systematic doubt.

And when we speak about clear ideas, we want to say really clear, and in all objectivity, incontestably, not only alleged such by their partisans.

It is necessary to avoid like the, naturally brown, plague , the “clear” ideas in the fashion of the people of one book. Judeo-Islamic-Christianity is a psychosis, a schizophrenia. Subjected to all the prejudices of the knowledge, being unaware of the causes by which they are determined, the monolatrous people imagine the higher Being of the philosophers (the nameless God or Demiurge) on the same model as their ideal self; i.e., a will perfectly free and aiming at reaching ends through means. The monolatrous people think that all that occurs to them comes from this nameless Higher Being , the Devil acting only with his permission. Illusion of the final causes, anthropomorphic finalism, such are therefore ultimately the characteristics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, according to Albert Bayet.

People often ask us: “What attitude must we have facing the propaganda of the Witnesses of Jehovah, Christ or Muhammad? ”

The method of reading the Bible or the Quran which they recommend must be absolutely rejected. It is whimsical, useless, bad and pernicious. Their alleged pieces of evidence calm down , and, therefore, send to sleep, but the truth, itself, always requires anxiety. The question which is asked is that of the authenticity of these texts, of their exact meaning, or the distortion that they underwent… The interpretation of these writings must therefore be given by the history of their drafting and nothing more. Facing the biblical “Revelation” of a perennial pseudo-tradition (idea of St. Augustine), Reason must use all available means.

The philosophy of the high-knowers of today is, essentially, as any approach compatible with the scientific spirit, a free thought. It is in that incontestably opposed to the religions which cultivate only the spirit of obedience or of abnegation of oneself. Considering its absence of written texts, therefore it does not give rise to reproaches as regards the method of reading, of course. We must imperatively subordinate the authorities whatever they are (Revelation, Perennial, Tradition, and other universal, or alleged such, truths) to that of Reason.

No authority other than Reason, whether it is a Revelation or a Tradition, should intervene in this act of free examination of representations and judgments. It is a question of being finally and completely released , from the inexorable authority of the old theories originating in desert, completely paralyzed, which slow down the dash of Science or human imagination, in order to give back to Reason the throne which is due to it.

It is the only means of freeing the spirit from the monolatrous cruelty and tyranny or oppression, of the people of one Book. In this field, there are not 36 sciences, a Christian science, a Germanic science, a Jewish science… but one Science. And Science is precisely ONE because it varies and corrects itself, not because of so-called Revelations or Universal Perennial Traditions, presentable outer garments of the ignorance and of the lack of reflection, or knowledge.

The founding act of the neo-druidism since John Toland is a declaration of “cold” war to these intolerances, in the name of essential truths or freedoms, because if the truths as well as concrete freedoms are multiple, the mistakes are so still more.

The truths, once identified with certainty, should not be kept secret. The task - the geis - of all the authentic high-knowers, who must live on these truths but also in them, is to give them to the others. Despite the whole difficulty of the challenge (what's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh).

As regards druidism, the higher good is to enjoy with the others, if possible, of this union of mind and nature, of this contemplation of the truths.

The love of as eternal and infinite things as these truths, feeds the soul/mind with a pure joy, free from every weakness (Jean-Pierre MARTIN, druidic comrunos).

If we dealt up to now with the development of neo-druidism as if it had no connection with ethic, it is that in the first stages of the evolution, it is well thus about that subject. The ethic and the worship of the god-or-demons are independent one of the others. The god-or-demons do not worry about the way in which the men behave the ones with regard to the others; when they take revenge for a crime, it is that this crime was committed against them, that it injured them. Personally and directly it is the explanation of the phenomena which surround them, and not of the sanctions of the moral laws they design, that our ancestors seek, and find, in their various mythologies. Morality is primarily human and social thing; but as the design which man had of the god-or-demons was more anthropomorphized, and as man equated more completely the divine society with the human society; it therefore became inevitable that one supposes that to these same rules which governed the relations of the men, the supernatural or preternatural masters of the world were also subjected. It was inevitable that one had suddenly the thought that they liked them, that they protected the exact observation of them, that they themselves had created them.

The god-or-demons, moreover, are always designed by their worshippers in their own image; as they moralized themselves; they embellished the divine effigies with the virtues they had almost unconsciously practiced, then more clearly designed. The social characteristic of the worship besides, the element of abnegation which finds a place in some of the sacrificial rites, the wrenching from oneself and from one’s material interests, that the approach of the divine one causes in the soul/minds; the selfless affection that the benefits of their god-or-demon caused in his worshippers; the closer and more major friendship the ones towards the others which arose in the members of a religious community, from the awareness to be all together united in the same supernatural body with their Almighty Protector; whose they felt the children jointly; all that, without having clearly the imperative characteristic of a moral law, prepared the union which became, in certain religions, singularly close, of the ethical rules and of the mystical faith in the divine Powers which control the universe. This independence of morality and religion however left obvious traces in the design that the High-knowers make for themselves of the other life; that very generally they imagine as a continuation of the earthly life and not as a compensation or a repair. The country of dead is extremely similar to the country of the living, the same practices prevail there, the same customs, the same way of life. And in this hereafter similar to the world which the sun lights, the villains and the good guys; and I want here to speak about the kindness or the spite measured with regard to the men who support this design of the future life, and weighed with their scale; have the same destiny. If some difference appears in the treatment reserved to those who are no longer among us; it results from the rank that a man held in his tribe, from his social status, from his wealth, from his kind of death, from the magic power which was in him, from his level of intelligence and strength; which make him able to overcome more or less fortunately the obstacles with which the road leading to the Other World are bristled; from the achievement or non-achievement of the funerary rites by his parents and his friends. Never, in the origin, from his moral qualities, his virtues, his faults.

When the union starts to be done between the concepts of ethic and the religious ideas ; and when the god-or-demons and the soul/minds, formerly principles of explanation of the cosmic phenomena, will have become the guardians of the laws of the human action, the judges of the behavior of men, the equitable remunerators of the good and of the evil; the rewards and the punishments, which they will give out to mortals, will be a long time limited to the present life. Beside social morals and inner morality, a ceremonial and ritual morality always remained, which only seems properly and specifically religious. But the god-or-demons continue to ignore, fortunately besides, many manifestations of human activity. Even changed by the allegorical interpretation, their adventures, whose cosmic meaning is often ignored, cannot be enough to give perfect models to the human behavior. Moral religions do not create, to be expressed, original symbols. Or at least persist in them, beside them, the old ceremonies and the old myths that the new ideas or feelings which are embodied in them rejuvenate; and that the majestic emotions for which, since remote ages, these ceremonies and myths are used as vehicles, made sacred. Through these ceremonies and myths in question, the ritualism and the mythology of the old naturist worships are reinstated in ethic.

There is one of these religions in particular, the Mazdaism, which is to be attached well to the group of the purely ethical religions, in spite of the abundance of the naturist elements which persisted in it. As for the Brahmanism of our Hindu friends, we could not separate it from the other nature religions, to which so many ties attach it; but it is undeniable that the ethical concerns hold an essential place in it, that the rule of the manners is inseparable from the ritual rules there, that the moral redemption of the individual is there one of the essential purposes of worship; and we could not forget that Jainism and Buddhism, after all, resulted from it.

FOR A TOTAL REVERSAL

OF THE CURRENT VALUES OF TODAY

In order to create a New Man with the best of the former one.

As the great Tunisian sociologist, Gaston Bouthoul (1896-1980) saw it very well in his treatise of sociology: “The appearance of a value judgment is seldom a true invention in the sense of creation of a new concept. It consists […] in reclassifying some values in a new hierarchical order. In other words, it is a permutation, or an emphasizing.”

Values having always prevailed in our hearts and our reflexes of poor gdonioi (i.e., in the hearts and the reflexes of the heavily chthonian poor human beings that we are); well, they are ambitiousness, conformism, cowardice ( whether it is physical, moral, or intellectual besides *) the non-respect of the others, and so on.

“Values” to which we may add today some others like the money or the contempt of every manual work. Yes, yes, yes! To find normal that an attorney is paid infinitely better than a farmer, even performing a scientific, organic, water efficient and nonpolluting, farming; that amount well placing this trade, however, vital for a society, far behind that of attorney, not?

And even if these values officially and theoretically are despised by everyone, of course, because they are justified by sophisms of the kind: “It is normal to pay responsibilities or studies, etc.”

As if a nurse having in her hands, the life of her patient did not have as much responsibility than an attorney! As if a shepherd or a fisherman could not also be cultivated, to have studied, while having as trade to provide quality fish or milk? Yes, definitely, there are a little too many our fellow countrymen not directly productive, even quite simply parasitic, in our civilization (professional sportsmen, professional politicians, chairman and chief executive officers of quoted on the stock exchange company never accepting their responsibilities including with respect to their own goods, stars of the entertainment world, etc.).

A detailed list of these “values” to be inverted (because the ancient druids did not have the same ones, it is obvious) was provided to us by the well-read men having inspired the texts entitled…

Immacallam in da thuarad, the Dialog of the Two Sages (and more precisely the prophecy ascribed to the named Ferchertne)

Cath maighe Tuireadh, the Battle of the plain with burial mounds (see at the end the prophecy ascribed to the fairy Morrigan in conclusion).

“Summer without flowers, kine will be without milk, women without modesty, men without valor, woods without mast,

sea without produce, wrong judgments of old men, false precedents of judges, every man a betrayer, every boy a robber.

Son will enter his father's bed, father will enter his son's bed, Cliamain cach a bratar, everyone will be his brother's brother-in-law or father-in-law???? Son will deceive his father, daughter will deceive her mother.”

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Neo-druidic counter-lay (comment) No. 1.

- Cows without milk. See the disease known as “mad cow disease.”

- Trees without masts. Disease of certain trees?

- Sea without produce: there is less and less fish in the oceans.

- Women without modesty. Without falling into the prudishness, we cannot help think of certain excesses of sexuality. Or of the divorces in France (completely unjustified compensatory allowance required by the ex-wife and granted, of course, etc.)

- Son will enter his father's bed . Incest?

- Son will deceive his father : lack of respect towards the parents, who are abandoned once become old or who are stripped of their goods. When they are not both at the same time.

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Immacallam in da thuarad.

“The chiefs are many 1), wherein honors are few: the living quash fair judgments.The cattle is barren 2). Men cast off modesty. Men are bad: good kings are few: usurpers are many 3). Disgraces are crowds: every man is blemished 4). Chariots perish along the race course 5). Truth does not safeguard excellence. Every art is buffoonery 6). Every falsehood is chosen. So that neither rank nor age, nor dignity, nor art, nor instruction are served. Every skillful person is broken. Good princes perish before usurpers by oppression of the men of the black spears 8).

Belief is destroyed. Offerings are disturbed. Niggardly storerooms are laid waste. Inhospitality destroys flowers 7).Through false judgments fruits fall. His path perishes for everyone.

Hounds inflict conflicts on bodies….so that every one is injured by his following through darkness and grudge and niggardliness. Poverty and stinginess and grudging will come from everywhere.

Many controversies are there with artists.Everyone buys a lampooner to lampoon on his behalf. Everyone imposes a limit on another. On every hilltop treachery adventures, so that neither bed nor oath protects. Everyone hurts his neighbor: so that every brother betrays another. Everyone slays his companion at drinking together and eating together, so that there is neither truth nor honor nor soul there.

Niggards shrivel one another for their number. Usurpers satirize one another with a storm of every darkness 10). Ranks are spilt: clericisms is forgotten: sages are despised. Music turns into boors. Wisdom turns into false judgments 11). Evil passes into the points of the crosiers (of bishops?????). Every sexual connection turns into adultery.

Great hubris and great free will turn into the sons of peasants and churls. Great niggardise and great inhospitality and great penuriousness turn into landholders, so that their poems are dark. Wrong judgments pass into men in high places kings and lords.

Undutifulness and anger pass into everyone's mind so that neither kings nor lords hear the prayers of their tribes or their judgments; so that the erenaghs [estate managers] don’t listen to their tenants and pupils don’t rise up (respectfully) before their teachers.

Everyone turns his art into false teaching and false intelligence, so that the junior likes to be seated while his senior is standing , so that it is no shame with a man who is eating after closing his house against the artist who sells his honor and his soul for a cloak and for food; greed fills every human being: so that the proud man sells his honor and his soul for the price of one scruple (the twenty-fourth of a silver ounce: in other words a very small sum of money).

Modesty is cast off: folks are contemned: great lords are destroyed; Ietters are forgotten: poets are not produced. Righteousness is removed: false judgments are manifested by the usurpers of the final world: fruits after appearing are burnt up by a flood of outlanders and rabble. On every territory is an excessive number.

Towns are extended into uplands. Every forest becomes a great plain: every great plain becomes a forest. Everyone is a slave with all his family.

There are many hurtful diseases: sudden awful tempests: lightning with cries of trees (struck by thunderbolts). Winter leafy, summer gloomy, autumn without crops, spring without flowers 12).

Mortality with famine.Diseases on cattle: bedgacha (staggers?), consumption, murrains, dropsies, lumps, agues.

Estrays without profit: hiding places without treasures: great goods without men to consume them. Extinction of championship. Failure on cornfields. Perjurers. Judgments with anger. A death of three days and three nights on two thirds of human beings. A third of those plagues on beasts of sea and forest.

Flowers perish. In every house there is wailing. Men tend men. Daughters conceive to their fathers 13). In every tribe monsters are born. Stream pools turn against streams. Horse dung turns into gold colors. Water turns into taste wine. Mountains turn into perfect plains. Bogs turn into flowery clover. Swarms of bees are burnt among uplands (?)The flood tides of the sea delay from one day to another. The lamps of heaven are hidden15).

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Neo-druidic counter-lay (comment) No. 2.

1. The chiefs are numerous: excess even perversion of the authentic democracy.

2. The cattle of the world is barren: adverse effects of some practices of industrial and intensive farming.

3. The usurpers are many : allusion to certain politicians who claim to defend such or such ideal, such or such idea, but who in reality do the opposite.

4. Each man is blemished: adverse effects of the modern life on health. Male Sterility, multiplication of the respiratory diseases…

5. Chariots perish along the race course : multiplication of the automobile accidents,

6. Every art is buffoonery: decline of the arts and of the letters.

7. Inhospitality destroys flowers: I that makes me rather thinking of antisocial behavior (degradation of the street furniture, of the seats in public transport, and so on).

8. Men of the black spears. Then of whom it can be a question in the head of Ferchertne or of the one who put these words in his mouth? Some Vikings? Mystery!

9. Niggards will shrivel one another for their number : there are too many people to refuse to share a little bit one’s wealth, to refuse the least pay rise, and so on.

10) Usurpers satirize one another with a storm of every darkness : the political life is only made out of corruption, quibbling, settling of score or servility. The France of Nicolas Sarkozy made of it quite a sad demonstration, all the opposite of President Obama, for example.

11) Wisdom is turned into false judgments, evil passes into the points of the crosiers. The bishops are false prophets, their lack of intelligence or clearness finally makes them play a very harmful part and this, whatever their starting good intentions.

12) Winter leafy, summer gloomy, autumn without crops, spring without flowers: in short, there are no longer seasons.

13) Daughters conceive to their fathers : allusion either to incestuous practices or to the development of the practice of the surrogate mothers.

14) In every tribe monsters are born : multiplication of the genetic diseases?

15) The lamps of heaven are hidden: allusion to air pollution.

Genuine druidism therefore implies the reversal of all these “values,” in order to substitute to them in our hearts and our minds the anti-values which follow a little below. GENUINE druidism implies the total inversion in our hearts and in our minds of these values (avarice, stinginess, hubris, arrogance, etc.) which are not at all the same ones as its, it is the least that we can say and on the contrary implies their replacement by those which follow.

Here for example what the druids of the intellectual type or poet wrote concerning the named Curouias (Curoi); one of the characters of the Fled Bricrend (of Feast of Bricriu in Gaelic language) or of the Mesca Ulad (of the intoxication of the Ulaid always in Gaelic language).

“The judgments he gives are true.

He is fair, not given to falsehood, but good and a lover of justice,

Noble in mind and a guest friend, skillful of hand like a hero.”

The values preached by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) having recorded these texts are therefore clear. Truth, justice, sincerity or veracity, kindness, wisdom and sense of hospitality, honor and dignity, respect.

Below also the in a way “deontological” pieces of advice that the Hesus= Cuchulainn gives to his adoptive son, Lugaid the red striped (the future king of the kings in the country). The Hesus = Hound of Culann who, let us remind of it, in the event of war, never transgressed the Fir Fer, killed neither the charioteers , neither the messengers, nor unarmed people; and it seemed to him neither noble, nor beautiful, to take the horses, the clothing, or the weapons, from killed men (in other words to strip them. See not the surah of the Quran devoted to the spoils but the text of the driving off of the cattle of Cooley).

* On the long history of often ambiguous relations between the French (pseudo) elites and the (political) power, to see our next study. The French intellectuals often felt a true fascination for the power and even often developed an undeniable penchant for the collaboration with the latter. Need for recognition obliges ! And when it is not obviously with the political powers that be; it is with the dominant ideology of the moment; or with the conditioned reflexes of this dominant ideology common to the official majority as to the official opposition.

Extracts of the cable 07 Paris 306, from the American Embassy.

“The private sector media in France – print and broadcast - continues to be dominated by a small number of conglomerates, and all French media are more regulated and subjected to political and commercial pressures than are their American counterpart…

… These journalists do not necessarily regard their primary role as to check the power of government. Rather many see themselves more as intellectuals, preferring to analyze events and influence readers more than to report events.”

TRADITION AND DRUIDIC MAGISTERIUM (HENRY LIZERAY IN CONNECTION WITH THE LEBAR GABALA).

Former druids were teachers. As shown in Chapter 14 Book VI of the divine Julius.

They taught the youth many speculations touching the stars and their movement, the size of the universe and of the earth, the order of nature…

We know from the Irish druidiactio that there was also history botany medicine law poetry geography, etc.

Let's be clear. There is no longer any question today of fulfilling this office in a remunerated or even voluntary manner, only private research in dilettante on certain particular subjects and as amateurs can be imagined. Today's druids who would break this rule in as sensitive as medicine, fields, for example, would be subject to the Bratuspantium.

That said, as noted by Henry Lizeray, peoples are never indifferent to the story of their traditions: witness the immortal glory that Homer and Virgil got for having reported the origins of their homeland. The private interest which is attached to history…

But, alas, during the adventures of this astonishing, amazing, drama, which forms our history, among the reverses of our fortune we lost the power, the territory, the traditions, all, up to our name, keeping from ourselves only this other whole which is the soul.

Our name of Celts who understands it today?….

Our annals, so vast since they were part of the druidic teaching which lasted twenty years, our annals perished when the head of the last druid fell under the persecutions of Claudius. The druids, indeed, did not write and entrusted to the memory their original and universal doctrines. From their immense knowledge, had reached us to date only what was reported by some Greek and Latin authors and by the philosophers of the Middle Ages.

But behold that, in this distress, a sister nation had the piety to preserve a considerable number of Celtic traditions. Ireland, well worthy to have taken the harp as an emblem, collected in the libraries of the Trinity College and of the Irish National Academy a thousand manuscripts, priceless treasures which will be used to clear the night spread out on our beginnings.

However before allow oneself to borrow from the Irishmen their traditions, in order to reconstruct by analogy those which are missing for us, it is important to prove the identity of the continental and islander Celts, and preliminarily, to explain what the Celts are [….]

The Celts owed their defeats to their dissents and faults: painful and however reassuring admission for the future, since we are always free not to fall down again in his errors. But in spite of purely accidental reverses, the Celts had on their enemies from the North and from the South an astonishing intellectual superiority, as we will show it.

The Romans, people of robbers in the beginning, worthless in all the manifestations of intelligence, were characterized in policy by the grouping instinct peculiar to the gangsters. But in the narrow design of the Roman city, the rights of the individual were brutally sacrificed to the interests of the mass. Authoritative, absolutist, the City owed the triumph of its policy to the constant application of this only principle: to divide and rule, by carrying out besides an exploiting , avid and ruinous administration.

In sociology, the Celts, on the contrary, thanks to an acute feeling of individuality, had discovered early the elective principle and the parliamentary mode, sure guarantee of the individual rights; rising above the absolute and exclusive design of the city, they had grouped in a distinct nation, divided into provinces, those in towns, with rights for all.

While applying the comparison, not on the little inventive Romans, but on the Greeks, their instructors, we will see better the originality of the Celts. Those had put, like the Greeks, the whole nature in systems, but what a difference between the genius of the two people! Whereas the Greek observation was practiced on the external and formal phenomena, the Celt fathomed the very functioning of the life. You will grasp this truth, if you consider the development of the Celtic thought until our days, by examining sciences one by one and by noting the differences of the Greek and Celtic designs [….].

In politics, the Greek as the Roman sticks to the conservation of the status quo, of the State, the Celt is moved by the desire for the progress. In Athens and Sparta, as in Rome, the authority principle inspires the sacrifices, among the Celts, the love of freedom gives birth to the heroes. In Greek and Roman jurisprudence the formula is all, in Celtic law the intention is enough to create the legal bond.

In morals, the Greek obeys the duty traced by the written law, the Celt the inspirations of his conscience. In dialectics, the Greek Aristotle considers the form of the reasoning and sets up the demonstration with the scaffolding of the syllogism; the Celt, on the contrary, recognizes the truth directly through its very splendor, which is the obviousness.

In philosophy finally (and it is it which expounds the intellectual processes of which we have seen the various applications) the Greeks categorized the external accidents of the matter, and while classifying them in not connected kinds, thus constituted sciences of spaces, whereas the Celts sensed the continuity of the life, understood its forces and fixed the laws of the seriation in time. The serial [Latin series in the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus ] philosophy, here is precisely the essence of the Celtic spirit. It is it which, by recognizing the universality of the series, puts on the track of all the discoveries, which are only the supplement of the unknown terms of any unspecified series. It is this philosophy which, as of its first principle, "natura non facit saltus, nature does not make jumps,” exceeds from afar all the Greek and Latin wisdom, and gives to the man of genius the practical means to carry out the inventions of which it already revealed the theory.

By way of religious beliefs, the Romans had accepted those of the Hebrew people to whom Moses prohibited fornication with animals. Such prohibitions indicate a time and a civilization quite backward. Moses speaks, indeed, to his people as to savages going only moved by the fear of eternal punishments. In this respect, there is no book stupider than the Bible where all is equally stupid. What a stupidity that this universal flood, as if the clouds or the seas could contain enough water to submerge the highest mountains. Behind the silly hagiography of the Hebrews, the Greek fables were not recognized ..... Charity is a characteristic common to Christians and Orgiasts, but the sensitivity of the heart, recommended by the Gospel, must be got without the stupefying of the mind [.....]

Instead of this primitive thaumaturgy, the druids taught the belief in the immortality of the soul and its successive states of being. The fluidic nature of the living being had initially been revealed by the most elementary study of the phenomena of the vision which supposes reciprocity in the emission of the rays. The logical proof of this first outline was given by the serial induction which indicates for every state a previous one and a consequence. Finally, the practice of hypnotism confirmed these doctrines. It is known, indeed, that the hypnotized subject answers affirmatively when he is questioned about the reality of the soul. From this so high theory rose the really human dogmas of free will, responsibility, consciousness and progress.

We believe to have shown the superiority of the Celtic doctrines on the Hebraic-Greek-Roman designs. It remains to establish the same proof with regard to the Germanic people [….] The Germanic man never rose above the warlike brutalities of the struggle for life. His ideal was to sit down after his death at the table of Odin and to share with him a piece of the roasted wild boar which always remained intact, by toasting this meal with broad glassfuls. During his life, he tried to carry out his ambition of war and good food through the feudal system, barbaric system in that it put the individual under the absolute dependence of the owner of the land, and gave all the rights to the brute strength without leaving one of them to industry, etc.

Note of the editor. The founder of the national druidic Church let himself have his temper lost through his anti German and anti-English patriotism.

TRADITION AND DRUIDIC MAGISTERIUM (CONTINUATION).

Celtic tradition and druidic magisterium in no way must dispute preeminence as regards training of men. Far from being in competition in the transmission of the truths of always, they must on the contrary supported themselves mutually, thanks to the action of Taran/Toran/Tuireann and of his victories in our minds (budisms).

It is a question of making the Celtic Tradition gleam in the middle of men and peoples, but this inner adherence could be worth fully only if it is free. All that once again therefore depends on the inner action of the gods like Taran/Toran/Tuireann in our minds.

This small missionary side of the moral magistracy of druidism is only the extension of the fight for the truth with regard to the past, the present, or the future, of the world to be built. By thus guiding him towards the divine light, the druidiactio aims the good of Man, his supermanization.

The new law (magisterium) of druidism, far from abolishing the principle of the gessa in the former druidism, widens it and gives to it on the contrary its full meaning.

Most mystical minds will see even in the legend of Setanta Cuchulainn, either the illustration, or the concretization, of an alliance between the spirit and the matter. An alliance sealed with the formidable energy of the Grail.

This new peace with the god-or-demons was not done like that, at once, of course. The ethical reflection about it had already begun at the end of the primordial druidism, and it was continued by former druidism. The neo-druidism, it is therefore the spirit of all the gods, spread in the heart of all the druidicists.

We can be released by the choice of the values that they embody and which are indissolubly related to druids, no matter what we can think of it, even if those do not deserve always individually such an interdependence, but also by the practice of the ethical gessa.

“Admodum dedita religionibus” (Caesar. Commentary Book VI, 16-18).

Such is in substance the “new” command (there is nothing again than what was forgotten, my old Master Gaston Bouthoul would say) of the release of energies.

We understand better in these conditions the famous proverb in Celtic language repeated by the mother of St. Symphorian from the top of the walls of the town of Autun: “nate, mento beto to divo”: turn entirely your mind towards the divinity my son, and let yourself be guided by him. Think of the divinity and of his spirit will galvanize also your life.”

If through this baptism in the blood of the Grail (Sangreal) or through the fire baptism, men pass through death with the assistance of the god-or-demons (of the peaceful and helpful deities, our Buddhist friends would say, not wrathful in any event); it is that they will end up also living in their company, “in the large plain where the Grail takes center stage on its diamond rock.”

Cf. the mysterious island described by Plutarch who, rather strangely, also calls its god “a demon” (De facie in orbe lunae, 26).

This world here is a hard world, on the other hand, a world of the struggle for life, a world of suffering. Vae victis the famous Brennus said , one day. But whoever loses one’s life by not piling up too much bran will find it again in the next world; and he who wants to save one’s life at all costs, because he will accumulate on him bran (some bad ategeneto) becoming thus a bacuceus; he will become a bacuceus or a phantom (seibaros, siabair/siabhradh in Gaelic language) escaped from the ices of the before heaven (andumno or anwn) depicted in the folklore under the name of Kingdom of Donn (Donnotegia) of Arawn or of Tethra.

Hermann Usener. Scholia in Lucani bellum civile/Commenta Bernensia. Liber I (1869).

451.“The druids deny that souls can perish

[Driadae negant interire animas]

OR GO TO HELL”

[aut contagion inferorum adfici].

Because most faults do not call into question by nature the orientation of a life entirely turned towards the divine one.

They form what we call some simple faults. But they can, however, slow down for a time our self-liberation by practice and works.

Some other faults, although harming more seriously to the truth of Mankind, are made especially by ignorance or unconsciousness. When, into such acts, Man does not steps truly, for lack of freedom or knowledge, these faults too, also remain venial then.

Other errors, on the other hand, due to this original human weakness of which we spoke (symbolized by the famous annual disease of the Ulaid) , can mortgage our future very seriously. They are gross negligence , because they lead indeed to the relapse in animality, by excessive accumulation of bran. Those who think about what is good and about what is false, or about what is undoubtedly true; have generally no difficulty in agreeing on the broadest principles, to revere the gods (or demons Plutarch writes), to abstain from wrongdoing , etc. They can even agree on what is well and on what is false for the Man. Is true all that builds him, all that makes him freer, all that makes him more responsible, in short more Man (superman).

Is good all that supermanizes the Man and the human community by making them suited to the direct contemplation of the divinity. Inevitable corollary, is false, on the other hand, all that dehumanizes and brings back the Man onto the level of the animal or of the frightened child.

But as soon as we move away from these great principles, to go down again in the field of the concrete applications, some divergences are not long in appearing, the things become less clear.

It is, however, in the concrete of the daily life that difficulties arise. To respect the life of an innocent person for example is well, not to respect it would be criminal, but who is innocent?

Is it bad to put an end to the life of a dangerous murderer, for example during his arrest if he uses his weapon? Is the soldier mobilized to defend his homeland an innocent man or a murderer ? Does the mother stealing bread to feed her children deserve to go to the penal colony like the Jean Valjean of Victor Hugo, to the Gulag or to the concentration camp? And the count of Monte Cristo… did he deserve life imprisonment for having been simply Bonapartist?

To answer the question: “what is really good for Man? ” It is therefore necessary initially to wonder: what is Man? If you place the emphasis on the dependence with respect to a creator and the contempt of the body, as Christians do, look out the backfires of the Christian , or Muslim besides, Inquisition (Hisbah). The womb he crawled from is still going strong. Piece of evidence: Daesh.

N.B. At the origin, the Hisbah was responsible for the checking of the conformity of the proceedings in the economic and commercial business, of the weights and measures, as well as of the legality of the contracts; compared to the sharia. Its institution is based on a verse which gives a list of good behaviors (while defining some major prohibitions ). “give measure and weight with full justice;- no burden do We place on any soul, but that which it can bear;- whenever you speak, speak justly, even if a close relative is concerned”(Quran VI, 152). Its first person in charge was a woman named Shifa. The powers of the Hisbah were then extended, to concern almost all the aspects of the social life of Muslims. They were used for example to track apostates and heretics (Sufis, Mu’tazilites etc..).

The answer will be, of course, very different if the man is sensed as a person endowed with intelligence and freedom, but having also more or less controlled by reason instinctive needs.

An elaborate moral reflection must bring into play the fundamental philosophical or religious questions, but on this subject men and peoples are all far from agreeing. Behind any ethic, at least implicitly, a design of the gdonios, an idea of the Man, emerges.

The answers are therefore never obvious, because Man remains a mystery and it remains to increase the Fir Fer by a broader declaration of the Human rights and duties ; towards life, towards animals, towards plants, towards the planet … The errors in question can also take on a collective dimension at the level of a whole community (party, trade union, profession, ideology, religion, elites, classes, democrats, republicans, loyalists, royalists, right-wing, left-wing, etc.). The social or collective faults are the resultant of the accumulation and concentration of the individual bran; (of the ignorance or blindness of the pseudo-intellectuals, of the democrats or republicans, royalists or populist, of left-wing or right-wing people, and so on).

This bran can seriously mortgage the health of the collective soul/minds or of the national geniuses. The Slavic soul , for example, was seriously wounded by the errors of the left-wing ideology of the (popular) democracy, errors also consisting themselves of an accumulation of mistakes. These faults were blind madness, a true work of death for the individuals and the peoples (Gulag made million victims in Russia from 1917 until 1960). Gustave Le Bon in his 1895 work entitled Crowd Psychology had already analyzed the phenomenon very well, but in connection with the French Revolution.

ON THE MORAL MAGISTRACY (MAGISTERIUM) OF NEO-DRUIDISM (CONTINUATION).

While being diverted from his truth , Man tends to be chained with what he has lowest. Some today monolatrous people, for example Christians, Muslims, socialists, anti-racists, etc. more or less taking the Jewish system of the scapegoat over; today hold pell-mell the Wasps, the poor white settlers , the colonists, the Arabs, the White New Caledonians in New Caledonia, etc. responsible for all the evils in the world. These loose maneuvers of the Christians, of certain Jews, Muslims (in short of the “spiritually Semitic” people or of the people of one Book ) cannot prevent the evil which they claim to fight. The practice of the scapegoats was always a serious error. Nobody can, by this means, succeed in eluding his individual or collective responsibilities.

This extraordinary blindness is the very illustration of the tragic side of the human condition. The result of any racist reflex can lead only to disaster. The situation in current Zimbabwe is the proof of it. The international community helped Robert Mugabe to drive out all the Whites from this country, we see the result today! There is not worse racist than a supposed anti-racist helped or supported by all the nice and smart people that the Earth can see. To destine for flames of I do not know what hell, or for eternal damnation, the WASPS, the poor white settlers, the colonists, the Arabs, the Zoreilles in this French island of the Indian Ocean called Reunion; and other scapegoats of this kind; as the current monolatrous mass religions do it (democrats, Left-wing, republicans, royalists, loyalists, Christianity, right-wing , Centre, Jews, Islam and Freemasons; whose importance is overestimated in any event, whether it is by themselves, in order to give themselves some importance precisely, or by their adversaries)… is a spirit resignation which can only keep Mankind in a childish state near to debility or Down’s syndrome, and which, in the long term, can only change men into puppets. The men being no longer able to take on this typically Ultonian weakness, oscillate between a pseudo innocence (the quite thick and quite coarse clear conscience of republican democrats , liberals or anti-liberals, men of the left wing or of the right wing) and the open revolt or the neo-Nazi despair. Unless setting up their desire into a higher rule, by issuing that the falsehood became the good.

To let such a thing be believed, to let believe that you can be yourself without stain and innocent as a lamb that is just born, it is at the same time to be mistaken and to mislead the others. But with neo-druidism, Man becomes again on the contrary able to get the truth, this truth which makes free. “Goes and be no more mistaken, nate, my son” could be the motto of the neo-druidism. Because in our neo-druidism, the denunciation of the human weaknesses never goes without the concrete mean to cure it

To admit one’s weaknesses and one’s errors is the first of the steps which lead to their control. It is therefore necessary to start with such modesty in the approach, to release oneself from such a so paralyzing childhood disease (See the Ces Ulad). Childish and making childish are the religions which place Evil outside the Men themselves, outside us, for example in the spirit of an unspecified great Satan.

“Admodum dedita religionibus” in Latin language (Caesar, B.G. Book VI, 16-18).

“Nate, mento beto to divo” in Celtic language (the mother of noibo Symphorian from the top of the walls in Autun).

This release by practice and works, as every truly Celtic life, provides a frightening “feel-good” hormone, the sense of accomplishment. To refuse to clearly stigmatize what is wrong, the comma error in the initial equation, in the genome ( to revere the gods, to be courageous and to abstain from wrongdoing ” the cainte of the former druidism said) is to be an accomplice of fatal risks for the whole Mankind. See on this subject the initial silence of Christians and democrats or republicans, with respect to the crimes against Humanity of the Communists of Stalinist type (Katyn, etc.) and more recently of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

The former druids placed the ethic of their various deontological codes under the sign of true, authentic, freedom, whereas the blind optimism and the irenicism as for them, always lead to death… to the death of the spirit first, to the death of the bodies then! ” There is a strengthening of paganism if an evil deed is avenged ( St. Patrick. Senchus Mor. I. p. 9). Today we can only pay homage to their perspicacity, because the research of the current social sciences comes to similar conclusions. The specialists make the ethical approach as a constituent of Mankind. The psychoanalysts speak about the structuring role of the gessa.

The neo-druids do not claim, however, to the monopoly of the research on ethic as we saw, whatever its forms (bioethics, medical deontology, police deontology…) For centuries, an effort of reflection and action was carried out by men, of which some besides were neither druidicists nor even pagan (atheists??); but simply anxious to honor their status of a human being, by living in dignity or true freedom. From Zarathustra/Zoroaster to Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, some great names thus mark out the history of the ethical reflection of Mankind. Today still many men and women have a worthy and honorable life, while being atheistic or unbelieving, most often because they have been put off or disgusted by monolatrous mass religions (they are like the Saint Thomas in the Christian Gospels, they believe only what they see). According to Strabo, certain Celts and particularly the Galicians in Spain were atheistic. Is this possible or is it rather a lack of slight difference in the thought of Strabo unable to understand the subtleties of certain druidic Schools? In every case here his quotation. “Some say the Callaicans have no god, but the Celtiberians and their neighbors on the north offer sacrifices to a nameless god at the seasons of the full moon, by night, in front of the doors of their houses, and whole households dance in chorus and keep it up all night ” (Strabo, Geography III, 4.16). It is therefore imperative to take it into account. The Men always sought how to live as Men but the task is difficult. “ Heaven helps those who help themselves,” an old typically local proverb says.

Arrian. Hunting. XXXV.1 “No human undertaking has a prosperous issue without the interposition of the gods” (in other words: “If you pull your weight, you will be lucky, if you make no effort, you will be unlucky.” The druidicist must seek the truth as well as the solution of the issues that as well the private life as the social life, raises. Admittedly, to point out the various ethical gessa necessary to this long quest for the Grail, without taking into account the time necessary to learn how to live them, can destroy the Human being and imprison him in a destroying culpability.

This is why the new druidism prefers to point out these gessa with an infinite patience, patience towards the others or oneself. This patience is the slowest of the paths leading to the blossoming of the soul (moksha in Hinduism), but it is also the most solid and surest. Provided that, of course, this slowness is not a pretext to do anything, a way of being an accomplice of the aforesaid weaknesses. Beyond the slogans which follow one another on morality, in the various religions monopolizing currently our poor Mankind, the questions of ethic remain in the forefront of the concerns of men and women. Because they want to live free, while being confronted with contingencies of all kinds, whereas they dream not to be limited (see how they created the god-or-demons in their image). So they have the nostalgia of a harmony lost between them and nature (nature which surrounds them or their own nature) the nostalgia of peace among men, of justice, etc. In short the nostalgia of a forever mythical Hyperborea. Progress challenges them and these new challenges are summarized in one question: up to what point do these techniques contribute to the achievement of our Humanity? Medicine, for example… it puts in our hands a luminous energy which is no longer now of Belenian type (after the name of the Celtic Apollo), but of Lugiferian type (see the gae bolga of Lug). Do we have to give thanks for that to the belisama Brigindo Brigantia Brigit?? Chemistry makes it possible to create all kinds of new drugs, but poisons our cities. As for the genetics, it makes it possible the greatest hopes for the cure of many diseases, and makes it possible to consider the coming, one day, of an authentic superhumanity able to face the divinity but it can also lead to the depreciation of some people.

The goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if this word is preferred, Brigindo Brigantia Brigit, inspires to us discoveries able to transform the earth into a garden, but also… to disintegrate it. Will the man know, like Lug and his gae bolga, to control these powers by becoming thus similar to the gods or will he be a slave of them?

From where the vital nature for the human being of the ethical approach, because many problems remain. The Man can see where is truth but to do the evil. It is precisely on this point that the recurring weakness due to our animal origin appears, and there is here as a secret wound in the heart of every Man. The impetus towards the truth of the life is like slowed down by a ball attached to our wings. The moral commitment of the Man is therefore not simply an affair of intelligence, it also brings his will into play.

ETHIC AND DEONTOLOGICAL CODES.

The neo-druidism does not abolish the laws of the old druidism, it fulfills them by exceeds them, what is not the same thing. Or it rectifies their distortions, necessary in their time, but no longer today, as in connection with the human sacrifices.

To live with dignity and as a man according to the neo-druidism, therefore does not abolish the gessa of the former druidism, but incorporates them and exceeds them. If the neo-druidism “forgets” sometimes its gessa, it is not because it thinks it is itself above them, but because it widens them and fulfills them without needing to refer to them still. If the neo-druidism fulfills the laws of the former druidism, anyway , they did nothing but take over or clarify the rectu adgenias, i.e., the natural law.

Natural law, because for the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, Aicned means “nature as a basis of law” and an ancient triad of the Uraicecht Becc, an 8th-century law treatise ,specifies well also in black and white that it is from this Aicned that the Pagans passed their judgments: Aicned as a mberdis na genti a mbretha. The Rectu adgenias is therefore the Law of the human species in the state of nature.

This is why the gessa of neo-druidism can illuminate the path of each man, of each combenno, and not only that of the druids, and not only that of the druidicists.

“To you alone it is given the gods and celestial powers to know or not to know; great trees of remote groves are your dwelling place. According to your masters, the shades of dead men, etc.” (Lucan, Pharsalia).

As each one knows, forever resurrected from the death, the gods do not die truly, death has no longer power on them since their banquet of eternity with the magic pigs of Gobannus. The example of the former druids thus involves us in their continuation and the new druidism helps to distinguish the divine calls or the divine words which mark out the path leading to the true world.

In connection with these various means of making a success of the blossoming of one’s soul , called moksha by Hindus, the magisterium of the druids is there to remember in time, and at the wrong time, what is true or what is seriously erroneous. Those who cannot arrive in their lifetime to the state of awenyddion (broges or bacucei) must try to recognize, in all the complex situations of the worldly life; which are the remaining means of their self-liberation, what can support or on the contrary slow down the blossoming of their soul. The broges, the bacucei, or the seibaros (Irish siabair/siabhradh) having escaped the ices of the before paradise (andumno or anwn) staged by the folklore related to the kingdoms of Donn (Donnotegia) of Arawn or Tethra.

In our time and in certain fields where the conscience of the other religions is darkened; the neo-druidism must therefore have the courage to point out the possible paths of this future release in the universal Big whole. The neo-druidism then faces inevitably the incomprehension, the hostility even, including from certain of its own faithful; but the more it will run up against the generally accepted ideas, the more it will have to respect the people repeating them. The nemet, it is the Man.

On the new and very complex difficulties which arise today, the neo-druidism, of course, has no universal jurisdiction. However, when these problems affect such the salvation of our souls/minds (let us think of bioethics, economic life, unemployment, underdevelopment, pollution, climate changes, etc.); the neo-druidism must intervene to bring the beginnings of answer that it has.

Because the neo-druidism does not always have a complete and in an instant answer to everything, but it has the role to join its traditional lights to the universal experience, in order to light the path into which mankind goes. Thus, through the listening to the qualified men and while dialoguing with them, the neo-druidism can clear new ways in the light of the testimonies of the former one, or by rediscovering the sense of the divinity directly. The moral magistracy of the druidism forms thus a body of reflection and a line of action which can be used as reference in all the fields.

Therefore it is up to the lay persons, lit by our traditional wisdom, and this moral magistracy of the neo-druidism, to also face up to their responsibilities. To get a doctrinal formation thought out and adapted to the responsibilities that each one assumes is therefore an imperative duty, before the current

problems and before the possible moral slides, before the omnipresence of the monolatrous and/or totalitarian sects (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.).

Closer to us now: “A blessing on everyone who shall faithfully memorize the cattle raid as it is written here and shall not add any other form to it.”

In a way the praise of the duty to remember therefore.

We have anything against provided that it is not selective on behalf of people claiming themselves and wanting to be universal (disparaging for example all those who are interested in their roots). This kind of fidelity towards our unmemorable traditions suits us very well even if we should not for all that fall into the excesses of the little book by Henry Lizeray about “the national traditions rediscovered” (Atlantis, God spoke Breton in the Garden of Eden, etc.)

The intelligence of intelligence, it is the capacity to admit his own limits. Such intelligence is not the true knowledge, but forms nevertheless a suitable ground to accommodate it. Modesty and inclination towards the truth (which is not credulity as in mass monolatries) will prepare us to welcome this certainty in our hearts.

In the Man, however, it runs up against many obstacles due to the human weakness precisely. The spirit is willing certainly, but the flesh is weak, everyone cannot be an exceptional kinges like Setanta or a fenian like Cailte.

The druidic faith, as a free adherence of the intelligence of the Man to this blossoming of the soul/mind through the knowledge, is therefore always the object of a fight. It must thus be fed by the word, the training, the rituals and a dignified life. In Short, it must be cultivated.

In the daily life, Man finds in himself the path to gods, but he also finds on his way the ruts of our original animality. In certain people, the awareness of these weaknesses can be exaggerated by a morbid disorder of the conscience. They can then feel guilty, without true reason besides, and because of that become obsessed by the sin (case of the Christians for example).

The true sin, it is, however, to refuse to follow this way towards the divinity, when you are unable to follow that of the druids or of the fighters , particularly in this case by seeking a pseudo-liberation in other directions as many mirages.

Regarding the double philosophy of the pantheists of John Toland.

For the upholders of Pantheism (concept of a Totality exceeding in its fullness the faculties of the human understanding), the human thought can foresee the aforementioned Totality only through the perspective made possible by the human mental organization; and within the limits of its capacity of judgment.

Consequently: no Absolute and Exhaustive Truth revealed to such or such part of Mankind. We are in the RELATIVENESS of the human perception it is necessary to face the “complexity of Reality.”

However, the druids are not discouraged for all that, but only refuse, “to regard Reality as an Absolute.”

Their system of thought only brings to consider that on the human scale, it is not possible to identify a Good and an Evil without nuances: therefore “refusal of dualism in all its forms,” a “total” refusal.

This invites to put Morality in perspective, in a way to adjust it in DEONTOLOGIES adapted to the various cases of the social organization, starting from the famous Tripartition of the Celtic Society in line of the Indo-European tradition.

To adapt is not to discard the logic of the very dialectical thread of druidism as regards ethic. It is only a question of making the hierarchical order of priorities agreeing with the vocation of each element of the society. A question of harmony granted to realities. This putting in perspective therefore brought a moderate adaptation of the application precepts of Ethic, consisting especially in varying the hierarchical order of the requirements and of the prohibitions according to the personal statuses; statuses which were directly related to the functions of the individual. Those were in a way some

subsystems of the tripartite flow chart of the Celtic society. To each one his deontology and to break it was considered as very serious.

From where the fact that among the druids the first of all the laws were always the following ones.

Law of universal harmony. Dharma in India.

This law invites to the respect of Nature, to the general respect ( but as in every rule there are exceptions ) of all that is living as to the love of the Life “opposite ” of the ideal of the “non-being.”

“MENTO BETO TO DEUO” = constantly Thinks of the divinity. As we already had the opportunity to say it, this formula was noticed by Holder and Dottin, among others. It was to have a certain renown, since the mother of St. Symphorian of Autun (died in 179) used it in the form: “Nate, nate, mento beto to devo,” “My Son, my son, think still of the divinity.”

To think constantly of the divinity, it is first to want to contribute to the Becoming divine which is “harmonious deployment of vital impulses” (TR. No. 19). This in the context of the “Weltanschauung” (Vision of the World) according to the druids, in which the Divinity itself is in “eternal becoming.” This gives a general orientation of morality in this direction…

This fundamental axiom is, of course, softened when it is applied to the lower classes monopolized by the needs for their own survival or the survival of the group. And for the warrior, it comes after the law of courage which invites to the disregard of death; and after the law of the surpassing himself which invites him to improve in the art of war.

Valid in an imperative way for the “deuiciacos” = initiated to the divine things (who is also known as “diuiciacos” = enlightened), it can be then summarized to an expression of the type “to revere the gods, to abstain from wrongdoing, and to be a man, a true one.” Lives and opinions of eminent philosophers. Book I, Prolog 6. (Diogenes Laertius.)

Therefore general rule for the druids we have said: the respect of the life.

“Among them, man is punished more rigorously for the murder of a stranger than for that of a fellow citizen: in the first case, death, in the second exile only ” (Nicholas of Damascus. Collection of remarkable customs. Fragment Nº XLIV, 41, preserved by Stobaeus).

We notice therefore with the reading of this account that the usual sanction of a voluntary manslaughter among Celts was not the death punishment but the banishment. Undoubtedly in the event of impossibility of payment of a financial compensation can we specify starting from the Irish law. And in the event of insufficiency of the druidic excommunication punishment. Very known later example of such a practice: the discovery of the Greenland by Erik the Red in 982.

To return to the fact that the homicide of a stranger was more severely punished among them than the “usual” murder of a fellow citizen, such a non-racialism was apparently not very common (therefore extraordinary in a stricter sense of the word) at the time; but it is true that the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) were never xenophobic like the Greeks, and this non-racialist by definition , respect (not to be mixed up with the elementary antiracism forming today the dominant ideology) of the foreigners; was besides a divine command (coming from the Hercules called Ogmius by the druids according to Diodorus of Sicily. Historical Library. Book IV, XIX. “Passing into Celtica and traversing the length and breadth of it he put an end to the lawlessness and murdering of strangers to which the people had become addicted.”

See also from this author (Book V, XXVIII) on the same subject: “They invite strangers to their feasts, and do not inquire until after the meal who they are and of what things they stand in need “.

What is rather logical since this Hercules called Ogmius was also one of the war god-or-demons for the Celts. Let us say more exactly that he was the god-or-demon of OFFENSIVE war, the other god-or-demons, like the teutates for example, being rather god-or-demons of DEFENSIVE war. Of the national defense, we would say today.

The ancient high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) were therefore in a way the Buddhas of the western world in this time.

N.B. The word “Buddha” only means “waked up or enlightened,” originally in the Far Eastern Amidism, and “Pure land ” is the name of the Vindomagos in this form of Buddhism.

The high-knowers of druidiaction (druidecht) were also then some doctors of the soul/mind and satirist druids to vaticinate against the abuses of all kinds (social satires) were never missing.

But what the ancient druids “bound” here on earth was not automatically also “bound” in the next world (see the example of King Bres since he was himself from the Other World…) and what they “loose” on this earth was not either automatically unbound in the Other one.

The ancient high-knowers of druidiaction (druidecht) could “bind” on earth by the means of the gessa but the one who did not respect their taboos in any way went to be burnt in hell for eternity. He too could even go in the parallel to ours world which is called heaven. Case for example of the Hesus = Cuchulainn who, although having finished in violating all his taboos one by one, nevertheless ascended to heaven with his chariot, according to the Irish apocryphal texts (see the Siabur Charpat Con Culaind).

The ancient druids, on the other hand, could “loose the soul/minds from their brakes in the other world, thanks to various techniques of positive spiritual or mental concentration called arra, a word meaning literally in old Irish “substitution.”

This metapsychic approach, performed by the druids themselves, or by the close relations of the late, did not have as a result, of course, to save such or such soul/mind from the hell, since the final or eternal hell does not exist, as we saw. It is at least what the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) always affirmed , according to the Bernese Scholia commenting on the Pharsalia of Lucan.

Hermann Usener. Scholia in Lucani bellum civile/Commenta Bernensia. Liber I (1869).

451.“The druids deny that souls can perish

[Driadae negant interire animas]

OR GO TO HELL

[aut contagione inferorum adfici] and

454.“They do not say that the Manes exist”

[Manes esse, not dicunt].

For some good news, that, it was good news (suscetlon)!

The point No. 25 of the small list annexed to the Leptines Council in 743 under the Latin heading of indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum (of course, it is a question of condemning or disparaging all that) goes besides clearly in this direction. It evokes the fact of imagining that each late is a saint. And in 851, John Scotus Eriugena also noticed in his “On divine predestination”: God envisages neither punishments nor sins: they are fictions. For Eriugena too, therefore, hell does not exist, or then he calls it remorse. Repetere ars docendi, but even that we have already said it!

The psychic approach performed by the high-knowers of druidiaction (druidecht), or the close relations of the late; sacrifice = commutation of the punishments even of the penitent ones; had as a result to speed up, as regards the soul/mind in question, the process of exit of the state of being; equated in the poetry of the bards of the time, with a place: the anderodubno or andumno, in other words, the purgatory.

In short, the ancient druids regarded themselves by no means as magicians of the Christian type being able all to bind or loose at the same time on earth AND in heaven. They were regarded simply as spiritual advisers or guides (some doctors of the soul/minds).

NEO DRUIDIC ETHIC AND SOCIETY.

The ethic it is a design or a coherent doctrine of the behavior in the life. What distinguishes ethic from morality, it is the fact that the manner of behaving is often related to a metaphysical research, and is distinguished thus from an imposed morality. In other words, to have an ethic, it is to decide to act in such manner while knowing that it commits me only , and not to be able to hide away behind established and conventional moral laws. The ethic is related to a personal thought.

The people who will read this presentation of the druidic ethic perhaps will feel repetitions compared to our books on Cosmology or Cosmogony; it is only the proof of the coherence between reasoning but also ethic in this pantheist dialectics.

In this presentation of the bases of the druidic ethic, we especially endeavored to highlight the logic of the precepts in their consistency with philosophy; rather than to enter the detail of the ancient Celtic morality, already dealt by lit researchers, such Albert Bayet.

By insisting on what there was more valid and partially renewable for our time. It is a question of thinking on the potential of transposition for our time, of a rather aristocratic ethical code, more than two thousand years old, because the philosophy which underlies it makes that possible.

The adaptability of the monist and relativist system of druidism makes it possible to think of it: it is not an eccentric challenge.

Admittedly, between the time of the ancient Celtic civilization and our time, many things have changed, including two “major” social phenomena which made various data out of date.

1. The Western society underwent considerable changes, and the Christianity, then the fashionable philosophers (see John Toland) emptied the Indo-European social tripartition of its ancient contents. The tripartition Clergy, Nobility, People, was due especially to an Aryan mental old habit. This one was swept away by the various revolutions occurred since 1775. We say well 1775, because we agree in no means with the anti-racists who make the French Revolution the beginning of modern History.

The Resurgence of a Celtic society in the ancient way is excluded, and with it, that of a druidic Organization sharing or more exactly advising, the Power.

2. Scientific progress took enormous steps, and has made out of phase the former beliefs by the explanations that Cosmography, Geophysics, Meteorology, Paleontology, bring.

The former paganism assumed by the neo-druidism must be reconsidered in the light of Modern science, and ready to evolve with its future progress.

What remains then as potential for a realistic neo-druidism? Answer: what ancient druidism had as best! The reasoning which directed its construction can only guide its rebuilding. Only philosophy having formerly passed very close to the “Integral Monism,” the ancient druidism was ahead of these contemporaries, and this monist idea is not contradicted, quite to the contrary, by Modern science. The druidic Relativism is very close to the “Civilization Relativism” developed by certain current philosophers as Samuel Huntington. It is what enables it to be reconsidered for our time without betraying what can authorize to still call it druidism.

Ancient druids having been wise enough to give to their ethic a dialectical, rational, base, these at the same time demanding on the principles, and flexible according to the social contexts, ethic (cf. the double philosophy of John Toland), remains a still current value. Moreover, parallel to and non-dependent on the religion, it remains compatible as well with an intelligently reconsidered neopaganism, as with an atheistic materialism, even with a Christianity with Pelagian or Erigenian tendencies because its value transcends these differences.

The first of the great modernizations or adaptations to our time, worked out by the druids of today as regards ethic; was to break down the barriers between the various deontologies that we have just briefly outlined (that of the priests-druids or other intellectuals, that of the lords- warrior and knights, that of the producers, craftsmen and farmers).

The neo-druidism preaches a bringing into line towards the top of the ethical principles governing the 3rd function, and even also of those which govern the 2nd. The citizen of today must also be treated as sons of kings. Democracy obliges! The ethical principles of these three class deontologies concern everyone today, to various degrees. They are universal!

Admittedly, it will not requested as much courage from a farmer or from a blue-collar worker even from an employee mobilized to defend his homeland, as from a young lieutenant resulting from a long line of soldiers; but it is certain that this producer will also have to show greatest possible courage, in order to defend his threatened homeland honestly.

It is certain also that if this producer is too poor to be able to feed himself, it could be only then exempted from nourishing the others.

And conversely. The descendant of a long line of soldiers; if he is not himself a warrior will have himself also to be useful for the society by helping to produce what it is necessary (rational farming, industrial, technical, and others, activity).

The higher instruction must also be no longer the prerogative of the only druids or of the noble young people, but must be democratized. Free Universities for all and so on.

Only exception to this beginning of breaking down the barriers: the sexual field.

In the sexual field, it is perhaps not necessary to take as absolute reference the strictest druidic morality (that intended for the druids). The status quo as regards freedom is largely enough.

Let us not forget also that breaking down of the barriers does not mean absolute equality of the ethical rights and duties. The neo-druidism is still relativistic, and admits the particular adaptations of its ethical great principles.

Readers and readers are invited to keep in mind these new principles of the druidism by reading the in-depth studies which follow, and by taking the time to meditate on them.

It is a question to build a new man with the best of the former one.

“GOOD THOUGHTS, GOOD DEEDS, AND GOOD WORDS.”

According to our brothers in paganism called Gabr or Parsees, Ahura Mazda would have given to Aryans this triple instruction.

BUT ON MANY AND EVEN INNUMERABLE POINTS nevertheless fundamental, the druidism, however, differs from Buddhism (apart from that of Bodhidharma’s type perhaps). It nevertheless seemed useful to us to summarize here in a few words the broad outlines of this atheistic spiritualism so that each one can understand well that the druidism it is not either Buddhism, even Western although there are some common points between both.

The four truths.

1) Every life involves suffering.

2) The origin of this suffering lies in attachments.

3) The end of the suffering is possible.

4) The path leading to the end of the suffering is the middle way which follows the noble path.

The four incommensurable ones.

They are extremely powerful positive emotions, to develop through suitable practices.

- The universal benevolence.

- The compassion arisen from the meeting of the benevolence and of the suffering of others.

- To be delighted with the happiness of others.

- Beyond the compassion and the joy of the happiness of others, a great serenity in any happy, sad or indifferent, circumstance.

The five precepts.

The most frequently followed precepts are the five precepts here below.

To try not to harm the living beings nor to remove life.

To try not to take what is not given.

To try not to have an incorrect sexual behavior (or more generally to keep the control of one’s senses).

To try not to use false or untrue words.

To try not to ingest products being able to deteriorate the self-control (alcohol, tobacco or drugs).

In other words, and in a positive form.

Benevolent Actions. Generosity. Calm, simplicity and satisfaction. Sincere and true communication (to purify one’s word). Self-control, of one’s body, one’s mind, one’s ideas.

The ten precepts.

Refinement or development of the five precepts above. To endeavor not to harm the living beings nor to remove life (ecology).To endeavor not to slander (to create dissension. To endeavor not to say hurtful words. To endeavor not to talk for the sake of talking. To endeavor not to feel covetousness. To endeavor not to have ill will or animosity. To endeavor not to have false or erroneous ideas.

In other words, and in a positive form.

Salutary and harmonious words. Benevolent and gracious Words. Peace of mind. Compassion. Wisdom.

NOW LET US SEE WHAT ABOUT DRUIDISM.

THE LETTER KILLS, THE SPIRIT ONLY GIVES LIFE

(A CONTINUOUS ADAPTATION: SUCH IS THE MAIN ADVANTAGE OF ORAL TRADITION).

“They are said there to learn by heart a great number of verses; accordingly some remain in the course of training twenty years. Nor do they regard it lawful to commit these to writing, though in almost all other matters, in their public and private transactions, they use Greek characters. That practice they seem to me to have adopted for two reasons; because they neither desire their doctrines to be divulged among the mass of the people, nor those who learn among them, to devote themselves the less to the efforts of memory, relying on writing; since it generally occurs to most men, that, in their dependence on writing, they relax their diligence in learning thoroughly, and their employment of the memory. They wish to inculcate this as one of their leading tenets namely, etc."(Caesar. Book VI, chapter 14).

Druids hope therefore that every man is able to receive their enlightenment which, far from mutilating existence, on the contrary enrich it. For that, they claim therefore the right to propose to everybody to make the same meeting as themselves with the divinity. But the true druids also feel a particular responsibility, that to take care that the druidic knowledge ; such as it is today lived by the druidicists is faithful to the spirit of the druidic knowledge that the primordial druids, and after them the former druids; have first worked out and implemented, sometimes up to the martyrdom (as in the case of those in the island of Mona, or as in the case of the Gutuater and of Mariccus, two martyrs of druidism tortured by Romans). The things being what they are, and considering the documents where these traces of the tradition are found, that is not always easy; the Tradition therefore must always be reinterpreted to be taught. It is a question for us and more than ever, not to parade vainly while making as if we were members of a secret and wrongfully ignored elite, but to propose to the other men, in this century, the freeing and saving message of the values, embodied by the helpful or peaceful god-or-demons our Buddhist friends would say (anextiomaroi, iovantucaroi, virotoutis, dunates,Teutates, contrebis, mopatis, etc in Celtic language). i.e., these truths of which we cannot be unaware without ignoring the realities of the soul/mind itself, what is done, however, by the druidic college directed by Mrs. H ..... C…. the druidic group of Gauls led by MM P…. and D…. and the Breton College (gorsedd) directed by the Doctor G….'…. L.S ...... Not forgetting “the great” Celtic College of t. f. o. B of Mr. J… T….

THEREFORE COMPATIBILITY OF THE NEO-DRUIDISM WITH CURRENT SCIENCE .

The druidic knowledge is a teaching agreeing perfectly with the reason, by no means calling for a blind faith, but inviting on the contrary to test its truths by practice and meditation. It is a religion of knowledge and reason. The science, of course, could not show the way going to the castle of the Grail, but the druids always shown a great interest, a positive interest, for the advances in Science.

Complementarity of science and religion therefore, of the rational knowledge and of intuitive wisdom, while going beyond their oppositions.

The education of the human person from the eschatological point of view of his highest ultimate destiny, which is at the same time that of the whole Mankind, goes hand in hand with the quality of the instruction given out to children. School directors must take care that the scientific level of their establishment is the best of all. The teachers must be characterized by the rectitude of their life, their virtues, but also by their teaching competence, and their talent. They must look further into and teach the various disciplines by respecting their legitimate scientific autonomy compared to the faith. Spiritual Assistance and reminder of the principles of druidism should never harm the legitimate autonomy of sciences compared to the faith or their progress. The druids, at least the true ones, should not cease proclaiming Y Gwir Yn Erbyn Y Byd the truth against the world and consequently indicating the various means of making a success of the blossoming of our soul (moksha in Hinduism) or our salvation. THE DRUIDIC MAGISTERIUM WAS INSTITUTED TO RELAY THIS ACTION LIKE THE FIRE IN WATER OF THE SPIRIT WITHIN THE MATTER.

VARIOUS ETHICAL CODES.

ANCIENT LAWS AND INSTITUTES OF IRELAND (SENCHUS MOR) VOLUME 1.

Intud i ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur. There is strengthening of paganism if an evil deed is avenged.

DEONTOLOGY OF THE VOCATION OF DRUID.

Obviously, morality was much more demanding for the two higher classes, the intellectual one and the military one (lords and knights) that for the lower classes of the producers (farmers and craftsmen). In the case of the druids in a stricter sense of the word, that could lead to a certain asceticism, intended as in Brahmanism or Buddhism and later in the Culdee monasticism, to increase the mental potential.

Lucan Pharsalia: “To you alone it is given the gods and celestial powers to know or not to know; great trees of remote groves are your dwelling place, etc..”( Cf. Merlin).

Pomponius Mela Book III: “Traces of their savagery remain, even though it has been banned now. Nevertheless, after they have led their consecrated human victims to the altars, they still graze them slightly, although they do hold back from the ultimate bloodshed. And yet, they have both their own eloquence and their own teachers of wisdom: the druids.

These men claim to know the size and shape of the earth and of the universe, the movements of the sky and of the stars, and what the gods intend. In secret, and for a long time (twenty years), they teach many things to the noblest males among their people, and they do it in a cave or in secret places at the bottom of the forests” (still Merlin therefore).

In the knights class, that encouraged practicing a kind of “Celtic yoga,” evoked later in the Irish epic literature under the name of “riastrad” or “clessa”. Expurgated of the magic inherent in this literary genre going as far as to tell physically impossible distortions or deeds, the account of Cu-Chulainn’s exercises can give an idea of it. Their purpose was to unwind him then to bring to him an absolute control of his body with self-confidence multiplied by ten “active shot of the restrained desires,” followed by “a real concentration of the forces.” (Cf TR. No. 22, pp. 21.22).

N.B. THESE TWO TYPES OF PERSONAL SURPASSING ENDED UP IN BEING SOMEWHAT MERGED IN MEDIEVAL DRUIDISM.

MODERN DRUIDISM, IN ANY CASE, AS FOR IT, HAS COMPLETELY ALSO ASSUMED THE MARTIAL ARTS OF THE ANCIENT CELTIC WARRIORS.

The true druidicist has to be (as every self-respecting good Fenian) not the man of one book but of thirty-three books. The true druidism is indeed a school of reflection. A school of thinking. Free by definition as the great druid John Toland could have said. If the druidism can be used in something in the world of today, it is well in that: to be a school of reflection.

The questions asked by a master play also a great part in this type of druidism. It is very often a very short dialog between the Master and the disciple… the first asks a question, the second answers it as he can, and the master gives the solution. They are sentences being used to illuminate the spirit, this would be only for a fraction of a second or for the eternity (aiu), and, first of all, by making him a little humbler.

“They converse with few words and in riddles, hinting darkly at things for the most part and using one word when they mean another; and they like to talk in superlatives” (Diodorus of Sicily V, 31).

For example. The high-knower Crutine went one day to another high-knower’s house, and his pupil with him, a student with a master's pride. Crutine himself remained outside and sent his pupil for hospitality to the high-knower's house. A hog's belly was given him in a big cauldron, and the high-knower who had agreed to accommodate Cruitine began conversing with the student. He observed the great hubris of the student and the smallness of his intelligence. So when the meat was boiled he said in the presence of the student:”tofotha tarr tein?” i.e., is it time to take it off the fire ? in order that he might know what answer the student would give him ; because he had heard Crutine boasting of the other wonderful knowledge as if it were himself of whom he spoke, and he did not believe him.

He repeated thrice “tofotha tarr tein” , but the young disciple not said a word.

Thereafter arose the student and came to the place where Crutine was and related the news to him i.e., the words which the poet spoke i.e., 'tofotha tarr tein? "

Good, quoth Crutine, when he says them again, say you to him: “Toe lethaig foen friss ocus fris adaind indlis” i.e., put a kneading trough under it, and light a candle to see if the belly be boiled.”

The disciple was very astonished by this answer, because he did not know that lethech also meant “kneading trough ,” he knew the word only in its meaning “flounder.”

The word Lethech indeed means two different things in Irish . It is, in the first place, a name for a kind of fish [a flounder], which is so called from its breadth and thinness. But Lethech is also a name for a kneading trough, because the bread is spread on it.

When the student then had sat within on his return the very knowing said the same, and the student said : “toe lethaig etc.”

Said the high-knower: " It is not a student's mouth that has returned this answer! He is near who returned it. Crutine is near. Call him from outside.”

Crutine is then summoned, great welcome is made to him, and other food is put into the cauldron. And little is the hubris of the student because the high-knower jeered at him until he addressed Crutine (Cormac’s Glossary. Entry Lethech).

This persistent need for omniscience juxtaposed to a perpetual humility proves to be characteristic, and we will be able to refer to what Caesar notes about science and pedagogy of the high-knowers. “They likewise discuss and impart to the youth many elements respecting the stars and their motion, respecting the extent of the world and of our earth, respecting the nature of things, respecting the power and the majesty of the immortal gods” (B.G.VI, 14).

Colloquy of the two sages. So Nede went home, and with him went his three brothers, Lugaid, Cairbre, and Cruttine. As they went a bolg belce (puff ball) chanced to cross their path. Said one of them: ‘why is it called a bolg belce?' Since they did not know, they went back to Eochu and remained another month with him. Again they set forth, and on the way chanced to encounter a rush. Since they did not know why it was so named, they went back to their tutor. At the end of another month, they set out again. A gass sanais (a sprig of the herb sanicle ?) chanced to be in their path. Since they did not know why it was named gass sanais (sprig of the herb sanicle ?) they returned to Eochu and remained another month with him.

The druidic path evoked by these two anecdotes is therefore a method (having for goals the knowledge and the blossoming of the soul called moksha in Hinduism) consistent with being the disciple of a determined high-knower.

The four aspects of this way are the following…

- Study of its spiritual doctrines (the famous twelve books of the Fenians in Ireland) with self-examination.

- Practice of the meditation according to the received traditional method.

- Service of the high-knower in question.

- Life in compliance with the moral precepts (ethic) of one’s profession lived in the practice of truth, of justice, of humility, but also in the most complete respect of the two other functions.

As Albert Bayet remark it very precisely : “There are several ways of respecting truth. The first consists in avoiding lies and hypocrisy, in remaining faithful to his word. The second consists in studying to know the truth of the things, in encouraging the study by honoring those who are devoted to it.”

Albert Bayet continues by evoking the privileges which were, among the ancient Celts, attached to the possession of a science or of knowledge. Undeniable evidence that the respect of the things of the mind was taught then: “Got science honors as much as warlike deeds. All the historians signaled the fact. In Rome at the same time, a politician can, without any preliminary study, exercise the highest priestly functions: he would laugh if you asked him to learn astronomy or physics; on the contrary, the body of scientists enjoys no esteem and the most learned professor can very well be a slave.” However to have good knowledge of all makes it possible to be fairer, more realistic, more impartial, more objective, and that avoids the violence due to illusions or mistakes, dangerous because too much Manichean or simplifying.

It is necessary to act with full knowledge of the facts, by reasoned decision more than by imperative obligation. For this reason, ignorance by lack of curiosity or laziness undoubtedly is a failure, therefore a fault.

… We are there at the opposite of the myth of the Hebraic Genesis where the major fault (“the original sin”) of Adam and Eve, was to try to reach the knowledge of Good and Evil by tasting the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge; infringing thus the only prohibition which had been inculcated in them.

As we could see it already, the druidism, it is the commitment to help by one’s practice the beings who, like us, suffer from this fundamental dissatisfaction always characterizing men, to reach the next world; before reaching it oneself. This moral, or ethical dimension, of the druidiaction, is expressed initially by a teaching and a pedagogy. Caesar (B.G, VI): “They are said there to learn by heart a great number of verses; accordingly some remain in the course of training twenty years. Nor do they regard it lawful to commit these to writing, though in almost all other matters, in their public and private transactions, they use Greek characters. … They likewise discuss and impart to the youth many elements respecting the stars and their motion, respecting the extent of the world and of our earth, respecting the nature of things, respecting the power and the majesty of the immortal god-or-demons.”

All the means can be implemented to emphasize themselves or to be pleasant to the others, but not like the courtiers staged by La Bruyere in his characters; who, through their attitudes and their behaviors, are contrary to the true gentleman. The true gentleman man knows himself, knows the others, and recognizes the truth. To be lucid with oneself and the others is besides a first element of salvation; the vice par excellence is hypocrisy; the retreat can be the ultimate remedy. Humanly, the true gentleman makes his point of honor of not being noticed inappropriately : concerned to comply with custom, he is wary of individual hubris.

Morally, he must therefore find elements moderating his passions, which seem to him at the same time inevitable and frightening. It must have the self-control and not to indulge with excesses. He must like the others, but by true attitudes, by his personal merit and by his actions, and not according to his social origins. He must “reconcile the being and the appearing”; in short, the true gentleman must be honorable. The true gentleman must be honest, virtuous, physically and morally elegant; he must know how to behave in society by respecting good manners, politeness and courtesy. To be a gentleman , it is to respect the proprieties, it is of knowing what it is advisable to say and do in a given circumstance, it is to have good taste.

But the thus defined gentleman, whether he is a doctor, lawyer, professor, industrialist… or sportsman; must also have ideas in all the fields. Cultivated without being pedantic, refined without being precious or affected in the 17th century French sense of the word ,rational, moderate, discreet, gallant without insipidity, brave without boastfulness; the true gentleman must be characterized by a at the same time external and moral elegance which is conceived only in a very disciplined even very civilized society. It does not matter that he is from the people or from the high society; the only true nobility is that of the heart.

It is true that the knowledge makes us neither better nor happier. But education can help to become better and, if not happy, at least to teach us how to assume the prosaic share and to live the poetic share, of our lives.

Modern teaching forms throughout the world too great a proportion of specialists in predetermined disciplines, therefore artificially limited; whereas most of the social activities, like the very development of science, requires men able at the same time of a much broader perspective and of an in-depth focusing on the problems; or new progress transgressing the historical borders of the disciplines.

However there is more and more wide ,major and serious inadequacy, between our disjoined parceled out, compartmentalized knowledge, and, on the other hand, some increasingly transversal, multi-field, multidimensional, transnational, global, planetary, realities or problems.

Culture is from now on is not only cut out in spare parts, but also broken in two blocks. It is only too obvious today that the, elected or self-elected, generally very graduate, persons in charge of our modern democracies, did not read enough that they decided on what our societies were to do without knowing too much, without having taken time to go and see the former books ( apart from the Bible and the Quran) which dealt already with questions that they asked to themselves. Huge gaps thus appeared in the information of these decision makers or in the information of these opinion makers.

The great disjunction between the culture of the classical humanities and the scientific culture, started in the 19th century and worsened in the 20th, involves serious consequences for the one and the other. The humanistic culture is a generic culture, which, though philosophy, the essay, the novel, feed the general intelligence, faces the great human interrogations, stimulates the reflection on the knowledge, and supports the personal integration of knowledge. The scientific culture, which is of a completely different nature, separates the fields of knowledge; it causes admirable discoveries, brilliant

theories, but not a reflection on the human Destiny or on the universal Fate called Tokad (middle Welsh tynghed, Breton tonket, intended, old Irish tocad, destiny, toicthech “fortunatus,” tonquedec in Breton. The labarum is its voice sign or messenger).

Information is a raw material that knowledge must control then integrate. It is quite true, because you can remain in front of a radio or a television set during days, weeks, even years, without integrating the information transmitted into a comprehensible and coherent whole, that only the knowledge makes it possible to control or integrate. The knowledge must be permanently revisited or revised by the thought.

We completely agree with the sense of this talk, because it is really there that the solution is, a general knowledge on which the specialized culture can be based. But an in continuing education knowledge.

The training of life must give at the same time the awareness that the “true life” is not so much in the utility needs which no one can escape; but in the blossoming of oneself and of the moral quality of the existence; that to live requires of each one at the same time clearness but also comprehension, and more largely a mobilization of all the human aptitudes. This neo-druidism could then bring the two most invaluable products of the culture: the critical rationality and the self-criticism, which precisely makes it possible to self-observe by making clearness possible, but also in addition agnosticism. Since the Middle Ages, man thought that there was a certainty in the World, starting with God or the Demiurge, the divine hierarchy, and so on. All seemed to function as a great universal mechanic (deism). Then, one day, the science corroborates no longer this point of view and claims, on the contrary, that we live in a world of uncertainties.

The greatest contribution of knowledge of the 20th century was the knowledge of the limits of the knowledge. The greatest certainty that it was given to us then is that of the ineluctability of a certain number of uncertainties - i.e., that we cannot delimit the uncertainties by a definition, since they are precisely uncertainties -; not only in the action, but in the knowledge. It is consequently advisable to make several lessons converging, to mobilize several sciences and disciplines to learn how to face this uncertainty.

The only thing of which we can be certain, it is that there exists a historical uncertainty related to the intrinsically chaotic character of the human history (120 000 years old). The historical adventure strictly speaking started there is more than ten thousand years - it is still very young… It was marked by fabulous creations and irremediable destruction. There remain nothing of Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, empires neither of the Roman empire which had been able to seem eternal, nor even of the Ottoman Empire. And we went from the God of the philosophers- druids to the God of the mass religions. Some formidable declines of civilization or economy followed temporary progressions. The History is not an inescapable and continuous progress, of civilization. The History is subjected to the accidents, disturbances, and sometimes massive destruction of populations and civilizations. [Editor’s note. Edgar Morin does not aim particularly Islam in this passage of his work, but it is undeniable that there exists in the Abrahamic or Judeo-Islamic-Christian religions, retrograde reflexes being able to lead to this result].

Morin thinks that we must support philosophy in the education of the individuals. Philosophy must contribute to the development of the spirit, because philosophy is before all a power of interrogation and reflection, which relates to the big problems of the knowledge and the human condition. Not forgetting the interest which we find in a general training to certain notions which otherwise would be likely to escape to us completely, like the idea of noosphere (noos, Greek word which means mind).

We enter a more complex universe which requires more a general education than a specialized one; or general rather than specialized interests. It is not that the specialization is useless and does not correspond to a need, but it is necessary to have a general knowledge behind all that to be able to face the increasingly complex functioning of our society. [Editor’s note. The dramatic fall of the French Post Office at the beginning of the 21st century was a tragic example of it. The coming to power of a whole generation of executives, poor as well intellectually as morally, more worried by their career than by the future of their company, was the cause of this decline].

All in all, to face uncertainty, it is necessary to return to the idea that it is advisable to have a way of thinking able to connect or join together the disjoined knowledge, to go beyond the apparent contradictions.

Teaching must become again neither only a function, a specialization, a trade, but a task of public safety: a mission. A mission of transmission. It requires what is indicated in no handbook, but that the druids evoked by Caesar had already signaled as essential condition to every teaching: the desire and

pleasure of handing down knowledge, the love for knowledge and the friendship for taught persons. Where there is neither love nor friendship, there are only problems of career, of money for the teacher, of boredom for the taught ones. The mission supposes, of course, the faith, here the faith in the possibilities of the human mind. The mission is therefore very difficult, since it supposes at the same time art, faith, love and friendship.

It is a question of providing a culture which will make it possible to distinguish, to contextualize, to globalize, to tackle the multidimensional, total and fundamental problems; to prepare the minds to answer the challenges that the increasing complexity of the problems arises for the human knowledge; to prepare the minds to overcome uncertainties which do not cease increasing; in making them discover the dubious and random history of Universe, life, mankind , but by also supporting in them the strategic intelligence and the bet for a better world; to educate for human comprehension between close and distant relations; to teach the affiliation at the community of which you are a member (nation, society, community) to its history, to its culture, to the citizenship; to teach the planetary citizenship by teaching the mankind in its anthropological unity and its individual or cultural diversities, as in its community of destiny peculiar to our era, when all the human beings are confronted with the same (vital and fatal) problems.

Editor’s note. Edgar Morin is one of the great thinkers of our time. Let us not forget nevertheless that if the knowledge is higher than the faith, the faith also saves. It is enough to believe that you are again embodied in a better next world after your death, to be saved! (J. - P. Martin).

*The intelligence is the whole of mental faculties making it possible to understand the things and the facts, to discover the relations between them. Intelligence comes from Latin intelligentia, derived from the verb intellegere meaning to understand, and of which the prefix inter (between), and the radical legere (to choose, to gather) or ligare (to bind) suggests primarily the aptitude to connect elements which without it would remain separate.

It is therefore admitted that the intelligent man is often the one who senses as a single process what his contemporaries see as independent phenomena. Conversely, such a man can also perceive as distinct some phenomena which before him were sensed as forming a whole: example masses and weight, or temperature and quantity of heat (before physicists are worried about that).

OTHER REMARKS IN CONNECTION WITH THE MORAL MAGISTRACY

OF DRUIDISM.

The kings and the princes who govern us must respect the natural and inalienable rights of the rectu adgenias/recht aicnid. The rather convoluted or embarrassed remarks sometimes of the Senchus Mor or more exactly of the commentators glossing certain passages, prove it.

Bui is in cetna nous fer nErend

First law…This is obscurely stated. It means that before Patrick’s time the Irish had the law of nature.

The kings and the vergobreti (the kingly power) must therefore carry out by honest means the safety of their subjects, the possibility for them of living with dignity… The druidism accepts, of course, for this purpose, without any issue of conscience as we saw it, the right to self-defense, collective or individual besides. This self-defense does not imply the hatred of the enemies, but only the hatred of the evil that they do! Admittedly, it is now down to the vergobrets to arbitrate between the various private interests (the fraud and the other subterfuges through which some peoples want to escape their social, duty must be particularly condemned even fought); but they must make available to the people what it needs to live a dignified and decent life (food, clothing, health, work, schools - teaching was one of the great tasks of the ancient druidism -). This continuation of the common good requires more the greatest caution from the kings or from their barons, who must particularly take care of the free practice of worship, of the safeguard of private life, freedoms, of the respect of the honor due to every human person. Let us give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but the State is not the ultimate destiny of the human person. This one, by some of its dimensions, surpasses it, this is why it must particularly respect the intermediate communities evoked, in conclusion, by Taguieff (racial, ethnic, minorities, regions… Far from any racism of domination, of exploitation or contempt perhaps, it will be able to think the differences. The modern State has the duty to defend and promote, as the Celtic kings of the type Ambicatus, did formerly, the good of the people, the ordinary citizen (toutioous) and the intermediate bodies. The neo-druidism not being there to abolish the former one, but only to fulfill it (our motto: to build a new man with the best of the former one), we will say no longer something any more about the gessa (singular geis) that we have just seen and we will be satisfied to briefly review the various points about which the new druidism brings specification or corrections.

Here are some examples that each one will take as he will want.

1. The human fertility is a true gift of the gods (or of the demons according to certain religious sects in favor of the disappearing on mankind) but it is also one of the greatest duties of Mankind. The techniques of assisted artificial procreation like the in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer or the test-tube babies are therefore perfectly legitimate and there is nothing wrong about that. Our ancestors enough prayed the gods with offerings in support to have children.

2. The abortion is a true ethical headache. This operation could not be standardized as a substitute for an absent or failing, contraception. It goes without saying, however, that it becomes perfectly legitimate, as in the case when the health of the mother is threatened, or in the event of serious genetic or congenital anomalies for the child to be born. The oldest written document dealing with contraception, the Kahun Papyrus, dates back to four thousand years and described contraceptives containing leaven. In ancient Greece, the infusions of medicinal herbs were incontestably more pleasant to take and also certainly more effective, since a recent research showed that the plants used contained estrogens.

3. The eugenics.

It was a long time claimed that in Sparta the eugenics had been practiced a long time. The sick or weak newborns would have been killed as of the birth as well as the mentally and physically handicapped persons. In this manner, only the “strongest ones ” would have remained and been able to reproduce. Recent archeological excavations canceled this legend reported by rare and vague ancient sources. Indeed, after the analysis of the bones found in the Apothetae pit, it was concluded that only remainders of teenagers and adults were collected. The fact remains that than one of the legitimate wishes of any human being was always to have healthy and vigorous, intelligent, beautiful and attractive, children. What is certain in Celtic land it is that “Kings and sons of the king could not be disabled, it is there some disqualifying handicaps or mutilations.” See the famous mythological episode relating to Noadatus/Nuada/Nodons/Lludd and his silver arm or in the Arthurian literature the topic of the maimed king. It is therefore required there to practice a minimum of eugenics.

The eugenics can be designated as the set of the methods and practices aiming at improving genetic heritage of mankind. It can be the result of a policy deliberately pursued by a State. It can also be the collective result of a total of convergent individual decisions made by the future parents, in a society where the search for children unscathed from serious afflictions is important. The progress of the genetic engineering and the development of the techniques of assisted procreation, opened new medical possibilities (prenatal diagnosis, etc.).

The eugenics aims at promoting a healthier, therefore happier theoretically Mankind. It is not its purpose in itself which is open to criticism, but some of the selected means. If the diabetes, the hemophilia and other hereditary diseases had suddenly been eliminated by gene therapy, everyone would be delighted; this form of eugenics does not raise the difficulties of its variant of the19th and 20th centuries, periods when the means used had exceeded the bounds allowed by our own values.

The discredit brought to eugenics following the policies put in work particularly by the Nazi regime is at the origin of two positions, which can be called “continuist” and “discontinuist.”

Editor’s note: at the time of the last world war, the apologists of the national socialism of (German) workers’ party N.S.D.A.P. performed scientific and medical tests of all kinds on a large scale, particularly for example on non-sick prisoners. Legitimately upset by the criminal experiments of these mad scientists, the men and women of the post-war period therefore preferred to prohibit every medical experiment, whether it is on healthy people or patients. They went from an extreme to the other! Socialist National of the German workers’ party or not, the evaluation of the new treatments is, for example (and it is one among others) necessary, on animals initially, then on man. If it is that the Nazism then long live to Nazism! Let us be serious!

The Catholic church fights by definition every research in the field of eugenics. For the Continuists, the logical exit of a eugenic prospect has been already illustrated by the History and the crimes committed by the Nazi regime in the name of the principles of these doctrines. The very founding principles of eugenics, particularly its hereditarianistic and scientistic presuppositions, contain in embryonic form the elements which necessarily lead to developments contrary to the laws of morality. Liberticidal, this approach is incontestably so because, by unceasingly raising the specter of the eugenics linked with the horrors of the Hitlero-Trotskyism *, you consolidate indeed a legislation of interventionist and totalitarian mind. In spite of pious statement of principle, it gives up to the bureaucratic or official power the care to provide for the crux of the matter.

The Discontinuists, of whom the neo-druids are members , affirm on the contrary that a eugenic position, supervised by sufficient moral and legal provisions, can be progress for Mankind.

4. Euthanasia also raises serious ethical issues, but a thing is sure, it could not be equated with a crime or a very serious fault if it is applied to a patient having explicitly requested it. What is a serious blasphemy against the spirit, it is on the contrary the aggressive therapy in order to keep somebody alive , at all costs and in an ill-considered way, as Christians do it currently.

5.The right to commit suicide. Caesar notes the suicides of Orgetorix, of Catuvolcus, as well as that of the Senonian Drappes , and described the Celtic custom of the soldurs intended to kill themselves on the death of their chief.

In “suicide and morality,” one of the great classics of the history of the various moralities of suicide, published in 1922, Albert Bayet distinguishes between a simple morality, condemning all the suicides theoretically and in all the cases, and a moderated morality which is attentive to the differences between the cases, approving the ones, blaming or excusing the others. The origin of these two moralities is in the ancient society. The first [is] servile and popular, the second [is the] privilege of a cultivated elite, in love with freedom.”

“Other men in the theater ( = publicly?) having received some silver or gold money, and some even for a number of earthen vessels full of wine, having taken pledges that the gifts promised shall really be given, and having distributed them among their nearest companions, have laid themselves down on

shields, with their faces upwards, and then allowed some bystander to cut their throats with a sword " (Posidonius, quoted by Athenaeus IV, 37).

The suicide is therefore a right perfectly in conformity with the rectu adgenias for the druids, except when it is a shirking one’s responsibilities, or when that can harm others seriously. A father does not have the right to act thus as long as his children were not raised or made autonomous.

* It should be noted nevertheless that 50 years of anti Nazi anti fascistic, etc. vigilant intellectual patrol, avoided none of the later genocides (Cambodia Rwanda, etc.) and did not avoid the rise to power of the Nazislamism either.

FORMER DRUIDISM. THE DRUID TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER THE KING,

IN OTHER WORDS, THE LAW TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER THE STRENGTH. OR THE CONTRARY ???

"Is amlaid ra batar Ulaid: geiss d'Ultaib labrad rena ríg, geis don ríg labrad rena druidib.”

Dio of Prusa also called Chrysostom that is to say, “golden-mouthed.”

DISCOURSE 49.7.

A Refusal of the Office of Archon Delivered before the Council.

Furthermore, since they cannot always be ruled by kings who are philosophers, the most powerful nations have publicly appointed philosophers as superintendents and officers for their kings. Thus it seems to me that the Persians appointed those whom they call Magi, because they were acquainted with Nature and understood how the gods should be worshipped; the Egyptians appointed the priests who had the same knowledge as the Magi, devoting themselves to the service of the gods and knowing the how and the why of everything; the Indians appointed Brahmans, because they excel in self-control and righteousness and in their devotion to the divine, as a result of which they know the future better than all other men know their immediate present; the Celts appointed those whom they call druids, these also being devoted to the prophetic art and to wisdom in general. In all these cases, the kings were not permitted to do or plan anything without the assistance of these wise men, so that in truth it was they who ruled, while the kings became are servants and the ministers of their will, though they sat on golden thrones, dwelt in great houses, and feasted sumptuously.

Dio of Prusa exaggerates.The reality is more simply and more probably that the king does not rule alone. He is helped by some druids [in the non-religious meaning of the word since they were only scientists], of whom a quick examination of the Irish texts provides the list of specializations.

Sencha: historian, antiquarian, genealogist, panegyrist.

Brithem/brehon: judge, lawyer, arbitrator.

Etc.

These druids were not “civil servants” strictly speaking, but specialists who by their councils and their opinions helped the monarch to rule. The king was not bound to follow the piece of advice of the druid, but the druid owed this advice to the king. In any event, the druid and the king were bound one to the other by the balance of the spiritual authority exerted by the druid, and of the worldly power which was that of the king. The druid had no reason for being, without the king who, in the counterpart of his assistance, guarantees him very high fees but the king did not have either the means of governing correctly without the assistance of the druid whose spiritual authority had precedence over the temporal power (positive secularity). It is said on several occasions in Irish accounts that the druid speaks before the king, therefore that the king has the last word… Concerning the druids themselves, invested with the “primacy of the spiritual authority,” the notion of “dereliction of duty” is more appropriate besides than that of “sin.”

We know the essential points of their deontology, and the more striking data , to make of policy only in the noble senses of the term (in the sense where it is said that the policy must take precedence over the economic one), was preserved to us.

“We refer the achievements of the original Heracles, from first to last, to his wisdom and persuasive eloquence. His shafts, as I take it, are no other than his words: swift, keen-pointed, true-aimed to do deadly execution on the soul" (the druid questioned by Lucian in connection with Heracles). Lucian, Introductory lecture, 1-6.

The following faults fell nevertheless under the BRATUSPANTIUM or supreme druidic disciplinary board .

Usurpation of power. To each one his place; the primacy of spiritual prohibited the druid from taking that of the king (rix) or of the president (vergobretus > “vergobret”), because it was to lose caste, therefore to be reduced in rank that to dedicate oneself to “worldly” even on this level.

Curse or abusive “satire.” Overbidding on the common interdiction to do harm unduly, this fault, of a druid, became a crime instead of a simple offense.

Adultery. The druids were not compelled with the celibacy but with an equivalent of the celibacy of the priests in the Reformist variety of Christianity: the marital fidelity. The druid was to be exemplary, of

good morality; whereas public morality was much more elastic as regards sexual relationships for the other social classes (see the adultery of the wife of Partholan according to Henry Lizeray), to which it didn’t come down to say what is right. A quiet and rather merry amorality reigned among them, polar opposite of the interdictions of the religions of the Book, Spell Book or Necronomicon, generating complexes under the cover of a prudishness making feel guilty.

On the other hand, in order to better understand the seriousness of adultery for a druid, it should be considered initially that most often these acts comprise a fraud. However most serious, it was that, because it was to break the law of Truth. Official polygamy was therefore more easily admitted than adultery with regard to the druids.

Minor orders incorporated in the druidic class, including artists. In other words, the intellectual class. We find on this level one of the interdictions falling formerly under the already quoted Bratuspantium: curse or abusive “satire” coming from a druid druid. Overbidding on the common prohibition to do harm unduly, this fault, coming from an intellectual became a crime instead of a simple offense. You were perfectly right in the basic Celtic tribe to publicly denounce those who performed dishonorable acts or acts contrary to the good reputation to which they aspired. There were even professional specialists in this kind of lampoons the cainte or satirists. In a way, the equivalent of the investigating private detectives in our modern adultery cases or the investigative journalists protected by press freedom.

On the other hand, what they reported had to be absolutely true, or disinterested (without blackmail) otherwise it amounted to defamation, and that was very frowned upon in a society based not on money like ours but on the honor and the good reputation.

There were also other cases of faults specific to the druidic class, such as asking too high fees for the resources of the "client.” An anecdote reported by an Irish text entitled "Tromdamh Guaire" literally "the heavy company of Guaire" provides us with a good example.

“On a time the velede Senchan, the old poet and high bard of Ireland, with his importunate company repaired to the stead of Guaire son of Colman king of Connaught […..] Guaire must needs gratify it for him, else must he endure the abuse and satire of the whole band. And albeit irksome and arduous were it to gratify those whims, as is related in the book named “The Importunate Company,” yet Guaire satisfied them all, through the grace of God, and by virtue of his acts of largesse. On a day came thither Marban, Guaire's swineherd and own brother, a passing holy man, with intent to charge them with their wickedness and injustice and ignorance, for he grieved for the multitude of their unjust demands upon Guaire the Connacht men and all the tribes of Ireland. He called down curses and maledictions upon them from the Almighty God if they should be two nights in one house or if they should make unjust demands on any in Ireland until they should relate to him the whole tale of the Cattle Raid of Cualnge” (Betha Colaim Chille. Life of St. Columba).

The power and the fraternal affection of the druid Marban or the magic of St. Columba of Iona (Columcille) will be therefore necessary to attenuate the seriousness of this embarrassment caused to Guaire; by the abusive behavior of the velede in question. This is why such abuses also fell under the Bratuspantium or Disciplinary Board of the Sodality (of the Order) on the Continent.

The respect of the teacher was always very great in the druidic tradition, direct consequence of the oral transmission which is remained during centuries its only form of teaching. The respect of the druid was therefore implicitly or explicitly required there, and appeared there, without, for as much, people see in him a divine incarnation. But it is nevertheless necessary that the latter is worthy of such respect. The counterexample of the druid Nede in Ireland and of the death of the unhappy Caier, victim of an unjust satire, is there to point it out for us.

Considering the impressing number of swindlers or charlatans who abound from now on in this field, at least in France, but in fact it is the same thing everywhere, considering what I read regularly here or there; it appeared convenient to us to point out some elementary principles on the subject.

Those who claim to be in line with the genuine druidism cannot propose to the patients or to their entourage, as salutary and without danger, a remedy or an illusory and insufficiently tested process. The healing druid is free of his prescriptions, but the patient should not be misled, and we warn these experts against the imprudent use of dubious medications or the abusive assertions. It is not acceptable that a druid deviates, in his remarks, from a rigorous exactitude as regards treatment.

But what was exactly this positive secularity of the former druidism??

The druids accepted or even perhaps sought, the separation of Church and State. There was no confusion between the temporal power and the spiritual power, no priest king, no theocracy, but there was not either conflict or opposition between the both. Distinction but collaboration and co-operation in the interest of the society would be perhaps the right words. In other words, the positive secularity dear to our president. There was indeed, in the ancient Celtic society, and compared to Neolithic times of the priest or wizard kings (see the case of the Nemet Hornunnos), progressive disassociation of the religion from the law (kingly power). The ancient druidism stands contrary to every theocracy. The religion was especially a private affair in this case, and there were only a few moments in the year when the presence of each one was obligatory, at the time of more national or political than other things, ceremonies, besides. Examples at the time of the festival of Samon (ios) on November first. There was therefore no mix-up between the worldly power and the spiritual power, no priest king, no theocracy, but there was not either conflict or opposition between both as we have had the opportunity to say it.

This characteristic of the Celtic social organization and political system explains itself the disappearance or, at least, the fast weakening of “druidism” in the countries conquered by Rome. The absence of kings replaced by some vergobreti and the adoption of the Roman political and religious system, prevented every continuation of the Celtic practices, which carefully avoided every confusion of the spiritual authority and of the temporal power. A king cannot become a druid and, conversely, a druid cannot claim to the title and honors of a king. However, the druid has the right, if he sees fit, to carry arms and to make war in order to take part in national defense or resistance, that from which the Irish druids do not deprive themselves…

The Celtic Society, although being immersed entirely in the divinity, was secular-minded, because based on a very clear distinction between the role of the king and that of his druids. The former druids were not all priests in a stricter sense of the term. They were above all initially and especially historians, poets, doctors, architects, lawyers, linguists, etc.

In short, they were the intellectuals of the time and only a small minority of them devoted themselves to the religion. And that’s all! We say it and repeat it with the certainty of the sure things: the State, the Celtic res publica, it is the kingship. In Celtic land the king is, in the law and in the facts, the only political or military character endowed with a real and lasting authority on the whole of a given territory. But the king does not rule alone. He is assisted by some druids [in the non-religious meaning of the word since they were only scientists], of whom it is not difficult, through the examination of the texts, to draw up the list of specializations.

Sencha: historian, antiquarian, genealogist, panegyrist.

Brithem/brehon: judge, lawyer,arbitrator.

Etc.

The presence of the druids [thus defined, since they are only specialists as we have just seen it] compensates the absence of ministers or of established government.

Role of the Celtic king, on the other hand.

- Temporal Power.

- Prosperity but also entirety of the kingdom.

- Management of the Society .

- Justice.

- Maintenance of social balance and cohesion.

This system established thus and even guaranteed, the autonomy of the public authorities (of the king) compared to the denominational or clerical influences. There is therefore, first of all, distinction of the spiritual authority from the worldly power, and it is there the distinction which imports; provided that it is made, it is indifferent that the legislative, legal and executive, powers, are not entrusted to separate bodies. It is indifferent also that religion, politics and economics , are joint (but not mixed up) in the time and in the space (positive secularity).

NEO-DRUIDISM.

By antinomy , we sense therefore the hierarchical order of the duties for all this class of the Celtic society theoretically situated above the king.

To be especially good men : “the most just of men” (Strabo).

To be the guards of the laws, of the law and of the social organization.

To be men of Truth, therefore also of Science.

To be true intellectual bringing something to the society.

After that and only after that the other duties as the strength, the courage, etc. came.

TELL THE DIFFERENCE WELL BETWEEN HOLINESS AND SACREDNESS.

REMINDER INTENDED TO CHAPLAINS BECAUSE VAE VICTIS AS IT IS SAID (Uae Uictebo in Celtic language).

Aggressiveness is a part of Man. It is vain to want to completely remove it, what is important is to channel its energy, to surpass it, to hold it back, or to block it.

Greek Hieros, Hosios and Hagios. Latin Sacer and Sanctus.

If hieros concerns the sacredness (“divine” is said theios in Greek language,what is never confused with hieros “sacred,” not more than in Latin language divinus is confused with sacer), its use is not completely identified with that of Latin sacer. To make sacer consists of a kind of cutting off, of setting out of the human field, by an allocation to the divine one. On the contrary, in the Greek hieros, we see a sometimes permanent, sometimes incidental, property, which can result from a divine impulse, from a circumstance, or from a divine intervention. Let us not forget that the Romans are - allow this perhaps quite abusive general information – a people of lawyers, fixists,for whom the sanctio is very closely related to the law. Hieros, on the other hand, comes under the field of strength, of intensity, almost under the divine breath, and we don’t find there the meaning of “impure” so present in Latin sacer. We don’t observe in Greek language this contamination of the “sacredness” which is equivalent to a stain and can consequently expose to death the sacer man.

It is necessary to compare the Greek word hagios to another term of the same family, the verb hazomai, which means “to fear.” It designates the respect that you can feel in front of a god-or-demon or a divine character; but a negative respect, which consists in abstaining from infringing .

It is in Latin language that we discover best the ambiguous characteristic of the sacredness: devoted to the god-or-demons and charged with an ineffaceable, august and cursed stain, worthy of veneration and causing horror.

Sacred (sacer) and saint (Sanctus) derive from an Italic common root sak-, the two verbs which are attached respectively to the one and the other are sacrare/sancire. If sacrare proves to be the verb corresponding to sacer, sancire produced sanctio. Sancire, it is to delimit the field of application of a provision and to make this one inviolable by placing it under the protection of the god-or-demons, by calling on the possible transgressor the divine punishment. The sanctio is strictly speaking the part of the law which states the punishment which will strike the one who breaks its provisions. Consequently, we can say therefore that the sanctum, it is what is within the periphery of the sacrum, which is used for isolating it from every contact. All in all, the enclosure of the field is holy, but the field, itself, is sacred. What is sanctus, it is the wall, but not the field that the wall delimits, which is known as sacer. We can therefore touch or venerate the sanctus, but with devotion, of course, if not, in this case, you are rightly “ sanctioned!”

Let us summarize and specify (by using the hardly dissociated from Latin terms existing in our language): the sacredness in a strict sense of the word is highlighted by an operation of sanctification, a “sanction,” a delimitation - we will say a cut - operation which then seems to define two worlds: the sacred one, inside the holy enclosure, and the secular one, out of the enclosure, and reserved to men. But the sacredness appears then as a new quality which imposes itself in the whole of the field: what is inside the cut is positively determined by the sacredness (is sacred), what is outside is negatively determined (is not sacred). The cut itself is “holy,” in such a way that it has at the same time a positive determination by the sacredness and a negative one - in what it is vague, i.e., as such, in the order of the “nothing,” of the negativity. We have a presentiment that the “saint” could be a place of transition, of regulated passage between the secular and the sacred one.

Conclusion: the link between hieros and hagios in Greek language seems quite equivalent to that of sacer and sanctus in Latin language, approximately. Sacer and hieros “sacred” or “divine”, are said of the person or of the thing devoted to the god-or-demons, while hagios as sanctus indicate that the object is defended against any breach, negative concept, and not, positively, that it is charged with the divine presence, what is the specific meaning of hieros.

Latin and Greek language provide us two points of view on the sacredness that we can try to unify under a common design: the sacredness proper comes under the field of paramount, recognized by the Greeks, inferred by the Romans; the saint is of the field of the negativity, of the cut, an operation creating sacredness for the Romans.

Therefore the sacredness is taboo (one does not touch), since such is the meaning of Latin sacer (special, separate). It is what is separated from the daily life, from the normal or secular world. The Latin term sacer (origin of sacredness), indeed as well defines what is sacred in the current sense of the term, that what is cursed (both are separated from the world). The sacred poet, for example, was inspired as much as protected by the god-or-demons. But the sacer homo (out law) was cursed, and you could kill him without being sued for murder.

In short something saint is positive, beneficial, and can be touched. It is, on the other hand, advised to never touch what is sacred. Just like in the case of the Ark of the Covenant in the Bible when it threatens to fall. The concept of holy war is therefore nonsense!!! Nonsense by definition!!! The only adjective which can qualify a war is that of “sacred” or “just.”

In the Greek world, the sacred wars were wars made by the Amphictyonic league charged with the management of the sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi against all those considered as sacrilegious towards the god.

The first sacred war was directed against the inhabitants of Kirrha, accused of raising taxation on the pilgrims who went to Delphi. Kirrha was destroyed in - 590 by the Thessalian forces to whom a contingent of Athens and Sicyon had joined. The second sacred war originated in the capture of Delphi by the Phocians. It was in reality the occasion of a confrontation between Spartans and Athenians, the first supporting the Amphictyonic league, the seconds the inhabitants of Phocis. Finally, the independence of the sanctuary was affirmed by the peace of NiKias.

The third Sacred War. It saw most of Greece involved in the conflict. It lasted from 357 to 346 before our era. It is the best known with the fourth. Thebans, who then control the Amphictyonic league, accuse the Phocians of farming the Crissean plain which belongs to the god. Phocians counteract by seizing Delphi, what starts the war in the autumn of -355.

In 346, after the “peace of Philocrates” concluded between Athens and Macedonia, Phocis was obliged to surrender to Philip II, who took his seat and his two votes in the Council of the Amphictyonic League. The final fate of Phocians whose 3,000 men were made prisoners and thrown from the top of cliffs (they were regarded as sacrileges) was settled at this time there. Moreover the Phocians were struck with a fine (60,000 talents a year until 337,10.000 during the following time) intended to reconstitute the treasure of Apollo.

The fourth Sacred War took place from autumn 339 to autumn 338, at the instigation of the Thebans. Amphissa had accused Athens, in 340, in the Amphictyonic Council , to have made a fault of religious nature by making engraved in the temple of Apollo a discussed inscription. In fact, the Thebans were annoyed because on this inscription, it was remembered that during the Medic Wars they had opted for the Persians. Aeschines, representative of Athens, reversed the situation and showed that they were the people of Amphissia who were sacrilegious, because they cultivated the plain of Crissa devoted to Apollon and had rebuilt the port destroyed during the First sacred War, what an ill omen was. The Amphictyonic Council sentenced Amphissia and sent troops to devastate the plain in question.

This undertaking having failed, the Council in 338 appealed to the King of Macedon Philip II (359-336) who intervened at once. He captured Amphissia, then moved towards Thebes, which had been just formed an alliance with Athens. The two cities fought the Macedonian armies, but at the end of August 338, they were overcome in Chaeronea. A stone lion was erected in memory of the “sacred band” of the Thebans who perished on the occasion. This fourth war marked the definitive end of the independence of the Greek cities. In 337, Philip II was proclaimed Hegemon.

In the Celtic world, the practice of the sacred war also comes under a ritual similar the Roman ritual of the devotio.

We find the amplified type of the “head consecration” in the ritual known under the name of “sacred spring” (ver sacrum) in the Italic fashion, expiatory ceremony which had been also in the beginning a real sacrifice but had ended up in “devotion”.

“It was a custom among the early Italian nations, in times of great danger and distress, to vow to the deity the sacrifice of everything born in the next spring . But in later times the actual sacrifice of innocent boys and girls was thought cruel, the children were allowed to grow up, and in the spring of their twentieth or twenty-first year they were with covered faces driven across the frontier of their native country” (Sextus Pompeius Festus).

The devotio had been therefore substituted, as of the prehistoric age, to the consecration itself, which, for the living beings, is synonymous with sacrifice. It remains to sacrifice only the animals. The gods had shown enough that they approved this agreement : they had indeed protected until adulthood the children that were thus abandoned .

Gods combined with the ver sacrum.

The ver sacrum is, of course, linked with the god of war, as the name of the Mamertines and probably that of the Marsi, shows it as well as the fact that several of the leading animals mentioned by the Roman tradition - the wolf, the woodpecker - are animals associated with Mars. Mars, god of war, sponsors logically the conquest undertaking of the young warriors and he is the god of spring, when military operations begin again after the winter pause.

Holy war, on the other hand, is the name given to the wars between different religions, between partisans of different religions, the ones trying to subject the others. The holy war can be offensive (in this case, to convert, drive out or destroy religious enemies), or defensive (when religious dignitaries think that the defeat will have a crucial impact on their faith, because of the beliefs of the enemy).

Let us note that the sacred wars mentioned above took place between faithful of same religions (the paganism) and that it was by no means a question of seeking to convert the adversaries or to defend the very existence of one’s religion.

In this sense therefore there never was a holy war in the eyes of the druids who leave this concept to the Judeo-Islamic-Christian religion ; but there were sacred wars, i.e., wars justified by the violation of certain religious taboos as in Mona in the year 61 of our era.

The ver sacrum is, on the other hand, a migratory practice usual among certain Indo-European peoples and testified under this name among Sabellian peoples in ancient Italy. The Latin expression ver sacrum, which we find particularly in Livy, means “sacred spring”; the name refers to the fact that at the time of a calamity, in order to get back the benevolence of the gods, people consecrated to a deity - generally the god of war, the children born in the next spring. Become adult, these young people, who were sacred and therefore placed outside the community, were expelled and were to seek a new establishment, where they gave rise to a new people.

If, in the ver sacrum of the Sabellian peoples the religious aspect and the military aspect are quite visible, the population regulation aspect of this institution is less clear.

However, some clues suggest that the population aspect was quite present. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in his description of the ver sacrum of the Aborigines, allocates the origin of it to the overpopulation or to the occurrence of famines.

Several ancient authors also make some comparisons between the ver sacrum and the Celtic or Greek migrations where the role of the population pressure is undeniable.

“Those they honor most are the conquerors who have expanded the national territory ” (Nicholas of Damas, Collection of remarkable customs).

One of the best examples of historical figure particularly venerated among Celts for this reason is the famous king Ambigatus but Nicholas of Damascus is unaware obviously of the second dimension of the character and the wars he made , i.e., in addition to the simple conveying on the political level of a population pressure, their sacred dimension. Ambigatus is indeed a mythical great monarch supposed to fight and on the temporal level - that of the Bituriges) and on the spiritual level as his name indicates it (ambi-gatus).

When Titus-Livius tells how the king of the Bituriges Ambigatus, who dominates the Celtica, sends his nephews Bellovesus and Segovesus “enterprising young men ” to the conquest of new lands, with as many men as they would like it, he strongly insists on the population pressure to which Ambigatus must cope: “ During his sway the harvests were so abundant, and the population increased so rapidly, that the government of such vast numbers seemed almost impossible. He was now an old man, and anxious to relieve his realm from the burden of overpopulation. He signified his intention of sending his sister's sons, Bellovesus and Segovesus…”. Livy takes care to indicate that the young warriors would settle in the regions that the gods would indicate to them through the omens. Plutarch says also in connection with the migrations of the Celts that it is they had become too numerous and that their country could no longer feed them that they had to get under way. Trogue-Pompey mentions the overpopulation and the fact that the emigrants were guided by the flight of birds (“(for the Celts are skilled in augury beyond other nations) and he makes especially an explicit comparison with the ver sacrum (Book XXIV, 4).

Trogue-Pompey . Philippic History XXIV, 4.

“The Celts, when the land that had produced them was unable, from their excessive increase of the population, to contain them, sent out three hundred thousand men, as a ver sacrum, to seek new settlements. Of these adventurers part settled in Italy, and took and burned the city of Rome; and part penetrated into the remotest parts of Illyricum under the direction of a flight of birds, making their way amidst great slaughter of the barbarous tribes, and fixed their abode in Pannonia” (according to Justin, Epitoma historiarum philippicarum ).

Plutarch. Parallel Lives. Camillus, 27.

“…Heraclides Ponticus, who lived not long after these times, in his book upon the soul, relates that a certain report came from the west that an army, proceeding from the Hyperboreans, had taken a Greek city called Rome, seated somewhere upon the Great Sea”.

It is impossible to be clearer in spite of the strangeness of the vocabulary!

Polybius I, 6.

“It was in the nineteenth year after the sea-fight at Aegospotami, and the sixteenth before the battle at Leuctra….The Celts took Rome itself by storm and were occupying the whole of it except the Capitol. With these Celts the Romans made a treaty or settlement which they were content to accept.”

But let us come now to the conclusions to draw from all this. What these texts prove to us, it is that a part of youth or of the generation of a year, could therefore vow to gods. When it was become adult , on a spring day, it left its tribe to go abroad and seek their fortune in foreign lands. Many “sacred springs” therefore had to leave the areas where the Celts were settled; some succeeded therefore in propagating their name and their language to Asia minor.

It was on this subject spoken about holy war. Coarse mistake! No offensive war could be holy. The name of “sacred war” would be already more exact, the concept of spring being only very secondary in fact.

The French historian Albert Grenier besides clearly admits the sacred nature of the decision made by Ambicatus. As in the first times of Rome, the king was a religious at the same time as political leader; he represented the god-or-demon among the men of his nation and ordered on his behalf. Such was to be the patriarch king whose legend preserved the name and who, at the end of the 5th century before our era, would have exerted power on the whole Celtica.

This Ambicatusian ver sacrum was therefore a kind of sacred , decided for reasons falling within religion , and implemented with a whole typically religious support (birds showing the way to be followed, and so on). But if an external comparison were to be found it would not be with the wars of religion of the kind Reformists against Catholics or conversely, but with the Islamic small Djihad too which is also not a holy war (absurd translation), but a sacred war….

This Ambicatusian ver sacrum was a sacred war characterized by what the Romans called the “furor” and the Celts “vergio.” What implies the notion of Tervagant (this symbol of brute strength still mentioned in the epic lyric of Roland) that can be only that therefore. In the actual position of the research, it is difficult to say some more.

Let us dare nevertheless some assumptions.

The great Breton celtologist Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc'h is right to point out that the Latin ver sacrum supposes the atonement of a fault or the achievement of a national vow after a calamity. The offering to the god-or-demons of all that was born in spring, fruits, animals and men, which is apparently not the case of the warlike expedition of Bellovesus and Segovesus.

Conclusion about the offensive sacred war. (THE VER SACRUM OR EXCINGETO, OF AMBICATUSIAN TYPE.

We know among Italic peoples a practice which had to be also used among Celts, that of the “sacred Spring”. Latin expression of the religious vocabulary, used inaccurately, for want of something better, to designate two simultaneous expeditions of Bellovesus and Segovesus, the two nephews of the Celtic emperor Ambigatus, in the direction of the North of Italy and of the Hercynian Forest. In Celtic language that would have perhaps produced “nemetos uesracos” = sacred spring.

N.B. Ambicatus is a name meaning “who fights on the two sides” i.e., on the temporal level, but also on the spiritual level.

The missionary aspect or small Jihad of this Ambicatusian “ver sacrum” was therefore practiced only in this case.

And the druidicists were not all compelled, as opposed to what the text of Caesar indicates, to take part in these warlike expeditions. It was enough besides that the armies having to go off in search of adventure are numerous enough to be likely to overcome (meaning of the name of Segovesus: “who can overcome”).

THE ROLE OF DRUIDS IN THE TODAY ARMIES NEVERTHELESS: TO BE SOME CHAPLAINS HELPING THEIR FAITHFUL TO LIVE… AND DIE.

To conclude on the case of Sencha let us notice that his exact equivalent can consist of two different types of priests.

The Christian priest who says the mass for the soldiers who will start or undergo a decisive action: to go up to the attack or to have to defend themselves to death. Because can morally a priest refuse this last spiritual comfort to those of his fellow-men who will die (finally perhaps). Even Buddha would not have refused that!

The bishop or the abbot as St. Bernard of Clairvaux who calls the Western knights for the small jihad.

In every event what Lucan tells us about the former one is indeed rather clear on this subject.

This mention proves that druids accompanied the campaigning armies. Certainly to look after the bodies (the grave of a surgeon druid was found in Obermenzing close to Munich in Germany. It dates back to the 3rd century before our era and contained a trepan).

But also probably to look after the soul/mind. The least of the things indeed due to a human being is that somebody helps him to pass in the other world. Such was to be undoubtedly the role of the druids of vate type according to Lucan and his Pharsalia.

“And you, vates,

whose martial lays formerly made immortal

The powerful souls/minds [Latin animas] of those who died in the war

And you, bards,

You start again to pour forth in safety more abundant song.

While you, druids,

Returned to sinister mysteries and barbarian rites

Some time ago abolished by the weapons.

To you alone it is given the gods and celestial powers

To know or not to know;

Great trees of remote groves

Are your dwelling place

According to your masters, the shades of dead men

Seek not the quiet homes of Erebus

Or death's pale kingdoms;

But the same soul/mind [Latin idem spiritus] governs the limbs

In another world [Latin orbe alio]

And the death is only the middle of a long live;

If you know well what you sing.

Happy the peoples beneath the Great Bear

Thanks to their error; because they do not know

This supreme fear which frightens all others:

Hence the spirit [Latin mens] inclined to throw itself on iron

The strength of character [Latin anima] able to face death,

And this lack of care put to save a life which must be given back to you.”

An indulgence towards the human weaknesses (ces noindenn) or towards the fighters and those who will die therefore that the flatterers of the unique God put a long time to find (Again).

Cf. Below the paratrooper’s prayer written by a SAS named Andrew Zirnheld, died in Libya in 1942.

I'm asking You God, to give me what You have left.

Give me those things which others never ask of You.

I don't ask You for wealth, or success, or even health.

All those things are asked of You so much Lord,

that you can't have any left to give.

Give me instead Lord what You have left.

Give me what others don't want.

But give me also the courage, the energy,

I ask You these things Lord,

Because I can't ask them of myself.

My god, but of whose God is it question here? And hell in all that, my dear Andrew, did you think of it? So much modesty in the request and so much certainty to escape the hell in spite of the bloodshed, astonishes coming from a Jew converted to Catholicism. But it was the daily reality of the druids in antiquity who looked after at the same time and the bodies and the soul/minds without believing in the possibility that hell can exist according to these commentaries of Lucan which caused a lot of ink to flow because the non-existence of hell was a revolutionary concept for that time.

Commentary about line 454.

Manes ess not dicunt sed animas in revolutione credunt posse constare.

They do not say that manes exist [as lugubrious shades or spectra], but believe that the soul/minds can start again a new life.

Hoc enim disputant animas ad inferos non ire, sed in alio orbe nasci.

They dispute indeed that the soul/minds can go to hell, because they think that they are born then in another world.

Id est sicut uos dicitis anime ad inferos not descendunt, sed in orbe alterius hemisperii incorporantur iterum uel in aliqua parte orbis a uobis remota.

i.e., according to you that the soul/minds do not go to hell, but will have again a body in a part of the world located in the other hemisphere or in some part of a world which is unknown to you.

In other words, hell does not exist, this idea this notion this concept was unknown by ancient druids, there existed for them only a heavenly paradise and its anteroom, anteroom called house of Donn (Tech Duinn) or Andubnon in Old Celtic (Annwn in Wales) etc., etc. there exists indeed as many names as peoples or languages to designate these EXTREMELY RARE (the exceptions which proves the rule) cases of reincarnation on earth in this world, what is extremely logical besides because if the heavenly other world of the Celts is unique, although having many main doors, the places of reincarnation, themselves, can be multiple, therefore to be endowed with origins, previous stages, or former states of being, seen and called differently. In short, there can also be several exit doors from the anteroom of the heavenly paradise (House of Donn or Tech Duinn in Ireland, Annwn in Wales, Andumno on the Continent, and so on…)

DRUIDISM AND MILITARY SERVICE.

Semantic clarifications about two terms which will frequently return under our pen in what follows: PAGUS and VICUS. ETYMOLOGY PAGUS.

The oldest tribes did not have a fixed territory, and you were by birth, by your mother in reality, an automatic member of this or that tribe, you did not choose it. The modern idea of adoptive or host tribe, voluntarily chosen, had not yet occurred in the mind of nobody. But this tribe had chief priests mores, consequently a justice, applying to its members wherever they were, even refugees in a territory occupied by another tribe. On the other hand, here it was more difficult to subject the members of the tribe to its laws.

But then little by little these tribes endowed themselves with a fixed territory, often delimited by clearly visible natural limits, such as marshes, forests, rivers, THE PAGUS. Pagus is a word of Latin origin, and even Latin quite simply, from the Indo-European * pag, a verbal root meaning something like "fasten" (see the term peg in English) "limit materialized by stakes sunk in the ground ” then by metonymy the ground having been thus delimited by stakes (later by boundary markers). In this case, the natural boundaries therefore ended up being gradually supplemented or clarified by stone boundaries.

The pagus (country) in the modern meaning of the term, it is therefore the human group set up in a political community and having given to itself a State or a territory… at its disposal. The pagus (country or nation) is a reception center on earth where are joined together under a common authority (king, emperor, vergobretus, president, etc.) a certain number of subjects or citizens. The homeland, it is the country of the father (let us say of the parents, of the ancestors, no reason to be a male chauvinist).

The druidicist must therefore fill his duties towards these center for the reception of the souls on earth. The druidicist must also fulfill his obligations with regard his fatherland/motherland by showing patriotism and citizenship. He must collaborate for the public good by his work, but also by the various commitments that he will carry out according to his capacities. He will take part according to his means in the great debates which livened up his pagus. The custom has it that it is done in a democratic way. Strabo book IV, chapter IV, 3. “There is a procedure that takes place in their assemblies which is peculiar to them: if a man disturbs the speaker and heckles him, the lector or sergeant at arms approaches him with drawn sword, and with a threat commands him to be silent; if he does not stop, the lictor or the sergeant at arms does the same thing a second time, and also a third time, but at last cuts off enough of his cloak [of the man’s sagum, in Greek sagon], to make it useless for the future.”

Moreover the druidicist will cooperate in the common tasks by paying the taxes which themselves will have to be equitably distributed. If necessary he will also do it by carrying out a military service.

According to some persons, the membership of Mankind appears among our distant ancestors with the respect of this fundamental geis of the rectu adgenias: “you will not kill! ” But the specialists also show us that this geis was understood at the beginning in a very restrictive way. To kill the member of another tribe was not regarded as a murder.

It was necessary to wait for the druidism so that the men of Protohistory also come to condemn categorically the murder of an innocent foreigner, in order to avoid the wars between tribes. “Among them, man is punished more rigorously for the murder of a stranger than for that of a fellow citizen: in the first case, death, in the second exile only ” (Nicholas of Damascus. Collection of remarkable customs. Fragment Nº XLIV, 41, preserved by Stobaeus).

On the internal plan, preserving the public good of the group sometimes requires the putting out of harm’s way of the attacker. The kings and their barons or advisers have the right and the duty for that, to resort to punishments proportioned to the seriousness of the offense or of the crime, in order to ensure the compensation of it; without excluding capital punishment in certain cases of an extreme seriousness.

By the sacrifice of his life, however, even the most serious of the criminals or monsters can redeem himself, this is why we should never refuse such a possibility to them.The former druids who were not against capital punishment in the event of particularly odious crime (theft of sacred or dedicated to gods, objects, etc.) recommended for example that for the human sacrifices the lay justice resorts to prisoners under sentence of death from which the execution could thus be postponed for the purpose of the case.

Once again to see Diodorus of Sicily V, 32: “For their criminals they keep prisoner for five years and then impale in honor of the gods, dedicating them together with many other offerings of first fruits and constructing pyres of great size.”

Caesar is also categorical on this subject. “They consider that the oblation of such as have been taken in theft, or in robbery, or any other offense, is more acceptable to the immortal gods” (B.G. VI, 16).

Let us remind nevertheless that very quickly the druids who followed were satisfied with a few human blood drops for their rituals. It was thus in the years which were previous the writings of Pomponius Mela (III, 2.18) since the latter speaks about it in the past tense.

Let us not forget, moreover, that a certain number of the human sacrifices denounced by the ancient authors were in fact only forms of suicide as the case of the soldurs of Caesar or Athenaeum IV, 40, shows it.

The way of applying the death sentence always depends, of course, on the customs and on the time. “The best of solutions remains nevertheless the excommunication, expulsion or banishment, as we already had the opportunity to say it in connection with the commentary of Caesar and the Irish Law.

On the external level, since there is no longer today intertribal arbitrators skilled and having a real authority; we cannot refuse to the current governments, once exhausted all the possibilities of a pacific settlement, the right of self-defense, including by the war.

Considering the seriousness of such a decision, so that it is right, it is necessary at the same time:

- that the damage inflicted by the attacker is lasting serious and certain;

- that all the other means of putting an end to it appeared impractical or ineffective.

The appraisal of these conditions of legitimacy falls within the responsibility of those who are responsible for the public good.

Sense of sacrifice and devotion to a man or a noble cause, always characterized true CELTIC HEARTED persons .The importance of devotion also depended on the circumstances, of course.

At the time of the battle of Ticinus for example, a cisalpine chief had also dedicated his hair to Gradivus Mars in the event of victory (Silius Italicus, Punica IV, 201).

This devotion could be limited to prestigious spoils: weapons of the leaders or ornaments of the latter (see for example the case of the sword of Caesar, kept in a Arvernian temple according to Plutarch). It could also be total in certain cases and when the danger was large: material, human and animal spoils.

Between the two, all the intermediate solutions were possible.

But among the Celts, as we had the opportunity to see it, the gift was often total and was not limited, as among Romans, to an often negligible part of the spoils, the spolia opima.

“When they have determined to engage in battle, they commonly vow those things which they shall take in war. When they have conquered, they sacrifice whatever captured animals may have survived the conflict, and collect the other things into one place. In many tribes-states you may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots; nor does it often happen that any one, disregarding the sanctity of the case, dares either to secrete in his house things captured, or take away those deposited” (Caesar. Book VI, 17).

Generally man vows to gods all his person and even more. The examples of ritualized death which were handed over to us belong, with substantial differences, to the same set, to the same attitude facing death that one could call “self-sacrifice” or “voluntary sacrifice.” These expressions are, indeed, preferable to the word suicide which evokes particularly in our civilization an individual decision. These voluntary death among Celts are religious gestures [in full agreement with all the community if it is not even on its express request. See the example which will follow, that of Vercingetorix. We are therefore here polar opposite of the human sacrifice of the type Abraham/Isaac, the clan and Isaac himself having been held in the ignorance of the intentions of Abraham on this subject]. Or of the type “daughter of Jephthah” in the Bible (Judges, chapters X, 11.12).

This particular and paradoxical form of the vow is besides common to Celts and Romans. In Rome, it designated the sacrifice that a general made of his own life to save his army. Among Celts, this individual sacrifice of the leader was expressed especially by the suicide on the battlefield. This suicide became besides one of the recurrent themes of the sculpture in Pergamon and produced major works, like the touching dying Galatian of the Capitoline museum in Rome.

The supreme sacrifice or total devotion of oneself (Latin devotio) is therefore a human sacrifice of the purificatory or cathartic type; intended to bring back peace or to make returning in the natural order of

the things a community threatened by the destabilization, by the war or by every other misfortune of this kind. What, once again, was in no way the case, at least to the best of our knowledge, of the clan of Abraham, when the latter agreed to sacrifice Isaac, with due respect to St. Augustine! Abraham indeed agreed to sacrifice his son (and not himself) because his god had asked him to do that, not to bring back besides peace or prosperity among his; since at the time, everything was fine for his clan (he lived in good agreement with the king named Abimelech, in Beersheba).

Among Celts, we have an example, testified well, of devotio, it is that of Vercingetorix after the defeat in Alesia. The event marked the consciences, not only of the present Celtic warriors, but also of the Romans, during several generations.

Therefore let us repeat here what we already could write on the subject, considering its importance.

It is rare indeed that a historical event of this period is reported by four authors each one based on different sources: Caesar, of course, Florus taking over a lost book by Titus-Livius, Plutarch and Cassius Dio.

Caesar, who improves, as a painter would do it by reducing the most contrasted traits, the scene of the surrender itself, is the only one to describe the moment of the devotio.

“Having convened a war council the following day, declares “that he had undertaken that war, not on account of his own account, but on account of the general freedom; and since he must yield to fortune, he offered himself to them for either purpose: whether they should wish to atone to the Romans by his death, or surrender him alive” (Book VI, LXXXIX).

Caesar was certainly informed ,with these details of the speech, afterwards, by advisers or allies who could attend the scene directly, he reminds of it only what is useful to his account, the reasons pled by Vercingetorix and he omits the religious ceremony of which the“ war council” had to be the framework. The surrender, such as it appears in the text of Plutarch, proves indeed that Vercingetorix had staged there a true religious ritual; that Caesar himself will complete, six years later, by concluding it with a human sacrifice, without further ceremony. Jealous of his popularity Caesar made him strangled in his cell.

The very text of Plutarch now.

“Vercingetorix, who was the chief spring of all the war, putting his best armor on, and adorning his horse, rode out of the gates, and made a turnaround Caesar as he was sitting, then quit his horse, threw off his armor, and remained seated quietly at Caesar’s feet “.

We could be tempted to see in this dramatic scene the effect of a literary embellishment. We would be wrong! Several details don’t mislead. Vercingetorix dons his more beautiful weapons, those which, usually, are intended to the gods. He achieves this warrior rite accompanied by his horse, this same horse who is as the extension of the knight in the war, another body which transports him, which carries his weapons and his trophies. But especially, by turning around Caesar, Vercingetorix achieves a religious rite, practiced by the Celts, that of the circumambulation called deisil in Ireland (Arabic tawaf when it is the kaaba in Mecca). Pliny reports that it was a way of worshipping the gods. In other words, Vercingetorix acts towards Caesar as towards a deity to whom he offers himself in sacrifice. In the defeat Vercingetorix showed himself greater than the one he made publicly recognize as his new master from now on.

Achieved by Vercingetorix who wanted to restore a kingship of the Celtic type and who preached the former values, this gift of oneself appears, obviously, as an old religious practice that the young aristocrat brings back to the front scene, by not forgetting a detail; while perhaps adding still to the decorum. The example that he gives us remains single , but perfectly revealing of the warrior abnegation, of the gift of his person he makes in favor of the gods and, beyond them, for the benefit of the people in the name of which the rite is performed. The devotio of Vercingetorix was effective: Caesar put aside the Arvernian or Aeduan prisoners, that he gave back to their peoples.

See also the admirable example of the sacrifice of the second son of the king named Adiatorix. Adiatorix had been condemned by Augustus to be executed with his oldest son, Dyteutus. The younger son persuades the soldiers that the elder it is himself. Dyteutus does not have of it at the beginning, but at the end his parents succeed in convincing him that it is his duty of living (to protect his mother and his third brother) and the executions take place. Augustus will be informed too late

about the sacrifice of the young Galatian. Struck with admiration, he will confer to the two surviving brothers the honor of the great priesthood .

“Caesar, after leading Adiatorix in triumph together with his wife and children, resolved to put him to death together with the eldest of his sons whose name was Dyteutus; but when the second of the brothers told the soldiers who were leading them away to execution, that he was the eldest; there was a contest between the two for a long time until the parents persuaded Dyteutus to yield the victory to the younger; for he, they said, being more advanced in age, would give a more suitable support for his mother and for the remaining brother. And thus, they say, the younger was put to death with his father. The elder was consequently saved (Strabo. Geography, Book XII, III, 35).

As Fernand Lequenne wrote it very well in connection with the Galatians: “It is in their mind to voluntarily sacrifice oneself for the collective safety; to be generous uup to madness.” We are there polar opposite of the sacrifice of the Abraham/Isaac type or that of Jephthah over his daughter. Before attacking the Ammonites, Jephthah indeed promises to offer, in sacrifice to God, in the event of victory, the first person who would meet him. However it was his only daughter, who ran the first to meet him, “while dancing to the sound of timbrels!” The unhappy one had only two months of respite, the time for weeping to be forced to die before to have been married. Book of Judges, chapter X, 11.12.

As we have just seen it, the human sacrifice was often only the pre-empted execution of a “vow” (the word devotion is besides of the same family as the word vow because it is a set of purely warrior rites which we also finds, in its broad outlines, in the archaic Roman religion : the votum).

Very a good example is provided to us by the famous soldurs about whom Caesar speaks (B.G. III, 22). “And while the attention of our men is engaged in that matter, in another part came Adcantuannus/Adiatuanus, who held the general command, with 600 devoted followers whom they call soldurii (the conditions of whose association are these : they enjoy all the conveniences of life with those to whose friendship they have devoted themselves. If anything calamitous happens to them, either they endure the same destiny together with them, or commit suicide. Nor hitherto, in the memory of men, has there been found anyone who, upon his being slain to whose friendship he had devoted himself, refused to die.”

The practice is also signaled among the Celtiberians in Spain by Plutarch (Life of Sertorius, chapter XIV). “ There being a custom in Spain, that when a commander was slain in battle, those who attended his person fought it out till they all died with him, which the inhabitants of those countries considered as an offering or libation; there were few commanders that had any considerable guard or number of attendants; but Sertorius was followed by many thousands who offered themselves, and vowed to spend their blood with his. And it is told that when his army was defeated near a city in Spain, and the enemy pressed hard upon them, the Spaniards, with no care for themselves, but being totally solicitous to save Sertorius, took him up on their shoulders and passed him from one to another, till they carried him into the city, and only when they had thus placed their general in safety, provided afterwards each man for his own security.”

Let us remind nevertheless that as of Antiquity already the sacrifice of one’s own person following a vow could, of course, take only rather benign or partial forms.

Pomponius Mela. Choreography, III, 2: “Nevertheless, after they have led their consecrated human victims to the altars, they still graze them slightly, although they do hold back from the ultimate bloodshed.”

Kings and vergobrets controlling us have the right and the duty to impose on all, the obligations necessary to national defense; but they must equitably provide for the case of those who, for reasons of conscience, refuse the use of the weapons (fervent Christians, etc.); the latter then remain required to serve their country in another form. The latter for example can be employed usefully as male nurses or stretcher bearers on the front or in first line (it is not a question they remain cowardly in the back in whole safety!)

In no case conscientious objection should be a cowardice making it possible some people to avoid the supreme sacrifice, while keeping the benefit of that of the others. The conscientious objector has the right not to use weapons, but he has the duty to also risk his life like the others. His refusal of any violence is acceptable only in this condition.

The self-defense can be not only a right, but also a duty, for the one who is responsible for the life of others, or the common good of the family and of the country. Because it is legitimate to make respect one’s own right to life, national or individual, collective or family… Who defends his life is not guilty of homicide even if he is, for that, constrained to deal a fatal blow to his attacker. The action to defend oneself can, certainly, involve a double effect: the one is the preservation of his own life, and the other, the death of the attacker but only the first of both is wanted by the druidism, the other being only accepted by it (accepted as an inevitable and fatal consequence of the self-defense).

The public good , we said it and repeated it, implies peace, i.e., the safety of the people and of the goods. The druids always attached much importance in this state. Kings and princes who control us have the right and the duty to repel with weapons the attackers of the human community for which they are responsible although internally they also have the right and even the duty to regulate the weapons production and trade.

The druidism always tried to avoid the conflicts, and always preached a just international order, resorting to law and arbitration, rather than to the brute strength (nertis). An international order more just, in which the tensions could be more easily absorbed, where the intertribal conflicts would find a negotiated outcome.

“Many times, for instance, when two armies approach each other in battle with swords drawn and spears thrust forward, these men step forth between them and cause them to cease, as though having cast a spell over certain kinds of wild beasts. In this way, even among the wildest barbarians, does passion give place before wisdom” (Diodorus of Sicily, History, V, 31,2-5).

With regard to the nations, as we have just seen it, Christianity shows an incredible ideology of hatred and exclusion (towards every idea of national soul, towards even every idea of nation; perhaps a remainder of the original contempt of the early Christians towards the Goim and the Barbarians, today called Kuffar).

The order from St. Paul to the Galatians (let it be no longer Jew or Greek, and so on) was then implemented to the letter by the bishops.

However the true natio-etnism is distinguished from its degraded form, the chauvinism, by the respect of the dignity of all gdonios (of every human person, Indian in Amazonia or Papuan); what excludes the racism of domination, exploitation or contempt, under all their forms (for example against the Goim Barbarians or Kuffar); by the respect of strangers come in peace, as by the opening to friendship with the other peoples(internationalism or international cooperation).

When new communications between the populations of the World are established, particularly since the fall of the socialist and communist heresies in the East; the neo-pagans of all the countries have a particular responsibility to take in the construction of a new world order with the best of the former one. They can therefore only refuse every narrow racism on the subject, every chauvinism. Whatever the current efforts of the politicians, democrats or republicans, of left or right-wing, to decoy their votes in these fields, following the collapse of the popular democracies, undermined by corruption, Gulag: planes especially chartered for the evictions of clandestine immigrants, ethnic cleansing carried out by the Communist Serbs in Yugoslavia, etc.

The vital instinct of self-preservation urges to defend one’s life against every aggression, but the self-defense does not authorize anything. Defense must be proportional to the threat.

Each one is free to give up for oneself to the use of self-defense, a certain number of druids and not of the least ones (see for example those in Mona= Anglesey) did it by refusing to fortify their temples and their seminaries; but the kission obliges the nobly born souls to fight even to give one’s life, to safeguard the rights of one’s close relations.

You may turn your left cheek… but not that of the neighbor (of the next one ). “Avenge an evil deed is a strengthening of paganism” (Senchus Mor). The failure to give assistance to a person in danger , characteristic of Christianity, is an offense even a crime. The passivity of the witnesses is one of the causes of the current criminality. A father must defend as much as he can do it, even by force, his attacked wife and children. It is for this safeguard of the law, to ensure peace as well as safety, that the kings use the police, but of course, they do not have either all the rights.

The respect of the natural law, of the rectu adgenias, is a must for the kings and to their men. Justice must be ensured as well as the society protected.

Vae victis! This expression of Livy , put in Latin language in the mouth of Brennus, was certainly not far from its Celtic translation, which we can reconstitute without risk of error as being VAE VICTEBO.

As regards national defense, Christianity has always had two languages as usual.

First language: when it is in opposition. As an oppositional force, it then preaches absolute pacifism type “red rather than dead,” non-violence, conscientious objection , even desertion, including in war time. From where many dramas in ending Antiquity (on the reality of antichristian persecutions in the Roman world, to see our essay on, or more exactly against, Christianity).

2nd language: when it is in power and that it became official religion (when the State became more or less officially Christian); then there, as by chance, to serve one’s interests, with weapons if necessary, becomes again a virtue, and the desertion a fault.

The druidism, being more honest as for it, never needed such duplicity in this field. Its ethical code is a peace morality, but according to a vision which is not pacifism at all costs.

Those who devote themselves to the service of the nation in the military life serve the safety as well as the freedom of their people. They will really contribute to the public good and the peacekeeping if they fulfill with honor their task. It is not because a war is started that all becomes licit. We should not treat in a dishonoring way the wounded soldiers, the prisoners or the non-combatant ones. See the example of Cuchulainn who, in spite of his warrior fury, killed neither the messengers, neither the charioteers, nor unarmed people, and respected conventions ( Fir Fer in Gaelic language) in his engagements.

The extermination of people or a nation or a city, like in the case of the Eburones by Caesar or of the Hebrew herem or cherem - massacre of the enemies on “order” (sic) of Yahweh - is the polar opposite of the chivalrous spirit of Celts; and remains contrary to the laws of honor. Any act of war of the type biblical herem or cherem, i.e., tending indistinctly to the destruction of whole towns, or vast regions with their inhabitants; as at the time of the conquest of the Promised Land by the Hebrews (Deuteronomy XX, 10 to 20); is a crime having to be denounced. Even if they are not here crimes against Humanity in the legal meaning of the term, because rather curiously “justice” (only French it is true) found in 1993 quite a strange definition of the crime against Humanity. “The texts of the statute of the court in Nuremberg relate only to the facts committed on behalf of the European countries of the Axis” (Boudarel Case, judgment of April 1, 1993). The crime against Humanity therefore, at least in the eyes of the “justice” of this country, is, not a crime against Humanity (it would be too good); but a crime “committed in Europe, by or for Germany, from 1933 to 1945”; and mankind , they are therefore only the Jews and the Roma. Not the Armenians or the Acadian ones, not the Bosnian Muslims or Croatian Catholics.

The leftists of the Vieille Taupe were right consequently to write in their time what follows. “The legend has it that the court of Nuremberg was the expression of the justice of the nations condemning impartially the Nazi torturers for indisputably established and absolutely outstanding crimes. In Fact, Nuremberg was the lynching of a gang of defeated murderers by a band of victorious murderers” (La Vieille Taupe, P.B. 9805.75 224 Paris cedex 05, France); because as our great Brennus had predicted it in his time: “Woe to the vanquished”! However peace should be subordinate to the justice and to the law it is necessary to make prevailing.

The true druidicist therefore is never afraid in front of the combat when it becomes necessary, and a true sacred fury must drive him facing injustice, he keeps or imposes peace when it is itself a requirement of justice. (Case of ex-Yugoslavia in 1992-1993, for example.) “It is a strengthening of paganism if an evil deed be avenged" ( St. Patrick. Senchus Mor. I. p. 9)."The gods almost always side with those who have been wronged” (Boadicea. Queen of the Iceni. Year 61 of our era. According to Cassius Dio LXII , 11).

But Vae victis the Ancient ones said as we could see it, this is why they added at once: “Si vis pacem para bellum.”

Blindness or passivity can, in certain cases, lead to lose at the same time peace, war, and honor, and to constitute a very serious fault (example the blindness of the democrats and of the left wing, facing Hitler, in 1933. It is certain indeed that if the French militarily and by force, were opposed to the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936, the face of the world would have been changed because of that).

The rectu adgenias of our ancestors gave us means of distinguishing the just wars from the unjust wars.

So that a war is just according to the druids, what follows is necessary.

1) That the cause itself is just.

2) That it is the ultimate resort; peaceful means to settle the conflict and to make the law prevailing having been deployed in vain.

3) That the means are proportioned with the caused wrong or the aim.

4) That we have serious chances of thus restoring justice. The possession and the manufacturing of weapons proportioned with the adverse threat therefore are not in themselves an ill deed. The deterrence based on balance is certainly not an end in itself, but can constitute an acceptable stage on the way to peace. In no case nevertheless the massive destruction of innocent populations as at the time of the conquest of the Promised Land (by God or the Demiurge) may be justified. The Fir Fer obliges to see there only an ultimate resort (Dresden and Hiroshima or Nagasaki in 1945).

The soldiers handle the nertis (the force), they have fatal weapons (the gae bolga of the former Irishmen for example, the atomic bomb today, etc.).The existence of charismatic leaders putting themselves in the service of others, knowing how to limit the use of the force to the required minimum, and respecting the man in the enemy, honest and courageous, is therefore essential.

Notes on loose sheets of paper and found by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau, then inserted into this place.

Notice 1.

In the battle of more or less hoplite type, which is that of the Celts during Antiquity according to Jean-Louis Brunaux, the chief does not direct from behind the lines , but fights himself in first line, where the risks are most serious. Many Celtic chiefs consequently die in action. The American Civil War looks like an end of the war in the traditional way, from the point of view of the place and of the role of the general-in-chief on the battlefield. The army commanders such as Sherman, Grant, or Lee, accompanied those on the ground; so much that the soldiers of then were still likely to see them was this only fugitively, in the bivouac, at the time of the marches; and knew more or less where they were at the time of the engagements. Of course, the needs as well as the complexity of the modern war, impose that starting from the brigade, the commanders of the great units profit from the perspective necessary to relevant operational or strategic decision making; and to the conveying of those in clear, precise, complete, univocal and concise, orders. This was imposed since the second half of the 20th century. Von Moltke the elder led campaigns of 1866 against Austria-Hungary and of 1870 against France, far from the front: from his staff in Germany.

Notice 2.

So that a possible disarmament is not a bonus granted to the violence of possible attackers, it will have to be mutual, progressive and carefully controlled. There cannot be lasting peace without truth, justice, and freedom, whether it is between the nations or inside even of each nation besides. These spiritual components of every peace must be conveyed into acts and institutions, even international if it is needed (intertribal arbitration, etc.).

THE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.

TO UNDERSTAND THE CELTIZATION OF THE HEARTS AND OF THE MINDS 1st PART.

The name of the Barbarians Attacotti/Atecotti is undoubtedly a try of transcription of the old Irish aithechthúatha but this Gaelic word does not designate a particular tribe since it has especially a statutory value and can be translated in “vassal, tributary, paying a tax, people.” Let us Say “tribes placed under a protectorate” and let us speak no longer about it.

David Hugues in his famous “chronicles” made them some inhabitants of Atlantis what is impossible by definition but what is undeniable it is that oghamic inscriptions corresponding to no known Indo-European language were found in the north of Scotland .

An Irish etiologic text related to the famous Testament of Morann (Audacht Morainn) the Soerchlanda Erenn uile. evokes a bloody revolt of these Atectai having taken place in the time of the legendary emperor of Ireland called Feradach Find Fichtnach. It is possible to summarize the things thus.

A group of tribes is placed under the protectorate or administration of an aristocracy having not the same ethnic origins. For various reasons indeed these vassal tribes lost their own ruling dynasties and as a result are obliged to pay tribute to the kings of the three other tribes.

Annoyed by this situation the vassal tribes drive out the foreign to their people ruling class, which is massacred except for three pregnant women who flee in Scotland.

The vassal tribes left to their own devices try to run their own affairs but as a punishment for their crime are overpowered by all kinds of evils: they have no longer enough milk, fruits, grains, or other plants.

At the end of a certain time, the vassal tribes regret having thus acted and decide to accept the sovereigns that the land of Ireland will accept.

The emissaries sent overseas ask the princes to come back in Ireland.

The three princes and the vassal tribes conclude a pact.

The new sovereigns divide Ireland between them and become the ancestors of the ruling dynasties in Ireland.

Our comment. The topic is therefore that well known in Ireland of the exile and return of the legitimate sovereigns.

Most important is the contents of the famous pact ( fir flathemon) which sealed the agreement of the belligerents and found again peace.

Unfortunately, we do not know the contents of it. We may therefore only suppose that the recht aicnid or natural law was the base of it. Considering the importance of the question in the determination of the rights and duties of the Atectoi in Celtic land, we will return on it in a longer way. Ba had bal tra 7 ba dírím truma in chísa 7 met na cana 7 fortamlaighe in fhlaithiusa laisna tri rígha ibh sin for aitheachaib Erend in any case that wants to say too many taxes too many tributes too hard laws.

The overcome nations but followers of religions close to druidism (in any case not incompatible with it *) were authorized to keep a certain autonomy, and became thus some atectai, some peoples protected by the law of the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht).

The druids guaranteed them to have their life spared, the possession of their goods, and even the practice of their worships.

An archeological evidence of all that is provided to us by the temple discovered in Gournay-sur-Aronde in the North of France.

In the years - 280 - 260 before our era, when the Belgian populations settled on this territory, existed already in this place an indigenous sanctuary, materialized by a simple enclosure and a small altar-pit where offerings of vases were made.

This place of worship was to be devoted to a deity supposed to lie in the water of marshes. It is this place that the men of the pagus rossontensis, one of the four pagi forming the civitas of Bellovaci, chose to build here their principal sanctuary to them. This re-use of an indigenous place of worship means that there existed still an indigenous population, which was included in the new settlement. The newcomers , as later the Roman occupiers did it, sought in this way to attract for them the benefits of

the territorial deities, at the same time that they found there the best way of getting a benevolent neutrality from the natives.

This protectorate exerted on the atectoi combroges involved no segregation. The druidicists in no way kept them away by principle, or intentionally. And especially they were not regarded as impure (design unfamiliar to the druidism).

You could invite them around your table and there were even many mixed marriages.

The possibilities of social ascent remained important, but a strong social pressure was exerted nevertheless towards these defeated peoples (atectai = status of second-class citizens or more exactly of second-class subjects… which they could quickly escape only by conversion).

From where their disappearance over time through assimilation with the Celtic-Druidic civilization.

We can compare the destiny of the atectoi with that of the dhimmis in the Muslim countries, but the comparison with the Islamic small jihad stops there.

* What was besides the case of all the religions of the time except for that of the Hebrews perhaps.

TO UNDERSTAND THE CELTIZATION OF HEARTS AND MINDS (CONTINUATION).

THE TRIBUTE IN MEN: MILITARY SERVICE ATHAIR ALLTROMA AND HOSTAGES SYSTEM.

The Ambicatuisian ver sacrum was neither intended as it is possible to think so, to spread the druidism by converting by the strength and by the sword the overcome populations; it was only a consequence of it . Accepted but not wanted.

Besides what means the name even of Ambicatus: approximately “who fights on the two levels,” let us remember it!

The defeated peoples were only required only to pay a tribute. Only the people having completely incompatible worships (and there was little of them) were forced to choose between conversion or death.

“When Tristan came back to that land, King Mark and all his Barony were mourning; for the King of Ireland had manned a fleet to ravage Cornwall, should King Mark refuse, as he had refused these fifteen years, to pay a tribute his fathers had paid. Now that year this King had sent to Tintagel, to carry his summons, a giant knight; the Morholt, whose sister he had wed, and whom no man had yet been able to overcome: so King Mark had summoned all the barons of his land to Council, by letters sealed.

On the day assigned, when the barons were gathered in the hall, and when the King had taken his throne, the Morholt said these things:

“King Mark, hear for the last time the summons of the King of Ireland, my lord. He arraigns you to pay at last that which you have owed so long, and because you have refused it too long already he bids you give over to me this day three hundred youths and three hundred maidens drawn by lot from among the Cornish folk. But if so be that any would prove by trial of combat that the King of Ireland receives this tribute without right, I will take up his wager. Which among you, my Cornish lords, will fight to redeem this land?”

The concept of hostage evolved with time. In Latin, the word hostage is said obses, obsidis, and comes from the verb sedeo meaning “to sit, stay, remain.” The words obsidio, onis, which designates the siege of a city, and obsideo, es, ere, which means “to besiege,” belong to this family.

The taking of hostages is as old as the hills. We find traces of this system twenty-seven centuries before our era in Egypt, in the Middle East, then the city of Athens and in Rome. The emperors brought up in their court kids of defeated kings to make sure of their loyalty.

Very early indeed, the States made the process of hostages a means of diplomacy and government. Envisaged by a clause of the treaties, they guaranteed the execution of the obligations imposed to the defeated, their submission; as well as the neutrality of the neighbors and even the loyalty of the allies. These diplomatic hostages were generally treated as distinguished guests in the host country. Their destiny resembled in nothing that of the prisoners. They were indeed generally members of ruling families or of the dignitaries of the States, who vouched on their honor and their goods for the fulfillment of the treaties.

This definition changed; today the word designates the individuals who are captured and who are used as means of pressure to get what you require or to protect oneself against possible reprisals. The statute of hostage thus evolved in time, from “guarantor of a promise” to that of “bargaining chips.” They are terrorist groups which organize this hostage taking for political reasons. Sometimes also there are villainous acts which are the work of the organized crime. From the point of view of the international law, the hostage taking is prohibited since 1949, by the Geneva Convention in the military or civil conflicts. They are also contrary with the Convention of the Human rights even in the case of the Stockholm syndrome.

It is therefore obvious that our ancestors also practiced widely this system. The very name of Niall Noigiallach, last pagan king of Ireland, means Niall of the nine hostages besides.

O'Rahilly suggested that this nickname was related to a hostages taking carried out from the sons of nine kings of Cruithni in Ulster. This population indeed seems to match , for the historical period in question, the kingdom of Airgillia (Airgíalla = hostage donor), which was vassal of the Ui Neill after having been vassal of the Ulaid.

After the victory and the conquest, the victorious Celtic leaders, of course, were to ask that hostages were given to them in order to guarantee peace.

The druids, as for them, were also perhaps to take in tutelage on their premises boys of school age, i.e., approximately seven years old (the nursery school did not exist at the time) in order to educate them in their own specialties and to have in them, if not some successors, at least some helpers or assistants.

The accelerated Celtization of these overcome populations, and particularly of the Ligurians, is perhaps explained mainly by the importance of this military service owed by the defeated to the victorious Celticists and by the taking in fosterage by the druids, of the most promising children of the overcome tribe.

The victorious Celtic chiefs could only accept that young people of the overcome tribe rally behind their cause and are soldiers for their greater glory. There were well at the time to enlist in the armies of Alexander the great. As regards this military service, that was to begin when the boy was approximately fourteen years old.

Not counting, considering the tolerance that a true Celtic hearted and minded person expresses always, that such a human tribute was quickly seen by the defeated people as a means of social ascent for the families. The case of Vercingetorix in France is exemplary on this subject (he was, very young, sent as a hostage among Romans, and even more precisely to Julius Caesar). That of the future St. Patrick less conclusive (he was placed in the family of the druid who managed the herds of the king having plundered his country).

No one can say with exactitude now how that occurred 3000 years ago, but here in every case how this hostages taking was carried out in the Ottoman Empire.

At the beginning, recruitment of the janissaries and devshirme were two quite different things.

The janissaries were children captured in the Christian villages taken by the Ottoman Army as it advanced (or moved back) in the Balkans. These children then adolescents, therefore grew within the framework of the Ottoman Army. What corresponds well to the hostages practice developed by the Celtic emperors (ard ri) like Niall.

But for the devshirme, it was the inside of the Empire and in times of peace. It was not the same mechanism and the goal was different, more civil. This kind of human tribute was practiced as soon as the first years whereas the Ottomans observed a singular mixture of not very orthodox religious beliefs, Turkish tribal habits and Byzantine traditions.

These two logics nevertheless ended up merging, and this, rather quickly.

The recruitment of the janissaries, initially carried out by keeping a prisoner of war on five in the conquered villages, as we saw it higher, was also done than by the system of the devshirme, or obligatory draft of young children from the families of the defeated country.

To present the janissaries purely and solely as “soldiers slaves” is a mistake. The title of kul which was attributed to them corresponded to an honorable and not dishonoring function. The kul was a statute halfway between that of a slave and that of simple subject of the sultan. In the 17th century still, to be accepted as kul was as worthy as to be a simple subject of the sultan. Once the shocking strangeness of the devshirme passed, many families proposed their children for what seemed to be a good career. Some parents as well Christian as Muslim even were as far as offering bribes so that their children are accepted. There exist written documents showing that many janissaries kept in touch with their family.

As at the time of the Inquisition in Spain, those who forced the young recruits to the devshirme thought to save their soul thus. This tribute in men fed the elite infantry, the cavalry, as well as the civilian servants or houseboys. The devshirme initially concerned the from eight to twenty-year-old boys, resulting from country families; some individuals in good health, but without education, rather than young townsmen trained in the “street school.” The families with only one son were exempted from it. Most Greeks also escaped from it, because the majority of those who spoke Greek were then in the towns or peopled some islands.

The devshirme involved concretely the recruitment of a child all the forty homes; the levying occurred about every five years. At its height the system went as far as concerning from 1000 to 3000 young people each year, besides the total ordinary recruitment of almost 8000 slaves.

The devshirme began with an edict or decree from the sultan. An officer of the rank of yaya bashi at least, provided with a warrant in due form and accompanied by several surucu (“ox drivers”), as well as a secretary with a certain number of uniforms, went where the local clergy had the responsibility of gathering the male children.

Two lists were then drawn up.

One was entrusted to a sürücü, who escorted the recruits to Istanbul then. Over there, most intelligent were educated as like ich-oghlans or servants of the “palace,” in the schools of the palace of the Sultan, and even reached , for the luckiest ones, the high positions.

The remainder, the other list, made up by the acemi oglan or “foreign boys” found themselves placed in the houses of honorably known men in order to carry out there the first stage of their education or integration.

The selection procedure, supervised by a committee of examiners, was a striking mixture of new and antiquated ideas. On a side the belief in the “physiognomy,” which claimed that character and intelligence could be deduced from bodily appearance, and on the other side of intellectual or mental examinations being connected to the modern IQ tests.

We know more, of course, about the education of the elite of the ich-oglans than about that of the average acemi oglans intended for the corps of the janissaries, but the principles were similar. There were palace schools at Bursa, Edirne, Istanbul and Galata, where the young people studied during two to seven years, under the rule of a severe discipline that the kapi agasi or chief white eunuch imposed. They learned initially Islam and the professors or hocas taught them rudiments of general knowledge. The dominant of their later studies depended on what best appropriate to them was: it was either religious, or administrative or military. Specific subjects were made up with Arabian, Persian and Turkish literature, horsemanship, cast of javelins, archery, wrestling, weightlifting and music for most gifted. Moreover, a very particular stress was put on honesty, loyalty, good manners as well as self-control. Then, at the end of this formation, took place a cikma, a kind of process of selection and of promotion. The best ich- oglans went to the upper or lower house in the palace of the Sultan, while the others were assigned to the cavalry of the kapu kullari.

By comparison with this quasi-chivalrous instruction, that of the ordinary acemi oglan was completely military with a crushing insistence on obedience. They were, first of all, hired as turk oglan to carry out the works in the fields of the Turkish families, to learn language, basic military competences, as well as Muslim beliefs, during five to seven years. They were then assigned to one of the acemi ocak or cadet corps when rest was granted to them. Some found themselves in the konaks or houses of beys, of pashas, reflections of the palace schools but on a more modest level. Best turk oglan were promoted in the elite corps of the gardeners or bostanci (in fact a kind of imperial guard) , the others became janissaries or entered the companies of baltaci (halberdiers) even one of the companies of the Admiralty. From there, the men were selected for the more technical ortas of the cebeci (armorers), the topçu (artillerymen) or the top arabaci (drivers of cannon wagons). However, the majority of them were trained in school barracks as simple infantrymen.

The training lasted at least six years during which the acemi oglan was supervised by the eunuchs and was deprived of every female company. The discipline was very severe, even if it was less rigorous when they were not on duty . The classes resulting from the kapiya chikma became operational units only when a post became vacant, and the parade performed on this occasion was an event, called also kapiya chikma. The graduates formed one line, each one holding the hem of the dress of the man before him, then lined up in front of a odabasi of their unit, which gave to each one the hat characteristic of the janissaries as well as their certificate. In the evening, after prayers, each new Janissary wore the dolman, a kind of coat, and became a full member of the ocak. He was to kiss the hand of his new officer who called him then comrade (yoldas).

The janissaries themselves seemed favorable to a progressive abolition of the devshirme, in order to cause thus occasions of career for their own sons.

The devshirme was stopped in practice in 1648, in Europe a last devshirme failed in 1703. Consequently, the main source of recruitment became the Tatars of Ukraine until the annexation of the Crimea by Russia in 1783.

N.B. The best known emblem of the janissaries was the copper cauldron that the company (orta) preserved preciously. The daily ration of men was prepared in the cauldron and they gathered around this one for their meal. The cauldron was carried in the parades , the soldiers and the officers stood

around it, in a respectful silence. To reverse the cauldron was a sign of the revolt and to take refuge near it was equivalent to find asylum in a sanctuary. During the battles, the cauldron of the company was used as a rallying point. But if the cauldron was lost, the officers who were in charge of defending it fell then into disgrace, and the very whole company lost the privilege to take part in the parade with the other regiments.

But let us leave these Turkish scenes, we, what is important for us it is the human tribute such as it was practiced a long time by the winners, the ancient Celtic devshirme (hostages, athair altroma, and Celtization); and its re-examined and corrected modern version (a military service offering the foreigners a real occasion of integration and social advancement, a real occasion of integration and social advancement, access to the citizenship and the naturalization.

What one can deduce as regards the Celtic conquests and the Celtization which followed, it is that it was to exist a kind of Celtic devshirme. There are traces of in the legend of Tristan and Iseult and…

The draft of Peter DeLaCrau stops unfortunately here!

NOTICE ABOUT THE SACRED NATURE OF CERTAIN DEFENSIVE WARS AMONG CELTS AND THE CONCILIUM ARMATUM.

The assemblies, either they were only civil or military, were never held without a minimum of pomp. At the time of the general conspiracy of 52 before our era, the chiefs of tribe meet among the Carnutes, probably in one of their sanctuaries. There they swear oaths above the joined together in stack insignia, what is, Caesar says, “more eorum gravissime caerimonia,” in other words, the most serious ceremony [and fraught with consequences] in their religion.

These warlike assemblies were to be those where the warrior attired himself in all his weapons, those indicating his hierarchical rank and testifying to his glorious past. If some were open to the whole of the combatants, all social origins confused, most were reserved to the leaders and were held in the most absolute secrecy, as Caesar implies it on several occasions.

Besides this concilium armatum (gaisata datla in Celtic language?) extremely ritualized had probably of a council only the name. It was more a ritual with a human sacrifice than another thing. Caesar describes it in a very exceptional way in his work. It is one of very rare descriptions of ethnographic nature, apart from the digression of the Book VI, it has the advantage of directly connecting a religious practice, a ritual, with dated events.

“He [Indutiomarus] proclaims an armed council, this according to the custom of the Celts in the commencement of war, at which, by a common law, all the youth were wont to assemble in arms, and whoever of them comes last, is killed in the sight of the whole assembly, after being racked with every torture.” Caesar. B.G. Book V, 56).

Notice by Peter DeLaCrau. This general mobilization became a sacred duty only in the event of defensive of self-defense, war.

The declaration of war according to Caesar involved therefore executions falling more under the human sacrifice that under capital punishment and constituted a general exception to the rule of safeguarding of life enacted by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht).

Because execution in question was, of course, a human sacrifice and this quotation of Caesar proves therefore that with regard to the Celtic “holy” wars [better: the sacred wars] they always started with a sacrifice of this kind.

As opposed to what the Roman conqueror implies, the rite is old, in every case former to the 1st century, and it is revealing. Its meaning is perfectly comprehensible. It acts, in the most solemn form, to notify to all the participants that from now on their life belongs no longer to them; that it is in the hands of a god (the fate) which will leave them in life or which will make some dead promised to an heroic Walhalla. The one who tried to escape the collective duty must therefore, to not only die in the honor of this god, but he has to do it slowly, in degrading treatments, and in full view of everybody; so that his death appears the reversed image of the death of the warrior, fast, in full glory, but in exchange for the suffering and sometimes for the death of his enemy. Same thing with the deserters or the mutineers of the modern wars besides!

Conclusions (all provisional) and adaptations to the reality of today.

1. What the example of Bellovesuss and Segovesos invites us today, it is no longer to a missionary activity of the style small Jihad (sacred war); but to the fight for religious freedom, for freedom of worship, of all the worships. Everyone must be allowed to venerate or adore the god or the prophet of his choice. No constraint as regards worship therefore. This being said as for us without any taqiyah! Since it is the very definition or the philosophical and considered paganism which is ours.

2. It is indeed less a question of sentencing to a hell which does not exist, that to call for the conversion of hearts and minds, in order to escape the vicious circle of the endless reincarnations in bacuceos. In bacuceos or seibaros, in other words, in ghost (Irish siabair/siabhradh) left straightly from the kingdom of Tethra or from Donnotegia. The kingdoms of Arawn or Gwynn in the Welsh folklore. Because only faith makes it possible to Man to reach the world of the god-or-demons.

3 . Incidentally, if a druidicist country is wrongfully attacked (case of the cisalpine) it is the duty of all to take up arms in order to defend it; because to fight at its sides, it is to fight against the injustice, against racism, even against the temptation of the genocide.

VARIOUS TYPES OF NOT HOLY BUT SACRED WAR THEREFORE.

There existed consequently three different types of war.

The defensive sacred (but not “holy”) war with a more or less strong connotation of bagaudae (Cf the case of Mariccus); and the offensive sacred (sacred, not holy) war with a strong natio-ethnic connotation (made because of national solidarity).

The defensive sacred (sacred, not holy) war with a strong natio-ethnic connotation (made by national solidarity).

We should not forget indeed the considerable part played by the Celts in the battles fought by Hannibal against the Romans. Themselves who were fundamentally non-racialist; see their attitude in connection with the foreigners. “Among them, man is punished more rigorously for the murder of a stranger than for that of a fellow citizen: in the first case, death, in the second exile only” (Nicholas of Damascus. Collection of remarkable customs. Fragment Nº XLIV, 41, preserved by Stobaeus); they had indeed started to be victims of a true genocide perpetrated by the Romans. Polybius himself says it explicitly:

Histories. Book II, XXI: “…the Romans divided among their citizens the territory of Picenum, from which they had ejected the Senones when they conquered them: a “democratic” measure introduced by Gaius Flaminius, and a policy which we must pronounce to have been the first step in the corruption of the people, as well as the cause of the next war against the Celts. For many of the Celts, entered upon that war…. from the conviction that the object of Rome in her wars with them was no longer supremacy and empire over them, but their total expulsion and destruction.”

[In other words, a true anti-Celtic Shoah carried out by the Romans, as this fragment of Dionysius of Halicarnassus concerning a named Publius Cornelius confirms it. “The man who, while consul three years earlier had waged war on the whole tribe of Celts called Senones and had slain all their adult males.” Roman Antiquities. Book XIX. Fragment No. XIII. Editor’s note.]

The Insubrian chiefs seeing that the intentions of the Romans did not change, therefore decided to try their luck and to risk everything. Having gathered in the same place all their offerings, even those out of gold which were known as “irremovable ones” [anathemata, in the Greek text. This detail well proves the sacred or despaired characteristic , of this war. Author’s note] that they removed from their temple, and after having finished all other necessary arrangements, they left to fight battle.”

But people are not able every day to succeed in overcoming Fascism and racism. The true ones, not what only natio-ethnism is, concerned with the defense or the development of the differences or of the national identity.

Another example of sacred war, the war which followed the attack of the spiritual Mecca that was the Isle of Mona (today Môn for the Welsh, Anglesey for the English) in the year 58 of our era.

“On the shore stood the opposing army….. The druids, lifting up their hands to heaven, and pouring forth dreadful imprecations, scared our soldiers by the unfamiliar sight, so that, as if their limbs were paralyzed, they stood motionless” (Tacitus. Annals XIV, 29-30).

But what Paulinus considered as an army, they are most probably the druids and their disciples, with the wives of the ones and others.

The Romans indeed occupied without much difficulty an island which was not defended, undoubtedly because Bretons never thought that somebody dares to attack it. The legions captured it easily, massacring the priests and destroying the sanctuary.

The most interesting element of the account is the recourse to the psychological warfare to start: ineffective recourse and with which the Romans, afterwards, made fun without understanding it. They had nevertheless started by being frightened, what the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht wanted precisely). The fact that the hopes of these unhappy ones were quickly disappointed, does not change something to the principle!

The destruction of a spiritual center is never of a positive ratio: war without prisoners, filled with horrible torments, inexpiable war. The texts are dumb on what the Romans did on their side, but all that looks well a sacred war , at least for the Celts in Great Britain

What follows immediately this event, in the Annals of Tacitus, it is the great revolt of the Bretons under the command of Queen Boudicca.

“About seventy thousand citizens and allies, it appeared, fell in the places which I have mentioned. For it was not on making prisoners and selling them, or on any of the barter of war, that the enemy was bent, but on slaughter, on the gibbet, the fire and the cross, like men soon about to pay the penalty, and meanwhile snatching at instant vengeance. …” (Book XIV, chapter XXXIII).

Cassius Dio is more verbose in macabre details. “The worst and most bestial atrocity committed by their captors was the following. They hung up naked the noblest and most distinguished women and then cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, in order to make the victims appear to be eating them; afterwards they impaled the women on sharp skewers run lengthwise through the entire body. All this they did to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and wanton behavior, not only in all their other sacred places, but particularly in the grove of Andrasta. This was their name for Victory” (LXII, 9).

The bagaudian phenomenon.

Specialists call bagaudae , from a name meaning fighters and that we find in the Breton bagad, the disorders which agitated Western Europe at the end of the Roman Empire. The Independence war made against the legions of Caesar was, of course, not a bagauda but we should not take lightly the remarks of Caesar reproaching the young Arvernian chief for being especially supported by the plebs. There was incontestably a certain populism in the general uprising of - 52.

The bagaudae themselves are spread out from 282 to 448 we have said.

The case of Mariccus in 69 is very revealing here. It shows how the failure of a mobilization carried out by the urban elites to feed a political rebellion, that of Vindex, could lead to a popular mobilization hostile these same elites.

There exists today a broad consensus to identify the Bagaudae of 285-286 with country militias made more attractive by a defensive function against the barbarians.

Country militia of self-defense recruited on a civic basis would have gradually made themselves autonomous , by going up as far as attacking towns as Aurelius Victor affirms it. However, we can propose a second assumption for the 3rd century. It is also possible that farmers organized themselves in rural militia right from the start, as Eutropus seems to indicate it. The Bagaudae indeed are the only rebellious country group in the Empire to have a specific name in a regional language. It is likely indeed that the name of Bagaudae was used by certain farmers to define themselves in the framework of the pagi or vici. This country mobilization indeed had likely a village base, even if populations moved by the invasions could also take part in them. The innovation of the word Bagaudae not mentioned by the ethnographic Greco-Roman literature would show that it was a new practice from the Roman point of view.

This mission of self-defense asserted by these militias, excusable in the event of a vacancy of the imperial power in spite of the laws prohibiting private violence, would explain the leniency of Maximian in their connection celebrated by the rhetorician. Mamertinus. This emperor indeed, instead of executing the Bagaudae made prisoners, could integrate them by force in the army. This practice was frequent in the case of the barbarians made prisoners. Lastly, the Vita Baboleni, associated with the mention in 638 of a local castrum bagaudarum, allocates a regular military function to the men of Amandus and Aelianus equated with the members of the Theban legion persecuted by Maximian. It cannot be a question of a distorted allusion to the Bagaudes of the 5th century, who don’t seem to have fought against the barbarians. It is difficult to understand why the author of this hagiography in the 11th century would have invented such an upgrading of the Bagaudes. It is more probable than the popular memory had kept an enhancing image of the Bagaudae of the 3rd century as soldiers unjustly persecuted by Maximian.

In the middle of the 4th century, there was a competition between pagan or Christian charismatic figures supposed able thanks to supernatural powers to protect the local populations against the barbarians. Sulpicius Severus presents Martin himself as one of these protective figures. This saint of military origin would have been freed from his duties by the pagan Julian in 356 or 357 after having made him able, with the assistance of God, to overcome without fight the Alamans. The worship dedicated to a gangster near Tours removed by Martin around 370 can have been dedicated in fact to a Bagaudian leader in the time of Amandus and Aelianus as well as to a local robber. The upholding of certain practices relating to heroic worships would not be astonishing indeed. To remove worship dedicated to a “gangster” made it possible to Martin to impose the exclusiveness in his patronage on the local populations during a period marked by a strong social agitation.

The word Bagaudae has in fact two meanings in the 5th century, designating, on the one hand, the revolted farm workers but also, on the other hand, autonomous rural communities made partly of fugitive of various social statuses.

These communities had as a core some villages or castella located in marginal zones, like the Alps They could also mark the revival of the pagus as a community unit within the territory of the very vast cities.

This part of the Roman empire seems to have been marked in the 5th century by two parallel and closely contemporary phenomena, but quite distinct, an autonomist movement of public figures in Armorica in the broad sense, and country social unrest , which were the only ones to be defined in our sources as being generated by some Bagaudae. Olympiodorus, main source of Zosimus for the period after 404, indeed clearly distinguishes the Bagaudae in the Alps, mentioned for the year 407, from the cities in Armorica, which separated from the Empire in 409-410. He compares these secessionist tendencies with those present in Great Britain at the same time. The word Bagaude term would have come back into fashion in the 5th century to designate disorders of country nature, like those made by alpine populations. The Armorican public figures leaving the Empire were to propose an alternative model of State. They perhaps reinvented Celtic traditions as regards justice, according to the Querolus.

Tibatto therefore can have been simply a Armorican public figure particularly radical in his will to separate from the Empire. He can also have represented, as his Celtic name seems to indicate it, a more popular tendency within Armorica, hostile to the public figures in favor in 445 of a compromise with the Empire.

Salvianus gives us a credible interpretation of the formation of the Bagaudian communities in the years 440 which makes it possible to better understand the disorders of 435-437.

Recent studies underlined the will of certain elements of the clergy as of the 5th century, to show a certain tolerance towards the Bagaudae. Thus, Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, in his version of the passion of the martyrs of the Theban legion written between 443 and 449, affirms that Maximian came in this part of the empire only to persecute the crowd of the Christians present in this area, overlooking the Bagaudian disorders. Eucherius, by omitting the Bagaudae in his account, seems to have shown a certain neutrality as for this phenomenon while deprecating the persecuting imperial power. A person listening to the account of this passion and knowing the existence of the Bagaudae in the 3rd century could implicitly compare them to persecuted Christians. This equating was actually carried out later by the Vita Baboleni. Eucherius belonged to the same ascetic circle as Salvianus to whom he entrusted the education of his son Salonius. Salvianus of Marseilles, by excusing the Bagaudes even if he did not approve them, aimed especially to criticize the abuses of the “primates” in the cities and the support which was given to them by the administration. However, he was probably originating in Trier, a city which seems to be strongly marked by the Bagaudian disorders at the end of the 3rd century. This could explain his exceptional tolerance towards the country disorders which were contemporary to him. This cultivated ascetic circle from Lerins, sensitive to the Pelagian ideas fought by Aetius, could express a certain interest for the Bagaudae. They proposed to replace the old consensus about the civic institutions , considered corrupt, by a Christian consensus about the values of the asceticism and the worship of the martyrs. However, even in its center, discordant opinions appeared. So the author of the chronicle of 452 has denounced the Bagaudae as traitors by devoting a development to the rallying of Eudoxius to Attila.

These studies showed how the Pelagian ascetics came closer starting from the middle of the 5th century to the traditional civic elites with which they shared the bishop functions. They spread together the worship of new protective figures, the military martyrs of the Theban legion. As the Vita sancti Baboleni shows it, the Bagaudian leaders of the 3rd century, Amandus and Aelianus were compared to these martyrs probably between 5th and the 7th century. The Bagaudae received in this hagiography the status of soldiers, enhancing their function of defense of the populations against an imperial power sensed as persecuting. The figure of the Bagaudae therefore was recovered and Christianized after the fall of the Western Empire by the urban elites, become episcopal, in order to create a new consensus.

HANDWRITTEN NOTICE OF PETER DELACRAU, FOUND BY HIS CHILDREN AND INSERTED INTO THIS PLACE.

TECHNICAL NOTICE ABOUT THE CELTIC VERGIO AND VERGILIUS (Irish ferg, old French vierg). The word vergio, become ferg in Gaelic language, means “fury.” People understood it also as sacred fury, divine fury. The one who was livened up by it was known as Vergilius, what, used in onomastics, became a person’s name , that we find as the name of the great cisalpine poet of Latin language Vergilius Maro (Virgil) whose grandfather was a druid.

This word (of vergio, then of ferg) originally applied to the asceticism or to the Celtic yoga (techniques of the riastrades, etc.).

It was not of a military engagement but an individual preparation for this warlike engagement. It was a question of reaching a state of extraordinary bodily power.

In the case of the Hesus Cuchulainn we passed therefore from the initial individual fight against oneself (the Japanese iaido, being constantly prepared, meet the opposition concretely, being present), to the effort of a whole society devoted to the defense of justice and truth.

There are besides perhaps similar reasons which led formerly to the foundation of the town of Lyons. “ Situated nearby is a mountain called Lougdounon. It was renamed for a reason of this sort. Momorus and Atepomarus, expelled from the realm by Seseroneus, were intending, according to an injunction, to found a city on this crest. While the foundations were being dug, ravens, having appeared out of nowhere and fluttered about, filled the trees all around. And Momorus, experienced in augury, named the city Lugdunum ” (according to the Pseudo-Plutarch . De Fluviis VI, 4).

It is certain that the Celtic expansion was done in the contempt of death. In the battle of Telamon which took place in - 225, the fighters of the first line were naked. It was a ritual nakedness that we in the Germanic warlike brotherhoods (berserkers) , and which was intended to challenge death. The Celts did not hesitate to leave their country to go and seek a good death on the battlefield. Certain Irish texts and particularly the cycle of Finn, are entirely devoted to mercenary warriors who leave the normal tribal framework (the Fenians precisely) to rent their services and to be fulfilled during glorious fights. There is no doubt therefore that the deep religiosity of the Celts marked their design of the war. The immolation of warriors constitutes the supreme offering, the only able one to avoid the destruction of their world or at least to delay the completion date of it.

Either this campaign launching was offensive or it had a character of defensive levying and of reinforcement, it occurred in spring. The Celtic theonomy informs us that it was under the aegis of a goddess-or-demoness, or of a fairy if it is preferred. Excingorigia, “the guide of the expedition ,” as her name indicates it.

A European and not only Celtic use since we find it among the Germanic ones where it continued until the time of the Franks and Alamanni of the Merovingian and Carolingian times, with the “mallus” of the May-fields. In the same way among the former Romans of the royal time and of the beginning of the Republic, where its time followed the ceremony of the “ver sacrum”: “sacred spring,” a consecration with a vow to bring back offerings.

Campaign of ambicatus type and population reasons are not incompatible. The cross references of History and Geography indicate to us an important number of them during the Latenian era, and make it possible to suppose that this practice can only have already existed at the Hallstattian time. The “ver sacrum” of the nephews of the emperor Ambicatuos (Bellovesus and Sigovesus) is the first Celtic ver sacrum attested with certainty. It had as a result the conquest of vast territories in the east as in the south, what made thus the kingdom of Ambicatuos a vast empire.

The Historian Titus-Livius developed especially the population reasons of this migratory and conquering movement, but he hardly insisted on the eminently religious character of the process of its setting in motion. For him, Cisalpine and not Roman of the Latium, that was to go without saying…

Ambicatus means “combat fought on the two levels, the temporal level, but also the spiritual level.” Some of these ambicatus took place following the requests of sister nations attacked by the Romans, as in the case of the attempt at genocide perpetrated against the Senonian Celts in the Picenum. This notion of fight on at the same time temporal and spiritual levels explains perhaps the little of eagerness of the Celts in helping the Romans in their tangle with Hannibal, and this, of the very admission of Livy. Book XXI. Chapter XX.

Italy, should turn it against themselves and expose their own lands to be ravaged instead of other peoples. After quiet was restored the envoys were informed that the Romans had rendered them no service, nor had the Carthaginians done them any injury to make them take up arms either on behalf of the Romans or against the Carthaginians. On the other hand, they heard that men of their race were being expelled from Italy, and made to pay tribute to Rome, and subjected to every other indignity. Their experience was the same in all the other councils of Celtica.”

The word ambicatus means therefore sacrifice, self-defense to safeguard not druidism but some threatened druidicists; the self-defense intended to restore the ridiculed rights of the druidicists (anti-pagan , anti-Barbarian, anti-goy, anti-Celtic, Gallophobic, etc., racism).

Many leaders of these ambicatus were known besides for their reputation of justice and readily took over the cause of those who were oppressed, such as the famous king of Tylis called Cavarus.

Polybius, Histories IV, 46: “These Celts had left their country with Brennus, and having survived the battle at Delphi and made their way to the Hellespont, instead of crossing to Asia, were captivated by the beauty of the district round Byzantium, so they settled there. ….until the time of Cavarus, in whose reign their kingdom came to an end; and their whole tribe being in their turn conquered by the Thracians were annihilated” (genocide).

Polybius, Histories (fragments), VIII: “Cavarus, king of the Celts in Thrace, was of a truly royal and high-minded disposition, he gave the merchants sailing into the Euxine Pontus great protection, and rendered the Byzantines important services in their wars with the Thracians and Bithynians.”

The heroic death in action makes reaching the other world in a favored way. The druidicist who dies in a bagauda or an Ambicatusian ver sacrum goes immediately in the Vindomagus where he will be able to finally contemplate his Grail from close (Plutarch calls it Kronos we wonder well why?)

MORE MUNDANELY TODAY.

Let us start by defining that about which we do not speak in this chapter. We do not speak here about the sporting events, which are a basic means of training and which are therefore good for the health of bodies. The Celts were indeed always careful of their body as much as of the passage of their soul in this other world which is said better and ............... [the rest of the manuscript is missing].

In short, after this long introduction on that about which we do not intend to speak here, let us come while now to the (implied economic) competition which is the situation when several agents offer equivalent products or services or whose fields of application overlap. Competition is a poison which splits. In the field of the policy, competition causes wars. In the economic field, competition seeks to monopolize the finances of others. Competition is the consequence of a mind conditioned as of childhood to want to be better than another.

The partisans or followers of co-operation do not wish to be better, but wish to be different . The differences bring other points of view enabling us to make choices.

How much time did we observe a service station or a restaurant to establish at the corner of a street just beside a competitor? This practice is stupid for a customer because the place doesn't justify that there is too great a demand in this sector? The person in charge of the new trade will say that it is a healthy competition and that he is free, however, how he would feel if one day another identical trade settled beside him! One does not do to others what one would not like that the others do to us…

Just like a true holy war is impossible a fair competition is quite as impossible because these two words cannot appear in the same sentence, they are antinomic… or then we would come very quickly to prices roughly speaking comparable at equal quality. If at equal quality and all things being equal the prices are very different, then it is that there is probably somewhere an unfair competition. Somebody who respects neither the law nor his employees.

On this subject our opinion is therefore clear. Competition is for war what the mobilization is for war, what the clouds are for a storm. This is why we say: No to competition, yes to complementarity. An arm could not compete with an ear!

DRUIDISM AND TAMING OF WAR: THE FIR FER.

It is traditionally advisable to distinguish the jus ad bellum (right to make war) from the jus in bello ( laws and customs in the art to make war). Left from ancient quarrels about the just war, the European legal doctrines ended up reserving the jus belli (right to make war) to the State, i.e., to the sovereign (cf. Bodin, Grotius, Pufendorf). Was just, excluding any other, the war that a State declared to another State.

The difficulty remained, within this international order (without speaking therefore about the danger of a potential return to the international disorder) to designate and recognize the sovereign, particularly in the event of a civil war leading to a scission. Difficulty, in the same way, for the colonial conflicts, only the European nations being able at the time to claim to be a State.

This being noticed, within the framework of this official jus belli, the hostile actions which could not claim to be the result of an order coming from the legitimate authority therefore fell under the robbery and consequently under the internal security of one or the other belligerent State. Every army not falling within the jurisdiction of a State was in the illegality.

Thus was finally settled the big question of the Fir Fer or Latin jus in bello. Since the Greeks, since Antigone, who in spite of the war wanted to achieve the sacred rituals on the corpse of her brother and who braved the order of Creon to serve it to dogs and raptors, Europe since Cuchulainn and his well-known practice of the fir fer * tried to limit the horror of war, to protect from it first the civilian populations, children, women, old men; Europe then tried, then, to relativize the hostility by saving the captive, wounded or sick soldier, who ceased fighting.

The classical law managed to institute these principles under the name of “Laws of war.” And with the concept of war crime, it managed to subject the soldier, regular combatant, to a discipline and an inflexible criminal law when he deviated from the received command and violated these laws and customs of war.

Coming out of the First World War, the traditional categories were completely subverted. The jus ad bellum, to start, disappeared. The lace war could make the nations dreaming of a world from where any hostility would be banished. While at the same time starting from 1917 the coming of the United States of America on the stage of the Old World had increased inordinately the horror of it, even the declared war was outlawed , the war according to the traditional forms of the European law (Kellogg-Briand pact, 1928). The war that a State declared also became a crime against peace, outlawing the culprit and his government.

Of course that did not make the reality of the war, neither its necessity, disappear from the world. That did not prohibit another type of war, unbounded this one, of revolutionary essence, fought directly against the populations and intended to destroy the enemy power: things which the traditional jus in bello prohibited strictly. That did not prohibit either the economic war, that civil population is the first to suffer. On the other hand, every defense reaction against such aggression could be interpreted as a crime against peace.

Worse, in this new international context which we did not leave still, the notion of war crime, diverted from its normal use, had a tragic destiny. In the event of conventional war according to the traditional international law, it is an instrument essential for the discipline of armies, for the protection of the civilians. But in the context of disguised (undeclared) wars and of a government through chaos, this legal notion becomes fatal, since it is turned against an army by an attacker which stirs up precisely the population against it. From an internal instrument of discipline for each belligerent at first, it is then used to accuse the military apparatus of the enemy power against which the population is incited to rise under the action of terrorism.

The final stage of this truly odious process consists in entering an all-out war, with rising of the population, but simultaneously massive bombardments of the cities, destruction of the economic

infrastructure, mass displacements of the populations and finally arrest and inculpation for war crime of the members of the opposing State and army, without such exactions being morally reprehensible, since they are not called war, but are made in the name of the need for the world order to restore justice and law.

The sad truth indeed it is that, as a symbol or an allegory of all that in the man can urge him to attack his brothers, including in an inhuman way, worse than an animal, Cathach Catutchend, in other words, Catubodua, the queen of the engagements (since chenn means chief in Gaelic language) is not nearly to disappear. As long as there are men, alas, she will live, crouched in the bottom of their mind, ready to reappear.

I don't know where Max Weber found that Fichte was of the opinion that to assume that Man is good and perfect .. was a heavy moral error...but the fact is that he was right: Man is not naturally good! He is not naturally bad either, moreover, he is what he is. Capable of the worst as well as the best. From Neanderthal to the Einsatzgruppen in Russia through the Mamilla pool in 614 when Jerusalem was taken by the Persians or Katyn in 1940, history has shown it.

There are truly only two great principles really applied from time immemorial by international justice.

The first of the (implicit) laws of any international justice remains indeed the famous “woe to the vanquished.”

The second is that of the “double standard.”

The obvious personal sincerity of its judges changes nothing in the problem: they are used and manipulated.

There are always the good rebels and the bad ones, the good Islamists and the bad ones, according to often rather obscure criteria.

We wonder well for example why the democracies and the nice and smart people would have

- to support the Syrian rebels but not the Kurdish rebels in Turkey,

- to support the Islamists in Libya but to fight those in Mali.

etc.

* Did not the Hesus Cuchulainn himself after the battle of Garech go as far as covering the retreat of the Irishmen so that they can go home safe and sound (at least the survivors)??

METHODS AND MEANS RAISING

NO MORAL PROBLEM.

It is necessary beforehand, of course, to carefully distinguish two types of warlike force. On the one hand, a beneficial aspect represented later in the Middle Ages by characters of the kind Cuchulainn whose primary qualities are courage, absence of hatred, of jealousy or of fear, perfect loyalty, frankness, love of the truth; on the other hand, an evil aspect, black, dark, with for traits hatred, anger, resentment, treason, treachery, jealousy, cowardice, desire and lust. The ancient high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht),approved even encouraged this first aspect of the warlike force (Aelianus. Various history, XII, 23: “Such person as die gallantly in fight, they make the subjects of songs”) and the warrior assemblies then, of course, in this case could take place in druidic places of worships as the testimony of Florus proves it, Epitome I, XLV on this subject: “ He [Vercingetorix] at their festivals and councils, when he found them collected in their greatest crowds in their groves, roused them by his ferocious harangues to vindicate their ancient rights of freedom.”

The fight for a Celt, until the time of Caesar, was an immense ordeal where the combatant was only the hand of the deity. The force of the weapons, the subtleties of the strategy, were secondary concerns. Only the means of lending oneself in the best way to the service of the divine force were important.

THE CELTIC CAPTAGON.

One of the characteristics of this bagaude or of Ambicatusian ver sacrum, which rose from its consecration to the god-or-demons of course, was the state of ferg or vergio (sacred warlike fury), of its combatants, taken individually.

What the notion of Tervagant (this symbol of brute strength mentioned by the epic lyric of Roland) implies that can be only that therefore.

The Celt was reached by this “furor” as of the “armed council” mentioned by Caesar.

The text of Cassius Dio (LXII, 9) is interesting in more than one way. It teaches us for example that the goddess-or-demoness (of the vergio or of the sacred wars), among the Bretons, was a bear goddess-or-demoness, Andrasta, or more exactly even… Andarta. And it is therefore probable that the warriors taking part in such a sacred war, became then some artorioi (in other words some berserker, literally “clad in bear skins” in Scandinavian language); artorios being a Celtic word referring to the state of warlike fury of the dagolitoi or faithful of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, if you prefer to use this word, Andarta (the goddess-or-demoness or fairy beseeched vainly by the queen Boadicea at the time of the desperate bagauda that she fought against the Romans in the plain of London in - 61); in other words, some men adopting the behavior of the bear mothers defending their young.

Placed in this state of ferg or vergio, the fighter of these sacred wars fought then up to victory or death. The small jihadists of today use the captagon to reach the same result. This fury was not calmed even in the wounded warriors who breathed … Nor in those who had been wounded by a sword or by some spears… this anger did not fall down as much as there remained in them a bit of life.

“ They marched against their enemies with the fury and passion of brutes. Slashed with an axe or sword they kept their frenzy while they still breathed; pierced by arrow or javelin, they did not abate of their passion so long as life remained. Some drew out from their wounds the spears, by which they had been hit, and threw them at the Hellenes or used them in close fighting” (Pausanias. Description of Greece. X Phocis, XXI).

In short, each battle was lived as a fatal dialog between the man and the deities. Such an attitude drove the Celts a long time when they went to combat. The almost fabulous impression was given by the Gaesati, or the other Galatians, who fought naked. Their nakedness nevertheless expressed especially the most radical contempt, not of the death which they honored, but of the fear of death. It indicated in the same way that the warrior was within an ordeal whose result could only be favorable to him. Either he won out over the enemy, and his victory was enriched by a divine guarantee; whether he died in action and his death enabled him to take a seat near his ancestors under the

protection of the god-or-demons. This is why the warrior fought to death, or to the point of having no longer enemies around him .

For the true Celt, until the 1st century before our era, the combat can have only these two outcomes. To flee , to be captured by the enemy, are not possible solutions. The shame which would have accompanied them prevented the warrior from surviving. Such behaviors were not really allowed by the society. The weak development of individualism in this one did not make it possible to resist such a pressure. This is why most accounts concerning 3rd and 2nd centuries show us the Celts committing suicide at the conclusion of the battles which were not favorable to them.”The Celtæ are of all men most addicted to engage themselves in dangers. Such person as die gallantly in fight, they make the subjects of songs” (Aelianus. Various history, XII 23).

The death of the warrior fighting courageously and for a just cause was always indeed, for the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), the equivalent of a higher religious experiment, of ecstatic nature; analog with that of the passage into the Walhalla among the Germanic tribes by definition, since those borrowed this basic concept from their masters in civilizations: the Celts.

Rather curiously, we find besides the same tragic notion in the Greek art, and particularly in the statues of the great monument that Attalus 1st made built on the acropolis in Pergamon.

“The adversaries of the inhabitants of Pergamon are not treated with contempt in it, but are represented with attention and sense of observation. The chief, who sees his cause being lost, killed his wife with a cut in the carotid and thrusts his sword in the hollow of his clavicle, from the top towards his heart. By extending his left leg to offer a last support for his partner; that he holds back with his left arm, while she crumbles in a contrary direction; he straightens up his body pressed on the toes of from his right foot to the hand turned in a powerful torsion; while he turns his head furiously, to move away with his fierce gaze a possible pursuer. It is the last start of life of this chief who consecrates himself to death” (Bernard Andreae).

!--------- ---------- -------------------------- !

The ethical problem relates in fact only to “offensive” wars.

Theoretically and according to the behavior of Finn at the time of the battle of Gabhra, the beginning of the hostilities of an offensive war must be preceded by a declaration of war in due form. Made by heralds at the time, made by ambassadors today.

Simplest obviously is that every war is made up only with confrontations like the famous “ combat of the Thirty” a passage of arms which took place on March 26, 1351, between volunteers (professional if need be, not like in the case of Joan of Arc).

The chronicler of the time, Froissart, reported this combat “to encourage the noble young people and to set an example.”

The war of the Breton succession is one of the secondary wars of the Hundred years ‘war where one of the belligerents was the nephew of the king of France, and the other supported by the English. All started when John III duke of Brittany died without leaving any heir. Two families then clashed to obtain the duchy. The Penthievres were under the direction of Joan of Penthievre, married to Charles of Blois and niece of the late Duke. The other side was the Montfort under the aegis of John of Montfort, half-brother of John III and husband of Joanna of Flanders.

Joan of Penthievre thinking to be the closest relationship of late John III and benefitting from the support of Charles of Blois, nephew of the King Philippe VI of Valois, wished to inherit the rights on the duchy. But Edward III, the king of England, not wanting Brittany to fall under French influence, decided to support Joan of Montfort. This one declared oneself Duke of Brittany after to have been quickly captured the city of Nantes.

Thus a long war occurs during which the Blois Party and the Monfortist Party supported by the English clashed for the domination of the Breton lands.

Thomas Dagworth had agreed and accepted with the leaders of the French party not to bring the war in the country populations and to save goods and harvests, only way undoubtedly of avoiding famine. On his death, an English captain, named Bemborough, who ordered in Ploermel on behalf of Edward III and of the partisans of Montfort, did not hesitate, himself, to wage war in the countryside with no regard for conventions. Although the time lent itself to all excesses, the cruelty of this English went too far and even the men of war who scoured the roads of the area of were shocked. The captain and governor of Josselin, the marshal Jean de Beaumanoir, under the command of Charles of Blois, therefore asked to negotiate with the English about his exactions against poor local people. Provided with a safe conduct, he went to Ploermel where the captain Richard Bemborough resided, when he came across peasants bound by their hands and their feet, by a group of three or four and drawn without care by English soldiers. Beaumanoir, on his arrival in Ploermel, passed of it the remark to Bemborough who laughed to his face by declaring to him in addition that it was not a Breton minor noble man who would dictate to him his behavior. He still added, what upset extremely the marshal, that soon the English would be masters of all the country and that himself, Bemborough , would order in Brittany since no Breton proved sufficiently courageous to stop him in his scent. Beaumanoir, upset, then proposed to his adversary a single combat between thirty of his men and thirty English soldiers. Bemborough accepted the challenge.

They fixed the meeting on the next Saturday, that is to say on March 27, 1351, at the Halfway Oak , in the moors of the Croix-Hellean, halfway between Ploermel and Josselin. The chief of the French party chose thirty of his soldiers of whom himself, all suited for tournaments. The English captain brings together on his side twenty compatriots and supplemented his troop with Germans, Flemings and some Breton of his party. Therefore in all 31 men against 31 and not 30 against 30..

The authorized weapons were spears, swords, daggers, axes, fauchards, some kind of bent sabers, some maces , of which some weighed more than 24 pounds, in fact, all the war panoply of the time. The regulation agreed to fight on horseback but all preferred to fight on foot. Some had been armed with scythes cutting on one side and furnished with iron hooks of the other (the fauchards or voulges) , what was well appropriate for the attacks on the ground. The crowd was numerous and rushed to attend this combat.

After the usual exhortations, the signal of the attack was made. The first shock is extremely violent, the blows rain down in a confused fray where dust damages the precision of the gestures. At the first pause, Englishmen are still thirty whereas pro-French leave five champions on the ground, what makes Bemborough laughing, in what he is wrong because he is killed as of the resumption of the combat. The death of their chief disorients one moment Englishmen but one as of their encourages them and stimulates them by his example and his voice, exhorting them to continue the duel without mercy. Excited as a devil he wounds Beaumanoir who falls on the ground, losing his blood. The marshal, who had piously fasted since the day before, without strength because of the starvation and overburdened with tiredness, claims for drinking. Tinteniac then retorts to him brutally, “Drink your blood, Beaumanoir; your thirst will pass! “ On these words, the governor of Josselin gets back on his feet and drawing new strength in a renewed aggressiveness jumps again into the fray, in spite of his wound and weakness. The minutes pass in the cries of the fighters and of the spectators and the outcome remains a long time dubious. People believe the game lost for the pro-French party when one of them puts on his spurs, mounts his horse and races out the curb. His companions believe that he deserts and insult him, Beaumanoir howls to him, “This cowardice dishonors your name! ” “Keep going on your side, I drudge on the mine” responses the knight who, turning round with his horse suddenly, knocks over the English lines surprised by this bold maneuver . Perked up, the Bretons throw their last forces into the battle and soon the survivors of the other camp ask to cease the combat.

The pro-French this day lost it seems only five men. On the English side there would have been, according to Froissart, a dozen dead people, of whom their leader Bemborough, Bembro or Bremborgh.

The prisoners were well treated and freed against the payment of a small ransom because at the time people fought not to kill but to make captive rich persons.

Various readers, and even more exactly she-readers, having pointed out that the way of fighting of Joan of Arc had also had its effectiveness, we concede it readily, and this way of fighting on the behalf

of Joan of Arc brings in a way the key of femininity which was missing in the practice of war such as it was initially conceived by and for the second Indo-European function.

The investigations carried out in 1455 for her nullification trial indeed showed that Joan of Arc always tried to avoid shedding blood unnecessarily: she always addresses letters to her adversaries, asking them to withdraw or to subject themselves voluntarily. So, the day before the re-recapture of Orleans, she makes carry on April 22nd a letter to the king of England, the duke of Burgundy and the English captains present in front of the city, letter in which she asks them to withdraw in England. For lack of positive response, she sends them another one at the end of an arrow , then summons the captain of Les Tourelles to leave the place in order to avoid being killed.

“You, O English, who have no right to this kingdom , the King of Heaven orders and commands you through me, Joan the Maid, to leave your fortresses and return to your country” what, of course, had much the English laugh when they read this letter from the whore of the Armagnacs.

On the day before and on the day of the coronation , she also writes to the duke of Burgundy to beg him to be reconciled with the king. In vain. By there, she underlines best the sacred nature of her mission, which forces her to use the sword only as ultimate recourse, ultimate, but decisive.

Questioned on this way of going against the enemy, she answered that she did not want to use her sword nor to kill anybody. Admittedly, she had a sword, she even had several, but she never used it to make the blood shedding. She used it only with the flat (of the blade), to give good slaps or good clean sweep (Pierre Duparc, in his study about the trial of nullification of the judgment of Joan of Arc).

She was finally sold to the English for 10,000 pounds. The court chaired by the bishop Pierre Cauchon reproached her for lack of better to wear clothes of man, to have left his parents without their permission but especially to rely systematically on the judgment of God rather than on that of the Catholic Church. The judges also esteem that her “voices,” to which she refers constantly, in fact, are inspired by the Demon. The University of Paris (misled by the tendentious report of the bishop Pierre Cauchon, we don’t agree with George Bernard Shaw concerning the part played by this bishop, there are still individuals of his kind in France of today, for example some prosecutors subordinate to the executive power, ready for all the maneuvers to please it and thus rise in rank or to cover for some lawyers in conflict with one of their clients) gives its opinion: Joan is guilty to be schismatic, an apostate, a liar, suspected of heresy, erring in the faith, blasphemous towards God. Poor University in Paris!

To close all polemic about her, let us admit that the answers that she made for her judges *, and preserved in the official records of her trial (translated from the original Latin by W.P. Barrett IN 1932) , show us a girl (17 years old) courageous, whose outspokenness as well as the talent for repartee * (asked if St. Margaret spoke in the English tongue, she answered: "Why should she speak English when she is not on the English side?" are moderated by a great sensitivity vis-a-vis the suffering and the horrors of war, like in front the mysteries of religion. She could impose the respect including to killers like Gilles de Rais (however prototype of Blue Beard even of Dracula). He was indeed one of the last to be remained faithful tor her. A way for him perhaps of redeeming his crimes.

* Another example….

Asked if she knows if she is in God's grace, she answered: "If I am not, may God put me there, and if I am, may God so keep me."

JUST WARS.

The modern theory of just war is structured today in three categories.

The causes of the war.

The behavior of the various protagonists during the conflict.

The final phase and the peace agreements (which must be equitable for all the parties).

To be just the war must be started as a last resort . All the nonviolent possibilities must be tried as a preliminary. The chances of success must be stronger than the imposed damage. The violence used in the conflict must be proportional to the damage inflicted by the attacker, and the civilian populations must be as much as possible distinguished from the combatants. It is not a question in this field of applying the Jewish religious theory of the moser or rodef.

Most important in the ancient druidic philosophy, which was everything but nihilist, was the perpetuation of life, of all forms of life. Therefore the biodiversity, including the human ones, man BEING ALSO an animal.

Now it may be other considerations, of course.

But what to do when the escape is impossible? To cope and fight, to the death. Case well known of many females in the higher species when their young are in danger BECAUSE NATURE IS WELL MADE AND IT IS PERHAPS THE ONLY THING VALID IN THE FIRST OF THE PSEUDO WELSH BARDIC TRIADS, the notion of balance (“Liberty is the point where all opposite equiponderate” “Gwirionedd ag, un pwngc rhyddyd, sef y bydd lle bo cydbwys pob gwrth”.

That which nature abhors it is not vacuum but the total disappearance of a species or of a variety to the profit of another one.

Case of many basic wars of formerly for example (before that the intellectuals who do some Christianity without Christ invent the insane idea of the human rights without duties, without distinguishing them from those of the citizens. Or mix-up all and sundry, the human rights, of every man, AND of the citizen (the additional rights of certain men only).

Basic wars therefore. The men, the true ones, the males, take a stand at a few kilometers of the village to try to stop the invaders by ambushing them. The confrontation can go to the death in relentless fights (but why also what the hell , to take the initiative to go and attack voluntarily some people who have done nothing bad against you ? To convert them to I don't know what mass monolatry, I don't dare to say, “great religion.” God is definitely the most serious of the serial killer against Humanity, his smaller common denominator. And through God I want to say the idea of him that we make for ourselves of course) .

Typical example the 300 Spartans of Leonidas in Thermopylae); ready for anything and including to the supreme sacrifice for avoiding to theirs, to those who are dear to them, to their wives and to their children the horrors of the rape or slavery, even of the death for the others. Incipient Islam did not better at Yarmouk in 636.

The children are hidden. The females organize the defense of the village, the most relentless even cruel ( the eyes of the adversary are blinded) being the women, young enough to have children therefore.

The old women look after the casualties and supply the combatants.

Yes, nature is well made. What imports for it indeed it is the perpetuation of the life, of all the forms of life.

The role of the warrior class is undoubtedly to protect its people as some of the last words of the Hesus Cuchulainn show it very clearly: La araid airitiud. la errid imdegail. la cunnid comairle. la firu ferdacht. la mná mifre . It is up to the charioteer to drive the steeds, to the (chariot) warrior to protect, to the knowing men to give advice, to the men to be virile, to the women to cry (?)

La errid imdegail.

Errid they are the professional warriors, very exactly the chariot chiefs or warriors on a chariot.

Imdegail well implies an idea of protection of defense.

A defensive war is therefore by definition always just, even if all the means to be used for self-defense are not so inevitably, by definition. The commonly accepted are the following ones.

The aggression against oneself or a friendly country must be...

-current: the danger must be imminent;

-illegitimate: to block a just war cannot be regarded as self-defense;

-real: the aggression should not be imaginary or alleged.

In Parallel, the defensive war must be...

-necessary: no other means of escaping the danger or of shielding against the danger friendly populations;

-concomitant: the reaction must be immediate, for example you should not go to war due to irredentism or recovery of territory at the end of more than three generations (except when requested by a significant part of the population victim of various persecutions);

-proportioned with the aggression: there should not be excess in the military response.

PROBLEMS OF JUST WARS.

Fear is the most basic and strongest of emotions. It is even very useful if it does not become a panic and if you manage to master it (what the very definition of courage is). As my old master Pierre Lance said it , “children, did not reproach your parents for not having been heroes, heroes have no children.” Fear is the beginning of wisdom and fortunately that our ancestors were very afraid of the charges of a herd of bisons or mammoths in fury if not we would not be there to criticize them to have scuttled away in front of them.

It is therefore normal and even healthy to be afraid with Nazism of Fascism of racism of dictatorship, etc. and to want to fight them or to be opposed to them even when they became fashionable (as in the Europe of the years 1930 for example). …. An intellectually responsible policy can therefore only take into account these fears by proposing an ad hoc answer which can go only from the refusal to the active resistance to all these fashionable - isms in the media or on the ground. It is necessary to work out a policy whose result will be and this as soon as possible that these fears will be no longer relevant . It goes without saying therefore that the wars against the Nazism the Fascism the racism the dictatorship of the butchers of their own people, etc. are almost sacred wars.

The role of the warrior class is undoubtedly to protect its people as some of the last words of the Hesus Cuchulainn show it very clearly. For the record : La araid airitiud. la errid imdegail. la cunnid comairle. la firu ferdacht. la mná mifre

With the warlike robots and drones nevertheless, the material war or on the physical level soon will change its face

The military experts speak about a true “revolution.” The robotization of the battlefield is accelerating. Technology is indeed ripe to upset the war: because the prospect, from now on within reach, is that of the automation of the use of force, of the act to kill. Will the parliamentary democracies accept it? The military circles , themselves, are already in full debate.

Without daring to say it, the armies, in 2011, admitted t he principle of the armed robot, or the killing robot , even of the suicide robot . The language used language shows an obvious moral embarrassment. It is no longer only question of giving death from a distance , which many soldiers, fighter pilots, UAV operators or guided missiles, do yet.

That being said the next wars will be nevertheless cultural, some true spiritual battles to make the hearts and the souls leaning in such or such direction, such or such camp we said. To what is useful indeed the heaviest of the materials if in charge of the latter, there is somebody….who objects to using it, worse even, who turns it against you???.

From where the importance of the conquest of the minds, from where the importance of the conquest of the hearts (Stockholm syndrome) , from where the importance of the war of ideas. We know that since the disaster of the modern wars recently wage whether it is in Algeria in 1960, in Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in the beginning of the 21st century (militarily won but politically lost). Most important will be, is, the conquest of the minds in the populations. However in this field we are worthless! West is null! What have we indeed to propose to the world if not the disposable diapers for everybody? The West became the civilization of the disposable diaper.

The technological superiority is useless if there is not in parallel a moral rearmament (the moral rearmament is to make shared his own values, supposing that there is some of them, of course, and authentic, to enough human beings and in an enough motivating way to lead them to do something in order to defend them, small daily sacrifices even by going to the supreme sacrifice (that of his own life). What will we do when they will be no longer our brothers or our children, in short some friends, but some enemies who will be behind these robotized weapons, in charge of these robots ?

PERVERSION OF THE CONCEPT OF JUST WAR.

A perfect example of perversion of just war is what occurred in Libya in 2012. The various militias armed financed supported and established by the great democracies as Qatar France Saudi Arabia Bulgaria the United States Italy, etc. tortured each one more than the other the negroes of certain areas in the country, accused as a matter of course to have raped white women, etc. what perplexes us. If democracy peace freedom justice and antiracism it is the torture of those of one’s fellow citizens who have the misfortune to be black in a country with a white majority, then let us say it frankly, it is better to be racist and not at all democratic, and here therefore the racist and dictatorial way of treating the prisoners, according to us. Some bread or every other summary but healthy food, water, a minimum of hygiene, clothing but without fuss, and no violation of the bodily integrity (except absolute necessity kind authentic escape or need for policing ), a minimum of care. Let us say all except the comfort or aesthetical care. The goal to reach being not to exceed the usual death rate of the surrounding civil population in time of peace.

In short all the opposite of what was done by the anti-racist secularist democrats that we supported in Libya where a militia locked up its black prisoners in a zoo cage in February 2012.

These prisoners were even not sub-Saharan African immigrants. They were Libyan negroes from the town of Tawergha, 38 km away Misrata. A video of the time indeed shows us well black prisoners, with bound hands, placed in the cage of a zoo. In their mouth, green pieces of cloth that men order them to swallow. These shocking images were filmed in the zoo of Misrata, in Libya. A video which points out, once again, the slides of the anti-Gaddafi militias which control today mainly the country.

The men that we see standing around the cage seem to have fun with the spectacle. Certain prisoners bear the marks of blows and have their feet bound. They are deluged with insults. We hear particularly: “Come here, you damned dog! Swallow this flag!” The flag in question is that which had been chosen by Gaddafi in 1969 for the emblem of Libya.

Explanation. The Inhabitants of Tawergha had been armed by Gaddafi in order to fight against the rebels during the uprising. They fought against the rebels from Misrata and the latter affirm that they made rapes and massacres. As a result, when the town fell in their hands [on August 13, 2011, following an operation conducted together with the forces of NATO, Editor’s note] the latter wanted to be avenged. They imprisoned the men who were still in Tawergha. Many inhabitants had already fled before the entry of the rebels, for fear of reprisals.

These ill treatments inflicted to the prisoners, of which the pieces of evidence circulate on the Web , shock even among us. Neither the public media nor the private media speak about them. I do not think that it is because the government lobbies, but rather because our journalists are too much used to spare the power (remark from an anonymous Libyan questioned on this subject).

The inhabitants of Tawergha are not the only Black Libyans blacks to have undergone reprisals from the democratic and secular militias (the anti Gaddafi). In a report published in September 2011 by Amnesty International , the organization required from the leaders of the National Transitional Council (NTC) ensuring the protection of the black populations in Libya, targeted because of their skin color. The report mentioned particularly the sick treatments undergone by the inhabitants of Sabha, in the south of the country.

War crimes, crime against humanity, crime against peace. All these concepts became difficult to distinguish, and, in the current context, extremely dangerous to use. The classification of war crime, crime against humanity and crime against peace became what we will call some weapons of massive psychological destruction. If we to see there a little more clearly, it is imperative to start by clearly distinguishing what were these concepts within the framework of the traditional European international law , roughly speaking since the Renaissance until 1917, what will make us able, in a second phase, to understand what it became, before finally to consider the use of it which was made in the Libyan or Syrian case. These concepts were indeed abundantly used by the (non-officially declared as such besides, quite to the contrary ***, kind Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, etc.) enemies of the Syrian Head of State, in order to encourages the awakening of the Islamic fundamentalism of the Sunni majorities of their populations.

*** The majority were presented rather in the form of friends of this country,of friends of Syria.

BELOW SOME EXTRACTS OF A LETTER FROM ST BERNARD TO THE FIRST TEMPLARS.

“To Hugh, knight of Christ and master of Christ’s militia: Bernard, in name only, abbot of Clairvaus, wishes that he might fight the good fight.

If I am not mistaken, my dear Hugh, you have asked me not once or twice, but three times to write a few words of exhortation for you and your comrades. You say that if I am not permitted to wield the lance, at least I might direct my pen against the tyrannical foe, and that this moral, rather than material support of mine will be of no small help to you. I have put you off now for quite some time, not that I disdain your request, but rather lest I be blamed for taking it lightly and hastily. I feared I might botch a task which could be better done by a more qualified hand, and which would perhaps remain, because of me, just as necessary and all the more difficult. Having waited thus for quite some time to no purpose, I have now done what I could, lest my inability should be mistaken for unwillingness. It is for the reader to judge the result. If some perhaps find my work unsatisfactory or short of the mark, I shall be nonetheless content, since I have not failed to give you my best.

It seems that a new knighthood has recently appeared on the earth, and precisely in that part of it which the Orient from on high visited in the flesh. As he then troubled the princes of darkness in the strength of his mighty hand, so there he now wipes out their followers, the children of disbelief, scattering them by the hands of his mighty ones….

When someone strongly resists a foe in the flesh, relying solely on the strength of the flesh, I would hardly remark it, since this is common enough. And when war is waged by spiritual strength against vices or demons, this, too, is nothing remarkable, praiseworthy as it is, for the world is full of monks. But when the one sees a man powerfully girding himself with both swords and nobly marking his belt, who would not consider it worthy of all wonder, the more so since it has been hitherto unknown? He is truly a fearless knight and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armor of faith just as his body is protected by armor of steel. He is thus doubly armed and need fear neither demons nor men. Not that he fears death--no, he desires it. Why should he fear to live or fear to die when for him to live is Christ, and to die is gain? Gladly and faithfully he stands for Christ, but he would prefer to be dissolved and to be with Christ, by far the better thing.

Go forth confidently then, you knights, and repel the foes of the cross of Christ with a stalwart heart. Know that neither death nor life can separate you from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ, and in every peril repeat, "Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's." What a glory to return in victory from such a battle! How blessed to die there as a martyr! Rejoice, brave athletes, if you live and conquer in the Lord; but glory and exult even more if you die and join your Lord. Life indeed is a fruitful thing and victory is glorious, but a holy death is more important than either. If they are blessed who die in the Lord, how much more are they who die for the Lord!

To be sure, precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his holy ones, whether they die in battle or in bed, but death in battle is more precious as it is the more glorious. How secure is life when the conscience is unsullied! How secure, I say, is life when death is anticipated without fear; or rather when it is desired with feeling and embraced with reverence…

the knights of Christ may safely fight the battles of their Lord, fearing neither sin if they smite the enemy, nor danger at their own death; since to inflict death or to die for Christ is no sin, but rather, an abundant claim to glory. In the first case one gains for Christ, and in the second one gains Christ himself. The Lord freely accepts the death of the foe who has offended him, and yet more freely gives himself for the consolation of his fallen knight.

The knight of Christ, I say, may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently, for he serves Christ when he strikes, and serves himself when he falls. Neither does he bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of the good. If he kills an evildoer, he is not a man-killer, but, if I may so put it, a killer of evil. He is evidently the avenger of

Christ towards evildoers and he is rightly considered a defender of Christians. Should he be killed himself, we know that he has not perished, but has come safely into port. When he inflicts death it is to Christ's profit, and when he suffers death, it is for his own gain. The Christian glories in the death of the pagan, because Christ is glorified; while the death of the Christian gives occasion for the King to show his liberality in the rewarding of his knight. In the one case the just shall rejoice when he sees justice done, and in the other man shall say, truly there is a reward for the just; truly it is God who judges the earth.

I do not mean to say that the pagans are to be slaughtered when there is any other way to prevent them from harassing and persecuting the faithful, but only that ….If it is never permissible for a Christian to strike with the sword, why did the Savior's precursor bade the soldiers to be content with their pay, and not rather forbid them to follow this calling? (Luke III, 14 .) But if it is permitted to all those so destined by God, as is indeed the case provided they have not embraced a higher calling, etc.etc.”

That being said, may our Christian and Muslim friends be reassured, I am well OK with them, St Bernard of Clairvaux was a brutish lout, a Nazi bastard , and it is better to forget him once again.

N.B. As for those of our brothers who feel the typically “vate” vocation to accompany the march of the soldiers (to work for the salvation of their souls ) we do not request for them an exemption of the military service and of the dangers inherent to the military condition, like the young ultra-orthodox students in Israel until 2012 (the Tal law ), but a kind of replacement service similar to that of the doctors or male nurses or stretcher bearers. It is perfectly comprehensible that somebody hesitates to kill even to defend himself, even in the event of self-defense, it is a respectable scruple; but that should not be used as a pretext for cowardice: the druid or the apprentice druid should not be a “penpusher.”

TO CONCLUDE ON THE ETHICS OF THE FIRST FUNCTION BY INTELLECTUAL HONESTY AND ALSO FOR COMPARISON A REMINDER

OF WHAT TRUE ANCIENT DRUIDISM WAS HISTORICALLY SPEAKING.

For the following chapter concern no longer the first Indo-European function but the few lines after YES!

The first Indo-European function is that which Dumezil associates with sacredness and sovereignty.

It is true that it is as ambivalent as Muhammad according to some, and therefore likely to present two sides: one peaceful, reassuring, juridical, conservative; the other violent, terrible, disturbing, magical. But the ultimate in this matter is to cultivate or show one's strength so as not to have to use it.

Even the Germans had understood this if we believe some of the adventures of Odin and the berserkkers "For in all battles it is the eye which is first vanquished ». (Tacitus XLIII). Tacitus also mentions another technique: " They have also those songs of theirs, by the recital of which (“baritus,” they call it), they rouse their courage, while from the note they augur the result of the approaching conflict. For, as their line shouts, they inspire or feel alarm. It is not so much an articulate sound, as a general cry of valour. They aim chiefly at a harsh note and a confused roar, putting their shields to their mouth, so that, by reverberation, it may swell into a fuller and deeper sound.".

Among the Celts this gave us....

-On an individual level martial arts but still with the same goal, that an epigram of Martial thus translated about a Celtic gladiator called Hermes.

" Hermes, the martial pleasure of an age, Hermes, well-learned in all arms, Hermes, both gladiator and teacher, Hermes, confusion and terror of his school, Hermes, the only one whom Helius fears….

Hermes, taught to conquer, not kill".

-At the collective level "the concern of the rem militarem" according to Cato (Pleraque Gallia duas res industriosissime persequitur, rem militarem).

Roughly summarized by the Romans in "si vis pacem para bellum").

-At the level of kings or heads of state: a good intelligence service. See on this subject what the great French specialist of the question (Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc'h) wrote on the respective roles of kings and druids (ambassadors, advisors, well of science etc...). And that Albert Bayet in his history of morality evokes in these terms "study to know the truth of things, encourage study by honoring those who devote themselves to it".

In short, the very opposite of the worship of brute force symbolized by Thor among the Germans.

It is an art or a science that could look for magic before or after the intellectual downfall caused by Christianization in Ireland, but that today's druids would rather compare to what the very learned Chinese Sun Tzu wrote about it and which can be summarized as follows.

Espionage is a process by which a warlord can have an overview of the situation and, if necessary, know in advance and without fear of being mistaken who will win and who will lose the war. Knowledge of the adversary is therefore the key factor in any military victory.

It is therefore less a question of annihilating the adversary than of making him lose the desire to fight. This second point implies the use of force that is precisely proportionate to the nature of the political goal pursued. It is fundamental to economize, to cunning, to destabilize, and to leave to the shock only the role of a coup de grâce dealt to a helpless enemy.

The acme of military strategy is to achieve victory without bloodshed, given the economic, moral and political cost of war. It is counterproductive to destroy the resources you seek or to kill those who may be your allies or subjects and thereby increase your power.

The Chinese « high knowwer » Sun Tzu gives many useful clarifications in this regard.

Examples of druidiaction according to him.

"Know your enemy and know yourself; if you had a hundred wars to fight, a hundred times you will be victorious. If you ignore your enemy and know yourself, your chances of losing and winning will be equal. If you ignore both your enemy and yourself, you will count your battles only by your defeats. »

This verse is found in a condensed form in a proverb of the contemporary Chinese language: "Know your enemy and know yourself, you will win a hundred times without danger. »

"It is necessary to try to subdue the enemy without giving battle: this will be the case where the more you rise above the good, the closer you will get to the incomparable and the excellent. »

This verse is commonly summarized as follows: "The art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. »

"Any war campaign must be based on pretence; feign disorder, never fail to offer a bait to the enemy to lure him, simulate inferiority to encourage his arrogance, know how to stir up his wrath to better plunge him into confusion: his lust will throw him on you to break himself. »

This verse is commonly summarized as follows: "All war is based on deception. »

Editor's note: And there we totally join the action of some mythical druids like Mog Ruith during the magical battle of Druim Damhgaire. This story certainly preserves for us the memory of many customs and beliefs of the time. O'Curry has pointed out on more than one occasion the importance of this text so rich in curious and unpublished details on druidic art and practices.

Here is what Guyonvarc'h tells us about this. Few things of direct interest to us on the druid and the war we will see, BUT ON THE OTHER SIDE MANY THINGS ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE FOUNTS OF SCIENCE IN THE SERVICE OF KINGS (today we would say of the heads of state) OF THE ANCIENT HIGH-KNOWERS. This is why we will quote it at length while recommending his direct reading to everyone.

"It is incumbent on him [the druid gatekeeper], not to act: but to inform the king meticulously about all those who, druids, warriors or craftsmen, want to enter his territory... The doorman is thus, in much worthier, the Celtic equivalent of the Latin nomenclator, "this secretary with an infallible of memory" who, on the public highway, whispered to the Roman patrician the names that he could have forgotten. The difference is in the level of the function: the Dorsaide is a druid whereas the nomenclator is a slave.

III. THE DRUID AND THE WAR

The druid is not only a priest. He is also a warrior. The synthesis may seem strange, but it is easily explained. The prototype of the warrior druid is thus Cathbad, the first of the druids of Ulster, whose personality is double in the Version B of the story of Conchobar's Conception .

The social status of the druid is thus different from that of the Roman flamen and of the Hindu Brahmin, who have neither the right to fight nor even the right to see a troop in arms, cf. Georges Dumezil, Mitra-Varuna, p. 27.

The status of the druid reflects a singularly archaic state, prior to the separation of spiritual authority from temporal power. On all these questions we refer to our General Introduction, op. cit. 103.

In truth Cathbad is either a druid or a warrior depending on the circumstances, and those we have just described are about the only ones where he appears as a warrior. But he has both occupations...

Conversely, there are warriors who must be poets: among the ten conditions required to be admitted to the Fenians: "The second condition: no one was admitted to the Fenians if he was not a poet and if he had not completed the twelve books of poetry." The "twelve books of poetry" denote a late period and there is no requirement to belong to a priestly class that has disappeared. But it is necessary to satisfy a need for recruitment at a high level, seeking physical, moral and intellectual perfection. Far from that, the Fenians do not consider war and poetry to be irreconcilable. Their demand is therefore the consequence of a very old conception…

... the narrative from which the fragment is extracted thus tells with as background the rivalry between two provinces, the story of the impressive military and magical struggle of the druids who rallied to both sides, against the backdrop of the rivalry. They are even the main fighters...

... Without being the main one, war is therefore a possible occupation of the druid and he alone is the master of his peaceful or warlike destiny. The prophetess or poetess for whom the only accessible

aspect of the priesthood is divination participates in this engagement in the military function. Before the departure for the expedition of the Raid of Cooley’s Cows, we see that Queen Medb consults her druid. He reassures her about her personal fate. Then she asks the prophetess Fedelm to predict the fate - sinister despite all objections - of the Irish army. And the writer, in a context of funeral predictions, is full of praise for the charm, the grace, the physical beauty of this splendid maiden. But, what is unusual, even among the ladies of medieval Ireland, she is armed with a sword: "The driver wheels round the chariot and the queen returns. But lo, she saw a thing that was a marvel to her : a woman close to her, on the chariot's shaft and facing her. The damsel's manner was this : in her right hand she held a sword of white bronze “…

IV THE DRUID AND THE KING SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY AND TEMPORAL POWER.

Ireland provides further evidence of the power of the druid, a power very different from that of the king, less visible perhaps in the immediate, but stronger and deeper in its consequences and repercussions. The two figures, let us never forget, are in solidarity, complementary and opposed. The Ulaid are on the verge of killing each other over a futile feast quarrel: "The guarantees of each of them advanced savagely; and such was the fierceness of the uprising, that nine were covered with wounds, and nine with blood, and nine in death agonies, among them on one side and the other. Sencha mac Ailill arose, and waved the peaceful branch of Sencha, so that the Ulstermen were quiet.”

A similar fact is told in the Ossianic story of the Bruiden bheg na hAlma or "little Allen's Hotel." The clans of Finn and Goll mac Morna were busy killing each other, " Then rose the sapient trenchant-worded poet--the richly rewarded good man of verse--Fergus Truelips and, together with him, the Fianna’s men of science all, and to those companies of men-at-arms chanted their duans, their skilled rhymes and eloquent panegyrics, with a view to check and to assuage them.Thereupon, with the poets’ music, they ceased from their hacking and hewing, and suffered their weapons to fall on the ground; these arms the poets picked up, and between their owners they effected a reconciliation.” This reminds us very closely of Diodorus of Sicily V, 31...

And the rest of the text of Finn's cycle that we have just quoted confirms that the Irish at the time did not conceive to end a war or conflict another procedure than that of the continental Celts described in Diodorus of Sicily, the recourse to the judgment and diplomacy of the druids "Finn, however, affirmed that with clan-Morna he would not make peace until he should have had the king of Ireland's judgment in the matter, that of Aillbhe, daughter of King Cormac son of Art son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, of Cairbre Lifechair [his son and] Ireland's heir, of Fithal and of Flathri; the crowning judgment to lie with Fintan son of Bóchra: all which Goll said that he would concede to him. They bound themselves (the poets going security for them) to abide by that peace, and appointed a certain day: one fortnight from that present, upon Tara's green"…

At the critical moment, in a joyous evening which turns bad, when the wives of the Ulster heroes, excited by the bad language of Bricriu, argue bitterly to know the one of their respective husbands is worthy of pre-eminence over all the other warriors and that, by an inevitable consequence, the Ulaid are about to kill each other, the king and the druid intervene together. But it is the druid Sencha who instructs the participants of the feast to keep quiet: "Stop," said Sencha, "it is not enemies that are coming, it is Bricriu has set the women quarreling. By the god of my people!" he said, "unless the hall is shut against them, those that are dead among us will be more than those that are living." With that the doorkeepers shut the doors. But Emer was quicker than the other women, and outran them, and put her back against the door, and called to the doorkeepers before the other women came up, so that the men rose up, each of them to open the door before his own wife, so that she might be the first to come within.

"It is a bad night this will be," said Conchubar; and he struck the silver rod he had in his hand against the bronze post of the hall, and they all sat down. "Quiet yourselves," said Sencha; "it is not a war of arms we are going to have here, it is a war of words." Each woman then put herself under the protection of her husband outside, and then there followed the war of words of the women of Ulster.”

In the continuation of the same story, when the sparring goes too far and risks being not only oratorical anymore, the druid Sencha intervenes again: "

There was soon a buzzing of words in the hail again, with the women praising their men, as if to stir up another quarrel between them. Then Sencha, son of Ailell, got up and shook his bell branch, and they all stopped to listen to him, and then to quiet the women he said….”Everyone obeyed without arguing

a simple gesture of the druid. Did one have the right to fight in front of him without his express permission? In any case the reasons for such docility are of religious origin. The druids are surrounded by a great respect. In solemn banquets (and no doubt in all the others), the druid sits at the right of the king and the deference emanates, first of all, from the sovereign who owes him his crown .

The golden, silver, bronze, or hazel rod, which the king shares with the priestly class, is the equivalent of the lituus of the Latin augur. It is an Indo-European characteristic also attested among the Scythians, see George Dumezil…..

"Caesar forced Cotus to renounce power and he had authority given to Convictolitavis, who had been appointed to the vacant magistracy by the priests, according to the custom of the city. These priests (sacerdotes) are clearly druids with a name translated into Latin, and the political situation they create is similar to that of legendary Ireland, where the druid chooses a member of the warrior class to become a sovereign. It is even striking that Caesar, in designating the supreme magistracy of the Aedui (the people of Gaul whom he knew best), uses two words, imperium and potestas. In the terminology of Caesar the first, imperium is used in its military and conquering essence, the second applies to the same concept in its royal principle. It is remarkable that the choice of words corresponds to the double aspect, heroic and royal, of the Celtic warrior function. Ireland has the same conception of the relationship between the king and the druid. At a certain moment, in fact, in the Ulster cycle, as a result of a curse of Macha, goddess or fairy, in any case being superhuman, all the warriors of the province are deprived of their physical strength, the nert indispensable to the exercise of the military function, in precise terms they have no more strength than a woman in childbirth for five nights and four days or five days and four nights. The hero Cuchulainn, free from the curse, remains alone to defend the border despite his young age....

These excerpts from medieval Irish literature fully justify what Dio Chrysostom says in a passage that also mentions Persian magi, Egyptian priests, and Indian Brahmins.

“The Celts appointed those whom they call druids, these also being devoted to the prophetic art and to wisdom in general. In all these cases, the kings were not permitted to do or plan anything without the assistance of these wise men, so that in truth it was they who ruled, while the kings became are servants and the ministers of their will.” Nevertheless, let us correct the commentary of Dion Chrysostom, who notes without understanding it the relationship, not hierarchical, but religious, between the druid and the king. The druid advises and the king acts: spiritual authority has never claimed, except by an exceptional deviation (see the end of this chapter), to exercise temporal power and the druid does not give any order; it is for the king to conform his decision or action to the advice he receives. In contrast to Rome, which privileged temporal power at the expense of the priesthood, the Celtic world thus remained faithful to the traditional rule of the primacy of spiritual authority. This is, moreover, the main reason for its disappearance. The qualities and knowledge which justify the name of druid or file are excellently underlined in their entirety by the account of the Compert Con Culaind or "Conception of Cuchulainn." When the future hero, the glorious child is finally born, there is a great discussion, almost an argument, in order to know who will have the heavy and honorable responsibility for his upbringing. All candidate tutors list their titles whether they are druids, poets, innkeepers or warriors. In the end everyone agrees, in Sencha's judgment, that everyone will be called upon and the catalog of skills is a true trifunctional statement....

... The subordination of temporal power to spiritual authority is the only one capable of explaining, from the traditional point of view, the relationship between the druid and the king: "The king balances human society by the taxes or tributes that go up to him and the generosity he makes in return to his subjects. He dispenses justice, protects the weak, condemns the wicked and rewards the good. The bad king is the one who does not give gifts, does not ensure prosperity, and raises taxes. Through his initiation, over which the druids preside, he is extracted from the warrior class and the white color of Nuada shows enough what the symbolism of his royal quality is. But although he is extracted from the warrior class, he is still a member of it and represents it to the priestly class. He plays the role of an intermediary. This means that his social importance comes from his spiritual subordination and that royalty exists only in dependence on the priesthood. It cannot subsist alone. It could also be pointed out that the name of the king in Italo-Celtic, Gallic rix (Irish ri, genitive rig, old Welsh and old Breton ri), Latin rex, does not itself serve to designate a religious notion, but only the regulatory function envisaged from the social point of view. That is to say, it does not include any religious principle if the druid is not there to represent it."

The superiority of the priesthood is still marked by the powerlessness of kingship to undermine druidic "solidarity" on any occasion whatsoever. The priesthood is conferred for all eternity and, even in the case of serious misconduct or even crime, a druid remains what he is. His colleagues know it: when the druid Athirne is killed with all his family for having satirized and made Luaine, the fiancée of the king of Ulster Conchabar, die, because she refused him his favors, the filid of Ulster ...

Druids do not appear in the Galatians, but perhaps that is because no one thought to name them. A trace of the hierarchy remains in Phylarch's remark that, at a banquet, no one began to eat before the king (Book VI, Athenaeus IV, chapter 24; Ch. & Th. Muller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum I, 336, fragment Il).

... Neither does Caesar seem to have fully understood the attitude of the druids with regard to what he rightly calls the regia potestas, a doctrinal speculation which, moreover, should hardly have interested a general concerned with immediate and complex political and military problems. In truth, neither in Gaul nor in Ireland, while exercising control over it, the druids never attributed the royal function to themselves. Only a very small number of "king druids" or "druid kings" could be mentioned. The druid is at the top of the hierarchy and he is also beyond distinctions, while scrupulously respecting the spiritual hierarchies that he establishes or on which he depends. Let us specify once again that these are those of knowledge and learning. Once chosen, elected under the control of the druids, the king becomes a superior, not of the druids, but of men, and the druids advise him as representatives of the divine power. The druid speaks before the king, in an official capacity, but he owes to the king the advice and the prediction, the legal or magic formula without ever being able to refuse it ...

The king is elected by his fellow warriors, friends and enemies, and the druids take care above all of the regularity, the conformity, and the validity of the choice and of the election. The account of Serglige Con Culaind or "Cuchulainn's Disease" shows four of the provinces of Ireland ending a war by electing as supreme king a national of the fifth, the Ulster, against which they had nevertheless coalesced: " There was, now, a meeting of the four great provinces of Erinn held at this time, to see if they could find a person whom they would select, to whom they would give the sovereignty of Erinn ; because they deemed it an evil that the Hill of Supremacy and Lordship of Erinn, that is Tara, should be without the rule of a king upon it…These, now, were the kings who were in that meeting, namely, Medbh and Ailill, Curoi, and Tighernach Tetbannach, son of Luchta, and Finn Mac Rossa. These men, now, would not hold counsel for [the election of] a king with the Ultonians, because these men were of one accord opposed to the Ultonians. There was then prepared a bull-feast by them there, in order that they should discover out of it to whom they would give the sovereignty. Thus was that bull-feast prepared, namely…”

There is an even clearer example of the influence of the druid and the weight of his opinion in the choice of the new king. When, after the death of Conchobar, the Ulaid are looking for a king, the druid Genann Gruaidhsolus ("with the shining cheek"), son of Cathbad, imposes the final decision ...

It is not the druids who choose the king, but, on the one hand, they are responsible for the religious ceremonies that mark the election, and, on the other hand, they influence or determine the choice. This brief formula seems to summarize their role in the Celtic societies of the high period correctly.

... Nevertheless, in the first century of Christianization, the hitherto well-balanced balance between the king and the druid tilted heavily in favor of the converted druids, the filid....

V. THE THREE "SINS" OF THE DRUID.

We know what the "sins" of the warrior are. A hero, human or divine, necessarily mythical, perpetrates, most often at the end of his life - and therefore of his exploits - three serious faults contrary to the rules or ethics of his state and which concern the whole of society because they are distributed among the three functional levels of the tripartite ideology...

But the Celtic counterpart of Herakles, Cuchulainn, dies standing, facing the enemy, without anything to tarnish his earthly glory. On the other hand, trifunctional schemes, when they exist in Ireland, often go unnoticed because they appear in contexts where they are not expected. Moreover, the druid, like the warrior, is rarely caught in flagrante delicto for breaking a rule of his class: the ignorant druid, the cowardly warrior have little place in Irish society. There is, however, a druid - not a warrior - who tragically ends his days. He is mythical, of course, but he does not matter and he is characteristic of the Celtic interpretation of Sovereignty that his capital fault....

CHAPTER THREE: RITUAL AND MAGICAL TECHNIQUES OF DRUIDS.

From the preceding considerations, it follows that the essence of the cult and the rites was the "thing" of the druids. We would like to describe in detail, in an objective and systematic way, the various techniques of which they were thus the depositaries. Unfortunately, we can hardly describe this directly, the Celtic world having, for reasons that we will try to determine later, left nothing comparable to the Brahmana of India. But for our purpose, which is to study the "type" of the druid as the Celts designed it, the legendary accounts fill a large part of this gap. It is true that many operations, especially magical ones, attributed to the druids in the accounts could not correspond to the strict reality, but it is surely from reality that amplifications were made, just as it is from the "druidic" conceptions that the capacities of many saints of Irish hagiography will eventually have to be analyzed. We will therefore review the modes of action and the powers of the Cathbad and Mog Ruith druids...

We also warn our readers that the following is by no means an exhaustive list, even less a handbook of Celtic magic. We classify, as far as possible, facts which, by the nature of the stories, often appear to be heterogeneous or unclassifiable.

In addition to the fact that the deep understanding of magic operations described sometimes very incompletely and superficially is not granted to everyone, it is advisable to be careful, at first, by comparing facts or magic abilities arbitrarily separated from their context, to look for explanations outside the primitive Indo-European structure *. A magical fact - there is necessarily some - common to Druidism and Shamanism cannot prove an influence of the latter on the former.

This chapter is very important because the mass of documents is enormous and because most of them are of real interest.

Here nothing is trivial. But the reader should at no time lose sight of the fact that magic has a traditional and religious value only insofar as it is integrated into a significant knowledge and ritual technique. At no time it is to be or can be, interpreted as a set of techniques or knowledge, empirical or otherwise, giving an unqualified individual any means of coercion over the rest of human society. We said magic as part of the Tradition, we did not say witchcraft at the level of the Petit Albert.

N.B. This was therefore our conclusion on the first function. The following chapters will deal with the second function in the strict sense of the term, namely the occupation of soldiers.

* Guyonvarc'h denies any contribution, however minimal, of shamanism to the first Indo-European function. This is not our case. Indo-European priests must well come from somewhere anyway!

ETHICAL CODE OF THE PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER.

THE CELTIC WARRIOR AND DEATH.

Analysis of the remarkable book of the great French archeologist Jean-Louis Brunaux, devoted to the gods rites and sanctuaries.

Except the augural sacrifice previous to the great political decisions and among them the military operations, we know almost nothing of the rituals or of the magic operations which aimed at preparing religiously the military campaign or more particularly a battle. In a population which was dedicated, in the primary sense, to war, and which had made the latter one of its main activities [Jean-Louis Brunaux said] or, at least, that which was most developed [what is most probable]; such rituals were to be numerous and very diverse .

They affected the community, but were also deeply fixed in the life of the individual. The warrior, indeed, did not live a social life, as it would be imagined today, divided between occupation, military obligations, and a proper family life. He had, especially, a warlike existence, marked by stages which made him gradually a full knight , and on the end of his life, in some cases, a hero before being dead.

Notice of Peter DeLaCrau. Venceslas Kruta does not seem of the same opinion. “It is this background of armed farmers , for whom the carrying of the sword was to be probably before anything else the expression of their status of free men, and which constituted a true rural militia, that the human resources of the great expansion was recruited.”

His status of armed man conferred on him a sacrality hat only the Latin adjective sacer, with its ambivalent meaning of “sacred, taboo, dangerous” makes it possible to characterize. Caesar gives us an involuntary testimony to that, and the best illustration, when he signals that the children were not to appear publicly near their father before they are in age to be a soldier. It is also this state of armed man which authorized the citizen to take part in the assemblies to which they went armed.

The noble one and, later, the citizen, whether he was of “plebeian” or “patrician” origin, was constantly a potential warrior. One of the oldest authors who wrote on the Celts, Ephorus, reports that among certain people, there was a belt that was used, in a way, as standard to measure the lawful size of the abdomen of the young men. Those who exceeded this measure were punished. Such legislation about the fitness of warriors was necessarily accompanied by exercises of maintenance of the shape, gymnastics, warrior training, hunting, etc., this as of a rather early date since Ephorus wrote around the middle of the 4th century. Diligence in the exercises, quality of his strength, maintenance of his weapons, were criteria which made it possible to the individual to attend these assemblies.

The purely warrior assemblies all the more so were those where the warrior appears attired himself in all his weapons, those indicating his hierarchical rank and testifying to his glorious past. If some were open to the whole of the combatants, all social origins confused, most were reserved to the leaders, and were held in the secrecy, as Caesar implies it on several occasions.

At the time of the general conspiracy of 52 before our era, the chiefs of tribe meet among the Carnutes, probably in one of their sanctuaries. There they swear oaths joined together in stack insignia, what is, Caesar says, “more eorum gravissime caerimonia,” in other words “the most serious ceremony [and fraught with consequences] in their religion.”

The sacredness of the combatant laid mainly, if not exclusively, in the possession of a weapon which was much more than a simple war instrument or the sign of his social position. The weapon was neither object of trade, nor subject to covetousness. The sanctuaries give us enlightening examples of them: still in a position to be used or partially destroyed by the combat, all the weapons of the defeated came d own to the god-or-demons. It is that the warrior got his weapon as a reward, a means of recognition of his trade. To put on his weapons made the man a citizen able to take part in all the political decisions, a man who did his duty pass before his family feelings. He could use only the weapons that his rank granted to him.

The antiquated and fixed character of the armament of the last three centuries of independence is probably due to this morality of the warrior, having entered the combat; who fears neither death nor the wounds, in a word which is truly possessed with a divine fury [small jihadists today use captagon to come to the same result]. At the end of the 4th century, the military equipment reaches a kind of perfection because it is particularly adapted to the way of fighting, located halfway between the duel of

the chiefs and the confrontation of small formations of a hoplitic nature. The choice of the weapons reflects these two ways of fighting, the sword for the individual fight, the pike and the shield for the collective attacks. This double tactic, the combatants had inherited it from the heroic tradition where only the noble ones took part in the combat, in their chariot first of all, then on foot, their sword in their hand; but also from the way of fighting of their neighbors that they learned by practicing the mercenarism. Thereafter, particularly when they made a generalized use of the horse which made them famous on all the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, this armament appeared less better adapted. The pointed and heavy sword was to be very little used. The belt chain and the sword sleeve in practice were only cumbersome accessories. The shield, designed for units of grouped infantrymen, lent itself badly to the diversity of the engagements. For as much, in spite of the unsuitability of their weapons, they lost nothing of their warlike ardor, and did not have less success.

Contrary to the Romans who did not cease copying the armament of their neighbors, keeping of their only what made the effectiveness of it, the Celts were attached to the symbolic system of the weapon of divine nature. The long lance and the long shield certainly designated the fighting citizen, the sword in his histories sleeve was the mark of the noble cavalryman , while the helmet, rare, was to be reserved to chiefs. The complex and precious decoration which festooned sleeves and helmets was to develop the topic of the divine filiation of the warrior in a stylistic language that it is no longer possible for us to understand.

The fight for a Celt, until the time of the conquests of Caesar, is not a human work. It is an immense ordeal where the combatant is only the strong arm of the deity. Force of weapons, subtleties of strategy, are secondary concerns.

NotIce of Peter DeLaCrau. There were exceptions. See the case of the Roman defeat on the Allia River in July - 390.

Livy. History of Rome since its foundation (Ab Vrbe condita. Book V). XXXVIII. Shameful rout of the Roman army. For Brennus, the Celtic chieftain, fearing some ruse in the scanty numbers of the enemy, and thinking that the rising ground was occupied in order that the reserves might attack the flank and rear, while their front was engaged with the legions, directed his attack upon the reserves; feeling quite certain that, if he drove them from their position, his overwhelming numbers would give him an easy victory on the level ground. So, not only Fortune, but tactics also, were on the side of the barbarians.

Only the means of lending oneself in the best way to the service of the divine force are important. The mindset and the bodily state which the warrior enters then, have a name in Latin, it is the furor, “warlike fury,” which possessed formerly whole battalions of Celts and Germanic warriors. This divine madness was the spring of the force of the Celts during all the 3rd century.

It spread especially a whole terror which dispersed the enemy often even before the combat, or which froze it on the spot. This possession, of a particular type, appears not easily conceivable to us today. In the Antiquity, such states of enthusiasm, in the primary sense of the word were current, and the Greeks, in spite of their great wisdom, left to us impressive illustrations of them: bacchism, menadism, orgiastic worships …

The Celt was overwhelmed by this furor as of the “armed council” (concilium armatum) which was a true entry in war. This extremely ritualized, concilium armatum had probably of a council only the name. Caesar described it in an exceptional way in his work. It is one of the very rare descriptions of ethnographic nature besides of his digression in the Book VI, it has the advantage also of connecting a religious practice directly with dated events.

As we already have had the opportunity to say it, but the repetition is the strongest of the figure of speech; as opposed to what the Roman conqueror implies, the rite is old, in every case former to the 1st century, and it is revealing. Its meaning is perfectly comprehensible. It acts, in the most solemn form, to notify to all the participants that from now on their life belongs no longer to them; that it is in the hands of a god (the fate) which will leave them in life or which will make some dead promised to

an heroic Walhalla. The one who tried to escape the collective duty must therefore, to not only die in the honor of this god, but he has to do it slowly, in degrading treatments, and in full view of everybody; so that his death appears the reversed image of the death of the warrior, fast, in full glory, but in exchange for the suffering and sometimes of the death of his enemy. Same thing with the deserters or the mutineers of the modern wars besides!

It was not enough that the furor was only a mindset, kept going by the beliefs and some ritual like that one. The warrior was to be invested physically by it. The enemy only at sight was to note the visible signs of it. Three strange habits of the Celts, abundantly described by the ancient authors that they had impressed, played this part.

The first, most spectacular, is the warlike nakedness of the Celts, redundant topic of battle accounts, colorful, but also of the Hellenistic sculpture. This curious practice was especially the work of fighters who were called “Gaesati.” What does not seem to be a name of tribe but rather, according to Polybius, that of a function: some battalions of mercenaries who hired themselves for several years expedition.

For the same time, that of the 3rd century which marks the height of the Celtic military glory, most ancient historians mention another clothing use specific to the Celtic warriors, that to attire themselves in gold torcs. The sources are much too abundant and too much diversified to be questioned . However they make the problem, because they were never confirmed by archeology. On the other hand, about fifteen treasures were found, which contained one or more of these torcs. We could be tempted to question the precision of the descriptions and to think that the observers mixed up gold and bronze. But this seductive interpretation is contradicted by another data, relating to similar torcs out of gold, offered to the god-or-demons or to the kings, the confusion between the two metals being in this case not easily conceivable.

It is at the time of the early La Tene, 5th and 4th centuries, a purely female ornament, which disappears then completely from burials. On the other hand, as it was said, the torc is signaled abundantly by the Greco-Latin sources as a warlike decoration as from the 3rd century.

Two characteristics of the gold torc make it possible to specify the things. We saw that it was never found in the warrior burials. That means, obviously, that the item probably did not belong to the individual nor to his family. In addition, several mentions inform us that they offered such torc, perhaps still bulkier and more luxurious, to certain god-or-demons. Catumandus offers one of them to Minerva in Marseilles. Ariovistus takes a vow of offering a torc to the war god-or-demon. The Romans, even when they beat the Boians in 196, recover the heaviest torc and offer it to Capitoline Jupiter. In other words, this ornament was a gift particularly adapted to the god-or-demons, it was itself of divine nature.

Consequently, we can consider the following symbolic use. The gold torc was a sign of the almost divine state of the warrior, it represented physically the god-or-demon who was at his side or, better, who had taken possession of his body to express his warlike frenzy.

The gold torc seems therefore a kind of sacred deposit on the body of the warrior; of course transitory deposit which was to be the object of a solemn handing-over at the beginning of the war season , then of a not less triumphing return at the end of this one. It was perhaps one of the missions of the “armed council” that to allocate these distinctions and to manage their symbolic journey.

Finally, last habits intended to frighten the adversary, the war paints.

In Great Britain, the Celtic warriors dyed themselves in dark blue before fighting the battle, what had strongly impressed Julius Caesar. They extracted this coloring substance, also used for the dyeing of clothing, from an indigenous plant, the woad (or pastel). Not only did their aspect become spectacular and even alarming, but the woad has also remarkable disinfectant and healing virtues which made it a little the equivalent of our Mercurochrome. The former Celts combined thus business with pleasure… In Scotland, the Picts terrorized the Romans by going into battle only covered with their weapons… and with glasson (blue) dyeing.

As in the case of the Buddha, it can come at times from the head of certain great warriors of the kind hesus Cuchulainn, a phenomenon known in Ireland under the name of lon laith or luan laith. The lon laith or luan laith is the purple, or straightforwardly bloody, aura, emitted by the head of certain heroes when their mind is connected during a fraction of a second; or is dissolved one moment, in the Pariollon (the big Whole called Parinirvana in the Far East).

For a long time, the Celts did not have a way of fighting which is peculiar to them. They hesitated during more than a century between the use of the chariot, that of a structured infantry, before developing a science of the cavalry which made their reputation. On the other hand, since the oldest times, they had developed art to frighten the adversary; by a powerful and varied decorum of which the purpose was to notify to the enemy that he had facing him, not only a human army, but a battalion of Titans resulting from some Homeric saga. The best example of this moving army is given to us by Polybius, in the famous account he left of the battle of Telamon. Polybius wrote little time after the events, and by using direct sources, particularly the witness statement of Fabius Pictor, who had taken part in the battle.

The most solemn warlike religious rite is undoubtedly the vow. It is not specific to the Celts, the latter share it with most Indo-European peoples. It is based on the idea of a generalized exchange between men and god-or-demons, which makes it possible a contract between them. The formula in Sanskrit “dadami se dehi me” summarizes rather well the mechanism and the sense of this exchange, which dealt with all the warlike activity; from the solemn promise of the gift before the battle, to the sacrifice of Thanksgiving and the dedication of the spoils after this one. But the vow itself is quite a precise rite in this potlatch that men start with god-or-demons. It is an oral act, the most solemn announcement made in the presence of the brought together men and of the convened god-or-demons. We can understand the value of it only if we keep in mind that the word among Celts was excessively enhanced , because it was the only form of intellectual and spiritual communication they knew. You could not go back on what had been said.

The Romans had arranged the practice of the vow with their usual sense of casuistry. Various cases were envisaged to which corresponded the various degrees of a votum which, in any event, was only conditional. The gift would be made only in the event of success. The Celts certainly did not accompany their solemn vow with so many subtleties. What did not prevent that the practice among them was also very worked out and heavily ritualized. The few historical examples that Latin historiography preserved us indicate that the vow was always pronounced by a king or a chief; in any event, a man whom his fellow men had designated as their legitimate representative to the divine community. Ariovistus had taken a vow of offering to the war god-or-demon a torc made up with the spoils of the Roman soldiers, we already said. Viridomarus had promised to the god-or-demon Gobannus (Vulcan) the weapons of his adversaries. The gift was total and was not limited , as among Romans, to an often negligible part of the spoils, the spolia opima for example.

Caesar indicates that in the event of victory, all the living spoils were sacrificed, as for the material goods , they were deposited in a consecrated place. It is obviously necessary to rectify the part of exaggeration, usual in Caesar: for ages, prisoners were no longer sacrificed but given back in exchange for large ransoms, which had obliged the Greeks besides to legislate on the question. Nevertheless, we have well through this description of Caesar, the echo of the total sacrifice of the spoils whose sanctuaries give us the striking image. All the weapons, all the chariots , and even the cattle, were consecrated to the god-or-demons.

The recipient of the vow among the Celts was not either the subject of a constraining regulation. In most cases, the god-or-demon of war was concerned, but others could be chosen.

The vow, we see it, was the ritualized or solemn form, often with royal connotations, of a broader practice, very common in the Celtic world, that of the tongoito or oath. If this one has the inviolable characteristic of the vow, it does not have the serious consequences that the total commitment of the people implies through the promise made by the king on his behalf. The oito or oath can be sworn by a soldier on his personal name, even by a battalion. Florus, always in the partisan comparison which he makes, of the two sisters religions, indicates that the men of Britomarus had taken an oath not do off their belt before to have scaled the Capitol; but that it is the consul Emilius who had unbound them from their solemn oath by hanging up their own weapons in the temple. Caesar reports the content of the disastrous tongoito (oath) that the cavalrymen Vercingetorix swear in the plain of Dijon. “The cavalry unanimously shout out, “That they ought to bind themselves by a most sacred oath, that he should not be received under a roof, nor have access to his children, parents, or wife, who shall not twice have ridden through the enemy’s army.”

A particular and paradoxical form of vow is also common to Celts and Romans, although it was probably more usual among the first than among the second ones, who had provided it by a prestigious aura , it is the devotio. In Rome, it designated the sacrifice which a general made of his

own life to save his army, by seeking death during the combat and by dedicating it to the infernal deities. The cases of devotio were nevertheless rather rare, Decius and Curtius were quoted.

Among Celts, this individual sacrifice of the chief was expressed especially by the suicide on the battlefield, common in all the accounts speaking about Galatians. This suicide had become besides one of the recurrent themes of the sculpture in Pergamon which delivered major works, like the touching dying Galatian of the Capitoline museum in Rome. But people also mentioned the example of Brennus in Delphi who, as soon as he had entered the temple of Apollo, turned his weapons against himself; the ancient authors disputed about the reasons of this gesture, the ones seeing a kind of devotio, others, like Valerius-Maximus, seeing there the revenge of the offended god-or-demon.

As we have already signaled it, but repetere = ars docendi, among Celts, we know only another example of devotio, it is that Vercingetorix carries out after the defeat of Alesia. As in the case of the hesus Cuchulainn the event marked the consciences, not only of the present Celtic warriors, but also of the Romans, during several generations. It is rare indeed that a historical event of this period is reported by four authors each one based on different sources: Caesar, of course, Florus taking over a lost book by Titus-Livius, Plutarch and Cassius Dio.

Caesar, who improves, as a painter would do it by reducing the most contrasted traits, the scene of the surrender itself, is the only one to describe the moment of the devotio.“Having convened a war council the following day, declares “that he had undertaken that war, not on account of his own account, but on account of the general freedom; and since he must yield to fortune, he offered himself to them for either purpose: whether they should wish to atone to the Romans by his death, or surrender him alive” .

Caesar was certainly informed ,with these details of the speech, afterwards, by advisers or allies who could attend the scene directly he reminds of it only any what is useful to his account, the reasons pled by Vercingetorix and he omits the religious ceremony whose the“ war council” had to be the ideal framework.

Caesar could not reproduce a scene which revealed too much the religious character of what he wanted to report only as a simple surrender, but the surrender itself, such as it appears in the text of Plutarch, proves nevertheless that

Vercingetorix had staged there an authentic religious ritual; that Caesar himself will complete, six years later, by concluding it with the true human sacrifice, without further ceremony, of the unfortunate one. But in conditions very different of that of the apotheosis of Cuchulainn.

Here the account of Plutarch.

We could be tempted to see in this dramatic scene the effect of a literary embellishment. We would be wrong! Several details don’t mislead. Vercingetorix dons his more beautiful weapons, those which, usually, are intended to the gods. He achieves this warrior rite accompanied by his horse, this same horse who is as the extension of the knight in the war, another body which transports him, which carries his weapons and his trophies. But especially, by turning around Caesar, Vercingetorix achieves a religious ritual practiced by the Celts, that of the circumambulation. In the defeat Vercingetorix showed himself greater than the one he made publicly recognize as his new master from now on.

The examples of ritualized death which were handed down to us belong, with substantial differences, to the same ensemble, to the same attitude facing death, that we could describe as “self-sacrifice” or

“voluntary sacrifice.” These expressions are, indeed, preferable to the word suicide which evokes, particularly in our civilization, an individual decision. These suicides, on the contrary, are religious gestures of which the purpose is always to place again the individual, in harmony with the group of which he is a member and with the divine world.

Among the oldest mentions concerning the Celts is a series of texts of which the Nicomachean Ethic by Aristotle. “He feared nothing, neither earthquakes nor the waves, as they say the Celts do not,” Aristotle writes. It is an allusion to a trait of the Celtic manners which had been abundantly diffused in the Greek world at the end of the 5th century; and of which the most complete version is in Aelianus, who writes in his Various History. “ Many also oppose themselves to inundations of the sea. There are also who taking their arms fall upon the waves, and resist their force with naked swords, and brandishing their lances, as if able to terrify or wound them.” This singular habit, probably observed by the first travelers of Greek origin, was used as teaching example to characterize the madness, or the excess, it is for this reason that Aristotle uses it.

There was, in fact, a simpler but also more exceptional explanation, that which Timagenes already gave as being at the origin of the first Celtic invasions, that of a tidal wave on the coasts of the North Sea. Such a rare and monstrous phenomenon can explain an attitude so little ordinary where man opposes to nature his weakness but also his great-mindedness. The partial explanation partial of d’Arbois de Jubainville must be kept. The man facing a danger which appears to him of superhuman nature, puts on his attributes of a warrior to enter the parallel world which is called the hereafter, as he would enter it in war; i.e., with the certainty that the combat he fights will lead him directly to the Walhalla reserved to the heroes.

The humble opinion that the Fate can sometimes appear blind, at the very least as a partially sighted person (short-sighted and so on…), perhaps explains that we could see ancient (continental) Celts trying their luck by fighting to death; it is perhaps there besides what distinguishes the Celtic fatalism from the Muslim fatalism. Albert Bayet in his thoughts on the suicide evokes a certain number of testimonies showing them to us fighting in some cases to the end, a little as just in case.

Such an attitude moved the Celts a long time when they went to fight.

As we have had already the opportunity to say it but repetere = ars docendi

The almost fabulous impression was given by the Gaesati, who fought naked. Their warlike nakedness expressed especially the most radical contempt, not of the death which they honored, but of the fear of death. It indicated in the same way that the warrior was within an ordeal whose result could only be favorable to him. Either he won out over the enemy, and his victory was enriched by a divine guarantee; either he died, but his death enabled him to take a seat near his ancestors under the protection of the god-or-demons. This is why the Celtic warrior fought to death, or to the point of having no longer enemies around him .

For a Celt and until the 1st century before our era, the combat can have only these two outcomes. To flee, to be captured by the enemy, are not possible solutions. The shame which would have accompanied them prevented the warrior from surviving. Such behaviors were not really allowed by the society. The weak development of individualism in this one did not make it possible to resist such a pressure. This is why most accounts concerning 3rd and 2nd centuries show us the Celts committing suicide at the conclusion of the battles which were not favorable to them. Each battle is therefore lived as a fatal dialog between man and deities.

The death of the soldurs.

This morality of war time had become for certain men a whole lifestyle. In connection with Adiatuanus, whom Nicholas of Damascus describes as king of the Sotiates, Caesar mentions the existence of solduri. They are men who form the escort of an eminent character. They are entirely devoted to the latter, thus ensuring a permanent watch for him, particularly in the war. In the counterpart of that, they share all the goods of their guardian. Their devotion is total and goes to death. In the fight , they protect their master, but if it happens that the latter dies, they kill themselves. Caesar adds that it never happened that one of these solduri refuses to die, when the one to whom he had dedicated his friendship, had suddenly perished.

Same situation in Spain.

Plutarch (Life of Sertorius, chapter XIV).

“ There being a custom in Spain, that when a commander was slain in battle, those who attended his person fought it out till they all died with him, which the inhabitants of those countries considered as an offering, or libation; there were few commanders that had any considerable guard or number of attendants; but Sertorius was followed by many thousands who offered themselves, and vowed to

spend their blood with his. And it is told that when his army was defeated near a city in Spain, and the enemy pressed hard upon them, the Spaniards, with no care for themselves, but being totally solicitous to save Sertorius, took him up on their shoulders and passed him from one to another, till they carried him into the city, and only when they had thus placed their general in safety, provided afterwards each man for his own security.”

This institution appears to us typically Celtic, because it is an increased form of the clientship, mode of social relation largely generalized among Celts, as among Romans. It was to be an old habit, which had developed at the time of the Celtic invasions. In these never-ending peregrinations, where the conditions of life were often terrible, the chiefs were to be able to be based on a kind of praetorian guard which dealt with all the material problems. In the battle of Telamon, King Aneroestes was surrounded by a similar group which committed suicide at the same time as him. In Aquitaine the soldurs of Adiatunus, according to Nicholas of Damascus, were not less than six hundred. Commius the Atrebatian was surrounded by a similar guard of vassals who fought with him and who were nothing else but Belgian soldurs.

The death lived as a ritual could cause extraordinary staging. We have of those only a single description, of a great value, because it is due to Posidonius which, as was his habit, expounds the facts as an ethnologist would do it. i.e., with a remarkable precision, the sense of detail; without the passion of exoticism, but with the concern of grasping the intention and the meaning , behind the gestures. The passage was copied by Athenaeus in his Deipnosophists. “Other men in the theater * having received some silver or gold money, and some even for a number of earthen vessels full of wine, having taken pledges that the gifts promised shall really be given, and having distributed them among their nearest companions, have laid themselves down on shields, with their faces upwards, and then allowed some bystander to cut their throats with a sword." …

It is not an anecdote, but a practice which had a certain regularity. This self-sacrifice was accompanied by the usual decorum which marked all the religious ceremonies. The scene took place , the text says to us, in theatro, i.e., in a ceremony hall or a sanctuary, in every event in front of a public. Athenaeus copies, it seems, only the end of the description which follows a complex series of rituals. The man who sacrifices himself is, obviously, a warrior, probably a chief who seems surrounded by vassals. For reasons which are not clarified here, but about which we will return, this man offers his death as a counterpart of gifts that he divides between his parents and his friends. Then, either he hills himself , or he is killed . Then he is lengthened on his back in his shield and somebody of the audience comes and cuts his head.

The fact intrigued the historians. Marcel Mauss saw there the increased form of a potlatch, a series of gifts and counter-gift which ends in the suicide of the one who can no longer give back, and thus offers his life as “supreme consideration.” That death in this ritual is conceived as a bargaining chip is indubitable, the text is sufficiently clear besides. On the other hand, nothing indicates that death intervenes following a gift competition. The chief who made himself killed voluntarily obeys perhaps other needs. It is possible to imagine that his personal fortune makes him no longer able to support his vassals or his solduri, or quite simply that the disease threats him, and that he prefers an honorable death to a bodily decline. It seems well, in every case, that it is his honor of a warrior which is questioned or doubted.

The rite is structured clearly on a warlike set of themes. The victim is armed , they lay him down in his shield, his head is cut with a sword . Obviously, the man puts himself symbolically in the situation of a fight. We may wonder even besides if the death does not follow one these duels that Athenaeus evoked before in the same text. The last act of this show reminds, of course, of the battlefield: they take from the victim his head as they would do from a killed enemy. It is a way of notifying that the victim considers himself overcome, but that his honor is intact: it was treated as on a battlefield. It is probable that the one who cuts so the head is refunded in this way for the presents he has just given. The skull which he acquires is worth “silver, gold, or many wine amphoras,” it can be only that of a great warrior.

All these types of suicide have a common point. There is in the events which force these men to end thus, as a divine sign which notifies them to die.

In fact, it is the very whole life of the Celt which appears through death as a long ordeal, a continuous play between the individual and the deities who hold the thread of his destiny. Death cannot be the product of the chance, of external causes, it can be only decided by the man or the divine one. Even if

it is announced by the disease, the danger, it takes the appearance of a voluntary decision. For a Celt “to start a new life,” as we say today, was not an imaginable. He did not imagine another life but that he could live, again, in another body, and another world. This outcome or that of the entry in a heroic Walhalla that the theories about the reincarnation of the soul/mind in another world, taught to him, made the death easy for him. They made it especially a promising passage.

It is because the death was so meaningful , and already subjected to essential rituals, that the funerary practices themselves, at least in the last three centuries of independence, appear relatively modest.

In the distant expeditions or when the fate (Middle Welsh tynghed, Breton tonket, intended, old Irish tocad, destiny, toicthech “fortunatus,” tonquedec in Breton. The labarum is its sign or message) caused an uninterrupted succession of battles, the dead warriors were not collected. Contrary to the Greeks who, in this case, envisaged truces for that, the Celts did not worry to give a burial to the killed warriors. Pausanias, who reports such facts, indicates that Galatians did not bury the dead in order to frighten the enemy and because they did not have pity of them. The concerns of the Celts were, of course, of another kind. They did not worry about the corpses since they thought that the vultures, by consuming their flesh, would carry their soul/mind to heaven , where it had to be reincarnated. Pausanias informs us about that but also, as we saw it, Silius Italicus, who adds that it was impious to burn those who had perished in action and that only will seat near the god-or-demons those whose flesh would have been devoured by the vultures.

N.B. Other beliefs of the same order were to concern the farmers, the craftsmen, and even the slaves perhaps; each one of these categories of men or women, according to its social membership being called for a particular funerary destiny, that which the future of his soul/mind required.

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ETHICAL CODE OF THE TRADE OF PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER.

Luke II, 14. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

The druids in olden days had been clearer. To begin with, let us note that the ancient Celtic society was divided into classes whose druids formed only the first. The second by order of importance was the warlike aristocracy, from which the kings and the lords came. This class had probably an ethical paradigm certainly related to the more general paradigm of the druids but nevertheless distinct because conceived to tally as well as possible to the specific role of the warriors.

FORMER DRUIDISM THEREFORE. Second social class = lords and knights: the noble class of the warriors.

The kission is the branch of the druidic morals gathering the reflections intended to help various particular individuals to reach the other world more quickly ; by developing in them the sense of the sacrifice (ascetic warrior), but also the practice of martial arts (clessa, riastrade, fergio, ecstasies, etc).

The best definition of the ethical code of the Celtic berserker called vercingets, is perhaps still that which was provided to us by the Irish druid Catubatuos, concerning the hesus Cuchulainn when he was a child.

“For when they asked him what special virtue lay in this day, he told them that the name of whatsoever youth should therein for the first time take arms, would top the fame of all other Green Erin's men, nor thereby should he suffer resulting disadvantage, save that his life must be fleeting, short.’

“And it is true for me,” said Catubatuos/Cathbad; “noble and famous indeed you will be, but transitory, soon gone.”

Little care I, said the little Hesus Cuchulainn, nor though I were hut one day or one night in being, so long as after me the history of myself and doings may endure.”

“By no means will I wait, for my span and my triumphs are determined ; yet will I not for the world's lying vanities forsake my fame and battle virtues, seeing that from the day when first I took warrior's weapons in my hand I have never shirked fight or fray. Now therefore still less will I do so, for fame will outlive life”.

As his master Sencha Master had learned to him (“a great people never violate the rules of the fair play with an unknown”); Setanta Cuchulainn indeed never transgressed the Fir Fer, killed neither the charioteers , neither the messengers, nor unarmed people; it seemed to him neither noble, nor beautiful, to take the horses, the clothing, or the weapons, from killed men (in other words to strip them. See the legend of the driving off of the cows of Cooley).

The “three sins” of the warrior therefore...

Cowardice (particularly in front of death, contrary to the behavior “as a man”).

Greed (more particularly the personal monopolization of the spoils, whose laws reserved the major part for the teutates or guardian god-or-demon of the touta. A role occupied by the Prophet Muhammad in Islam). Subsidiarily, jealousy and miserliness.

“Lust”: yes to “the well-earned rest ,” no to the debauchery with weakening effect.

Through antinomies , the hierarchical order of the duties of this social class dictated the following priorities.

To be bodily courageous and ready to the sacrifice of his life.

To revere the god-or-demons was expressed especially and concretely for a warrior by the fact of offering to them heaps of spoils.

To be generous: this was particularly imperative for the kings (riges) and the lords (tigernoi), and by extension to be hospitable.

To preserve his physical shape.

Came then, but in the background only, the duties of the search for the truth as well as the other ethical values of intellectual nature.

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To get the great science which enlightens and to become an anatiomaros (great initiate) already able to put a foot in the Pariollon (= the Parinirvana of Buddhism) more quickly than the others; the man of the warrior temperament must devote himself body and soul to various martial arts like the iaido. He can thus manage to gradually eliminating from his mind every trace of anger, hatred, desire, or other human passions of this kind. This “emptying” of his mind besides can go further. He will thus get the serenity and the concentration which will make sharper his inner eyesight, and such a mental activity will be able to make his soul/mind be born again as a god-or-demon in one of the worlds other than ours. The destiny of Man is of tending towards his own deification and becoming a god-or-demon among the god-or-demons, whether it is here below or in the other world. There he will live very long time for finally being dissolved in the Pariollon, the Big Whole called Parinirvana by the Buddhists. For more details, to refer to our other opuscules on the subject, particularly to that which is devoted to Celtic martial arts. It takes up more precisely the practical application in the daily life of the principles which direct the mechanisms of the bitos or universes and the transmission of the divine light (cosmic energy); the spiritual art having for purpose the fusion of the individual soul in the collective soul or the universal psychic reservoir called awenyddio.

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FOR COMPARISON BELOW THE CHIVALROUS VIRTUES RE-EXAMINED AND CORRECTED BY CHRISTIANITY.

Once the religious [Christian] element had been introduced, its effects were not confined to strengthening the esprit de corps of the knightly world. It also exerted a potent influence on the moral law of the group. Before the future knight took back his sword from the altar, he was generally required to take an oath defining his obligations. It was not taken by all dubbed knights, since not all of them had their arms blessed; but many ecclesiastical writers considered, with John of Salisbury, that by a kind of almost contract even those who had not pronounced it with their lips were “tacitly” bound by the oath through the mere fact of having accepted knighthood. Little by little the rules thus expressed found their way into other texts: first into the prayers, often very beautiful, which punctuated the course of the ceremony; later, with inevitable variations into various writings in the vulgar language. One of these, composed shortly after 1180, was a famous passage in the Perceval of Chretien de Troyes. In the following century, these rules were set forth in some pages of the prose romance of Lancelot; in the German Minnesang, in a fragment of the “Meissner” ; finally, and above all, in the short didactic poem entitled the “Ordination of knighthood” (old French l’Ordene de chevalerie). This little work had a great success. Paraphrased before long in a cycle of Italian sonnets, imitated in Catalonia by Ramon Lull, it opened the way to an abounding literature….

…

For the record the duties of the ideal monarch in the Compert Con Culainn : Am túalaing mo daltai. Am dín cech dochraite. Dogníu dochur cech tríuin, dogníu sochur cech lobair… to be the scourge of the strong, and the defender of the weak (Fergus).

Conclusion.

Loyalty: The knight was to always be loyal towards his comrades in arms. Either it is for hunting or to track an enemy, the knight must be present in the fight until the end with his companions, ready to help them in any time with valiancy.

Prowess: The knight was to be valiant and have a good strength. The moral force was also very important in order to fight the frightening adversaries that he would meet at the time of his searches. It was to fight them for the service of the justice and not by personal revenge.

Wisdom and moderation: The knight was to be wise and sensible in order to prevent the knighthood from turning in savagery and disorder. The knight was to have control on his anger, his hatred. He was to keep himself under control in any time. The chess was therefore appropriate for the knight in order to train intellectual agility and calm reflection.

Generosity and courtesy: A noble knight was to share wealth as much as he had with friends and farmers under his wing. When he went to the court, he was to show courtesy. He endeavored to be loved by his lady while showing in front of her all his prowess. He was also to serve her faithfully. The nobility purified in a way the soul of the knight.

Justice: The knight must always choose the straight and narrow path without being encumbered by personal interests. Justice through sword can be horrible, humility as well as pity must therefore moderate the justice from the knight.

Defense: A knight must defend his lord and those who depend on him. He must always defend his nation, his family and those in whom therefore he believes, firmly and loyally.

Courage: A knight must choose the most difficult way and not the way guided by his personal interests. He must be ready to make sacrifices. He must be in search of the ultimate truth and of the softened by pity justice.

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Humility: The knight should not praise his feats, but rather let the others do it for him. He must tell the exploits of the others before his in order to give them the renown he deserves himself.

Frankness: The knight was to speak most sincerely possible.

Originally this ideal had not lacked genuine vitality. It was superimposed on rules of conduct evolved at an earlier date as the spontaneous expression of class consciousness; rules that pertaining to the fealty of vassals (the transition appears clearly, around the end of the eleventh century, in the book of the Christian life by Bishop Bonizo of Sutri, for whom the knight is, first and foremost, an enfeoffed vassal). From these secular moral precepts, the new Decalogue borrowed the principles most acceptable for a religious mind: generosity; the pursuit of glory or praise , “los” ; contempt for fatigue, pain and death. “He has no desire to embrace the knight’s profession,” says the German poet Thomasin, “whose sole desire is to live in comfort.” But this reorientation was done by imparting to these same rules a Christian coloring; and, still more, by cleansing the knightly tradition of those non-religious elements which had occupied, and in practice continued to occupy, so large a place in it – that dross which had brought to the lips of so many rigorists, from St. Anselm to St. Bernard, the old play on words so charged with the cleric’s contempt for the world: non militia, sed malitia: “Chivalry is tantamount to wickedness”….

But the Church, by assigning to it an ideal task, finally and formally approved the existence of this “order” of warriors which, designed as one of the necessary divisions of a well-ordered society, was increasingly identified with the body of dubbed knights. “O God, who after the Fall, did constitute in all nature three ranks among men,” we read in one of the prayers of the Besançon liturgy. At the same time, it provided this class with a religious justification of a social supremacy which had long been a recognized fact. The very orthodox Ordene de Chevalerie says that knights should be honored above all men, save priests (Marc Bloch, Feudal Society).

But it is of course in the Perceval of Chretien de Troyes that the subject will be the most developed (in the advice given to Perceval by the Lady of the Lake his adoptive mother then in summary by the old knight his mentor having dubbed him, Gornemant de Goort .

Then the nobleman took up the sword, belted it on the boy, and kissed him, saying that thus he conferred the highest distinction God had ever created, the order of knighthood; knights, he declared, were sworn to honor. And he added, “Brother, remember, whenever you engage in combat with another knight, do exactly as I now instruct you. If you gain the upper hand and the other cannot defend himself to continue the battle, and is forced to beg for mercy, don’t deliberately kill him. Nor should you yourself talk too much, or gossip. Whoever talks too much is sure to say something that someone will find offensive. Wise men declare, over and over, “too much talking is sinful” And so, good brother, I warn you be careful and I urge you if you find a girl or a woman, unmarried or married, deprived of assistance and counsel, provide it: women deserve our help, if we know what ought to be done and are able ourselves to do it. And let me also teach you this: listen well; these words are worth your attention. Remember to go to church and pray to the Maker of us all to bless your soul with his mercy.”

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ILLUSTRATION: THE PIECES OF ADVICE OF THE FAIRY MELUSINE TO HER SONS.

Pieces of advice given to her children by the continental princess of the gigantic anguipedic wyverns (andernas on the Continent, Irish fomorians) called Melusine. Anthony bears on his cheek a claw (or a leg) of a lion, he will become the Duke of Luxembourg. Regnald has one eye, he will become king of Bohemia.

SOURCE LANGUAGE: OLD FRENCH AND OLD ENGLISH.

Melusine then called to her Anthony and Reginald, her two sons and to them she said in this manner: “Children, you now will depart from my lord your father and from me and we shall never see you again perhaps. Wherefore I will teach and introduce you for your well and honor. And I pray you that you understand and retain well that I shall say, for that shall be to you needful in time to come. First, you shall love and praise God our creator; you shall firmly, justly, and devoutly hold the commandments of our mother holy church and steadfast shall you be in our Catholic faith. Be you humble and courteous to good folk, fierce and sharp to the wicked and evil folk and be you always of fair answering, both to most and least and hold talking to everyone when time required, without any disdain, promise nor pledge nothing̘ but that you may shortly accomplish it after your power; draw not rapporteurs of words towards you nor believe not too soon nor lightly for that causes sometime the friend̛ to breed mortal foe, do put not in office avaricious, acquaint you not with another man’s wife, depart or deal to your fellows of such things that God shall give you; be sweet and gracious to your subjects and to your enemies fierce and cruel unto time they be subdued and under your power, keep yourself from vaunting and from menace but make your point with few words this that may be done. Despise never any enemy, though he be little but look well about and make good watch, be not among your fellows as a master, but common with them and worship everyone after his degree and give to them after your power, and after that they be worthy. Give to the good men arms horses and armors and silver as reason requires. Now, my children, I don’t know what I should more say to you but that you keep ever truth in all your deeds and affairs. Hold! I give each of you a ring of gold, whereof the stones have one virtue. To wit it that as long as you have good cause, you shall never be discomfited in battle” (Jean d’ Arras).

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THE ETHICAL CODE OF THOSE WHO ARE NEITHER DRUIDS NOR SOLDIERS.

Category including in addition to all the “atectai,” i.e. “protected people,” the farmers, the fishermen, etc. cf. the shudras in India, as well as the “lay” craftsmen.

For this social class, the third, that of the producers, precise elements if not general principles are missing.

The imperative “To revere the gods, not to do evil , and to be a man, a true one” (cf. Diogenes Laertius) was obviously to also appear in a good place in the priority obligations of the common run of people.

However, considering their productive function, the duty number one was to be the work. The work and again the work.

The man could very well be a womanizer, or rather coward, allergic to warrior training; if he was a good fisherman or a good plowman or a good baker, it was fine.

In other words, you applied the principle so often at work in our modern societies and which can be summed up as follows: "It doesn't matter if our surgeon is unfaithful to his wife or defrauds the tax authorities if he is a scalpel champion. "

The first of the general principles for them was therefore to feed and provide for the needs of the two other social classes the fact of being a good brogis or briugu. (The duty of every good member of the producing function consists, of course, in feeding those who need for that, to accommodate, to provide clothing.) Lug transcending all the classes and all the functions, it is commendable to follow his example.

Other collective requirements for the use of this social class (that of the Producers) were well to exist. They were perhaps to consist in snap expressions , probably similar to the modern proverbs which we know.

Work and Family seem to have been the other basic values of this producing class. We see it implicitly in the oldest Irish legislation, typically Celtic, just as in the old Welsh texts. They are indeed the two conditions: the food one and the genetics, of the continuity in the life of a Community. “Life and love therefore belong to the third producing function.”

It is reported on this subject [love] a witty remark having been made by the wife of Argentocoxos , a Caledonian man, to Julia Augusta. Whereas the empress joked with her, once the treaty concluded, on the freedom of morals of the women in their relations with men in [Great] Britain, she answered: "We fulfill the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest." Such was the retort of the [Great] British woman (Cassius Dio. Book LXXVII. Chapter XVI.5).

We can without risk of mistakes consider that the most serious “sin” for this social class was to be laziness, factor of unproductiveness, before even impiety, which nevertheless was not to be far behind in the scale of the faults.

N.B. We wrote each time “sin” between quotation marks, because it is known that the notion of “sin” in the Christian meaning of the word, with which this word is imbued in our current language, did not exist in the ancient druidic thought. Philology confirms it to us with the absence in the various Celtic languages of words etymologically independent of the Latin term “peccatum” to express this concept. There are, on the other hand, words having had originally the meaning of a breach, fault, misdeed, transgression.

The sanction of these breaches, or transgressions, etc. was SHAME (roudcia), and REMORSE (aterecto) here below, for sure! Perhaps also, in the event of absolving compensation required from the culprit and unaccomplished before his death; a negative effect burdening his passage in the parallel world called Vindomagos and involving sometimes, in an exceptional way, his reincarnation as bacuceus on earth after a short passage through a kind of purgatory located between the two worlds.

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As bacuceus or ghost (seibaros, siabair/siabhradh in Irish), escaped from the ices of the before heaven (andumno or anwn); illustrated by the folk imagery related to the kingdoms of Don (Donnotegia) of Tethra or Arawn.

But let us repeat it, the reincarnation on Earth was not a general rule but an extremely rare exception. The general rule was the reincarnation in another parallel world of heavenly nature; where the soul/mind could in all serenity finish being purified.

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DADAMI SE DEHI ME: THE GOLDEN LAW OF RECIPROCITY.

In the economic relations, ethic of reciprocity designates the positive principle according to which the transactions of goods or services must correspond to the exchange of about equivalent values.

We currently attend the ultimate effort of certain groups of individuals (journalists, intellectuals, politicians and so on) to entirely eliminate any form of giving and to make so that all is controlled; that all is produced, that nothing is free, and that thus homo œconomicus triumphs.

Such an attitude has very deep roots. That’s nothing news . Usually people make it dating back to Smith; to a few centuries. We may nevertheless wonder whether it is not there the ultimate result of a much longer process, whose germs are in the Neolithic era; maybe at the moment when the mankind began to produce itself, instead of receiving what nature offered to it, gave it. Hunters-gatherers, as the anthropologists say, those who taught us that Mankind lived in this way during tens of thousands of years, before starting to cultivate themselves their vegetables and to breed (Neolithic).

In the Bible, the Genesis, there are hunters-gatherers, except Adam and Eve. One generation, the first. They are happy. They are in the Garden of Eden. But their fault condemns Mankind to produce, to trust no longer somebody neither one’s brother, nor nature. Their children, Cain and Abel, will cultivate the ground and will make breeding. They do not trust yet entirely the gifts from nature. They are sentenced to work. It is the base of the philosophy of production and control. Between these first stock breeders and farmers (Cain and Abel) and the lawsuits that the president of Monsanto sues today against a farmer of the Canadian West or a small company of the State of Maine; there is a direct filiation, there is a similar logic. Monsanto says us: “Gifts from nature are really finished, it is necessary to produce even the seeds, and to buy them from Monsanto each year, the produced seeds being sterile; it is a continuum which has as a principle: not to trust the gift from nature, on the contrary to subjugate it so that it produces, and to produce ourselves, if you want something done right, do it yourself, and with Monsanto’s help.” To prohibit any giving? Soon the human life itself will be no longer a gift, it will also be produced in the laboratory, in vitro… according to the specifications of the parents, become purchasers of children.”

According to Adam Smithh "In almost every other race of animals, each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favor, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages……As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase, that we obtain from one another the greater part of those mutual good offices which we stand in need of, so it is this same trucking disposition which originally gives occasion to the division of labor. In a tribe of hunters or shepherds, a particular person makes bows and arrows, for example, with more readiness and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle or for venison, with his companions; and he finds at last that he can, in this manner, get more cattle and venison, than if he himself went to the field to catch them. From a regard to his own interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows to be his chief business, and he becomes a sort of armorer. Another excels in making the frames and covers of their little huts or moveable houses. He is accustomed to be of use in this way to his neighbors, who reward him in the same manner with cattle and with venison, till at last he finds it his interest to dedicate himself entirely to this employment, and to become a sort of house carpenter. In the same manner, a third becomes a smith or a brazier; a fourth, a tanner or dresser of hides or skins » (cf Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.Chapter II Of the principle which gives occasion of the division of labor).

But in what part of the world, is met a community of hunters exchanging their bow? Everywhere the bow lives and dies with his owner, or is handed down from a father to a son, even from an uncle to a nephew. Is Adam Smith better with the example of the builders and roofers of huts? In the village communities of formerly, in Scotland, under the clan system , each inhabitant could rely on all the

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others: the work of importance, which was likely to last a long time, gathered all the valid men to build, even to cultivate. As the war companions swear assistance and faithfulness in all circumstances, on their premises as abroad, the inhabitants of the same village concluded a tacit pact by such co-operation.

The example of the roofer therefore serves much more the “Scottish” thesis of the clans that the “English” thesis of the individual interest.

We could continue thus, because to be a blacksmith in Celtic land is a status which connects with the sacredness or the supernatural one, not a simple activity of profiteers.

And if we went further, the very example of the work of the skins to make clothing against the cold, would be quite as little conclusive for Adam Smith.

Let us put into the fire of the test the concept of interest, or individual research for the useful one. That one appears as it functions in our mind to us men of today. If some equivalent reason drives Trobriander or Native American chiefs, Andamanese clans, etc., or drove formerly generous Hindus, Germanic and Celtic noblemen, in their gifts and expenditure, it is not the cold reason of the merchant, banker, or capitalist. In these civilizations, men were also interested, certainly, but in another way as today. They hoard, but to spend, “to oblige,” to have “liege men.” They exchange, but they are especially luxury items, ornaments, clothing, or they are immediately consumed things: some feasts. You give back with usury, but is to humiliate the first giver or exchanger, and not only to reward him for the loss which a “postponed consumption” causes to him. There is interest, but this interest is only analogous to that which guides the men of our time.

Karl Marx besides in his Grundgrisse of 1857 did not refrain from being ironical on this subject. “The solitary and isolated hunter or fisherman, who serves Adam Smith and Ricardo as a starting point, is one of the unimaginative fantasies of eighteenth-century romances a la Robinson Crusoe…” It is in reality the anticipation of bourgeois society, he says as of the first page of his Introduction to a contribution to the critique of political economy " which began to evolve in the sixteenth century and in the eighteenth century made giant strides towards maturity. The individual in this society of free competition seems to be rid of natural ties, etc., which made him an appurtenance of a particular, limited aggregation of human beings in previous historical epochs.

The prophets of the eighteenth century, on whose shoulders Adam Smith and Ricardo were still wholly standing, envisaged this 18th-century individual – a product of the dissolution of feudal society, on the one hand, and of the new productive forces evolved since the sixteenth century on the other – as an ideal whose existence belonged to the past. They saw this individual not as an historical result, but as the starting point of history; not as something evolving in the course of history, but posited by nature, because for them this individual was in conformity with nature, in keeping with their idea of human nature. This delusion has been characteristic of every new epoch hitherto.”

And besides it is still the dominant ideology of our pseudo-intellectuals (journalists, politicians, or others)! Even the discovery of the antagonism of the economy of all the societies in the world, and of the economy of the Western society, by Mauss, at the beginning of the twentieth century, could not modify it.

It is not necessary to discuss at greater length the interested opinion of Adam Smith: he describes the society which is his, that of the middle-class class in the England of his century. The traditional theory of economy (of Adam Smith) therefore implies that the individual interest is the motivation of every production, and justifies consequently that the power of each one is proportional to one’s material wealth.

For the other societies, as the ancient Celtic society, it was the principle of reciprocity which was at the origin of any economy. The more you care about the other, the more you acquired authority. Originally there was neither currency, nor market therefore, and the institution of merely trade exchanges was unknown, because the true capital, the unit of reference in the exchanges and the evaluation of the “wealth,” was not other than the Man himself. It resulted from it a total identification of the wealth and of the political power: the “rich person,” it was the one who had the greatest possible number of people in his service and under his orders. Economy and policy interpenetrated.

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In the case of the free trade , however most favored grows rich to the detriment of the least favored, against the will of the latter. On the contrary, in the reciprocity economy, the giver contributes voluntarily to the enrichment of the exchanger as long as he regards it as another possible giver. We are there polar opposite to the exchange where each one seeks one’s interest: the reciprocity produces ethical or spiritual values between partners.

According to Dominique Temple, researcher in social sciences specialists of the Indians in South America, the reciprocity of gifts and the exchange will lead to different principles of economic regulation: the equivalence of reciprocity or the law of supply and demand.

The principle of equivalence means that the production of each one adapts to the needs for all. The sharing is the most common practice to define the quantity that each one owes to each one. On the markets of reciprocity, the sharing gives way to the generalized reciprocity, each one giving to some allied partners but also receiving from other partners. Two feelings prevail in the generalized reciprocity: the sense of responsibility as well as the sense of justice.

As what is owed and can be given, to each one, varies according to the communities, the equivalents of reciprocity also vary; but the communities tend to the reciprocity between them, and the most common equivalents of reciprocity become references for the market: the currencies of reciprocity. The value is conveyed nevertheless into prestige, and since the prestige is proportional to the generosity of the giving, the most prestigious givers would be the most impoverished persons if the cycle was not reproduced unceasingly, the donees investing to give back more. It is the very principle of the potlatch. Every interruption of the cycle by private accumulation destroys the system. In the communities of reciprocity, the one who accumulates to the detriment of the movement of the gifts, may be regarded not only as a theft , but also as a criminal. In the non-Western societies, the reciprocity is the most important spring of the movement and of the production of goods. In the reciprocity, each one tries to put the best production within the reach of the others.

On the high-plateaus in the Andes, is told the story of a girl who carried her eggs to the local market. The usual partners of her business resold them in the capital. To the suggestion that made her a Western economist of selling all directly at much better price to a trade company in the capital, she answered: “Do you want nobody to recognize me? ”

The reason for reciprocity appears clear: it creates the ethical values from where the subject emerges. In the forefront of the produced values, the social recognition, but also the friendship. We will also quote these women in the Senegal who sell on the market fish fished by men. As one of them profited from the fishing of many sons, and was thus favored, European economists pointed out to her that she could invest easily in a boat of larger tonnage; to what she answered that she would thus put the other fishermen in a difficult situation, even that she would lose her friends. It is an answer that you often hear on the reciprocity markets.

In the forefront of the values produced by the reciprocity, we must nevertheless also put the feeling of justice: in the popular demonstrations against poverty, we often find the following claim: “We want a fair price.” The fair price does not allude to any wage claim with respect to the employers or the State. The fair price is the price which can be considered as equitable, and not the price imposed by the one who is in a position of strength. It is therefore determined by the principle of equivalence and not by the law of supply and demand . The claim for a fair price is that of a generalized reciprocity.

Nevertheless, the research of the fair price encounters a paradox today. The effectiveness of the technique put in the service of the capitalist system by science, and the effectiveness of the capital accumulation; lead so that the cost price of a production moved by the profit can be lower than the cost price of an identical production in a reciprocity system: for example, the frozen chicken coming from the other end of the world sold less expensive in Senegal than the chicken from the surrounding family breeding. This paradox thus discourages the local production. The whole challenge of the reciprocity economy then is to affirm the need for universal ethical values, and to negotiate an interface between the two markets; an interface between the respective territoriality of the free trade and of the reciprocity; according to the values that the society wishes to put forward.

The markets in the Andes are typical in this respect, which are sometimes divided into several districts where are practiced in one, the sale against cash, in the other, gift and reciprocity; what is well illustrated by the fact that a merchant must even change his costume when his moves from the district;

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here, dressed in the Western fashion for the sale, and there in his traditional poncho for the reciprocity…

But doesn't the law of the balance of supply and demand play in order to lower the prices, and doesn't the free trade, provided that it is competing, have the same result as the reciprocity of the gifts?

However it is realized that the result is not identical when the two systems are articulated one on the other.

On a side, the free trade releases everyone from the subjection to honor, prestige and sacredness. On the other side, it constrained to make the utilitarian economy functioning as well as possible.

The danger of the reduction of the reason for the utility reason, and of the human work to the work of the machine, also lies in this: brute force, totalitarianism, social discrimination. In the economy of free trade, the challenge is to sell, the most expensive possible, in so far as competition makes it possible, a production got at the lower costs.

But this reduction is not a fate. It is a choice. Either men decide to capitalize the benefit of the reciprocity of the gifts to their single profit, and it is the free trade with the other, or they decide to reproduce the reciprocity of the gifts to create more human value. This alternative exists everywhere from the beginning : free trade or reciprocity. It is always possible to leave the field of the free trade to enter that of the reciprocity of the gift, or the reverse.

The elementary structures of reciprocity can combine to form complex systems, making possible other economies, other societies, perhaps those of tomorrow, in the eyes of which capitalism will seem an antiquated system.

Thanks to the Internet, we take part already all more or less in the creation of the world network of the intangible information, word of all sent to all and available for all, in a permanent and free way. This exemption from payment of the word of each one for all, and from all to each one, is a modern form of the symmetrical reciprocity. The reciprocity then becomes this noosphere that Teilhard de Chardin had imagined, a halo of spiritual light, and of ethical values, a halo for the moment alone among all (according to Dominique Temple, researcher in social sciences).

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HISTORY OF MONEY.

Why want to wonder about money from a druidical ethical point of view? Isn't money a good thing? Isn't it a payment means which makes largely easier the exchanges since it makes it possible each and everyone to buy what he wishes? In that, the monetary exchange appears quite preferable to a barter system which imposes strong constraints on the methods of the exchange. Didn't money also make it possible the emergence of the modern State? Without money, no central administration, not civil servant .

It would be, however, erroneous to stop with these considerations to conclude from it that the money could escape the moral reflection. In reality, the money is not subordinated to its simple utility end. It expresses another thing that the goal which is assigned to it. The money is more than a neutral instrument in the assessment of the things. It is an instrument whose power can control the one which, however, believes to be its master. The money, as opposed to what the standard economic theory teaches, is not neutral. It affects not only the economy of the individual desires but also the general functioning of the social exchanges.

Today, the money is the means through which the value of all the goods intended to be exchanged on the market, is expressed. It undoubtedly contributes to make easier the trade of goods and services, whatever their utility as regards the social, ecological, spiritual or moral, level,is. But the money, in this form, was unknown of the ancient and particularly Celtic, societies. The first coins appear only in the 6th century before our era with Marseilles. Later, the gold coins coming from the Greek world will be introduced in Beats by the Celtic mercenaries gone back home (particularly the staters of Philip II of Macedon struck between 359 and 336 before our era) and will be abundantly imitated.

Before this time and since prehistoric times, men count and exchange their goods. But with this intention, the primary shapes of the currency were varied because each human group endowed itself with a standard likely to be credible and accepted by all.

Natural Matters: the stone, the salt which is used to pay the Roman legionaries (it is the origin of the word salary), the amber, the precious stones.

Agricultural products, from breeding or gathering. Barter and bovine cattle or sheep were certainly for a long enough time to satisfy the exchange requirements of societies not very commercial in the beginning. Cattle (such ox in the Indo-European world from which the Latin pecus or the Sanskrit rupa (at the origin of the word rupee), wheat grain, cocoa seed, peppercorn, tobacco leaves, hides, dried cod, tea leaves, etc.

Hand-crafted products: loincloth (Egypt, Africa), small glassware (“cat’s eye”bead in the Senegal in Africa), knives (China), swing plows (China), metal axes (China, Celtic countries), cleavers (pre-Columbian peoples), fabric (Egypt, South and North America, Africa ), rings (Egypt), metal tripods (Greece), iron (Kinja in central Africa), alcohol (America), rifles (America), shells (such the cowries) or symbolic objects such as the “socketed axes” of the end of the Bronze Age discovered in Brittany, etc.

Human Beings: slaves.

It is hardly possible to locate with precision in time nor in space, the invention of the currency such as we know it today. The Neolithic revolution had to strongly contribute to the rise of the currency in order to overcome the multiple difficulties of barter. But the origins of the currency are also indivisible from the social and ritual exchanges.

The shells in the Rossel Island, the shell arm-bands used in the exchange system described by Marcel Mauss and Bronislaw Malinowski; the coppers (large copper discs for ceremonial use) employed by the Indian chiefs of the north-western coast at the time of the potlatch; are perhaps not practical are perhaps not easy to transport, nor divisible; but, as Dalton underlines it, they are not either simple means of commercial exchange. It is rather necessary to see in them the parts of a treasure or family jewels, crown jewels or sports trophies. These treasures play a particular role as a noncommercial currency. Their acquisition and their use are codified carefully but also regarded as extremely important events; they change hands according to special rules, during transactions with strong moral implications. They are often used to establish new social relations (marriage, admission in secret

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societies), to prevent the break of existing relations (blood price, compensation for the parents of the victim) or to preserve or increase one’s social status (potlatch). All that made us think of the part played by the torcs in the Celtic societies.

In certain areas, it was necessary to wait for the 20th century to see these primitive forms of currency disappearing. It was particularly the case of the manillas (slave collars), some kinds of torcs like among the Celts; or of the shells in certain areas of Africa. The cowry shells were used in China from - 1100 to approximately +1578; their USE WAS extended to the 5th century before our era in India, then in the whole Pacific. We find some of them in the beginning of the 14th century in the Maldives, from where the Arab tradesmen exported them towards the east coast of Africa. They pass then through Sudan to Guinea, then towards Mauritania and as far as the Berbers in the Atlas. But the cowries were used especially in East Africa, particularly in Zanzibar and in Ethiopia. After 1870, the governments of the colonies sought to prohibit them as a currency. But men still used them as “small change” in this case and it is only in 1955 that the cowries disappeared completely.

The modern economists criticize, of course, what they regard as the irrational nature of this primitive currency. They consider it too cumbersome and difficult to handle; worse for them still, it is not divisible, for example into cent (imes).

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The use of various ingoted metals was already very known in the Mediterranean South-east and in Mesopotamia in the sixteenth century before our era. Starting from this zone was developed a coherent monetary system, based on the ox and its exchange value in various metals (i.e., bronze, copper, silver, gold, “talents”). Some of the ingots were cast in molds whose shape reminded of that of cattle horns. It is probably this particular shape which gave rise to the worship and monetary type of the double axe, very usual in Crete and in Cyprus, but also found on the current territories of Germany, Switzerland and France. In Central and West Europe, other more elementary currencies were used. Rough copper ingots, bronze bits of variable size, evolving over time to more regular shapes (leading to the aes grave or libralis, sometimes bearing the image of an ox).

On the European continent and in the south of the island of Britain, at the end of the Bronze Age, molded axes (usually out bronze, sometimes even out of lead) were used for probably worship and monetary ends. They have indeed no quality as a tool, and are found as treasures. On the continent, bronze sickles fulfill doubtlessly similar functions.

Bronze silver and gold votive wheels (and even some jewels) were also used as currencies on the whole of the continent as in Great Britain.

North of the Black Sea and in Thrace, certain objects were also used as currencies: arrowheads, “small bells,”varied rings.

The idea to strike parts in precious metal was born around the Aegean Sea towards - 650 and we found struck coins in Sardis by Alyattes, who reigned over Lydia between 610 and 560 before our era.

For the Mediterranean peoples, the Celtic peoples looked like “barbarians,” but their warlike reputation and the quality of their armament made them very sought after mercenaries.

As of the 4th century before our era, we therefore find them in the Macedonian armies. Entirely organized but also equipped Celtic troops, rent their services to all the war leaders in the Mediterranean world.

Paid in local cash, one back in their country, the Celts therefore began by counterfeiting the Macedonian coins. The first coins which they issue were all some more or less faithful copies of Macedonian or Greek models. The most famous counterfeited prototypes were the gold staters of Philip II of Macedonia.

These imitations of Macedonian style were also counterfeited by other Celtic peoples in turn, and from imitation to imitation, the Macedonian style of the staters grew blurred to be replaced by the Celtic style. The druids then had to play a significant role in the issue of such coins, in the choice of the patterns which can appear on them, as for their composition.

The use of the gold coins therefore was not standardized for all that. Rare and precious, they were reserved to the chiefs of clans who used them to settle the pay of their men, offered them to the god-

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or-demons of hoarded them as a symbol of power and wealth. The first appear around - 450 (circa - 338 in Rome).

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Let us not be stupidly utopian! The produced goods must be able to flow (trade) and money must be invested where it is necessary, but watch out to selfishness or parasitism, traders would not exist without producers. The sailor fisherman who brings back every day his quota of fish is certainly more useful for the society; therefore more honorable, even if he has his hands calloused and smells bad; that the executive of a big corporation guilty of white-collar crime, or of insider dealing . See the scandal E.A.D.S. (Airbus) which was the subject of gossip in France in 2007; the called Noel Forgeard and 800 other executives of this European large company in difficulty who sold shares before the stock exchange price crumbles.

True Celtic hearted or minded persons will always be where the true nobility stands, that of the heart; in other words, on the side of the low-ranking persons, of the modest and without rank persons, and against the parasites of the Society, in accordance with their reputation since always.

“They readily take charge of the cause of the ones who are oppressed . They have indeed , at the highest point, the feeling of equity, law and honor. They can suffer that people breach their word. The reputation of justice of some of their tribes as the Volcae Tectosages who lived beyond the Rhine, extended far. In Thrace, the wisdom of their king Cavarus caused he was taken as arbitrator between Byzantium and the close Greek cities.”

The middle-class and industrial revolutions which have occurred in the West in the 18th and the 19th century, by significantly reducing the social role of the priests and by shortening the claims of the members of the second function - the nobles – up to the point to make them almost disappeared; called into question the Indo-European design of the three functions. Or at least distorted it, partly or completely.

Money became king. The sad example of the French Postal Service in the end of the 20th and in the beginning of the 21st is there to show us the damage which can be done to a state-approved corporation; when it passes between the hands of senior officers with debatable intelligence and limited general knowledge; but without scruple towards their personnel, and only driven by careerism.

The French Postal Service of the beginning of the 21st century was a good example of taking up of power by nonentities with a parvenu mentality.

It is true that the French nation itself had ceased existing at the end of the 20th century (suicide??) and had been replaced by another one (or several others) on its territory; (the proof is the increasing number of young French going to do their jihad in Syria); but even so!

Comment of the intellectual or journalistic elites: “Pooh, it is only identity folklore… and then anyhow integration is not well, because that amounts denying the identity of the individuals, etc.!”

Therefore if we understand as it is necessary, the assimilation, it is the absolute horror, the Nazi camp, but integration too!

N.B. Intellectual honesty obliges us nevertheless to admit that the part of the elite formed by the politicians, on the spot, has almost unanimously, refused to standardize such an insult to the national anthem. But let us return to our sheep!

It is therefore imperatively necessary for us to put the money in its place. A unit of measurement making it possible to compare goods and services, by granting them a value (without a common unit of measurement trade can be based only on the exchange of goods and services).

It is not so a long time in human history that the currency such as we usually imagine it, appeared (in a rather restrictive way besides), in other words, in the shape of metal slices, as we could see it, the paternity of this particular format of currency is usually attributed to the ancient Lydia ( Asia Minor Greece), around the 6th century before our era.

It will be noticed that the development of the electronic means of payment risk well on a medium-term horizon to make every material support for the currency, disappear; the “coin” undoubtedly will not reach its three millennia of existence!

Let us say here now a few words about the currency in Ireland formerly.

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Most legal texts were written down at a time when there did not exist one monetary system. However, as in fact all the offenses could be compensated by the payment of a fine, monetary units therefore are frequently used to evaluate them.

Cumal. The basic meaning of the word cumal was “female slave.” Slavery was never in Celtic land a mass socio-economic reality like in the Greek democracies or among the Romans, and this for a very simple reason. In the event of military defeat the Celtic warriors generally preferred to take each other their own life (from where besides the collective suicides reported by some authors). But this institution was nevertheless not completely unknown in the Celtic world, the proof of it exists! In our texts the word “cumal” or “female slave” therefore refers generally to a value unit. At the origin, they were perhaps to be true female slaves, but at the time when these texts were written down, this system was already no longer in force for a long time, and in the place people paid an equivalent value, of another nature.

Cattle. The cattle were probably the principal means of payment used, it is most frequently quoted in the texts. The basic unit is the milk cow (lulgach or bó mlicht), generally accompanied by her calf. Then, at two thirds of his value we find the in-calf cow (bó inláeg). The three-year-old heifer (samaisc) is worth half of the milk cow, the two-year-old heifer (colpthach) a third, the heifer of the year (dairt) a quarter, and finally the steer of the year (dartaid) an eighth.Below, the values are expressed with sheep, skins or bags of grains.

Even if the coins seem to have been rather rare, two words designating them were borrowed from Latin by the Irish monetary system.

The ungae (Latin uncia, “ounce”), which was made of 24 screpul (Latin scrupulum, “scruple” in other words 2 grams of silver).

The Set. Usually used to calculate the honor price (apart from that of the king) the set (treasure, jewels, value) was also used for the fines.

The relation having been common between these various values seems to have been the following one : one cumal = 3 milk cows = 3 ounces of silver = 6 set. However, in certain texts, there exist variations of this relation, like in the Cáin Aicillne where a cumal = 20 set.

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FROM ARISTOTLE TO PEGUY INCLUDING MARX AND FREUD : REFLECTIONS ABOUT MONEY.

The power of money is all the more violent as it is without a face, as it is anonymous. The apparent visibility of money in our society should not be deceptive. The money continues to hide. Its motivations are archaic, concealed in our individual and social unconscious. As a consequence of that, nobody can claim to be perfectly clear concerning his relationship with money. The ethical understanding about t money therefore requires a deciphering of the ambiguity constituting our relationship with money. This is why we will start by releasing the psychosocial processes which give its true significances to the money and the uses of it. We will continue then our reflection then with some theological considerations before starting again lastly the questioning on a more political level.

Visibility and invisibility of the money.

In our relationship with money, we went, in a few decades, from an extreme to another. Not long ago suspect, even taboo, money became today a true totem. It appears, sometimes with ostentation, without causing any moral reprobation apparently. The millions is the monetary unit of the Lotto or of certain television games. Each one is supposed to want to be a millionaire.

But the appearances are perhaps misleading. The money remains a hidden power. Admittedly, money is shown more than yesterday. But in same time, it loses its visibility. It is withdrawn from our look in its very materiality. Checks, credit cards, electronic purses replaced the settlements in hard cash, the bundles of bills which you could palpate. The money worms itself everywhere and disappears as an object. It vanishes as the society develops its monetary structures but without losing something of its strange property of a universal converter of all the material values. Everything can be acquired at money price: you can buy things and even people.

The money is a good that we can wish like all the other goods. However it is not a good like the others because it is the good which makes it possible to acquire all the others. It is “the universal intermediary.” The desire of money accumulation comprises in itself no limit. The appetite for gold is insatiable. The money, because of the almost unlimited power of acquisition it gets, can be the object of a passion which has as a name miserliness.

The ancient or medieval Celtic ethologists (the former druids) had already well sensed it. Because it is unbounded, the money passion is devouring. It can draw us away from the divine one.

Ethnological research highlights the first dimension of the currency. The symbolic exchange into which the currency symbol introduces a community concerns, initially, the tie between the divine world and the society of the men.

These works of ethnology take for starting point the debt category. The debt is integrated in a moral representation of the human existence marked by an original dependence. It would found the organization of the world. As of his birth, every man would be only a package of debts: the gods or the ancestors are creditors whom it is advisable to refund during one’s entire life without ever knowing if the debt will be one day settled. But how to release oneself from such a debt, to repurchase it or to negotiate it with the powers of above? Is it only possible to reduce the pressure of a bond which can be fatal (the Latin debt, nexum, also designates the rope which is used to strangle)?

For the antiquated companies, which gave a first answer, only the gift of another life can answer the gift of life. The human sacrifice would be a financial act before even the invention of the currency. The first financial object, it is the sacrificial victim. It is what also suggests the etymology of the Latin pecunia which would be from the same linguistic family that the Sanskrit word peshu designating the expiatory victim. So, in the settlement of the primordial debt, the first standard of value, it is the man himself.

In the history of civilizations, the human sacrifice will disappear and give way to its symbolic equivalent: the sacrifice of animals. The process of substitution of the victim will continue and will lead to the currency. The animals were replaced by the payment of a priced remuneration of the sacrificers,

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paid in kind or in the form of silver shekels– disc-shaped ingots of silver, distant ancestors of the first coins - and later in “cash.” The first Roman coins, Plutarch reports to us, were decorated with animal figures which form the triad of the traditional sacrifices : bull, sheep, pig. The substitution on the sacrifice altar of another victim that the man constitutes a transaction of conversion (at the same time religious and monetary expression).

The first financial objects therefore would have appeared in the sacred enclosures, the trade of the money being carried out by the sacrificing priests. The payment to the deity is the pledge of the calming of the deities from whom is expected in turn protection and safety. Besides the Latin language connects the faith with the financial fact: the word credo also means credit, debt. Through the act of faith, of credence, the sacrifice creates a tie between the universe of gods and that of men.

From substitution into substitution, from conversion into conversion, the successive pledges will lead to currency. But with the invention of the currency, the dimension of the repurchase does not disappear. The currency plays the same part as the human sacrifices. It is used to untie, save, release, free from the paramount debt. Even if the figure of the gods, of the original creditors is more distant, is and even sight lost, the basically financial structure of the human life remains the same one. The language tells us in its way that the sacrificial transaction did not completely disappear: we all are able to put ourselves on the line , to sacrifice us, to bleed ourselves dry to get a good that we desire.

According to Aristotle, for once inspired well, the "necessary" chrematistic economy is licit only if the sale of goods is made directly between the producer and consumer at the right price; it does not generate added value. By contrast, it is illicit if the “producer” purchases only for resale to consumers for a higher price, generating in this way added value. The money therefore must be only a means of exchange and measure of value.

Aristotle therefore distinguishes consequently economics from chrematistics in the strictest sense of the term i.e., the research for the money itself. The chrematistics or accumulation of money itself is an unnatural activity that dehumanizes those who practice it. Like Plato, Aristotle too condemns consequently this type of accumulation of wealth. The bazaar merchant produces nothing. Trade exchanges money for goods intended to be resold and usury creates money from money. Both are reprehensible.

The economy is the art to acquire the goods necessary to the life and useful either for the home or for the State, and it is limited to that, while being generally satisfied with barter without money; the chrematistics sprang from the increase in the trade of goods, which quickly used the currency.

For the chrematistics the flow of goods is the source of the wealth and with it everything seems to turn around money, because money is the beginning and the end of this kind of exchange. This is why the wealth, such as the chrematistics designs it, is unlimited because what it pursues is the absolute wealth. The economy is limited, the chrematistics, not; the first is directed at another thing that money, the second aims only at its increase… It is for having mixed up these two forms that some people believed wrongly that the getting of money and its increase ad infinitum were the final goal of economics.

The chrematistics is therefore “blameworthy,” because it diverts money from the use for which it was invented, namely not to make interest , but to support the exchange of goods.

In short, Aristotle therefore distinguishes the normal use of money - the economics -, and its abnormal use - the chrematistics.

The moral question becomes consequently: does it exist standards making it possible to regulate our relation with money, so that its acquisition, its possession and its use remain always subjected to the requirement of the good?

It is in reality the particular question of economy, since earliest Antiquity. Xenophon, in his Oeconomicus, used already for that the ideal image of a farm managed in an ordered way, the virtue which is the order making it possible to carry out a “household management ” (according to the etymology of “economics”), just like a good parent.

Aristotle, in his Politics (I. 1), did nothing but take again into account this family dimension of the socio-economic organization, and continued his reasoning by extending it to the village, then to the community of villages, and lastly to the City-State: it was the birth of the political and economical

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science at the same time. A city is well managed when it has, like a family and a house, an economy, i.e., a just order of things , guaranteed by laws.

N.B. We will return on the need for intermediaries in the modern world and on the problems of the fair trade.

At its most elaborate stage, the money therefore is no longer the simple substitute for the sacrificial victim. The logic of the commercial exchange raised it to the rank of the deity, of the original creditors. The money is the symbol of a hierarchical order. The currency is indivisible from the sovereignty question. The currency is the sign of the power, the instrument of the temporal authority. For this reason the production of counterfeit money was regarded a long time as a crime of lese-majesty, liable to capital punishment. The thesis can surprise. But it is necessary to continue more to grasp the topicality of it. Isn't it precisely the fact that we have lost sight of our relation to the divine which is at the origin of a new posture –that we will be able to call hegemonic – of the currency symbol? Since Adam Smith the modern political economy had as a project to show the presence of providence, a higher scheduling of the world, a spiritual power which would come to fill the gap between the human intentions – inevitably selfish or contradictory, disjointed- and the social results. It attempted to release laws and mechanisms (the invisible hand, the market forces, etc.), by attributing to them in the same time an almost transcendent significance. This new secular theology came to generate its own gods who have as a name “competition” or “competitiveness.” Sacrificial dimension remains, even if it is not brought out in the open. In the monetary exchange at the cost of the market, there is no happy medium, there is always an excluded middle, sacrificed on the altar of the free exchange.

The capitalist economy in its beginning is therefore characterized by the fetishism of the goods. Through the institution of the market, the goods are considered only through the purchasing power which is intrinsically attached to them. The goods are reduced to their value, without the least consideration for their producer. As a consequence of what, the relation between the things replaces the human relationships, the objects are personified (including the money), the man is alienated by money. With the development of capitalism, the money itself inherits from the goods, its properties of reification of the social reports and of the personification of the things. It is in themselves that the goods then the money have a value. In one and the other stage of the capitalist development, there is monolatry insofar as the production and the exploitation are concealed. The institution of the market masks the violence of the exploitation.

Incipient capitalism, through the upheaval that it causes in the relationship with the divine one, opened the door to the monolatry of Lug. The money was sometimes made God. It is possible to sacrifice many things to it, including human lives. The money took the figure of Lugifer, evil god who claims his batch of human sacrifices. The generalization of the reign of the money is in the beginning many slides. Its omnipresence encourages the men to calculate everything. The compare no longer the objects but their price. With money, all becomes comparable, exchangeable and therefore without value, without interest. The individual becomes increasingly depending on the objects which surround him at the expense of his inner life. It is thus that culture is found included in the monetary relations. The calculation and the exchange value invaded all the spheres of the human life, including those which were a long time put under the sign of the exemption from payment: human relations, art…

Karl Marx who had sensed well the shift which took place in the passage from a pre-capitalist economy to a capitalist economy speaks about the money fetishism . He uses a vocabulary with religious connotations deliberately, by giving it a derived technical sense. The fetishism designates in the writings of Marx the mystification of the economy agents automatically generated by the running of the economic institutions. It is an illusion generated by the system which is necessary to its perpetuation. And this one could be destroyed, according to Marx, only by a true revolution. Only an exorcism of this fetishism of money will be able to expound the alienation and its unbearable nature.

N.B.If Marx quotes Aristotle in his Capital, it is precisely because he considers like him that the unlimited accumulation of money is immoral. That is all the more true for Marx, that the modern version of the Aristotelian chrematistics is the capitalism of the upper-class or of the bourgeoisie, based on the exploitation of the proletarian work, because of an unjust domination of class. Karl Marx reproaches the capitalism to be a bad use of money. We could almost say that for him, capital is normal, but the capitalization, the indefinite accumulation of money by the upper classes or upper middle-class, starting from the capital gain created by the workers, is abnormal and morally condemnable.

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Charles Peguy warns us nevertheless against the illusions of socialism, and the illusions of the generosity without the reason. He does not accept Jaures. He makes him a symbol of the false socialism. He notes that our society is that of the “rule of money,” what is for him a decline. Indeed, if the money becomes the main value of metaphysics (I have, therefore I am), it is to the detriment of other values but also more simply compared to the work. The decline of our time consists according to Peguy of a depreciation of the work and of an overestimation of the money: whereas work was sought for itself since Antiquity, as an achievement of man in his acts, it is sought today only for the money it gets. Peguy interprets this situation a despiritualization of the society: it is the secularity which orders the spirituality, the money which dominates the morality by posing as supreme value. But strangely for Peguy, these bourgeois, they are… the Socialists!

In reality, it is not the political color which interests Peguy, but the tendency of the powerful to crush the “people,” to remove all “simillarity” between the social classes, and to distinguish them by their fortunes: if I believe in the representative value of money, if I think that the symbol of my wealth is the symbol of my being, then I assimilate to a particular class, in a hierarchical order where the rich persons dominate and where the poor suffer.

Charles Peguy, who collected in his book on the subject (published 1913) rather pessimistic impressions on money, however, does not fail to signal its moral value: “The money is highly honorable, we could not repeat it too much. When it is the price and the money of the daily bread. The money is more honorable than the government, because we cannot live without money, but we can live very well without exerting a government.”

His essential argument here is based , not on a revolutionary anti-bourgeois and destroying ideal, nor on a utopian socialism, but on an ethical analysis of the use of money! The morality of the money comes not from its role of common measurement, but conversely, from the moderation of its use. It is not to money to measure everything, it is to men to moderate themselves in the use of money, by putting it in its place of an exchange intermediary, and by subjecting it to other values, like the useful one and the good.

These reasons are enough to remove every shame concerning the search for money, the possession and the expenses of money. This is why some people even make the wealth (the fact of having money or saleable goods) an end in itself , and a synonym of happiness (cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethic, I. 1). This is why some people also , wanting to retain only the money purpose, judge that this one being good (to get the necessary one thanks to made easier exchanges), all the means are good to achieve this one. It is the old Manichean and pragmatic reasoning: only the success is important, and if it is necessary to follow a bad path to reach it, it does not matter, this path is only a passage and is forgotten once the result is got. I can therefore be dishonest person, steal, misappropriate funds, sell drugs or weapons, provided that I produce wealth for me and my close relations.

“Money has no smell,” the proverb says. In other words, the characteristic of the money is to be related to nobody in particular, contrary for example to the perfume chosen by the woman who wears it, or to the characteristic aroma emanating from each family kitchen: no, money carries on it no personal characteristic, it is on the contrary common and impersonal, and its function is precisely to provide a single symbol for very different persons. Since it is admitted as valid in a given community (generally a State), it is to be valid for all indifferently, since it is a communal measurement. Money is the same one, therefore, whether it is for the thief or the honest man, for the housewife, the entrepreneur, the unemployed person, the priest, the soldier… It has the same value, whether it belongs to a person virtuous or vicious, miserly or generous, egoistic or altruistic, and whether it is well or badly used, well or badly got. The money therefore ignores every morality, since it makes fun of the differences of virtues and of every hierarchical order of virtues.

We see therefore to what can lead the theory of “the money without smell”: some beneficial exchanges, but also a crowd of immoral acts making use of this neutral and objective characteristic of money.

More deeply, more radically , is utility the only criterion of a moral use of money, does not this one need external standards in order not to become the instrument of our weaknesses?

For the record now, the Freudian approach of the problems relating to money. The Freudian theory connects character traits of the adult (stubbornness, avarice, generosity, etc.) with anal sexuality.

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Starting from the assumption that pathology is as an enlargement of what is at work in normality, the Freudian theory, on the basis of clinical observation, established an equivalence: “money = excrement.” This equivalence is also found in the current language besides.

The anal theory of money tries to give an account of this equivalence that we find also in the popular tales (Dukatenscheisser, the shitter of ducats, the goose that lays the golden eggs, and so on). Basically, the money would be anything else only deodorized, desiccated and made bright, excrement.

The objections against the Freudian approach are not missing but the latter underlines well the social dimension of money, as an element of the civilization whose appraisal can evolve in time and which rains down upon the promotion of the uses of it which can be made. If the money itself is not a bad thing, it is well the use of it which is made which raises the moral questioning.

An American-Canadian team led by Paul Piff (University of California in Berkeley) carried out in 2012 not fewer than seven different experimental protocols, which go all in the same direction.

The first one is simple: it consisted simply in placing oneself at a crossroads and observing the vehicles caught in an obvious failure to give way. The second experiment, very similar, as for it consisted in noting the situations in which a pedestrian stepping onto an ad hoc crosswalk has his path crossed in front of him by a car. In both cases, the researchers classified the vehicles in five categories, from the traveling wrecks (group 1) to the luxury sedans (group 5). Result: almost 30% of the vehicles of the group 5 cross in front of the emergency vehicles , a rate four times higher than the groups 1 and 2, and three times higher than the groups 3 and 4. Almost identical correlation for the respect due to the pedestrians…

But, you will say, it is not because you have a beautiful car that you are necessarily rich. What is not false. So, the researchers supplemented these two experiments by others, undertaken in the laboratory. Each time, a hundred individuals were invited to take note of various scenarios or situations: achievement of an objective at the cost of an infringement on morality, inveiglement of a good in an undue way to the detriment of a third party, lie during a negotiation…..Then the participants filled out a questionnaire in order to know up to what point they would be ready to reproduce these behaviors. Each time, a correlation between the social status of the participants and their capacity to infringe ethic was evidenced.

A last experiment consisted in placing almost 200 people in front of video dice game: a certain sum of money was promised to them if the reached score after five rolls of dice was high. But, of course, the play was fixed and the score could not exceed 12 points. Those who reported to the experimenters higher scores therefore had cheated. Even by taking into account many parameters like the ethnos group, the gender, the age, the religion, the political orientation, there was nothing to do, the social class predicted positively the fact of cheating. To what is due therefore this established in this way bond , between moral weakness and high place in the society? Partly to a more favorable perception of cupidity, the researchers answer.

The men and women who currently appear among richest persons in the world are not those who work more. And conversely, the children reduced in slavery or exploited in the most shameful way, are not those who earn more. All what they earn, themselves, it is to die in misery when they are 20 years old, in an accident at work or because of an occupational disease, if it is not earlier! Cheer Mr. Smith! As for the responsibilities, let us speak of them! What occurs each time, it is that benefits are always privatized, but losses are always socialized! When all is well and that it is only a question of distributing big bonuses, big wages, or big golden parachutes, then there, the persons in charge, you can well find them; besides they thrive to get in; but when everything is bad, on the other hand, nobody is longer responsible (dixit the French president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008), apart from the underlings and the minions of course! Not forgetting these bastards of poor who refuse to consume. That should be prohibited. The Law should make compulsory to consume! In short, so many holy men and so little results! I all what I see in this pointing out as an excuse, of the work, or of the so-called responsibility, to justify such incomes, or such wages, it is especially a sordid selfishness. What would do these saints or these supermen if they were one day shipwrecked , with certainly a lot of gold and of bills in their bag, but alone, on a deserted and inhospitable island??? How long would they hold before dying of hunger??? Everyone is not Robinson Crusoe! And still, Robinson Crusoe was well happy to have one day a “Friday” as a companion.

These few reflections are therefore enough to say all the ambiguity of our individual and social relation money. The popular proverb does not say another thing: “Money can’t buy happiness, but contributes

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to it. ” Necessary, it would not, however, form the only horizon of our lives. The wealth never guaranteed happiness.

On more legal and political bases, it is possible to give norms to our relation with money because from Aristotle to Peguy, via Marx, we find finally the same criticism of the use of money. This use is moral as long as it is limited to be used as an intermediary in an exchange of goods and services useful or necessary, because that is beneficial for the human life. But it becomes immoral as soon as the accumulation of money is an end in itself, which does not aim the change of money into another thing. All in all, the money has an exchange value which must be subjected to the use value of what is exchanged. To moralize its use, it is therefore important that the terms of the trade (persons, goods, services) falls under social relationships themselves subjected to an ethical code. In particular, it would be advisable to reflect on the morality of the relation of inequality often correlative with money.

Money is moral only if the people who use it does not yield to the unlimited desire of wealth, but aim especially the good, by limiting money to the role of a means and not of an end in itself.

“The heads of enemies of high repute, however, they used to embalm in cedar oil and exhibit to strangers but they would not deign to give them back even for a ransom of an equal weight of gold. But the Romans put a stop to these customs, as well as to all those….” (Strabo Geography Book IV Chapter IV 5)

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FOR COMPARISON THE POSITION OF THE FIRST CHRISTIAN THINKERS ABOUT WEALTH.

From Luke 6,20b: “Blessed are you who are poor” to Matthew 5.3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit”…

The remarkable tacticians that Christianity produced during 3rd and the 4th century could to overcome all the pitfalls and we will never underline enough the delicate and complicated task among all with which they finally get done.

From Lactantius to the lawyer of the rich persons Clement of Alexandria through St. Augustine who would dare to reproach them their opportunism, the compromises to which they were often reduced [.......]

While giving up the egalitarian principles of the primitive Christianity, they ensured to its doctrine an extraordinary vitality and stability.

It is now a question of showing to our readers the evolution that the original Christian social doctrines underwent, how from St Justin to St. Augustine, the idea of a society based on the hierarchy of the social classes ended up being essential, how the principle of inequality was sanctioned and justified.

St. AUGUSTINE.

St. Augustine it is the whole Christianity. To establish his social doctrines is to establish the bases of all the Christian social doctrines [.....] St. Augustine summarizes in an explicit way the quintessence of his social doctrines in his expositions on psalm 132.

“God's poor one is therefore poor in spirit, not in his purse. Sometimes a man goes forth having a full house, rich lands, many estates, much gold and silver; he knows that he must not trust in these, he humbles himself before God, he does good with them; thus his heart is raised unto God, so that he is aware that not only do riches themselves profit him nothing, but that they even impede his feet, save He rule them, and aid them: and he is counted among the poor who are satisfied with bread. You find another a proud beggar, or not proud only because he has nothing, nevertheless seeking whereby he may be puffed up. God does not heed the means a man has, but the wish he has, and judges him according to his wish for temporal blessings, not according to the means which it is not his lot to have.

Whence the Apostle Paul says of the rich, Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. What therefore should they do with their riches? He goes on to say: That they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate. And see that they are poor in this world: laying up in store for themselves, he adds, a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. When they have laid hold of eternal life, then will they be rich; but since they have it not as yet, they should know that they are poor. Thus it is that God counts among His poor all the humble in heart, who are established in that twofold charity, whatever they may have in this world— among His poor, whom He satisfies with bread.”

After having proclaimed the original vicissitude of the private property, St. Augustine succeeds in establishing that it is the very base of every human society and that every breach against that one is a breach against the divinity.

After having announced the perfect equality of all the men, he finds the means of proving that the inequality of the statuses, the division of the society in poor and rich people, is particularly in conformity with the spirit of Christianity and must be completely respected.

After having debased the oppression that a man exerts on his similar, he does not hesitate to preserve the chains of slavery among the attributes of the Christian dignity and to draw the attention of the rich persons to the advantages that Jesus’s religion offers to them because of this (Editor’s note: identical situation with Muhammad who never abolished slavery).

After having entirely devoted himself to the preaching of peace, the forgetting of the offenses, of the charity, he undertakes the justification of murder, of bloodshed , of violence [Editor’s note : perhaps an allusion of Gerard Walter to anti-Donatist tracts of St. Augustine: initially the Psalmus contra partem Donati, outlined as of 394, the Contra epistulam Parmeniani, the De baptismo, the Contra Cresconium etc. It is indeed in these epistles that Augustine expressed the frightening principle of the “useful terror,” i.e., of the suppression by the public authorities of the schism in order to oblige the heretics to return to orthodoxy. Thus after the war of Gildo, he supported the suppression which fell down on the insurrectionists as on the Donatists who had supported them). (Gerard Walter, the origins of Communism.)

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LACTANTIUS.

Lactantius was throughout his lifetime a fervent defender of wealth. Nobody among the Christian writers even most brilliant could refute the “communist” doctrines (sic) with as much forcefulness.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA TOO WILL ANSWER LASTLY THE SAME BURNING AND NAGGING QUESTION: Who is the rich man that shall be saved?

“So let no man destroy wealth, rather than the passions of the soul, which are incompatible with the better use of wealth. So that, becoming virtuous and good, he may be able to make a good use of these riches. The renunciation, then, and selling of all possessions, is to be understood as spoken of the passions of the soul.”

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MORE MUNDANELY.

The president was well right in 2008 to stigmatize those who accused him of being a Socialist in the French way or a masked Communist in the Russian way because he divided his toys or his snack when he was a child.

To redistribute the wealth produced by the community (it is useless to be a billionaire in a deserted island, because gold or banknotes, that is never eaten, unlike fruits, vegetables, or meat); it is not to be a communist Stalin tendency!

Shame on those who find normal to go to the mass or to the mosque, but always to make more (20 times, 200 times, monthly incomes of a blue-collar worker, an employee, or a small farmer); whereas at a few (kilo) meters away of their premises, some of their human brothers are homeless, or do not have what to treat themselves.

Jo, the plumber is certainly not monarchist, but republican! However let us remind him that the redistribution of wealth was on the contrary the main function of the king (therefore of the State) in the ancient Celtic society, unlike what his philosophy preaches, supposing that we can speak about philosophy in connection with his claims or his real behavior, in life (tax evasion, etc.).

Compert Con Culainn : Am túalaing mo daltai. Am dín cech dochraite. Dogníu dochur cech tríuin, dogníu sochur cech lobair… to be the scourge of the strong, and the defender of the weak (Fergus).

Let us point it out that in Ireland in the Middle Ages whole chapters of any self-respecting tract of law were under the name of techtae devoted to the question and particularly to determine the part of the harvests which should go to the lord or the king.

“The clan was in fact a federation of several families who thought of having a common ancestor, the land belonged to the clan and not to the individuals: each one cultivated a lot of arable land, according to his rank, but the pastures were always common. The group members elected a chief (or ri, king) who represented them all and who was responsible for the good running of the group. Thus men of the clan, all virtually equal, followed the ri willingly; this one could even possibly be deposed (see the Nixon case). The ri appointed other chiefs who depended on him and advised him. He also proposed himself his successor, in his lifetime , to the approval of the clan; it was the practice of the tanistear, which applied not only to the successions in the clans, but also to the Pictish, or Scottish thrones” [even French according to the practice of the first Capetians] thrones” . Small summary of the excellent book by Jean Renaud about the Vikings and the Celts.

In Scotland and Ireland, the English, alas, put an end to this situation, and the clans disappeared, broken by the selfishness and the individualism or the” every man for himself” of the Smith Adam and Eve.

What we say, we uns, to the gooders who control us, in the media (the fourth estate, all the more powerful as it works generally hidden, under the objectivity pretext) or in the political circles, it is this! Justice, not charity!

A true revolution, not a naive and angelic antiracism ! It is nevertheless strange to note that the progression curve of antiracism was inversely proportional to the destiny of the revolutionary ideal having for purpose to better divide the wealth on our planet. The more one decreased , the more the other developed. A little as if there had been substitution.

And as ideal to be cultivated, the co-operation between men, not the individualistic competition in the Adam Smith way!

Therefore a little less sport or single-minded approach on TV or in the media, and a little more debates (enlightened, not manipulated by the journalists who, of course, always have the last word) on the choices of society which it is urgent to make! Because there are so many holy men and so little results!

It is enough to browse thirty seconds the reactions or comments of articles put on line on the Internet, even the newsgroups, to have a rather exact idea of the actual position of our Mankind. We discover

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there with fright at least 80% of quibbles of an incredible thick selfishness, dripping from the top to the bottom of the social pyramid. What to disgust you about democracy! Selfishness, crass ignorance, silly things, and spite, are spread out in all their forms there, in at least 80% of the appearances.

From the most refined forms. Those who explain to you in undefiled terms why if there are poor people it is not their fault to them, that they have nothing to do with that, and have no part of even negligible responsibility, in this drama; but that it is the fault of the poor themselves. These bastards of poor, who, moreover, refuse to consume, whereas that should be on the contrary made compulsory by the law, if necessary punished with a fine or imprisonment. In short, who personalize the responsibilities instead of denouncing the perversity of the system. If they benefit from it, it is only by chance, or thanks to the fact that they work 25 hours per day 1).

Down to the coarsest forms; those who spit their hatred of such or such social and economic category (lazy unemployed people, minor officials, post-office employees… the list is long) or of such population of citizens (immigrants or natives, etc.), in texts stuffed with spelling mistakes.

1) Repetere = ars docendi. The men and the women who currently appear among richest of the world are not those who work more. And conversely, the children reduced in slavery or exploited in the most shameful way, are not those who earn more. All what they earn themselves, it is to die in misery when they are 20 years old, in a work-related accident or because of a work-related disease, if it is not earlier! Well done Mr. Smith! As for the responsibilities, let us speak of them! What occurs each time, it is that benefits are always privatized, but that losses are always socialized! When all is well and that it is a question of distributing large bonuses, large wages, or large golden parachutes, then there, the persons in charge, it is well possible to find them; besides they strive to get in; but when all goes badly, on the other hand, anybody is no longer responsible of course (according to the French president Nicholas Sarkozy in 2008), except for the underlings and the minions of course! Not forgetting these bastards of poor who refuse to consume. That should be prohibited. The Law should make compulsory to consume! In short, so many saint men and so few results! I all what I see in this putting forward (as an excuse) of the work, or of the so-called responsibility, to justify such incomes, or such wages, it is especially a sordid selfishness. What would do these holy men or these supermen if they were one day shipwrecked, with certainly a lot of gold and of banknotes in their bag, but alone, in a deserted and inhospitable island??? How long they would resist before dying of hunger??? Everyone is not Robinson Crusoe! And still, Robinson Crusoe was very happy to have one day a “Friday” as a companion.

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HELPFUL HINTS FOR EVERYBODY.

For ancient druids, as d’Arbois de Jubainville had clearly seen, the anthropomorphous gods are neither good nor perfect. They do not really impose an ethical code that they are themselves far from following. The main thing for men is to try to understand their designs and to please them with offerings and sacrifices. This does not imply that the ancient Celtic society did not have moral rules but that it had an ethical code not imposed by the gods, in conformity with the social contract of the time and which, obeying the power and drawing from the sources of the popular wisdom, regulated life in groups according to a law which, though not completely natural (rectu adgenias), was nevertheless the subject of a consensus.

Pieces of advice valid for everybody therefore, true Celtic hearted and minded persons being all sons and daughters of kings and noblesse obliges! What is important is not to be a descendant of a formerly legally noble family but the nobleness of one’s heart and the sense of honor.

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THE CASE OF FENIANS.

Particularly interesting in this respect is the case of the Fenians that we will reconsider more at length in an appendix.

Coming to the adolescence young men indeed had the possibility of giving up their place in the family and the clan, and of becoming Fenian i.e., a kind of “feral” warrior living in the margin of the society halfway between the civilization and the barbarism. To become Fenian was an acceptable stage in the process of passage at the adulthood and that gave young people more times and space for mature or to find their place as an adult in the society. Cathbad Myers compares it with the status of sadhus in India although there was in the case of the Fenians no specifically religious nature. Fenian stories are full of fantastic adventures, magic hunting, metamorphoses, mystical bards, and places where, as the great poet Yeats put it, "one could not know from one place what the next will be like.” To be on the borders of the civilization and of the wild state, of the conscious and unconscious, is already in itself a kind of allegory. Let us remember that poets often lived at the seaside i.e., at the junction points between the land and the ocean. But even thus “become feral” the Fenian warriors of Scotland and Ireland, admitted that they had nevertheless ethological obligations and their behavior was an example to be followed (a little like Muhammad in Islamic land) for all the classes of the Celtic society, and not only for that of the warriors. The expression “Cothrom Na Feinne” still designates in Gaelic language a kind of chivalry before the word is invented.

In Gaelic of today cothrom na féinne a thabhairt means “to be fair.”

Nach bhfuil cothrom na Féinne á fháil acu: “they’re not being treated equally .”

Chun cothrom na Féinne a thabhairt dí: “to give her her due.”

Cothrom na Féinne a fháil: “to obtain equality.”

In Ireland therefore links still to the Fenians the notions of fair play, justice or equality.

In short, the Gaelic expression “Cothrom na Feinne” still designates an example to be followed (for all the classes of the Celtic society, and not only for that of the warriors, a kind of chivalry before the word is invented BUT VALID FOR EVERYONE.

The motto of the Fenians, that all the warriors swore to respect, was stated indeed as follows.

The Strength in our hands.

The Truth in our hearts.

The Achievement in our word.

N.B. Certain translators give a slightly different version: “Hand which does not tremble, embassies, and argute loqui, or art of good speech”.

To our last information source on druidic ethic in any case, we can therefore, according to Cathbad Myers, to add the various precepts or maxims of the elite of the Irish warriors, the Irish or Scottish vercingets, called Fenians, equivalents of the Germanic berserker; and which constitutes a code of honor a little similar to that of the Japanese samurais; because their behavior was regarded as being an ideal to be reached by all the classes of the society . Cothrom na Féinne in Gaelic language means “justice of Fenians” indeed.

Cothrom: Justice, Equity,

Na Fianna: of the Fenians, of the partisans of Finn.

Thomas William Rolleston, in his famous “Myths and legends of the Celtic race” thus synthesized these maxims.

The son of Luga could say nothing to the point as to why the Fenians would none of him. Then Finn taught him the things befitting a youth of noble birth , and the pieces of advice in question were these :

""If armed service be your design, in a great man's household be quiet, be surly in the narrow pass (to guard].

Without a fault of his beat not your hound ; until you ascertain her guilt, bring not a charge against your wife, in battle meddle not with a buffoon, for, he is but a fool 1).

Stand not up to take part in a brawl ; have naught to do with a madman or a wicked one.

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Two thirds of your gentleness be shown to women and to little children ( those that creep on the floor) and to poets, and be not violent to the common people.

Utter not swaggering speech ; it is a shameful thing to speak too stiffly unless that it be feasible to carry out your words.

So long as you shall live,your lord forsake not; neither for gold nor for other rewards in the world 2) abandon one whom you are pledged to protect.

To a chief do not abuse his people, for that is no work for a man of gentle blood.

Be no talebearer, nor utterer of falsehoods ; be not talkative nor rashly censorious. Stir not up strife against you, however good a man you be.

Be no frequenter of the drinking-house, nor given to carping at the old ; meddle not with a man of mean estate.

Dispense your meat freely ; have no niggard for your familiar. Force not yourself upon a chief, nor give him cause

to speak ill of you.

Stick to your gear ; hold fast to your arms till the stern fight with its weapon glitter be ended.

Be more apt to give than to deny, and follow after gentleness, O son of Luga."

And the son of Luga heeded these counsels, and gave up his bad ways, and he became one

of the best of Finn's men.

1) Allusion to the unfortunate Suibhne.

2) In any event, as the famous epic (Garin le Loherenc) says : the heart of a man is worth all the gold in a land.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ABOUT FIONN ACCORDING TO CATHBAD MYERS

(The Ethical Paradigm of Druidism).

Although Fionn MacCumhall is presented as a simple war leader, all these legends result perhaps from myths relating to a god. The name Fionn indeed means White but in the sense of handsome or bright, and there are altars of the Iron Age devoted to gods bearing names like Vindus and Vindonnus. There is also a connected Welsh character, Gwynn, who has some of the characteristics of a god and shows much similarity with our Irish hunter.

Fionn wants his warriors to be attentive to everything and autonomous, modest, reliable, worthy of confidence, loyal and generous. He wants his men to escape the satires or avoid harming others. He wants his men to deserve the respect which is due to them because of their role in the society, know for what they fight, in order to be worthy of the title of Fenian. There are the lessons which must be learned during adolescence, because the wisdom that they seek to acquire, is the mark of the adulthood.

Fionn cares about justice and defense against the abuses of any kind, including against women and animals; problems which became dramatic in our society during the last decades. He declares: “Two thirds of your gentleness” to women the little children and the poets, not to mean that we must retain a third of it, but simply to say that these people must have a special status and deserve our respect.

In the same way, Fionn also admits that we have moral obligations towards ourselves, and not only towards the others, because it is our own intellectual maturation process which is aimed by the Fenian ethic. And in a sense, it symbolizes our moral obligations towards ourselves when, invited to come into the Sidhe located in the islands of the Blessed , it answers, in a declaration become the rallying cry of the Irish republicans during their rising:

“We would not give up our country if we were to get the world as an estate, and the Country of the Young with it.”

Fionn is therefore subjected to ideals which go beyond him and which are, however, also part of himself. He becomes to himself his own ideal, what, after all, is what every hero does. The Fenians are heroes, not some simple fighters. It is to a change of themselves ranging from human to superhuman that they aspire. By thus expressing his faithfulness to his country, not only Fionn reaffirms the intrinsic value of the aforesaid country, but also his engagement into this process of intellectual maturity, which is a process of discovery. He misses his chance to go to paradise in order to achieve it - what shows at what point with it is important for him!

Distant echo of the very human bull of Cualnge in the saga of Cuchulainn.

“After that the dun bull faced towards the north and recognized the country of Cualnge, he came towards it like a madman… he turned his back to the hill and his heart broke like a nut in his breast ."

Finally, the unhappy one which, if he has intelligence almost equal to that of men, does not have the perversity of them, will die because of their stupidity in this story; which is a touching but very unexpected illustration of the importance of the native land or patriotism.

Cathbad Myers specifies that, according to him, this high-level ethical code applied not only to the individuals but also to the groups of individuals as the whole animal species or ecosystems. Their ethic does not discriminate between the sensitive beings and the non-sensitive beings (for example between animals and plants). To put honor and dignity in the forefront of the moral obligations which we have towards all these beings implies that they are fully recognized as having a value in themselves, as being in themselves invaluable goods, and even if certain beings can effectively be used for others, it is their intrinsic value which must be morally taken into account.

Such is at least the opinion of our friend Cathbad Myers on the impact of the ethology of the Fenians in the ancient or medieval Celtic society.

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WORKING PAPER No. 1.

T.W. Rolleston is as a poet so it is appropriate to notice that the Irish historian Geoffrey Keating delivered us a document a little more abrupt on the severity of the recruitment of the Fenians (of the Celtic berserker of vercinget type).

SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER OF GEOFFREY KEATING (FORAS FEASA AR EIRINN) ABOUT THE FENIANS.

The main rules were the following ones.

1) No man was received into the Fenians, until his father and mother and clan and relatives gave guarantees that they would never demand any retribution from anyone for his death, so that he might look to no one to avenge him but to himself.

2) No one was admitted into the Fenians until he had become a velede and had made up the twelve books of the veledae (Filidheacht)

3) No one was admitted into the Fenians until a large pit reaching above his knees had been made for him, and he was placed in it with his shield and a hazel staff as long as a warrior's arm in his hand; and nine warriors, with nine spears, were to approach him, leaving the space of nine immaire (furrows?) between him and them; and they hurled nine spears together at him, and if he were wounded in spite of his shield and his hazel staff, he would not be received into the Fenians.

4) No man was admitted into the Fenians until, having his hair plaited, he was sent through several woods with all the Fenians in pursuit of him with a view to wounding him, while he got but the odds of a single tree over them.

5) No man was admitted into the Fenians whose weapons trembled in his hand.

6) No man was admitted among them if a branch of a tree in the woods unloosed from its plait a single braid of his hair.

7) No man was admitted among them if he broke a withered bough beneath his feet.

8) No man was admitted among them unless he leaped over a tree as high as his forehead, and unless he stooped beneath a tree as low as his knee, through the great agility of his body.

9) No man was received into the Fenians unless he could pluck a thorn from his foot with his hand without stopping in his race for the purpose.

10) No man was admitted among them unless he had sworn to the king of the Fenians that he would be faithful and submissive to him.

There were four injunctions placed on everyone admitted to the ranks of the Fenians. The first injunction was not to accept a dowry with a wife, but to choose her for her good manners and her accomplishments; the second injunction, not to force a woman (cf. Quran chapter 4 line of verse 34: “….As to those women on whose part you see ill conduct, admonish them , refuse to share their beds, beat them …**”; the third injunction, not to refuse a man asking for valuables or food; the fourth injunction, that none of them should flee before nine warriors.

* Why twelve? It is obviously a symbolic figure meaning especially that the Fenians were not to be people of one book and of a single one (like Jews Christians and Muslims). They must have read many books and if possible about the most various though fundamental subjects.

** The professional liars already working in connection with the word Jihad ( journalists politicians or taqiyist intellectuals of their trade), claim, of course, that the Arabic verb zaraba means in no way bodily moral beating in this case but simple putting her back on the right track by virtue of the separation. All the question is: “how the average Muslims, the Muslim in the street, understood this line of verse over the centuries ?” The Quran is certainly an (uncreated) perfect work but it is clear hat on this point it should have been more obvious.

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HELPFUL HINTS (CONTINUATION).

Pieces of advice valid for everybody, true Celtic hearted and minded people being all like sons and daughters of kings and noblesse oblige! What is important today is not to be the descendant of a family formerly legally noble but the nobleness of one's heart and the sense of honor by serving with a noble purpose.

DEONTOLOGY OF THE TRADE OF A LEADER PRINCE OR LORD.

A fo ben, bid bont. Inside the category of the warriors, the leader had himself his own ethical priorities. “The science of the government is part of other sciences without being higher than them. It would be even rather an art, i.e., the implementation of some principles of science, and not the search for the principles. As art, it is classified among practical arts requiring only some notions of the ordinary life, some tact and the knowledge of the History. The inalienable rights of the individual pass before those of the society since without individuals, there would be no society” (Henry Lizeray. The S.D.D.).

The Indians say of the rajah that he ensures their good behavior (1st function), protects them (2nd function), and feeds them (3rd function). He receives in most Indo-European peoples a scepter, a kind of baton of authority, symbolizing the first function. He sits on a stone throne, connecting him to the chthonian forces of the third function. His marriage is sacred (hierogamy), because symbolizing his union with the Mother-Earth, goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if this term is preferred, of fertility.

In the Indo-European Weltanschauung , there existed indeed a character who embodied himself the three functions, because he was the personification of the unity of the community, his central point: the king. There exist some Indo-European languages referring to the concept of race or line to designate the king, and particularly the Germanic or German peoples for whom the king is the “könig” or the “kong” (in Norwegian language). Most other Indo-European peoples used a derivation of the Proto-Indo-European word *reg- to name the king. This word is also the radical which gave rectus in Latin: “right,” German: “recht.” The king is therefore the right man, i.e., the one who says the law, who establishes the righteousness. He is not the one who orders but the one who “regulates,” who organizes the society just like the god-or-demons of the first function organize the universal chaos. He is also the one who does justice. The king is therefore a representative of the first function. Moreover in France, under the Former Regime, the king is called “the bishop of those outside.” He takes part in certain religious and sacrificial rites. The king is a priest in a way , but incomplete.

Nevertheless he is also an incarnation of the warrior function, as the fact that the king was elected among the warriors, certainly within the aristocracy of the tribe, indicates it. Let us remind nevertheless that the kings of the majority of the Indo-European peoples, although they are originally warriors, had no longer the right to fight personally after their election or their establishment.

The king lastly, guarantees the fertility and the wealth of the community. He must make rain, to make good harvests, as well as human and animal fertility, possible. A king under whom that does not occur is a bad king rejected by the god-or-demons. Our modern democracies are less demanding towards the powers that be.

A person with defective health, a disabled person, a patient, an insane man, cannot become king. The king is a feeder. He organizes feasts. He must be able to answer the food request from his subjects. A recurring symbol among Indo-European peoples is the inexhaustible cauldron besides, from where food for his people leaves sufficiently, and which even makes it possible among the Celts, to resurrect the warriors killed in action. The king must be rich. The king is also a representative of the third function.

The establishment rites of the king show it besides clearly. So the king of Leinster received a white silk shirt - the white being the color of the first function (the druids were white dressed) -; a spear symbolizing the second function; and a shoe full of silver, the symbol of wealth, therefore of the third function (cf the life of Maedoc of Ferns).

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THE IDEAL GREAT MONARCH.

Concerning the role of the kings in the ancient Celtic society here what Philip Freeman tells us in 2006 (the philosopher and the druids. Pages 95 to 98).

The Críth Gablach is a Law tract , written in Gaelic language, probably in the first half of the 8th century. It is an attempt at analysis of the status of ordinary free lay men; of clergy, of the professional orders. The non-free and half-free men are mentioned only by the way. The free lay men are divided into two principal classes, the commoners and the noble ones. The kings are regarded as belonging to the nobility. Within these two social classes there exist nevertheless many subclasses, and the author had perhaps exaggerated the complexity of this ancient hierarchy. After the part devoted to the status of the king, is a strange appendix on the kingship, where the kings have also as a task to do justice and to protect nature (cf Buaid No.1).

N.B. They are obviously titles of chapters and only this list shows the subtlety of the distinctions made by the Celtic law which was not only the simple good will of the king.

Here is the translation, given without prejudice (may our Irish friends forgive me and set to work in order to correct it).

Ma be ri rofesser/ If you be a king, you should know

recht flatho/ the prerogative of a ruler…………

Cia annsom fidbeime/What are the most oppressive cases of tree-cutting

fiachaib bacth?/ for which fools are mulcted?

Briugid caille,/The feeders of the forest,

coll eidnech./The ivied hazel.

Esnill bes dithernam/A danger from which there is no escape

dire fidnemid nair./is the penalty for felling the sacred tree.

Ni bie fidnemid/Thou shalt not cut a sacred tree

fiachaib secht n-airech, and escape with the fines for the seven noble trees

ara teora bu/on account of the fine of three cows

inna bunbeim bis./that is fixed for cutting its stem.

Biit alaili secht/There are others, seven

setlaib losae./atoned for in seoit due for undergrowth.

Laumur ar dochondaib/ Let me venture for the benefit of the young novice

dildi cailli:/to state the immune things of the forest:

cairi fulocht benar,/a single cauldron's cooking wood that is cut,

bas chnoe foisce /a handful of ripe nuts

frisna laim i saith soi./to which one stretches not his hand in satiety.

Slanem de/ Freest of it all

dithgus dithli./ is the right of removal.

Dire ndaro,/The penalty for the oak,

dire a gabal mar,/the penalty for lobbing its larger limbs

mess beobethad;/with its life-sustaining mast;

bunbem n-ibair/the stem cutting of the yew;

inonn cumbe cuilinn,/The same penalty for cutting the holly tree.

Annsom de/ Most oppressive of it all

dire secht n-aithlech/ is the penalty of the seven commoners of the forest

asa mbi bo:/for each of which there is a cow as payment:

bunbeim beithe,/the stem cutting of the birch

baegal fernae,/the peril of the alder,

fube sailech;/the undermining of the willow.

sluind airriu aithgein/Declare restitution for them.

anog sciath/the maiming of the whitehorn

sceo draigin;/ and of the blackthorn;

dringid co fedo forball,/it restitution extends to the undergrowth of the wood,

forball ratho,/the undergrowth of fern,

raited, aine,/of bog myrtle, of reeds,

acht a ndilse do flaithib./save that these are free to lords.

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INDIVIDUAL ETHIC

AND ETHIC OF PERSONS IN CHARGE.

Dliged (Duty) of kings.

Duty of knights.

For he [Cuchulainn] did not deem it honorable or seemly to take the horses or garments or arms from the bodies of those he killed.

Duty of soldiers.

« I shall not slay you, I do not wound charioteers or messengers or men unarmed »« (Cuchulainn, Tain Bo Cualnge, Lebor Laignech).

Max Weber, Politik als Beruf (1918/19) in Gesammelte politische Schriften.

“You should resist evil with force, otherwise you are responsible for its getting out of hand.”

Nothing wrong with this maxim except that the term "intelligence" would be more appropriate. Anyway, what is sure it is that one of the first thinkers having taken over the ancient distinction or opposition of the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) between personal ethic and political morality, or between the individual ethic and the sense of responsibility which must motivate the powers that be (the good kings like Cormac Mac Airt once, the opinion makers in today's democracies) is the German philosopher Max Weber, one of the fathers of modern sociology. He was born in Erfurt in 1864 and died in Munich in 1920. He taught, among other places, in Freiburg and in Vienna. In 1918, he helped found the Liberal German Democratic Party.

Weber not only exercised a lasting influence on the ethical debate; he helped to give it its current shape. Reacting to the deep social and political crises at the beginning of the 20thCentury, he was the first to introduce the notion of responsibility into political ethical discourse. The doctrine of ethic prevailing in politics at this time held that what counts are the good intentions, ignoring the real consequences of one’s actions and showing no readiness to take responsibility for the undesirable results of actions taken with the right intentions……. Weber does not intend to abolish morality: what he, like the pragmatists, challenges is the notion of a ‘pure’ morality, which itself falls into immorality and prepares the way for the decline of social values. The moralist or upholder of an ethic of convictions has already achieved his goal when he intends to be generous and only generous. When he has developed the right intention, when he has purified his will of all evil intentions and all immoral thoughts, then he becomes a good person : a journalist for example (but not a surgeon) !.

Coontrary to Adam Smith’s invisible hand but rather in conformity with Malthus, Max Weber proposes to concretize and delimit the ethical horizon by calling attention to the responsibility for foreseeable consequences. The central focus of ethic is no longer merely the good intention but also the overall result of an action, insofar as it can be foreseen, evaluated, and accounted for. This means keeping the realities of the day-to-day world in sight: one must analyze the world as it is and not as it would be. Taking responsibility means that one cannot presuppose the world or a human being to be the way one wants them to be. The ethic of responsibility reckons with the average failings of human beings and does not rely on the intervention at the very least moment of a polytheistic deus ex machina or a divine invisible hand like Adam Smith. You have no right to suppose their goodness and perfection (Max Weber, Politik als Beruf, in Gesammelte politische Schriften).

The conclusion of all that is simple.

We are free to do what we want with regard to one’s personal life, one’s personal money, one’s house, one’s garden, one’s morality; we have no right to make the consequences or the weight of them fall directly or indirectly on one’s neighbors if they do not agree with such a compulsory solidarity. To give alms at the expense of other people, with the money of others, is a perversion of morality. A king or a great lord can do what he wants personally, with his own money. He has no right to impose his morality or do what he wants with the money of his vassals. As for the money of his vassals or any other similar subject (morals, etc.), the duty incumbent upon those in charge is, on the contrary, to carry out their husbandry “ as a good parent.”

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INSTRUCTIONS OF CUCHULAINN TO HIS ADOPTIVE SON LUGAID.

Below the in a way “ethical” pieces of advice (tegas flatha in Gaelic language, magga ariyattangika in Buddhism) that Cuchulainn gives to his adoptive son, Lugaid of the red striped, the future king of the kings in the country.

As his master Sencha had learned to him (a great people never breaks the rules of the fair play with an unknown) and as we said it on several occasions, but it will never be repeated enough; Setanta Cuchulainn indeed never transgressed the Fir Fer, killed neither the charioteers , neither the messengers, nor unarmed people; moreover it seemed to him neither noble, nor beautiful, to take the horses, the clothing, or the weapons, from killed men (in other words to strip them. See the story of the cattle raid of Cooley).

They are obviously ethical gessa of kission level, as all those which concern the kings or the great lords. They were indeed intended to die on the battlefield one day or another, without living to grow old, and to be reincarnated in the parallel world of paradisiac nature, of the brave men, called Vindomagos.

You will not be cause (taerracht) of vehement and fierce quarrels ?

You will not be arrogant (discir), inaccessible, haughty.

You will not be intractable, experiencing hubris, precipitate, impulsive.

You will not be bent down by the intoxication of having much wealth.

You will not be an ale-polluting flea in the house of a provincial king.

You will not make too many feasts to foreigners.

You will not visit disreputable people, incapable of entertaining you as a king.

You shall not let prescription close on illegal possession.

Let witnesses be examined of who is the heir of land.

Let the scholars (senchaid) combine in truthful action in your presence.

Let the lands of the brethren be ascertained in their lifetime, peacefully.

Let genealogical lists be updated when generations multiply in branches,

Let the living be called up ; let them be revived on oath.

The place that the dead have resided in.

Let the heir be preserved in his lawful possession.

Let the strangers, on the other hand, be driven off the patrimony, by force if necessary.

You will not relate garrulously.

You will not discourse noisily.

You will not mock,

you will not insult,

you will not deride old people.

You will not be ill-opinioned [you will not suppose ill] of anyone.

You will not make difficult demands (geis).

You will not turn away anybody.

You will be obedient to the teaching of the wise.

Caín-ois. Caín-era. Caín-airlice.

Grant as it is necessary to do it. Refuse as it is necessary to do it . Advise as it is necessary to do it.

You will be remembering of the instructions of the old.

You will be a follower of the rules of your fathers.

You will not be cold-hearted to friends.

You will be strong to your foes.

You will not be stakeholder in the brawls or the quarrels???

Nírbat scélach athchossánach.

You will not speak ill of others

You will extort nothing.

You will not hoard [like an avaricious];

Consecha do chúrsachad i n-gnímaib antechtai.

You will reject and blame unbecoming deeds.

You will not sacrifice truthfulness to the will of certain men.

You will not reap ???? (tathboingid) that you be not repentant.

You will not show hubris in your triumph, that you be not obnoxious.

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You will not be lazy, that you be not like dead.

You will not be too precipitate, that you be not vulgar.

Do you consent to follow these words, my son?"

(Serglige conculainn The Wasting Sickness of Cúchulainn and the One Jealousy of Aemer ).

Personal Commentary of the author of this compilation.

The future is built at every moment by the individual behavior and a better comprehension of the cause and effect law: it is therefore important to bring all one’s attention to the present moment, in order to make the best possible choices. And this either the issue is immense or tiny, because nothing is unimportant.

A flapping of the wings of a butterfly in Paris can a few weeks later unleash a storm over New York. This image describes the butterfly effect such as it was highlighted by the meteorologist Edward Lorenz. Edward Lorenz discovered that in the weather systems, a negligible variation of an element can increase gradually, until causing enormous changes at the end of a certain time. This concept does not relate to only the weather, it was studied in various fields.

The actions of body, word, and mind, have consequences for ourselves and for what surrounds us, the other men as our environment. In the druidism, an action is therefore neither good nor evil in itself, but it is favorable or unfavorable (matus/anmatus) depending on the motivation and the state of mind which underlie it. Consequently, certain evil deeds can also appear sometimes very useful. This is why, moreover, there exist God-or-demons of anger of war of jealousy, etc.

You will not turn away anybody. It is not the case of certain administrations in France (justice, taxes) which allow themselves a little too often not to answer the letters that you send to them or to close certain affairs, however, legally considered as criminal, questioning some lawyers.

You will be strong to your foes. And not you would be strong to the weak and weak to the powerful, what certain bloggers reproached to the journalist Pascale Clark (Superno, Marianne Monday, March 12, 2012).

Consecha do chúrsachad i n-gnímaib antechtai. You will reject and blame unbecoming deeds. Let us notice that our hero is not a god but a demigod enjoying no particular isma unlike Muhammad, that this formula is nevertheless less constraining than the famous “You are the best of peoples ever caused for mankind; you enjoin the good and forbid the evil” of the Muslims (chapter 3 line of verse 110 of the Holy Quran) and that, moreover, it applies only to the civil life (therefore can come down to “condemn what is obviously illegal"). The only problem, it is that ancient druids equated justice and truth. Was just what was true or conversely was true what was just. To reject what is evil , it is already much and even perhaps sufficient, but to enjoin the good….then that leaves the door wide open to all totalitarianisms. Quran still, chapter 3 line of verse 19: “Truly, the religion with God is Islam or submission (to God)”.

The principle “what is not prohibited is by contrast allowed” is more compatible with our idea of human freedom. To enjoin the good!!! Brrr!!! The door wide open to all the dictatorships by definition especially when it is believed that, contrary to the Bible, the Quran does not constitute a human account of the divine message (as attested by the scientists and wise men of the Synagog or of the Church) but is the “original text” of the divine revelation **. At the time same of the revelation, these words were memorized then recorded (by the companions of the prophet) in a single collection by using a very rigorous method of cross-checking the sources (sic, end of the quotation).

Do you consent to follow these words, my son?"

Said differently and, in other words, one would believe it is the anti portrait of certain French presidents we know as regards the beginning (living illustration, moreover, of the old proverb about the pot calling the kettle black, until making us feel sick) but after at the end that turns into the identikit of a “republican” candidate in the campaign. The political program of Lugaid is indeed especially conservative what is hardly astonishing for a responsible Head of State of course, and

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attaches much importance to the defense of the property rights; therefore we would say that it corresponds rather to that of our modern republicans in the traditional sense of the word consequently if it was not the work of a monarch.

** The theory of the Uncreated Quran. My God but how can people believe that??? The eye has its blind point known as spot of Mariotte. We are well obliged to admit that some of our peers have a brain also equipped unfortunately with an intellectual equivalent of the Mariotte’s blind spot. Come at certain places of the road (in curves or slopes) their brain passes into neutral, it functions no longer. Their faith has no longer something to do with reason.

Remains, of course, the assumption where the Quran would be a demonic or diabolical word since certain verses recognize explicitly that Satan can mislead even the greatest prophets: “We did not send before you any messenger or prophet except that when he spoke, Satan threw into it [some misunderstanding]. (Chapter 22 line of verse 52.)

In what concerns us, we also refuse nevertheless this assumption because the Quran is well a human word and even to its claim to be only a divine word it is precisely human, too human, terribly human. And we respect consequently Islam and the Muslims only in the exact extent that they respect us , we uns who are knowingly kuffar, that is called the reciprocity, it is one of the basic principle of every life in society. On a negative level that produces the law of retaliation theorized by the Hebrews in the Bible, that produces the need for punishing every ill deed in the former druidism. As St. Patrick himself admits it in the Senchus Mor, there is strengthening of the social cohesion (at least in the case of pagan societies) when an ill deed does not remain unpunished (Intud I ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur).

On a more positive level that produces that produces, eh well now, the greatest respect precisely: I do not do to others what I would not like that they do to me (Golden rule). Then small question now, you who believe in a God (in the design of God that is designated with the name of Allah), do you respect me, who I am neither Jew neither Christian neither Muslim nor Parsee but whose ideas waver according to the subjects or my mood between pantheism (everything is God) Panentheism (everything is in God) agnosticism (I am not sure about the path pertaining to worship which must be followed ) even atheism?

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PIECES OF ADVICE FROM CORMAC TO HIS SON CAIRBRE.

(Cormac is a king of Ireland having theoretically reigned in the 3rd century.)

One of the most interesting texts on this subject, in addition to that which is ascribed to the Hesus Cuchulainn himself, is that which is entitled Teagasc an Riogh (instructions for a king, magga ariyattangika in Buddhism). This text is supposed to have been composed by the high king of Ireland Cormac, during his spiritual retreat in Cleite Acaill on the Boinne (in the 3rd century); for his successor Cairpre. This treatise was used to educate whole generations for centuries. It contains things which were obviously added to look Christian, but the part below seems stripped of every interpolation.

To make short, we removed a certain number of repetitions, and we invite everyone to consult the various translations of this very revealing document.

Here are thus some extracts

Tecosca Cormaic. Instruction of King Cormac.

Version T.W. Rolleston 1910.

Let the king restrain the great,

Let him exalt the good,

Let him establish peace,

Let him plant law,

Let him protect the just,

Let him bind the unjust,

Let his warriors be many and his counselors few,

Let him shine in company and be the sun of the mead hall,

Let him punish with a full fine wrong done knowingly,

and with a half-fine wrong done in ignorance.

Cairbry said, "What are good customs for a tribe to pursue?"

"They are as follows," replied Cormac.

To have frequent assemblies,

To be ever inquiring, to question the wise men,

To keep order in assemblies,

To follow ancient lore,

Not to crush the miserable,

To keep faith in treaties,

To consolidate kinship,

Fighting men not to be arrogant,

To keep contracts faithfully,

To guard the frontiers against every ill.

Tell me, O Cormac, said Cairbry, what are good customs for the giver of a feast?

And Cormac said:

To have lit lamps,

To be active in entertaining the company,

To be liberal in dispensing ale,

To tell stories briefly,

To be of joyous countenance,

To keep silence during recitals.

Tell me, O Cormac, said his son once, what were your habits when you were a lad?”

And Cormac said:

I was a listener in woods,

I was a gazer at stars,

I pried into no man's secrets,

I was mild in the hall,

I was fierce in the fray,

I was not given to making promises,

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I reverenced the aged,

I spoke ill of no man in his absence,

I was fonder of giving than of asking."

"If you listen to my teaching," said Cormac:—

"Do not deride any old person though you be young

Nor any poor man though you be rich,

Nor any naked though you be well clad,

Nor any lame though you be swift,

Nor any blind though you be keen-sighted,

Nor any invalid though you be robust,

Nor any dull though you be clever,

Nor any fool though you be wise.

Yet be not slothful, nor fierce, nor sleepy, nor niggardly, nor feckless nor envious, for all these are hateful.

Do not join in blasphemy, nor be the butt of an assembly; be not moody in an alehouse, and never forget a tryst.

If you will listen to me, said Cormac, this is my instructions for the management of your household and your realm:

Let not a man with many friends be your steward,

Nor a woman with sons and foster sons your housekeeper,

Nor a greedy man your butler,

Nor a man of much delay your miller,

Nor a violent, foul-mouthed man your messenger,

Nor a grumbling sluggard your servant,

Nor a talkative man your counselor,

Nor a tippler your cupbearer,

Nor a short-sighted man your watchman,

Nor a bitter, haughty man your doorkeeper,

Nor a tender-hearted man your judge,

Nor an ignorant man your leader,

Nor an unlucky man your counselor."

In other words, and to sum up, let’s say that the ancient druids did not wait for the Prince of Machiavelli to think that it is sometimes necessary when one is a political leader to act differently from what every honest man should do individually. For example, never listen to flatterers in order to avoid the court effect. Flatterers who, it is true, should hardly be swarming in the entourage of an ordinary man.

The Machiavellian prince must be endowed with moral and political virtues (based on cunning and force) and must master the art of war. Si vis pacem para bellum. A good prince will keep on if he has the sense of anticipation, and the CARE, the art of grasping singular situations. As fortune is a “rushing river,” the Prince must prevent the pangs of fate, act to anticipate the future. Machiavelli even goes so far as to advise his prince the duplicity by stressing that what is important is to appear fair in the eyes of the people, to appear fair, and not to be really so personally (difference between the being of the Prince and his appearing).

What the druids did not advocate anyway. What the ancient druids simply advise their prince or vergobret is to implement positive virtues, we say well positive virtues, which are generally not expected from an ordinary man. In a word a prince or a vergobret must have certain qualities IN ADDITION. And if these qualities are not innate in him, the prince or the vergobret must force himself to develop them. All in all, it will be the same in politics.

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PIECES OF ADVICE OF VINDOBARROS 1) TO THE FENIANS. (MODERN ADAPTATION IN THE WAY OF ROLLESTON).

Because it is time now to summarize to do ourselves to be a Rolleston.

Praise each irresistible force, see positively each irrestible force, and God or the Demiurge will be in you.

To act ethically it is to follow the natural laws that nobody can destroy.

The universe which surrounds us is an eternal chaos, and by that immensely divine.

This chaos entails a perpetual motion, and from it rise the forces of nature, to which we are indebted, because on those our life and our death depend.

The universe or bitos procreates unceasingly and has no limits, it lasts an eternity (aiu).

Believe in a harmonious life, in connection with the natural forces, whose Man is witness, but also in charge (rectu adgenias).

The natural forces which prevailed, prevail, and will prevail, will be then for you. The faith, it is the instinct. Reason, fight, honor, and knowledge, contribute to its blossoming.

Man has no influence on the intentions of the god-or-demons, who are all mighty.

Like the Fate god-or-Demons give always some signs.

The difficulty, all the difficulty, is to interpret them.

Evil and suffering are inescapable, and it is by these strong acts that they let you know that you are as one of them.

Death constitutes the essential condition of the evolution.

Life is a fight, and therefore a movement towards the perfection.

The struggle brings instinctively each human being towards it gives force to it.

Our mistakes are erased only by our actions.

Work on you, acquire knowledge, train your body, and sharpen your mind, because your capacities are infinite.

Gain force, seeks knowledge, behave always with honor, and you will be a man, a true one, you will do credit to your God or the Demiurge.

Improve also reason and faith, uprightness, responsibility, courage, faithfulness, will, as well as the know-how.

Fight ignorance, inconsistency, cheating, submission, perfidy, not forgetting the fear, the disease, and the passivity… which are in you 2).

Your community to you is your single raison d'être. Never let it neither be destroyed nor to be shaky. Defend this one as well as the land where it lived quite before you. Because they do not depend on the worship on the god-or-demons, but on you and your family.

Good and freedom are always reduced to what helps your community your family and the land where you live. The evil, it is what is bad for your community, your family and the land where you live.

Who cannot understand it could not rule on you your family or the land where you live. Never leave your community, your family, and the land, where you live together, to become the prey of a stranger , stand together with them.

Like your freedom, that of your family, as that of the land where you remain, fight for it as you can and difficulty

Pick no quarrel with your close relations, be good with them.

Do not kill your neighbor without reason, don’t betray him, don’t steal him.

Respect the culture and the language of your forefathers, it is a sacred duty towards them.

Family gives immortality to you, it ensures your posterity.

Honor your ancestors, because you are indebted for them of your life.

Here are what are your natural rights, they are neither good nor evil, they are like nature itself.

1. Current sovereign God-or-demon of the Celtic Panth-eon or pleroma for our Irish friends.

2) Symbolized by the disease of the Ulaid in Ireland (Ces noinden).

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FOLK WISDOM.

It is clear that, in spite of the protests of (Swiss) Savoyard Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his delirium about the noble savage, injustice exists and there are psychopaths or sociopaths. 1% of the population? There are therefore hundreds of them wandering freely in your town, tens in your district. And if you add the liars the thieves the cowards and so on…

Gaelic language, which is not a politically correct language, dares to say it in one of its proverbs in colored enough words, “drochubh, drochéan,” “bad egg, bad bird.” An unjust act is the act of an unjust person.

If you are the culprit of a bad ubh (egg), you will plead guilty, or not guilty, according to the way in which you are able to reach an agreement with the opposing side. But to be at the same time “guilty without being responsible” for a bad egg, it is necessary to be a French politician, if not that remains beyond the means of the common run of people.

Incidentally, in English, the second official language of the Irish Republic, “to take rank or silk” means for a lawyer being appointed to a higher rank.

The proverb which follows, although having nothing to do directly with the noble trade of lawyers specialized in the divorces, is obviously not completely out of matter.

“Cuir síoda ar ghabhar agus is gabhar i gconaí.”

“Put silk on a goat, she remains still a goat.”

Gaelic wisdom implies another case, a species of anti-law, in which there is no law, see the proverb below. On the other hand, it is unadvised referring it too often, because it is rarely admissible in a court !

“níl aon dlí ar an riachtanas”: “Necessity knows no law.”

Some of these maxims undoubtedly have Fenians as origin but it is important to remind here that the behavior of the Fenians was regarded as an example to be followed (a little like Muhammad in Islamic land) even for all the other classes of the Celtic society , and not only for that of the warriors. Besides the Gaelic expression “Cothrom na Feinne” designates still in Gaelic language this kind of chivalry before the word is invented.

VARIOUS PIECES OF ADVICE AND WARNING STATEMENTS THEREFORE, FOR THE COMMON RUN OF PEOPLE.

Gaelic Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings by T.D. MacDonald – Sirling 1926.

Abair ach beagan agus abair gu math e. [Say but little and say it well.]

Aithnichear an leomhan air scriob de iongann [The lion is known by the scratch of his claw].

An ràmh is fhaisg air laimh, iomair leis [The oar that's nearest at hand, row with it].

An neach nach cìnn na chadal, Cha chìnn e na dhuisg [He who will not prosper in his sleep. Will not prosper when awake].

An làmh a bheir 'si a gheibh, Mar a d'thugar do dhroch dhuin'e [The hand that gives is the hand that will receive. Except when given to a bad man].

A lion beag ìs bheagan, mar a dh' ith an cat an t-iasg [Little by little, as the cat eats the fish].

An rud a nithear gu math, chithear a bhuil [What is well done will be shown by results].

An uair a bhios sinn ri òrach Bidheadhmaid ri òrach; 'S nuair a bhios sinn ri maorach, Bidheadhmaid ri maorach [When we are seeking gold, let us be seeking gold and when we are seeking bait let us be seeking bait].

Am fear nach gheidh na h-airm 'nam na sìth, Cha bhi iad aige 'n am a chogaidh [Who does not keep his arms in times of peace, will have no arms in times of war].

Air rèir do mheas ort fhèin 'S ann a mheasas càch thu [According as you esteem yourself others will esteem you].

A cheud sgeul air fear an taighe, Is sgeul gu làth' air an aoidh [The first story from the host, and tales till morning from the guest].

Am fear a bhios fad aig an aiseig Gheibh e thairis uaireigin [He that waits long at the ferry will get across sometime].

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Am fear nach seall roimhe Seallaidh e as a dheigh [He who will not look before him will look behind him].

An ràthad fada glan, is an ràthad goirid salach [The long clean road, and the short dirty road].

An rud nach gabh leasachadh, 'S fheudar cur suas leis [What cannot be helped must be put up with].

An rud a thig gu dona falbhaidh e leis a ghaoith [What is got by guile will disappear with the wind].

Buinidh urram do'n aois [Honor belongs to old age].

Bheir an èigin air rud-eigin a dheanamh [Necessity will get something done].

Bheirear comhairle seachad ach cha toirear giùlan [Council can be given, but not conduct].

Bior a d'dhòrn na fàisg; Easbhuidheachd ri d' nàmhaid na ruisg; Ri gearradh-sgian a d' fheol na èisd; Beisd nimheil ri d' bheò na duisg [A thorn in your grasp do not squeeze; your wants to your enemy do not bare; the dagger's point to your flesh do not hear; a venomous reptile do not rouse].

Bithidh sonas an lorg na caitheamh [Felicity follows generosity].

Bithidh cron duine cho mòr ri beinn mas leir dha fhèin e [A man's faults will be as large as a mountain ere he himself sees them].

B'fhearr a bhi gun bhreith na bhi gun teagasg [Better be without being than without instruction].

B'fhearr gun tòiseachadh na sguir gun chriochnachadh [Better not to begin than stop without finishing].

Cha tig as a phoit ach an toit a bhios innte [No fumes from the pot, but from what it contains].

Cha'n fhiach gille gun char, 'S cha'n fhiach gille nan car [The man without a turn is worthless, and the man of many turns is worthless].

Cha'n fhiach bròn a ghnàth, 'S cha'n fhiach ceòl a ghnàth [Sorrowing always is not good, and music (mirth) always is not good].

Cha'n eil fealladh ann cho mòr ris an gealladh gun choimhlionadh [There is no deceit so great as a promise unfulfilled].

Cha'n eil saoi gun choimeas [There is no hero without comparison].

Cha sgeul rùin e is fios aig triuir air [It is no secret when three know it].

Eiridh tonn air uisge balbh [Waves will rise on silent water].

Feuch gu bheil do theallach fhéin sguaibte, ma's tog thu luath do choimhearsnaich [See that your own hearth is swept before you lift your neighbor's ashes].

Gealladh gun a'choimhghealladh, is miosa sin na dhiultadh [Promising but not fulfilling is worse than refusing].

Is fhearr na'n t-òr sgeul air inns' air chòir [Better than gold is the tale well told].

Is fhearr bloigh bheag le bheannachd, na bloigh mór le mallachd [Better a small portion with a blessing than a large portion with a cursing].

Is fhearr còmhairl na thrath, na tiodhlac fadalach [Timely advice is better than a late gift].

Na las sop nach urrainn duit féin a chuir as [Do not light a fire that you cannot yourself put out].

Tagh do chomhluadar ma'n tagh thu do dheoch [Choose your company before you choose your drink].

Thig crioch air an saoghal, ach mairidh gaol is ceòl [The world will pass away, but love and music will endure].

Na sir 's na seachainn an cath [Neither seek nor shun the fight].

Aithnichear duine air a chuideachd [A man is known by his company].

Am fear a ghleidheas a theanga, gleidhidh e a charaid [He who holds his tongue keeps his friend].

Faodaidh fearg sealltainn a stigh air cridh an duine ghlic, ach còmhnaichidh i an cridh an amadain [Anger may look in on a wise man's heart, but it abides in the heart of a fool].

Theid duine gu bàs air sgàth an nàire [A man will die to save his honor].

Gaelic Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings from "A Handbook of the Scottish Gaelic World" by Michael Newton, Four Courts Press 2000.

Cha nigh na tha de uisge anns a' mhuir ar ca\irdeas- (All the water in the ocean could not wash away our kinship.)

An leanabh a dh'fhagar dha fhein, cuiridh e a mhathair gu naire [The child who is left to himself will bring shame to his mother ].

Cuimhnich air na daoine bhon tanaig thu [Remember the people from whom you descend].

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Am fear a labhras olc mu 'mhnaoi, tha e a cur mi-chliu air fhein [The man who speaks ill of his wife ruins his own reputation].

Bheirinn cuid-oidhche dha ged a bhiodh ceann fir fo 'achlais [I would give him food and lodging for the night even if he had a man's head under his arm].

Gus an traighear a' mhuir le cliabh, cha bhi fear fial falamh [Until the ocean is emptied with a basket, the generous man will never be empty-handed].

Gach cuis gu cumhnant [Let every business be done by agreement].

Cha bhi suaimhneas aig eucoir no seasamh aig droch-bheairt [Wrong will not rest, nor will ill-deed stand].

Cha mhair a' bhreug ach seal [A lie will not last for long].

Am fear a chaill a naire is a mhodh, chaill e na bh' aige [The person who lost his propriety and his manners lost all he had].

Feumaidh an talamh a chuid fhein [The earth -that is, the grave- will get its share].

Am fear a gheibh gach latha bas, 's e as fhearr a bhitheas beo [The man who finds death each day is the man who lives best].

Chan eil air a' chruadal ach cruadhachadh ris [The only remedy for hardship is to harden to it].

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REMINDER ON THE TEAGASC NA RIOGH.

In this draft essay, we have had therefore the opportunity to say a word of the Irish literary genre of the Teagasc na Riogh.

The 'Teagasc na Riogh' is a book of kingly instruction written by high king Cormac mac Airt. It forms a dialog between himself and his son.

But it’s actually a much older and universal literary genre.

It is in Egypt and in Mesopotamia that we find the first written documents portraying the rights and duties of the leader.

The first documents from which we benefit must nevertheless be analyzed as some forms of auto-panegyric emanating from the pharaohs themselves, and this, despite the variety of these testimonies: epigraphic inscriptions on the pyramids as well as historical accounts or written documents of the type private.

The communication gradually ceases to be one-sided, insofar as, at the end of the Old Kingdom and during the period of crisis that is the First Intermediate Period (22st-21st centuries before our era), written documents appear which seem to emanate from the entourage of Pharaoh and which take the form of pieces of advice addressed to the leader, even of a criticism. The New Kingdom (15th-10th centuries before our era) saw the dialog widen even more since hymns to Pharaoh are developed in it, some praise enumerating his qualities and prerogatives, that the priests had to read before the people. This quick overview therefore clearly suggests that, from the period of ancient Egypt, the portrait of the ideal ruler was built, intended for the people but also for Pharaoh himself:

The hymns to the Pharaoh of the New Kingdom clearly underline the strongly religious dimension that these written documents took on from earliest antiquity. Because, in the collective imagination of the ancient Egyptians, the function of pharaoh is divine, the man who assumes the responsibility for it must embody the perfection of humanity and, in so doing, be the depositary of the Maat, a virtue which must guide the actions of all the other men ……

The Egyptian Decalogue is, moreover, made up of 42 sins listed in hollow or by contrast in what is called negative confession, which concludes the judgment of souls in the room of the two Maat according to the Egyptian religion.

The Mirrors (Speculum), which appeared in the Carolingian era, are intended to send back to the princes the ideal image of the ruler: a model of wisdom. Written by clerics, they enact the moral duties attached to the royal function and the virtues essential to every prince. They also express the will of the ecclesiastical power to control and limit the field of action of monarchy: the king is only the chosen one designated by God and must put his power at the service of the Church.

The Policraticus (full title: Policraticus sive de nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum) is a book of moral and political philosophy written by John of Salisbury around 1159. It is best known for tackling the question of the responsibility of the kings and their relationship to their subjects . It is sometimes defined as the first political science treatise, but this tract only imperfectly fits this definition.

Book IV, one of the most translated books, attempts to describe the prince and the obligations to which he must submit. John of Salisbury begins this book with a definition of the prince, whom he radically opposes to the tyrant (Pol. IV, 1,1-3).

Est ergo tiranni et principis haec differentia sola uel maxima quod hic legi obtemperat et eius arbitrio populum regit cuius se credit ministrum.

Between a tyrant and a prince, there is this single or chief difference that the latter obeys the law and rules the people by its dictates, accounting himself as but their servant.

This sentence arouses a problem which will recur throughout Book IV: to what extent is the prince bound to the laws or rather to the Law? This obviously preoccupies our author, who lived in 12th century England in the aftermath of usurpation and tyranny.

Yet the interpretation of this definition, which is crucial for John's thought, is not as simple as it seems. The last part of the sentence contains an ambiguity that can easily go unnoticed - and has besides escaped almost all translators. Most modern translators have admitted that eius related to the legi antecedent, and that cuius referred to the populum antecedent. Thus, John of Salisbury would define the prince according to several criteria: 1) he obeys the law; 2) according to the spirit of this law, he directs the people; 3) he believes himself to be the servant of this people.

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But if we hold the construction in eius ... cuius as a whole, that is to say if we consider these two genitives as referring to the same antecedent, we could translate "and direct the people according to the will of the one (eius) of whom (cuius) he believes himself to be the servant .” And who is this "the one?” Obviously, God.

It is therefore more likely to understand that according to John of Salisbury the prince governs according to the will of his master, God.

Gilles de Paris (Carolinus 1200) teaches future Louis VIII the following four cardinal virtues:

-Prudentia,

-Justicia,

-Fortitudo,

-Temperancia.

Thus were laid the foundations for the ideology of the great monarch, which developed in the following century, particularly with Saint-Louis. He will closely follow the development of Vincent de Beauvais's Speculum Majus. It is undoubtedly at his request that a team of Dominicans is responsible for writing a large set of "Mirrors of princes,” which includes the De eruditione filiorum regalium ("On the education of the royal children") and two other treatises by Vincent de Beauvais intended for the future Philippe III, as well as the work of the Franciscan Gilbert de Tournai Eruditio regum et principum.

Louis IX himself, at the end of his life, wrote for his son Philippe and his daughter Isabelle, Queen of Navarre, Teachings which form a true mirror of princes.

Philippe, in turn, who became Philippe the Bold, had his confessor, brother Laurent, compose a Treatise of Vices and Virtues (1279) which, under the title of Somme-le-Roi, will be used as an educational reference for more than two centuries.

Gilles de Rome continues the tradition by writing, in 1280, for his pupil the future Philippe IV the Fair, grandson of Saint-Louis, a De Regimine principum ("On the government of Princes"), where he proposes the model of an omniscient cleric king who masters an encyclopedic culture built on liberal arts, theology, metaphysics and moral sciences.

This work, marked by Aristotelian influence, reflects the desire to form a royal intelligentsia. It will be an extraordinary success: copied, adapted, translated into several languages, it will then be printed and reprinted until 1617.

In 1700. Louis XIV wrote a series of 33 Instructions to his grandson the King of Spain. They highlight the idea that the king had of his own power:

4. Declare yourself on all occasions for virtue and against vice.5. Never have an attachment to anyone. [...]

8. Make the happiness of your subjects; and, in this view, have war only when you are forced to do so and when you have carefully considered and weighed the reasons for it in your Council. Try to put your finances back; watch over India and your fleets; think of trade; live in a great union with France, nothing being so good for our two powers as this union which nothing can resist.10. If you are forced to go to war, put yourself at the head of your armies ... 12. Never leave your business for your enjoyment; but make yourself a sort of rule which gives you free time and entertainment. [...] 14. Give large attention to business; when we talk about it, listen to a lot at the beginning and without deciding anything. When you have more knowledge, remember that it is up to you; but whatever experience you have, always listen to all the advice and reasoning of your Council, before making this decision. [...]

18. Treat everyone well; never say anything bad to anyone; but distinguish people of quality and merit... 30. Do not appear shocked by the extraordinary figures you find [in Spain]; do not make fun of it: each country has its particular ways, and you will soon be accustomed to what will seem to you at first most surprising. [...] 33. I end with one of the most important pieces of advice I can give you: don't let yourself be governed; be the master; never have favorites or prime minister; listen, consult your Council, but decide.

Last words of King Louis XIV to King Louis XV, his great-grandson.

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My dear child soon you will be King of a great kingdom. I urge you never to forget your obligations to God; remember that you owe Him everything.

Try to remain at peace with your neighbors. I have loved war too much. Do not copy me in that, or in my overspending.

Take advice in everything; try to find out the best course and always follow it. Lighten your people’s burden as soon as possible, and do what I have had the misfortune not to do myself.

Editor's note. As most commentators dealing with the Buddhist Dasavidha-rajadhamma point out, it goes without saying that the word KING of yesteryear should be replaced today by the word "Government.” Consequently, the Ten Duties of the KING now apply to all those who participate in government, head of state, ministers, political leaders, members of the legislative body and high officials.

The Buddha expressed himself on the question; indeed, the dhammapadatthakatha says that he then focused his attention on the problem of good government. His ideas must be appreciated in the social, economic and political context of his time. He showed how a whole country could become corrupt, degenerate and unhappy when the heads of government, that is to say king, ministers and civil servants themselves become corrupt and unjust. For a country to be happy, it must have a fair government. The principles of this fair government are set out by the Buddha in his teaching on the "Ten Duties of the King,” as given in the Jataka.

Note from the author.

It will be understood, as far as I am personally concerned, I make little regard for the moral of the fable of the bees by the Huguenot Bernard Mandeville (1714) and for his caricature the invisible hand of Adam Smith (1776). Where was indeed the hand of the God of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob at Auschwitz in 1940?

And besides, if Mandeville’s postulate is correct, the opposite must also be true. The selflessness of a politician as such can harm the common good.

However, I agree with the principle of his fable: we must distinguish the private virtues from the public virtues and not put on the same level the individual morality and the morality of the men and women responsible for the destiny of others in the exercise of their duties.

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SECOND PART.

WORLD IS LIFE. Celtic Bitus : world, existence. Etymology. From Proto-Indo-European *gʷiH-tu- (“life”). Cognate with Latin vita.Old Irish bith - Welsh byd – Cornish bys - Breton bed – Cf. Continental Celtic Bituriges.

RANGE.

Rule No. 1: Respect of life or ecology.

Rule No. 2: Rejection of every useless violence.

Rule No. 3: Love friendship pity.

Rule No. 4: Interdependence and Solidarity.

Rule No. 5: Hospitality.

Rule No. 6: Generosity.

Rule No. 7: Reciprocity.

Rule No. 8: Courage.

Rule No. 9: Faithfulness.

Rule No. 10: Truth.

Rule No. 11: Sense of justice.

Rule No. 12: Freedom.

Rule No.13: Simplicity.

Rule No.14: Sense of honor.

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THE 14 PATHS OF DRUIDISM THEREFORE

(THE 14 CONARA FUGILL).

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THE KISSION.

The neo-druidism, while being located overall in the continuity of the former one, constitutes nevertheless a new stage in the relationship between the Man and the Divinity. It bases mainly its teaching on the life and the work of the Hesus named Setanta, Cuchulainn 1).

But the current druidic magistracy is only a moral magistracy, a magisterium.

It is no longer question for us of taking part in the debates which divide the scientists or of playing the teachers and the professors as formerly. From the teaching function of the ancient druids, it remains, however, for us the three following imperatives, that we cannot give up without betraying (our magisterium), without losing our soul, because the druids are alone in the vastness of their priesthood.

- Education and training of youth (what is not at all the same thing as the simple instruction of the young people). Without going to the destruction of the life, the violence of all kinds, the insults, the blows and the wounds, remain some attacks against the life, and degrade the one who commit them. The violence which invades television instead of recreating the man from the best of the former one, puts him down.

- Liberation of the adults (it is a question of removing definitively from head of our unfortunate contemporaries the false ideas which abound and make them sick).

- Compatibility with sciences (our teaching should contradict in nothing the scientific data and the reason).

As Cailte would say to St. Patrick himself: “Fírinne inár croidhedhaibh, 7 neart inár lámhaibh, 7 comall inár tengthaibh ” “Truth in our hearts, strength in our arms and the art of good speech.” Such was the ideal of the ancient druidism.

And such is still the pole star of the current druidic magisterium. These three requirements are the pillars of its temple, the three brooks which make its large river. The druids who keep them high and loud in the world, as well as a torch in the night, have the duty to announce or expound these truths to everybody.

For that they trust the force of the divine truths and believe in the assistance of the charismas (boudisms) dispensed by the divine awenyddia. Awenyddia which operates where she wants, following the example of the thunderbolt which seemed to spout out where Taranis wanted .

As Regis Boyer saw it well also in connection with the Vikings, the individual needs life in society to be trained. The complexity of the networks of human relations confers today a considerable importance on the political communities, on the political debates. To serve the public good or the good of others,as our Hesus//Cuchulainn himself did, is consequently also important form of the justice and of the carantia (or friendship), therefore ultimately of the truth. The slides of the demagogic and short-sighted politicking; including and even especially from those who constantly feel the need to express in an ostentatious and conspicuous way their attachment for these basic values; with a lot of insults, invectives, or accusations, unfounded , or real, sued to the others; do not have to make forget that in the beginning, the function of every true policy, in the noble senses of the word, is the research of the public good of the city (of the pagus); and that the policy, in the noble sense of the term, once again let us repeat it, must transcend economy (if the ancient druids had known the dictatorship of the law of market forces they would certainly have been against!)

The kission, the druidic ethical code, or monist humanism, is very above the barbarism attributed to the Celts by the Romanolatrous people and the other racists of this kind (Greek, etc.). It insists less on the ideal of personal perfection and more on the assistance that the god-or-demons can bring TO EVERYONE. Arrian, Treatise on Hunting: “ No human undertaking has a prosperous issue without the interposition of the gods… * Kai ego hama tois suntherois hepomai to Kelton nomo kai apophaino hos ouden aneu theon gignomenon anthropois es agathon apoteleuta” (chapter XXXV).Its goal is the salvation for all. The reda is a branch of the druidic ethical code which gathers the reflections intended to help the individual to make a success of his passage in the other world. They are moral precepts of a minimal or elementary morality.

We can seriate but also summarize its precepts, as follows. Conversely, and out of the penal sanctions of the crimes and offenses, which leave the scheme of this presentation, the breaches against this ethical codes were factors of dishonor, whose psychological repercussion were Shame and Remorse.

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Let us review now and briefly, the different gessa of the former or new druidism. These gessa marks out the ways which lead to the New Man. More still than to stigmatize the transgressions, their role is to identify the god or the demon ready to provide assistance in this field.

For many men, to facilitate their liberation, the god-or-demons indicate to us what is best to live free, but freedom should not be whim. Some gessa of the Fir Fer are sometimes expressed in a negative way. It is a question in this case of an absolute minimum to respect (to do nothing low for example). Others are expressed in a positive way: “revere gods, be courageous.”

It is therefore also necessary for that to integrate these two extremes, the zero and the infinity, the limits not to be exceeded but also those it is necessary to reach, always more. There the paths of our release open, and these doors overlook the infinity of the superhominization. Let us run, let us run therefore close to the flowering apple tree; and let us see a little together these gessa of the former and new druidism. It is essential indeed to cultivate them, because it is the minimum of every ethical code. The refusal to follow these few rules is a serious error which makes the man a “goffinet” (or a pharisee the Christians would say) and which sets in motion the typically druidic process of the poetic Justice.

There exists, of course, many variants of this 14 path of the multijunction druidism.

With qualities or faults to be avoided, different, or classified differently. These good reflexes are not to follow sequentially, but simultaneously, and the practice of the whole must primarily be an integrated practice.

N.B. THE PRECEPTS WHICH FOLLOW WERE NUMBERED FOR THE NEEDS OF THE DISCUSSION BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT SOME ARE LESS IMPORTANT THAN OTHERS. ALL ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT.

1) Last grandson or avatar from the Higher Being, born on earth, come to restore the touch between the divinity and the mortals, broken after the 3rd battle of the Plain with menhirs or burial mounds, because of the revolt of men against the god-or-demons. He will offer to his the sacrifice of his own death (devotio) by agreeing to transgress all his gessa and by accepting his beheading on the standing stone in Murthemne. Resurrected from the dead and ascended to heaven in his chariot pulled by two horses (the Grey of Macha and the Black hoof), he will open a (new) way to all those who will agree to follow him; that of the Setanta, “royal road” or “way of the warrior.” It is this Hesus/Cuchulainn indeed who revealed to us the existence of this third access road to the world of the god-or-demons then to the Higher Being, which goes through the state of being, paradisiac, that we call Vindomagus. The penultimate stage making it possible the souls/minds to complete their purification in the bliss before returning in the Big Whole in order to be melted in it.

BELOW THE VARIOUS GESSA OF THE NEW DRUIDISM THEREFORE.

GESSA OR MORE EXACTLY BUADA.

N.B.EXPLANATION OF OUR CHOICE OF THE WORD BUAID INSTEAD OF GEIS IN WHAT FOLLOWS.

According to the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (EDIL) the second meaning of the Gaelic word "buaid" is "positive equivalent of geis."

Andrew McQuaid in his thesis on the part of Irish gnomic literature corresponding to the mirrors of princes

Audacht Morainn.

Tecosca Cormaic.

Bríatharthecosc Con Culainn.

Tecosc Cúscraid.

Cert cech ríg co reil.

Diambad mass bad rí reil.

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Remarks that búaid (pl. búada) is another term associated with gessa. In the Middle-Irish text Geasa agus Buadha Riogh Éireann, geis and búaid are treated as antonyms. The most common translation of búaid is "victory, triumph," but in the aforementioned text, búaid is clearly used as an antonym for geis.

In his introduction to this Geasa agus Buadha Riogh Éireann, Dillon defines búada as follows: "To each list of taboos is a corresponding a list of prescriptions, things which the king should do, or should enjoy, to ensure his prosperity and that of his people."

It is worth quoting the seven búada of the king of Tara here for illustrative purposes.

A sheacht mbúadho .i. íascc Bóinne, fíadh Luibhnighe, mess Manann, fráechmess Brígh Léthi, biror Brossnaighi, uisci thopuir Thlachtga, mílrath Náissi nó Maisten. Hi kalaind Auguist doroichtis sin uile do rígh Themruch. In blíadain dano i toimliuth insin ní theéghed i n-áirim sháeghuil dó, ocus is ríam no maidith for gach leth. Namely the fish of the Boyne, the deer of Luibnech, the mast of Mana, the blueberries of Brí Léith, the cress of the Brossnach river, the water from the well of Tlachtga, the hares of Naas (or of Maistiu). All of these to be brought to the king of Tara on August 1st. And the year he consumed them he was victorious in battle on every side.

The use of images from nature, alongside with the benefits of long life and victory,is quite reminiscent of the cosmic benefits that have been associated with fir flathemon. All of this reinforces the idea that the notion of sacred kingship lies behind this second meaning of the word búada.

N.B.The búada of the other four kings have a more social or martial nature. Their more martial tone is perhaps related to the fact that the first definition of a búada is "victory."

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BUAID NUMBER ONE.

TO BE A CHILD OF THE EARTH .

RECTU ADGENIAS/RECHT AICNID:

The Celtic-Druidic “Yama” or “Ahimsa”..... the quotation marks are necessary because in Celtic ethic it is more a purpose to reach, a Pole Star, than an already reached goal. In particular with regard to the ahimsa WHICH IS ONLY A GENERAL RULE. The Celtic Ahimsa consists especially of a relation with overall ecological nature, in a total respect of our mother to all the earth ( global ecology). Who indeed will dare to question the small side ecologist before the word is invented of our former druids?

“Ar baí cretim in óenDé oc Cormac [do réir rechta]. Ar ro ráidseom na aidérad clocha ná crunnu acht no adérad intí dosroni & ropo chomsid ar cul na uli dúla.” “For Cormac had the faith of the one true God, [according to the law ?]; for he said that he would not adore stones, or trees, but that he would adore him who had made them, and who had power over all the elements” (Cormac Mac Airt, king of the kings of Ireland, according to the Senchas na relec).

As we can see it, in spite of the already significant Christian influence, it is still in a true worship of nature that the Irish king in question was engaged.

In the Gaelic poetry of the Middle Ages, the lines of verse devoted to the Other World always express its attraction or splendor, in precise terms, borrowed from the everyday life, and from its colors. A very fine feeling of nature and seasons appears in it. An observation of the life of animals, sea, forest as of the game which live in it, a perpetual and technically erudite reference to hunting, navigation, loneliness; which are as many reminders and attractions for the listeners (Marx).

Ecologist tradition kept until in the Welsh poetry of the same time. “Kuno Meyer noticed that in the field of the poetry of nature, the Gaelic poetry is like the Welsh poetry, second to none. Either it describes the powerful sea livened up by fish and seals; or the blackbird, hermit who does not agitate a small bell [like a Christian preacher], but emits his sweet and peaceful note; or the cold of the night and of the rain which falls freely and the deep cry of the wind; or the bitter darkness and fury of the Ocean; which at least make it possible not to fear the coming of the Vikings” (Marx).

Same thing in the field of art, made of ornament, masks, foliage, animals, all assembled by imagination. It is the art of a people which feel this environment intensely; before the first elements of a scientific classification appear. If the humanity of the Greek world is missing in it, in it the hubris which dominated the European art as from the classical time is also missing; i.e., since the Greek vases with red figures and the masterpieces of the Greek sculpture revealed to the Man, his own dignity as his supremacy in the world.

The remark is not critical, but comes to the same conclusion for the classical ones: to dominate or to subject nature.

Peter Ramus (1559) is perhaps the first of modern intellectuals to discover the interest of the return to a more ecologist lifestyle. For him to work is not dishonoring. And it is true that at the time, with some exceptions such as the gentlemen glassmakers, metallurgists, shipowners, working was considered as demeaning and made a nobleman lose his caste. Frugality, continence, as many qualities which are based indeed on undeniable ancient accounts. Combined with the Germanic man, it is the common denominator of resistance to the rich and voluptuous colonizer. Healthy life, balanced and sure institutions, such is the picture, ecologist before the word is invented, painted by Peter Ramus in the 16th century. It will be necessary nevertheless to wait for the Astree by Honoré d'Urfe to have a more exciting ecologist view. The old master of Celadon indeed teaches us a remarkable lesson of civilization. The Celadons of our time are no longer like that. They prefer to insult Honoré d' Urfe by accusing him of “bestial neopaganism” (sic). And yet, Honoré d'Urfe saw well that the first ecologists before the word is invented were the priests of the forest; who, unlike Greeks, Romans and Hebrews,

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did not build gold or stone temples, to venerate their god-or-demons but simply took the clearings as living places of their worships.

The tree which plunges its roots in the lower areas of the basement, this cold abode of the dead; to spring towards the sky and to spread its branches as its leaves in the light, in the wind which passes; the flower which opens and which fade to give its fruit, the grass and its feeding seeds, the plants which cure, those which kill, those which scent and those which give visions; the entire vegetable kingdom says to Mankind something from the divinity which underlies it.

Speech of the Indian chief Seattle in 1854 : “We are part of the Earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and the man, all belong to the same family.

What is a man without the animals? If all the animals were gone, man would die. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. Teach your children what we have taught our children that the Earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

This we know - the Earth does not belong to man - man belongs to the Earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

This shining water that moves in streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events in the life of our people. The water murmur is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers of our sisters quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember to teach your children that the rivers are our sisters, and yours. We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The Earth is not his mother, but his enemy and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's graves behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the Earth from his children, and he does not care.

BIRTHRIGHT

His father's grave, and his children's birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the Earth, and his brother, the same, as things to be bought, plundered, sold . His appetite will devour the Earth and leave behind only a desert.

I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.

There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect's wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand. But what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of a whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night. I am a red man and do not understand. The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath – the animal, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. He is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is perfumed by the meadow's flowers. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition - the white man must treat the animals of this land as his brothers. I am a savage and do not understand any other way (Ted Perry).

…" The sun is my father, the earth is my mother, nothing that is human is unfamiliar to me, a little internationalism takes away from homeland, a lot takes back to it, the earth is my spaceship" would it be said today.

The true Druidicist see in all the beings, and particularly in animals, some brothers of a lower rank in the ladder of evolution certainly; but some brothers nevertheless, also having an embryonic soul/mind. We may therefore use them, but, on the other hand, we should not misuse them. Gratuitous violence and without reason towards an animal is to be prohibited. As we saw higher, the morality of the Fenians is unambiguous on this subject: “Beat not your hound without a fault of his.” It is legitimate and in conformity with the order of the things to use animals for food and making of clothing. Man can domesticate them so that they assist him in his work and his leisure. If they remain within reasonable

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limits, the medical and scientific experiments are allowed insofar as they contribute to treating or to saving human lives.It is strictly prohibited from making animals suffer unnecessarily, or to waste their lives (but it is also unworthy to spend excessive sums of money for simple pets).

Ausonius formerly wrote: “DIVINIS HUMANA LICET COMPONERE” (See his eclogue on the use of the word libra). What means “We may compare things human with divine.”

There are mysterious forces in Nature. These forces appear through beings or events which are out of the ordinary, like the birth of twins, or a violent and sudden north wind on the plain (Cers), or in the rumbling of thunder over the mountain.

The god-or-demons known as children of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer, Danu (bia), in Ireland, are the true authors of the second creation, i.e., the organizers of the world as a livable geographical place. You can contemplate in the rocks or in the trees, the epic of these primordial god-or-demons, withdrawn thereafter in the womb of the earth , or into the heaven.

Men and women are responsible for the world that the god-or-demons gave up to them since the last battle of the Plain to the standing stones or tumuli (the battle for the Talantio, Tailtiu in Irish: other personification: Rosemartha) but they cannot be the managers of this world while refusing to be also the priests of it.

It is with this in mind that it is necessary to understand certain Celtic myths reporting titanic battles between gigantic God-or-demons and anguipedes, those who are one called Andernas on the Continent, Fomorians in Ireland we have said, and dealing with the periodic threat of collapse of this established order by the god-or-demons; or of its restoration. The powers which work in the Bitos or Cosmos, just like the forces and the impulses which are in the Man, are in reality ambivalent, their effects can be positive or negative.

The elements of nature are living beings which have their own reactions. Wisdom consists in reconciling these elements, in respecting them, by avoiding causing their anger. Because this order has nothing static, and all these forces of nature have a disturbing action when one of them begins to prevail on the others, or to reign alone.

The god-or-demon of the sun, for example, is a guard and a friend of the men. He radiates the light, makes it possible to separate the day from the night, and the invisible dangers with which it is full. The light makes it possible to separate the day from the night and puts in order the time. And yet, the action of the sun is not always positive. In July - August, it torments the ground with its burning beams. Heat becomes almost unbearable. The plants can even sometimes be desiccated, the animals die of thirst. The sun causes a drop in the level of the groundwater, and can begin to become a threat.

The rains which refresh the thirsty ground can evolve in destroying and tearing off all on their passage, storms.

To give life and to destroy it are inextricably bound, they are there only the two faces of the same coin.

It is therefore the balance between these negative or positive forces being neutralized or being complemented mutually which is important.

Unlike the Judeo-Islamic-Christianity of the religions of the Book, of the religions of one Book, and not of 12, druidism never developed a summary Manicheism between good and evil. For the druidism, there is only some good and some less good. The demons symbolized by the gigantic anguipedic wyverns who are called Andernas on the Continent, Fomorians in Ireland, never played an excessive role in the highest druidic thought; because druids understood very early that the good and the evil, the pleasant one and the painful one, come ultimately from the same source. Positive current and negative current are part of the same energy, electricity fairy.

The animal, vegetable, beings, and even the precious stones, although they are only minerals, have all a soul, certainly different from that of the Man, but of comparable nature. Stones or trees, all the beings are living, and also have a soul. The soul of the diamond, it is its light.

Generally besides Nature always communicates with the Man and sends warning messages or information to him, that the Man often ignores (scientists prefer to speak of variable explanations according to the phenomena).

The slogan of the People of the Book in connection with the Earth (dominate it and subdue it , Genesis 1. 28) is unacceptable and must be given up. The Earth is a living being: Nerthus Litavis or Rosemartha. It is our mother to all! She also pertains to the field of the sacredness. We must therefore

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on the contrary respect her as much if it is not more than the other gods that are Allah, Jesus or Jehovah.

A sacred cow for us must be our mother the Earth, we need too much the milk from her bruised, scratched or squeezed breast, without pity, by our contemporaries.

Each I Elembivi (full moon close to our modern August 1st) should be a great festival dedicated to our Mother for all, the Earth.

Under the name of Litavis as regards simply designating the cruinne (the globe) or of Rose-Martha as regards her fruits (Talantio/Tailtiu in Ireland).

Semantic precise details.

Litavis is the name of the personification of the planet Earth in its globality.

Nerthus it is the Earth under its feeding aspect, including woods and waters.

Rosemartha it is the personification of the specific space farmed by Mankind.

Water, wood and mountains, have their inhabitants, which sometimes visit men in the shape of animals (bear, eagle, etc.). These deities are to be revered in nature itself, in the middle of the forests, at the foot of the trees or of the rocks. Among the Aeduans for example, the Beuvray Mount formed itself a kind of sacred mountain, the body of a deity the dea Bibracta or Bibracte. Her favored animals her children her messengers were beavers.

The druidism therefore attaches great importance to the harmony between Mankind and Nature and venerates all that is living, springs winds earth plants animals, seas, as well as mountains, in short all that is living.

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CRITICAL COLLAPSOLOGY

CRITICISM OF COLLAPSOLOGY.

"The fall of civilizations is the most striking and at the same time the most obscure of all phenomena in history. This misfortune holds something so mysterious and so grand that the thinker never tires of considering it, studying it, turning around its secret. The successive development of societies, their successes, their conquests, their triumphs, have what to strike ”(Arthur de Gobineau).

SELEUCID EMPIRE AND HELLENISM.

Alexandre leaves as sole heir on June

-323 an unborn child, the future Alexandre IV conceived with Roxana, and his half-brother Philip III Arrhidaeus, a "mentally retarded person" unfit to reign. According to the main authors of the Vulgate, he nevertheless would have entrusted the royal ring to Perdiccas, his second in command, just before dying. A temporary solution will therefore be found by the Royal Council (Sunedrion) in order to preserve the unity of the empire. If Roxana gives birth to a son, he will become the heir. Perdiccas and Leonnatos, to whom the Council swears an oath, are designated provisional guardians of the unborn child.

Specialists call wars of the Diadochi the conflicts which will intervene to divide the empire between -322 and -281 (Battle of Couropedion) with periods of truce.

They will initially oppose the regent Perdiccas to "centrifugal forces" including Ptolemy, Seleucus and Antigonus, the main Macedonian satraps. The wars of Diadochi will finally lead to a division of the empire of Alexander between the Seleucid Antigonid and Lagid dynasties.

In -312, in Gaza, Seleucus I contributed to the victory of Ptolemy I over Demetrios I Poliorcetes (King of Macedonia, 294-287), the son of Antigonus I, what enabled him to become master of Mesopotamia.

His entry into Babylon is officially considered as the beginning of the Seleucid Empire and this year as the first of the Seleucid era. In -310-308, after having definitively repelled the attacks of Demetrius I and Antigonus I, Seleucus I extended his domination over the high satrapies of Asia. Persia, Media, Susiana, Parthia, Drangiana, Aria, Bactriana, Sogdiana, Hyrcania, Arachosia, etc. until India, fell one behind the other under its control.

Antiochus I Sôter ("The Savior,” in Greek language -280 to -261 or -281 to -261) was born in -325 (or -324/3). He was the son of Seleucus I Nikator and Queen Apama I and therefore is half Persian. After the assassination of his father, he inherited an immense and powerful Empire. His main task was to try to keep this Empire as he found it, but it was in vain. From the beginning of his reign, he had to face a revolt which broke out in Syria. He was quickly forced to make peace with the murderer of his father, Ptolemy Keraunos and apparently to abandon his plans on Thrace and Macedonia. In -279, in Asia Minor also the rebellion made itself felt. Antiochus I had to face the secession of Bithynia, Pontus and Cappadocia which set up themselves as independent kingdoms, that he was unable to subdue.

Celts, placed under the command of Luterios and Leonorios, cross the Hellespont towards 278 before our era on the invitation of King Nicomedes I of Bithynia, in war against the Seleucid. Their support enabled Nicomedes to save his throne: he gave them land as a reward south of his kingdom, on the banks of the Sangarius.

In -275/274 Antiochus I managed to repel them. He is said to have beaten them with the help of war elephants that the Galatians had never seen before. The victory which he won over these formidable fighters would be at the origin of his title of Soter "Savior.” The Taurus region never having been truly subjected, the Seleucid possessions were limited to Troad, Aeolis, Caria and Lydia, linked to Cilicia and Syria by a corridor. As for Coele-Syria (Lebanon), it became the subject of repeated conflicts with the Ptolemies. ……………

CAN WE ATTRIBUTE TO GREEK RELIGION THE CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER AND THE SPLENDORS OF THE HELLENIC CIVILIZATION THAT AROSE FROM THEM?

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During the Hellenistic period, the universe of the Greeks known by the father of Alexander the great (-383 -336) will experiment the following changes.

The Greeks were unified by the conquest of the Macedonians. This period marks the triumph of the Pan-Hellenism over the more restricted concept of polis. The decline of the polis inevitably led to the weakening of civic religion and its gradual replacement by mystery cults from Asia.

The Greeks then formed a unified albeit fleeting, empire under the leadership of Alexander the Great.

The breakdown of this empire, on the death of Alexander, nonetheless led to the establishment of three major kingdoms - we know them by the term Hellenistic kingdoms - which dominated the eastern Mediterranean for a long time and were the channels for the transmission of contacts between Greeks and non-Greeks.

The Hellenistic adjective refers to the new culture of this period, made up of elements of the classical culture of Greece but also of important contributions from the outside world. This cultural syncretism led to the creation of a cosmopolitan and universal culture: Hellenism.

Alexander the Great married a Persian princess and formed thousands of unions between his Greek and Macedonian veterans and the peoples they encountered. These unions, in addition to consolidating his power over the conquered peoples, would change mentalities.

The unified Hellenistic Empire did not survive the death of Alexander; it immediately crumbled. On its ashes, after long civil wars which lasted until -278, eventually emerged Hellenistic kingdoms which continued the work started by Alexander. These kingdoms were to be the drive belt of Greek culture towards the Eastern Mediterranean and of the absorption by the Greeks of cultural characteristics borrowed from the peoples they encountered.

General characteristics of Hellenistic civilization.

The meeting of the Greeks with the civilization of those around them brought about a fundamental change in their vision of the world and served to enrich Western cultural heritage.

The Greeks' vision of the outside world - a world populated by "barbarians" - was based on the ignorance of those around them as much as on an ethnocentric vision of their universe. When thousands of Greeks followed Alexander through the Persian Empire, they discovered the great achievements of the civilizations of the Middle East. How could the Greeks treat others as "barbarians" after having contemplated the pyramids in Egypt, seen the splendors of Babylon, and glimpsed Indian civilization? These conquests were therefore the opportunity for a profound change in mentalities. We can only define a few elements here.

The first change of Greek culture was that it became more open to outside influences. The Greeks had always been marked by a thirst for intellectual knowledge. Now the whole universe opened up to them. They began to study the civilizations they encountered. They looked at the others with eyes full of curiosity rather than contempt. We would not be astonished if the Ptolemies funded the translation of the Jewish Scriptures into the Greek language. Of course the Septuagint translation would serve a Jewish community increasingly assimilated to the Hellenistic world. But the translation also aimed to satisfy the thirst for knowledge of these great monarchs and their subjects. If Christianity was able to develop later, by making accessible to them these Holy Scriptures, it is because these great Hellenistic dynasties were open to others and that they were curious. The Ptolemies did not ignore the heritage of ancient Egypt. On the contrary, they have tried to imitate it. Thus, at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, Manetho * of Sebennytos wrote in Greek history of ancient Egypt in 30 volumes. Unfortunately, almost all of these texts are lost today. However, almost all of our knowledge of the various dynasties of ancient Egypt is based on these written documents sponsored by the great king. When large libraries are assembled and funded in Antioch, Pergamon and Alexandria it will be with the aim of advancing the knowledge of all mankind. All could be accepted if they adopted the culture and language of Hellenism.

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Hellenistic civilization was also tolerant and cosmopolitan. The other was no longer a despicable being but a human who was of value, and, if he accepted Hellenistic culture, he was considered the equal of the Greek and could easily obtain Greek citizenship. He was recognized for his value, knowledge, intelligence. The vision of the stoic philosophers — the logos — that dominated this period was typical in this sense: God was everywhere in the universe and he had laid down part of the eternal soul in all individuals, from the humblest to the greatest. All of them therefore had a soul and were of value, no one could be ignored. They were curious to get in touch, to learn the habits and customs of others. They were open to what was new. They were ready to consider other ways of doing things. Above all, they loved difference, they looked for it, they appreciated it. Cosmopolitanism, openness to others, enriched everyone's culture.

The new civilization was an amalgam of classical Greek culture but with significant additions of elements from other peoples, especially those touching religion. Because the Greeks had opened up to others, had gone to them, had borrowed elements from them and incorporated these additions to their culture, they created a very attractive new civilization. Their culture was universal in the sense that it could belong to everyone, that everyone could join it. This is why Hellenistic culture shone in the eastern Mediterranean and among the Romans more than classical Greek culture.

* For more information on Manetho, see the Roman work on this subject of Claude Belanger, professor at the Marianopolis College of Montreal.

Economics, town planning and lifestyle.

The expansion of the Greek geographical area has widened the possibilities of trade. Cities are undergoing a phenomenal development. Dozens of new cities are founded. Most are built on the checkerboard plan, according to the rules of town planning defined by Hippodamus of Miletus in the classical period, that is to say with streets crossing at right angles. These cities are often equipped with water and sewer systems. The streets are wide and airy; gymnasiums and parks have been planned. Hippodamus of Miletus divided the city into zones, each with public or private functions. The town planner sought above all the harmony of roles (residential, commercial, administrative, religious), the intelligent use of topography without considering it restrictive, and the segmentation of the population into different classes. His ideal city did not extend indefinitely but was limited to 10,000 inhabitants distributed in islets where the houses are identical because all the inhabitants are equal. These cities demonstrate a certain art of living and try to collectively create beauty. The gymnasium is a cultural center. Around an interior courtyard, there are various rooms to which you have access: bathroom, cloakroom, gymnastics, boxing room, teaching and conference rooms where literature and philosophy are taught, concert halls. Adults come to spend a good part of their free time there to nourish their minds and cleanse their bodies. The gymnasium is often connected to a stadium with galleries for sports training. Palestra was reserved for wrestling. From the upper gallery, spectators could attend the competitions.

All these elements define an art of living, a way of doing things. Hellenism is therefore not only a new attitude towards others but also a lifestyle. What is striking is that many of these elements were defined in the classical era. But they only became popular and widespread in the Hellenistic period and, another new element, they are frequently found outside Greece.

Education.

At this same time, education became very important for Greeks. Its main purpose is no longer, as in classical times, the preparation of the citizen to assume his responsibilities in the polis. Its objective is more individualistic. Its goal now is to enrich the mind, to develop human talents, to contribute to the development of the individual. Cultural refinement is seen as a great asset. Boys and girls have access to education, although the former are the only ones who can pursue it further than at a primary level. This education is crowned by the presence of gymnasiums in all the big cities. The gymnasium

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is an intellectual and sporting meeting place where Hellenism is preserved. Libraries are often attached to these institutions.

Travels.

The Greeks had always shown a great curiosity for the universe where they lived. This interest would extend to the study of others during the Hellenistic era. During the great campaigns of Alexander the Great, tens of thousands of Greeks were led to see regions and peoples they had never had the chance to know before. This openness to others inevitably brought a taste for travel. The common use of the Greek language which has spread in the Eastern Mediterranean and the protection of the Greek laws which are used by the Ptolemies and the Seleucids secure the traveler. Without tourism is democratizing in the sense that it is today, it became common for the Greeks, during a military campaign, or when an official was sent to apply royal decrees, to see the country. The voyages are mainly by sea for long distances and on foot to complete them inland.

They are looking for what is different, what is exotic. They seem particularly curious about the customs and traditions and the mysteries of the religions they meet. Study travels are increasing. Many travel to research in the great libraries of Pergamon and Alexandria. Under these circumstances, geographic knowledge will improve and the maps produced at that time reflect these improvements.

Hellenistic art.

The development of a large commercial class and the creation of monarchies in the Hellenistic period brought the proliferation of sponsors what very positive effects on the art of this period had. By creating large capitals and wishing to endow them with magnificent public buildings (temples, libraries, monuments, theaters, parks, streets lined with colonnades, etc.), the monarchs stimulated artistic production by giving artists the opportunity to exercise their talent. These monarchies have a taste for the spectacular and colossal one. It was the same for the rich merchants of this period who, in this more individualistic era, had sumptuous residences built which had to be decorated with mosaics and sculptures. Even the painting was affected since it was now more acceptable to have his portrait done. Art is increasingly becoming the reflection of a certain luxury. We are therefore witnessing a proliferation of creation of all kinds during the Hellenistic period.

Any assessment of art is very personal. We all have a personal idea of beauty, of what we love. Many believe that Greek art reached the peak of its development during the Hellenistic period.

The main foundation of Hellenistic art was the art of classical Greece. We immediately recognize Hellenistic art as a Greek art. There is the same concern for order, aesthetics and rationality. The artistic themes of classicism - deities and mythology - continue to be exploited. But the style has clearly evolved under the combined effect of external influences, especially from Asia, and the rise of individualism. The themes of Hellenistic art are much more varied. They are very heterogeneous. Children, women, "barbarians,” old people are also represented. The example of the dying Galatian, of great nobility of representation and whose pain is perceived, is typical of the period. The artists go to the agora to find the subject of their creation. We are inspired by everyday scenes and subjects that provoke emotion. These works are often of a realism which still touches today. In this sense, Hellenistic art reflects the tendency well to see in all human value and is a rejection of idealism, elitism, lack of realism in classicism. The individualistic character of the art is accentuated by the fact that the work is often attributable to a specific artist.

We also note in the works of artists of the Hellenistic era a concern for details that did not exist before. The clothes often have several folds which accentuate the grace of the character. The taste for the precious leads to the making of jewelry, miniatures and statuettes. Although marble, stone and terracotta are still used to shape the sculptures, a certain warmth often emerges from these works. We accentuate the physical characteristics of the characters, even when they are ugly. The subject is often presented in movement, which gives it more life, more humanity.

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The five most famous works of the period are the Venus de Milo found in 1820, the Victory of Samothrace Laocoon and his two sons not forgetting the Dying Galatian (in Italian Galata Morente) or the Dying Gladiator preserved in the Capitoline Museum in Rome not forgetting Paetus and Arria in the Ludovisi collection of the Museo delle Terme in Rome .

The dying Galatian.

It is the copy of a now-lost sculpture from the Hellenistic period (-323-31 before our era) thought to have been first made in bronze. The original may have been commissioned at some time between -230 and -220 before our era by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatians, a Celtic people of parts of Anatolia (modern Turkey). The original sculptor is believed to have been Epigonus, a court artist of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon.

The white marble statue, which may originally have been painted, depicts a wounded, slumped Galatian Celt, shown with remarkable realism and pathos, particularly as regards the face. A bleeding sword puncture is visible in his lower right chest. The warrior is represented with a characteristic hairstyle and mustache with a Celtic torc around his neck. He sits on his shield while his sword, belt and curved trumpet lie beside him. The sword hilt bears a lion's head.

The statue serves both as a reminder of the Celts' defeat, thus demonstrating the might of the people who defeated them, and a memorial to their bravery.

This Dying Galatian became one of the most celebrated works from antiquity endlessly copied by artists, for whom it was a classic model for depiction of strong emotion, and even by sculptors.

The artistic quality and expressive pathos of the statue aroused great admiration among the educated classes in the 17th and 18th centuries from where a famous passage of the poem by Byron entitled Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.Thomas Jefferson wanted the original or a reproduction at Monticello.

We find the same feeling in the statues of the great monument that Attalus 1st made built on the acropolis in Pergamon.

Other examples of Hellenistic civilization.

1)The mechanism of Antikythera.

The Antikythera mechanism, also known as the Antikythera machine, is considered to be the first ancient analog calculator to calculate astronomical positions. It is a bronze mechanism comprising dozens of toothed wheels, interdependent and laid out on several levels. It is adorned with many Greek inscriptions.

We only know a specimen of the Antikythera mechanism, whose fragments were found in 1901 in a wreck, near the Greek island of Antikythera, between Cythera and Crete. The wreck of Antikythera was that of a Roman galley, forty meters long, which was dated as being previous to 87 before our era.

The Antikythera mechanism is the oldest known gear mechanism. Its fragments are kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

In the absence of more complete indications, the first studies had assimilated the age of the mechanism to the date of the sinking of the ship, that is to say between 87 and 60 before our era. This date of -87 corresponds historically to the Hellenistic period, with the presence of the Lagid dynasty in Egypt, which would have taken over the knowledge of the old Egyptians and this, particularly, thanks

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to the zodiac of Denderah. At that time there were many exchanges between Greece and Egypt. It is therefore possible, according to astrophysicist and astronomer Denis Savoie, that the Antikythera mechanism was found on the seabed of the Greek coasts following the sinking of a ship from Alexandria.

In 2014, two researchers, one from Argentina, Christian Carman, a science historian at the University of Quilmès, and the other from the United States, James Evans, a professor at the University of Puget Sound in Washington State, proposed a fairly old dating, based on the form of the Greek letters of the inscription on the back of the machine, and place the date of manufacture of the mechanism between 150 and 100 before our era. But the new fact, according to the estimate of these researchers, is that the calendar of the mechanism of Antikythera would have been known since 205 before our era, that is to say only seven years after the death of Archimedes.

The evidence that the Antikythera mechanism was not unique adds support to the idea that there was an ancient Greek tradition of complex mechanical technology that was later, at least in part, transmitted to the Byzantine and Islamic worlds, where mechanical devices which were complex, albeit simpler, were built during the Middle Ages. Fragments of a geared calendar attached to a sundial, from the 5th or 6th century Byzantine Empire, have been found; this calendar may have been used to assist in telling time. In the Islamic world, Banū Mūsā's Kitab al-Hiyal, or Book of Ingenious Devices, was commissioned by the Caliph of Baghdad in the early 9th century. This text described over a hundred mechanical devices, some of which may date back to ancient Greek texts preserved in monasteries. A geared calendar similar to the Byzantine device was described by the scientist al-Biruni around 1000, and a surviving 13th-century astrolabe also contains a similar clockwork device. It is possible that this medieval technology may have been transmitted to Europe and contributed to the development of mechanical clocks there.

2) Alexandria.

The city of Alexandria is undoubtedly the greatest symbol of Hellenistic culture. The site was first identified by Alexander himself, mainly because of its port qualities, but it was during the reign of Ptolemy Soter that construction began.

3) The Library of Alexandria.

The library of Alexandria was created by Ptolemy I at the instigation of Demetrius of Phalerum who was a disciple of Aristotle. Ptolemy put a huge budget at the disposal of his protégé to build the largest library in Antiquity. His purpose was to make Alexandria the cultural capital of the Mediterranean. The library was established in the same complex as the royal palace. The intention was to make this institution a universal library, to be the repository of all human knowledge. We will appreciate the evolution that had taken place since the time when the Greeks regarded others as barbarians. In practice, the library was to be used for research that researchers and scholars pursued at Mouseion.

For decades, buyers patrolled the four corners of the known universe on behalf of the Ptolemies, to get copies of all human creations. Huge sums would have been invested in such a project. There was a law to search all ships docking in Alexandria and to find out if there were any works in them. If so, they copied them so that they could have a copy in the library.

Possibly, the library of Alexandria had more than 500,000 books (700,000 according to some sources). A complex classification system had to be developed. This system was copied by several other libraries. The institution contained sections on rhetoric, law, tragedies, comedies, lyric poetry, history, medicine, natural sciences and other unclassified. Its section on Greek works was the largest, reflecting the breadth of artistic and scholarly production of the Greeks. But nothing was excluded. His section on Egypt was important. The same was true of the written documents from Persia and India. You will have an idea of the richness of this library by briefly examining the list of represented authors .

Two of the institution's librarians became famous. One of them was Eratosthenes of Cyrene who calculated the circumference of the earth; another was Aristophanes of Byzantium who is well known for his prodigious memory and for the work he did on different editions of Homer's work.

The library was partially destroyed during the time of Julius Caesar. It suffered other hard knocks afterwards. Nevertheless, Alexandria continued to play a great cultural role during the Roman era.

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Today we consider that only 10% of the scholarly and artistic production of Antiquity is known to us. We are allowed to dream about what the other contained, 90%! However, if even at least scraps of ancient knowledge have come down to us, it is largely due to the desire of the great Hellenistic kings of ancient Egypt to preserve the knowledge of mankind.

4) The Mouseion of Alexandria.

In reality, the Library of Alexandria was part of a larger whole forming a research institute devoted to the Muses and known as the Mouseion. This Museum (in the former meaning) was in fact a research institute financially supported by the Ptolemies.

The institute included a botanical garden for the study of plants, laboratories where research was being carried out, a zoo, dissection rooms, etc. Nothing was rejected. Scholars of the Hellenistic era were curious about all that the human mind could have produced.

Researchers came from all over to continue their research there. They found sponsors there to help them financially and a rich environment to stimulate the mind. At any given time, there were as many as a hundred scientists at the Museum. In the five centuries that followed the founding of the Museum, almost all of the great Western discoveries made were attributable to researchers who came to the Museum of Alexandria and researched its library. Among the greatest scientists who frequented it is Euclid who developed geometry.

5) Pharos.

Alexandria is also well known for its lighthouse which was built on the island of Pharos, at the entrance to the city's port. The construction was entrusted to Sostratus of Cnidus. It ranged from 297 to 283 before our era. It was completed under the administration of Ptolemy Philadelphus.

The ancients immediately regarded it as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Pharos was a powerful symbol of the Hellenistic period. Its lighthouse not only protected the sailors but also radiated the culture of Alexandria and the Hellenistic world.

BUT CAN WE ATTRIBUTE TO GREEK RELIGION ALL THESE WONDERS LIKE THE LIGHTHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIA?

The answer is no, because the decline of the polis inevitably led to the weakening of civic religion and its gradual replacement by mystery cults from Asia.

THE PARTHAN EMPIRE.

In 247, the power of the Seleucid Empire was considerably weakened, also in Parthia, a tribe leader, Arsaces I, detached from the Seleucids and founded the dynasty of the Arsacid (or Parthians) who reigned during nearly four centuries (141 before our era to 224 of our era). In the West, the Parthians continued to fight against the Seleucids, then against the Romans, who became masters of Syria and Palestine.

Their history is poorly known compared to other great Empires like the Achaemenids and Seleucids, the Parthian Empire having left no historical chronicle. Kings very often had the same name from one generation to another and there were sometimes co-dominions.

Taking advantage of periods of dynastic instability or invasions on the eastern border of the Empire, former satraps or self-proclaimed leaders did not hesitate to free themselves from the royal tutelage. Thus, during the reign of Artabanus III (10-38 or 12-38 / 40), two Jewish brigands, Anilai and Asinai, managed to keep a fief north of Ctesiphon for 15 years before the Parthians bring it to an end. In the same vein, the Satrap of Characene, Hyspaosines (209-124) proclaimed himself independent. The

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last Parthian King, Artabanus V (216-224) was overthrown in 227 by Ardashir I (224-241), founder of the new Persian Empire of Sassanids.

THE SASSANIDE EMPIRE.

The same question can be asked about the Sassanid Empire.

CAN WE ATTRIBUTE TO THE ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION THE SPLENDORS OF ITS CIVILIZATION?

Sassanid Empire or Sassanid dynasty is the name used to designate the third Iranian dynasty and the second Persian Empire which will dominate the region from 224 to 651.

Specialists consider traditionally as part of the territory of Sassanid Empire the regions corresponding to modern Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Afghanistan, Eastern Turkey and certain parts of Syria, Pakistan, Caucasus, Central Asia and Arabia. The Sassanids called their Empire Eranshar, "Domain of the Iranians (Aryans)".

Arts and Science.

The cultural influence of the Sassanid Persians extended well beyond the territorial borders of the Empire to reach Western Europe, Africa, China and India and played a leading role in the formation of medieval art, both European and Asian. The Sassanid Kings were educated and fond of letters and philosophy. Khosrau I (531-579) had the works of Plato and Aristotle translated into Pahlavi and had them taught at Gundishapur. During his reign many historical records were collected, of which the only survivor is the Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan (Acts of Ardashir), a mixture of history and romanticism which was used as a basis for the Iranian national epic, the Shahnameh.

When Emperor Justinian I (527-565) closed the schools in Athens, seven of their teachers fled to Persia and found refuge at the court of Khosrau I. Under the reign of the latter, the college of Gundishapur, which had been founded in the 4th century, became the largest intellectual center of the time. It trained students and teachers from all parts of the world. Nestorians and Christians were received there and worked in medicine and philosophy. The Neo-Platonists also came to Gundishapur.

The medical traditions of India, Persia, Syria, Greece, were mixed and produced a flourishing medical school. Artistically, the Sassanid period experimented some of the highest achievements of Persian civilization. Literature and art of painting flourished. When a Sassanian king died, the best painter of the time was called upon to make a portrait of the deceased, kept in the royal treasury.

Sassanian textile art. Silk, embroidery, brocade, damask, are found on blankets, in shelters, tents, on carpets and are woven with patience and dexterity. They are dyed in warm tinges of yellow, blue and green. Every Persian even the farmers and the priests aspired to dress above one’s class. He often came with sumptuous clothes. The two dozen Sassanian textiles which have survived are among the most precious fabrics existing at present.

Sassanian fabrics were admired and imitated from Egypt to the Far East and this until the Middle Ages. When the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius I (610-641) took the palace of Khosrau II Parviz (591-628) in Dastagird, his embroidery and a huge carpet were part of his loot. The most famous is the "winter carpet,” also known as the "spring of Khosrau.” The pattern aims to make forget winter with representations of spring and summer scenes. Flowers and fruit are adorned with rubies and diamonds, streams are made of pearls.

The sculpture.

The Sassanian sculpture was especially developed in the form of rock engravings. The richest sites are those of Taq-e Bostan and Naqsh-e Rostam. This type of sculpture is an Iranian tradition which

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will reach its peak under the Sassanids. Thirty-eight reliefs are known, most of which are located in Fars. Eight of the first eleven Sassanid Kings made themselves represented on a sculpted relief, and 200 years later, Khosrau II took over. It is an art which glorifies the person of the King, who is supposed to immortalize the power, the glory and the greatness of the sovereign. The other characters like the deities, the dignitaries, the soldiers, the prisoners, the battles, etc. are only secondary. They are intended to highlight the central character that is the King. These sculptures were painted but only a few tiny traces of paint are still visible.

There are very few stone statues in the round (sculpture completely made in three dimensions and therefore observable from any angle) dating from the Sassanid period. One of the only that can be cited is that of Shapur I (241-272) in the cave of Mudan-e Shapur, near Bishapur, whose height exceeds 7 m. Its function is still unknown and opinions differ: Place of burial, worship of the deceased king, honorary function? In any case, one can notice that the royal garment and armament are represented in a very detailed way. On the other hand, in metal there are two types of them.

The first consists of a group of royal busts in bronze, or in silver. Of a high quality, they take an important place in the Sassanian art and generally are 30 cm to 40 cm high. There are elements common to these busts, the main one being, a crown with two crescents (korymbos) with a pair of wings on each side.

The second series consists of bronze statuettes, 10 cm to 12 cm. tall, representing male characters, wearing long baggy pants and a short tunic. Their hair is split into two tufts and a long sword swings between their legs.

Silverware.

Metal tableware, especially silver, is perhaps one of the most characteristic and emblematic productions of the Sassanid Empire. Most of the pieces are kept at the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

Metal tableware pieces can be classified into several types:

▪ The dishes: They are often decorated with hunting scenes, most of the time royal, except at the beginning of the 3rd-4th centuries when they can be princely and or religious, the animal then being an embodiment of Zoroastrian concepts. The external surface can sometimes be fluted, with a decoration often representing an animal, generally quite naturalistic.

▪ Vases: A large type stands out, with several characteristics: A height of 17/18 cm, an embossed ornamentation on the belly, gilding on the edge of the underside and on the edge of the upperside, a pear-shaped body. The decoration is made up of Dionysiac or mythological figurative patterns. Other types exist, however, such as the rhytons.

▪ The ewers: A series is marked by the influences of the silver ewers of late antiquity (shape and decoration). The related pieces have an ovoid body, a narrow cylindrical neck and an ovoid mouth. Another form of ewer is known by the rock reliefs but little represented in the corpus of known works.

▪ Bowls: They have many shapes: footed, hemispherical, elliptical, elliptical and lobed. Some forms are also unique.

The decorations of these tableware pieces do not include religious scenes or war scenes.

However, there are some difficulties in distinguishing Sassanid dishes from those of the early Muslim era. These pieces of tableware were often used for diplomatic gifts, as trade items or as loot. They could sometimes be offered even several centuries after their manufacture.

From Kavadh I (488-498) and Khosrau I (531-579), the production of silverware in the kingdom increased again with still dishes with royal effigy, but also new forms and new figurative decorations and not royal: Dancers, animals, plants or even simply geometric patterns. It was also the period when a less sumptuous silverware appears, with a lot of copper and a simpler decoration.

Sassanid production continued shortly after the advent of Islam in areas still dominated by independent rulers. Several influences have marked Sassanid silverware. We thus see the appearance of footed bowls derived from Western models, some oval bowls and ewers derived from East Iranian models and dishes decorated with niello approaching glassware which denote an influence of the Eastern Mediterranean.

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Decoration techniques are also very varied. The most sophisticated is silver inlay on the underside of the container but the decoration can simply be engraved and / or chiseled. The gilding is done with mercury, on the pattern at the beginning (III-Vth c.) Then on the underside of the container (Vth-VIIth c.) And scattering the decorated areas for the "provincial" centers.

Glassware.

Despite many objects, Sassanid glassware remains difficult to separate from that of previous and following periods because few works come from excavations, what makes dating almost impossible. Most glasses are transparent, but there are opaque glasses colored in blue, purple or green. Many techniques, which have been known for a long time, have been developed: Blowing, blowing in a mold, pressing in a mold for shaping, marks and colored threads, cutting with a grinding wheel, cold polishing for decoration. The shapes are quite comparable to those of the Roman world.

Architecture.

What has come down to us from the palaces illustrates the splendor in which the Sassanid Kings lived. We can mention the palaces of Firuzabad (Ardashir Khwarrah) and Bishapur in the Fars and that of the capital Ctesiphon (about 30 km south of Baghdad). In addition to local traditions, Sassanid architecture has been influenced by that of the Parthians, but has its own architectural features. They are characterized particularly by monumental vaults and stone or brick domes. The Sassanids also take over traditional material, raw brick and Parthian construction techniques.

During the Sassanid period, the vaults reached enormous proportions, particularly at Ctesiphon. In the city, the arch of the large vaulted hall, attributed to the reign of Shapur I ( 241-272), has a span of more than 24 m and reaches a height of 36 m. This magnificent structure has fascinated architects of all centuries which followed its design and is considered one of the most important examples of Persian architecture.

The Persians also have other achievements to their credit such as: The iwans which are vaulted halls opened on one side only by a large arcade. The iwans were already used in the Parthian era, but they have become a major element of Sassanid architecture. The cupola set on squinches is a great advance in Sassanid architecture. Indeed, the circular dome was already known of the Parthians and the Romans (rotundas), but the transition from the square plan to the circular plan was mastered for the first time only among the Sassanids.

These domes are often of a large diameter, reaching 14 m from the reign of Ardashir I ( 224-241) in his temple of fire. The dome chamber in the Firuzabad Palace is the oldest still standing example of the use of a dome.

Brick is also used to create architectural or decorative elements such as stairs, festoon friezes, rosettes, false arches, lintels with wooden frames. Stucco decorations have only been known since the beginning of the 20th century and their study has large gaps, due particularly to the multiplicity of decorations and to the numerous disappearances. The oldest preserved stucco decoration is that of the complex of Shapur I in Bishapur.

The best preserved are those of Chaleh Tarkhan near Tehran, Ctesiphon and Kish in Mesopotamia. The stucco walls show figures, animals in medallions, human busts and geometric or floral patterns. In Bishapur, some of the floors have been decorated with mosaics showing scenes of banquets. The Roman influence is very clear here, the mosaics besides were laid by Roman prisoners.

In short, Iranian society under the Sassanids rivaled the Byzantine civilization. The numerous exchanges of intellectuals and scientists between both Empires show the competition but also the cooperation of these two cradles of civilization.

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SO CAN WE ATTRIBUTE TO ZOROASTRIANISM THE WONDERS OF THE SASSANID EMPIRE.

Despite all the sympathy that Zoroastrianism can inspire in us, we are unable to answer with certainty yes or no to this question.

The Zoroastrian religion, created around 1000 before our era by Zoroaster, is an henotheism. If it includes a main God, Ahura Mazda (God of heaven), it nevertheless admits others, such as Anahita (Goddess of war and fertility) and Mithra (God of the sun and justice).

Under the Sassanids, we note evolution towards a dualism between Ahura Mazda (or Spenta Mainyu or Ormazd) and Ahriman (Angra Mainyu), the principles of good and evil which are expressly declared "twins,” at the beginning come together to create life and death and set up the way the world should be. None was superior to the other. This dualism will remain present in Twelver Shiite Islam.

Like every religion, Zoroastrianism, also called Mazdeism, includes several rites linked to the founding principles including: The veneration of eternal fire. The importance of ritual purity, no pollution from the outside world (especially by corpses) or from the inside world (as during childbirth). This search for purity explains the importance given to bones with the funeral custom dating back to the Achaemenids, which consists in leaving the body to the decarnization by scavengers and in recovering the bones. The rites generally consist of animal sacrifices and drink offerings. Historians note the few purely religious representations to which the Mazdean worship gives rise under the Sassanids.

THE CASE OF THE GREENLAND VIKINGS

Chronology of events.

According to the Icelandic sagas a man by the name Gunnbjorn Ulfsson discovered around 930 the rocks that bear his name today, while his ship was diverted from its voyage to Iceland. These rocks, which he named Gunnbjarnarsker (Gunnbjorn rocks), are probably located near Angmagsalik. He did not land there, but brought the news back to Iceland.

In 978 Snaebjorn Galti landed on the west coast.

In 982, Erik the Red, a rich landowner banished from Norway then from Iceland for murders leaves in search of this land, he explores the east coast then the West Coast. According to certain sagas, he called this land Green Country, "because people would want to go there if this country had a beautiful name." In fact, if this name may seem astonishing for the country, it is nonetheless justified: "In the summer, Greenland can, on its coasts, present large areas of a green that is indeed not very common.” In addition, according to some specialists Greenland was at the time much greener than today and a little more hospitable especially on the coasts (due to the medieval climatic optimum).

"Although the Scandinavians were sorely lacking in arable land, their settlement in Greenland was not motivated by its agricultural potential, which was poorer than its Icelandic neighbor, but by its wealth in walrus ivory." According to written accounts from 1327, a single cargo of 520 tusks sold in Norway was worth as much as 780 cows or 66 tons of fish. ”This is without taking into account the use of their fur and of their fat. This theory, developed by the Danish researcher Karin Frei from the National Museum of Denmark, also insists that the European ivory market was then suffering from a shortage of supplies due to the Muslim conquest in North Africa, causing at the same time a Greenlandic ivory rush.

Erik the Red returned to Iceland three years later in order to convince other settlers to accompany him to Greenland. A new expedition then left Iceland in 985 with 25 ships. Only 14 arrived at their destination.

The colony founded by Erik the Red had up to approximately 5,000 people (3,000 only according to Regis Boyer), in 250 farms grouped around fourteen main churches, three quarters of which are distributed among the "settings in the East" ( Eystribyggd) located in the far south-southwest

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(Qaqortoq), and for a quarter in the "western settings" (Vestribyggd), located five hundred kilometers further north.

All of the colonies founded in Greenland will be modeled almost everywhere on their original homeland, Iceland. Thus, until its disappearance, this colony remained radically European, immediately adopting all the cultural, clothing and another evolutions of its homeland. As the settlements remained deserted from the 16th century almost to the present day, their ruins form the best-preserved remains of European rural housings of the Middle Ages.

Like the Vikings of Norway and the other Atlantic colonies, the settlers are farmers who mainly practice breeding. In the first years, the species bred are the same as in Norway or Iceland (cows, pigs), but, as in Iceland, less prestigious species (sheep, goats), but more robust, gradually replace them. In fact, the Greenlandic climate makes it necessary to feed cows and pigs in the stable most of the year and therefore to cultivate fodder, which grows poorly in these latitudes. Only the wealthiest farmers continue to raise cows, especially for their milk. The most important farms, like that of Erik in Brattahlid or that of the bishop in Gardhar, have more than a hundred cows. However, there are no remains of backyard animals in the establishments.

According to Jared Diamond, who bases himself on archeological surveys, the settlers also practice hunting (reindeer and seals, the latter being able to constitute three quarters of the diet in the poorest farms) but strangely not at all fishing, even during the last period, when food rations become insufficient.

This absence of fish from the settlers' diet, while fresh and sea waters are particularly full of fish and the Norwegians of Europe have a diet made up of half of fish, is one of the main archeological mysteries of the colony, even before its disappearance. This theory on the food of the Vikings of Greenland is not unanimous, however. Else Rosedahl thus affirms that "the settlers also exploited the rich resources of fish […] and whales.”

The settlers practice a kind of transhumance, occupying shelters located in the highlands (400 meters maximum) during the summer. They hurry to make a poor harvest and their animals graze there the time for the pastures of the main farm to recover from the spring pasture.

The settlements, particularly those in the west, are at the very edge of the area where farming is possible and a slightly cooler year or a slightly longer winter can compromise the feeding of livestock, and, hence, the survival of the inhabitants.

In fact, it is not possible in the Middle Ages to import food even from Iceland: taking into account the voyages recorded, the average volume of imports must be only three kilos per person per year.

Greenland's main exports are walrus ivory (which was a substitute for elephant ivory before the crusades provided access to this resource) and polar bear fur, as well as, as in Iceland , the vadmal, a woolen fabric. The main imports are also prestige products, as well as wood (extremely rare in Greenland), iron (whose manufacture would have required too large quantities of wood) and tar (obtained by heating softwood).

The settlers only had a few small rowing boats used for walrus hunting, but no ocean-going boats.

Despite the colony's poverty, prestigious constructions were built. Hvalsey’s church is one of the rare stone monuments of the Norwegian colonies in the Atlantic, the cathedral of Gardhar was as large as the two cathedrals of Iceland which served a population ten times more important, and a large part of the imports, thereby reducing the load of wood and iron, was intended for religious furniture.

DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA.

Around 985, according to the Saga of the Greenlanders, Bjarni Herjólfsson, going from Iceland to Greenland, was diverted and saw a land covered with forests in the southwest of Greenland.

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In 1000, Leif the Lucky, son of Erik, bought Bjarni's boat and started looking for new land. He discovered several parts of the American continent, probably Baffin’s land, Labrador, and Newfoundland, where he built "barracks.” Then he returned to Greenland.

His brother Thorvald spent the following winter in the "Leif’s barracks" and then explored the region. The Norwegians encountered nine Indians, and they killed eight of them. The reprisals were not long in coming: Thorvald was killed in the ensuing fighting and the survivors returned to Greenland.

In 1005 Thorfinn Karlsefni, ex-son-in-law of Erik the Red, took around sixty men to colonize the region explored by Leif. After two winters, relations with the Indians became too bad for the colony to be viable, and the Norwegians finally gave up America.

Exploration of the Anse aux Meadows site (which probably corresponds to the Straumfjord where Thorfinn Karlsefni is said to have settled according to the Saga of Erik the Red, the “Leif’s barracks” being probably located on the current site of Bay St Lawrence, to the north of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) has shown that this abandonment resulted in a calm and orderly move.

It is nevertheless probable that expeditions were still carried out towards Labrador in order to bring back from it wood, which Greenland was sorely lacking. We find a trace of that in a text from 1347.

COME NOW TO THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM, THE CAUSES OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THIS VIKING COLONY IN GREENLAND.

The last written sources concerning the Vikings of Greenland come from a marriage having taken place in the church of Hvalsey in 1408; today the best preserved Viking ruins.

Medieval European civilization implanted in Greenland THEREFORE disappeared in the 15th century first in the establishment of the West, then, without historians having traces of the events which caused this disappearance, in the establishment of the East . However, archeology provides a number of clues.

Researchers have found that Greenland has gradually experienced a severe iron shortage; for example, archaeologists have found very few iron objects (nails, etc.) and no weapons, while analysis of the corpses shows that it was a particularly violent society. The few tools found were worn to the last limit.

A study of the garbage dumps at the western settlement shows that the last inhabitants had run out of fuel and food, and that they certainly died of hunger and cold. With the disappearance of the western settlement, the settlers lost access to their main high-value exports.

At present, however, no certainty can be presented and the answers to be given to this question are not unanimous. It will be therefore necessary to present several different points of view in this chapter.

The collapsologist Jared Diamond considers that all of the five factors he identified as causes of the collapse of societies played simultaneously in the case of Greenland: anthropogenic degradation of the environment, climate change, hostile neighbors, defection of partners friendly sales partners (fall in ivory and bear fur prices), inadequate responses to other factors.

Palynology shows that the Norwegians discovered a country covered with willow and birch forests which they hastened to clear in order to create pastures. Analysis of the sediments shows that erosion accelerated abruptly upon their arrival, to the point that even the sand present under the topsoil was pulled away in the lakes.

Colonization of Greenland had started towards the beginning of the "climatic optimum in the Middle Ages,” but the climate began to cool from the 14th century, and in 1420 the small ice age was well established.

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Unlike the Inuit, who heated and lit themselves with animal fat, Norwegians continued to use only wood and peat until the end, aggravating their environmental problems. They also never attempted to imitate Inuit hunting techniques.

In addition to food and climate problems, Régis Boyer also mentioned the neglect of Norway and Denmark. The Greenland knörr, which provided an annual link between Denmark and Greenland, will not be replaced after its destruction in 1367.

Jared Diamond's theory is not unanimous, however. Kirsten A. Seaver had previously disputed some of the most commonly accepted points concerning the disappearance of the Norwegian colonies in Greenland. She believed, for example, that the colony was healthier than what was generally thought in the 1980s and that the settlers were not just starved. They would rather have been exterminated during European attacks or during attacks coming from local populations, or would have abandoned their colonies to go either to Iceland or to Vinland. The absence of personal belongings on these sites would suggest, for example, that the Vikings are just gone. Their occupation, however, lasted more than five centuries.

In 1540, a boat visited the establishment in the East and encountered only deserted farms and, in one of them, an unburied corpse.

When in 1578 the English explorer John Davis reached Greenland, he found only Inuit.

Even as all contact with Greenland was broken, the kings of Denmark tirelessly continued to proclaim their sovereignty over the island. During the 1660s, the polar bear was even added to the coat of arms of the kingdom of Denmark.

In 1721, the Danes and the Norwegians rediscover the island, the Inuit have been the only inhabitants of Greenland for several centuries already.

In 1721, a clerical-commercial expedition led by the Norwegian missionary Hans Egede was sent to Greenland, not knowing if there was still a civilization and, if it was, if they were still Catholic 200 years after the Reform or, even worse in the eyes of Egede, if they had become pagans again. In addition to these religious elements, Greenland was also interesting from the point of view of the fish economy (fisheries, whaling industry). Finally, this expedition can be seen as one of the manifestations of the Danish colonization attempts in America.

In 1723, Hans Egede collects oral traditions according to which the Inuit have had relations with the Norwegians alternating between hostility and friendship.

INUIT HYPOTHESIS.

The Inuit, whose civilization is centered on particular hunting techniques (seal, walrus, whale, caribou), entered Greenland through the Smith Strait around 1250. They develop here the culture of Thule.

From around 1300, they go down along the coast of Greenland due to the cooling of the climate (Little Ice Age). It was probably around this time that they learned from Dorset culture how to build igloos.

During their migrations, they discovered the Viking establishments, that of the West first, then, around 1400, that of the East, with which they certainly competed. The Inuit have an obvious advantage, as their hunting techniques are more sophisticated. A colony of several hundred dwellings then settle in Sermermiut (Ilulissat), on the main bear and walrus-hunting areas of the Norwegians.

The Little Ice Age, however, had a negative impact on the Inuit economics as well, and many families died of hunger and cold. However, they survived this difficult period, unlike the descendants of the Vikings.

THE MAYA CASE IN CENTRAL AMERICA AND ESPECIALLY IN YUCATAN.

Controversy also rages over the exact causes of the collapse of Mayan civilization,

Economic crisis, climate change, foreign invasion ...

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The origins of the oldest Mayan tribes are lost in immemorial time. Native manuscripts of the 16th century have forgotten the location of the cradle of Mayan civilization, whether it is the Chilam Balam (written in the Yucatan Peninsula), or the Popol Vuh of the K’iche, the branch of the Mayan Indians in Guatemala.

Even the first Spanish Mayan chronicler, Brother Diego de Landa (1566), could not clearly state the situation.

The first Mayans most likely lived on the Atlantic coast of Mexico, from where they went down to Central America up the Río Usumacinta and reached the Petén. An old Mayan group, the Huastecs, however, remained in the north, in the region from Veracruz to Tamaulipas. It is perhaps the expansion of the Nahuas, a people of the large Aztec or Mexican family, who cut the Mayan people in two by rejecting one group to the north and the other to the south. The groups rejected to the south are those who developed the great Mayan civilization whose disappearance concerns us today.

At the beginning of the historical period, they lived in a triangle delimited by Palenque in Chiapas, Uaxactun, in Guatemala, and Copán in Honduras, a very important area with very difficult communication routes in the middle of the jungle, crossed by large rivers, including the Usumacinta Basin, the Guatemalan Petén and the valleys of the Motagua and Rio Copán.

Archeological evidence shows that Mayan ceremonial architecture started around 1000 before our era.

Around 300 before our era, there was a proliferation of sites and an intense architectural activity, a sign of a strong increase in population, particularly in the cities of El Mirador, Nakbe, Komchén, Cerros and Tikal. Each site develops independently. Nevertheless, a sign of an undeniable cultural unity, the same red and black ceramics are used everywhere.

Between 150 and 250 of our era, a period often called "protoclassic,” tensions appeared: growth crisis or invasion, no one knows. Some sites disappear such as Cerros, El Mirador or Komchén, while others impose themselves as Tikal.

The Classic Period extends from 250 to 900. It is subdivided into Early Classic (from 250 to 600) and Late Classic (from 600 to 900). Certain authors insert at the hinge of the classic and the Postclassic a period called terminal or final Classic.

This period, which we know better and better thanks to the deciphering of Mayan script, is marked by perpetual rivalries between many city-states. The Mayan Lowlands have never been unified politically, and there never was a “Mayan Empire,” as imagined in the mid-twentieth century. Each political entity was headed by a sovereign called k'uhul ajaw ("divine lord" in Mayan), who derived his legitimacy from his ancestors and held a function not only political but also religious. He was an "interface" between the community he led and the supernatural world. Each political entity had an emblem glyph.

In the Southern Lowlands, the Early Classic is dominated by two large metropolises: Tikal and Calakmul. Each is at the head of a confederation with very loose ties, where the reversals of the alliance are frequent.

Tikal played a predominant role in the early part of this era, which marked the height of Mayan civilization. The beginnings of Tikal's history are poorly documented. Stele 29 bears the first date in long count of this city. Its role seems to be strengthened by the links which unite it to the great metropolis of central Mexico, Teotihuacan. These exchanges are manifested in architecture, ceramics and sculpture.

Towards the middle of the sixth century, Tikal was defeated by Calakmul. There is then a slowdown in activities, which results in the interruption of the erection of dated monuments in this city. This stop marks the end of the early classic.

The end of the 7th century saw a reversal of the situation: Calakmul, defeated by Tikal, began a decline. A revival is taking place, organized around city-states which compete in prestige. The Mayan culture of the Southern Lowlands reached its peak: it lasted until the ninth century. We are witnessing a “balkanization” of the political landscape. Secondary centers are in constant conflict. A rivalry

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opposes Piedras Negras to Yaxchilan, for example, while a little away from the other centers, Quirigua comes into conflict with Copán.

In the Northern Lowlands, in Yucatan, other centers take over: the cities of Puuc of Uxmal, Labná, Kabah, Sayil, etc. Their development was brief: they were also deserted in the 10th century.

The years 750 to 1050 marked the collapse of the city-states of the Southern Lowlands, the cessation of monumental constructions and associated inscriptions. The last known inscription dated to a monument in the Southern Lowlands dates back to 822 for Copán (in the south-east), 869 for Tikal (in the center) and 909 for Tonina (west).

The cause of the almost total depopulation of the powerful Mayan cities at the dawn of the 9th century remains poorly understood. Hypotheses have been put forward to explain the sudden fall of classic Mayan civilization in the height of the golden age, specialists still disagree on the causes of such a radical upheaval. Wars, ecological disasters, famines or a combination of these factors are the reasons generally put forward to explain this decline. The Mayan centers were abandoned between the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 10th century, then covered by the forest. It was not until the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th that they were discovered and restored.

Facts.

We note the gradual cessation of all construction activity in the Mayan cities of the Southern Lowlands, in Guatemala and Mexico today from the end of the 8th century (we generally take into account the last date in long count found on each site, from 780 in Pomona to 909 in Toniná). This phenomenon corresponds to the collapse of the political system of divine kingship (also called sacred kingship) which characterizes the classic Mayan world.

The researchers also established that at this period demography had been in strong fall.

The fall was not violent: the Mayan ruins are not destroyed cities but abandoned cities. There is also no trace of massacres, mass graves or mass graves.

The hypotheses.

So many hypotheses have been put forward on the Mayan collapse that in 1973 two works were published, by Richard E. Adams and Jeremy A. Sabloff to list and classify them. At the time, almost all hypotheses envisaged only a single cause, of internal or external type. Recent studies now favor more complex explanations based on the interaction of several negative factors among those mentioned in previous studies.

Internal causes.

An ecological and climatic crisis: According to this hypothesis, which has been developing since the 1990s, droughts and over-exploitation of the soil have made farming, fishing and hunting areas less productive (even sometimes sterile), forcing the Mayans to return to forms of social organization in smaller communities, in fertile areas and less vulnerable to droughts (in the north) because they have groundwater. Over exploitation, linked to massive deforestation and the need for arable land, could also be due to the increase in stucco production. Indeed, the Mayan public figures being enriched, they built residences with stucco walls increasingly thick. Stucco siding was indeed considered a sign of wealth. However, the quantity of wood necessary to heat the limestone and change it into stucco is considerable.

Massive deforestation would then have led to accelerated soil erosion, degrading watercourses and covering in particular fertile agricultural land with non-fertile materials, such as clay, for example.

C.W. Ceram insists on the stopping all construction of buildings in a city when this same activity starts four hundred kilometers away. According to him, an ecological disaster linked to the depletion of the soil would have required a displacement of capital deferring the problem, but without solving it. Sedimentary records show that several successive extreme droughts quickly affected access to

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domestic and irrigation water while maize cultivation, central to the Mayan diet, depended on the rainy seasons.

A demographic crisis: the increase in demography in the classical era would have been too rapid compared to what technological advances made it possible to manage, in terms of organization, especially in terms of food supply.

Religion: this thesis is based on the Mayan religion itself, predominant in cities whose birth goes hand in hand with the construction of large ceremonial centers. The creation of the arts and sciences was always intimately linked to religion. However, this was based on astronomical observations which had given birth to two complex calendars structuring the life of the city and had deeply marked their cosmogony. The Mayans thus distinguished five cycles in their history of the Universe, all ending in the destruction of the previous world; that corresponding to Mankind was the fourth, and the calculation based on the crossing of the two calendars indicates that this period was to end in the tenth century. Thus, the priests having predicted the imminent approach of the apocalypse, these fervent people would have suddenly been panicked and would have fled ...

This very controversial hypothesis put forward in the mid-1970s by Pierre Ivanof explains neither the sharp drop in demography observed by researchers; nor why the Mayans did not return to live in the cities after realizing that the priests' forecasts were wrong.

External causes.

The invasions: endemic wars between cities, or internal revolts of the plebs against the elite (or of the nobility against the king), would have weakened Mayan cities to the point of making them incapable of resisting the aggression of peoples of the west and north. These hypotheses of political fragmentation are based on traces of brutal abandonment, suggesting that daily activities would have been dropped in a few days (buildings still under construction).

Deciphering the hieroglyphs in any case made it possible to establish that, in a society politically fragmented in city-states, the sovereigns were continuously competing for economic reasons (for the control of a trade route or the levying tributes for example) or reasons of simple prestige (as during the inauguration of a new sovereign). The situation got out of control of the rulers at the end of the 8th century and the war became endemic. The Petexbatun region then became, in the words of Arthur Demarest, the "country of fear.” All the Mayan Lowlands in the south then gradually fell into violence.

In the postclassic era, the Mayan society of the Northern Lowlands became militarized and we witnessed the emergence of a class of warriors, of which the armed "atlantes" in the Temple of the Warriors are Chichen Itza are an emblematic representation. In the Mayan Highlands, warrior and expansionist kingdoms, such as those of the K'iche and the Kaqchikel, clashed in the late postclassic until the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.

Natural disasters.

Some researchers have hypothesized that the Mayan population could have been largely decimated by a series of very powerful earthquakes, severe climatic disturbances (hurricanes, drought), epidemics or even clouds of locusts. For example, a very significant decrease in rainfall over a long period corroborated by several geological studies and by studies carried out around the consequences of the El Niño and La Niña phenomenon could thus have resulted in poor harvests, famines, epidemics, wars, revolts, etc.

Climate historians have shown that a significant drought in Central America affected Mexico between 897 and 922, which could have contributed to the fall of the Mayans. Another period of drought took place between 1149 and 1167, coinciding with the decline of the Toltec culture and the abandonment of its capital.

Mixed causes.

The vast majority of recent studies favor an accumulation of unfavorable factors, which would have led to internal and external social conflicts, until the bankruptcy and the abandonment of the socio-political system of city-states.

These complex explanatory models are based on one of the triggers, internal or external, mentioned above.

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For example, following the excavations carried out in Naachtun since 2009, it is envisaged that a lasting change of the ecosystem and repeated wars have brought about the end of the classic era.

The postclassic era goes from 900 to the Spanish conquest. It is subdivided into Early Postclassic (from 900 to 1200) and Recent (or Late) Postclassic (from 1200 to the Spanish conquest).

The Mayan Postclassic sees the rise of the influence of the Nahuas in central Mexico, both in the Southern Highlands and in the north of the Yucatan. This influence is characterized by the introduction of new styles, new techniques such as metallurgy, and by great changes in social and political organization: kingship is no longer sacred, the king is now accompanied by military orders and different social bodies (counselors, priests). The causes of the rise of the Nahuas are uncertain. It seems that the weakening of the Mayan world has led to movements of Chichimec populations and thereby a revival of Nahua power, now in the hands of the Toltecs, centered on Tula (or Tollan). The latter extend their influence to all of Mesoamerica, even in the north of the Yucatan, bringing Nahuan characteristics to Mayans.

The few Mayan cities that had endured during the Epiclassic and the Early Postclassic, notably the Puuc cities like Uxmal, Sayil, Labna, K'abah, Yaxuna, and other already old cities like Edzna, Coba or Dzibilchaltun, after a golden age between the 9th and the 10th century, experience a serious crisis and depopulate for the most part.

Only Chichen Itza continues to be flourishing: the Toltecs, led by Kukulkan according to legend, would have founded a dynasty there and imported worship from central Mexico, such as that of Quetzalcoatl (Kukulkan), Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (Tawizcal in the Dresden codex), Cactunal … However, in the 13th century, Chichen Itza in turn declined in favor of Mayapan, directed by Hunac Ceel; Mayapan will therefore become the new center of the Mayan world in the Lowlands, a prosperous city, strongly Mexicanized, ruled by aristocratic lines. Then in the 14th century, rivalries between these lines and the ruling Cocom dynasty led to a long period of civil wars, which led to the fall of Mayapan.

The Postclassic in the Southern Highlands also presents big changes and significant Mexicanization. The former classic power centers, like Kaminaljuyu or the cities of the Chuyub Valley, are abandoned. This is followed by large population movements, Mexican intrusions, ethnic and political fragmentation, which lead to the creation of a mosaic of regional centers and independent states. In parallel with these changes, we are witnessing the introduction of Nahu cultural characteristics, such as the twin temples and the Tzompantli, the worships of Mexican origin (Quetzalcoatl under the name of Kukumatz, the Tohil of the K'iche, Xipe Totec…) , metallurgy, new types of ceramics (fine orange, comals, molcajetes, etc.).

Power is in the hands of ethnic groups such as the K'iche, the Kaqchikel, the Mam, the Pokomam, the Tz'utuhil, the Q'eqchi ', who found expansionist and well-defended kingdoms, such as the kingdom of K'iche which, centered on Chi Izmachi then Q'umarkaaj (Utatlan), will be integrated into the Aztec Empire under Ahuizotl, like that of Kaqchikel, first vassal of K'iche, then centered on Iximche, that of Pokomam centered on Mixco Viejo, of Rabinal centered on Cayuup… These States are ruled by lines (Ilocab, Nihaib, Kawek, Tamub…) who claim to hold their power from the Toltecs. The political conflicts which agitate the region throughout the Postclassic are known thanks to documents from the colonial era written in indigenous languages, such as the Popol Vuh of the K'iche, the El Titulo of Totonicapan, The Annals of the Kaqchikel, the Memorial of Solola…

Mayan hieroglyphic writing continues to be used. The four codices, preserved and authenticated, date from the post-classical era.

After defeating the Aztecs in 1521, the Spanish set out to conquer the Mayan territories. Thanks to their technological superiority and to antagonisms between the Mayan kingdoms of the Highlands of Guatemala, which they pushed to pit against each other, they quickly crushed them in 1524. The Mayas of Yucatan, on the other hand, opposed the invaders fierce resistance. The first two attempts to conquer by Francisco de Montejo, in 1527-28 and then from 1531 to 1535, failed. In 1541, his son, Montejo the Younger, taking advantage of the hostility between the Cocom and Xiu clans, managed to

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settle in the region and founded Mérida in 1542. Protected by his relative isolation in the jungle of Petén, the last Mayan State, the Itzá kingdom of Tayasal, succumbed to the Spanish only in 1696-97.

The diseases imported from Europe by the Spanish and unknown to the natives were not unrelated to the defeat of the Mayans. As early as 1521, an epidemic of smallpox swept away a third of the population of the Highlands of Guatemala. The same was true of the Yucatan. On their arrival in the region, the Spanish therefore faced already weakened adversaries.

REQUIEM.

Economics.

Metal tools did not exist. The Mayans used stone millstones called metate.

The Mayans originally derived most of their subsistence from slash-and-burn agriculture: the brushwood is burned - ash is an excellent fertilizer - before sowing with a pointed stick. The discovery of Cerén, a small Mayan village buried by a volcanic eruption in the 6th century, made archaeologists able to observe in situ how the Mayans of the Classic Period cultivated on the same plot corn, beans and squash. The large trees were left in place and contributed to the regeneration of the plot. After one or more years, the nutrients contained in the ash having been used up, the plot had to be left fallow for a period which varied according to the quality of the soil: up to twenty years in northern Yucatan. Except in the Highlands, where the volcanic soil in the valleys is very rich, the yield was relatively low in the Lowlands where the humus layer is generally thin. To feed growing populations, the Maya valued less fertile land by practicing terraced farming to counter erosion. Archaeologists have noted that this form of agriculture was particularly practiced in the Rio Bec region - nearly 150,000 hectares - and in the Caracol region.

The ancient Mayans also knew another form of intensive agriculture: in marshy areas called "bajos,” they developed raised fields; drainage canals were dug and the mounds formed by the mud embankments containing nutrients were cultivated. In this way, they can get more than one crop per year. In addition, an additional resource can be gotten by fish farming in the canals.

To secure their subsistence, the Mayans also practiced hunting and fishing, animal husbandry and agriculture. Breeding was limited to a few species, turkey and dog. In some regions, to avoid protein deficiencies, the Mayans hunted a variety of animals, such as deer, peccaries, tapir, agouti, paca or two species of monkeys, not to mention various species of birds as well as worms and insects.

The Mayans also knew beekeeping.

The different Mayan peoples had many commercial relationships with distant cities. Cocoa beans and copper bells were used as currency; copper was also used for decorative purposes, such as gold, silver, jade, shells and quetzal feathers.

Mayan society is divided into classes: nobles, religious, military, artisans, merchants, peasants (the majority) and the equivalent of serfs. It is headed by hereditary chiefs, of patrilineal descent, who delegate their authority over the village communities to local chiefs. The land, owned by each village, is distributed in plots to different families.

The social structure is complex and is based on a patrilineal family organization, a sexual division of labor and a distribution by activity sectors. The farmers, most of the population, were divided into peasants, servants and slaves. The elite, for its part, was divided into warriors, priests, administrators and leaders. The elite and the people did not form antagonistic categories because ties of kinship or alliance united leaders and servants, chiefs and peasants. Thus, the new discoveries show the existence of a very large class of merchant warriors, especially from the 5th century in Tikal and there would have been a sharing of power between the old aristocracy responsible for the internal affairs of the city and religious and the new class of merchant warriors.

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The Mayans lived according to a city-state system. This relative independence of the communities was, moreover, a factor facilitating the conquest by the Spanish, who did not have to face a people presenting a united front.

The clergy also forms a large class. Priests (ah kin) follow one another from a father to a son and their knowledge is only transmitted within the family. This is understandable since Mayan knowledge was very extensive: from writing to chronology, sacred almanacs to medicine, ceremonies to the training of young priests. Among the priests stands out the chilam, especially charged to receive the messages of the gods and to pronounce prophecies. Their influence and the great religiosity of the Mayans explain the many very severe fasts practiced by the king and the nobility as well as the mortifications and self-mutilation since the Mayan religion gives blood very great magic value.

At the bottom of the ladder is the people. It is his job to provide food and clothing, labor for public works. These Mayan workers only have stone or wooden tools; they know neither metal, animal traction, nor the wheel. The only known means of transport is on men’s back. Finally, slaves are a class apart. Common criminals are condemned to slavery. Prisoners often become sacrificial victims.

CONCLUSION AND REMINDERS.

Easter Island Mayas and Greenland Vikings are three special cases.

What changes everything is that there is a world civilization on Earth today, what was not the case several centuries ago. So there will be survivors who can start from scratch, a process that only a nuclear apocalypse could radically prevent. And when we say "start from scratch" we mean a civilization of the planet of the apes type according to Pierre Boulle, but with men instead of apes, and not Neanderthal Europe.

Happy people have no history, it is said. Conversely, we can deduce that History is only a succession of misfortunes. That it is made only of peoples or civilizations that are born that grow, AND DIE.

In order to change us a little from the eternal references to Gobineau concerning the life and death of great human civilizations (1853) let us say here a few words about the Anasazis.

For Jerry J. Brody, the Anasazi culture is the "best known of the prehistoric cultures of the American Southwest. It is true that the Anasazis had no writing and knew neither the wheel nor the currency. They did not master the techniques of metallurgy and did not really bring any major innovation. Their history is not as brilliant as that of Mesoamerica or Incas.

However, conquistadors believed that a people who wove cotton was civilized. The mastery of irrigation, the stone and multi-story houses (Pueblo Bonito has five of them), the knowledge in astronomy, testify to a dynamic and rich culture. If we measure civilizations by their level of urbanization, it is certain that the Anasazi are one of them. Some cities are said to have had six thousand inhabitants. The villages of the Chaco Canyon were so close together that they formed a conurbation with 15 to 30,000 inhabitants. The Anasazi succeeded in the feat of building in places that were difficult to access, without draught animals or metal tools. The large houses in Chaco Canyon required hundreds of millions of sandstone blocks and hundreds of thousands of beams.

And to our left hand * to complete Arthur de Gobineau I will add to this sad record of the loss of human biodiversity..... the case of languages. Discovered during my study on the decline of the Breton language in Armorica (Loth Line) and French/Breton bilingualism when I was just thirty years old.

For the death of languages is not a new phenomenon. For at least 5,000 years, linguists estimate that at least 30,000 languages have been born and disappeared, generally without leaving a trace.

The process of language assimilation or replacement in space can be schematically summarized in four stages. Assimilation begins with the systematic bilingualism of the social elite while the mass remains unilingual. Then the latter gradually becomes bilingual in the cities, while the rural population remains unilingual. The cities then evolve towards increasing bilingualism, while bilingualism spreads to the rural areas. During the last stage, the latter move massively to unilingualism while leaving only a few bilingual islands.

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HOWEVEVER TO SPEAK A LANGUAGE IS A WAY OF THINKING.

Charlemagne said, "To have another language is to possess a second soul."

There are about 7000 languages spoken in the world. All these languages function differently from each other. They have different sounds, different vocabularies and, above all, a structure of their own.

Lera Boroditsky, an American cognitive scientist specialized in language and cognition ** mentions an aboriginal tribe, the Thaayore people in Australia who use the cardinal points: North, South, East, West, to describe the world around them. This people do not use "left" or "right" to direct themselves. Another example, when greeting a community member, the question is "Which direction are you going in? "instead of "how do you d?"

In this community, you would not be able to say "good morning" if you did not know where you were going.

In some languages there is no way to count with numbers, which is why they have difficulty mastering exact quantities.

There are languages that express a different perception of colors. The example that Lera Boroditsky gives us is the one between English and Russian for the color blue. Indeed, in English the word "blue" is used to designate all kinds of blues, light or dark, while Russians distinguish two colors, a light blue "goluboy" and a dark blue "siniy." What's the point? When people are tested with the colors, Russian speakers are quicker to cross this linguistic border, they can distinguish light blue and dark blue more quickly. At the cerebral level, it was noticed in these subjects a certain surprise when the colors change from the lightest to the darkest. They therefore perceive a change of category whereas English-speaking subjects will not notice any difference.

Another example: the Celtic language uses the same term "glaston" for both blue and green. For its speakers, blue and green are just shades of "glaston."

Etc ; etc.

The French linguist Claude Hagege estimates, for his part, that one language disappears "every fifteen days," i.e., 25 annually. In other words, at this rate, if nothing is done, the world will have lost half of its linguistic heritage within a century, and probably more because of the acceleration due to the prodigious means of communication. This phenomenon particularly affects the languages of Indonesia (more than half of the 600 languages would be moribund), New Guinea (more than half of the 860 languages of Papua New Guinea would be on the verge of extinction) and Africa.

The worst part is that it may not even be noticed, because the disappearance of a language is never a spectacular event. However, we can speak of a real "cataclysm" that will occur in general indifference. For example, the Cornish language of Great Britain probably disappeared at the beginning of the 19th century.

There are, of course, people who think that the disappearance of languages is a positive event contributing to a greater inter-comprehension between human beings and that we should not worry about it. The American columnist for the National Review, John J. Miller, does not see how, for example, the Papua New Guinea's 800 or so languages could be a "model." Nor does he see why we should be alarmed, because these populations would have nothing to give to others except a few handmade trinkets.

One can only be dubious about the effectiveness of monolingualism in making HUMANITY happy when we see how much we do not understand each other even within the same officially unified country from the linguistic point of view.

Let us conclude for these incurable optimists that the best way to contribute to linguistic intercomprehension would then be TO PROMOTE AN ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGE LIKE ESPERANTO AND NOT ANY GLOBISH.

* The one that doesn't know what our right hand is doing. Unless it's the opposite.

** Boroditsky, Lera, and Alice Gaby. "Remembrances of Times East Absolute Spatial Representations of Time in an Australian Aboriginal Community.

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FROM SCOTLAND TO THE AMAZON : EVERYWHERE THE SAME NECESSITY !

Scotland's environment is the product of a long association of people with the land since the last 2,000m thick glaciers melted 10,000 years ago. A relatively benign oceanic climate allowed settled agriculture to develop over most of the country. Through time, much of it became a "cultural landscape," modified by human activities such as cropping, grazing, and burning. For example, woodland at Catta Ness in north-east Shetland has been found to have disappeared within the space of 150 years around 3,120 before our era and the land has remained deforested since then.

Very little of Scotland today remains undisturbed by humans and it is difficult to assess realistically the state of the natural resource base over time since the process of change has been long, slow and compounded by many potential causes. Obvious facts include the loss of native forest cover which once extended to as much as 75% of the land area (the "Great Forest of Caledon").

Ecological Consequences of colonialism in the High-Lands of Scotland.

Land productivity in general is widely believed to have suffered. A largely based on cattle subsistence economy was replaced by sheep, deer, grouse and other "game" birds has been associated with diminution of the several indigenous forms of nutrient recycling, as well as an intensification of grazing and burning pressures. Predator density (hawks, polecats, etc.) would appear to have dramatically declined since the sporting estates were first established.

As a result of informed public concern in Scotland, Reforesting Scotland was set up in 1991.

Part of the effectiveness of such a group is that growing numbers of British development professionals are coming back home and realizing that the progress which has been made in community forestry in Nepal or Papua New Guinea, for example, is not only absent in Scotland but positively ridiculed as having any relevance to areas such as the Highlands and Islands.

For the record information Alastair McIntosh and Andy Wightman published in the Montreal international Journal of intercultural and transdisciplinary research volume XXVII 1994.

The Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland covers 310 square kilometers of some of the most important mountain land for conservation in Britain. It includes three of the four highest British mountains, part of the largest and most diverse area of the subarctic plateau, the most permanent snow beds, the entire head water catchment of the River Dee and one of the most important remnants of boreal pinewood left in Scotland.

The case of Mar Lodge is typical of a wider malaise in Scotland. Dr. Adam Watson, a Scottish ecologist with an international reputation, recently described the remnants of Scotland's natural forest as, "... one of the most degraded and abused parts of the boreal and temperate forest anywhere in the world. We really have a nerve exhorting the people of Brazil to look after their rainforests when we've made such a mess of looking after our own native woodlands in Scotland." Support is growing for substantial reforestation. New government grant policies which took effect through the Forestry Commission in the early 1990s are exemplary in their encouragement for native species planting. But it requires to be part of a wider package which includes land reform in order that human communities can become more self-reliant, responsible and influential in land use decisions.

Although the destruction of the forest has been underway for many centuries, it has been in the last 200 years that the situation has become critical. In common with many areas of the Highlands of Scotland, Mar Lodge was converted to a hunting estate in the late 18th century and the farming population was cleared from the land. Management for hunting has led to an emphasis on retaining high numbers of wild Red Deer which in turn have suppressed the natural regeneration of the forest.

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For 200 years there has been no significant regeneration and the few trees that are now left are old Scots pine.

Mar Lodge Estate, like much of the rest of Scotland, is owned by a private individual an American multibillionaire, Mr. John Kluge, who had bought it as a gift of his exotic dancer wife. Until recently he was looking for a buyer following his divorce. Already an attempt by a consortium of conservation bodies to purchase it has been suspended due to difficulties in securing adequate funds and the power of the Scottish landowning milieu. There is no regulation or control of land sales in Scotland. The market for such a hunting estate is therefore exclusive to the small number of individuals around the world who are interested in hunting and can afford such prices. Even now, with new proposals for the future management of the Cairngorm mountains as a whole, the Government is still relying on the "voluntary principle" whereby landowners are not compelled, obliged or required to take any action to protect and restore the environment , they must volunteer. If the Brazilian Government were to claim that such a principle would protect the Amazonian rainforests it would probably be castigated as naive at the least, and more likely as corrupt.

Point it out in case it may be of use that this phenomenon is not new. Blanqui himself denounced it in his time, and in quite lyrical terms, moreover, which harmed his thought if I believe these few notes dating from my misspent youth.

“Was the sacrifice of individual independence, a forced consequence of the division of labor, abrupt? No ! Nobody would have granted it. There is in the feeling of personal liberty such a bitter taste of enjoyment, that nobody would have exchanged it for the golden necklace of civilization.

This is clearly seen by the savages that the European world is trying to tame. The poor people wrap themselves in their shroud, mourning the lost freedom, and prefer death to servitude. The marvels of luxury, which seem so dazzling, do not seduce them. They go beyond the scope of their minds and their needs. They turn their lives upside down. They only feel them as enemy strangeness that drives a sharp point into their flesh and soul. The unfortunate peoples whom our irruption has surprised in the American solitudes or in the lost archipelagos of the Pacific will disappear with this mortal contact.

For almost four centuries, our detestable race has mercilessly destroyed everything it meets, men, animals, plants, minerals. The whale will go extinct, annihilated by a blind pursuit. Cinchona forests fall one after the other. The ax fell, no one replanted. We don't care that the future has a fever. Coal deposits are wasted with wild negligence.

Men had suddenly appeared, telling us by their appearance alone the first times of our stay on earth. We had to preserve with filial care, if only in the name of science, these surviving samples of our ancestors, these precious specimens of the primitive ages. We murdered them. We will be accountable for this murder before history. Soon, it will reproach us for this crime with all the vehemence of morality far superior to ours.

……………..

Usury has become the universal plague.

Its origin is lost in the night of the past. This form of rapine could not show itself before the use of money. Barter in kind does not involve it, even with the division of labor. Writing certainly did not exist then. It would have kept a precise memory of this great innovation. The tradition is silent.

Usury was an evil, not necessary, it would be fatalism too far-fetched, but inevitable. Ah! If the instrument of exchange had borne, from the beginning, its legitimate fruits, if it had not been distorted, diverted from its destination! ... Yes, but if ... is still nonsense. To make the present a philippic against the past is no less absurd than to make the past the rule, or rather the routine of the future.

Each century has its own organism and existence, forming part of the general life of Mankind. This is not fatalism. Because the wisdom or debauchery of the century have their repercussions on the health of the species. Only, Mankind being multiple, can always heal from an illness. It left it for a few thousand years in hospital. The individual risks the death.

It would therefore be idle and ridiculous to lose your regrets over the lamentable abuse that has been made of the means of exchange. Alas! Must we admit it? It was the disadvantage of an advantage, the atonement, said the Christians, doctrinarians of suffering. It was the substitution of the scam for the assassination ... A progress. The dynasty of His Majesty the Crown-Emperor had just hatched. For a

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long time, it had to confuse and squeeze the world. It has crossed the almost entire life of mankind, standing, unchanging, indestructible, surviving monarchies, republics, nations and even races.

Today, for the first time, it faces the revolt of its victims. But such an ancient and powerful sovereign has more servants than enemies. Sycophants rush en masse to the rescue, with censers and music, shouting and singing: “Hosannah! Glory to the golden calf, father of abundance! A severe analysis will do justice to these hymns and, stripping the character of his rags, will show him naked. ….” (Blanqui’s manuscripts published in 1885. Chapter III usury).

The destruction of a forest appears always harmful because cover protects there the ground against the drying up, which causes a deterioration of the rainfall patterns, an excessive evaporation, and the general drying up of the climate.

Treeless land is a waste land. It dries, is pulverized. The wind drives out in only a barren dust in front of it.

Under the pressure of these truly “gigantic and anguipedic” forces (Fomorean, people would have said in Ireland at one time), animals and plants disappear from the globe at a vertiginous speed. A thing should not be forgotten; it is that this parricide (matricide) of our jolly old Rose-Martha , is not the preserve of the only industrialized countries. The construction of the Trans-Amazonian highway destroyed several hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest, destabilizing the climate of the whole planet, reducing the contribution in oxygen and disturbing the rain cycles. The world social capitalism drives the peoples in the Third World or in the South to also massacre their soils, their ecosystems. The genocide of the Amazon forest (plants, animals and Indians) is the revolting it illustration of this biblical headlong rush (“subdue the earth and rule over the animals Genesis” 1,28 ). It is enough to read a little what our good Rene Dumont wrote, in line with Peter Ramus, to be convinced some.

Is it true that the goffinets or the sanctimonious hypocrites will not fail to object, “Thoreau and Dumont? But they are democrats, liberals, men of the left-wing, some anarchists! ”

And now, and now?

If o be a true child of the earth which bears us (Litavis), it is necessary to agree overall with what Henry David Thoreau, or Rene Dumont, retained from Peter Ramus; then let us be nevertheless true children of the Earth, some respectful sons and daughters.

Druids don't agree with all that Thoreau and Dumont wrote, as regards the details, but we must well admit that they are absolutely right in the broad outlines; and this has nothing to do with the fact of being democratic or republican, royalist or monarchist, liberal, man of left or right wing, with all due respect to the goffinets or the pharisees of all kinds. It is a question of survival! FROM SCOTLAND TO THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST: EVERYWHERE THE SAME FIGHT FOR OUR MOTHER THE EARTH !

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OPEN LETTERS TO THE PRINCES WHO RULE THIS WORLD.

History offers us the sad example of civilizations whose decline and disappearance seem linked to the absence of any, even the slightest bit ecological, reflection.

See the case of the Maya for example, that of the Vikings in Greenland being more controversial.

However what happened yesterday with these civilizations could occur tomorrow for us. Nothing in any case seems to guarantee us the opposite . Who does not learn the lessons from History risks, it is said, to relive it.

The first ecologist measures in history.

Many laws were passed which can be qualified ecologists, and this, since Antiquity. From the protection of the forests in Ur around - 2700, to the edicts of protection of animals from the emperor Ashoka in India (- 256); from the first “nature reserve” (a sanctuary of the wildlife) instituted a few decades later by the king Devanampiya Tissa, until the first law of protection of birds on the Scottish island of Farne in 676. See life of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne. On this island in the North Sea, he instituted special laws to protect the birds which came in order to nest. These laws could have even been the very first ones on the protection of birds.

Closer to us, Mauritius remained famous to have seen the disappearance of the dodo, an endemic bird of the island, but it was also the setting of the first measures in ecological matter.

When in 1710, it passes under the control of France, his first governor, who is a botanist, aware of the colonization effects, takes legislative measures aiming at obliging the keeping in forest of a quarter of the properties; in order to fight against the erosion of the grounds, and to guarantee favorable microclimates.

The simple asking the question of the society that we want is, of course, already a radical questioning of the currently dominating ideology (through dominating we want to say that politicians, intellectuals, and journalists; besides it is roughly the same thing, find obvious, at least in their broad outlines, and that they fight, disparage, caricature, or ridicule, the rare unfortunate ones who go so far as to question its soundness); is, of course, already a radical questioning of the dominating all economic one,of the economy as the only horizon of our future. Facing the liberalism which triumphs over the ruins of the policy (today economy prevails over policy), only ecology can build a new credible society project, which meets the planetary limits as the lessons of History: an open and co-operative society for a limited planet.

The catastrophic historical experiment of the various totalitarianisms having prevailed in the twentieth century, the national socialism of the German workers (Hitler) the real socialism (Stalin); still prohibits to the non-conformist and who are not used to follow the crowd, minds, to ask the question of our common destiny; human freedom disavowing itself because of its crimes. Such an amount of hatred, from the liberal thought or “champagne” left-wing, produced only postmodernism without consistency in its negation of totalitarianism. But it is not the unlimited market freedom or the stateless capitals , guilty of so much destruction (see the crisis of 2008), that we should defend, but the conditions of a true autonomy of the human being.

The totalitarianism which threatens us is indeed rather that of the merchandise, and the ideology which should be fought, it is that of the total economic liberalism: the policy must prevail over economy.

Ecology is not a Utopia, it is the endless continuation of the productionist capitalism which is completely utopian. It is our system of development which is not sustainable. They are not prophecies relating to the future, “The disaster already took place!” We note each day a little more the extent of the disaster.

The neither of left-wing nor of right-wing (druidic in a way) political ecology is a society project forming an alternative to the productionist capitalism, a project of relocalization of the economy, based on the indivisible triptych: guaranteed income, village cooperatives, and regional or local currencies. The thus defined political ecology as local and human development is the construction from below of a total response to the commercial totalitarianism, which threatens our life conditions. It could be that our time not only makes possible what only an inaccessible dream was, but that even it imposes it with the authority of emergency.

Another current of thought feels that the 21st century will be that of the noosphere, where the main resource will be that of information and culture. The partisans of the information society consider that Man entered a new technological era; and that it is from now on possible, thanks to computer science and telecommunications, to create wealth (i.e., some growth) by producing services and information. This “immaterial” production would be non-polluting. The expression “ dematerialization of economy” is

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a concept designating the progressive change of an economy essentially based on the primary (production of raw materials); and secondary sectors (the transformation of the aforesaid raw materials); in an economy continuing, of course, to grow, but where the tertiary sector (that of the services) would be increasingly important, and therefore would use less natural resources, particularly less energy.

We should not indeed only subordinate economy to society, or to ecological cycles (the druid must prevail over the king, the policy must prevail over the economy); but also to benefit from the informational revolution requiring more and more autonomy. What should therefore result in a new orientation of economy towards the human development, the immaterial one and the services, rather than material consumption, towards the co-operation of knowledge rather than the commercial competition… Informational technologies appear also essential, by multiplying the capacities of feedback, evaluation of the results, and correction or adjustment, of the public action.

It is time to bring an end to the notion of unlimited or infinite economic growth, and to come back towards a simpler lifestyle, more natural, that which was ours during our 4000 years of history. What the dedication of the history of Astrea and Celadon by Honore d'Urfe shows very well.

“These shepherds having heard so many wonders of your Lorship had never had the audacity to appear in front of your Majesties; if I had not assured them before that the great kings, about whom Antiquity boast most , were pastors; and have carried the crook and the scepter in the same hand. This consideration, and the fact that since they have been informed that greatest glories of these good kings were those of peace and justice, in which they fortunately kept their people; consequently made them hope that as you imitate them and exceed them in this very paternal care, you would not scorn either these crooks, and these herds that they present to you.” The very humble, very affectionate, and very faithful subject of Your Majesty: HONORE D’URFE.

The neo-druidism considers that this part of the sacredness was lost during time, and that the responsible person is the Judeo-Christian tradition. The latter indeed spread the idea of a linear temporality, which is an aberration. This linearity, strengthened by the notion of progression towards a goal of achievement - of Last Judgment - instills into the minds (in particular Western minds) the idea according to which Mankind can go only in the same direction.

The steadfast faith in God of the nice and smart people, those who know, with a capital letter; whereas you, you are at best only an idiot, in the worst case a villain, even both at the same time; is needed to believe, like Messrs. Adam Smith, or Bernard Mandeville, that man is a bee and that an invisible hand always corrects, and before it is too late, the harmful consequences of actions guided by our sole individual interest.

N.B. The fable of the bees is a poem that went completely unnoticed when it was first published in 1705 by the Dutch writer Bernard Mandeville, but whose comments published in 1714 were written about extensively this time. Its author wrote in black and white that “If an ill-natured miser, who is almost a 'plumb, and spends but fifty pounds a-year, though he has no relation to inherit his wealth, should be robbed of five hundred or a thousand guineas, it is certain that as soon as this money should come to circulate, the nation would be the better for the robbery, and receive the same sum and as real a benefit from it, as if an archbishop had left the same sum to the public .”

As for the "so-called" invisible hand, it is a famous theory due to Adam Smith, an English economist (1723 - 1790), considered to be the father of the Liberal School. In his best-known work, "An inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776), he describes how, by the search for individual interest and profit, and by market mechanisms; each citizen contributes not only to enrich themselves personally, but also to increase the wealth of the community.

It is a theory that can be summed up like this.

It is only for profit that a man uses his money capital. He will always try to use his capital in the kind of activity whose product will make him able to hope to earn the most money. Indeed, his intention in general is not to serve the public interest, and he does not even know how useful he can be to society. In this, it is as if led by an invisible hand, or the happy result of the fable of the bees, to fulfill an end which does not enter at all into his intentions and that this end is not at all wanted is not always the

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worst for society. While seeking only his personal interest, he often works much more effectively for the benefit of society, than if he really intended to work for it.

The theory of the hand known as invisible has as a corollary that if each consumer can freely choose his purchases; and if each producer can freely choose the products that he will sell, as well as the way of producing them; the market then will evolve to a mutually beneficial situation for all its agents.

The naturally egoistic liking of the individuals will lead each one to behave in a manner which will be advantageous for the society. In the sectors in overproduction, the agents will withdraw under the effect of worthless or negative profits. In the education field , the students will be led naturally to choose the careers which lack workers, therefore most remunerative, etc., etc. All these effects will occur automatically, as under the effect of an “invisible hand.” From where the name of this theory. This providential mechanism will also play in the field of the equal opportunity. The inhabitants of a poor country will be ready to work for weak wages, what will encourage the investors to build production centers in this country. The labor demand will be therefore increased, and the wages (decision variable on the labor market) will increase.

The inhabitants will consume more, what will urge the local producers to engage more to satisfy this demand. At the end of this process, the wages will have increased so much so that it will be no longer interesting any to relocate towards this country, which then therefore will have reached a standard of living comparable with that of the rich countries.

The true, false or supposed naivety, suits many people well! The Swiss Sismondi saw it very well in his time: competition never produces the harmony of the interests or the equality of the statuses, but on the contrary the concentration of wealth ; if it is not counterbalanced by a great generosity of heart and mind.

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ECOLOGY OR DEATH!

At all events, whether it is the high vision of the druids or that more magic of the average Celt, this fundamental Truth was then an obvious need for the Society as a whole. It contributed to its harmony.

And the reward offered by this harmony was immediately tangible, worldly, and was not reserved to the Other World: the joie de vivre. A joy of living in direct connection with the Love of Life; at the bottom, basically the joy of being. It goes without saying it was opposed by the external (in human relations) and internal (disturbances, conflicts of feelings) discords… therefore, conversely, this Harmony, external and internal, was a cause of joy.

“The joy of life is the joy that you draw from yourself and from your true force. Its other name is the Love of Life, because you can love the life only insofar as you enjoy it authentically. The one who can satisfy his will of sovereignty finds the other men satisfactory. He can love them in spite of their faults. He fears no longer their perverse reactions, and needs no longer to triumph over them. He loves the life in all his forms” (TR. No. 22).

The ethic of the environment can be defined as the whole of the ecological doctrines proposing, to solve the current crises, to reconsider the relation Man/Nature from a philosophical, aesthetic, even religious, point of view.

This very complex huge network of the living world, the total biodiversity, which literally livens up unceasingly the surface of this moving sphere, is all the more interesting and intriguing that we are ourselves a part of it: we live on and in the Biosphere. The ethno-diversity extends the biodiversity because to speak another language it is to think…differently. To have a second soul Charlemagne would say.

Albert Schweitzer told in “ Out of My life and thought” (1931) how his fundamental idea of reverence for life had come to him. It was on the Ogowe River, in the sunset light, when he saw a herd of hippopotamuses that the boat had disturbed then dispersed. “There flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben. The iron door had yielded. The path in the thicket had become visible. Now I had found my way to the principle in which affirmation of the world and ethic are joined together! I knew that the ethical acceptance of the world and of life, together with the ideals of civilization contained in this concept, has its foundation in thought.”

Famous Page, become an essential reference. Anecdote or legend: to somebody who had asked him what role it was necessary to grant to the hippopotamuses in his discovery of the principle of reverence for life, Schweitzer would have answered, with humor: “Simple accompanying meat !” And yet it looks well, according to the text, that these big animals had in a way whispered these words to him. If animals looking as incongruous as hippopotamuses exist in this world, the life must well e meaningful. Their existence makes sense , since they are there. All the more so the existence of Man.

Isn't Man, according to the expression of Elisee Reclus, Nature becoming aware of itself? For the great evolutionists of the 20th century, like Theodosius Dobzhansky or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Man is the Evolution becoming aware of itself.

The concept of Biosphere is of geological origin and expresses the impact of the Darwinian revolution on the earth sciences, not forgetting the ideas of Lamarck and some others as Buffon and Hutton. Some naturalists especially, as Teilhard and Vernadsky, used or developed this holistic concept of Biosphere, but with theoretical prospects and very diverse philosophical intentions. The same word therefore masked a multiple and divergent conceptual evolution.

The Biosphere is the total ecological system integrating all the living beings and the relations which they forge between them, with the chemical elements of the lithosphere (rocks), of the hydrosphere (water) and of the atmosphere (air); in a total metabolism which transforms the surface of the Earth unceasingly. It is necessary to imagine the homeostasis of the great metabolism which connects Biosphere and Geosphere. Life goes beyond individuals.

The interdisciplinary and holistic concept of Biosphere combines astronomy, geophysics, meteorology, biogeography, evolutionary biology, geology, geochemistry and, in fact, all the sciences of the Earth and of the Living. The Life and the Earth are of the same sized phenomena. All leads us to think their simultaneous co-evolution. It is the very essence of the idea of Biosphere, which designates the “biological” part endowed with a functional autonomy and a “creating evolution”; which makes the Earth, for forty million centuries, “a living planet” in evolution, unique in the solar system; and perhaps (we know nothing strictly about that!) in all the universe.

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What the scientific research is discovering, it is that this Biosphere which makes us live, and that we are changing in an as speeded up as ill-considered way, essentially is the collective creation of a fantastic variety of organisms and living species which form the diversity of the ecosystems; with a biological wealth more concentrated more clearly in the Tropics than in the polar regions.

Therefore it is not only a question of respect of the human life, even in the wars, by avoiding the useless massacres in them (Cuchulainn killed “neither the charioteers neither the messengers nor the unarmed men”) and a fortiori, by prohibiting the genocide. Ecology, it is also the respect of the life of the animals, even in the pleasures of the hunting raised to the rank of cynegetics (Arrian), by avoiding decimating the species… without forcing oneself for all that to follow an only vegetarian diet like Schweitzer… Under this harmony and respect of the life which is its corollary, this ethical code is understood as a setting in conformity of the rules of the living together and of the biorhythms in an ecosystemic interdependence, to use “modern” words here.

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GROWTH OR DEGROWTH.

Notice of Peter DeLaCrau found by his heirs then inserted by them into this place.

Wisdom is the quality which induces the practical reason to distinguish in all circumstances our true good, and to choose the right means of achieving it. It is mixed up neither with the timidity nor the fear, nor with the duplicity or the dissimulation. It is known in Latin as auriga virtutum: in other words that which leads the other virtues, in their indicating rule and moderation. The careful man decides and puts in order his behavior according to this judgment. Thanks to this virtue, we apply without mistake the ethical principles to the individual cases and we overcome the doubts about the good to be done or the evil to be avoided. The druidism agrees entirely with this very pagan image of the chariot and of his charioteer, used by the ancient moralists.

This precept of the druids is explained by their notion of the interdependence of the things in our world. Our survival, our own happiness, depend on many factors. In the same way, the pain and the tragedy depend on many factors. All is connected all is bound, as we already had the occasion to say it, but it is useful to repeat it. The wing flapping of a butterfly in Paris can unleash a few weeks later storm in New York.

This image describes the effect which was highlighted by the meteorologist Edward Lorenz. This great American scientist discovered that in the weather systems, a negligible variation of an element can develop gradually, until causing enormous changes at the end of a certain time. This concept does not relate to only meteorology, it was studied in various fields.

Considering this generalized interdependence of the things, we must therefore be attentive for the immediate causes. Just like we are concerned with the experiment of the consequences of our acts, we must be attentive to the immediate causes as to the long-term, or distant, causes.

In short, as the Germanic equivalents of the teagasc flatha, or teagasc na riogh say it (the havamal: several stanzas, particularly the 129, the 138 and the following ones, are partly of Gaelic origin): do not eat too much, people could believe that you do not have enough to eat at home, do not drink too much, you could say stupidities that you would regret then, do not speak too much, like that, nobody will make fun with you, etc.

As in everything what is important, it is therefore the happy medium. No asceticism and no too Spartan life, no vices or orgies in the Roman way either!

The “goffinets” or sanctimonious hypocrites on duty will be able obviously to think that this happy medium is a too advanced idealization of druidic ethic. According to some of them, far from being sons of kings, the Celts would be only monsters of disproportion.

Nevertheless it is, however, to the radically opposite conclusion that the independent researchers come. These people did not spend all their time in their bed or around the table and was “to do nothing low,” i.e., to be noble, the French J. M. Ricolfis adds, “and first in the body and clothing appearance.”

Cleanliness as well as the style of these “Barbarians” are emphasized by the travelers.

This sense of moderation and dignity also extends to the social man. He is“courteous, distinguished, even a lover of good manners. “He knows not how to pay court or flatter, but only how to behave simply and frankly to all men alike” [Greek “haplos de kaì eleutheros ek tou ísou pasi prospheresthai”]. Same thing for the sons of Irish kings. As we could see it, we have their written code [the teagasc na riogh, the same one as that which was given by Odin in the Havamal or by Melusine to her children according to the legend. Author’s note].

They should not lend themselves to jokes of bad taste, they must avoid the brawls, know to listen or keep quiet, not to boast or chatter unnecessarily, not to mock or slander, be courteous towards the women, including theirs. They should not chatter, neither drink, neither lie, neither attend villains buffoons or misers, nor to do violence to women, people, poets. They must respect the women, not to marry for their dowry, to use consideration and kindnesses towards the children, to respect the opinions of others.

The women have besides also their qualities to cultivate. Aemer, the betrothed of Cuchulainn for example, who is wise and modest in spite of her great beauty, her nice voice and her pleasant conversation.

The question of comfort and luxury in the same way always arose problem by its excesses in one or the other direction. There were always those who are for the material progress, and those who are for a hard-line life, in the way of our most distant forefathers.

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Strabo reports that certain Celts endeavor not to become “neither fat nor pot-bellied” and that they punish every young man whose plumpness exceeds the measure fixed by a girdle. But Strabo hastens to add that he has the information from Ephorus.

An ancient text goes even further and shows us Celts training themselves to overcome the pain. Warriors wounded by arrows widen their wounds and Livy says clearly that they want thus to acquire glory.

With regard to bodily training, the hardening against the temperature variations, the wakefulness, the witness statements come to us are contradictory. See the sentence of Aristotle about the children: “It is also useful to inure them to the cold when they are very little; for this is very serviceable for their health; and also to inure them to the business of war; for which reason it is customary with many of the barbarians either to dip their children in rivers when the water is cold; either to clothe them very slightly, as among the Celts; for whatever it is necessary to accustom children to, it is best to accustom them to it at first, but to do it by degrees; besides, boys have naturally a habit of loving the cold, on account of the heat.”

Out of the battlefield, several peoples live a very simple life to which can refer the current followers of the Degrowth. Posidonius writes that those who live in the area of Tolosa have nothing sumptuous in their lifestyle, and Strabo notes that, on this point, Posidonius agrees with many other authors. We could believe admittedly that morality is for nothing in this simplicity, that poverty alone is in question. But Posidonius notices that the inhabitants of the area also have large quantities of gold. It is thus well by principle that they are satisfied with such a hard life and not by need.

Albert Bayet also quotes Polybius speaking about the peoples settled in the Transpadane regions, and who live in isolated villages, without walls, “without being acquainted with any science or art whatever.” They sleep on a bed made of leaves or straw, eat meat. In short, their life is hard and simple.

However these people were far from being poor, Polybius signals it himself. And the Belgians, Caesar’s Commentaries say, are simplest “Because merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind.” Strabo also notices that the Belgians resemble the Germanic tribes for the way of life; their use is to sleep rough. Ammianus Marcellinus reports that they owe their courage to the fact that they are distant from a delicate civilization, and are not made effeminate by foreign pleasures: “ab humaniore cultu longe discreti nec adventiciis effeminati deliciis.”

The Nervians as for them are characterized by their horror of every luxury.

“There was no access for merchants to them; they suffered no wine and other things tending to luxury to be imported; because, they thought that by their use the mind is enervated and the courage impaired: that they were a savage people and of great bravery: that they upbraided and condemned the rest of the Belgae who had surrendered themselves to the Roman people and thrown aside their national courage (Caesar, book II, 15).

The end of this sentence shows that there is in fact conflict and contradiction between two tendencies among the Celts of this time. The Nervians attached to the traditions received from their forefathers, prefer to live a simple and hard life and they attribute the cowardice of the others to the luxury which weakens them.

But precisely, that proves by contrast that there are other Celts who, themselves, decide clearly for the technical progress and the improvement of the living conditions.

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LIFE OF FORESTS.

When the Romans leave Italy, it will be to discover an immense primary forest, the Hercynian Forest. Several million hectares. It stretched from the Rhine to the Erzgebirge (Hercynii Montes) and the Gabretamons.

The opinions differ as for the localization of this forest massif. After having mentioned the Aenus (Inn River) and its confluence with the Danube, Ptolemaeus indicates the latter receives the water of a river coming from the north and from the forest of Gabreta. This river could be one of those which go down from the hills in the Ober-Pfalzer Wald and in the Bohmerwald. The second mention of the forest of Gabreta appears to confirm this assumption, since Ptolemy mentions it between the Soudeta mountains (Sudetes) and the Sarmatian mountains (Western Carpathians). The place name Gabreta is Celtic, we find there the word *gabros which means “goat/roe deer.”

The Black Forest, as well as the woods which covers the mountains of the Harz and of Erzgebirge, are only remains of it. Harz, Ers, are probably the stems of the word Hercynia (Greek herkunios , Latin hercinia). The term goes back to perkwunia. The name which appears in the designation of this forest therefore proves a thing, it was known when the Celtic p Gallic had become a breath or a glottal stop. It is known indeed that the Continental Celts had difficulties with the initial p resulting from the Indo-European kw. This root can seem strange, however it is familiar. It corresponds to the Latin quercus, name of the oak in this language.

For the Romans in every case it the unknown, all is that they know it that this forest starts after the Alps in Switzerland and Bavaria, and ends, they don’t know where, in Scandinavia, at the North Pole?

The tribe of the Hercuniates mentioned by Pliny in the south-west of Hungary bears obviously a name in relation with that of this immense forest; either that it gave it its name, or that it was thus designated because of its vicinity.

Caesar, B.G., VI, 24: “Chapter XXIV.

There was formerly a time when the Celts excelled the tribes in prowess, and waged war on them offensively, and, on account of the great number of their people and the insufficiency of their land, sent colonies over the Rhine. Accordingly the Volcae Tectosages seized on those parts of Germania which are the most fruitful [and lie] around the Hercynian Forest (which, I perceive, was known by report to Eratosthenes and some other Greeks, and which they call Orcynia), and settled there. Which nation to this time retains its position in those settlements, and has a very high character for justice and military merit.

The breadth of this Hercynian Forest, which has been referred to above, is to a quick traveler, a journey of nine days. For it cannot be otherwise computed, nor are they acquainted with the measures of roads. It begins at the frontiers of the Helvetii, Nemetes, and Rauraci, and extends in a right line along the river Danube to the territories of the Daci and the Anartes; it bends thence to the left in a different direction from the river, and owing to its extent touches the confines of many nations; nor is there any person belonging to this part of Germania who says that he either has gone to the extremity of that forest, though he had advanced a journey of sixty days, or has heard in what place it begins. It is certain that many kinds of wild beasts are produced in it which have not been seen in other parts.

There is a third kind, consisting of those animals which are called urus. These are a little below the elephant in size, and of the appearance, color, and shape, of a bull. Their strength and speed are extraordinary; they spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied. These the inhabitants take with much pains in pits and kill them. The young men harden themselves with this exercise, and practice themselves in this kind of hunting, those who have slain the greatest number of them, having produced the horns in public, to serve as evidence, receive great praise. But not even when taken very young can they be rendered familiar to men and tamed. The size, shape, and appearance of their horns, differ much from the horns of our oxen. These they anxiously seek after, bind at the tips with silver, and use as cups at their most sumptuous entertainments.”

Tacitus, Germania XXVIII 2: “Accordingly, the tract betwixt the Hercynian Forest and the rivers Rhine and Mayne was possessed by the Helvetii: and that beyond, by the Boii; both Celtic tribes. The name of Boiemum still remains, a memorial of the ancient settlement, though its inhabitants are now changed.”

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Titus-Livius, Roman History, V, 34: “The Forest of Hercynia was assigned to Segovesus when the auspices were taken; to Bellovesus the gods gave the far pleasanter way, into Italy.”

Pomponius Mela, Description of the world, III, 29: “The land itself is not easily passable, because of its many rivers; it is rugged on account of its numerous mountains; and to a large extent it is impassable with its forests and swamps. Of the swamps, the Suesia, the Metia and the Melsyagum are the biggest. Of the forests, the Hercynian and some others that have a name do exist, but because it covers a distance of sixty day's march, the Hercynian Forest is a much better known as it is bigger than the others.”

Julian, Misopogon XXI: “Therefore do not be surprised if I now feel towards you as I do, for I am more uncivilized than he, and fiercer and more headstrong in proportion as the Celts are more so than the Romans….. I had to do with Celts and Germans and the Hercynian Forest from the moment that I was reckoned a grown man, and I have by now spent a long time there, like some huntsman who associates with and is entangled among wild beasts. There I met with temperaments that know not how to pay court or flatter, but only how to behave simply and frankly to all men alike [ Greek haplos de kaì eleutheros ek tou ísou pasi prospheresthai]”.

Pliny, Natural History III, 28.2: “These are the principal peoples. Besides them there are the Arivates, the Azali, the Amantini, the Belgites, the Catari, the Cornacates, the Eravisci, the Hercuniates, the Latovici, the Oseriates, the Varciani.”

What could resemble this primordial silva? Undoubtedly the forest of which Lucan left us a description in his Pharsalia, and of which here an outline.

Pharsalia III.

“Not far from the town stood a grove which from the earliest time no hand of man had dared to violate; stood in the shade of a north-facing side by its matted boughs entwined it clasped darkness and frozen shades. No rustic Pans here found a home, nor sylvans nor even nymphs but savage rites and barbarous worship, altars horrible on bleak mounds raised up;

sacred with blood of men was every tree. If faith be given to credulous ancient times, no fowl has ever dared to rest upon those branches, and no beast has made his lair beneath, the wind never falls down in this grove nor lightning flashes upon it from the cloud. Stagnant the air, unmoving, yet the leaves filled with mysterious trembling; dripped the streams from coal-black fountains; sinister effigies of gods [Latin simulacra], scarcely fashioned, appear on fallen trunk and, pallid with decay, their rotting shapes struck terror.

Because the men fear less the deities of whom the effigies are them familiar, so much adds to terror the fact not know the gods.

It was said that caves rumbled with earthquakes, that the prostrate yew rose up again; that fiery tongues of flame gleamed in the forest depths, yet were the trees not kindled; and those dragons in frequent folds were coiled around the trunks.

Men flee the spot nor dare to worship near: even the priest or when bright Phoebus holds the height, or when a dark night controls the heavens, in anxious dread draws near the grove and fears to find its lord.

Spared in the former war, still dense it rose where all the hills were bare, and Caesar now its fall commanded.

But the brawny arms which swayed the axes trembled, and the men, awed by the sacred grove's dark majesty, held back the blow they thought would be returned. This Caesar saw, and swift within his grasp up rose a ponderous axe, which downward fell cleaving a mighty oak that towered to heaven, while thus he spoke: "Henceforth let no man dread to fell this forest: all the crime is mine. This be your creed!"

He spoke, and all obeyed, For Caesar's ire weighed down the wrath of the gods. Yet ceased they not to fear.

First the elm, then the knotty holly oak; Dodona's tree, the buoyant alder, and finally the cypress, witness of non-plebeian grief, laid their foliage low, admitting day; though scarcely through the stems their fall found passage.

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At the sight the people of the Celtica grieved; but the garrison within the walls rejoiced: for thus shall men insult the gods and find no punishment?

Yet fortune often protects the guilty; on the poor alone, the gods can vent their ire. Enough hewn down, they seize the country wagons; and the plowman, his oxen gone which else had drawn the plow, mourns for his harvest of the year.”

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HISTORY OF THE LANDSCAPES IN WESTERN EUROPE.

(By G. Rupnel 1932).

The forest always constituted a source of life, and this, in many areas. Meat of various deer and wild boars or other game. Furs (for example furs of martens). For the pigs acorns and beechnuts (pannage). For the wool animals or the cattle: grazing of grass beneath the timbers (when it is a thin forest where the animals can be driven in order to graze). Gathering: mushrooms, roots and tree sprouts, nettles and odoriferous plants. The St. John’s wort or the marjoram can be used as a condiment or remedies. Fruit gathering: wild cherries, wild apples, medlars, fruits of the hawthorn, rose hips, hazel nuts, sloes, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries. The chestnut itself constitutes an almost complete food. Collect of maple and birch sugars, honey or pine resin. Not forgetting the wood by itself (sold after felling or in the form of charcoal), the deadwood, the kindling which is used for starting a fire and certain leaves. In Addition to the cutting of firewood, people collects leaves and barks of oak or of coniferous trees, they can extract from them some tannin, pitch, and tar (not forgetting the stoppers when they are cork oaks).

Small trades in the forest. The pruners top certain leafy trees to make their felling easier and especially to avoid the bursting of the boles during their fall. The loggers cut down the trees. The broom manufacturers : recover the birches tops in order to make brooms with them. The barkers or takers of bark peel the fallen oaks (the pulverized bark, tannin, is used for the preparation of leathers). Squarers, or hewers, square the wood in order to make easier the work of the sawyers. The coalmen make charcoal. The splitters produce roof shingles, lattices, vine stakes, etc. the stave wood splitter split shooks for cooperage. The hoopers make cask hoops with flexible branches of the chestnut tree split into two.

The schlitters (in the Vosges) take down on arranged crosscuts (kinds of wooden rails) by holding on to a loaded with wood logs large sledge (the schlitte).

N.B. Estovers: right to gather fuel wood. Most customs limited the right to the deadwood, or to the living trees of the lower varieties in the forest. The faggot makers collected the kindling they needed to have heating and to cook.

The happy mixture of the farming clearings and of the forests undoubtedly constitutes the characteristic feature of our countryside. The rural extent and the forest table follow one another and interlock, like to know themselves in all their intimacy or to use all their virtue.

Here, it is the forest, the exuberant society, the primitive and free crow, where, like a barbarian blood, the anarchistic sap thunders. The sap which raises the tall trees - superb individuals and lives - and which cast to all the winds its skein of foliages, its irritated disorder of branches.

There, it is the field with its subjected grasses, its monotonous alignment of furrows, its discipline of human tasks.

The countryside is the ceaseless mixture, where wood and fields are adapted, a relief which changes unceasingly, and a ground which calls at each step its particular sap, varies its aspect through each movement.

All the countryside is made of the succession of these clear stretches and of these vast shades; as it is also made of the more intimate mixture, which gives its value to each little local area and each nestled hollow, to each small wood and to each shaded spring. Everywhere the countryside is dispersed and varied, is renewed and nuanced ; but everywhere its very diversity is a new beginning without monotony and weariness, of the happy weddings of the harvest which matures with the forest which murmurs. The glance rests with a clear-sighted confidence and an informed sense , on these happy alternations, which mix and combine the crowd of the trees and the denuded ground.

Because the woods and the fields, the forest or the farming clearing, are not two foreign worlds which are opposed and fight, but they form an association. To understand the meaning and the benefits of this association, it is necessary to study of it the two terms separately.

The forest first. It is not the barbarian world or the rebellious element which resisted Man with all its forces. It was on the contrary one of the essential components of the rural activity. The man who began one day to live off the land and off the fields, in the Neolithic era, never broke all the ties which he preserved with his origins. The life of the forest marked with its indelible print the man of the former societies. It even bequeathed to the man of the historical societies some indestructible practices, an inalienable collection which buries under the modern civilization the tastes and the aptitudes of the prehistory, on the borders of the animal life.

We know how much it is difficult for the low-wage earners of the countryside not to be poachers. They like the wood driven by an instinct which reawakens in them sleeping sensitivities and lost

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adaptations. They are a living witness statement of the way in which the man is overpowered by the old memories, of the violence with which he is attached by all the roots of his memory to the primitive life, and kept in the wild family link of the forest.

Don’t be astonished therefore that the primitive villager, hardly freed from the origins and come out from the preliminary ages, has preserved with the forest an advantageous association. He did not want to lose something of the experience and of the profit that he had from it. In a certain way, he disavows nothing in his past. He preserves his practices of hunter, his aptitudes of a tracker and spotter. The forest continues to provide him animal food. With its stags, its wild boars, its roe, its hares, it contains quite a different resource in the flesh that the tight cattle sheds or the thin herds of the villager. People continued a long time to hunt aurochs, elk, to attack there with a spear bear and wild boar, to surprise there the grouse and the hazel grouse.

These hunting practices continued until the Celtic time. The Celts were great hunters; their packs of hounds were famous; and later, the Romans accepted the Celts as their masters in the art of hunting (Arrian).

But various testimonies reveal us that these practices rested on very old traditions, and that they were a heritage enriched by the experience of the ancient centuries and by the vocation of primitive times.

Hunting was for the Celts, less an always adapted but also unceasingly renewed, science, than as an art made up of these ritual practices, invested by their seniority with a kind of religious characteristic. Our modern St Hubert’s masses , with their blessed packs, succeeded these strange sacred festivals that Arrian evokes, where the hunting dogs crowned with flowers, feasted. Let us also recognize the influence of the primitive tradition in the discredit which stuck still not long ago the wolf hunting. The primitive one, indeed, always scorned this flesh unsuitable for diet. Proud hunters, disdainful for hunting to eat, themselves, would have liked this perilous pursuit. On the other hand, until the historical time, the esteem in which the venison was held, considered as only noble meat, remained the living testimony of the times when the game was the only consumed meat.

This meat, the breeding did not give it to the primitive farmer indeed. The cattle, nervous and muscled, were used only for the plowing. Sheep and ewes were not used for the diet, and in many countryside , a prejudice persists against this meat. In fact, the only flesh which was consumed, it was that of the pig.

But the pig breeding then was practiced only in forest. Immense herds lived on it under the shelter of the forest stretches. Half-wild, with boars robust like some wild beasts, they wandered here and there, and slept freely in wood. Their wandering and cruel keepers were at the time frightening robbers. Certain large forests, at the time were true breeding parks for the pig, and perhaps people preserved them only for this purpose. This forest was treated, indeed, by the imperial administration, as a kind of vast preserve, where there were no other farms than pigsties only. Multiple military outposts guarded the roads of this dreaded country. In the Middle Ages, certain forests besides were reserved for the pasturage of the pigs.

It was thus in the still timbered , badly populated, even backward, areas. Thereafter, these countries were deforested; through that, settlement and agriculture were improved and the practice of the pig pasturage was given up. But the practice of this breeding persisted in the country by adapting to a completely different agricultural organization. And it is in the loneliness of its soiled pigsty that is now bred the animal which was that of the large herds, of the free life, and of the vast forests.

Generally, the forest was used for the grazing ground of all the cattle. Horses, cows and sheep, were sent there then parked in it during the whole summer. The forest, with its undergrowth and its cool shades, its ferns and its foliages, was used thus as happy shelter for all the herds, and provided them litter and fodder. The forest, which fed the plowman with its game, therefore also fed partly his cattle. It was used as an auxiliary pasture.

But for the former man, the forest of then was rich with thousand other resources. The primitive villager took from the forest the tree and the wood that he needed. The oak with which he built the frame of his constructions, the elm with which he made carts and wheels.

The ancient countryman could also find in these woods the estimable fruits, apples and hazel nuts to which he attached great importance, cranberries, mushrooms and he continued to come there to seek the plants and the simples of which a very old experience had taught him the virtues.

The forest, with its innumerable game, its robust oaks, from which the houses came out and with which the towns were built later, with the shade and food which it offered to the herds…. The forest,

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with all the obvious or secret resources that nature put or buried in it, was, for the ancient plowman, the vital domain which extended or supplemented his fields. It undoubtedly also played for him a military part. Its difficult extents preserved him; its thickets ensured a shelter to him; its thousand secret paths made a hideaway for him and its close and familiar shade was to him a constant protection.

In these retreats, in these depths, a long-time undoubtedly the forest had supported the life, and had protected the independence of untamed clans, rebellious against the peaceful disciplines of the village societies. Is this the memory of these dreaded beings or of these bloody violences which gave its supernatural life to the old silva, and populated it with its legendary fears? For the villager, the forest remained driven by all the powers which had requested his vigilance, had disturbed his inertia or had worried his rest. And as he knew that he had come from it, and that he met it in the bottom of all his memories, it became the original cradle, and it decided on the Destinies.

In this forest filled up then with invisible presences, magic spells and genies, the man was no longer at his place, but among the Gods and the Dead. To this majestic shade, in this solemn darkness which surrounded, but also protected its fields, the former Man relegated the mysteries and the gods with whom he surrounded or protected his life. The forest was a place of funerals and burials, which withdrew, far from the living, the dreaded by all, dead, and held back their wrathful spirits. It is in it that were realized the magic operations, the incantations and the apparitions, the meetings of sorcerers, the assemblies of druids, the human sacrifices, the bloody acts of worship. And in all the great circumstances of his alarmed life, it is in the forest that the rural tribe returned to seek a pressing assistance, and to place its commitments under the authority of higher oaths and immortal witnesses. It is in the forest that the Society went to test its sovereign value, to support with the dead its status, to renew its pact with the gods!….

On this sacred threshold that everything protected, the primitive clearer therefore stopped once for all his profane undertaking s. The Neolithic ones who created our countryside, at the very least had as many reasons to keep the forest as to extend their fields. They created only the necessary fields; they cleared only the essential one. They made its share to the plowing; they left its one to the wood. And all the centuries, since, confirmed the conditions of this initial settlement; solemn contract that the Man signed with Nature, at one time when he had still of it an informed experience, having entered the order of the things without calculation and without instincts fever.

What was the primitive forest, such it will remain more or less.

Let us see what it is at the time when its share has just been made for it, what it is when its domain is stabilized, when its edge is fixed; and let us see after what it became in the continuation of the historical centuries.

The forest is therefore the natural vegetable formation. But this natural forest is not the coppice: it is the timberland. The original forest was especially made up of tall trees. Oak and beech had a happy preponderance in it; aspen and birch, ash and pine, alternated there in small groups or intervened there as isolated individuals; elder tree, willow, and alder, prospered in the clearings or in the wet places; the spines and the brambles furnished edges and rocky plates; brooms, ferns, and gorses, covered the shaded ground.

Under the high domes of this powerful silva, between the timbers of the large oaks and of the beeches, movement was easy, and the herds had free course there. It is this majestic and cool, filled up with movement and shade, forest, which accommodated so completely the Man, and which, from time immemorial, lent its shelters to him and offered its resources to him; it is this worthy forest therefore which inspired respect to the primitive clearers. The bushy coppice had not received from them the same respect, because it had not given them the same profits.

It is probable that this forest was maintained in its original state and aspect until the beginning of modern times. But around the 14th century, it started a transformation which finished only at the end of the 16th century. The depredations carried out in the Middle Ages, and caused by the rights to collect , finished their disastrous effects then. Bordering districts, given up to the villager, and where this one took his timbers or firewood for a long time; were so completely and so systematically exploited that wood was no longer reconstituted in tall trees , but just in precocious coppice. The practice to let the cattle graze there in the clear-cut site to the third growth, let nothing prosper. The stocks grew back there only in stunted suckers. The thicket became the rule, and the tree the exception. It was thus that, in all these border districts, the timberland disappeared finally everywhere, to give way to the coppice with standards.

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For a long time still, nevertheless, behind these degraded fringes, the preserve and the central parts, generally freed from the easements of the right to collect (firewood and timbers), were kept in the state of timberland. But at the end, and especially by taking advantages of the disorders of the 16th century, the villager, tempted by these preserves where the tall trees prospered, entered it, practiced in it the right to collect, introduced there all the abuses of a hasty exploitation, done without rules and without care. And the whole forest took, until in its districts of preserve, the fallen aspect of its edges. Everywhere the coppice with standards replaced the timbers.

This one persisted only in the places where the forest had a particular adaptation to the ground, i.e., on the sand or sandstone countries remained covered by vast wooded surfaces. Those, protected by their very stretch, resisted the abuses and the depredations. Besides because of their importance, these large forests belonged for the most , not to village communities or hard-working laymen, but to abbeys; to rich lords, to the king, to authorities able to make their fields and their rights respected.

To claim that the historical times respected the forest, or that this one preserves the dimensions and the configuration imposed by the primitive clearings; to affirm that our forest chart is the same one as at the times when the field and the village were founded … to proclaim the integrity of the old status … all that, it is to deny the clearings of the historical time!…. Those of the imperial administration and of the Roman-British or Gallo-Roman owners!…. Those of the Middle Ages and of the monks!…. Those of modern times!…. It is to deny the civilization of Rome, the monastic zeal!….

The generally accepted opinion is that large clearings were carried out , as from the 11th century, under the influence of the abbeys and around the monastic centers.

This opinion, does the analysis of the facts confirm it? Were the monks these great clearers of whom the tradition paints us the portrait?

Let us distinguish initially the successive periods corresponding to different monastic organizations.

A first time of monastic clearings would have taken place, in the 7th and the 8th century, under the influence of the Carolingian abbeys where the Celtic monks from Ireland played a very great part. But all these clearings are localized in prosperous valleys, in countries with fertile ground where ruins abound. These clearings were in fact the hasty repossession , of the oldest and most important situations.

The movement which began again in the 11th century will be of different nature, and the Celtic monks will play there no longer a part. In this second period, we will distinguish especially the activity of the Clunisian abbeys. But this activity was special. The Clunisians, concerned by land incomes, had above all easily profitable fields, composed of complex elements, results of advantageous acquisitions, and especially of the lucky legacy. They became thus the owners of privileged grounds, maintained grounds, urban real estate, prosperous farms. Their skillfully managed deaneries are an income source. Rich owners and wise administrators, the Clunisians knew better how to farm the good lands than to conquer new territories.

In the 12th century finally, the large Cistercian abbeys appear. And it is now, it seems, that the monastic zeal will carry out its wonders. Since Bernard of Clairvaux (who let us remind of it had nothing to do with a Celtic comrunos or initiate , in spite of what certain neo-druidic heresies claim ), the Cistercian ones are famous to have been the most active of the historical clearers. Their abbeys indeed are all located at the end of wooded solitudes

But in these deep forests, the Cistercians who found there an asylum in conformity with their piety, didn’t consider themselves as being in fight territory. They had not entered the silva to destroy it, but to farm it. They came to live in the forest with the intention to use it, and not to ruin it. Around almost all the Cistercian abbeys therefore the forest keeps still its compact stretches.

The Cistercian farms indeed were fewer some farms than some undertakings of breeding. The Cistercians were especially some stock breeders. And it is well why the forest was the essential component of their land wealth. It was the necessary pasture. It offered its fresh pasturages and its shaded refuges for the many herds that the meadows supported .

The opening of these meadows was the true agrarian work of the Cistercians. They cleared only the places where the meadow could replace the forest advantageously. They thus refurbished the muddy lands and the wet valleys. The conquests which they made were carried out more on the marsh than

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on the forest. They were thus some manufacturers of ponds, bridges, weirs, and dams. They fought against water, and never against wood.

Become masters in the breeding, it occurred that precisely the Cistercians thus supplemented the work of cleansing which they had prepared, by dealing with the drainage of the wet soils. They indeed managed to make malaria disappear from these low places where it prevailed. At the same time as the draining of the marshes removed the fatal mosquitos; the construction of the cattle sheds diverted away from man the misdeeds of the anopheles. This one indeed attacked in preference the cattle and the herds thus played the part of a protective shield. This work of healthiness was not ignored besides. Later, in the 15th century, the popes made the Cistercians come in the Roman countryside, to fight there against the malaria, and this, with the same success that they had triumphed over it in Burgundy.

The Cistercians therefore had the great task to recover for the useful crops these low grounds, which for a long time had been dedicated to a disastrous giving up. It is certain that indeed, at the time of original agriculture, these wet places had been already often won over to farming. The dams, weirs, and ponds, existed quite before the Roman conquest. For a long time for example, the valleys were drained: the primitive main roads which crossed them did not cross them on weirs. Thereafter nevertheless, in the historical times of crises and disorders, the weirs ceased being maintained; the weirs and the ponds disappeared, the waters took back their rambling course, valleys and plains recovered their moisture as their marshes.

However, it would be excessive to claim that the abbeys, and particularly the Cistercian abbeys, were hostile to the undertakings of clearing. They supported them all the time that these undertakings were intended to give back to farming a particularly favorable ground. Most of the time, the monks were not the owners of these forests; but they acted as agents or “entrepreneurs,” on behalf of rich lay lords. Those deprived themselves from the property of the land on the condition of sharing the new incomes and their increased products. In the same way, in the areas of the West, it is through the monks that the badly equipped lords made the clearings carried out.

But it is remarkable that in all these “cleared” places, where on a favorable ground the crops prospered, many ruins of the Roman epoch testify that these alleged “gains” of the cultivated countryside were in fact only restitutions in its favor.

In addition, however, there are countries whose medieval clearings changed their aspects completely. I want to speak about these argillaceous and wet areas, on which the system of the former soils with grouped , combined, fields, had not been able nor had known how to develop. These areas, which had remained compact forest enclaves, started to be dented by broad assarts. Countryside was introduced there. New villages lined up in it along new roads; and, behind these two curtains of housing, the long fields which were contiguous with them inserted towards the forest. But, generally, it is a modest hamlet, or it is an isolated barn, which settles in the center of these new lands. These clearings, which come under a methodical plan, were often the fact of the churches. People needed their capitals, one needed especially their consistency, their patient forecasts, their long-term disinterested calculations, to cause these expensive works. It is true that these new lands could almost always repay their expenses. The prosperity of these late establishments, which did not fall under the former land system, often contrasted with the misery of the former soils, where farming persisted in its traditional forms.

The clearing is not only therefore an undertaking which varies according to the times. But it is also the ground which decides on it. The wet areas were still a conquest to be done, whereas in the countries of “old soils” there is nothing else left to say as for a long time.

In the Middle Ages, these countries of traditional agriculture were thus, as a whole, more hostile to the clearing than to the reforestation. Besides as of the Carolingian time, we see the dissatisfaction of the feudal owners appearing, in front of progress of the deforestations that they considered too excessive.

In the feudal Middle Ages, indeed, it is all the society which collaborated in the preservation of the forest. Next to the monks who used it, the feudal laymen took their pleasure there. More than ever the forest was hunting territory , preserve of animals and games. More than ever, it was given over to mad cavalcades as to packs.

The village communities also found advantages in it. The villagers of then enjoyed a part of the resources of the forest. They had the right to collect wood there and to make their herds graze in it. Nothing more variable besides than these rights to use. At the origin, their extension was such as they seem the survival of a kind of collective ownership. Restrictions came thereafter to limit, gradually, the initial right. Generally, the custom determined the wood varieties that the users could collect , or the quantity of heads of cattle which they could make graze in it. The Irish Crith Gablach suggest it clearly. But in these vast wooded stretches, the surveillance was difficult; the encroachments of the villagers

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were ceaseless, and their usurpations, supported by an indulgence which was powerlessness, exploited the tradition.

The villager therefore found in the forest all the resources that his fields did not give to him. He took there the wood necessary for his heating, his constructions and his fences. He found in it cool pasture for his herds, and acorns for his pigs. On the occasion finally, the forest provided him game. It was for the farmer of such a complete assistance that the human life seemed linked to the existence of these forests; as at the primitive times, the village of the Middle Ages continued to live close to the edges of its forest.

Besides this association of the village with the forest often appears in a precise way. Such was for example in Normandy the federation of the “Seven-towns-in-Bleu.” Bleu was a little country in the geographical and non-political sense of the word (a hundred county and the 7 towns were actually 7 villages. The Aforementioned federation or custom joined together in an organized grouping the seven villages bordering the forest of Bleu… The public figures of the “Seven-Towns” met in federal assemblies to jointly manage the enjoyment of the “uses,” to deal with their defense, and to deliberate on all the interests of which the forest of Bleu was the source for them (Custom of the country of Bleu).

In many other areas, the forest constituted a similar occasion of agreement, by joining together in the possession of the same customs , the villages which it seemed to separate. The culture, as for it, created then supported the village particularism. Ceaseless conflicts of demarcation and traditional competitions had their base in the weak borders which separated the fields of a village, from the fields of the neighboring village. Nothing divided or opposed the countrymen more than their countryside, when those were lengthened in a continuity without obstacles, seemed to merge in a peaceful and friendly land unity. The forest, on the contrary, formed the common ground. Usually overlapped by the limits of the communal territories, it linked more than it separated. Each forest conveyed, to all the villages which took part in it, a community of interests or of life.

The man of the Middle Ages liked the forest as much as he lived on his fields.

It was also a world with its particular life. When it was the summer, the shepherd led his herds into it. But it is during the winter especially that its wooded solitudes became livened up by a crowd of hard-working people. Loggers, coalmen, hunters, carriers, clog makers, glassmakers, blacksmiths and miners, manufacturers of “shingles,” sawyers…, and that, not forgetting the crowd of prowlers, salt smugglers or vagabonds. Many of these hard trades helped each other , and the forest developed thus, in it, on the borders of the village life, salutary associations, or ambiguous agreements. It is in its ancient heart, filled up with the reminders and memories of the free life of formerly, that the freed from social constraints , secret rumor and activity, came to take refuge.

At the threshold of modern times 1), the forest, more than ever preserved by the practices of the social life, kept thus its domain everywhere, and prospered with all that it brought to the villager as legal resources or clandestine help. The forest leaves the Middle Ages, this time of alleged clearings, if not increased, at least confirmed in its original stretches and its historical conquests. But, appreciably changed in its aspect as in its composition, it yielded to the crops the muddy grounds, and left to the meadows the major part of the territory.

G. Rupnel (History of the Countryside 1932).

1) The 16th century was that of the ironmasters. Professor Koichi Horikoshi of the University of Tokyo well emphasized the role of the Taillefumier (Nicholas or Demange) Tremel (Hector and Francis) or Rouyer in the vandalizing of the forests of then (the Iron industry in Lorraine in the 12th-17th centuries).

"Nicolas Taillefumier, alias Godart, originaire de Commercy, est un sidérurgiste remarquable du Barrois dans la seconde moitié du XVIème siècle vers 1562-1565………….son fils Demange sera aussi maître de forges de Commercy jusqu’à la fin du siècle. Quant à Hector Tremel, il était marchand à Vaucouleurs. Leur exploitation en commun peut donc être considérée comme un exemple d’association entre un ingénieur-sidérurgiste et un marchand capitaliste ." Original text drafted in French although Koichi Horikoshi is Japanese.

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It is important, before replanting some trees, to agree well on the type of ecosystem or landscape targeted. Specialists therefore base themselves for that on an ecosystem of reference which is

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generally the ecosystem having historically prevailed. It can be either completely natural (before human settling), or sometimes already changed but not degraded. Its definition generally calls on a paleoecological approach, regional (palynology) or local (pedoanthracology…) or on historical studies for modern times.

Specialists distinguish the active restoration (the works and the artificial plantations) from the passive restoration which takes advantage of the natural dynamics once the causes of degradations removed.

The passive restoration or the recourse to natural dynamics. After drastic education of the pressures which are applied actively on it, the nature has very often the ability to restore itself (resilience) at the end of a certain period of time. This natural dynamic can be strengthened by simple actions (assistance to the dissemination of the varieties, etc..).

The active restoration: the man and his labor. It can be considered doing artificial reforestations of pioneer species to facilitate (shelter effect) the transition towards the complete restoration of the ecosystem. However, that implies from the departure that actions supporting the return and the reinstallation of the other indigenous varieties under this forest canopy are planned, this requiring specific means, often not easily mobilizable when it is years after the first work. So it is advised to use the non-indigenous trees only as a last resort, and under very strict conditions. In all the cases, the works must aim as fast as possible to restore the original diversity of the trees and of the forest structures, by using as well as possible the pioneer behavior of certain varieties. The question of the gene pool (local source) is important to be considered.

The rehabilitation consists of the creation of an alternative forest ecosystem, ecologically viable, possibly different as regards the structure, the composition, or the functioning of the ecosystem before its degradation, and presenting a certain value for the use as for the biodiversity. The passage through a rehabilitated intermediate state remains often necessary for the restoration itself, considering the necessary time for the reconstitution of a very degraded forest ecosystem.

A landscape is a complex entity in ecological terms; certain authors speak besides about eco-complex (or complex of ecosystems.). Moreover, let us notice from the start here that this notion of landscape is quite as important to comprehend in social and economic terms (being equivalent to the notion of territory).

In ecology, the reflection about the notion of landscape returns us to the questions concerning the space and functional organization of the ecosystems and of the species; the reorganization entailed by the changes or degradations due to human activities, the connections between ecosystems; as their evolution. The reflection on the level of the ecological landscape is all the more fundamental as the question of the fragmentation of the forest landscapes is problematic.

From a scientific point of view, minimal surface to reach the viability of a population can be estimated according to various genetic thresholds (50/100 individuals, 100/500 individuals or 500/5000 individuals).

For the preservation of a complete forest ecosystem (as well as of all linked food web), the surface matches generally the living space necessary to the survival of large mammals. It is about 10,000 ha in the temperate forest ecosystems.

The restoration of a degraded forest therefore forms an undertaking which involves the liability of the restorer on the long run, and this, for three main reasons.

- To restore a destroyed or very degraded ecosystem demands all the more time that it is complex and diversified. However, let us remember that the restoration actions are generally time limited (a few years), for political and financial as well technical reasons.

- In forest background , even tropical, dynamics is carried out according to a time scale of which the unit is the decade.

- Every failure or every mistake can have ecological consequences on the long run. So it is necessary to conceive such a restoration by taking into account as much as possible the ecological operations, in order to reduce the problems (or the necessary corrective actions ) appearing several decades after the restoration of this ecosystem.

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Once degraded, the ecosystem is sometimes slow to be rebuilt, even unable to do it. To start complex and expensive works, of restoration, therefore makes sense only if it is a question of helping nature to go beyond its thresholds of irreversibility. In the absence of a threshold of irreversibility, or in the complement of a work to lift it, natural dynamics can be enough to restore the ecosystem within a reasonable timeframe. When it exists, this possibility therefore undoubtedly forms the least expensive choice.

As we had the opportunity to see above, Dr. Adam Watson, a Scottish ecologist of international reputation, recently presented the vestiges of the natural forest in Scotland as one of the parts of the boreal and temperate forest most degraded or having suffered the most damage in the world; but, although the destruction of this forest was started centuries ago, it is during last 200 years only that the situation became critical. As so many other areas of the High-Lands in Scotland, Mar Lodge was converted into a hunting estate at the end of the 18th century, and the population of small farmers expelled. The needs for hunting resulted in privileging the keeping of a large number of wild red deer, which prevent the natural regeneration of the forest. The few trees which currently remain are of old pines.

The estate of Mar Lodge, following the example of most of the territory, is the personal property of a multimillionaire, Mr. John Kluge; this one had bought it to give it as a present to his wife, an exotic dancing girl.

The concerns of the informed Scots led to the foundation, in 1991, of the movement called Reforesting Scotland, which deals mainly with ecological and social rehabilitation. It is a small radical association, which functions as a network, on the international level, with institutions such as the World Wildlife Fund and whose 700 members think of having found the solution to this problem in a legal status of non-private property, in which the citizens, at the local level, would have some share.

That implies, of course, a radical reform of the property, as well public as private, so that the rural communities recover finally their rights and can be stabilized. The effectiveness of such a movement is particularly due to the fact that the British professionals of the development are increasingly numerous to notice, once returned home; that the progress carried out in the field of the state forests in Nepal or in Papua New Guinea, for example; not only are unknown in Scotland, but are even derided as soon as they are areas such that the Highlands and the islands.

In Scotland, as we could see it, the end of the clannish system involved a true ecological and human disaster for the Highlands ; which became since a bioregion far away from the cities, inhospitable for the foreigners, in major part mountainous; which makes nowadays a scattered population of some 350,000 people live.

It is indeed largely accepted now that, generally, the productivity of the ground suffered much because of that. A subsistence economy primarily based on the cattle was replaced by sheep, deer, grouse, and other games of the same kind; a substitution which was accompanied by a reduction in the various local forms of recycling of the nutritive elements, as well as by an intensification of the pressures of the grazing grounds and of the burned lands . The density of predators (hawks, polecats, etc.) has, it seems, experimented a radical decline since the advent of the great hunting and fishing estates. A tendency to degradation was observed in the same way with regard to the grouse shooting in the moors, the erosion rates, and the productivity of freshwater fishing; in certain areas. Between 1880 and 1975, the rates of calving declined of 1% every four years.

Frank Fraser Darling, another ecologist of international repute, carried out the first great survey into the human ecology of the West Highlands in the years of post-war period. His work, published finally in 1955, was initially put under a bushel by the government (the Scottish Office did not even condescend to acknowledge receipt of it) because of the rather accusing nature of his conclusions.

“And finally, the bald unpalatable fact is emphasized that the Highlands and Islands are largely a devastated countryside ant that is the plain primary reason why there are now few people and why there is a constant economic problem” and “any policy which ignores this fact cannot hope to achieve rehabilitation.”

It remains only very little not changed by the man territory in the Scotland of today. One of the most obvious facts is the disappearance of the original forest cover which occupied formerly 75% of the surface (“the large Caledonian forest ”) and whose remainders cover currently only 1% of the country. Formerly, even if that does not seem easily imaginable today, forests of oaks and birches covered on the contrary all these Northern lands.

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However the tree is essential to life. The Inhabitant of Nice Louis Auguste Blanqui himself said it very well (see above): “Our detestable race has mercilessly destroyed everything it meets, men, animals, plants, minerals. The whale will go extinct, annihilated by a blind pursuit. Cinchona forests fall one after the other. The axe fell, no one replanted. We don't care that the future has a fever. Coal deposits are wasted with wild negligence.”

N.B. My father having been, with his war GMC *, during my earliest youth (the years 1950) the ECOLOGICALLY RESPONSIBLE boss of a little company of loggers, I owed well to him this modest homage.

* Equipped with a wood steering wheel.

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THE SILVOPASTURE SYSTEM.

The forest as we already had the opportunity to see it, is an emanation of nature, and formerly the pagan people kept an almost mystical relation with it; wood was the theater of their greater spiritual representations (cf. oak and nemeton).

To make the herds graze in forest makes it possible to benefit from the fodder resource present beneath the trees (grass, bushes…) and in parallel to improve its wood by practicing clear-cutting and pruning. The practice of silvopasture also has a social and environmental interest; to limit the closing of the system and thus to make the forest more penetrable or attractive for the public.

The operations of opening to herds of the forest are delicate to implement. Very often the first operation consists of the realization of a thinning and of a pruning, which will be done with the profit of the most beautiful or tallest standards.

But before cutting down trees to make it possible the setting in light of the ground and therefore the grass production grass, it is necessary to think of the way with which the piece will be managed as regards the pasture; if the cattle will graze in spring, in summer, or all the year, what will be their density per hectare, etc.

Most difficult is not to implement a thinning , but to be able to control thereafter the development of the “scrub.” Look out not to remove too many trees! One of the interests of the silvopasture system is to produce grass in the shade when there is no more of it in the sun.

This practice makes it possible to make profitable not very productive surfaces, to improve the landscape, to prevent the fires, to preserve the diversity of the species and of the background and makes it possible to mobilize renewable energies: grass and wood.

The silvopasture can be set up on any type of stands and as soon as the trees are out of reach from the cattle tooth. Nevertheless, it is generally practiced in stands with low forest potential, for which an additional valorization (thick of pubescent oak or timber of scots pine) is wanted.

Some experiments of agroforestry including breeding in forest environment took place, particularly in the Black Forest in Germany, as that was done in Europe during the Middle Ages. It remains to study the effects of the silvopasture in order to adjust the density of the cattle and the residence time, with the capacity of the environment to be regenerated. Because the cows and horses are often heavier and less rustic than during the Middle Ages. They rub themselves against the trunks, eat barks and shouts, trample the understory. The pigs (pannage) consume a large part of fructifications which they find, the underground mushrooms (truffle for example) and trample the humus. The sheep eradicate the understory, but they are the goats which do the most damage, being able to destroy the forest stands by barking the trunks and by climbing the trees. In Lebanon and Morocco, the silvopasture system , several millennia old, is regarded as the main threat of the last cedar forests. Can these animals play in forest the part that the large mammals of prehistory played in it, whereas we made disappear or strongly decrease the large predators? It is a question which is asked by the scientists. All is a question of balance!

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THE REINTRODUCTION OF DISAPPEARED ANIMAL SPECIES.

We speak well here about reintroducing the disappeared animal species and not about introduction.

An introduction they are some releases of exogenous species in backgrounds which are not originally theirs. These “controlled” introductions, have very often hunting or fishing purpose. “Involuntary,” introductions have been also noted for several years: coypu, raccoon, red-eared sliders, American mink, black swans… Such introductions generally cause imbalances to the detriment of vulnerable autochthonous species (European mink, European pond turtle, not forgetting many varieties of plants).

The species to be reintroduced are the species having been victims of the action of men, primarily by massive destruction (firearms, poison). Very often, the habitat and the food resources are still present, and able to support naturally these species. Birds like the vultures or the bearded vulture were easily eliminated because of the fact that they reproduce very slowly and that they are naturally not very savage. It is fortunate to note that these species keep on without difficulty in a modern world, provided that man safeguards for them a minimum of place and consideration.

A reintroduction is no more no less than a preservation measure falling under the restoration of the biocenosis disturbed by Mankind. It will be possible, certainly , to say that it is a “luxury” of rich countries and that we forget because of that the real issues of the protection of our environment. It is, however, a just reward of the things, that to be able to offer new spaces to this disappeared fauna. The programs of reintroduction are combined with the other environmental problems and are easily developed on a broader range of preservation objectives. The management of a reintroduced animal population is reflected thus beyond the species in the strict sense of the word, by a total management of the ecosystems and biocenosis which are linked to it .

How to restore an endangered animal population??

Several types of operation exist.

Relocation. Voluntary transfer by the Man of individuals of a species in a place historically being part of its surface of natural geographical distribution, but where it is no longer present. If we want to restore a species which was absent during one or two centuries, we are then closer to the introduction than of a reintroduction.

Reinforcement. Voluntary transfer by the Man of individuals in a place historically being part of the surface of natural distribution for the species, but where it became considerably rare (without to be extinct in it). We can quote as an example, the reinforcement of the population of monk vultures on Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands, at the end of the years 1980.

Translocation. Ditto, but more restrictive: starting from individuals taken in nature, another part of the surface of natural distribution.

Introduction for preservation. The voluntary transfer of individuals of a species in a place favorable for its development, but where it was never present naturally.

These operations are carried out within a well-defined framework.

- The main causes of the increasing scarcity , or extinction, must have ceased.

- A favorable habitat must be available to accommodate a viable population, ideally in a place where the species was still present recently.

- A feasibility study is to take place beforehand, and be concerned with the taxonomic, ecological, even ethological, characteristic of the species in question.

- The causes of the failures of previous attempts concerning the same species or a close species must be taken into account.

- The reintroduction site is to be included in the past natural surface of distribution of the species, and must enjoy a legal protection.

- The giving population should not be endangered by the taking away of individuals.

- The reintroduced individuals must be genetically compatible and also free from diseases or parasites.

- The acceptance of the reintroduction by the local human populations must be acquired.

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- The released individuals must be the subjects of a thorough scientific monitoring.

In many cases, it is to better let nature manage itself alone, but the aggression of Mankind justifies certain interventions. When nature defaults, we should not hesitate to create entirely. The “ecological engineering” must repair, reconstitute and invent also sometimes, straightforwardly. Our legitimate concern of preserving nature can indeed run up against the fact that essential components to ensure the functionality of the environment, disappeared.

To install artificial structures therefore makes it possible, in certain cases, to find a solution to this state of affairs. Such structures are sometimes called prostheses. They are, for example, the fish ladders which make it possible, inter alia, to connect the downstream to the upstream of an obstacle, or the fauna passages (ecoduct) for the crossing of the linear obstacles, like the highways.

In order to restore a disappeared functionality, you can also call on other animal species.

Let us take the example of the “large” herbivores. The functions which they practice compared to the structure of a habitat are well known: by limiting the growth of the ligneous family, they slow down the closing of the backgrounds.

The comparison of the African preserves with or without elephants is edifying in this respect. These large herbivores, most of the time, disappeared. It is thus in certain countries of Europe of elk , aurochs, bison, or wild horse. Their absence changes the dynamics of the ecosystems and, to replace these species, men more and more call on equine or bovine, domestic animals, pertaining to hardy breeds.

Take care that the return of the species is done in a favorable community context, by favoring , a long time before the beginning of the operations of releases, a strong sensitizing and a without fault implication of the other users of the natural environment. Let us remind on this subject that the ecological borders must obviously take precedence over the political borders.

Also don’t forget that two bordering human societies can adopt different and very contrasted attitudes with respect to the same reintroduction.

The case of the bears in France in the Pyrenees, or of the wolf in the Mercantour national park, is very edifying on this subject. The reintroduction of the animal species in question can run up against the opposition of people; who, perhaps by lack of public relations about the project or by (ancestral, for their breeding) fear; refuse the return of certain species like wolves.

The wolf is a “key” species in any ecosystem. The notion t of “keystone species” designates a species whose presence is essential to the very existence of an ecosystem; not though the number of its individuals , but by the action which it develops on the behaviors and/or the headcounts of the other species which compose the system. Although the Yellowstone national park was created to satisfy a requirement in 1872 from President Grant, the wolves continued to be exterminated there so much so that in 1927, they disappeared definitively. Thirty-one wolves captured in Canada were therefore released there in 1995, and in 1996.

Whereas the moose had invaded indifferently the totality of available spaces, with a predilection for “easy” zones like the bed of the brooks and the bottom of the valleys; the return of the wolves has constrained them to withdraw in steep or located higher in altitude, sectors of mountain pastures, in a way to limit their proximity with the predator.

The ecological consequences are three times over surprising, and each one in its way illustrates the status “of keystone species,” of the wolf.

1) Initially spouted out, from the bed of the brooks and from the valley bottoms released from now on from the moved or excessive grazing of the moose, a whole flora; inter alia two essential species, the willow and the aspen, which had disappeared from the park since the wolf had been not long ago eliminated from it.

Then with this flora, it is a whole fauna which restructured itself: the aspen and the willow were indeed essential to the survival of much of other animal species.

2) A study of the biologist Rick McIntyre is more particularly interested in the impacts of this reintroduction of the wolf on the species of carrion eaters like the grizzly, the ravens, the magpies… The wolves generate indeed all around them a flock of carnivorous scavengers , whose subsistence depends on the quantity of food which will be consequently given up to them by this predator.

3) Lastly, this reintroduction of the wolf gives the opportunity of specifying, while understanding it better, the notion of “ecological regulators.” The wolf plays a part of manager of the background rather

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than of manager of the number of the moose populations. The utility of this predator does not lie in its capacity to decrease the headcounts (that it does not as much as that besides); but in its aptitude to change the food and occupation of space behaviors, of the hoofed ones.

Conclusion.

The reintroduction of the wolf in Yellowstone did not reach only the objective initially set (to restore an animal population having existed) it also made it possible to rebuild and to make functional a diversified biological system ( See Paul Schullery).

The reintroduction of wolves in Scotland, whose last testimony dated back to two hundred years before, was even beneficial for the environment, but also in economic terms, according to certain studies. A team of scientists directed by Erlend Nilsen, from the University of Oslo, whose work is published by the British Science Academy; affirms that the presence of wolves makes it possible to control the population of deer; which must be currently shot down because of the damage which they inflict to the environment. Assessing the impact of the introduction of three new packs into the Highlands, this study reckons that the deer population decreases quickly, while that of the wolves increases in a proportional way. The forests as well as the populations of birds would also draw benefit from it, as well as the deer owners, whose herds make approximately 550 pounds per square kilometer, in particular thanks to hunting.

But with the presence of wolves, this amount would pass to 800 pounds particularly because of the made savings, because it would be almost no longer necessary to shoot down deer. The study specifies that this amount does not take into account the additional benefit that the tourism related to the wolf presence would pay. It admits that the sheep flocks then would form, of course, a prime target for wolves, but affirms that the farmers - who are subsidized for the sheep breeding and could be compensated for the undergone losses - are not particularly worried. The population over there is apparently rather favorable to the reintroduction. The populations of wolves are in increase in Central and Eastern Europe, and the animal made its reappearance in France, in Germany as in Switzerland, during last years, to the great displeasure sometimes of the French owners of . In France, the wolf returned on foot from Italy through the Mercantour. It colonized many zones where it is now present: in the alpine massif , but also in the Pyrenees, in Auvergne, in the Jura, in Massif Central. It was seen in the south of the Vosges. But so that the wolf is accepted somewhere, generally ten years is necessary. It is too present in the popular imagination so that the fears do not reappear instantaneously.

The bear. After having formerly occupied most of the areas in Eurasia, the place of the bear in the mountains did not cease to decrease under the human pressure. The drop of the brown bear in France begins for example very early, as of the Roman epoch. Until the 16th century, people one can still observe it in the Alps, in the Jura, I the Massif Central, the Pyrenees, the Vosges. Then it disappears from almost the whole Massif Central and from the Vosges at the end of the 18th century. In the middle of the 19th century, the brown bear remains only in fourteen French departments (in the Alps, in the Jura, and in the Pyrenees). It is then classified as a pest, process which accelerates its extinction. Today, the bear remains only in the Pyrenees. Three brown bears, of the same species, were captured in Slovenia and were released in the central Pyrenees in 1996 and 1997. It was indeed necessary to take the animals from another country, within a wild population of bears whose characteristics approached those of the indigenous bears as much as possible. (In Slovenia, the bear livestock is still important, approximately 7000 to date.) The bears resulting from the reintroduction adapted to their new background. Several births took place, but also some cases of death , in proportions which are, however, those usually observed for the species. With the few bears of Pyrenean stock which still live in these mountains, we therefore count currently fourteen to eighteen brown bears on the whole of the Pyrenees.

The safeguard of a species engaged in the process of disappearance in this area is necessary, but the reintroduction of the bear in the country is also beneficial ecologically speaking. It is indeed necessary to have predators in the Pyrenees: their presence contributes to the regulation of the populations of forester hoofed animals (wild boars, deer…) whose numbers increasing for varied reasons. However these species currently have a strong impact on the forest backgrounds. The bear, as a large mammal, omnivorous species and predator with rather opportunist character, is an indicator of the quality of the ecosystem. If this one can accommodate and integrate large predatory ones, it is a sign of the degree of complexity of the background, and therefore of its wealth. Moreover, the reintroduction of bears will make it possible to repopulate these mountains, and to give again to the area an eminent cultural or historical heritage. Still is it necessary that bears introductions are regularly made, because at the time of the last attempts, “accidents” took place: the she-bear “Cannelle” for example, was killed by a hunter, in November 2004.

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The bison. The European bison lives especially in forest. The American bison, which resembles it surprisingly, is a plain animal , except for the subspecies athabascae, or wood bison . The bison was very frequent on all the European continent, from the Atlantic to the Ural (except Spain, Italy, Scandinavian peninsula, and British Isles), and this, until the Middle Ages. Charlemagne hunted bison as well as aurochs, in the area of Liege and Aachen. The European bison disappeared from Switzerland in the 11th century, from Germany in the 17th century, from Transylvania (Romania) in the 17th century, and from Poland, its ultimate refuge, in the Twenties of the 20th century.

These disappearances are largely due to human hunting, but also to the decrease of its habitats, competed by farming.

Game of kings, some measures were decided rather early for its protection, but without success. It was prohibited to kill it in the Poland of the 16th century. Breeding were undertaken and an attempt at a reintroduction was carried out with breeding animals in the Mecklenburg in 1689, then in Saxony in 1733, unsuccessfully.

At the end of the years 1920, the only still living European bisons (54, including 29 males and 25 females) survived only in the zoos. In 1952, the Poles carried out the first reintroduction of the European bison in the large forest of Bialowieza. This reintroduction was a success, and others followed in the East of Europe. Today we find wild bisons in Poland, in Ukraine, in Belarus, in Russia, in Lithuania.

The case of the aurochs.

The aurochs, powerful mammal (3.2 m long, height at the withers 1.90 m, weight 800 kg) belonged to the family of the deer tribe. This ancestor of the domestic cattle, populating formerly the forests in Eurasia, survived in Poland until the 17th century. It was protected there since the 14th century (only the king was to hunt it), but around half of the 16th century, the herd had already only fifty specimens. The last aurochs was shot in 1627.

For a few years, there is in France a passion for the bovine race resulting from the experiments made by the Heck brothers. But the information broadcast on the “return” of this allegedly “prehistoric” animal are for several reasons worrying. To the extent that we may wonder if its introduction, and its use in the management of the disadvantaged natural environments, do not cover an attempt at justification of the genetic engineering, not to say trickery, made a few decades ago by Nazis.

Nobody is unaware of, and certainly not the specialists, that the female died in 1627 in the forest of Jakotorow in Poland, was the last living specimen of aurochs. It is still possible today to consult the documents drawn up with a high degree of accuracy by the royal administration of the time, which periodically described the surroundings of Sochaczew, and which report us the history of this disappearance in its least details.

Between the two wars, Lutz Heck and his brother Heinz, two German zoologists, wanted “to regenerate” the aurochs. Heck was convinced that “fragments of the genetic pool ” of aurochs had survived, and remained present in various bovine races, considered as primitives or little changed. As in a puzzle, it was enough to find these “primitive genes” in order to join them together in a single animal, by a series of hybridization between all these primitive races. He thus hoped to get with each successive generation, some individuals who would resemble more the aurochs than their own parents. This animal had, to join together inter alia, the color of the Corsican race (color represented by the famous picture of Augsburg, an oil painting dating back to the first quarter of the 16th century according to Charles Hamilton Smith); the corpulence of the Spanish fighting bull; and the horns of the Camargue cattle. Heck fixed a model “of aurochs” by determining the qualities to select, as horns, weight, color, aspect of the coat, udder of the female, and aggressiveness. His phantasmagoric objective was to genetically go back in time, and to erase thus according to the new hybridization, the effects of the domestication and of the artificial selection, to approach the aurochs more and more. Heck used as main material for its selection, the Camargue and Corsican races, the fighting bulls of Spain, the English cattle, plus some other races, in much less important proportions.

At the end of fifteen years of experiments, Heck thus stated to have succeeded in selecting a “regenerated aurochs,” i.e., an animal which had all the qualities of the model established at the beginning (the aurochs on the painting of Augsburg). The natural selection was to continue and perfect his work. The final stage of this experimentation was concretized by the introduction of these hybrids into nature, first of all, in the forests of Eastern Prussia then in Poland occupied by the German army , in the forest of Bialowieza.

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There exists an aspect of the experiment of Heck which cannot be concealed. An important part of “the regeneration of aurochs” took place in the Nazi Germany, and the Hitlerian propaganda attached a great significance to these experiments. It was logical besides that such “research” causes a particular passion among the Nazi leaders. In his work, Heck dealt much the questions of degeneration or purity of races and of animal species. However these subjects precisely, were particularly dear to the ideologists of 3rd Reich. Heck organized and supervised personally, assisted with SS, the plundering of the naturalist collections in the occupied countries, particularly those of the national park of Bialowieza. Among the stolen animals, there were bisons and “konik polski” horses, all resulting from the experiments of the professor T. Vetulani.

After the victory of the Allies, Heck escaped the justice as many war criminals, by benefiting from the Iron curtain. The witnesses originating in Central Europe under Soviet domination, received the order not to go to the courts located in the American zone.

All these elements brought several naturalists to the conclusion that the animal got following the experiments of the Heck brothers, had nothing to do with the aurochs. W. Herre, a specialist in the domestic animals, showed that “the aurochs of synthesis” corresponded by no means to the portrait of the extinct ancestor, whose they had neither the size, nor the so striking sexual dimorphism.

The Lynx.

The hunting and the decrease of the forest surfaces are the main causes of the drop of the species. But it was also trapped or poisoned for its fur, and because of its reputation of a game robber or of Man’s enemy. Its total extermination occurred in France in the 19th century, in the Vosges in 1850, in the Massif Central in 1875, and in the Jura in 1885. Nowadays, it is no longer a question of selling lynx skins, which is regarded as an animal in the process of disappearance.

In the Pyrenees, the lynx persisted from 1850 to 1950, and after 1960 a new development of the species was observed. There exists in this area a characteristic which is due to the fact that there are actually two species of lynx: the Eurasian lynx and the Iberian lynx. It would seem that the Iberian lynx is descended from the Eurasian lynx, but that it differs from it primarily by the size; what is logical, because the species living more in the south tend to be smaller than those in the north. A reintroduction program came into existence in the years 1970. The lynxes are captured in a country where they are numerous, or come from a zoo. Before being released in their new domain, they are vaccinated, tattooed, then provided with a transmitting collar under anesthesia, then they undergo a fortifying treatment containing vitamins and cod-liver oil. During the starting of this program, there was a problem with animals captive bred , which were no longer afraid by men. They prowled too close to the dwellings and went even as far as visiting the hen houses or the enclosures of domestic animals. In Fact, they could no longer manage themselves; It was therefore necessary to capture them again then to take only the animals remained wild. The timid return of the lynx in Belgium, along the German border in 2005, makes it possible to consider the reintroduction of this discreet little big cat in the Ardennes. Some lynxes were already reintroduced legally in the German Eiffel.

Beaver. Bebros in Celtic language. From where innumerable place names or river names: Bievre, Beuvron, Beuvray, etc. The beaver disappeared from the majority of the areas in Europe between the 18th century and the end of the 19th century, because mainly of the hunting, which got fur, meat, and castoreum. The change of the background , under the effect of the increase of the agricultural farming, could also play a significant role in certain areas. In the beginning of the century, it remains only isolated populations : in the south of Norway, in the middle valley of the Elba in Germany, in the low valley of the Rhone in France, in Poland, and in some areas of Russia.

The 20th century will see the revival of the species. Reintroductions of beavers were practiced, initially in the Scandinavian countries (around the years 1930), then in France and Switzerland (as from the years 1960), then in Poland (as from the years 1970), and more recently in the Netherlands.

The salmon. The Atlantic salmon (Salmo Salar) is a splendid migrating fish, formerly present in all the large and average rivers of Western Europe, since the north of Portugal to the Arctic Circle. Nowadays, it disappeared from all these large rivers precisely, except, in France, the Loire and its principal affluent: the Allier. The salmon represented an important income source, whether it is for the professional fishermen or for tourism related to the amateur fishing. In the Loire River, at the end of the 19th 100 tons of salmons were still taken in the estuary of the Loire, that is to say 10,000 salmons. In the upper valley of the Allier River, before the construction of the dam in Saint-Etienne de Vigan, the towns of Luc, Langogne, La Bastide, exported towards the south 10 tons of salmons, that is to say

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approximately 1000 fish. In the beginning of the 20th century, people came from everywhere in Europe to fish Allier salmon in Brioude, former European capital of the salmon.

This disappearance of the species, on the whole of the French territory, has something “remarkable.” In the beginning of the 20th century, the salmon was still so abundant in this country; that the employees of the big cities (Paris, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Orleans,…) claimed, on their work contracts, a clause specifying that it was prohibited to serve salmon to them more than three times per week!

From this ancestral salmon civilization, nothing remains, not even in the common memory. The cause of that is the destruction of the salmon habitat, by water pollution, silting of the spawning beds (lack in the river flow), absence or inefficiency of the fish ladders due to the systematic construction of dams; particularly on the drainage basins of the rivers Yonne, Loire, and Allier. Apart from some small coastal rivers in Brittany, and some rivers of the Pyrenees (mountain stream of Oloron, mountain stream of Pau…) and in spite of the reintroduction efforts; the almost disappearance of salmon caused the disappearance of an economic and civilizational activity having made hundreds of men or women live, from the Neolithic era to the second half of the 20th century.

The Barbary lion. Definitely bigger than its African cousin, this Atlas lion lived mainly in the mountainous massifs. The last specimen had been shot down in 1922 (or 1942?) in Morocco. Some specimens could, however, have been safeguarded thanks to the royal big-cat house of Hassan II, and we find currently about fifty lions distributed in various zoos; of which little more half live in the zoo of Temara (suburbs of Rabat).

It is currently question of reintroducing it. This reintroduction would be spread out a priori over about ten years. A 10,000 hectares protected zone was delimited in a very little inhabited area, which will have to be closed. It will be necessary to acclimatize again in it the preferred game of the wild beast, i.e., deer, mouflons, wild boars, monkeys and gazelles. In Parallel, the scientists will have the task to select the purest parents, with an aim of starting a program of reproduction in captivity. Lastly, a couple or two, of lions will be released in the protected area, then will have to be the subject of a follow-up by the scientists.

One of the acknowledged goals of the Moroccan government is to benefit from the economic consequences of this project. However, several factors are to be taken into account.

First , the local population, who seems hardly enthusiastic with respect to the project, the reputation of ferocity of the Barbary lion causing some concerns. In addition, what will be the system set up in order to control the population of wild beasts , especially if they are intended to live on a delimited surface (10 000 hectares for wild beasts , it is very little). Will the births be controlled or, following the example of certain African parks, will the selective shooting and the hunting permits being part of the suggested solutions?

On the side of the reintroduced game, what will be the consequences on its environment? No indication is given as for the number of animals to be reintroduced, and as for their impact on the ecosystem of the reserve.

It is certain that the disappearance of the Atlas lion (its total extinction is envisaged in about ten years if nothing is done) would constitute an additional tragedy for the biodiversity or the conservation of the species; but the conditions of the reintroduction of the animal in Morocco do not appear idyllic. It would be interesting to establish a parallel with the large carnivores, particularly the bear and t he wolf, which cause the same mistrust among certain stock breeders and come up with the same obstacles on the ground, particularly in France.

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ECOLOGICAL OR SPORTING HUNTING.

We need no longer to hunt in order to feed us. The only goal of hunter must be to remain an intelligent predator, to avoid the catastrophic proliferation of the wild animals in our forests. No “butchers” or fanatics of the trophy, but an immersion in nature.

Some goffinets were offended about our defense of hunting with hounds and of hawking (who will dare to deny that the Celts were always great hunters before the Lord ?) If somebody declared one day that hunting with hounds was a form of hunting ideally ecological, served by a rigorous ethical code, it is not a Celtomaniac high druid but… a mayor of the city of La Rochelle, Michel Crepeau.

Because hunting is indeed the only exclusively ecological hunting which can be, since it is entirely based on the dog, and not on the speed of the shooting or the quality of the rifle. It is enough to read the admirable remarks that Flavius Arrian made in connection with this art, in his hunting treatise. Hunting is not besides only a hunting art, it also contributes to the repopulation of the forests, since the hunts take only relatively little game (20% of stags; 0,5% of wild boars; 2% of roe deer: 0,002% of hare) nothing beside what they reintroduce (release of hares and other animals of this kind…)

Every hunted animal is not necessarily taken, either it is, which is far from being a sure thing, and does not suffer while being dying during hours wounded by a bullet; either it is not, and then it recovers from it rather quickly. Three or four hours of race do not exhaust a stag mortally. Hunting finally ensures important outlets to horse and dog breeding. The demonstrations for the prohibition of hunting with hounds, have nevertheless an advantage, they make it possible to count the “goffinets”; i.e., all those who require the suppression of the hunting with hounds without requiring at the same time the prohibition of the shooting. In other words, those who think more with their (cardiac) muscle than with their head. Alas!

As for hawking, let us not forget that it is combined today with most perfect modernity, since the domesticated raptors can contribute to cleaning the airports from the multitude of the birds dangerous for the planes.

The hawking technique has more than 4000 years. It is based on patience, confidence and mutual complicity. A well-trained bird answers man gesture: if he raises his arm, even at 1000 m , the bird glides and nosedives towards the ground, to come to be landed on the arm of the tamer. It receives, of course, its reward for that. An eagle with a 3 m wingspan flying so high and coming to be landed on the arm of the tamer, leaves always amazed a spectator. These birds have a “sharp” eye, a mouse is seen from 1 km away, a pigeon from 4 km away! Some eat only corpses, others enjoy lizards or small snakes, others strike their prey in full flight to kill them through shock effect.

We find the first written evidence about on hunting with birds in the 7th century before our era in a Japanese book reporting the hunting of a Chinese emperor named Wen-Wang. The Greek and Roman ancient world was informed of this art without practicing it (a plate of Gallo-Roman belt evokes hunting with birds). The Celts learned it from Germanic tribes during the migration period, and it is only around the 7th century that the Arab world discovered it.

The high flight (hunting using mainly the hawks) was formerly reserved to the kings and the nobility who practiced it like a pastime, with gyrfalcons, or peregrine, saker, and lanner falcons. The low flight (hunting using mainly sparrow hawks as well as buzzards) was practiced by more underprivileged, even poor hunters and made it possible to some of them to improve their thin daily meal.

The “young” countries, without historical past as regards hunting with birds , practice a “contemporary” hawking in perpetual evolution and do not cease innovating; whether it is in the methods of taming, training, and captive breeding, the birds, or those of their use in hunting, even in the techniques of captive reproduction.

The only thing which is important for Man is therefore, not to avoid hunting, but behaving as an intelligent predator *.

Conclusion.

In most traditional societies, the relation Man-Nature is or was considered through its mythological and religious dimension, through worships, of rituals. The natural elements were inhabited by spirits or deities (for example, tree deities), from where the existence of a certain respect even of a certain fear

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for the sacred of Nature. Every citizen will make his particular contribution to the activities of the community according to his capacity, his talent and his age; it is on this basis that his duties will be determined, in conformity with the distributive laws. …(Morelly. Code of Nature 1755). Now that the cauldron of plenty of the fossil energies from our mother earth, the jolly old Rose-Martha, was changed into a witch’s cauldron worthy of Shakespeare (pollution, climate change, and so on); it is more than ever necessary to remember it.

The Land belongs to no one but its fruits belong to all (Sylvain Marechal) “except the things for which the person has immediate use, for either his needs, his pleasures, or his daily work.” (Morelly still).

What is certain, it is that the Earth is a Whole, greater than the sum of the parts, than the life of the living beings influences the life of our planet; and that the human beings are today a key species in this process. The climatologists showed the reality of climate change due to human activities. This change is likely to lead within thirty years to a reduction in the food and forest resources in the currently temperate zone. The submersion of certain coastal areas and even of whole countries (Maldives for example) appears probable, if nothing is done to reduce the CO2 emissions (combustion of coal, oil, wood, etc.) and other gas molecules with greenhouse effect.

The druidicists therefore must seek to prevent the catastrophic or prejudicial climate changes, the extinctions of animal species, the destruction of the old forests… in short, they must work to restore the balance of our planet.

Rose-Martha, as a good mother earth that she is, always rewarded those who take care of her, of her forests, her waterways and of her living creatures. Particularly by offering good harvests and well stocked with game preserves. But, if we continue to abuse her, to destroy her forests, to kill her children, or if we continue to pollute her rivers and her lakes, then she will be avenged.

But now, it is simpler and more profitable ( they play on sentimentality) to demonstrate against the hunting with hounds of Arrian or nuclear power; than demonstrate against the gigantic anguipedic wyverns (andernas on the Continent, fomorians in Ireland) of our time, the automobile monster, which is, however, the problem No. 1. It brings into play the manufacturers, the car drivers and the others.

The medical cost is catastrophic: thousands of dead, of physically handicapped people. Half-gassed townsmen . Cost for the community: 120 billion a year. Moreover, this gigantic anguipedic wyvern wastes the raw material, squeezes dry the immigrant or delocalized workforce ; (it is true that it is what is wanted by those who say themselves democrat or liberal, or of left wing apparently, they call that “to gain from our differences”); without to create jobs for all that. All is designed according to this shamelessly and rue Caesar. Town planning and urbanity die of that.

Some tracks, at random.

- Qualitative and quantitative development of public transport and of use of the bicycles.

- Development of the car multi-use and of the time-sharing (shared taxis, minibuses, etc.).

- Multiplication of the means of transportation (rivers, channels, coastal traffics, and others).

- Diversification of the transportation supply.

As for the sport… we are far today from the wild boar hunting, on foot, very naked in the snow, with for only weapon a spear. What follows is especially resulting from the reflections of a sports historian about the situation of France in this respect *, but some of these lessons (not all) can more or less relate to the other countries. On the other hand, of course, that by no means relates really to the non-professional sport *.

*It is enough to be plunged into the history of the World cups to extract from it the long political infamy of the planetary strategy of alienation. The helicopters, the thousands of police officers or soldiers, are there only to control, to park the misery and to protect the luxury, to make it possible to the impassioned ones of soccer “to thrill.” The mass mobilization of the minds around the national teams induces the installation of an obligatory mass hysteria. All that falls under an obvious political diversion, an ideological control of a population. The panem et circenses of the Romans. Circus games and the chariot races in Byzantium in front of the Barbarians…

However, the French are rather critical with their national team. So that the disenchantment of the French with regard to the teams of millionaire mercenaries evolves in true awakening, I wish that the French team not go beyond the first play-off. Their way of playing so badly while spreading out in an indecent way a particularly nauseous pace of life is the piece of evidence of a terrible arrogance with

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respect to the elementary ethical and moral principles. Unfortunately, each victory of the French team makes move back of thousands kilometers the critical thought about the subject, in this country.

How do you then comprehend the French success in 1998 analyzed and celebrated by many intellectuals as a positive event exceeding the simple sporting framework?

The victory of the French team generated a defeat of the thought. Many intellectuals chose to go down in the cloakrooms instead of seizing important sociopolitical fields. They implement a grotesque thought which consists in bitterly noting the downward slides of the sport but in drowning the whole in an idealistic speech on the “positive values” of the sport. It is themselves who legitimate now the generalized sporting horror: violence, doping, scheming , stupidity of the aficionados, etc.

Most of those who defend the sport and the soccer clear them by conferring on them the simple mirror effect of a violent society. But the soccer is also producer of social violence, generating new violence. It imposes a model of social Darwinism. That is due to its very structure: the soccer is organized in a logic of competition and confrontation. To make this spectacle played by overpaid actors in front of minimum-wage earners and unemployed people is also a form of violence. A contradictory logic appears besides. On one side, the supporters are aware of the fact that sportsmen earn mad sums money compared to the nothingness which they produce, but on the other side, it is impossible for them not “to dream” in front of these living goods which show that you can get to the top of the ladder.

Soccer exacerbates the nationalist tensions and causes patriotic emotions endowed with a shattering vulgarity and nonsense. The sport causes a form of violence, different, less obvious than a bomb, but by no means takes part in a decrease of violence. There are multiple pinpricks instead of a great sword blow.

It seems incredible that they are private multinational companies which decide on what a State must implement as regards economic policy. The sport is unquestionably political. For this reason, it generates political values. It is interesting to try to know if these values are republican or royalist, democratic or aristocratic, of right or left wing.

N.B. About the French intellectuals (when a wise man points at the moon with his finger, a French intellectual examines the finger) see the rest of these few notes.

* Fabien Ollier is director of the review, “What sport”? He published a large number of works taking part in the radical criticism of the sport of which particularly the fundamentalism of soccer in 2002, the black Book of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

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GARDENING.

Saint-Gall’s plan organizes garden in thematic and ordered spaces, a tradition probably inherited from the rational organization of the crops described by Varro (Marcus Terentius Varro - 116 - 27 before our era) in his “De rustica,” and influenced by Persians; particularly by their famous checker boarded gardens , inspired by chessboards.

Arrived at this point of our talk, some of our readers will exclaim then, “what Persians and Romans come to do here?

Therefore let us remind.

Firstly, that our neo-druidism is no way racialist , or obsessed by racial questions.

Secondly, that the checker-boarded gardens, at the same time rational and geometrical, will be the standard of all the gardens of the Middle Ages until the fifteenth century (and often more tardily), either they are secular or religious.

The whole is enclosed by a wood palisade or a stone low wall.

The kitchen garden in theory is generally larger than the medicinal garden, or garden of simples, but it is organized in the same way, in regular patches called beds, in raised, delimited, squares.

It is Albert the Great (1193 - 1280) who recommended the placement by squares of the bed devoted to simples, food plants, and odoriferous flowers.

Whatever the material with which it was bordered, the square was generally bordered with passages, probably in order to make drainage and irrigation easier.

The check boarded form given to the beds is not a chance: through their reverberation, they heat the ground much more quickly, and during winter, they protect most of the roots; they also keep a greater dampness, which supports the growth of the plants and their precocity.

On the other hand, the width of each square is to make it possible to work around without encroaching on it. Consequently, people calculate (half of) its width according to the average length of an arm. They establish measurements with a rope. This practice was probably inspired by Columella, who specifies that thus, the one who weeds will not be forced to walk on the start-ups, but will be able, on the other hand, to move in the alleys or to weed a half of the squares of the alley, then the other.

In the center, there is to be a well or a fountain, which is used as water supply point for watering. A garden requires nearly six work hours minimum per week, in spring summer: sowing, weeding, watering, hoeing, servicing, harvest, flowering. A consequent budget is necessary each farming year: purchases of young plants or seedlings, treatment. But the gardener can decrease this budget, by producing himself his seeds, young plants and treatments (containing nettles for example) and by doing himself manually the most possible work.

The standard vegetable garden is a small garden or part of garden, where the food farming is practiced. It therefore has primarily a utility function, but this kind of gardening is also a pleasant pastime, and sometimes a passion.

There are several squares in the garden according to the type of plants that you make grow in it. The kitchen garden, where “the vegetables to be cooked in a pot” (i.e., those which are cooked) grow. We find there mainly today the following plants . Cabbages, cardoons, gherkins and cucumbers, strawberry plants, potatoes *, carrots, garlic and onions *, salads (lettuce * endive), seedlings of tomatoes * , leeks, garden peas, red or green beans, haricot beans, broad beans, artichokes *, radishes, cauliflowers, melons * , shallots *; as well as condiments and aromatics or mixed herbs (plants used to scent the dishes) like chive.

The square of the medicinal herbs. We find among best known sage, mint, wormwood…

Besides all that, we often found an orchard where grew several kinds of fruit trees (apple trees, plum trees…)

Flowers. The most represented are violets, roses, lilies, iris, daisy…

etc.etc.There are also the wild varieties of all these plants, wild cherry trees, wild rose, and so on… but this is another story.

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AMISH OR ORGANIC FARMING ? CROFTING AS FOR THE LAND PROPERTY ?

The Amish are a Christian religious community of North America having voluntarily chosen as for the material civilization to remain on the level of the 19th century.

Strictly speaking, the only “natural” agriculture is the hunting and gathering. To make harvests grow is already a civilizational change which requires some knowledge and a constant effort. Let us remind in this respect that our ancestors were excellent farmers, and that according to Pliny they had invented natural processes of fertilization of the grounds (by using marl = liming) and had even invented the plow (a swing plow assembled on wheels) and the reaping machine (Latin vallus), not forgetting the scythe the barrel, etc.In short all that the farmers used before the Industrial Revolution.

As for the totally natural even “wild” farming or permaculture here below what we can say about it according to the work of the Japanese scientist Masanobu Fukuoka (one-straw revolutionary).

The organic farming assumes the production of food with growing methods respectful of the environment, for example by excluding the use of the pesticides and of the synthetic chemical fertilizers.

The organic farming is an agricultural system of production; based on the rational management of the ground, in the respect of the biological cycles and of the environment, taking into account the knowledge in ecology; for a production of quality, more autonomous, more economical and nonpolluting. The organic farming is based on the observation and on the laws of life; and consists in not directly nourishing the plants with soluble manure, but the living beings in the ground which work out and provide to the plants all the elements they need. The theoretical base of the organic farming is related to the concept of vital fluid (it is a question of not polluting, nor to reduce this fluid by incorporating in it artificial elements); to the notion of a system (we should not only nourish the plant directly, but manage all the system air-water-ground-plant-animals without forcing it); as well as of respect of its elements (to feed a cow with grass, and not with concentrates containing animal by-products). For this reason, the organic farming does not use synthetic products to fight against pests and diseases (pesticides, insecticides, fungicides…) nor chemical fertilizers…

Doctor Masanobu Fukuoka developed in Japan (close to a small village in the island of Shikoku, in the South) a revolutionary method of natural farming not requiring machine, nor chemical products, and very little weeding. Masanobu Fukuoka newer plowed the ground of his fields and, however, their output could be compared to those of the most productive Japanese farms. Its agricultural method requires less work than any other method. It causes no pollution and does not require fossil energy.

Strictly speaking, the only “wild” agriculture is the hunting and gathering, we have said. The fundamental difference is that Masanobu Fukuoka cultivated his gardens by co-operating with nature, rather than by trying “to improve it” in an artificial way.

He recorded all his experience in a major work entitled “one-straw revolutionary” published in 1975.

Its first principle is not to cultivate, i.e., not to plow or turn the ground over. During centuries, the farmers held for granted that the plow was essential, in order to make harvests grow. However, not to cultivate the ground is the base even of wild agriculture. The ground cultivates itself, naturally, by the penetration of the roots of the plants, and the activity of the micro-organisms, of the small animals or of the earthworms.

The second principle of this experiment is not to use chemical fertilizer or prepared compost. To fertilize, Masanobu Fukuoka made a leguminous plant grow as a cover for ground, the white clover, put back on the fields the threshed straw, and added a little poultry manure. Left to its own devices, the ground maintains naturally its fertility, in agreement with the ordered cycle of the life of plants and animals.

His third principle is not to weed. The weeds play their part in the fertility of the ground and the balance of the biological community. The weeds must be controlled, not eliminated.

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The fourth great principle of Masanobu Fukuoka was the refusal to use chemical products. Fukuoka makes his grain crops grow without chemical products of any kind. His design of the fight against diseases and insects is to make vigorous harvests grow in a healthy environment.

These great principles are at the very least revolutionary. Fukuoka Manasobu tried out these techniques during nearly a half-century. At the end of several tens of years of efforts, he had succeeded in getting a variety of rice become very robust through natural selections, and he got outputs identical to those of traditional rice growing in Japan. But at the end of the Eighties, the army seized and destroyed the integrality of his harvest as his seeds.

The permaculture or totally natural farming according to Masanobu Fukuoka is based on three ethical principles.

To take care of the Earth.

To take care of the human beings.

To limit consumption/to redistribute the surpluses.

The permaculture, or something approaching , was practiced by our ancestors for thousands years, see the care with which they farmed the forests in the Middle Ages.

In Northern Tanzania, the Chagga people, as well as the inhabitants of the Kandy plateau in Sri Lanka, for example cultivated gardens which were in fact hardly changed versions of the natural forest vegetation. These copies of natural forest make it possible those who maintain them to eat (cereals, fruits, vegetables), to get dressed (natural fibers), to be treated (medicinal herbs) and to be heated (with wood).

Idea! “We could change the peninsula of Gennevilliers in Paris into a splendid forest by planting there avid of manures plants and trees, aromatic and ornamental.”

From which famous ecologist of our time is this project?? It is Henry Lizeray in his famous book Ogmius or Orpheus.

Certain ecologists of today even think that it would be necessary to implement this principle in the towns and to develop all kinds of farming of the type hanging gardens, including on terraces; what would have, moreover, as a result to contribute to the improvement of air quality.

A Little therefore like in the case of the gardens in Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the world). These gardens were composed of several terraced floors, supported by brick vaults and pillars. An immense marble staircase connected these terraces, where water, through hydraulic screws, was brought since Euphrates. It was a true botanical garden where people farmed the plants and trees of Mesopotamia, and those of the mountains in Media.

DAVID HOLMGREN.

The permaculture is a method to create sustainable human environments, in harmony with nature, and endowed with good connections between its various elements (house, property, village).

It aims at creating a diversified feeding system, stable, close to the natural ecosystems whose diversity seems to be the best asset against the diseases, integrating perennial plants, fruit trees, animals.

The 12 principles developed by David Holmgren in this field.

Observe & Interact.

Catch & Store Energy.

Obtain a Yield

Apply Self-regulation & Accept Feedback.

Use & Value Renewable Resources & Services.

Produce No Waste.

Design From Patterns To Details.

Integrate Rather Than Segregate.

Use Small & Slow Solutions.

Use & Value Diversity.

Use Edges (for example the borders) & Value The Marginal.

Creatively Use & Respond To Change.

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But too.

Design the relative positions of the elements of the ecosystem (fauna, flora, energy, etc.).

Each element has multiple functions (for example windbreaker, fodder, food, support of climbing plants, natural manure, etc.).

Each need is satisfied by multiple sources.

Design the establishment of the elements of the system according to the use frequency , the microclimates, etc.

Use the organic resources.

Pile up the components of the ecosystem vertically (for example, more or less tall trees, bushes, grass, roots, climbing plants).

Anticipate or conceive the natural successions of the species in time.

Other characteristics of permaculture.

To cover the grounds with vegetation wastes in order to keep moisture, to protect from weeds, to bring manure…

Role of the trees and of the perennial varieties (nut, fruits, etc.).

Low density of forests to develop the lower levels.

Creation of edges and hedges (diversity of the species present and better productivity).

Establishment of microclimates (by windbreakers, ponds, topography, shades…)

Importance of the beekeeping and of the farm animals.

Planning of the course for the animals (so that they eat and deposit their manure all alone).

The organic farming is under full development and comprises a range of techniques going from the intensive organic farming to husbandries based on a more sensitive vision of nature; as the biodynamic farming which takes into account the season cycle, the cycle of the moon and of the planets in a very precise way; in order to increase the output of the crops and to make it possible their development in a natural and more effective way.

The organic farming, if it is supported by a political will, can what follows.

- To contribute to food safety, including that of the rich countries also threatened by the crisis of fossil energies, the climate changes and certain weaknesses of the food chain.

- To reduce the impacts of new problems (of which climate changes, thanks to an improved fixing of the carbon and a better resiliency).

- To strengthen hydrous safety (water quality, less requirements in irrigation, humic restoration of the ground, better outputs in the event of hydrous stress due to the climatic risks).

- To protect agro-organic-diversity, to ensure a sustainable use of it.

- To strengthen the food self-sufficiency (increased diversification of richer in micronutrients organic food ).

- To stimulate rural development (in zones where the only choice is the workforce, thanks to the local resources and knowledge).

Organic farming and conventional farming .

The opposition between these two types of farming is not as radical as it can appear at first sight. On one hand, the specifications of the organic farming recommend a certain number of measures of management, which can be applied in traditional agriculture; for example, the crop rotation, or the minimal time of slaughter of the animals, which are also essential for certain recognition of quality.

In addition, the prohibition of chemical products (the specifications define them precisely) is not total in organic agriculture, it is only more restrictive. The natural pyrethrum and the rotenone, two natural insecticides drawn from plants are authorized. They have a fast biodegradability and, as regards pyrethrum, are less harmful than a large number of insecticides resulting from the synthetic chemistry. The use of the rotenone nevertheless is disputed, initially because of its very broad spectrum, and finally following the discovery of the fact that it causes the Parkinson's disease among the rats.

The organic farmers prefer to keep the balances of the auxiliary fauna by supporting the useful fauna and the natural predators, rather than to eliminate indistinctly every animal activity, even if the authorized use of rotenone is not very selective.

The organic farming also made it possible to keep or develop many technologies and innovating techniques whose majority are diffused slowly in the intensive farming, and which have significant advantages.

- It removes most problems related to the pesticides whether it is for the water tables or surface water, the fauna and the man.

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- By relocating the productions, it revitalizes the local socio-economic fabric, creates jobs, avoids generating greenhouse effect flows of goods, and decreases the infrastructure of raw material extraction, extremely polluting infrastructure in general. The problem is that anti-racists are against these relocations.

- It uses much less materials resulting from the petrochemistry, and therefore tends, from this point of view, to delay the oil peak; on the other hand, it is more consumer of fossil energy for the realization of mechanical work which replaces the use of chemical products.

- It is very favorable to biodiversity.

- It increases the number of workers per unit of area and makes it possible to decrease the rural depopulation by improving the long-term viability of the farms and the image of the farmers.

- Its role as regards erosion is ambivalent, on the one hand, with the use of fixing nitrogen crops which occupy the ground, like the alfalfa, it slows down the latter; on the other hand, the almost obligatory use of the plowing to fight against many organic attackers whose self-propagating plants, increases it.

Many are the territorial collectivities to support the organic farming actively in order to make large saving and to improve public health, such as the town of Munich to protect the water resources since 1991.

The organic farming being overall 30 to 50% less productive than the conventional agriculture, could it replace this one and feed the world population?

If we remove the current wasting (about half of produced food ends in the dustbin); and that we accept a little less rich in meats diet (the animal feed requires a very important agricultural surface, surface which would be used for the human consumption if meat demand decreased); while taking into account the fact that the least productive countries could profit from the surplus of the others; the generalization of the organic farming would be then largely possible.

Such an agricultural upheaval would be advantageous economically (definitely less energy expenditure, more profitable sector, less expenses related to the treatments of pollution, less expenses for health), creating employment, healthy and therefore ecological. That would suppose methods derived from the truck farming (for example intensive organic micro farming for example). The organic farming, from its constraints, entails a convenience economic system, whereas conventional farming was developed for a very broad diffusion, as well with regard to marketing as on the level of the inputs (farmer supply).

The question: “Can the organic farming feed the planet? ” is a false question insofar as to feed planet depends more on politics and economics that on any technical innovation (which only requires to be improved). Complex question which raises already the issue of the redistribution of the food surpluses, of the true internal and external costs (and therefore of the indices) of the various types of farming. In waiting for more realistic policies in the field, the organic farming therefore carries on its hard way towards more health, wellbeing and hope for the future of our planet. Major concern, our way of farming the land was never as much subject to controversy (especially when it is spoken about money) but it falls under the responsibility for each one to defend the public good and not to confine oneself in a unilateral act of irresponsible consumption.

N.B. THE AMISH WAY OF LIFE.

Daily sustained bodily activities, like working manually, moving, walking much, can help to prevent obesity.

Recent research showed that the Amish community 1) has an obesity rate of only 4%, and that in spite of a diet containing meat, potatoes, sauces, eggs, cakes and tarts. Their secret: vigorous physical activities, in the form of work in the fields and in the farm, and of walk, much walk.

The study consisted in measuring the number of steps of 98 Amish adults, equipped with a pedometer, during their daily trips. It appears that the men take 18,425 steps per day, and women, 14,196. A man had even walked 51,000 steps in one day, by plowing his field with an attachment of horses! In comparison, the similar studies conducted in the Canada and the United States, give an average from 2,000 to 3,000 steps per adult.

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Specialists also calculated the time devoted weekly to the physical activities. So , the men make, each week, 10 hours of vigorous bodily activities (to raise balls of hay, to spade, dig, or plow), 43 hours of moderate activities (to garden, to feed animals) and 12 hours of walk; the women make 3 hours and half intense bodily activities, 39 hours of moderate physical activities as 6 hours of walks.

1) Mennonites expelled from the kingdom of France in 1712, because they did not pertain one of the three religions mentioned in the peace treaty signed in Westphalia (1648) at the end of the Thirty Years’ war. This decision of King Louis XIV dealt a blow sensitive to the Amish and the Mennonites who still suffered from socio-economic persecutions. A small number of them emigrated in Lorraine, which was not yet French, another part joined the principality of Montbeliard which was in the same case. A relatively significant number of Amish and Mennonites also emigrated in Pennsylvania, where the first Amish community settled in 1737.

Answer to a letter to the editor about Amish philosophy.

We never said that everyone was to become Amish. We never said that the Amish were always right at 100% . We never said that it was necessary to give up every technological progress. What we only say, it is that it is necessary to try to privilege soft technologies to the detriment of hard technologies, and that it is necessary to cease destroying the planet. Computer yes (but responsibly) individual motor vehicle no! The dream in reality it would be the marriage of the cram of the technical progress and of the Amish lifestyle. It is to us o invent the rules of this marriage, and to make it fertile. That is possible, because as said it so well the sculptor Horatio Greenough substantially (quotation of memory); “If The redundant is pared down, the superfluous dropped, the necessary itself reduced to its simplest expression, then we shall find, whatever the organization may be, that beauty was waiting for us.”

Within the Amish communities, the output is measured with regard to what a horse can produce for one day. In spite of the fairy called “electricity,” nothing will ever replace in the work the sacred union of man and horse.

Admittedly, we can smile in seeing them moving in their buggies, so incongruous in the stream of the modern cars. But, if we think out five minutes, in light of the traffic jams, they move as quickly as “the modern man!” Moreover, they pollute less! The dropping odor is certainly more “precise” that of the carbon monoxide, but it is surely less harmful for environment and health!

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ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION.

“His house being surrounded by a wood (as are generally the dwellings of the Celts , who, for the purpose of avoiding heat, mostly seek the neighborhood of woods and rivers) Ambiorix could escape…” (Caesar . B.G. VI, 30).

People much exaggerated the precariousness of the primitive village housing much. They wanted to see, in the “sinkholes” the only testimonies which could remain from it. These circular hollows can be well, of course, the vestiges of the round huts of the primitive age. But in reality, the village dwelling was, as of the origins, a work open to all the variations which correspond to an adaptation to the climate and especially to the ground. And the type of housing realized, according to the places, and perhaps even according to the circumstances, all the possible diversity of the plan and of the materials. The houses of rectangular type in the Neolithic village of Grossgartach, in the Wurtemberg, testify that these old dwellings could have, sometimes, roomy width and also elegance of the decoration. At the same time, in the Neolithic era, the Ruthenian house of today existed already in Poland, with its cob walls as its single room where a vast terra cotta (today out of earthenware) stove, was installed . In the Bronze Age, the dwellings of central Germany seem all of the rectangular type. And it is the same housing layout as, as of the fourth millennium before our era, the steppe people in southern Russia brought in prehistoric Greece.

At the Iron Age, the builders of the Northern areas use the same materials as in the previous times: wood, hatch, and cob, which are perishable materials.

Basically, the building techniques also remain identical. Wood posts are set up vertically and fixed in holes dug in the ground. They are connected between them in their high part by beams on which the roof rafters are posed.

The walls consist of a wattle of flexible rods covered with a mixture of mud and chopped straw, the cob. The roofs, either they are therefore two, four or even three-sided, are covered with straw or reeds. It is their steep- slope and the thickness of the thatch which safeguards a good watertightness.

Once finished the construction, the entrance will be protected by a porch roof. The roof goes down very low and protects the walls covered with cob. An opening at the top of the house makes possible the ventilation of the interior.

AND TODAY???

The building sector is the industrial sector which mobilizes the most resources (materials and energies).

We spend 80% of our time inside a building, from where the importance of visual and acoustic environments as well as of air quality.

The International Energy Agency released a publication that estimated that existing buildings are responsible for more than 40% of the world’s total primary energy consumption and for 24% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Goals of green building

The green architecture (also known as green or sustainable construction ) uses building processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient: from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, or demolition. In other words, this building design involves finding the balance between homebuilding and respect of the environment. This requires close cooperation of the design team, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages.

Although new technologies are constantly being developed to complement current practices in building greener structures, the common objective remains to reduce the overall impact on the human health and the natural environment by:

Efficiently using energy, water, and other resources

Better protecting occupant health and improving employee productivity

Reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation.

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A similar concept is natural building, reserved to the smaller building and focusing on the use of natural material that is available locally.

Sustainability may be defined as meeting the needs of present generations without compromising the possibility of future generations in this field. “Green construction” principles can be applied to retrofit work as well as new construction.

First rule.

“Green” building practices aim to reduce the environmental impact of the building. Since construction almost always degrades a building site, not building at all is, of course, preferable to even a “green” building, in terms of reducing the environmental impact.

Rule number 2 for the case when we could not respect the first one.

The second rule is that every building should be as small as possible.

The third rule is not to contribute to sprawling urban areas, even if the most energy-efficient, environmentally sound methods are used in design and construction.

This approach integrates the building life-cycle in each method used with a design purpose to create a synergy among them.

This type of architecture brings together a vast array of practices, techniques, and skills to reduce and even eliminate the impacts of buildings on the environment and human health. It often emphasizes taking advantage of renewable resources, e.g., using sunlight through photovoltaic equipment, and using plants and trees through vegetable roofs, and reduction of rainwater run-off.

Many other techniques are used, such as using low-impact building materials or using permeable concrete instead of conventional concrete or asphalt to enhance the replenishment of water tables.

The practices or technologies used in ecological building are constantly evolving and may differ from region to region, but the fundamental principles persist; siting and structure design efficiency, energy efficiency, water efficiency, material efficiency, indoor environmental quality enhancement, operations and maintenance optimization, waste and poisonous chemical reduction.

The very essence of ecological building is an optimization of one or more of these principles. Also, through synergy effect, individual technologies may have cumulative effect.

On the aesthetic side, the philosophy of “green” architecture is of designing a building that is in harmony with the natural features and resources surrounding the site.

There are several key steps in designing sustainable buildings: specify building materials from local sources, reduce loads, optimize systems, and have on-site renewable energy.

A life cycle assessment (of the building) can help avoid a too narrow outlook on environmental, social and economic concerns by assessing a full range of impacts associated with all stages of a process: from extraction of raw materials through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repairing and maintenance, or recycling. Impacts taken into account include (among others) global warming potential, resource use, air pollution, water pollution, and waste.

The eco-houses in the ecovillage of our Findhorn friends with a turf roof and solar panels are very good examples of low-energy or positive energy buildings.

This type of building often includes measures to reduce energy consumption. To reduce operating energy use, designers use details that reduce air leakage through the building envelope .They also specify high-performance windows and extra insulation in walls, ceilings, and floors. Another strategy, that of passive building design, is often implemented in low-energy homes. Designers orient windows, walls place awnings, porches, and trees to shade windows and roofs during the summer while maximizing solar gain in the winter. In addition, effective window placement can provide more natural light and lessen the need for electric lighting during the day. Solar water heating further reduces energy costs.

On site using renewable energy (solar power, wind power, hydropower or biomass) can significantly reduce the environmental impact of the building. And power generation is generally the most expensive equipment o add to a building.

Reducing water consumption and protecting water quality are key objectives in sustainable building. One critical issue of water consumption is that in many areas, the demands on the supplying aquifer exceed its ability to replenish itself. To the maximum extent feasible, facilities should increase their dependence on water that is collected, used, purified, and reused on-site. The protection and

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conservation of water may be accomplished by designing for dual plumbing that recycles water in toilet flushing or by using water for washing of the cars. Wastewater may be minimized by utilizing fixtures such as ultra-low-flush toilets and low-flow shower heads. Bidets help limit the use of toilet paper, reducing sewer traffic and increasing possibilities of reusing water on-site. A point of use water treatment improves both water quality and energy efficiency while reducing the amount of water in circulation..

Building materials typically ecological include lumber from forests that have been certified, rapidly renewable plant materials like bamboo and straw, dimension stone, recycled stone, recycled as other products that are non-toxic, reusable, renewable, and/or recyclable.

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) also suggests using recycled industrial goods, such as coal combustion products, foundry or molding sand, and demolition debris.

These buildings rely on a designed ventilation system (passively/naturally or mechanically powered) to provide adequate ventilation of air from outdoors or recirculated.

Most building materials and cleaning/maintenance products emit gases, some of them toxic, such as many VOCs including formaldehyde. These gases can have a detrimental impact on occupants' health, comfort, and productivity. Avoiding these products increases a building's IEQ.

A well insulated and tightly sealed envelope will reduce moisture problems but adequate ventilation is also necessary to eliminate moisture from sources indoors including human metabolic processes, cooking, bathing, cleaning, and other activities.

Temperature and airflow control over the HVAC system coupled with a properly designed building envelope will also aid in increasing a building's thermal quality. Creating a high performance luminous environment through the careful integration of daylight and electrical light sources will improve on the lighting quality and energy performance of a structure.

The use of wood products can also improve air quality by absorbing or releasing moisture in the air to moderate humidity.

N.B. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation recommends hardwood, vinyl, linoleum tile or slate flooring instead of carpet.

Interactions among all the indoor components and the occupants form the processes that determine the indoor air quality.

Extending the useful life of a structure also reduces waste, building materials such as wood that are light and easy to work with, make renovations easier.

Nevertheless, when buildings reach the end of their useful life, they are to be demolished and hauled to landfills. Deconstruction is a method of harvesting what is commonly considered "waste" and reclaiming it into useful building material.

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CONCLUSION.

G. Rupnel (History of the Countryside 1932).

Therefore the last word will pertain to the country soul. More than the resources of this ground, they are indeed the human resistance and virtues which will decide on the future, and will fix the destinies of our countryside. Because this soul which speaks unceasingly in the bottom of each one of us - it is to the austere fruit of the fields!….This soul, it is the very life which worked out it. These are its activities which determined the practices and the aptitudes of it. These are the rigors of his labor which made the strength of it. These are its comforts which made the tenderness of it. It is common to admit that professional activity determined the character of the man in the countryside. They are the hard work of the agricultural life which supported, in the country soul, this dark resistance genius which forms its salient trait its nobility.

The countryside works indeed requires muscle and strength, patience and effort safety, infinite resistance to the hard work. Alone or in a pair in the fields, the farmer must unceasingly without assistance make a success of the big and painful tasks. To make alfalfa come up, to plow a compact soil, to load the cart with sheaves, to unload it, lead the most difficult strength, along the rutted ways, to direct restive harness, to triumph over the impulsive ardor of the horses or the heavy inertia of oxen… all that, which seems to implement only a brute force, is in fact a task which claims as much vigilant attention and expert will, as energy.

This ceaseless effort, where the man puts all his courage and his power… it is the sorrow of all the life! It is the daily law!…. It is the material of each hour and each moment. Day after day, season after season, all the existence will be this effort spasm, this considered valiancy that each moment seems to spend completely , and that, however, the whole life will not exhaust. It is this obstinate courage, born behind the plow, which made the force of the Western races * and the fortune of our destinies. But with these influences of the professional life is combined the subtle action of the social and private life. The practices of the society made the man. Intimate emotions and sweet mysteries made his mind.

The rural life appears to us as the meeting of two contrary and complementary activities. It is, indeed, the powerful life of a group. It is also a task carried out in loneliness and silence, where the individual takes all his value.

The soul/mind of the West is opened with same broad gesture as these stripped like space plains, in the back of which the clouds will be buried and the skies will go down. The anguish and the greatness our soul are determined by this loneliness. They result from it in the same manner that the unkindness of the characters are the human expression of the austerity of the fields.

We are the spiritual sons of the old soils. Our soul received its nobility and his torment from these familiar handmade vastnesses.

It is with this spirit grown as the grass in the fields that the Western man created his intellectual and moral civilization. They are the solitary contemplations, hidden at the bottom of our mind by the old Countryside mankind, which still compose the material of our emotions. In the country soul, innumerable days deposited their memories and their atmosphere. It is in that the ancestral genius draws. It is this light harvest over the field of the dead. All the work of the West was the expense of this thousand-year-old stock brought from the fields, evening after evening, as we bring back from of them the food products or the sheaves. Human breath you who inspire our current World, you originate in the fields and it is from the wind which shivers on grass and wheat that you learned how to involve Mankind!….

Can these some views cast on the origins of the West, its aspects as its history, help to find again, in the calm and sober lines of the rural landscape, the natural human order!…. I like to hope for it.

G. Rupnel .

* Let us remind, of course, that there does not exist a pure Celtic race nor even a Celtic race, that we find in the graves of this civilization as well some brachycephalic Alpines, dolichocephalic Nordics, as brachycephalic Dinarics, in varying proportions. In the writings by Rupnel as in the writings of Gobineau, it is necessary to understand “civilizations.”

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BUAID No. 2: TO AVOID USELESS VIOLENCE.

“ The druids are considered the most just of men, and on this account they are entrusted with the decision, not only of the private disputes, but of the public disputes as well; so that, in former times, they even arbitrated cases of war and made the opponents stop when they were about to line up for battle but the murder cases, in particular, had been turned over to them for judgment” (Strabo Book IV, IV).

What produced in Gaelic language:

Na sir 's na seachainn an cath [Neither seek nor shun the fight].

Gach cuis gu cumhnant [Let every business be done by agreement].

N.B. Of course, this general rule has also exceptions. Needs for survival (hunting, fishing, self-defense, etc.) justified social needs (the neutralization of certain dangerous individuals being impossible to realize differently), the war…

SECOND RULE WITH GENERAL VALUE THEREFORE, THE SAVING OF HUMAN LIVES.

There exists a whole school of thought, from the Ancients and the early Christians to the modern anti-racists, rather democrats or of the left-wing, of today, which affirms with many supporting testimonies, that our ancestors were all lusting for blood from morning to night. It is therefore important to take stock of this question.

The historian of morality Albert Bayet scanned all ancient testimonies in this respect in 1930 and here what his conclusion is.

The ancient authors left us of former Celts an apocalyptic picture: according to them it is in any case the impression they give, the life in the Celtic society of then, from the tribe state to the last of the villages, would have been only a long continuation of massacres or human sacrifices, and they killed themselves merrily each day (and that not to mention even the war crimes).

We wonder in these conditions how the Celts made to spread formerly their civilization to the two thirds of ancient Europe, and to be used in a way as teachers by the Germanic peoples.

They should have disappeared just after being come into the world in their cradle of Central Europe, as first victims of these generalized daily slaughters, by having committed suicide in a way.

However it was not the case, history attests it.

Let us remind of some obviousness with this intention.

Capital punishment did not exist in the ancient Celtic society (revenge was, on the other hand, allowed but it was not wreaked by the king in the name of the society, acting in the name of the society : let us say that it was understood, allowed, tolerated), the life imprisonment did not exist either, moreover the prisons did not even exist in the former druidic philosophy of the law. As among all Northern people what existed was the compensation for victims or the exile, the elude. The text of Caesar is categorical on this subject.

In short, the conclusion imposes itself: the respect of the human life is therefore well, on the contrary, the general rule governing a Celtic society worthy of this name.

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FIRST NOTE ABOUT THE OFFENSE AGAINST THE PHYSICAL INTEGRITY OF OTHERS (found in the library of Peter DeLaCrau).

THE PROHIBITION OF THE VOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION (CALLED INDETHBIRE IN GAELIC LANGUAGE).

It is, of course, a rule old as the hills. Men don’t kill themselves between members of the clan, they don’t eat themselves members of the clan. Foreigners of unknown men perhaps, but not some members of the clan. It is the same thing besides among the apes which did not need Moses to practice such ethology.

The Irish law therefore prohibited categorically parricide. In a manuscript of the ninth century, the murderer of his father or of his mother in the first epistle to Timothy is translated by four Irish words which mean: “The one who slays his kindred: nech orcas a fini.” Called in addition, still in Gaelic language, fin-galach. There is parricide when the dead is the relative of the murderer below the eighth degree of the Roman jurists, fourth degree of the canonists, i.e., in the case when the dead was part of the legal family, fine, of the murderer.

There is no pecuniary compensation planned in the case of the parricide; but as the one who kills a member of his family was in fact excluded from the aforesaid family; he became consequently outlaw. Everyone could kill him without risking paying a murder compensation.

If it is quite true that the druids very early also prohibited the murder of a stranger, a prohibition attributed to a god, compared to Hercules by the Greeks, then that made their ethical code a morality even more respectful of life than that of the former Hebrews who killed much in the name of God or on order of God during their history (always God, God still God, it is quite practical that as an excuse, if he did not exist it would be necessary to invent him, by doing him in our image while you are at it).

In a more general way, Irish law prohibited the murder indethbire i.e., which is in no way justifiable or excusable and which is only the simple result of a preliminary will started by the lure of profits. From where its name, indethbire, which implies that a pecuniary compensation could be required then.

Irish law also prohibited the homicide which could not be equated with a fair duel, and which formed what is called by it “secret murder” (duinethaide).

Let us remind lastly that capital punishment is not systematically the sentence of death and that the Irish law prefers to it on the face of things, the pecuniary composition.

And the principle of the family solidarity implies that the murderer cannot be the only debtor of the pecuniary composition due for his crime. On the 35 cattle heads of average value which form the price of the compensation , he will only owe for example himself, only the 5 cattle head whose the family of the late is entitled to require the value, as restitution, aithgin. The debt of the rest of the composition will be divided between himself and his closest parents, for example his son or his father; i.e., that a part of the compensation will be thus the responsibility of the parents who, in the case of his death, would be his closest heirs.

In the lawsuits for murder, for inheritance, for limits, Caesar writes, the druids judge; they fix the praemia and the poenas (punishments).

Praemia seems to designate, for the applicant, an advantage larger than the simple compensation of a material damage, and, indeed, everywhere the composition is higher than the damage.

Praemia is the name given by Caesar to the rewards promised to those who will manage to kill Indutiomarus. Indutiomarus had created for himself a personal army by attracting to him, with large presents, all the bad boys, i.e., all those who, having made a murder and not being able to pay the compensation, had been able to save their life only through exile. How does Caesar call these presents? Praemia. In the mouth of Caesar, praemia it is also the remuneration owed by him to the Aedui for their support in his wars against the other peoples.

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The praemia, it is therefore an important profit. This profit enriches the one who receives it. It is not the simple compensation for the damage caused by a crime or an offense.

Poenas, it is perhaps the price of the body of the victim (coirpdire) or the repurchase price of the life of the insolvent murderer, while praemia would be the honor price of the dead. Another explanation can be proposed. The punishments, poenas, it is what the defendant will pay if he loses his lawsuit and if he is solvent, or it is what his family will pay if he is defaulting , and if it is not insolvent itself; it is the torment which he will undergo in the event of insolvency of himself and of his family. Praemia, it is the composition considered in another aspect; it is what the family of the dead will share, what will receive himself the person who was only wounded or injured.

The attacks against the physical integrity are sanctioned in the druidic law (of the brehons law) since a part of the pecuniary composition required in the event of murder or wound is precisely called “body price” (coirp dire) the other being intended to compensate for the attack against the honor of the victim (enechlan).

Ireland preserved the primitive meaning of the word * direia/dire, compensation for murder, paid to the family of the dead. The idea that this word expresses in Ireland was one of the elements of the Welsh law before the Roman conquest. This conquest removed from the families the right to avenge the murders through the death of the murderers, or to spare the life of the murderers by accepting from them the compensation payment; it imposed to the Welsh the modern system of justice administered by magistrates. After the leaving of Romans, the composition for murder nevertheless was restored in Great Britain, but then a new word designated the body price, it was galanas; and the galanas, instead of being fixed, became variable, was more or less high, according to the dignity of the killed person; that did not prevent it from being doubled up with the honor price, called in this case by the Welsh word saraad. Saraad comes from sar, Welsh and Irish word whose meaning is “insult and affront ” but which does not belong to the technical language of the Irish law. The Welsh saraad is the same word as sarugad, which means “insult” in Irish language. A third of the saraad and galanas goes to the king and to his officers, two thirds to the family of the dead.

Aggravating Circumstances. “Fines are doubled by malicious aforethought” is a maxim preserved by the book of Aicill; however here, according to the gloss, the meaning of this legal saying: The debtor whose debt is doubled is: 1° the one who killed a man in a mountain or a wild place; 2° the one who, after the murder, conceals the body.

The Welsh law has the same rule.

The antiquity of the disapproval of which the attempt at murder dissimulation is an object, is proved by the agreement that here the Irish law shows with the Salic law. In the event of dissimulated murder, the Salic law triples the compensation, the Irish law doubled it, over and above the fact that the Irish clergy imposed in addition a pilgrimage for the culprit of a secret murder. To hide a murder was then regarded as the dishonest process from somebody who wanted to escape the payment of the compensation. From where the fact that you were to take care well not to fight in a duel without witness, since it was to run the risk of being regarded as the culprit of a dissimulated murder.

SECOND NOTICE ABOUT THE ATTACKS AGAINST THE PHYSICAL INTEGRITY OF OTHERS.

As we had the opportunity to say it, the ancient Celtic society was very unequal. Completely as at the height of the European Middle Ages, i.e., divided into clergy (druids), nobility (nemed in Gaelic terminology) and common people. We will return on the case of the slaves who were generally only prisoners, members of people defeated, the Atectai (what the Muslims call dhimmis) or very poor farmers bound to the land (serfs).

And the amount of the pecuniary composition due for attack to the physical integrity of others, depended on the honor of the victim, in short on his social status.

What is peculiar to the Celtic law indeed, it is the distinction between the body price, invariably fixed for all free men; and the honor price , which is added to the body price and whose amount depends on the dignity of the one who was killed, wounded or insulted.

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There were therefore two distinct parts in the pecuniary composition due for attack against the physical integrity.

One matching the price of the physical injury itself, and which was the same for everybody (well, for all the free men, not for the prisoners of war reduced to the status of a slave), namely thirty-five cattle heads of average value (a seventh of this value for a serf). And this distinction seems to have been common to Celts and Germanic tribes as we saw above.

One matching what was then called “honor price.” In other words, to wound or kill a rich man was more expensive than to wound or kill a poor (I know, it is not fair, but the former druidism is not necessarily a model to be followed we should always be inspired only by what was good or better in it).

These paradoxes were in fact a consequence of the very particular sense of the honor that the ancient Celts had.

The honor of each other it was the statutory value, the importance in the society. It was considered at the time indeed for example that a king was worth infinitely more than a poor person, therefore that his honor was infinitely more important than that of poor people. From where important differences in the honor price of one or the other.

This honor price nevertheless was also proportioned with the seriousness of the attack against the physical integrity of the victim.

A fatal blow gave to the family of the dead the right to require the totality of the honor price. For a wound which caused bloodshed simply and which was made in a fit of anger, the casualty was entitled only to the quarter of the price of his honor. When the wound had caused only a bruise, it could claim only the compensation known as airer; i.e., the seventh of the price of his honor.

N.B. The free men of lower class are not entitled to their honor price but they are entitled, of course, to their body price nevertheless.

THIRD NOTICE ABOUT THE ATTACKS AGAINST THE PHYSICAL INTEGRITY OF OTHERS (found in a book on another subject).

The amount of the composition is generally determined by the rank of the victim we have said. There existed nevertheless at least in Ireland exceptions to this rule. It is what is called smacht in Irish language. The rule is given as it follows by the book of Aicill: “Whenever it is a smacht fine that is paid, it shall be paid according to the rank (aicned) of the person who pays it; and whenever honor price (enechlann) is paid, it shall be paid according to the rank of the person to whom it is paid.”

The complete amount of the fine, called smacht in Irish language, is of 35 cattle heads of average value , it is exactly the body price of a free man, coirp dire. But the smacht can in many cases being reduced to the seventh, i.e., to five cattle heads of average value. It is what happens when the debtor is a serf: the price of his body is reduced to the value of 5 heads of cattle : such is the compensation that he must pay to repurchase his life when he made a murder. The legal principle of which the word smacht is the Irish expression: life repurchase, pertains to the Germanic law and to the oldest Roman law as to the Celtic law. It dates back to the most distant antiquity.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

If we exclude the case of the human sacrifices which, everyone will admit to it, do not fall frankly under the druidic criminal law druidic (though, we do well to specify “frankly” because we will see that there too, this general rule had exceptions) the most serious punishment was generally not the sentence of death we have said.

But you will tell me, and all these witness statements which show us the Celts with the endorsement of the former druids sentencing to death for any little thing an incalculable number of crimes even of what seems to us today simple offenses, what do you do with them?? The account of Caesar what do you do with it??

There is the testimony of Caesar indeed, as these of Cicero (damn, for once it is himself who bears witness of being satisfied with his usual role of crooked lawyer) of Diodorus of Sicily and many others.

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The fact remains that it is there all that we want to say and there we write, that the Celtic-Germanic criminal law of the Northern peoples, capital punishment most usually applied was not the sentence of death but the excommunication or the exile. Another text of Caesar is also categorical on this subject.

In Celtic land the murderer therefore generally has the choice between the payment of the compensation and the exile. Nicholas of Damascus, born in the year 64 before our era and died towards the beginning of the Christian era, informs us about the fact that, among the Celts, exile, was the resource of the citizen who killed his fellow citizen; but, he says, that who killed a foreigner was put to death. If this murder had not been severely punished, they were to fear reprisals and a war with the close peoples of which the stranger was a member.

The murderer of a foreigner therefore endangered the safety of his own homeland : he had committed a crime of high treason; he was arrested, brought to the people’s assembly, sentenced to death and executed. But to kill a fellow citizen could only cause a quarrel between two families and did not compromise the state security. The author of this murder was left free, and if he did not get, by paying the composition, the abandonment of the right to avenge by the family of the dead, he could save his life through exile, i.e., by leaving the territory of his Tribe-State and by taking refuge in that of another tribe-State. Such “exiled persons” provided twice strong contingents to the armies raised in order to fight the Romans, initially by the Trevirian Indutiomarus, in 55 before our era, then in 51 by the Senon Drappes.

The reality of the criminal law of the northern peoples is that the murderer generally was, not condemned to capital punishment nor even to the prison (since in any event the prisons did not exist) but, either condemned to pay a fine, a pecuniary composition, of the type wergild/ wergild or blood price; that is to say abandoned to the revenge from the family of the victim.

The compensation for murder was still used in Ireland, at the end of the sixteenth century. In Ireland, an English (T. Haynes) tells at that time, “When a man is murdered, the brehon that is the judge, will compound between the murderer and the friends of the party murdered, that for some recompense which they call iriach, the murderer shall go without punishment” (observation s on the state of Ireland in 1600).

It was believed for a long time that this process of pacification, still used in the international law, was peculiar to the Germanic people. Nowadays, it was shown that it was general in the private law of the Aryan populations and that it was known out of this group, for example among Hebrews, Arabs, Hungarians. On the other hand, the law of Moses prohibits to receive the blood price; it decides that the murderer will be put to death.

Except the case of crime against the State, the judgments are only pecuniary for every solvent man and the tariff of the compositions is therefore the most important element of the criminal law.

As we had the opportunity to see it, the composition was not asked for a necessary homicide (in the case of self-defense for example). But it was asked for a wound which had not been fatal, for a blow, an insult, an unspecified wrong caused to others, lastly for a premeditated murder that the duty to avenge did not justify.

In all these cases, the composition is due entirely by the culprit; his family is debtor only if he defaults, but it can discharge every debt by giving the culprit either to the living offended, or to the family of the victim, if this victim died. It is the noxal surrender. When the composition was due for a murder which was not necessary (self-defense for example) , the family could escape the obligation to pay the compensation by giving up the fortune and the person of the murderer.

Of this rule, there is an Irish expression summarizing it cach rob in a-chinaid and which can be translated as follows: “Every crime to the criminal .”

And the consequence of this maxim was expressed by the formula: “Everyone dies for his willful crimes when he does not get the amount of the composition (eiric fine)”.

N.B. On the Continent, every five years, the druids supervised the execution, equated with a sacrifice, of such convicted persons.

When the family could not give the culprit, it became debtor itself then for the compensation, less the possessions of the culprit. In the event of insufficiency of the resources of the family, if the culprit was vassal of a noble man, this noble became responsible; in the absence of this nobleman, was responsible every person who gave the culprit bed, clothing, food; lastly, when the victim or the family of the dead could not, using these various responsibilities, to recover all that was owed to it, they had the resource to ask the king. There was in Ireland an expression which can be translated as follows: “Every man without a chief to the king”1).

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Transposed in modern terms such a legal maxim would imply that it is the State as a last resort which is to intervene so that the victim is really compensated as he must be . What proves that even the former druidic ethic on certain points may appear surprisingly modern.

1) These rules, which are given by texts of Irish civil law whose date cannot be determined in a rigorous way, are found about exactly, except some differences in detail, in the “Irish canonical Collection” published in 1874 by Hermann Wasserschleben (page 196), which dates back around the year 700 of our era. This compilation ascribes to an Irish synod the following decision: Primum delictum uniuscujusque Mali hominis ...... in qua est ecclesia ista”. The crime of each malicious man will fall initially on his fortune or his herds, then it will fall on his region (= his parents and his chief); if this man has no region (no parents nor chief) , his crime will fall on his king; if this man has no king, his crime will fall on the person who gave food and clothing to the culprit; in the absence of this person, the crime will fall on the one who gave to this man food and bed. If, finally, it is impossible to take something from all these people and if this man commits a crime against a church, this church will make itself paid by the highest king of the province where it is located (Translation without prejudice, my 7 years of Latin are distant).

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EXCEPTIONS TO THE GENERAL RULE OF RESPECT

OF THE HUMAN LIFE (self-defense, etc.).

This title of chapter, of subchapter, or paragraph, can seem paradoxical for peoples among whom, as regards life, was abundantly practiced the Jewish law (retaliation. See on this subject the question of the sacrifice of the prisoners of war). But it stands out unquestionably from the study of the Celtic law, or from what remains for us about it, that the general rule was well the respect of the life of others. The non-Christian Irish laws seem to have used capital punishment only as an alternative to payment or slavery.

No law ordered to kill all that could move around yourself. To kill could be done legitimately only in certain quite precise cases (war, execution of criminals, etc.) and the supreme punishment was rather the excommunication and the outlawing. In Ireland the serious criminals were embarked by force on boats then abandoned to the winds and to the ocean currents (sent packing we would say today). The druids also favored , in their judgments, financial compensation.

The wergild in barbarian Antiquity, literally “man payment” (also written weregild, wergeld or weregeld) was an amount of money requested for compensation from a person guilty of a murder, or of another serious crime of this kind. This habit had a significant role in the old civilizations of Northern Europe.

The druids knew this use, under the name of eric in Ireland or galanas in Wales. The amount of the eric in the event of murder depended rather largely on the social status to which the victim belonged (if he was a member of the class of the nemed or doernemed persons etc.).

The great French specialist in the Celtic law and literature, d’Arbois de Jubainville, confirmed as a whole this relatively moderate position of ancient Celtic ethic as regards the death inflicted to others; by making the list of the exceptions to this general rule. i.e., the list of the cases when to inflict death to others was not regarded as a condemnable murder and when therefore there was no compensation to pay.

The Irish law, in harmony with most primitive legislations, has indeed on the premeditated homicide doctrines extremely different from that which prevails in the modern legislations; since it admits the legitimacy of the homicide in circumstances when in our countries nowadays, it is not even excusable; it uses in this case to designate this act the expression “necessity murder” or “legally excused murder”: marbad dethbire in Irish language.

The Irish law admitted indeed certain forms of homicide which involved no penalty, no fine, and which was to be regarded therefore as “legal murders.” What ranged from the homicide made during a battle (war) to the fact of killing a red-handed thief, through the execution of a prisoner under sentence of death whose ransom was not paid (cimbid). He could indeed be killed by an individual or a family he had harmed. The homicide was also legal in case self-defense (although it is there a rather complex matter. In Short, at the druids, you did not kill without good reason.

N.B. In certain circumstances, the wounds could also not be illegal and no fine was required. Among those, the bloodshed by a qualified doctor during surgery, or by a child during a play (except a fault from him), or by the adversaries in a duel, etc.

Below the various cases of “justified” or “excused” * voluntary manslaughter known as dethbire in the Irish law.

The “excused” murder is that which was not premeditated, or which, premeditated, has a legitimate ground: in case of war for example (heroes are never prosecuted).

First case. By default death sentence.

The most serious attack against the physical integrity of others is to kill them. However, unlike many other legal systems, the murder was not punished by inflicting to the author the same end as his victim, the habit authorized the murderer to compensate his crime by a payment. It seems that this payment was made of two fundamental types of fine, and generally was to be paid to the relationship of the victim.

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The first type of fine was that which corresponded to a homicide, and which came to seven cumal for every free man, whatever his rank. It was generally designated by the term “eraic” or “eric” (replaced in late old Irish by “cró”). It went to the family (derbfine) of the victim (KELLY 1988, page 126).

The second kind of fine was based on the honor price (“lóg n-enech”) of the kinship of the victim. Each member of the kindred of the victim got a fraction of the price of his honor; starting with the price of the total honor if the victim was a very close relative (father, mother, son, daughter , brother and sister); half if there was a degree (paternal and maternal uncles and aunts); and so on to a seventh for the murder of a foster brother or of “godfather or tutor” through altrom/daltachas. It stands out clearly from the facts therefore that in Ireland the murder could be very expensive (if the victim was a high-ranking person).

N.B. The historical irony has is that, in certain cases, Christian case law led to a punishment by definition more severe, because it was the death penalty since "Generally, Canon Law seems to have preferred death penalty in cases when the honor price of the offender was lower than the penalty, and it additionally made the relatives of the offender liable for the fine » ??????? (Raimund Karl. Archaeologists of Austrian origin holder of a history chair at the University of Bangor in Wales).

REMARKS OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD. A cumal = three dairy cows = three silver ounces. Once again, let us remind that it is there some former druidism and that no one today is bound to approve such discrimination between rich and poor persons.

If for an unspecified reason, the payment was not made, the relationship of the victim could keep the murderer prisoner and act with him at its convenience (cf. the noxal surrender) , sell him as a slave for example, or put him to death.

If the murderer runs away and if his kinship does not pay the fine, the relationship of the victim must start a vendetta until complete revenge (dígal) of the victim. If the victim was a lord, the persons in his debt or his vassals were to join the vendetta.

In the event of murder inside the kindred , the system of repurchase through payment could no longer function (the kindred should have to compensate itself then). Moreover, the murder could not be avenged by other members of the kindred , because they too would then have committed the most revolting crime which is, a parricide (fingal). The usual punishment for this kind of crime, in this case, was that his author therefore was excluded from his family and therefore lost every legal existence. He became more or less a non-person. A banished, an outlaw.

B.G. VI, 16. “Of those which were stopped in red-handed of flight or armed robbery, or following some crime, the gods pass to like the torment…”

Even if Caesar reports that the robbers, the murderers, as well as the other criminals of this kind, were sometimes sentenced to death by sacrifice to the god-or-demons; obviously, the most typical punishment for the most serious crimes (murder, power usurpation, theft) was the excommunication or the exclusion of the religious ceremonies (even with that, most probably, from the tribe and the family). And that according to what Caesar himself admits.

B.G. VI, 13. “For the druids determine respecting almost all controversies, public and private; if any crime has been perpetrated, if murder has been committed……… If anyone, either in a private or public capacity, has not submitted to their decision, they interdict him from the sacrifices. This among the Celts the heaviest punishment. Those who have been thus interdicted are esteemed in the number of the impious and the criminal: all shun them, and avoid their society and conversation, lest they receive some evil from their contact; nor is justice administered to them when seeking it.”

So then, contradiction of Caesar, opposition between secular arm or secular justice and religious justice of the type excommunication? Or differences in manners according to the peoples and the tribes?

Another punishment consisted of a “peregrinatio” to the sea which sentenced the criminal to voyage, deprived of oars and rudder, where the wind would carry him. This kind of forced pilgrim could count only on Providence. In both cases, it is noted that the man was deprived from his original community and that constituted therefore the most serious punishment being able to affect him.

If a criminal treated in this way is driven on the coast of his own people, the way in which he will be treated depends on his crime. If it was a minor offense, he was returned to his initial status. If the fault was more serious, it seems that he was condemned to be used as a non-free farmer (serf).

This punishment is rarely mentioned in the legal texts. It appears to have been one of the favorite methods to treat the serious errors made by women.

Two Irish legends seem to refer to this kind of punishment, the voyage of Snedgus and Mac Riagla, and that of the Hui Corra.

The Voyage of the Hui-Corra tells us how three boys, born thanks to the intervention of the Devil, become adult, plunder, kill, and attack the churches; until one of them has an aisling (vision, in a

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dream), of the Hell (1st episode) and decides his brothers to make amends. Then, while seeing the sunset , they wonder whether something is more marvelous than this spectacle (2nd episode) and end up undertaking to go to sea. After many spectacles of wonders, they return, whereas an old man predicted to them that their fame would go to Rome and that they would make a church built (3rd episode).

The Voyage of Snedgus and Mac Riagla tells us how two monks sent to ask for the commutation of a judgment given against revolted (murderers of their sovereign) decide to follow the example of these men who were sentenced to be banished sea. Pushed by curiosity, or the need for absolute, they embark, discover various islands with surprising spectacles, then end on another island where they find the outlaws happy and well accommodated (this island is the residence of Enoch and Elijah) and they are informed that Ireland will be the prey of a multiplicity of plunderers, because of the sins of its inhabitants.

The Celtic law of brehons made the peregrinatio from a people or from a tribe to another mode of exile or punishment. One of the penalties provided by the Irish tradition was, in fact, a setting adrift on the sea sentencing a criminal to sail, deprived of oars and rudder, unto the wind would carry him. In both cases, the man was deprived of the help of his community and this was the greatest punishment that could occur to him. This forced pilgrim could thus count only on Divine Providence.

We have an excellent example of this in the Cain Adomnain of 697, the penalty replacing blood price for women (female offenders).

45. …A woman deserves death for the killing of a man or woman, or for giving poison whereof death ensues, or for burning, or for digging under a church….she is to be put in a boat of one paddle upon the ocean to go with the wind from the land. A vessel of meal and water to be given with her. Judgment on her as God deems it.

Let us remark in passing that we can wonder if a heavy weregild to pay as in the case of male offenders (the ancient Celtic society indeed did not know prison and rarely practiced death penalty but most often resorted to the principle of weregild if there was a man's death) would not have been a gentler punishment but God works in mysterious ways. Especially in Christianity (pagan gods were easier to understand because they were more logical).

In short, an outlaw by definition profited no longer from any protection from the society, nobody was prosecuted for having killed him. Example the parricide. The parricide placing himself by definition out the law of his family group, nobody had pecuniary composition to pay for his murder.

Second case : the self-defense.

There is neither crime nor offense when the wounds, the blows, even possibly the homicide, are ordered by the need for defending oneself or protecting others (self-defense). So that the action is regarded as a legitimate defense, it must be a situation of defense: the person must meet aggression, to be attacked in first, or else it is itself the attacker. The danger must be imminent: it is at the time of the attack that it is necessary to defend oneself, not after (what would be then revenge); the action must stop once the person neutralized or on the run.

In old Irish law as in some of our current States besides, you have the right to kill the robber when he is red-handed, when he does not say his name, when you don’t know who he is and that you cannot stop him. In Indo-European law, the murder of the robber was always licit when he is red-handed. The Russian law and the Norwegian law require only that the robber is surprised in the house or in the enclosure of the victim .

A legal text affirms it by adding that the death of the robber cannot cause a lawsuit between two families.

In France, on the other hand, nowadays in Oleron for example rural police men of the Island can even truncate, therefore to fake, an investigation in order to make be sentenced the one of whom they don’t like the look. Even if it means falsifying a later investigation to hush the matter up (France of today has no longer something from the banana republics).

Third case.

Legal revenge. As we already had the occasion to see it, in a society without state without prison, the revenge on the murder of a close relation was not only a right but even a duty.

It is a strengthening of paganism if an evil deed be avenged ( St. Patrick. Senchus Mor. I. p. 9).

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But there is vengeance and vengeance!

The druids, just like they tried to limit the sacrifices by supervising them carefully, also tried to replace the private revenge by payments of pecuniary compositions. It was possible indeed to prevent every bloodshed in consequence of a revenge: it was the payment of the compensation by the culprit, his family, his people.

But just like in the case of the human sacrifices the druids succeeded only half in this field, being themselves divided on the subject.

As we could see it, as public prosecution did not exist in the ancient Celtic society, the victims or the families of the victims had therefore always the power to take the law in their own hands, from what they didn’t deprive themselves. It was even a moral obligation in certain cases. The duty of revenge is imposed to the adoptive father who’s the adoptive son is killed, to the maternal uncle when the son of his sister was killed. The son of the sister is then equated with the son of the brother. The most distant degree to which the duty of revenge extends, in Irish law, is the fourth following the counting mode of the Roman law; beyond the first cousins, this obligation therefore exists no longer.

Ancient druids therefore did not encourage revenge since in this case people acted without their arbitration and consequently without the fees which went with; a variable share of the blood price or wergild . But they allowed them.

The reader will accept to excuse us on this point if we use a word of Germanic origin (wergild) but there is on many points harmony between the Celtic law and the Germanic law for quite a simple reason: the domination a long time exerted by the Celts over the Germanic people.

Both laws also present an absolute agreement as for the number of the orders, three, and as for the duration of the three deadlines which follow them, ten nights each one, in all thirty nights.

The same historical fact explains the identity of certain basic elements in the Frankish tariff and in the Irish tariff of the compensation; it makes understand why, in both legislations:

1° the slave or the serf is worth the seventh of the free man.

2° the temporary use of the horse of others, without the assent of the owner, gives to this one the right to require a compensation equal to the value of a slave or a serf.

In short, if we speak from now on about wergild, it is while thinking of the matching Irish or Welsh words : erik and galanas.

Let us repeat it once again because repetere = ars docendi: the former druids did not encourage private revenge because that amounted depriving them of a substantial income source: the percentage planned for their mediation as an arbitrator fixing the amount of the pecuniary compositions or wergild.

Not being able to succeed in completely eradicating the practice of revenge (did they want it really besides) they tried, on the other hand, to supervise it (legally). They tried to make the law take precedence over the brute strength symbolized by the Termagant or Tarvus trigaranus. We will return besides on the subject (the only fact that the druids advised the kings proves that for them the law tried to take precedence over the force).

That being said, homicide was licit in Ireland, even in the case of Christian Ireland (it is not I who says it but d’Arbois de Jubainville), all the time when, by this murder, you avenged the death of a member of your family killed by a member of another family including in the same Tribe-State. We must not exaggerate indeed! Christian certainly but still! Not up to the point to let his be massacred with impunity.

Intud i ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur / It is a strengthening of paganism if an evil deed be avenged ( St. Patrick. Senchus Mor. I. p. 9) and like Queen Boadicea said it personally: “The gods almost always side with those who have been wronged “

But when public prosecution does not exist, i.e., when it is not the State (the king or the vergobret) which deals with making as it should be the culprits punished, the conscientious achievement of the duty of private revenge carries out the durability of the society, which in another way could not exist, in accordance with doctrines which seem to have been formerly common to all mankind.

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To kill the murderer of a relative until the degree of a first cousin inclusively was therefore regarded as a murder excusable or justifiable, its consequence is indeed that the two murders compensate themselves. No compensation is due in this case for the second murder, unless the family of the murderer prevented the revenge exercise by paying the compensation fixed by the habit; in this case the paid compensation must be given back.

As the duty of revenge is a must for all the close relatives by order of relationship, more the close relatives support all the consequences of the act that this duty required.

Including when there is nevertheless in this case something to be paid. But, it will be said, how a murder who avenges another one can cause the payment of a pecuniary composition?

For the first murder that the murder known as “justified” avenged, a composition was already due to the family of the first victim, but this composition could be less low than the compensation due for the victim from whom the achievement of the duty of revenge removed the life. The author of the second murder in this case owed the difference between the two compensations.

And it is this difference which was supported in conjunction with him by his closest parents.

In short, when the murder was necessary, the payment of the whole composition was obligatory for the family, except the portion related with the murderer personally who, in addition to the 5 heads of cattle of restitution for the value of the body, was to support his share

1°. in the price of the 30 head of cattle which supplement the body price,

2° in the honor price.

Forth case: the legal duel or divine ordeal.

The Irish applicant has three ways of proceeding to get justice: 1° the seizure of personal property, aithgabail; 2° the seizure of land property, tellach; 3° the duel, comrae.

An ancient example of this species of duel is offered to us by the Celts in Spain, in the year 206 before our era.

P. Cornelius Scipio, who owed later to his victory against Hannibal the nickname of Africanus, was then in Spain, and he had gotten there against the Carthaginians multiplied successes. He wanted, in Cartagena, to discharge a vow which he had made to honor the memory of his father and of his uncle, both killed six years before, in -212, when they were leading Roman armies and while fighting like him, in Spain, against the Carthaginians…

Scipio had no expenses to pay. His skill had detached the Celtiberians from the party of the Carthaginian and had made them embrace the cause of the Romans. Among his new friends, he found without expenses as much as he wanted warriors who got to him the satisfaction to kill one another before his eyes without asking other wages that the pleasure and the honor to fight the ones against the others.

But the gladiators provided free by the quarrelsome ardor of the Celtiberians did not fight all only for the pleasure and the honor: in some of the pairs in question, the duel had a practical interest, the glory of success was not the only stake: the two adversaries had a lawsuit, and not having wanted either to compromise or to refer of it to the judgment of an arbitrator (of a druid) they had agreed that the object of their contention would be allocated to the winner. To this category, as strange as the other for the Roman spectators, two great Spanish lords belonged: Corbis and Orsua, both sons of a king. Their fathers were brothers and had reigned one after the other according to the primogeniture order: the question was to know who of the two sons was to succeed the last deceased of the two brothers. The father of Corbis, being the elder, ascended first the throne; the father of Orsua was the second, and had succeeded his brother on the throne. Orsua claimed that the throne was comprised in the inheritance that his father handed down to him. Corbis, older than Orsua, wanted to exert his birthright like his father had set the example of it. Scipio made, to reconcile them, useless efforts; they refused to accept his arbitration: “We do not want,” they said, “another judge that the god of war. ” Corbis, thanks to the superiority of his age, was more vigorous than his cousin. Orsua, dominated by the hubris, which is so often the main passion of young people, did not realize the chances of success that his cousin had. Each one of them preferred death to the humiliation of obeying his relative. Corbis, more trained in the handling of the weapons, more skillful and stronger than his opponent, did not have difficulty to overcome him and to kill him. It was therefore him who got the crown.

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This duel, so contrary with the manners of the Romans, captured their imagination highly. More than two centuries after, Valerius Maximus, who wrote, as we know, during the reign of Tiberius, spoke about it in his collection of memorable deeds, and to make the impiety of this fatal combat more shocking, he made the two opponents two brothers who disputed the paternal succession; the elder, according to Valerius Maximus, would have readily taken the peaceful advice of Scipio. It would be the younger brother who would have refused to accept it, and his death would have been the right punishment of his perverse obstinacy.

The part of the work of Valerius Maximus where this arrangement of the ancient account preserved by Livy is, dates back to 32 of our era, or is little later. Fifty or sixty years later, Silius Italicus, who wrote during the reign of Domitian (81-96), embellishes more still this tragic anecdote. He is not satisfied to make the combatants two brothers as Valerius Maximus had imagined it: to make their fight still more horrible, he makes them kill each other ; he describes the two swords piercing each one the chest which is opposed to him; he shows us the two brothers laid dying on the ground and showering each other with reciprocal abuses , with their last sighs cries of hatred are mingled. People then wanted, said Silius Italicus, to join together their corpses on the same pyre, but the flames which went out from these funeral remains raised while dividing, and the ashes of the two brothers refused to rest in the same tomb.

Silius Italicus admits, however, that this duel was in conformity with the national uses of the two fighters.

Part of the voluntary gladiators who, in 206 before our era, killed one another in the games given by P. Cornelius Scipio in Cartagena, were therefore litigants who resorted to the conventional duel to put an end to endless lawsuits.

The duel was a manner of avoiding the private war between two families and therefore of restricting the bloodshed.

You do not pay either the pecuniary compensation due for a homicide therefore when in a regularly started duel you have killed your opponent.

N.B. In the Middle Ages, such legal duels were described as divine ordeals, as for the duels of honor the last took place in New Orleans in 1843 (ended in the death of George A. Wagman a senator of Louisiana) and in 1859 close to San Francisco (death of the senator David C. Broderick).

In Ireland the duel is regularly started in two circumstances:

1° when it is due to the refusal by the defendant to let the applicant carry out a seizure in due form determined by the custom (aithgabail the seizure of land property and tellach the seizure of personal property).

On this assumption, the two parties, speaking loudly in front of witnesses, determine the consequences that the defeat will have for the winner and for the overcome party, i.e., for example, the restitution of a determined object to the plaintiff if he is victorious, and final giving up of this object to the defendant if the latter gets the victory, generally fixing of the object of the litigation and of the solution that the result of the fight will give to the litigious question.

2° when the duel was preceded by a contract concluded with the participation of the family and which determined the effects of the duel.

To validly accept a duel without the assent of his family was, for an Irishman, as impossible as to place himself in the constraint of a chief or, generally, as to give up his family fortune without this assent. “ Every kinsman ,” the Senchus Mor says, “is able to keep his kindred, he is not to sell it, or alienate it, or give it.” “Is mesiuch each fear fine cunai a fintiud; naid inrean, naide sannu “. If the kindred gives its approval to the detrimental contracts made by one of its members, all the family members jointly support the legitimate consequences of these contracts.

When a man had no family, the family was replaced by the chief of this man. The rule here is about the same one as when it is a question of knowing who will pay the crime composition.

The one who challenged another in a duel, before fighting, therefore had to make warn not only the family, but the chief of his adversary, to give notice to them, either to accept the duel, or to prevent it by compromising about the quarrel and by granting the compensation fixed by the custom for the punishable, or simply unjust, act, which was going to cause the duel; this notification was used as a guarantee to the plaintiff against the request for a murder composition if he was victorious.

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“If duel be in the absence or without the knowing of his family, whether death wound or life wound ensues, the murder or wound penalty is full fine from the man who drew him if it is himself who is victorious, but the man who he came against is exempt if it is himself who is victorious.”

“If it is a sensible adult that is drawn into the combat field with the consent of his family [and if he is defeated] ….whether life-wound or death wound ensues, the winner is exempt.”

The contract through which a duel becomes conventional is not valid without the assent of the family which, by this assent, loses its right to compensation for murder we have said.

Well, in the same way, when the duel is due to the refusal by the defendant to subject himself to the consequences of the extra-judicial procedure started by the applicant, the applicant who wants to be sure to avoid the claims of the family of the defendant after the duel, must beforehand give notice to this family itself to discharge the debt that the defendant refuses to pay; otherwise, after having killed his adversary, he risks being to pay the composition for murder.

A regular duel gave to the winner the property of the body, of the weapons and of clothing of one’s adversary. The body belonged to him, i.e., he had the right to cut the head of the defeated and to bring back it in his home as a trophy: in Ireland, epic legend and history offer many examples of this process which also existed on the Continent, of course.

It was the use in the war, and the ancient uses don’t distinguish between the public war and the private war: of both, the duel is a softened form.

But the presence of witnesses was necessary for making the distinction well between the authorized murder (that made at the time of a duel) and the murder considered as a reprehensible ill deed. There is here a distinction which must have to be an element of the primitive law of the majority of the peoples.

A general use as regards duel apparently was indeed that of the witnesses. An Irish legal text notes it. It is a legendary account which claims to teach how and on what date the five-day deadline took place in the process of the seizure of personal property.

One day, a creditor, having completed the formalities of the seizure of personal property, wanted to carry out the removal of the seized objects. Because of the resistance of his debtor, he was forced to challenge him in a duel. The watershed had come, the two adversaries had arrived on the spot chosen for the fight. Close to them, their weapons were seen ready to be used; to take them and to rush the one against the other, each one of them waited only for the witnesses. These witnesses were to be men. Instead of men it was a woman who came, and through supplications, she obtained that seizing one gave a supplementary time to the seized one.

Fifth case: capital punishment for the murder of a stranger.

The murderer has, generally, the choice between the payment of the composition and the exile. Nicholas of Damascus, born in the year 64 before our era and died around the beginning of the Christian era, informs us that, among the Celts,

that which killed a fellow citizen had always the resource to be exiled; but, he says, the one who killed a foreigner was executed. If this murder had not been severely punished, you were indeed to fear reprisals and a war with the close people of whom the stranger was a member. The murderer of a stranger therefore endangered much the safety of his own homeland : he had committed a crime of high treason; he was arrested, brought before the assembly of the people, sentenced to death and killed.

Sixth case: the human sacrifices.

The Breton great celtologist Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc'h is right when he writes: “The man is a victim of priests and consequently an exceptional victim” (Celtic civilization) and “the human sacrifice was undoubtedly very rare” (the druids).

But since 2000 years “goffinets”, enough sanctimonious hypocrites to claim that the Celts took pleasure in human sacrifices, are not missing.

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However nothing is more false: it is time here to do justice to these poor “Welches” and to remind of the fact that, even Jews, Greeks and Romans, also had recourse to the human sacrifices, in certain circumstances.

In 216 before our era, according to Livy , the Romans sacrificed to the god-or-demons (by burying them alive) a male Celt and a female Celt, a male Greek and a female Greek. Their habit has it also that the priest of the sanctuary in Nemi reaches this office… only after having killed his predecessor.

Tertullian (Apology IX) reports that children were still offered in a holocaust to Saturn in the proconsulate of Tiberius.

Cassius Dio (XLII, 24) reminds of the sacrifice to Mars of two soldiers at the time of Julius Caesar.

Among Greeks, people sacrificed each year to the goddess Artemis Triclaria more the handsome young man and the most beautiful girl in the country. According to Phanias of Lesbos, Themistocles himself would have immolated three prisoners in order to ensure the success of the battle of Salamis.

As for the Hebrew ancestors of the Jews, in addition to the almost human sacrifice from Abraham on his son (brrr, the poor boy has a narrow escape, considering the worrying degree of obedience of his father) it is enough to read the Bible to be “edified.”

I Samuel 15, 2 and 3: 2This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants.” We are there polar opposite of the Celtic-druidic morality. We are far from Cuchulainn who did not kill men without weapons, nor women, nor children.

And that proves on the way how much this god-or-demon was an ethnic mini god-or-demon, since it was not even the god-or-demon of all the Hebrews (Amalekites were also Hebrews, Amalek being a grandson of Esau, therefore a descendant of Abraham he too).

Judges 11, 30 to 40: Jephthah sacrifices his daughter to Yahweh (poor Iphigenia). II Samuel 21.9: David makes (sacrifice by dismemberment) seven sons or grandsons of Saul sacrificed by the Gibeonites to put an end to a three-year famine. Is it also necessary to point out I Kings, 16.34. Hill, the Bethelite, sacrifices his two sons to Yahweh to fortify Jericho (Abiram for the foundations and Segub for the gates). Same use that in the other Semitic peoples in Phoenicia or Carthage: see the “tophets” found by the archeologists.

Seventh case: crime against the State.

It is perhaps not necessary to expand lengthily on the subject. It goes without saying in this field the sanction cannot be any more a simple pecuniary composition but the escape abroad (exile) or the death. The authors of an unsuccessful coup, sometimes even after being tortured. The defeated of a civil war are killed when they are captured. Woe to the defeated is a universal law even if morons or hypocrites are not missing claiming to act by democratic altruism. And journalists enough dupe or bobo to believe them

Let us notice in passing that the intervention in Libya in 2011 of the armed forces of Messrs. Sarkozy * and Cameron, in order to overthrown Muhammar Ghadaffi, in the name of the human rights and of the protection of the civilians (what a tragic hypocrisy) perhaps made from now on, psychologically (and diplomatically or politically) impossible, any other resolution of UNO of this type, considering the way in which it was then coarsely overstepped by the aforementioned Sarkozy and Cameron. From where then the Syrian case! Political impossibility for the international community to effectively put pressure on the Syrian regime was the direct consequence of the fact that Messrs. Cameron and Sarkozy have, wrongly or rightly, given to the Russians and to the Chinese the impression that they made fun of them. Russians and Chinese being only men, they very badly lived these liberties taken by Sarkozy * and Cameron compared to the initial resolution of UNO.

* Probably for reasons of personal vainglory with regard to Mr. Nicholas Sarkozy de Nagy Bocsa: he wanted to enter the history as a liberating hero defender of the weak and of the oppressed.

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THE WAR AND THE CELTIC HUMAN RIGHTS DURING A WAR (FIR FER).

As his master Sencha had taught him (“a great people never transgresses the rules of the fair play (fir fer) with an unknown”); Setanta Cuchulainn killed neither the charioteers, neither the messengers, nor unarmed people; moreover it seemed to him neither noble, nor beautiful, to take the horses, the clothing, or the weapons, from killed men”

(in other words to strip them. See the account of the driving off of the cattle of Cooley). We are there polar opposite of the behavior of a Muhammad.

The conclusion is therefore a must: the respect of the human life is well consequently, by contrasts, the general rule governing a Celtic society worthy of this name. Ancient Celts did not slaughter themselves every day and they did not make everyday massacres of human sacrifices (there still let us repeat it, we do not speak about the case of wars but of the daily life inside a tribe-state, or a village).

And why therefore will you tell me?? For a very simple, and basic reason.

The first general rule of the ancient druidism, its first commandments we could say, since the animal ethology of the apes, was the respect of the life in all its forms. Let us repeat it once again since repetere = ars docendi, the general rule was the respect of the life. Life in all its forms. How could it be differently besides at a time when the man was only a water drop lost in nature? But, of course, as any rule this general rule of the respect of life had its exceptions, best known being the phenomenon called “war.”

In his essay entitled national tradition rediscovered (page 13), Henry Lizeray nevertheless questioned very rightly the fact that the war is the necessary state of Mankind as Jordanes said it in connection with the Goths who worshipped only Mars i.e., the god of war.

The idea that there exists a law of war implies, on the one hand, the jus ad bellum; either the right to make war or to go to war, for a reason such as that to defend oneself against a threat or a danger; it supposes a declaration of war which prevents the adversary; the war must be an honest act; and in addition, the jus in bello; in other words, the law in the event of war or of armed conflict; who implies to behave as soldiers invested with a mission for which all the violence is not authorized.

In all the cases, the idea even of a law of war is based on an idea of the war defined as an armed conflict, circumscribed in space, limited, in time, and by its objectives.

The war starts with a declaration (of war) is completed by a treaty (of peace) or an agreement of surrender, division, etc.

Grotius, when he writes the “De jure belli ac pacis” (On the law of war and peace), gives to the law of war its base and its framework; which will remain until the contemporary time, the references of the international law as regards armed conflicts.

The law of war enacts by principle the prohibition the all-out war: the international law does not authorize the all-out war which implies the rejection of every rule, of every principle of conduct, because it is the very negation of the law.

These rules were initially enacted in religious forms before being codified in a non-religious form at the 16th century by Grotius. Grotius is indeed the first to distinguish the Law [and the law of war, particularly] from the Religion, to emancipate it from the latter. In the preliminary speech of his work, he affirms that the law of nations can be built, even if God or the Demiurge would not exist.

The rules of the law of war as for the implemented means were such that, theoretically, in the Middle Ages, it was prohibited to use bows and arrows; because you could kill the enemy from away and in the back. It was initially what it was possible to call the chivalrous and noble war and fight, with a hand-to-hand fight analogous to the famous combat of the thirty having taken place in Brittany on March 26 or 27, 1351. It must be honest (Fir Fer).

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The law of war in the various treaties or texts enacting some rules; if it could intervene to regulate more particularly such or such point (for example the treatment of the prisoners, the allowed weapons, the division of the spoils, etc.); and if it could also introduce differences compared to other codes previous to it on such or such other points; comes under an invariable founding precept. It is a question of doing only the evil useful for the objective of the war in question: not to do more evil than necessary.

Cuchulainn never transgressed the fir fer, killed neither the charioteers , neither the messengers, nor unarmed people; and it seemed to him neither noble, nor beautiful, to take the horses, the clothing, or the weapons, from killed men (in other words to strip them. See not the surah of the Quran devoted to the spoils but the text of the driving off of the cattle of Cooley).

The first principle therefore imposes the rule not to kill innocent, and supposes the distinction between civilians and fighters. It has as a consequence the prohibition of the murder of women and children, even of soldiers having no weapons since the “naked soldier” becomes again a man, according to the logic of the law of war stated since always.

In India, the laws of Manu chapter VII 92-93 impose that the fighter does not strike nor the one who is unarmed; neither the one who surrenders, neither the one who flees, neither the one who is on the ground “Nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat of mail nor one whose weapons are broken, nor one who has been grievously wounded.”

The second principle implies to prevent killing soldiers unnecessarily when the goal is achieved, and to use only weapons adapted to what this war requires. All in all, the war is not an act of brutality, it should not cause cruelties without reason, useless acts of violence: all is not allowed and you should not either destroy or to impose sufferings beyond what the sought-after goal requires.

“History tells us that the city was once captured by the most savage barbarians, but the Celts never cut off any heads, they never insulted the dead, they never begrudged their enemies a chance to hide or fly... “ (Appian, The Civil Wars, book IV chapter XCV).

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FOR COMPARISON NOW.

HINDU AHIMSA.

The first mentions of Ahimsa in Indian philosophy go back to the Vedic writing called Upanishad (dating back at least to -800). In Fact, “non-injury” or “will not to make” expresses better the idea conveyed by the Sanskrit word. More especially as this concept is worth as much for the bodily level as for psychic level.

Based on the compassion, being able to take an active role by embodying generosity and selflessness (charities for example), these doctrines are at the base of the Hindu ethic which is personified by the goddess Ahimsa , the wife of the god Dharma (dharma, “socio-cosmic order” in Hinduism). It is the first of the five renouncements to which the yogi in search for enlightenment must consent personally, although it is not specifically yogic, but sought by every “gentleman.”

The ahimsa is the core of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, with, however, more or less marked nuances. Those who practice ahimsa are for example, on the food level, vegetarian, even vegan.

Hinduism being a civilization, and not a religion in a strict and Westerner sense of the term, the vegetarianism has nothing obligatory to be “Hindu” and to assert oneself as such (though the Hindu word is sanctioned by no “Hindu” sacred text: it is resulting from the Islamic invasions to name the non-Muslim population in India).

Below nevertheless some quotations of Hindu sacred texts about ahimsa and vegetarianism:

“Someone who knows the dharmic principles should never offer meat [fish or eggs] during the ceremonies of belief, nor should he in his normal life be a meat eater. One derives the greatest satisfaction from the [vegetarian] food of the sages and not so much from food [obtained] by [needless] violence against animals. For persons desiring true righteousness, there is no religion higher than this: to forsake in one's mind, words and actions all violence against other living beings” (Bhagavata Purana 7.15.7-8).

JAIN AHIMSA .

"A person fully aware of religious principles should never offer anything like meat, eggs or fish in the Sraddha ceremony, and even if one is a Kshatriya (warrior), he himself should not eat such things." (Bhagavata Purana 7.15.7)

“What need there be said of those innocent and healthy creatures endued with love of life, when they are sought to be slain by sinful wretches subsisting by slaughter? For this reason, O monarch, know that the discarding of meat is the highest refuge of religion, of heaven, and of happiness. Abstention from injury is the highest religion. It is, again, the highest penance. It is also the highest truths from which all duty proceeds. Flesh cannot be had from grass or wood or stone. Unless a living creature is slain, it cannot be had. Hence the fault in eating flesh is” (Mahabharata 13.115).

“Those sinful persons who are ignorant of actual religious principles, yet consider themselves to be completely pious, without compunction commit violence against innocent animals who are fully trusting in them. In their next lives, such sinful persons will be eaten by the same creatures they have killed in this world." (Bhagavata Purana 11.5.14).

To be opposed to a system, to attack, it is well; but to be opposed to his author, and to attack him, that amount being opposed to oneself, becoming his own attacker. Because the same brush painted us; we have as a father the same one and single Creator, and because of this the divine faculties that we have in us are infinite. To damage one human being, it is to damage these divine faculties, and consequently to harm not only this being, but, with it, the whole world.

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Whereas a good deed must call approval, and a bad one, reprobation, the instigator of the act, whether he is good or bad, always deserves respect or pity, according to the case. “Hate the sin, not the sinner” - it is there a precept which is rarely applied if it is easy to be understood and this is why the venom of hatred is spread so quickly in the world.

Jainism is undoubtedly the spirituality which will have pushed most far the principle of the ahimsa or respect of the life whatever it is ............

Therefore let us eliminate this extreme from a philosophical point of view, by showing that its alleged absolute respect of life is not as absolute as it is claimed and as Jainism itself thinks it….

It is completely impossible for a human being to live without that is more or less to the detriment of other lives than his. There cannot be absolute respect of the life, in all circumstances. And microbes or bacteria so then? The absolute Jainism is a dead end. It is only an illusion or a pun. There can be only relative respects (non-absolute respect of the lower animal life, but relative respect of the life of the higher animals, respect of the life of others going to the refusal of self-defense, etc.).

Nature itself is of a faceless cruelty. The grass eaten by a herd of herbivores doesn’t suffer perhaps (and still, who really knows it, our friends of Findhorn don’t agree with this opinion, because it is advisable as a preliminary to define what the suffering is). But the cute little goat of Mr. Seguin tracked by a pack of wolves and devoured by them at the end, yes! Because the only great principle which animates nature is “eating or being eaten.”

We will reconsider the balances which are settled then between preys and predators and which avoids the proliferation of certain species, which is always done to the detriment of something.

Nature, when the man does not intervene there and does not put it out of order, is always well made. Its other large rule is indeed the balance lle bo cydbwys pob gwrth.. Balance between various forms of life, each one in its biotope. A predator always eliminates the weakest of its preys, not the most vigorous. If Bambi makes itself ripped apart by a gang of famished wolves, it is not by chance, and there are causes for such a phenomenon.

The respect of the life generally and without useless sentimentality, therefore is an integral part of any self-respecting ecology.

We said and showed. However who will dare to claim that our ancestors were not ecologists before the word is invented, they who literally worshipped forces of nature.

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JUSTICE LAW AND FORCE.

THE ETHICAL CONTROL OF THE BRUTE STRENGTH (SYMBOLIZED BY THE TERMAGANT < TARVUS TRIGARANUS).

The druid takes precedence (advises) over the king but law without force is either useless could have said Sun Tzu.

The assertion of Appian can seem surprising at the time of triumphing antiracism or jihadism, in the name of a certain idea of Islam (of the origins) but what is certain it is that one of the principles of the ancient druidism was its will to harm nobody. Nevertheless it is not pacifism at all costs, because this druidism admits the self-defense, individual or collective, and demands even a certain duty to intervene in order to come to the rescue of allies or friends.

Titus-Livius. Book XXI. Chapter XX. “The ambassadors, after extolling the renown and courage of the Roman people and the greatness of their dominion, asked the Celts not to allow the Carthaginian invaders a passage through their fields and cities, such interruption and laughter broke out that the younger men were with difficulty kept quiet by the magistrates and senior members of the council. They thought it the stupidest and most impudent demand to make: that the Celts, in order to prevent the war from spreading into Italy, should turn it against themselves and expose their own lands to be ravaged instead of other peoples. After quiet was restored the envoys were informed that the Romans had rendered them no service, nor had the Carthaginians done them any injury to make them take up arms either on behalf of the Romans or against the Carthaginians. On the other hand, they heard that men of their race were being expelled from Italy, and made to pay tribute to Rome, and subjected to every other indignity. Their experience was the same in all the other councils of Celtica.”

It is therefore something very different from the Indian concept of ahimsa. Here the non-violence has two levels: if we can help other human beings, let us do it, but in a chivalrous way; if we cannot , at least let us not harm them without reason.

Revenge is the attack of a first actor against a second, moved by a former action of the second, sensed as negative (competition or aggression) by the first one. It can be a question of persons, legal entities, family or ethnic groups, institutions, particular for the second actor. This behavior is not exclusively human, but it is among them that revenge is most frequent.

The need to be avenged is basic in the mankind as well as the picture, in the Louvres Museum, entitled “Justice and Vengeance pursuing Crime” shows it well. In December 2000, the Saudi newspaper Al Riyadh reported that a group of hamadryas baboons waited in ambush on the roadside for three days in order to stone a motorist, who had previously crushed a member of the group . In France there is also the famous example of the pope’s mule.

Indeed, the oldest legal texts, describe a form of retaliation law, in order to define a response proportioned with the wrong done by the attacker. The retaliation law is indeed a first attempt of the society to channel this often destroying need for revenge but which can also establish or strengthen a community, united by this common desire.

Intud i ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur / It is a strengthening of paganism if an evil deed be avenged - Senchus Mor, I, page 9 - Intud i ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur; and as Queen Boadicea said it personally: “The gods almost always side with those who have been wronged.”

Revenge is an act of emotional origin (which can be or not of passion) from which you cannot withdraw.

Justice must be initially compensating and then only corrective then dissuasive but if it does not take into account the cathartic dimension of the revenge it loses much of its effectiveness, because revenge has a cathartic virtue that justice could not ignore without consequence for its capacity to

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bring back civil peace. All good justice must therefore answer in a way or another this feeling that the victims can have.

The revenge which consists in directly making a murderer pay his crime, in his own flesh, is therefore comprehensible; that amounts to take the law in his own hands, but to attack innocent ones can in no way be justified on the other hand.

“The Celts readily take the cause of the one who is oppressed into their own hands. They indeed have at the highest degree the feeling of equity, of law and honor. They can suffer that somebody breaks his sworn word. The reputation of justice of some of their tribes, as the Volcae Tectosages who lived beyond the Rhine, went far […] The Greeks transmitted to us the praise of one of their kings in the area of Constantinopolis: Cavarus, of Tylis” (Albert Grenier).

It is completely legitimate that a druid takes part personally in the defense of his people, or in the defense of friends, but it is also necessary to can keep safe control and proportion his response. The Jewish law of retaliation, at a pinch , in accordance with the principle of reciprocity, an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth at a pinch (it is basic) but not for an eye both eyes, for a tooth the whole jaw. To praise such an excess incontestably forms a deviation of the Irish bards, almost a heresy.

“Yet more of slaughter shall there be when Medb shall have come.” We reach there the limits of any revenge stupidly executed under pressure . Except for being able to say “All is lost save honor” you end in a useless carnage. The best of revenge, moreover, is a dish best served cold, never hot.

What do the Irish druids therefore during the driving off of the cattle of Cooley??? Was there therefore only some Diviciacus among them??? Were they therefore to this point so little philosophical and so “society men,” so bogged down in the business of this world, this century, this time? So bogged down in the secular one or in the temporal one???

The ethological control, by the high-knower of the druidiaction (druidecht), of the use of the force, shows through clearly in the triad reported by Cailte to St. Patrick: moral purity, strength in arms, rhetoric (Dialog of the Ancients. Acallam na Senorach).

On the Continent at the same time according to Diodorus of Sicily “Many times, for instance, when two armies approach each other in battle with swords drawn and spears thrust forward, these men step forth between them and cause them to cease, as though having cast a spell over certain kinds of wild beasts. In this way, even among the wildest barbarians, does passion give place before wisdom, and Ares stands in awe of the Muses ” (Book V, chapter XXXI).

Therefore let us notice this insistence on peace of the druidism; although it is not for a peace at all costs or in dishonor. The druids always admitted that there could be just wars and even made the defense of his, of friends or of weak ones, a moral requirement. For the record here below the duties of the ideal monarch in the Compert Con Culainn : Am túalaing mo daltai. Am dín cech dochraite. Dogníu dochur cech tríuin, dogníu sochur cech lobair… to be the scourge of the strong, and the defender of the weak (Fergus).

In short, the druid takes precedence over the king and the law therefore takes precedence over the force, but law without force to make it implemented (the druid without the king) is only a pious hope or ruin of the spirit.

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THE 12 PATHS OF DRUIDISM (12 CONARA FUGILL).

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BUAID No. 3.

LOVE FRIENDSHIP OR PITY.

According to Rogério G. Fernandes and Steve Hansen of the Galáthach hAthevíu website, the Celts knew the different nuances of the verb to love. A certain number of verbs can indeed be identified that appear to convey these sentiments (the page numbers refer to Delamarre 2003).

Cára: to love (p. 107).

Ama: to like (derived from namanto- = ne+ama+nto, p. 231).

Náma: to dislike (p. 231).

Lúvi: to adore (< lubi p. 209).

Arúer: to please/give satisfaction (< arueriiatis p. 56-57).

Hence (still according to our two authors) ...

Cára mi ti: I love you.

Ama mi ti: I like you.

Náma mi ti: I dislike you.

Lúva mi ti: I adore you.

Arwéra i mi: it pleases me.

Regarding the homosexual inclinations attributed to the ancient Celts, below some quotations also relating to the Germanic or other Scandinavian (Finnish?? Baltic ?) people.

Let us start, first of all, with Christian authors.

Bardaisan. Book of the law of the countries.

“In the north, however, in the territory of the Germanic people, and their neighbors, the boys who are handsome serve the men as wives, and a wedding feast, too, is held then. This is not considered shameful or a matter of contumely by them, because of the law among them.

Yet it is impossible that all those in Celtica who are guilty of this infamy should have Mercury in their nativity together with Venus in the house of Saturn, in the field of Mars in the Western signs of the Zodiac. For regarding the men who are born under this constellation , it is written that they shall be shamefully used, as if they were women.

Laws of the [Great] Britons.

Among the [Great] Britons, many men together take one wife.

Laws of the Parthians.

Among the Parthians…….

But our brothers who live in Celtica do not marry with men, and they who live in Parthia… “

These remarks by Bardaisan not very clear are perhaps drawn from Eusebius of Caesarea.

Preparation for Gospel. Book VI, chapter X.

“Among the Celts the young men give themselves in marriage openly, not regarding this as a matter of reproach, because of the law among them. Yet it cannot possibly have been the lot of all in Celtica who thus impiously suffer outrage to have the morning star (Venus) with Mercury setting in the houses of Saturn and regions of Mars at their nativities.In [Great] Britain many men have the same wife: but in Parthia…. “

Let us repeat it once again : we question the religious nature of such unions strongly. On this point Celts and Romans were to have the same feelings: they were perhaps to be simple civil unions in any way placed under the glance of the gods. More former authors like Diodorus of Sicily don’t present these relations as entering the framework of a marriage but as a practice accepted in male groups like these made up with warriors.

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Diodorus of Sicily. Book V, 32, 7.

“Although their wives are comely, they have very little to do with them, but rage with lust, in outlandish fashion, for the embraces of males. It is their practice to sleep upon the ground on the skins of wild beasts and to tumble with a catamite on each side. And the most astonishing thing of all is that they feel no concern for their proper dignity, but prostitute to others without a qualm the flower of their bodies; nor do they consider this a disgraceful thing to do, but rather when any one of them is thus approached and refuses the favor offered him, this they consider an act of dishonor“.

Strabo perhaps reproduces Diodorus on the subject (Book IV, 4, 6).

“And the following, too, is one of the things that are repeated over and over again, namely, that not only are all Celts fond of strife, but among them it is considered no disgrace for the young men to be prodigal of their youthful charms“.

As Athenaeus of Naucratis. The Deipnosophists. Book XIII. 79.

“And the Celts,too, although they have the most beautiful women of all the Barbarians, still make great favorites of boys so that some of them often go to rest with two lovers on their beds of hide“.

Aristotle’s case is more doubtful because he had a little tendency as any self-respecting Greek, to regard as normal the homosexual marriages, so his witness is questionable.

Aristotle. Politics. Book II. Section 1269 B.

“So that the inevitable result is that in a state thus constituted wealth is held in honor, especially if it is the case that the people are under the sway of their women, as most of the military and warlike races are, except the Celts and such other races as have openly held in honor passionate friendship between males“.

Let us note nevertheless that there again it is still not question of homosexual marriage in a strict sense of the term but only of homosexual loves. What is not the same thing !

Homosexuality was by no means penalized by Greco-Roman paganism, but, on the other hand, what was holy for it, it was the union of a man and a woman. The union of two men (or two women) was so in no way. However without being prohibited or dampened. Homosexuality did not fall under penal law like in Islamic land (Dar Al Islam).

And the “Greek love” in all that? Today that we are (or more, or less) afraid by words, it is possible to wonder, directly, if ancient Greece was really a haven for homosexuals. It is necessary, before and in order to answer this question, to characterize the sexuality of the ancient Greeks, and more particularly their attitude about homosexuality.

The French Maurice Sartre, from whom we borrow the almost totality of the contents of this digression, calls the Greek sexuality inseparable”: the same person can have a hetero or homosexual behavior in turn.

In other words, the Greeks do not divide themselves into “gay” and “hetero.” These two words do not even exist in old Greek: the Greeks said that there were some of them who were “ more inclined to women,” and others “to men.” It is therefore the same individual who will admire the good-looking guys in the gymnasium during the day, and in the evening returns to meet his wife, with whom he shows himself assiduous, as it should be. In ancient Greece, homosexuality itself is neither sentenced by the law, nor even scorned.

This should not make us believe that all was allowed as regards sexuality. The Greeks also expressed their reprobation before certain “deviating” behaviors, with which they enjoyed accusing their adversaries in policy or justice, and whose law punished, sometimes severely, some of them. Only their categories differed considerably from ours. First, the public opinion mocked the obsessed, sexual pigs unable to control themselves. Still more disapproved were the men, who, in a sexual intercourse, played the passive part which made them a woman, thus reversing the social functions. For example, in the relation between the customers and the transvestite or male prostitute, it was not on the first that infamy fell (what more normal than to visit the male/female prostitute, they thought); but on the second, who traded on his body, especially if he was a citizen. The free man cannot nor must not put himself in the service of others. The male prostitutes or transvestite citizens could hold no office in the Council (of 500), no magistracy, either it is allotted by election or drawing lots, and were not entitled to take the floor in the Assembly. Let us notice that approximately, this attitude is found among Romans, to which testifies this sarcastic refrain that the legionaries sang at the time of the triumph celebrating

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the victory of Caesar over the Gauls; reminding thus with a typically military delicacy his youth relation with the king Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, in which he would have played the part of the woman.

“Gallias Caesar subebit,

Nicomedes Caesarem.”

The Athenian social and sexual behaviors find their explanation in the Cretan habits and laws. There the relation between adults and teenagers, not only were allowed by the public opinion and the uses, but even codified by the laws and were sanctified by religious rites.

However, there remains a contradiction: if the passive homosexual is considered with contempt, how is it done that the eromenos escapes this scorn, quite to the contrary? The answer: it is a question of hairs. As long as his do not begin to become black, the eromenos is not regarded as an adult man, did not reach adulthood, nor, a fortiori, got the citizenship. In other words, this relation is licit and valued between the ages of 12 and 16 years old , of the young man, period during which this one is no longer a child but not yet an adult: he is a non-man, therefore considered symbolically as a woman. Once his hairs grow thickly, the love affair must stop. Certain eromenoi try nevertheless to prolong it by being depilated, sign that they find advantages in it…

Don’t’ let us be trapped by the words and the beautiful theories: the Greeks themselves denounced the sometimes fuzzy limit between eromenos and prostitute male adolescent, search for love and research of pleasure only.

We can also reject an interpretation which makes Greek homosexuality a consequence of the “military friendship.” To summarize: for lack of women, the barracked or in campaign soldiers “make do” with their companions.

It is to ignore several facts.

The Greek armies, like all the ancient armies, were accompanied by a horde of followers, and, especially, in the case which keeps us busy here, of female followers. More or less free maidservants, female innkeepers, washerwomen and lunch ladies, prostitutes (yes, there were also prostitutes), and sometimes the whole at the same time, not counting the partners even the wives, of the men and of their officers. And then, there are the female prisoners who, as in the Iliad, owe all to their master, including their body; moreover, there are all the occasions of rape that the passage in the boroughs and villages, and the sacking, offer.

With regard to the barracked soldier, it would be necessary to prove, by supporting statistics, that the joint life of adult males develops homosexuality. Let us admit that is the case: I imagine that, if internal investigations there were, the military authorities preferred to remain discreet. However, my personal military experiment leads me to believe that the soldier will always prefer to the “facility” of the homosexual relation, the energy expense and the risk taking; (I think of a certain hole in the fence of old Belgian military quarters near to Cologne;) in order “to go and meet the girls,” whether they are in two or three dimensions. Is it necessary to mention the letters expected impatiently, the lines before the phone booths , the “infallible tricks” to get a prolonged leave; as well as the curses with which the staff of the company is overpowered when it refuses (for necessarily bad reasons) the so deserved or coveted “leave.”

And it is well what occurred in the Greek case. The young grooms, who were to live in barracks up to the age of thirty years old, used of all the tricks to escape from the vigilance of the officers, to leave the barracks and to meet his lady.

Last mystery to be solved: the Theban sacred band. Plutarch notices that “according to some people,” it was composed of 150 couples of male lovers. The sacred band (in old Greek hieros lokhos) was an elite corps of the Theban army, whose cohesion could be estimated at 9 on a scale from 0 to 10, and created according to Plutarch by the Theban commander Gorgidas. He had composed it with three hundred elite men of whom the city paid the training and supporting , and who camped in Cadmea. This sacred band was destroyed in the battle of Chaeronea in 338 before our era, by the cavalry led by the young Alexander the Great : 254 of the 300 soldiers were then killed, all the others wounded. According to the tradition, Philip II of Macedon, stopping before the place where the battalion had perished, would then exclaim: “Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.”

What is the problem? If these couples consist of adults, considering the hoplite citizen is necessarily major, it is therefore excluded that they keep a love affair which implies, we saw it, sexual intercourse, without one of them being regarded as “fallen.” If there is a love affair and sexual intercourse allowed

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by the uses, one of the two partners of the couple is necessarily a teenager, what is in contradiction with the fact that the hoplite is a citizen, therefore an adult.

My assumption, which is worth what it is worth: these couples consist of ex-lovers, what reconciles the obligatory majority of the soldier citizen and the pederastic relation. This implies that beyond and after the properly love relation, the Theban erastes, at least in the particular circle that the sacred band formed, would have continued to have a moral influence on their ex-eromenos. Let us go further. If this assumption is valid, the Thebans therefore would have recycled an antiquated initiatory habit into an instrument of military formation and supervision ; the oldest one setting an example of the virtues and warlike competences, guiding, monitoring and advising the youngest in his life of a soldier. The very titles of these 300 hoplites are revealing: there are the “Warriors ” (parabatai) and the “Charioteers” (heniochoi), designations which refer to the time when the warlike aristocracy was, at least for the travels, the parades, and the sport, got in a chariot; and which supposes a hierarchical order inside each couple; what confirms the aristocratic origin and the educational intentions of a certain Greek pederasty (Daniel Vranckx. Website Locus Danielis. Brussels).

The public opinion, after having a long time taunted the loves in the Greek way (Editor’s note: homosexuality) tends today to make them another manner of living one’s life. Certain brother paganisms , beside the romantic love in the way of Amadis or Tristan and Iseult, also admitted the homosexuality compatible with marriage and reproduction, Greek paganism, for example. The partisans of the love of Greek type must be treated therefore with the respect due to any other approach of human sexuality, BUT WITHOUT HYPOCRISY.

Moreover, we should not mix up the homosexual tendencies, with the (homosexual) acts at all. If it is a field where freedom but also balance are conquered slowly and with difficulty, it is well that of sexuality. Sexuality affects all the aspects of mankind, in the unity of the body and of the soul. It relates to the affectivity, the capacity to love then to procreate, even in a more general way, the aptitude to establish links with others. The harmony of the society depends on the way in which sexual identities are lived, the complementarity, the mutual needs and supports. The forms of decency, of course, vary from one culture to another. Decency protects the love mysteries. It is modesty, inspires the clothing choice, makes itself discretion, just like in the case of Aemer the wife of Cuchulainn (see their first meeting).

OLD IRISH GRAD , GRATUS ? CARO ? CARE ?

Amadis takes us back to the primitive time of the valiant knights known as knights-errant, searching for adventures, only accompanied by a young squire old enough to bear arms. It is the time which is immediately previous that of the institution of the Round Table […] this magic is not forgotten in the romance of Amadis. The Firm Island, where the Arch of the faithful lovers is, was famous in its time. It was necessary to pass under this arch and to undergo some tests to arrive at the forbidden chamber......In this mitigated translation of the original text, it is possible to recognize the preliminaries of love hypnosis (Henry Lizeray. The S.D.D.)

For this author, the Eros or the Love was therefore the principle more improved by our ancestors.

“Who always held in high consideration this creating principle, which excites the individual courage, selects the race, sets alight and purifies the souls, but not the common ones. The love was the great concern, according to the courts of love, instituted from time immemorial, in Provence; and according to the tournaments, which provided to the knights the opportunity to put forward, with their lady, their skill and their good grace. Amadis makes us touch the soul/mind of the West. He bears in him the heart of the race, this tall, dark, handsome, stranger (Castilian Spanish beltenebros), communicating by the sympathetic link of the thoughts as of the feelings with the lady-love to whom he devotes his valiant deeds. This new design of the sentimental love is higher than all those of Antiquity. It moves away from the erotic passion (Eros) of the Greeks who, on the same subject, present to us the poor loves of Mars and Venus.”

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The first version of this romance, published in Portuguese language around the end of the 14th century, was ascribed to Vasco de Lobeira. A second edition was published in 1547, written in Castilian language by Rodriguez de Montalvo, and containing the continuation of Amadis. The first four books, which were called after Amadis, were very esteemed by Cervantes.

Louis-Elisabeth de la Vergne, count of Tressan, author of the free translation of 1779,believes that the original text was written in Picard language in the reign of Louis the Young or of Philip-Augustus. He affirms to have seen manuscripts of Amadis in Picard language. He calls upon in support of his opinion some passages of the work where are mentioned Ungan (sic), a Picardian philosopher, and Iseult (ah the loves of Tristan and Iseult…)

Why indeed, it would have come to the mind of a Portuguese author to quote these characters of the romances of the Round Table? Herberay d’Essarts still notes the general tone of the first three books of the work, written in the taste of the time.

His opinion was also that of Desmasures, secretary of the cardinal of Lorraine (1555). Desmasures congratulates the translator to have given back to the country the book that the Spaniards held.

See also Plutarch: On the bravery of women.

Particularly the example of the Galatian Deirdre that were the beautiful Khiomara, wife of King Ortiagon.

(Just like Deirdre indeed, the wife of Ortiagon had also sworn not to know more than 2 men in her life.) As well as the pure and gentle Camma, priestess in Ancyra

The unfortunate one had taken for refuge and consolation the sacred ministry attaching her to the temple of Artemis as a vestal woman devoted to this goddess [or more exactly to the Celtic goddess-or-demoness , or fairy, hidden behind this name]. But, forced by her family to marry the murderer of his first husband, she poured some poison in the cup of their wedding, and she died while involving the latter in her death.

Her last words were those: “"I call you to witness, O goddess most revered, that for the sake of this day I have lived on after the murder of Sinatus, and during all that time I have derived no comfort from life save only the hope of justice; and now that justice is mine, I go down to my husband. But as for you, wickedest of all men, let your relatives make ready a tomb instead of a bridal chamber and a wedding.”

Then she intertwined the altar and died there in front of an immense crowd struck by terror.

Such designs of faithfulness until death have astonished the ancient (and even medieval if the legend of Deirdre is not older) world, but we should not be mistaken about its deep meaning for all that.

And let us not forget either this Celtic Deirdre that was the famous Eponine.

Here what Plutarch says (Moral writing, Dialogue on love, chapter XXV) and it will be there our conclusion.

Julius, who was the first that occasioned the revolt , among many other confederates in the rebellion, had one Sabinus, a young gentleman of no mean spirit, and for fame and riches inferior to none. But having undertaken a very difficult enterprise, they miscarried; and therefore expecting nothing but death by the hand of justice, some of them killed themselves, others made their escapes as well as they could. As for Sabinus, he had all the opportunities that could be to save himself by flying to the barbarians; but he had married a lady, the best of women, which they called by the name of Emponen [Eponina], as much as to say a heroine. This woman it was not in his power to leave, neither could he carry her conveniently along with him. Having therefore in the country certain vaults or cellars underground, where he had hid his treasures and movables of greatest value, which were only known to two of his freed bondmen, Sabinus dismissed all the rest of his servants, as if he had intended to poison himself. And taking along with him his two faithful and trusty servants, he hid himself in one of the vaults, and sent another of his enfranchised attendants, whose name was Martalius, to tell his wife that her husband had poisoned himself and that the house and his corpse were both burned together, designing by the lamentation and unfeigned grief of his wife, to make the report of his death the more easily believed, which fell out according to his wish. For Emponen [Eponina] so soon as she heard the news, threw herself upon the floor, and continued for three days together without meat or drink, making the most bitter outcries, and bewailing her loss with all the marks of a real and unfeigned anguish. Which Sabinus understanding, and fearing her sorrow might prevail with her to lay violent hands upon herself, he ordered the same Martalius to tell her that he was yet alive and lay hid in such a place; however, that she should for a while continue her mourning, and be sure so to counterfeit her grief that she should not be discovered. And indeed in all other things the lady acted her part so well, and managed her passion to that degree, that no woman could do it better. But having still a longing

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desire to see her husband, she went to him in the night and returned so privately that nobody took any notice of her. And thus she continued keeping him company for seven months together, that it might be said, to differ very little from living in hell itself….

Only between whiles she went to the city, and there showed herself in public to several ladies, her friends and familiar acquaintance. But that which was the most incredible of all things, she so ordered her business that none of the ladies perceived her being with child, though she bathed at the same time with them. For such is the nature of that ointment wherewith the women anoint their hair to make it of a red-golden color, that by its fatness and oleosity (its oiliness) it plumps and swells up the flesh of the body, bringing it up to an embonpoint. So that the lady, no less liberal of her ointment than diligent to chafe and rub her body limb by limb, by the rising and swelling of her flesh in every part, well calculated, concealed the swelling of her belly. And when she came to be delivered, she endured the pains of her childbearing alone by herself, like a lioness, hiding herself in her den with her husband; and there, as I may say, she bred up in private her two male whelps. For at that time she was delivered of two boys, of which there was one who was slain in Egypt; the other, whose name was also Sabinus, was but very lately with us at Delphi. For this reason Caesar put the lady to death; but dearly paid for the murder, by the utter extirpation of his whole posterity, which in a short time after was utterly cut off from the face of the earth. For during his whole reign, there was not a more cruel and savage act committed; neither was there any other spectacle which, in all probability, the gods and daemons more detested, or any from which they more turned away their eyes in abomination of the sight. Finally, she abated the compassion of the spectators by the stoutness of her behavior and the grandeur of her utterance, than which there was nothing that more exasperated Vespasian; when, despairing of her husband’s pardon, she did as it were challenge the emperor to exchange her life for his, telling him withal that she accounted it a far greater pleasure to live in darkness underground as she had done than to reign in splendor like him.”

According to certain authors, Eponine would have converted to Christianity. What is completely false, of course! The Christians tend a little to see Christians everywhere, except where they were (Hitler, Stalin).

About what is advisable to think about homosexuality, some people often oppose to us what the great queen Boudicca would have said according to Cassius Dio in connection with Nero.

May our readers allow us here to practice a little also the taqiya.

It is necessary to take into account the context. An atrocious civil war had just broken out in the country after the massacre by the Romans of the old druids and of their families in Mona (an island which was not even fortified). The Celts of the time did not revolt when a sacred or not sacred, book, was burned, but, on the other hand, there, a wave of anger and of indignation overwhelmed the whole country. Just before one of the decisive battles in this conflict, the queen of the Iceni thought right to present herself as a true woman by contrast with a false male like Nero in order to galvanize her troops facing the frightening Roman legions.

Below therefore the remarks that specialists attribute to her in order to condemn her for that.

Raising her hand towards heaven, Boudicca said: "I thank thee, Andrasta, and call upon thee as woman speaking to woman; for I rule not ….over the Romans as did Messalina once and afterwards Agrippina and now Nero (who, though in name a man, is in fact a woman, as is proved by his singing, lyre-playing and beautification of his person); nay, those over whom I rule are [great] British….

As the queen, then, of such men and of such women, I supplicate and pray thee for victory, preservation of life, and liberty against men insolent, unjust, insatiable, impious— if, indeed, we ought to term those people men who bathe in warm water, eat artificial dainties, drink unmixed wine, anoint themselves with myrrh, sleep on soft couches with boys for bedfellows— boys past their prime at that— and are slaves to a lyre player and a poor one too. Wherefore may this Mistress Domitia Nero reign no longer over me or over you men; let the wench sing and lord it over Romans, for they surely deserve to be the slaves of such a woman after having submitted to her so long.

To know more about the personality or the tragic destiny of our national heroin refer to your usual dictionary.

In any event the unfortunate one paid with her life such remarks, so…

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People often throw in our face the very harsh words of Plutarch condemning homosexuality, but is this our fault to us druids of today if this author of the classical Greco-Roman antiquity thought right to comment on thus the moving example of the marriage of Eponine and Sabinus within the framework of his moral writings??

Here what he actually declared for this occasion:

“You yourselves are not ignorant that these pederasties are by many said to be the most uncertain and least durable things in the world, and that they are derided by those that make use of them, who affirm that the love of boys, like an egg, may be destroyed by a hair; and the lovers themselves are like the wandering Scythians, who, having spent their spring in flowery and verdant pastures, presently dislodge from thence, as out of an enemy’s country…

I say more than this, that the love of virtuous women does not decay with the wrinkles that appear upon their faces, but remains and endures to their graves and monuments. Then again, we shall find but few male couples of true lovers; but thousands of men and women conjoined in wedlock, who have reciprocally and inviolably observed a total community of affection and loyalty to the end of their lives. I shall instance only one example, which happened in our time, during the reign of Caesar Vespasian.”

And there Plutarch goes on the history of Eponine and Sabinus.

May us be allowed to be a little more poet than Plutarch. There is nothing more touching that this force of nature which irresistibly pushes the men towards the women, the women towards the men, who seek each other mutually as by feeling but with obstinacy in the darkness of the night (because love is a hope which nobody could give up), this basic instinct which creates the human society by definition (if not we will be all some paramecia) since it pushes us towards the one who is other, others, different, who is a man when we are a woman or a woman when we are a man, and which, from a more pragmatic point of view, deals genetically with each new generation (the process of reproduction at the same time identically and not identically, which is the divine keystone of any evolution).

The French deputy Christian Vanneste, let us say card-carrying “Republican majority,” went as far as calling into question the very word of homosexual for the reason that the Latin prefix “homo” refers well ultimately to the concept of narcissism or at least of research and of preference for what is similar to oneself; therefore, he esteems, inevitably the refusal of what other another different even opposite,is.

But it is not less true that we can love our own kind without for all that hating the other, the one who is different. Fortunately still! In the moment when I speak a little X or Y is just been born at the other end of the planet. However actually I do not love him. But that does not mean for all that, that I hate him. I have just told you quite simply that I did not know him personally. But who knows ? The world is small, and perhaps a day will come when our paths cross and when I like him. Meanwhile we are not there. On this point therefore the deputy of the ex-majority is mistaken as all those who think that to love something or somebody implies hatred for all the rest automatically (a generally accepted idea or a very widespread conditioned reflex).

And all what interests us, we uns, it is the future and the renewal of the generations, the forces of life, the ver sacrum. Therefore in this respect we can only repeat with force and insistence what our philosophy teaches us and what the good sense orders, namely that what is important in all that it is the lot of the children which can be born from these fecundations.

As the generalized practice of the athair altroma in the Celtic tribes shows it ; it is indeed the whole society which is indebted or responsible for the process in question i.e., concretely.

- For the good physical growth of the children.

- For their education in good conditions.

It is there our sacred duty: the ver sacrum (Latin term to evoke a Celtic-druidic concept) because as long as there are men there is hope and if Mankind disappears the awareness of the world disappears with it.

As regards the adults, we estimate that it is too late, let they manage as they can with their selfishness their aggressiveness or their paranoia deep inside their heart.

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We begin to be tired by all these polemics. We all what the history of Eponine and Sabinus inspires to us it is that one of the basic ideas of the ancient druidism was that of the complementarity even of the coincidence of opposites, of the pair of opposite forces, like heat and cold, masculine and feminine, water and fire, etc.

Let us add, moreover, that the design of the marriage among ancient Celts, itself, had perhaps nothing to do with the petty bourgeois design of love which prevails in our modern societies (though today only the gays and the priests want to marry) but was rather connected with an alliance between two families, two clans. The druids were satisfied to wisely add the condition of the free assent of the husbands, better even, that their affinities are taken into account, in order to make possible a true marital love ultimately.

Let us add finally that we don’t apply the principle often practiced never admitted, which can be stated as follows: “no freedom for the enemies of Freedom,” because in this field as in many others we are rather of the opinion of the great French philosopher that was Voltaire who said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Therefore we are not part of those who refuse the difference quite to the contrary since we accept even those who refuse the difference, those who are gay something, who are heterophobic or for homophony homogeneity homonymy homophilia etc.

FOR COMPARISON (but nothing equates his liking of Amadis).

We quote this text of Henry Lizeray for the record only, because it is better to forget his considerations of roughneck soldiers of starry-eyed girls or poets about the Patagonian the farmers even the thinking gases

“I am the friend of rivers and mountains… there are also living liquids….sidereal , etheric, living gases.”

Even followed by the careful note: all that is between brackets is only assumptions.

Our old master Henry Lizeray, who was to be still quite young then, had a very romantic design of the love which can link a man and a woman. We will remind of it here, for the record.

It is an imaginary dialog published in 1881 (in Paris, under the title Love dialog)…

MORE CONCRETELY.

More concretely it should be noticed than the Irish law distinguished two kinds of rapes, even if identical punishments applied to both.

The forcor was the rape done while using violence, whereas the sleth covered all kinds of situations where a woman was subjected to relations without her assent.

Whatever the kind of rape, the rapist was to pay the price of her honor (generally to the father, the husband, the son or the guardian); the complete eraic if the victim was a girl of marriageable age, or the wife of a chief; and the half for any other woman. If the rape took place in a town or a village, the woman was obliged to call for help, but not if the aggression took place in nature.

If the victim became pregnant following the rape, the rapist became entirely responsible for the education of the child whom can be born from such a forced union, at least materially speaking.

However, there were certain cases when the rape involved no penalty, whatever the kind of sexual assault committed . In most cases when the woman was light manners or adulterous like prostitutes, or a married woman agreeing to meet another man.

Editor’s note. There still former druidism, former druidism and former druidism!

Sexual harassment.

An attacker was to pay ten ounces of silver for having touched a woman or put his hand in her bodice, and seven cumal as three ounces of silver for having put his hand under her dress in order to soil her.

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The price of her complete honor was to be paid to a woman who was kissed without her assent. If her skirt was lifted, she was to also be compensated (although we do not know how, because it is not specified).

CONCLUSION.

The greatness of a union for a couple, it is to hand down his life that they themselves received. To refuse to hand down the life, whereas you can, is a crime against the spirit. Sign of a reality which goes beyond it (the love) the sexuality is not only a private affair. It is also a social reality as any human reality, particular because of its power to procreate or generate.

This is why it is preferable, in the event of the union of a man and a woman, that this contract is recognized by the human group of which they are members,the nation or the society, but it is not an obligation. A couple must sometimes know to postpone, or to give up, new births, but the love act must remain in theory always open to the possibility of the transmission of life. Therefore no self-mutilation for the druidicist.

From the sexual point of view, if chastity has value, it is not because of the moral excellence which is attributed to it today, but because of concepts of a mystical nature relating to the ceremonial purity.

The celibacy makes it possible some persons to better devote their freedom to the service of their friends, their family, the life of the country, the county, or the druidiactio. Such is the sense, the only sense, of this consecrated celibacy, because for the druids celibacy and chastity are neither some obligations nor some virtues themselves.

CARANTIA ?

Unlike what the Christians affirm, the neighbor could not be a distant person or an atom of the world human community. For the druids, the fellow being is somebody who, through his known origins, deserves a particular attention and respect.

The friendship or carantia (Irish caratrad) is one of the great commands of the “Decalogue” of the former druidism. It is for example a very frequent stem in the anthroponymy in the form carantus (friend, relative) or caratacus (friendly).

The friendship between Ferdeadh and Cuchulainn remained in all the memories. See the moving funeral lament composed by our hero on the body of his dead friend.

Sad for your golden brooch

O Fer Diad of the champions!

O strong and valiant smiter,

Victorious was your arm.

Your thick yellow hair

Was curly—a fair jewel.

Your girdle made of leather, supple and ornamented with leaves,

Was around you until your death.

Our true comradeship

was a delight for the eye

Your shield with its golden rim,

Your chessboard worth much treasure.

That you should fall by my hand

I acknowledge was not just.

Our fight was not gentle.

Alas, for the golden brooch!

Game was all and sport was all

Until it came to my meeting with Fer Diad on the ford.

I had the feeling that my beloved Fer Diad

Would live with me for ever.

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Yesterday he was huge as a mountain [and I saw only him]

Today only his shadows (scáth) remains.

And this one still.

“What a pity for the Ultonians, of boundless valor,

Both in tutors and in foster brothers,

Not to have searched the world's expanse

For a cure for their friend the Hesus Cuchulainn.

If it were Fergus that could not sleep,

And that any druid's skill could heal him,

Duxtir/Dexivatera/Dechtire's son at home would not sleep

Until he had found a druid to perform it.

If it were Conall, in like manner.

That suffered from wounds and sores,

The Hound of Culann would search the world-wide,

Until he had procured a doctor (liaig) to cure him.

If upon Loegaire the Triumphant .

There had come battle wounds intolerable.

He would have searched all Erinn's land

To cure the son of Connaid, son of Iliach.

If it had been upon the crafty Celtchar,

There fell sleep and permanent coma

Both night and day should see the journeys,

In the Sid Country , of Setanta [Cuchulainn].

But such a sense of the friendship involves obviously a whole series of consequences and particularly “the division of the society into friends (allies, kinship, vassals) or enemies. Neutrality is indefensible, you must be the friend of your friend, but you should not be the friend of his enemy” (Regis Boyer the Vikings).

TROUGOCARIA ? (old irish troige, trogaire).

As we have already said , but considering the importance of the thing, it is not useless to repeat it, on the continent also the management of war was to be subjected to well-defined rules.

“In the fights between the Tribe-States , we see the winners imposing to the defeated some giving hostages, land transfers, tributes but we never see a people trying to destroy another people” (Albert Bayet) like in the case of the Jewish herem or cherem. It is necessary on the contrary to be chivalrous. Nothing astonishing thus so that the Commentaries by Caesar mention that as a notion already very widespread among Celts as regards slaughters or violence. The trougia or trougocaria (mercy) therefore occupies a rather broad place among all these alleged Barbarians. They complain readily about the cruelty of those who oppress them, and many times therefore, they call for the pity of the Romans. As of the day after the arrival of Caesar, Diviciacus, in tears, entreats the Roman chief to save Dumnorix […] when the legions march on Bratuspantium, the children and the women ask for peace “passis manibus suo munere”; in Gergovia, the women, with bared breasts , beseech the Roman soldiers “(Albert Bayet). Of course we may wonder whether Caesar does not exaggerate a little, but he is less suspect when he depicts us the inhabitants of Avaricum begging their commander in chief not to burn the town; and when he shows us Vercingetorix “ yielding to the prayers of the tribesmen and to compassion for the multitude,” and “concedente et precibus ipsorum et misericordia vulgi.” In the same way, during the siege of Avaricum, when the men give up defending the town and try to escape, the mothers run on the places and fell down in tears at their feet […] We see the Aduatuci begging Caesar to act “pro sua clementia ac mansuetudine.” The Bellovaci call for his leniency and his humanity: “pro sua clementia atque mansuetudine” (Albert Bayet).

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In short, the principle of this chapter of the druidic ethical code is that it is necessary to do to the others all the good you would wish to receive from them. Principle highlighted by Marcel Mauss with his famous Sanskrit “dadami dehi me,” expression coarsely translated by the Romans with their “do ut des.” And conversely, of course, we should not do to the others what we would not like to undergo ourselves. Elementary balance rule.

It is interesting here to note the basic difference between the druidism and the current theses of neo-odinism, whose promoters compensate for the gaps by injection of Nietzscheism: for them, any pity, any mercy, is weakness, therefore a fault; the weak one is automatically a culprit, what polar opposite of the trugocaria of Celtic kings is, made of leniency and generosity, even interested (it was a question, in a system where what was important it was the relations of man to man, or the prestige, and not the money; to make for oneself a maximum of persons in debt even of allies).

Let us oint it out, moreover, that for the Celts educated by the Druidism, the law takes precedence over the force. It was concretized by an official precedence: the druid (who tells the law) speaks before the king (holder of the armed force as a chief of the warriors).

Some goffinets affirm that Celtic mythology is a universe without pity nor forgiveness. That is false!

In spite of the liveliness or of bad-tempered character of the majority of the Irish heroes, the absences of pity are rare: Conchobar martyring and degrading the gentle Deirdre, Finn refusing to help Diarmat, some bad druids, and it is about all.

The attitude of the three brothers, of their father and of their sister, in the story of the tragic death of the children of Tuireann, their insistence to ask for assistance, their disappointment and their surprise that it not be granted; everything indicates that the cruel attitude of Lug is exceptional and misunderstood. Old Ireland knew pity.

In Ireland, certain punishments appear only in the Christian canon law. As they appear in no secular legal text, we can conclude from it that they did not pertain to the Irish mentality of before the advent of Christianity.

The mutilation.

No old legal text mentions the dismemberment , except for the Cáin Adomnáin (a canonical text of Muslim inspiration??) which fixes a twofold punishment including firstly the mutilation (of the left foot and of the right hand) , then the execution. The first dismemberment recorded for a crime dates back to 1224: a robber had his hands and feet cut.

Scourging.

Very often mentioned in the old legal texts, particularly as punishment for the slaves, scourging appears in Ireland only in the texts of canon law. No reference to it appears in the old secular legal texts therefore of druidic spirit.

Nota Bene.

Reference book mentioned: Fergus Kelly, a guide to early Irish law. Dublin 1988.

By contrast the physical integrity of the individuals was therefore a value, and an important value for the druids (see the case of King Noadatus/Nodons/Nuada/Lludd and his cut arm, in Irish mythology); every breach against the physical integrity of others was sanctioned by fines (eric or galanas).

For the wounds, people were also to pay compensations which varied according to the seriousness or the after-effects. If a person affected was not fully healed at the end of nine days, a doctor examined him to know if he would be healed or not. If not, the author was to pay the heavy fine planned for “crolige bais” (wound resulting in death), higher than the usual fine for murder. However, this fine released him from any later obligation whether the victim dies or is healed.

The torture which uses physical or moral violence to wrest some confessions, to punish, to frighten opponents, is therefore contrary with the respect of the character nemet of the human person.

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The terrorism which threatens, wounds and kills without discrimination, is also seriously contrary with this geis. Therefore it will have to be fought, but the information necessary for that could be gotten by any means other than physical or moral torture (truth elixir , Pentothal, etc.).

Apart from medical indications of a strictly therapeutic nature, the amputations, mutilations, or sterilization, of non-consenting people, are also contrary with this character nemet of the human person, even if these latter are not innocent. In this field the druidism is completely opposed to the Islamic sharia or to the Jewish law (of retaliation). What is important it is the compensation! But the scientific, medical, or psychological, experiments, on the persons or on the human groups, can contribute to the cure of the patients, and the progress of the public health. The basic scientific research, just like the applied research, is also a legitimate expression of the destiny of the men and of the gods.

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BUAID No. 4: THE SOCIAL FIR FER.

The daily life having become nowadays a true fight of every moment, the Fir Fer MUST CONCERN EVERYONE TODAY.

There was for example in Ireland a rule having it that whoever had wounded others in his body was obliged to pay not only the fixed fine, but also the price of the care of his victim. Nine days after the wound had been inflicted, a doctor gave his opinion. If he thought that the patient was to be able to recover health, the defendant was bound to take him at home , or in the house of a relative, and to provide for his needs until he is healed. The diet and the treatment of the patient are explained in detail. The regulations relating to housing are quite as demanding. The patient should not be awaked abruptly and nobody must chatter beside him when he is sleeping. There should be neither cry nor howl. Just as any barking of dogs nor grunt of pigs. But all that forms only a part of the obligations of the culprit who was to also provide for the needs of the entourage of the patient during all the time of his disease; and it was finally the guilty person who was to find a substitute to do the work of the patient (according to Myles Dillon and Nora K. Chadwick: small summary of their opinion on the subject).

The honor code of the Knights of the Round Table also condemns apparently the failure to assist a person in danger, at least according to their many adventures in the service of the weak and defenseless.

The elementary morality indeed confers on everyone the obligation to assist a person in danger; within the limit of one’s bodily means and of one’s competences of course (not to warn the emergency services or to flee in the absence of danger for oneself is morally condemnable).

When some people are aware of a danger, they must therefore do everything to fight it and come to help for victims according to their knowledge or their means, without, however, endangering their own life nor that of the others. The minimum is to ensure a protection, to put the people around in safety - then to warn or make warned the emergency services.

The absence of competence to perform even vital gestures or medical procedures, indeed does not exempt from the obligation to warn as soon as possible, and through every means, a qualified help service, to take care of the protection of the places and of the victims until the arrival of the helps, and to subject oneself to their requests.

The protection of the life (evacuation in the event of danger) passes before the alert or the direct help, but even after the warning, it is necessary to remain in the vicinity, because the helps can need you. The help can consist only in comforting the victim or keeping him in life, watching over his personal possessions (what helps him to keep calm, because the conscious victims are worried about them).

Sentences removed by Peter DeLaCrau and restored by his heirs.

It goes without saying the author of this compilation, Peter DeLaCrau , believes in no way he is a reincarnation of the king of Britain Arthur, and this for 3 reasons.

Personally and first of all, he hardly believes in reincarnation. The reincarnation, rarely happy, since it has for patron saint the gigantic anguipedic wyvern king (a member of the Andernas on the Continent, Fomorians in Gaelic language ) called Tethra, is exceptional, but so then really exceptional, in the Celtic world. So exceptional that we may wonder if it is not a mistake of the transcribers.

Second reason: the Welsh literature is neither the most important nor the best source of comprehension of the genuine druidic spirituality.

Third reason. King Arthur is especially a myth even if historical facts are at the origin of this legend.

Notes on the Celtic messianism.

The historical background. We are in the 5th century of our era. Britain (current Great Britain) is, like the rest of Europe, occupied for centuries by the Romans. It is very Romanized as much on the level of the culture as on that of the religion, and the army comprises many soldiers of Breton origin quite simply. The town of Eburacum/York is very quickly Christianized. Only the Celtic tribes living in not easily accessible regions , remain with a pagan dominant feature. But, like on the Continent with the Goths, Franks or Burgundians, this country is the victim of invasions by...

- Germanic barbarian tribes , Angles, Jutes, Saxons and Frisians, attacking the east of the country.

- Tribes coming from Ireland or from the North of the country. Picts, Irish or Scots attacking the North and the West of the province.

These tribes carry out increasingly frequent raids, and the official legions are outflanked. The emperor Honorius therefore decides in the beginning of the 5th century to give up Great Britain, too difficult to

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protect. The “Roman-British” are consequently obliged to manage alone by organizing themselves when necessary into local militia of self-defense.

No leader manages to be accepted on the whole of the territory, and by all the peoples. There is consequently, no supreme leader, and even less no king in charge with the whole of the armed forces. In North, it is the former dux of the Romans, based in York, which manages the region become independent.

In the South, on the other hand, all line up under the banner of a named Artorius. This warrior, probably born circa 470-475 in Cornwall, is the leader of a militia of very mobile cavalrymen (the famous Knights of the Round Table, after the name of the table installed in the center of their celicnon). Artorius is therefore appointed commander in chief of all the militia in this part of the island; and, for once all united , the Breton ancestors of the Welsh win, somewhere in the south-west of England, around 500-518, a victory which will stop the invader during about forty years. It is the battle of Badon Hill (or Bath or Badbury). But Artorius will die in another battle, that of Camlann (close to Camelford in Cornwall) around 540-542. End of the Breton independence therefore the Saxons occupy the three quarters of the island.

However, according to the legend, Artorius did not really die: he is only in dormition (sleeping) , in the island of Avalon, the Island of the apple trees, watched by fairies. And it is said that one day King Arthur will come back to recapture his kingdom with his knights, in order to restore this ideal of peace or justice; because on his grave is engraved: “Hic jacet Arthurus rex quondam rex futurus” ("Here lies Arthur, king once, and king to be").

May be this prophecy carried out soon, because we need much justice, truth or “sharing,” and they are not the politicikers or the pseudo-intellectuals of today (they are often the same ones besides) who will be able to bring back this Grail to us.

TERMINOLOGICAL SPECIFICATION.

The word “mercy,” translates rather exactly TRUGOCARIA, become in Welsh trugaredd: care (caro) of the persons in need (truga: from where besides truand/truant).

It was understood at the same time as SOLICITUDE, CLEMENCY, AND GENEROSITY; its most direct application is the assistance to those who are in difficulty; particularly to the casualties, the defeated, the patients, it is consequently an active, and non-contemplative philanthropy.

The druids were also outstanding doctors or surgeons taking care of repairing bodies. If the victim was not entirely healed after nine days, but if the doctor then thought that he was going to be able to recover, nevertheless, the author of the wounds was to take him in “folog n-othrusa” (lodging). That implied to take the person wounded to the house of a third party to be treated in it at the expenses of the person responsible until complete healing. The supporting of the wounded himself was regarded as a contract, and therefore was to comprise pledges and guarantors. Moreover, provisions were to be gathered for this purpose. That included the number of people the victim could have with him (his entourage), if he was entitled to it, and food for them during all this time.

This solidarity was also intergenerational, that is to say also concerned the elders and the retired, at least theoretically, if we are to believe a curious passage from the Colloquy with the Ancients (Acallam na senorach)

"I desire to proceed upon the grand visitation of Ireland, and my wish is that you be in Tara ministering to the ancients so that from the men of Ireland neither disgrace nor reproach reach me."

The queen answered: "as you will ordain and themselves will pronounce, even so will their pleasure be executed."

Together then the king and queen entered into the house in which the seniors, Ossian and Caletios/Cailte, were, and the king told them [what he had decided to do]. But the manner of Ossian was that he was the most modest man in Ireland, and he said: "not so will it be done, noble sir and king: but be your wife along with yourself; and as for us, commit us to the chief steward." "Well, then," said the king, "have the steward brought to us." Himself and his wife were produced, and the king said to them: "here is the fashion in which I prescribe to you to feed the ancients here: put seven score cows into a fenced grass field, the same nightly to be milked for them; rations also for ten hundred to be provided them by the men of Ireland; that they have liquor and milk in Tara too, be bathed every second day, and in their beds have a layer of fresh rushes strewed. This too: that the last of their liquor be not drunk out when they will have the new ready to their hand. And you, steward," the king ended,

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"has seven sons: the which, and yourself along with them, I shall have killed should the seniors want any item of all this."

The Mercy is therefore the quality getting the necessary balance in the use of the force. It ensures the control of the will over the instincts and keeps the desires within the limits of honor. The mercy avoids all the kinds of excesses.

Abortion and euthanasia are special cases.

However, the general rule is to do everything to save the life of the people in danger of death, except in the event of suicide (authorized and even recommended in certain cases) and of euthanasia, asked in all clearness by the patient.

The word euthanasia is made of two elements drawn from the Greek, the prefix eu, “good,” and the word thanatos, “death”; it means therefore literally good death, i.e., death in good conditions. Sense of " mercy killing nevertheless legally punished " is recorded in English by 1869.

At the origin, the euthanasia designates the act putting an end to the life of another person in order to avoid to him the death throes. In a more restricted meaning, it is a practice (action or omission) aiming at causing the death of an individual affected with an incurable illness which inflicts to him unbearable moral and/or bodily sufferings, by a doctor or under his control.

The Catholic church fights by definition every euthanasia. Man does not belong to himself, life belongs only to God who gives it (or takes it back) as he wants… For its adversaries, the logical outcome of every notion of euthanasia is illustrated by the history and particularly the crimes committed by the Nazi regime in the name of this principle. The very founding principles of euthanasia, particularly through their opposition to the divine wills, contain within them elements which lead necessarily to developments contrary with the laws of the elementary human morality.

Repetere= ars docendi. The discontinuists, of which the neo-druids are members, affirm on the contrary that a position favorable to euthanasia, supervised by sufficient moral and legal provisions, can be progress for Mankind.

In the ancient world, the principle did not raise moral problems generally: the dominant design was that a bad life is not worthy to be lived. The euthanasia was therefore practiced by the Celts. It is the “mallet god,” Suqellus who was, according to the beliefs, the patron saint of these practices. In Brittany, especially in the Vannes country, a “blessed mallet ” (mel beniguet) was used until the beginning of the 20th century to kill those whose death goes on and on, on the request of the family and under the authority of the priest and of some public figures in the parish. The use of the “mel beniguet” was attested in Guenin, Locmariaquer, Carnac, Guern or Brec'h.

The life expectancy having increased in the industrialized countries hand in hand with a considerable scientific and technological modernization of medicine, the part played by the medical decision in the deaths increased n correlation with this rise. The acceleration of the end-of-life can include very different forms, from the interruption of the medical care to the injection of lethal products, through the stopping of the nutrition and of the hydration or the administration of sedatives in important amount. Specialists estimate therefore that, in Europe, the share of the medical decision in the deaths concerns 40 to 50% of the deaths. But these practices could not be all gathered under the word “euthanasia,” insofar as the goal is not the end-of-life itself. In addition, some practices are accepted by the legislation, others not.

The expression “assistance to suicide” is used to designate the fact of providing the background and the means necessary to a person so that he commits suicide, whatever are the motivations. In this case, it is the “patient” himself who starts his death and not a third party. The assistance to suicide asks for a clear and free demonstration of the will to die, which distinguishes it from the abetment to suicide.

Another improper use of the word is its application to the palliative care, which never aims to hasten the death or to avoid the prolongation of the death throes of the patients even if, to relieve the pain, it sometimes happens that the nurses use a number of analgesics or painkillers being likely to bring closer the death moment.

The therapeutic eagerness designates “an unreasonable obstinacy, refusing by a stubborn reasoning to admit that a man is fated to death and that he is not curable.”

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THE DRUIDIC DECALOG.

We do not know exactly where the very Catholic and French Chateaubriand found the Decalogue that he ascribes to the druids (First part book II chapter IV virtues and moral laws) and which appears below.

The universe is eternal, the soul immortal.

Honor nature.

Defend your mother, your country, the earth

Admit woman into your councils.

Honor the stranger, and set apart his portion out of your harvest.

The man who has lost his honor shall be buried in mud.

Erect no temples, and commit the history of the past to your memory alone.

Man, you are ; own no property.

Honor the aged, and let not the young bear witness against them.

The brave man shall be rewarded after death, and the coward punished.

Some of these ten laws look indeed very Celtic.

“One day only fire and water will prevail (Strabo, IV, 4). The soul is immortal (many authors speaking about the druids). On the admission of the women in the councils, we also have the account of Plutarch.

“Before the Celts crossed over the Alps and settled in that part of Italy which is now their home, a dire and persistent factional discord broke out among them which went on and on to the point of civil war. The women, however, put themselves between the armed forces, and, taking up the controversies, arbitrated and decided them with such irreproachable fairness that a wondrous friendship of all towards all was brought about between both tribes-states and families. As the result of this, they continued to consult with the women in regard to war and peace, and to decide through them any disputed matters…” (Plutarch on the bravery of women, VI).

We do not know exactly where the very Catholic and French Chateaubriand found the Decalogue that he ascribes to the druids BUT IN ANY CASE HERE OURS.

LIST OF MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS.

Hospitality.

Generosity.

Reciprocity.

Courage.

Faithfulness.

Truth.

Sense of justice.

Freedom.

Simplicity.

Sense of honor.

Druidism does not have to be concerned with details a little too basely material. De minimis not curat druis. The druidism for example did not introduce uniform standard with regard to the sexual behavior and the family law: it tolerates as well the polygamy of those who have the means of it - chiefs and powerful men – as polyandry or monogamy. The important thing is not to contradict the general principles of ethical behavior according to druidism.

The gessa which follow are therefore optional. Optional that means that it is creditable to follow these gessa, these pieces of advice, but not to do is only regrettable.

There exist, of course, many variants of this duodecuple path with multiple junctions of the druidism.

With different, or classified differently, qualities or faults to be avoided. These good reflexes are not to follow sequentially, but simultaneously, and the practice of the whole must primarily, be an integrated practice; this is why the best adapted image to evoke it remains still that of the druidic dodecahedron and not that of the Judeo-Christian Decalogue.

N.B. THE PRECEPTS WHICH FOLLOW WERE NUMBERED FOR THE DISCUSSION BUT THAT DOES NOT WANT TO SAY THAT SOME ARE LESS IMPORTANT THAN OTHERS. ALL ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT.

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THE TEN BEST KNOWN CHAPTERS OF THE (MORAL) LAW.

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BUAID No. 5.

SENSE OF HOSPITALITY (NOBLESSE OBLIGE).

Let's immediately clear up an ambiguity. We are not talking here of permanently welcoming at home or on his lands completely strangers, permanently; but to temporarily welcome men or women already more or less known because of certain family tribal or traditional ties, or unknown but for various reasons to which the "Weberian" advice lavished by the literature of the mirrors of princes or the Teagasc na riogh must apply

(a politician should not confuse his personal purse with that of his family of his clan of his tribe).

The general term for “hospitality” in old Gaelic is “oígidecht” (modern Irish “íocht”), from “oígi” “foreigner, new comer,” a substantive coming from a root implying the concept of travel out of one’s territory. The term was applied to the way of treating the travelers or some people not being a member of one’s household. Useless to stress the importance of the thing at a time when you did not move as easily as now.

Most tribal civilizations preach hospitality towards guests, usually including food and drink. Many cultures have myths speaking of gods disguised as travelers in order to measure the generosity of people. Apart from pieces of advice to be followed for the hosts there was also some of them for the guests about the way of behaving. Not to misuse the hospitality of his host was one of them, not to pick a vain quarrel with his guest was another one, quite as elementary. See higher our selection of proverbs valid for everybody.

One of the main Celtic virtues, evoked many times, was therefore hospitality. Certain virtues, like hospitality, are indeed endowed with the double nature of moral obligations and sacred instruction (ada). It appears from the various texts on the question that the foreigners, with some exceptions, were well treated, that hospitality was the rule including on the most modest levels.

What was essential with the gifts and the entertainments intended for the visitors it was that the latter feel that their value is recognized and that they are sought, so that they keep close links with the people of the tribe and see them like as many potential allies.

Hospitality at the time was therefore regarded as a cardinal virtue and the foreign travelers (we say well the travelers), were to be received in the best possible way. Perhaps by caution. The ragamuffin beggar coming to knock at your door could very well indeed be a god-or-demon or a frightening character able to cast a spell on you.

Like in the case of Philemon and Baucis and of the interpretatio graeca of Lug to wit Hermes. Caution therefore! It was not only a question of receiving visitors friends or guests, but of establishing reciprocal ties. It was a bilateral contract.

Hospitality, it is the welcoming cordiality, without xenophobia, i.e., without automatic aversion towards the foreigner; but it is also solidarity towards the compatriots in the need, the “consanguineous ones” in the very broad sense of the Latin term consanguinei, (those who are of the same kinship), in a private or collective way (ancient examples: by granting land to the Boii defeated by the Romans, today by granting medical coverage, pension, insurance, to your fellowship citizens. In the case of the Boi the Aeduans made a good deal because it procured them grateful and not difficult but valiant allies although few).

The ethical code of druids teaches the respect of the tie of hospitium. Perhaps will you be astonished to see us thus putting a Latin word in the mouth of the druids? It is only because we do not have in our language a word matching it completely. The hospitium is not only the hospitality in the modern meaning of the term, the hospitium also consists in establishing with the foreigners, ties of fraternal cooperation, and in doing it liberally, as a great lord (ulatios).

This tie, at the time of Caesar, binds sometimes two peoples sometimes two individuals, sometimes an individual and a people. Thus there is for example hospitium between the Aeduans and the Romans; the hospitium links Ambiorix with the Menapian nation, and Caesar even thinks that this tie is strong enough to involve a military alliance; same thing between Commius and the Bellovaci; at the

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time of the large coalition against the Romans, the Bellovaci, although firmly decided to abstain, grant to Commius a help of two thousand men, “pro eius hospitio.” The ties between individuals do not seem less strong. Only once we see Ambiorix misusing the hospitium which links him with Titurius (to set a trap for him and to undo him). On the other hand, the beaten Bituriges take refuge in close cities “privatis hospitiis confisi.”

Procillus, host of Caesar, helps him with such a devotion that the proconsul gives up, to speak about him, the cold tone which he generally adopts in his commentaries. Sometimes the hospitium prevails over the fraternity which links the men of the same homeland: when Dumnorix tries to assemble the Aeduans against Rome, Caesar is informed about that by his hosts.

The Celtiberian hospitality pacts were engraved on documents called tesserae, some equivalents of our modern passports. They were animal or hand-shaped bronze plates having for example the shape of a wild boar or of a bull. Most famous is the bronze of Luzaga, a pact of hospitality linking the towns of Arecoratas and Lutiakos (the clans Belaik and Kariko).

Below the reading of Jose Luís González.

arekoratikubos karuo kenei

kortika lutiakei aukis barazioka

erna uela tikerzeboz so

ueizui belaikumkue

kenis karikokue kenis

stam kortikam elazunom

karuo tekez sa kortika

teiuoreikis.

In the name of the friendship of the Arecoratici for the nobility

I make a pact with Lutiakos? For Lutiakos? Etc.

………………….

North of the Pyrenees this duty of hospitality was very early extended , including to the simple foreigners; the murder of a stranger was besides more severely punished there than another. “Among them, man is punished more rigorously for the murder of a stranger than for that of a fellow citizen: in the first case, death, in the second exile only.” (Nicholas of Damascus. Collection of remarkable customs. Fragment Nº XLIV, 41, preserved by Stobaeus).

Every foreigner on the contrary was invited automatically in the noblest houses, in exchange of information about his country or about the crossed countries. This happy racial affirmative action is all the opposite of some of the precepts of the mass religions of today, except Christianity it is true (see the parable of the good Samaritan).

Who is most racist in fact???

Hospitality does not consist only in feeding the guests, but in doing so that they feel welcome and appreciated. A bad host is the one who does not give special attention to his guests, but ignores them completely. In Irish mythology Bres, a chief of the Tuatha, was for example victim of a satire from the poet Cairbre for having been miserly and having neglected his guests. A bad host is the one who puts his guest in an uncomfortable position.

Briugas/brugas, briugamlacht, brugaide (cht), brughachus, brugamnus.

In Ireland hospitality in all its forms was regarded as a duty for a free man. The law stated indeed expressly that all the members of the tribe were bound to offer hospitality to strangers. The only people who were exempted from that were the minors, the insane persons and the elderly people.

The elderly people concerned were especially those who had become too weak for working. The common practice indeed was to distribute the goods of such a person between the various members of his family, a little like a settlement before inheritance.

In old Ireland any household was therefore to feed to warm and to entertain the surprise guest appearing peacefully to its door. The famous law known as “of the Fenians” proves it. This hospitality law (passed in the 5th century) forced the rich person to receive hosts “without asking questions.”

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Everywhere in the island, there were therefore meals ready to be served at any moment, and many were the kitchens where fire never died out. This duty is commonly translated by the word hospitality, but this translation is only approximate.

The ideal was to grant an unlimited hospitality, but the Irish law very quickly defined and therefore limited this notion for the hosts by specifying what it was necessary to grant according to the circumstances. And even instituted official suppliers of hospitality on behalf of the others (“briugu,” modern Irish “brughaidh”). (Kelly 1988. Page 36).

So there was no question of this hospitality turning into a bottomless pit.

Over time these functions were therefore reserved for particular individuals, the brugaid, who for that were endowed with agricultural lands intended to support and make running some kinds of free inns called brugh. Some of these hotels seem to have been reserved to the distinguished visitors, the others being intended to the ordinary travelers. These free hotels with restaurants were undoubtedly designed to avoid too heavy financial expenses for the ordinary households whose guests remained longer than envisaged.

Among great lords or those who aspired to this honor this kind of steward called brewry or briugu therefore undertook this task. But for a hospitaller, brewry or briugu, this obligation unlike that of the host was said unbounded (cf. KELLY 1988.Page 36). He had a duty to provide hospitality to whoever, as often as he came, and not to hold accounts. A hospitaller preserved this rank as long as he did not refuse hospitality. The office of briugu therefore seems to have been one of those through which a rich man, but from non-noble birth, could acquire a higher rank ( KELLY 1988.Page 36).

The refusal of hospitality was an offense envisaged by the Law.

Hospitality being regarded as a duty for every free man, to refuse to somebody something to be eaten as well as a shelter therefore formed the offense of “esáin” (literally “to drive out,” also called “etech”: rejection, refusal), and required a compensation appropriate to the rank of the injured party. The only exceptions to this practice were the tenants of the type midboth and ócaire, who because of their lack of means, owed hospitality only to their lord, as stipulated in their contract.

If a person obliged indirectly a third party to refuse hospitality (for example by not giving back to him borrowed food , after the agreed time), he was himself to pay his honor price to the annoyed host.

Reference book mentioned: Fergus Kelly, a guide to early Irish law. Dublin 1988.

N.B. It goes without saying that in the ancient Celtic ethology, hospitality was never one-sided, but reciprocal and mutual, provided the favor can be returned ; by definition. The peoples studied by Albert Bayet can, however, give a lecture to certain democratic politickers. As this author signals it, as little xenophobic as possible, they have in no degree the contempt or the hatred of the stranger … Even when there is not hospitium, their ethology orders to respect him.

What tends to make it believed, it is the famous and gracious legend of the foundation of Marseilles. This legend proves that the “Ligurians” were really not xenophobic.

This absence of hatred for the foreigner from the peoples studied by Albert Bayet is still attested for us by the facility with which they adapt to the social backgrounds in which the chances of the conquest throw them.

In Asia Minor , they rather quickly accept the Greek language and, with it, the Hellenism. We see appearing a “Gallo-Graecus” civilization. (Albert Bayet. History of Morality).

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BUAID No. 6.

GENEROSITY (TECHTAE).

THE THREE OBLIGATIONS: TO GIVE, TO RECEIVE, TO GIVE BACK. NOBLESSE OBLIGE.

Every civilization selected a certain number of social behaviors that it constrained to respect often using an initiation or training, resembling almost a “breaking.” Every leader, or every lord, owed food and clothing to the people of his entourage who, in return, were to bring him an unconditional support, including with their weapons.

“Curoi gave me ten beautiful estates. Ten maidservants, ten white-headed horses, ten bits for them, ten beautiful clothes with fringes, ten daggers, ten pairs of swords each more beautiful than the one before. Ten blades, ten good hives with their bees, ten herdsmen, ten bitches with silver chains.

Curoi gave me ten cauldrons. Ten cups, twenty goblets, ten horns made of ox horn, ten wild boars wild, ten oxen able to plow even the stones, ten gold dishes, ten herds of heifers.

Curoi gave me hundred pigs, thousand ewes, ten belts, ten crowns out of gold, ten servants, ten geldings, ten yokes for oxen, ten chains and also tinplate hobble.

Curoi gave me ten silver dishes, ten bracelets, ten bridles for my horses, ten flints, ten ale vats, ten vessels, ten large barrels, ten tambourines ? ten blankets, ten wool clothing, ten multicolored of thousand colors tents, ten goads worthy of a king.

Curoi gave me ten gold apples, ten gold buckles, ten gold basins, ten gold basins as well as the spoils of his enemies in Babylon.

He had given me ten red tunics, ten white shirts, ten sparkling brilliantly checkerboards, ten spear scabbards filled with javelins, thirty reins, and lastly thirty horses.”

The sociology of the beginning of the 20th century focused on the role of these Celtic behaviors felt by the classic authors (apart from every dialectic about barbarity) like as many moral oddities of the Celts in general.

The old sources cause a certain number of difficulties of interpretation. The classic authors reported, often on the picturesque mode, some traits which contrasted their current observations, thus working out a corpus information of an extraordinary richness.

Below nine categories of facts reported by the classic authors in connection with the Celts, and particularly Posidonius. But the fragments of Posidonius mingle some of these topics with other patterns which have nothing to do with the reciprocity.

It is all in all the picture of an aristocratic and gleaming society that the ethnographer outlines for us, and the result surprisingly approaches the late islander stories of Celtic mythology. During sumptuous banquets, the protagonists compare their individual merits (birth, wealth, skill in war, etc.), sometimes even with the participation of bards. Under the influence of alcohol, the excitation makes challenges breaking which sometimes degenerate.

For the historical time, they retain the behavior of Luernius: his disproportionate hospitality, his unrestrained feasts, his foolish prodigality. But for a former time, and undoubtedly very much former, Posidonius reports surprising traits that he knows only by hearsay. In the general excess of the ceremonies which were evoked, it happens formerly - the ethnographer says - that a character suddenly claimed exorbitant generosities from his entourage and, rather than to commit to refund them, preferred an almost ritual suicide instead of it. It is besides the latter passage which was used as a basis for the analysis of Marcel Mauss. Starting from the famous text of Posidonius quoted by Athenaeus (IV, 37), this sociologist worked out a whole theory of gift and counter-gift, of prestations and counter-prestations. In other words, of the total prestation because “all, food, women, children, goods, talismans, land, work, services, priestly offices and ranks, are handing-down and rendering matter” (Marcel Mauss. Sociology and anthropology. Essay on the gift).

Here the facts of society in question.

1. Offerings with more or less funerary nature. A)

2. Gifts of private nature intervening within the framework of the family solidarity, as well as the donations which accompany the matrimonial exchanges. B)

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3. The blood debt, which could be perhaps attached to the general phenomenon of the compensation. C)

4. The refundable in the hereafter debts. D)

5. The sacrifice of the type devotion or military devotion. E)

6. The duty of hospitality. F)

7. Public gifts intervening at the time of the conclusion of alliances.

8. Redistribution ceremonies, apparently, like the banquets. G)

9. Neutralizations and destructions of goods, particularly in funerary circumstances H) except the sacrificial practices relating to weapons and objects, whose archeology gives an account so eloquently.

A) STRABO, IV, 1.13 (the gold in Tolosa); 4.5 (torcs and bracelets); DIODORUS, V, 27,3-4 (the gold in Tolosa); TAC. Germ, 15.3 (torcs) (to be compared to TITUS LIVIUS, VII, 10.11; 15.8); QUINTILIAN lnst. orat., VI, 3.79; EUTROPIUS, Brev. a. u. c., IV, 22-23.

B) CAESAR B.G. I, 3.5; 9.3 (Orgetorix); I, 18,6-8 (Dumnorix), etc. TACIT , Germ. 12.2; 15.3; 20.5; 21.1; 3.

C) TACIT, Germ. 21.1. (cf Paradoxographus Vaticanus, Admiranda, frag. 44 (on an outline of criminal law).

D) POSIDONIUS + POMP. MELA, Chorographia, III, 2 (18-20); VAL.MAX. II, 6,10-11.

E) CAESAR, B.G. III, 22,2-3 (the soldurii), implicitly the VII, 40.7; DIODORUS V, 29.2 (attendants are chosen among the least socially favored); TACIT, Germ. 13,2-5; 14.2 and 4.

F) DIODORUS, V, 28.5; TACIT, Germ., 21,2-4.

G) In Addition to the texts of Posidonius, DIODORUS, V, 28.5; TACIT, Germ. 14.4; 21.3; DIO of Prusa, refusal of the office of archon, 49,7. It is not impossible it is necessary to join to these references those which mention the intoxication and the strong taste for the wine: TITUS-LIVIUS, V, 33,2-3; DIONYS. OF HAL. XIII 10-11; PLINY, h.n. XII, 2.5; PLUTARCH. CamilIus, 15,1-6 (all these texts refer to the tradition of the jealous Etruscan); CAESAR, B.G. II, 15.4; IV, 2.6; TAC. Germ. 23.2; DIODORUS, V, 26.3 [by contrast , it is not the case of Germanic people; PLATO, Laws, I, 9; perhaps EPHORUS, cf. STRABO, IV, 4.6 8 - in connection with obese young men).

H) CAESAR, B.G. VI, 19.4; SOPATER, fragment quoted by Athenaeus Book IV (concerns the Galatians); TACIT, Germ. 27,1-3.

I) Gournay-sur-Aronde, Ribemont-sur-Ancre (French Department of the Somme).

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ALWAYS TO BEHAVE AS A GREAT LORD PERSONALLY AND NOT AS A TRADESMAN ACT I.

Hospitality among Celts generally widened in pure and simple generosity. A personal and spontaneous generosity obviously, and not an imposed and anonymous generosity. A chief indeed improved the loyalty of his warriors by their giving up to them the spoils of war. One of the greatest insults to be made to somebody was to call him a miser, like in the case of the character of the medieval Welsh legends, known under the name of Bran the niggard (his horn was famous).

On this subject the ancient historians handed down to us a bright image of the Celtic sovereigns, probably preserved by the songs of the bards.

A fantastically wealthy Galatian, named Ariamnes (Ariomanos?) announced one day indeed that he would feed during a year all the Galatians who would appear. He made built on all sides in the Celtic country of Asia Minor rooms in wicker covered with branches, vast enough to contain several hundreds of guests. He had made manufactured the previous year enormous copper cauldrons, where each day his cooks made oxen, sheep, and pigs, cooked by dozens. Even the foreigners could come there. Wine was served unlimitedly.

“Ariamnes the Galatian, being an exceedingly rich man, gave notice that he would give all the Galatians a banquet every year, and that he did so, managing in this manner: He divided the country, measuring it by convenient stages along the roads; and at these stages he erected tents of stakes and rushes and osiers, each containing about four hundred men, or somewhat more, according as the district required, and with reference to the number that might be expected to throng in from the villages and towns adjacent to the stage in question. And there he placed huge cauldrons, full of every sort of meat; and he had the cauldrons made in the preceding year before he was to give the feast, sending for artisans from other cities. And he caused many victims to be slain - a number of oxen, and pigs, and sheep and other animals - every day; and he caused casks of wine to be prepared, and a great quantity of ground corn. And not only," he continues, "did all the Galatians who came from the villages and cities enjoy themselves, but even all the strangers who happened to be passing by were not allowed to escape by the slaves who stood around, but were pressed to come in and partake of what had been prepared." (Athenaeus IV, 34).

The Arvernian king Luernius who lived about the middle of the second century before our era, also went down in history for his wealth and his prodigality. He had made enclosed, Diodorus says, a fenced space of twelve stades square (more than two thousand meters) ; inside of which were laid out casks full with an excellent drink and with such a quantity of food; that during several days, all those who wanted could enter it in order to benefit from these accumulated provisions, served without interruption. The monarch nevertheless had scheduled a date for this feast. But one of the poets that these Barbarians (sic. It was thus a member of the druidic sodality) have, being arrived too late, and thereafter having met the king, he sang his magnificence but while deploring having missed the appointment. Flattered, the king, taking a purse full of gold, had then thrown it to the poet. After having picked it up, the bard had improvised the following poem: “Prints left upon the earth by the royal chariot, produce benefits to men.”

Since traditional work of Mauss, few really new things were brought to the general theory of the total prestations , and to that which is applied to the Celtic societies.

After sorting and decoding, remains the picture of a society which appears to consider all its types of relations within the framework of a permanent reciprocity, raised to the rank of a particularly significant social rule. It is the whole of these attitudes which are designated , after the concordant studies of Malinowski, Mauss and some others, by the name of gift (and of counter-gift). Among those, the potlatch.

Excellent authors are offended by the use, in connection with the Celtic society , of a vocabulary borrowed from other historical times, finding that it obscures the debate, smelling some ideological operation. While acknowledging that, we will admire that the same ones resort so easily to a Chinook word designating Kwakiutl manners. Of the Kwakiutl Indians and of other populations in the Pacific North-West .The Chinook language imposed as jargon of the fur trade, but the Kwakiutl language did not disappear for as much: it remains instructive. For example, the word potlatch means gift in it, quite

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simply; it is only in Chinook language (and therefore tardily) that we discover its agonistic connotation which made the success of the theory of Marcel Mauss.

The potlatch, the good distribution, is the fundamental act of the military, legal, economic, religious, “recognition.” You “admit” the chief or his son and you become “grateful” to him because of that.

The obligation to give constitutes the very essence of the potlatch. A chief must give, for himself, for his son, his son-in-law or his daughter, for his dead. He does not preserve his authority on his tribe and on his village, even on his family, he keeps his rank - nationally and internationally - between chiefs, only if he proves that he is supported by the spirits and the fortune; and he can prove this fortune only by spending it, or by distributing it. In all these societies people hurry to give. There is no moment being out of the ordinary, even apart from the solemnities or winter gatherings; when you are not obliged to invite your friends, to share with them the hunting or of gathering godsends which come from the god-or-demons; where one is not obliged to redistribute all to them that comes you from a potlatch which one was profit; when you are not obliged to recognize by gifts, any service, those from the chiefs, from the vassals, from the parents; the whole at risk, at least for the nobles, of violating the etiquette and to lose their rank.

The obligation to also invite is quite obvious when it is practiced from clans to clans or from tribes to tribes. It makes sense even only if it is offered to others that to the people of the family, of the siblings, or of the clan, it is necessary to invite who can and likes to come to attend the festival, the potlatch. The forgetting has disastrous consequences (Marcel Mauss 1923-1924).

As regards appearances, it acts, for the individual, to cause in his partner a debtor situation this one will leave only by restoring interests and capital, and sometimes much more still. But if you are yourself destitute, what return, moreover, than what you had accepted, if not your freedom or even your life ?

If the mythical prototype of this calculated prodigality is the history of Luern according to Posidonius (primary source of the other authors); the text of Caesar on several occasions signals these forms of acquisition of power and authority 1) “great means for giving largesse.” It is, altogether, the elementary rule of implemented as well in the private relations as in public relations 2). This system is at the base of the contract which binds a patron to his in debt persons or his vassal, a chief to his companions and, generally, of every total prestation system 3). The life often plays the part of ultimate “exchange value”, not only in the warrior context, but sometimes in circumstances which touch on the personal debts 4). Character, perhaps more Celtic than Germanic 5).

The duties of a king merge with qualities that people require from him, such is the very principle of the sacred kingship; not the use of the nertis as among the Germanic tribes where the king is only the “powerful one” (King, König), but the gift. That begins as of the beginning or even before: Arthur throws the gifts as soon as he is selected by the gods Conchobar strengthens his power by showering his hosts with present, Branwen become queen acquires glory and honor through her splendid gifts for the ladies. Much more, when the king receives, he must give in turn at once and cannot even refuse the “blind promise.” Some lose their own wife because of it. The gift is allegorical, it is also political and economic: the king redistributes the goods of the kingdom and thus establishes a kind of social balance.

Bayet noticed indeed that true morals always teaches social generosity and that it makes “the interest of the group one of the principles of ethic.” With this word, our language preserves the trace of an old idea, that of generosity as quality of the noble man (the Latin adjective generosus means “from good race”). The Vedic poets celebrate the generous givers and vilify the miserly owners. Among Celts a miserly king is unworthy to reign.

That one only is worthy to rule who is able to give: reflection of the potlatch practices well known of the ethnologists.

1) B.G. I, 18,3-4 (Dumnorix).

2) Ibidem, I, 13.5; 15.3; V, 55.4; perhaps Diodorus, V 28.5, in his remarks on the Celtic hospitality.

3) Id., V, 55,1-3; Vl 2.2; 31.4; VlI, 1.5; 37.6; 64.8; 32.2.

4) B.G. III, 22,1-4; Nicholas of Damascus in Athenaeus VI, 54; Valerius Maximus II, 6,10-11.

5) Though in certain circumstances, the behavior of the Germanic people is closely connected with that of the Celts (Tacit, Germania, 21,2-4).

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ALWAYS TO BEHAVE AS A GREAT LORD PERSONALLY AND NOT AS A TRADESMAN ACT II.

THE LIMITS IMPOSED ON THE DUTY OF GENEROSITY.

The GENERAL AND IN ITS GLOBALITY respect of the life implies naturally in its active version a generalization and an universalization of the hospitium duty: to feed, to provide clothing and to accommodate all those who need it on earth, to look after the patients.

The tribes (today the public authorities) must take care of the respect of the Celtic principle which places the guest under the protection of those who receive him.

The ideal therefore, of course, was to grant an unlimited hospitality, but the Irish law very quickly defined and therefore limited, as we have had already the opportunity to say it, this notion for the hosts by specifying what it was necessary to grant according to the circumstances (Kelly 1988, page 36). The druidiaction they are the principles that we can deduce from the concrete action of certain big names of the former druidism. The equivalent of hadiths in the Islamic religion.

The immigrant remaining legally in the country on his side is therefore bound to respect the material and cultural inheritance of his host country gladly, to obey his laws, and to also contribute to his charges according to his means (like the natives).

The political authorities have the right to condition every immigration to the respect by the migrant of his duties with regard to the host country, and to various other economic, legal or medical actions, taken for the public good (selected immigration, co-development, etc.).

In short, let us not hesitate to say it: all the opposite of what in the great Brennus did in his time.

“ When the ambassadors asking what injury they had received of the Clusinians that they thus invaded their city, Brennus, king of the Celts, laughed and made the following answer. “The Clusinians do us injury, in that, being able only to till a small parcel of ground, they possess nevertheless a great territory, and will not yield any part to us, who are strangers, many in number and poor. This is the same wrong which you too suffered, O Romans, formerly at the hands of the Albans, and now lately at the hands of the Volscians; upon whom you have considered natural to make war, if they do not yield you part of what they possess, to make slaves of them, to waste and to spoil their country, and ruin their cities. And in so doing , you were neither cruel nor unjust, but simply observers of the oldest of all laws, which gives the powerful one the possessions of the feeble ; beginning with the gods and ending with the beasts; since each and everyone always tries to have what belongs to weaker. And cease therefore to pity the Clusinians whom we besiege, lest you teach the Celts to be kind and compassionate to those that are oppressed by you.” (Plutarch . Parallel Lives. Camillus ).

To help every man who needs it to feed himself, to be clothed, to find an accommodation , on this earth, is an ethical duty more important than the fight against petty racism. The millions swallowed in certain anti-racist campaigns, sometimes paradoxical (beside that they do nothing for the still worse dramas, like those in the ex-Yugoslavia during 1992-1993); would be indeed more effective if they were used to fight against the hunger in the world, if necessary with the assistance of an armed force. As the French Communist Party itself wrote it one day (leaflets released on March 22, 1992):

“To radically change the relationship between rich countries and poor countries is necessary to save these people; it is the means of putting an end to the immigration flood. The F. C.P. […] proposes the stop of all new immigration, severe sanctions against the owners who make foreigners coming clandestinely. Those who live in France, whatever their origins, must obey the law of it, same duties for all! ”

Had the F.C.P. thought out the druidic taboo put on the strangers by our ancestors?

[“Among them, man is punished more rigorously for the murder of a stranger than for that of a fellow citizen: in the first case, death, in the second exile only ” (Nicholas of Damascus. Collection of remarkable customs. Fragment Nº XLIV, 41, preserved by Stobaeus)].

Nobody knows! But what is certain it is that our “Barbarians” in question had not waited for “Roman” Fabius to make the protection of the foreigners a moral priority!

On condition, of course, like the F.C.P. reminded about it in its leaflet, that the aforementioned foreigners obey the law and the nation which accommodates them. What is not always the case, alas! Because this protection of the strangers should not be done to the detriment of the natives, of course. (As it was the case for example at the time of the Roman colonialism, see Calgacus.)

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As we have had already the opportunity to say it, hospitality being regarded as a duty for every free man, to refuse to somebody something to be eaten as well as a shelter constituted therefore the offense of “esain” (literally “to drive out,” also called “etech”: rejection, refusal), and required a compensation appropriate to the rank of the injured party. But there were exceptions to this obligation, according to the situations and the more or less lather personal wealth of each and every. The sharecroppers of the midboth and ocaire type for example, because of their lack of means owed hospitality only to their lord (it was besides stated in their contract).

The druidiaction they are the principles that we can deduce from the concrete action of certain big names of the former druidism, we have already said: see the case of the druid Marban. Who apparently finds that the duty of hospitality of the king Guaire nevertheless must have limits.

A story like that of the heavy company Imtheacht na Tromdhaimhe, composed in the 14th century thus relatively modern but whose action is supposed to take place in the 7th and reporting the mishaps of King Guaire, draws attention to the idea of unlimited hospitality or generosity. We should not either take advantage of the hospitality of others.

“On a time the velede Senchan, the old poet and high bard of Ireland, with his importunate company repaired to the stead of Guaire son of Colman king of Connaught […..] Guaire must needs gratify it for him, else must he endure the abuse and satire of the whole band. And albeit irksome and arduous were it to gratify those whims, as is related in the book entitled “The Importunate Company,” yet Guaire satisfied them all, through the grace of God, and by virtue of his acts of largesse. On a day came thither Marban, Guaire's swineherd and own brother, a passing holy man, with intent to charge them with their wickedness and injustice and ignorance, for he grieved for the multitude of their unjust demands upon Guaire the Connacht men and all the tribes of Ireland. He called down curses and maledictions upon them from the Almighty God if they should be two nights in one house or if they should make unjust demands on any in Ireland until they should relate to him the whole tale of the Cattle Raid of Cualnge” (Betha Colaim Chille. Life of St. Columba).

The power and the fraternal affection of the druid Marban or the magic of St. Columba (Columcille) will be therefore necessary to attenuate the seriousness of this embarrassment caused to Guaire; by the abusive behavior of the velede in question. This is why such abuses also fell under the Bratuspantium or Disciplinary Board of the Sodality (of the Order) on the Continent.

But all of this we have already had the opportunity to say.

What stands out in the study of the Gaelic word esáin, etech, snádud or turtugud, it is that hospitality and generosity were to be the fact from the individuals and not from the communities like the relationship.

No individual was to practice generosity or hospitality with the goods of others. Nobody was to force others and particularly the ocaire and midboth to be generous and hospitable against his liking or in spite of his personal situation.

The case of the kings or of the chiefs of a tribe being a little different since they appointed a brewry or a briugu for that and that apparently their generosity or their hospitality was practiced towards the supposed members of their group (towards people who were subordinated to them or depended on them). In most traditional societies indeed, the authority holders were to justify their power and their prestige by distributing part of their wealth to their subordinates, in the form of gifts, emoluments or assistance. – Or on an equal footing, from a chief to a chief, or between kings. In a way after agreement between Heads of State.

Lastly, let us remember that in this case the brewry or briugu was not a poor a ocaire or midboth but a rich farmer.

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THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF DRUIDISM (OCHT CONARA FUGILL)

OR SMALL KISSION.

The ways leading out of this lowly world are multiple, but can be reduced to some. The method varies, but the goal remains the same one and these methods are reduced to the practice of a minimum of moral or mental discipline: the eight basic gessa or buada..

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BUAID No. 7.

RECIPROCITY.

The reciprocity is based on the notion of balance (cosmic balance balances between clans between families, etc., etc.). Gwirionedd ag, un pwngc rhyddyd, sef y bydd lle bo cydbwys pob gwrth. When this balance is broken it is necessary to restore it in order to make a fresh start.

There exists a whole current of thought, a School, comparing the reciprocity with an exchange. To the thesis that the prestations of reciprocity would lead to exchanges is opposed the fact that, when a man receives goods of prestige, even if he is allured by the precious objects that the other gives him, their possession is not the only engine of the transaction, it is rather the prestige that he will get in giving them again. When a man of the end of the Neolithic era introduces a copper axe into a society of the end of the Stone Age, this tool excites, certainly, the covetousness of the group members in question, but for them this covetousness is nothing beside the joy they will get to give again this axe, i.e., the joy of being recognized by others as givers.

It is necessary to distinguish the joy of receiving an object from the joy of being recognized as a giver. The happiness to be ensured with the friendship of others is higher than the pleasure of capitalizing a valuable article: this is why, in the societies of reciprocity, the received precious object is always given again. No one in the communities known as primitive, more precisely primordial, stops giving again indeed the valuable articles or still larger wealth, in order to win the gratitude and the friendship of others. The relation of the people orders the relation of the things and not the reverse. The immediate objective of the first men was to arouse, not some exchanges, but some structures of reciprocity, so that all is an opportunity of gratitude.

Another approach is therefore possible: to distinguish the primitive one from the paramount and to show that if the original structures of reciprocity are naturally primitive, the principle of reciprocity, itself, remains everywhere at the origin of the fundamental human values.

The thesis of exchange constrains not only to imagine suitable conditions to justify revenge, but also to explain two other kinds of violence competing with revenge: the sanction and the sacrifice. If the attacker of a group is a member of the community, the revenge is indeed replaced by one of the two other solutions, the first penal one, the second sacrificial one.

The three possible responses to the aggression, revenge itself, punishment and sacrifice therefore are to be also interpreted as exchanges. The penalty would be then an exchange between the individual and the group.

We are therefore led to study revenge as system - or subsystem - at the same time of exchange and of social control on violence. What was illustrated by the symbol of the tarvus trigaranus in the Celtic mythology (the ethical control of violence).

Mauss brought back the life capital of the group to the prestige, the fame, to the mana of the group, Verdier brings it back to the honor.

For Verdier, the revenge is attached as much as the gift to the identity of the group. Just as the gift is offering of a portion of mana of the community, revenge is the recovery of a portion of mana for the community. Thus, when a crime is perpetrated with respect to the community by one of its members, it does not appear necessary to cut off the life from the attacker. Revenge comes up against a limit indeed: none of the members of the community can be cut off from it without serious damage to the life capital of the group.

They would choose consequently to immolate an animal instead of the culprit in order to be able to reinstate this one in the community. But if such a sacrifice is an exchange of victims, to whom sacrifice the animal? To the God-or-Demons! Verdier answers. The God-or-Demons were offended by the living , and as they are the jealous guards of the fullness of the group, the living must compensate them.

To reduce the sacrifice to an exchange therefore obliges to design a virtual partner: the God-or-Demons.

This solution is, however, the same one as that Mauss imagined for the potlatch. When the victorious giver of the gift tournament has no longer a rival, and that he can no longer show his power for lack of

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donee able to start again the agonistic gift cycle; he gives only to be socially, and he distributes his fortune only for the prestige, in an ostentatious way, to show his power. What was to be the case of the Celtic princes who did not commit suicide to escape dishonor as in the famous case evoked by Posidonius (quoted by Mauss).

But , however, now! In the potlatch, the victorious giver of the tournaments does not give a portion of his goods to show his power, but he gives all his goods! Mauss then suggests that the giver bets on the gratitude of the spirits or of the God-or-Demons. Mauss evokes the spirits of ancestors to explain why the final sacrifice is not free of charge that it is the continuation of the potlatch, but with the God-or-Demons. The apparently free of charge gift would be in fact once more calculated, because it would be sent addressed to the God-or-Demons in the hope of a higher counterpart. The prestige would be only a currency which would wait for being realized by the God-or-Demons. Mauss claims that the givers therefore hope to receive more than they give. When Mauss noted that, in the potlatch, the last giver gives vainly since no one could answer him; he imagined, to satisfy the idea that the gift is well in this case an exchange, that the giver acquires an unsurpassable prestige only to be designated as a favored interlocutor of the God-or-Demons. The sacrifice, Mauss says, is a gift to the spirits of ancestors and to the God-or-Demons from whom it is hoped in return larger generosity.

But if the God-or-Demons give for glory, and without purpose of profit, why men would not make as much in the hope of being like the God-or-Demons? Wouldn't this be for the happiness to be recognized by the God-or-Demons as “great and powerful” men or to be raised to the rank of the God-or-Demons that the men turn towards them and offer sacrifices to them?

Many authors claim that the sacrifice is linked with purification, and that the inevitable consequence as for it would designate the emergence of an authority outside the ones and the others, since able to prohibit revenge. Revenge would be nothing any more but a primitive form of justice, characteristic of the not yet politically unified systems.

From where the following sequence: the groups are defined by their primitive identity, clash, and if they are with equal force, stabilize themselves. Peace is established, and with it the policy. Within this background, it becomes possible to replace violence by gifts and alliances. The chiefdom is formed which prohibits revenge inside and replaces it by penalty, then carries out the purification of the stain, to which the transgression of the taboos sentences the whole community through the sacrifice to the God-or-Demons.

Consequently, indeed, the word from the king or from the clan chief dominates that of the protagonists of the revenge, while the expression of the value of the positive reciprocity becomes the good, and that of the negative reciprocity the evil.

The question of the sacrifice remains nevertheless ambiguous. Why would the purification require to immolate a life to the God-or-Demons?

Certain authors were led to oppose sacrifice and revenge in a radical way.

And when we examine the relation between the executioner and the victim, we notice even that revenge is the opposite of the sacrifice, since the avenger hates his victim, and wants to make him suffering; while what the sacrificing feels for his, it is some gratitude: he recognizes in the victim the alter ego which will enable him to preserve his own person; he wants to spare every useless pain to him; he promises to him the heaven, what his own desire is; so strong is the sympathy, the will of identification which brings him towards his victim that he seeks in his attitude a sign of approval before immolating him. Charles Malamoud speaks about Brahmanic India, but his conclusions could be applied to primordial druids.

The reciprocity therefore is not only the matrix of the feeling of humanity but, since it is also the specific life of what the Man has better, the intelligence; it becomes the matrix of the sense for all that it brings into play between its partners. In the reciprocity of gifts, the thing given is changed into a symbol: the gift is a quiet word, word of friendship, peace, of alliance… But if reciprocity forms the matrix of the comprehension, if it gives a sense to the gift, it also imposes its rule on it, i.e., on whoever gives, to accept, on whoever receives, to give: the famous obligations rediscovered by Marcel Mauss. Thus the obligation that this famous ethnologist had noticed for each prestation with respect to its opposite is clarified: with regard to the giver, the need for receiving, and for the donee, the obligation to give. To give is viewed at the same time as to receive and reciprocally.

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Because it is the condition of the mutual understanding, reciprocity affects immediately all the human activities, even violence, even war.

The basic division deep inside any human being is indeed the division between friend or enemy. The reciprocity can consequently be reproduced consciously in several ways, according to whether it is more or less balanced perfectly, or that the friendship/enmity prevails.

The reciprocity in this case is creating sense. Consequently, if the wars themselves remain based on the reciprocity, they will contribute to creating mutual recognition. If the gift is refused or impossible, the violence, provided that it is subordinate to reciprocity, becomes creating behaviors (cf. Celtic ethology).

We know since the works of Mauss and Malinowski that all the human societies without exception know reciprocity. They call “reciprocal” every manifestation with respect to others confronted with the same manifestation of others, so that each one at the same time can and act and undergo the same thing.

The reciprocity implies an exchange of services (positive reciprocity) or the punishment of a reprehensible act (negative reciprocity). The systems of the gift and of the revenge are similar because they are reciprocity systems. The prestige of the gift and the honor of the warrior have a common essence, because they are produced by structures of reciprocity. The reciprocity in all its forms is the matrix of what Mauss calls the (social) tie, either this one is reciprocity of revenge, reciprocity of alliances, or reciprocity of gifts.

Almost all the activities of men are subjected to this principle. They are combined in the same matrix, and are called, since Marcel Mauss, total prestation. But when the reciprocity is specialized, each one gets its own meaning.

We can classify the elementary structures in two groups: binary reciprocity and ternary reciprocity. By ternary it is understood a relation where man acts on a partner and where he undergoes from another partner. The chain is therefore uninterrupted, and is closed either in a network or in a circle. It can be linear, or, when only one partner is used as an intermediary for all the others, in star shape: it is said centralized.

Polarized by benevolence, the original reciprocity becomes the gift dialectics, and the balance of opposites is restored by the violence in the form of a competition between the gifts. This is why Mauss spoke about agonistic gifts. Polarized on the contrary by violence, reciprocity becomes dialectical revenge; and the balance of opposites is restored by the fact that violence is exerted only against those who are found guilty of a very serious failure.

The objective of the gift and of the revenge is initially to build or rebuild new structures of reciprocity.

When the reciprocity makes possible a relativization of oneself and others, which approaches a balanced intermediate state, the result is a feeling of membership in a common Mankind.

When this relativization is unbalanced by one of the poles which dominates the other, this feeling reflects the characteristics of the opposite pole! For example, the giver (who loses what he gives) will have the feeling to get some value (the prestige) while the donee, who receives, will have the feeling to lose face. From where, for him, the desire to recover some prestige, what is expressed by the obligation of reciprocity, the obligation to give back something. You cannot feel to get prestige when you give, without feeling that you lose face when you receive.

The obligation of counter-gift is the same law as that of retaliation. It is a question in both cases of restoring a balance questioned by an excess. The latter opens a gap that the “donee” must imperatively fill, under penalty of the biggest humiliation: you return evil for evil, just as a gift for a gift or a woman for another.

The Thesis of Mauss on the origin of the exchange does not deal with a form of reciprocity, as old as that of the gifts, as important perhaps, the negative reciprocity, still known as revenge reciprocity.

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However, that the reciprocity of revenge and the reciprocity of gifts play a comparable part in the primitive societies is easily emphasized by the only fact that the compensations and the compositions which are used as pledges to put an end to the one and the other are often identical.

Almost all the human societies if not all, tried to grasp revenge, to manage it, to control it, finally to subject it to the principle of reciprocity.

Marcel Mauss concluded concerning the potlatch that the givers clash, each one wishing to exceed the other, but while obliging himself to receive a counter-gift for that (Mauss speaks on this subject about agonistic gift).

In the same way violence is organized to define a hierarchical order. The rule of reciprocity is therefore a fundamental data of the vengeance system, as it makes it possible the groups to be defined the ones compared to the others, in terms of antagonistic complementarity and of dynamic balance. In the regulated play of the vengeance system, the groups clash by trying to exceed the other, but not to destroy it; each one aims to show its superiority, but not to reduce its adversary to nothing.

The honor represented by the cattle is the result of the social relations. As we had the opportunity to say it, the honor can be analyzed as a symbolic capital insofar as every man has by definition some honor, and that at the same time the honor is likely to vary, we can speak about fixed assets and variable capital, to continue in the economic metaphor. Revenge capitalizes honor, because without offense to be compensated, you cannot furnish the proof of your true value, authenticate the honor that every man has “by nature” (fixed capital).

Beyond the individuals, there exists an entity which is a totality of which the unity is indivisible.

Having lost one as of his, the clan feels reduced and consequently dishonored. To restore the order disturbed by the crime, it falls to one of its members, in fact, the avenger, to inflict a loss equal to the antagonistic group.

Revenge, however, raises a difficult problem. What is exchanged with destructions or murders? The exchange appears at the very least negative since it is cleared by a symmetrical subtraction of goods or human lives! What can be the interest of a negative exchange?

The communities are balanced between them, and this balance is a condition of prosperity for all. If it is broken, the communities try to restore it. To every aggression which destroys a portion of the community a revenge which prevents that the attacker can enjoy a more favorable and prejudicial to the others, situation, responds. It is a question of restoring a positive balance.

In many societies, the revenge is prohibited between members of the same kindred. The revenge outside the group therefore has for other face the solidarity inside the group. “Internal solidarity/external revenge.”

There exists consequently a relation of proximity where revenge is prohibited, but replaced by a penalty (a financial compensation among Celts); a relation (of distance) where revenge is ineffective, but where the war can take over in certain cases; and an intermediate distance where revenge is relevant.

Being halfway between the relation of identity or the absolute otherness, revenge is essentially a relation of adversity, binding partners who accept themselves at the same time as identical and different. This relation of adversity, prohibited with the close relations but also prohibited with the unknown ones, is reserved for those who are at the same time identical and different.

Type of relations: mode of violence.

a) Identity .............penalty.

b) Adversity ..........revenge.

c) Hostility ............ war.

The negative reciprocity is not a generalization of violence as it was sometimes claimed, but a way of controlling violence. And in this case, the challenge of the negative reciprocity is to subject violence to justice.

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Control of war or prohibition of war, the negative reciprocity appears as one of the most important human inventions which make it possible the life in society. It prevails many times over the positive reciprocity which cannot prevent the war, when war there is, from being the destruction of the adversary, and the disappearance of every reciprocity.

It is demonstrated by referring to the prestations of negative reciprocity which take place in real terms in the antiquated societies. Revenge is legitimate on the condition that the clan which is a victim can in turn reproduce the revenge cycle , because the life and the vitality of the enemy are the reciprocity requirement. If this vitality is no longer sufficient , it is possible to resort to compensations in order to restore it. For example, in the archaic societies by compensating for the loss of warriors, with wives, so that the fertility of the marriages restores to it warriors numerous enough so that they can perpetuate the reciprocity of revenge. Therefore no herem or genocide of the vanquished peoples ordered by God like in the Bible.

The Ossetians in the center of the Caucasus have a capital of honor which is counted in lives of men killed by the enemy, and avenged. As long as the victims are not avenged, they are not counted in the life capital of the community. The honor can be restored therefore only by revenge. To take an enemy’s life, it is consequently to restore an imaginary life in his own mythical universe.

“Whom did you kill therefore, to ask for the hand of my daughter? ” is the traditional question that a future father-in-law asks his son-in-law among the Ossetians.

The murder is the obligatory first stage, of the destiny of a man… It is followed by the marriage which gives him the right to build his own dwelling, to receive a share of the common incomes, to take part in the group decisions, and opens up the way then for another stage which is the birth of children.

The ritual question asked by the father-in-law to his future son-in-law highlights well at the same time the obligation of the murder and its function of integration in the society (particularly as it is the condition of the marriage). We grasp there all the significance and the role of the revenge: it is well and especially to protect the life capital of the group.

Unless it is a question of generating future warriors and that the marriage is subordinate to revenge! Whoever doesn’t define himself according to the reciprocity of revenge would be excluded from the social group.

However, before the marriage changed the other into a relative, this one is the potential enemy as much as the potential relative; the adversity in this case is the same thing as the otherness.

The ambiguity of the relations with the allies remains constant. The parents-in-law – some non-parents, by definition, since you can marry one of their daughters - are in a way, in the first generation, some “tamed enemies.” In the following generation, they became gentle maternal parents with whom the competitions or the conflicts of authority could not occur, whereas they form the basis of the relationship between paternal parents. As the chiefs of clans say it explicitly at the time of their public invocations : “We are sons of such ancestor. The inhabitants of such villages and such districts, we do not marry them, they are sons of the same ancestor. But the other clans, we make war to them and we marry them! ”

The retaliation Law consists of the reciprocity of crime and punishment . This law is often symbolized by the expression “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” It is one of the oldest existing human laws.

It characterizes an intermediate state of criminal justice, between the vendetta system and the recourse to a referee or a judge. This law (of retaliation) made it possible to prevent from the men taking the law into their own hands and thus to introduce a beginning of order into the society with regard to the treatment of crimes.

Expressed in a positive way, this law intended to fight against a possible individual escalation of violence by limiting this one to the level of the undergone violence. Our modern concept of self-defense proceeds from the same spirit by requiring that every response be proportional to the attack. The first known signs of the law of retaliation appear in the Code of Hammurabi, in 1730 before our era, in the kingdom of Babylon.

Regarded as unjust, and in any event contrary to the interests of the public order, among Celts it was replaced, by the druids, and for certain crimes, by fines (eric, galanas, or wergild) even some penalties of exile; that we can regard as the first alternative sentencing in the world.

The expression “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” returns three times in the Pentateuch, but with Christianity we go from one extreme to the other since the following word is ascribed to the Nazorean Yehoshua Bar Yosef.

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“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5,38-42). But we know for at least 100,000 years that the non (active) resistance against the Evil (against the Non-Good) can only make it grow.

All the modern legislations admit that there is neither crime nor offense when the wounds, the blows, even possibly the homicide, are required by the need for defending oneself, or for protecting others.

So that the action is regarded as a legitimate defense , it is to be a situation of defense, the person must respond aggression, be attacked in first, or else it is himself who becomes the attacker. This raises, of course, the problem of the preventive wars, attacks, or self-defense.

The danger must appear imminent to the attacked person: it is at the time of the attack that it is necessary to defend oneself, not after (what would be then a revenge, a premeditated act); then the action must stop once the person neutralized or on the run. In addition, there must be a right proportion between the means of defense implemented and the seriousness of the risked danger.

It is allowed to defend one’s goods by any means (subject to the limitations above) other than a voluntary manslaughter. If, concerning the defense of the individuals, the elementary morality grants a presumption of proportionality in favor of the victim of the aggression; it falls, on the other hand, to the person asking the benefit of the self-defense for its goods, to prove that his response was measured compared to the aggression.

The self-defense can be allowed as regards attack against the goods only when the committed act aims at stopping the execution of a crime or an offense.

In short, we can say that the use of the force can be done only in a proportional way, to repel an unjust, current or imminent aggression, against one or more people.

There exists currently a whole current of thought (intellectuals of left-wing, Christian monks, anti-Semites , etc.) rejecting the very principle of the self-defense or assistance to someone in danger. For these intellectuals, only dialog and prayers are to be used in this case. What is not without raising problems, including in the right understanding to develop, of the law of retaliation (to refuse to understand it, is indeed to show an incurable anti-Semitism).

The reason for the reciprocity of revenge like that for the reciprocity of alliance or gift, is much more than a social cohesion, much more than the awareness to be members of the same community, but the very feeling to be human.

The reciprocity of revenge is, like the reciprocity of gifts, a category structuring the human being.

The reciprocity can be built by the life, the alliance or the gift, but it can also be built by the death and the murder. It is therefore not the gift which is at the base of the society, but the reciprocity.

When it cannot be carried out by the alliance or the gift, the reciprocity will be carried out differently, and whatever is its price.

Every gift or revenge is to be reciprocal. Only, indeed, reciprocity, makes it possible to change the fact of giving or receiving in a new value, to which prestige testifies. It is the same thing for violence, the murder or the theft. If they do not fit in the reciprocity, they have no sense: only reciprocity gives them a sense by giving back honor.

Consequently, the societies generally give a preference to positive reciprocity and reserve negative reciprocity to their periphery.

Prestige and honor illustrate the feeling of Humanity created by the reciprocity of gifts or revenge, but they polarize in their respective noncontradiction the cycle reproduction. From where the dialectics of gift and the dialectics of revenge. In each one of these dialectics, the fundamental contradictory relation (friendship/enmity) remains, but it is unbalanced in favor either of one or of the other, so that each new dialectical cycle makes it possible to amplify it.

CONCLUSION.

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Nevertheless, each one of these dialectics can be relativized, this relativization leads to a third form of reciprocity, the symmetrical reciprocity, at the origin of the ethical values. The symmetrical reciprocity has this remarkable to lead to no form of domination, and therefore does not appear in any power relation . It is the base of “a more human” society.

Many are the societies built starting from these three forms of reciprocity, the one known as positive, reciprocity of gifts; the other negative, reciprocity of revenge; the third symmetrical one.

The symmetrical reciprocity invites each one of its protagonists indeed to relativize his point of view by that of the other for the benefit of a space of freedom favorable to the appearance of shared values. The superior interest which will prevail consequently will be no longer that of the one or of the other, but that which could be allotted simultaneously to the one and the other. Such a superior interest is the common good, a spiritual relationship, an entity irreducible to the identity of the one or of the other. As it disappears as soon as the reciprocity is broken, it is often related to a supernatural power: the god-or-demons.

It is in reality what could be called the sense of justice, of responsibilities, or of another thing.

Such an ethical code has no sense if it is implemented without empathy, i.e., without taking into account the needs and the feelings of the other person. Another way of writing this ethological rule is indeed “treat the others as you would like to be treated if you were in their place.”

The other is the mirror in which the first expression, the first manifestation of this freedom of conscience is reflected. The sense of life is seen in the gaze from the other. And the other is the face of Mankind.

The presence of others (in reciprocity), produces the feeling of a specific nature to Man, of a nature which we will say consequently, “human nature.” Concern, the doubt, the anguish, which accompanies the bet towards the other, is immediately deferred to the periphery of this feeling lately appeared, feeling which, is to him a certainty: “We are the true men.”

All the ethnographers noted that this certainty human being is accompanied by an intense joy, perhaps joy of the discovery, but more primarily the love for life. This joy is in the middle of the relation of reciprocity; it belongs, of course, to nobody in his own right, but gleams in everybody. The feeling which accompanies the certainty of being a man is not the pleasure of a property or of a having.

The ethic of reciprocity consequently is a fundamental morality whose principle is found in practically all the great civilizations (golden rule) ; and which can be expressed simply by instructions of the kind: “Treat people the way you'd like to be treated" or “do not do to others what you would not want done to you.”

An example in the Jainism.

“Nothing which breathes, which exists, which lives, or which has essence or potential of life, should be destroyed or ruled over, or subjugated, or harmed, or denied of its essence or potential. In support of this truth, I ask you a question - "Is sorrow or pain desirable to you ?" If you say "Yes it is,” it would be a lie. If you say, "No, it is not" you will be expressing the truth. Just as sorrow or pain is not desirable to you, so it is to all which breathes, exists, lives or has any essence of life. To you and all, it is undesirable, and painful, and repugnant (Akaranga Sutra, Sutra 155-6).

An example in the Zoroastrianism.

“Not to do unto others all that which is not good for one's self." (Shayest-na-shayest chapter 13,29. Pahlavi text translated by E.W. West)

From George Bernard Shaw to Iain King via Kant and Nietzsche this golden rule has, of course, also its limits, we will return on the subject, and it could not be an absolute. The biggest naivety of its flatterers being to see it at work everywhere and in all the mass religions without exception, mixing up thus joyfully founding texts (like the Quran or the Gospels) and derived texts or commentary of commentary (hadiths, papal bulls) it must therefore be followed with understanding (Iain King 2008).

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CAN RECIPROCITY OF GIFTS

BE A PRINCIPLE OF POLITICAL ECONOMICS?

It is every day that we receive others, invite them to share food, offer to them our hospitality or our protection, in a private or collective way (today health coverage, retirement, insurances…).

In the societies supposed closest to original societies, reciprocity mobilizes all the activities of life: to feed, look after, protect… To really get in contact of reciprocity with the others, it is indeed necessary to take into account their conditions of existence. Besides the principle taken on by the free-trade economists, the interest for oneself, there exists therefore another principle of political organization which leads to an economy, because in order to give it is necessary to produce.

If the sphere of flow is governed by these two principles which are reduced to exchange and reciprocity, it is the same thing with that of the production: most human beings produce more to give than to have.

We can distinguish two elementary structures of reciprocity : the division, which produces confidence, and the centralized ternary reciprocity, in which the members of the community are all connected between them by one intermediary, which becomes the center of the redistribution and the supreme authority (the king -or the vergobretus- for example, in the ancient Celtic society).

We practice the reciprocity in the reality because we are some reality, and more half of our producing activity is intended for this reciprocity, without we know it, because we interpret everything according to the dominant paradigm of exchange.

We try to live socially and we worry about the destruction of the social link without knowing what social cohesion is, a vague word which covers in fact the values produced by the symmetrical reciprocity, the feelings of responsibility, freedom, justice, confidence (according to the structures of reciprocity concerned, but of which we are unaware ).

Where these structures are broken, we are conscious that the social cohesion is demolished, then the ones take refuge in the organized crime, the religious fundamentalism, others finally in what they call alternative, parallel, or underground, in short all pre-capitalist, economies.

But this withdrawal enables us to find others in the proximity, the solidarity, the citizenship; without knowing either what the secrecy of these elementary notions and practices is. And, for lack of competences on the subject, here also, the paradigm of exchange catches up with us and imposes its law to us.

The confusion always leads to the same dead end and the disillusion increases. So, it is necessary to think out, and to wonder what we want to produce: what values, values of exchange, justice, responsibility, confidence, faith?

Men generally answer: “Freedom first! ” It is the first value that every revolution proposes. And then “equality.”

All the structures of reciprocity are generating freedom, because all put an end to the determinism in nature.

But it is necessary to understand here through freedom the repudiation of every subjection, subjection to honor, prestige and sacredness. However, this freedom is also that of being able to be just or unjust.

For a long time therefore the liberals wonder how to reconcile freedom with equality, how to reconcile freedom with justice? John Rawls, champion of the contemporary liberalism, at the end of a reflection of several tens of years, concedes that the rational individual cannot be considered as a complete individual, that he cannot through himself alone reach the principles of justice. He still needs to be reasonable, i.e., to live in reciprocity with others in order to get what Charles Taylor describes as capacities which can appear only from the participation of each one in a community. However, the universal community, which therefore frees itself from every practical or imaginary limits, is built by the generalized reciprocity.

Another debate, quite as important, although it is currently still unresolved, is of knowing how to reconcile equality with responsibility. There exist indeed two forms of generalized reciprocity, one

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which promotes responsibility, the other which promotes confidence (and in its totalitarian variant, submission). The difficulty results from the fact that these two values are exclusive each other. The ignorance of the matrices of these two fundamental values and of their mutual exclusion is the shelf on which the economy of the real socialism in the Eastern European countries at the end of the 20th century, broke.

In the eyes of former druidism in any case, corollary of generosity therefore, the reciprocity in all its forms was the principle of the Celtic society. As we already had the opportunity to say it, we can classify the elementary structures in two groups: binary reciprocity and ternary reciprocity. By ternary it is understood a relation where you act on a partner and where you undergo from another partner. The chain is therefore uninterrupted, and is closed again either in networks or in circles. It can be linear, or, when only one partner is used as an intermediary with all the others, in the shape of a star: it is said centralized.

The example in this field, it is the good king or ideal great monarch (Noadatus/Nuada/Nodons/Lludd the dispenser and the more or less legendary other kings like Ambicatuos) towards whom go up taxes and tributes but who redistributes them at once by making them go down again towards his servants or his faithful.

This notion of reciprocity of the gifts is the base of any tie from man to man or from a people to a people in the Celtic world, in short the basis of the standard feudal contract.

This sense of the reciprocity also relates to the possession of the goods and of the wealth. As Albert Bayet remarks it extremely judiciously: “What is beyond dispute, it is that the great has, through manners, a precise obligation to provide for the subsistence of a large number of people”. The geis or better the ada in this field is that of the absolute reciprocity of the prestations, as Marcel Mauss saw it very well in his famous “Essay on the gift.”

And the honor, it is here in fact the obligation with regard to a partner who amassed an advance by a gift, an obligation exactly correlative with the duty of revenge.

In the book I of his Politics, Aristotle affirms wrongly that the domestic economy is most “natural” because it relates only to the consumer goods, and by no means to the profit (chrematistics). However, with the societies mentioned by Marcel Mauss, we see another form of exchange, which relates neither to the market profit nor to the money, on the one hand; nor even to the material survival of a group defined as the family (the economy), on the other hand, but well a form of total social prestation, in which all the community commits in a three- folded way: to give, to receive, and, again, to counter-give. The deviation of this system occurs when one of the partners wants to give too much or exceed the other by his counter-gifts.

This principle was also to be applied to the religion. In a sanctuary a part of the atebertas or offerings was always destroyed by the members of the druidic sodality (of the order) who were the incumbents of the place of course (through a deposit in a sacrifice pit or burning) but the rest was distributed to the poor or eaten on the spot.

Brennus in Delphi : “The deities stood in no need of riches, as being accustomed rather , to bestow them on mortals."……

Gift and counter-gift are therefore the mark of every Celtic minded person who wants to behave as a great lord because noblesse oblige. You must be generous when you are rich and powerful and not miserly.

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RECIPROCITY OR SECULARITY AS REGARDS RELIGION.

Come at this point of our talk on the reciprocity as regards economy, it is advisable to say a few words on the reciprocity in the religious field.

It goes without saying that in the ancient Celtic ethology, hospitality was never in one way, but reciprocal and mutual, provided the favor can be returned.

It was not only a question of receiving some visitors friends or guests, but of establishing reciprocal ties. It was a bilateral contract.

Well, it was the same thing in pertaining to worship matter. The foreign gods or foreign interpretations of the same god (Taranis/Jupiter/Zeus for example) were allowed. The druids went even as far as taking over some of the local deities of the defeated peoples (Atectai).

It is there precisely one of the points on which new druidism and former druidism agree perfectly.

It is true that it cannot exist by definition Holy Scriptures. A scripture is always non-religious because the sacredness it is the Spirit it is the Man.

Bible and Quran were created by men, are only clusters of often incoherent words (what comes to do in the Bible an almost atheistic book like the Ecclesiastes?) written down on scraps of paper and containing rarely the best. Taken literally Bible and Quran are unbearable because as regards spirituality the freezing of the thought through writing was always the worst of the things which can happen to it (it can no longer evolve if it is not with the biggest difficulties, it is fixed). Taken symbolically or allegorically we can make the recipe book of my grandmother (you know the goose keeper of Pont-Varin who was a few years cooker of the castle in Cirey) saying the same. Let us say that we can make similarly the Mahabharata or Buddha.

The most normal attitude in their connection is therefore to respect Bible and Quran…exactly insofar as they respect themselves all those who do not think like them, the atheistic materialists the spiritualistic atheists the agnostics the pantheists the polytheists in short the unbelievers or kuffar of all kinds of whom we pride ourselves to be some members. The positive or negative reciprocity as regards human relations is the beginning of wisdom.

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FROM THE REDUCTION OF THE RECIPROCITY OF GIFTS TO THE EXCHANGE, IMPLEMENTED ON A LARGE SCALE AND IN A SYSTEMATIC WAY

BY WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

It is important in this respect to start by distinguishing the reciprocity of gifts and the exchange well. The reciprocity of gifts and the exchange indeed will lead to different principles of economic regulation: the equivalence of reciprocity in the first (reciprocity of gifts) or the balance of supply and demand in the second case (the exchange).

But are the things given or exchanged originally? That the alternative exists from the beginning, Levi-Strauss indicated it by distinguishing between a first time, that of the meeting during which all is given without bargaining; and a second time, that of the reflection on the received things, which can lead to exchange.

It is always possible, indeed, to use the peace established by reciprocity to exchange in one’s interest then to turn the reciprocity so that it is used for its opposite: one’s private interest, the egoistic concern of oneself. But it is always possible also to go beyond this personal interest to cause more friendship.

The reciprocity promotes between the partners a social link, of justice, responsibility, confidence, etc. (according to the structure of reciprocity considered); but they are values which are not counted in material quantities, as in the case of the exchange.

If the puritan had not prevailed in the North, and the Jesuit in the South, would not have occurred in any event, the process of material accumulation starting from the exchange; with the effects on the planet that we know today, and which become more and more threatening? We can wonder, of course.

In the monolatrous mass religions, the first giver is God or the Demiurge, and it is to God or the Demiurge therefore that any glory is due. This alienation reaches its height in Northern Europe as from the 17th century.

End of the colbertism in France, Fable of the bees (1705 then 1714) and Adam Smith (1776) in England.It is the time of the free exchange, from now on selected as the reference. It realizes the equality of the things between them, an equality which is understood as their complementarity for a higher effectiveness. All in all, it measures their utility. Here therefore the new power which will replace honor, prestige and sacredness: the utility.

Whereas in the Antiquity, the profit was rejected out the walls or entrusted to outcasts as unworthy of a citizen, it is from now on justified as moral principle, being supposed to bring happiness to the rich person, but also to improve the status of the poor. For A. Smith, for example, although the rich person builds sumptuous palaces and is alone to eat well, he must call upon the blue-collar workers then to pay them, so that the production involves despite everything a certain redistribution, therefore a justification of the capitalist system.

The exchange therefore releases the spirituality from every compromising with the material. God or the Demiurge can be known as a pure spirit. There is there a paradox seen well by Weber: on a side a subjection reduced to a principle (God) which removes all the intermediaries, princes and bishops, but which can also be absolute subjection to one’s own phantasms; and, on the other side, the exit from the subjection by the economic materialism. The conjunction of these two major alienations, however antagonistic, that of the absolute but arbitrary spiritual power, and that of the (objective, but inhuman) power of nature ,is the triumph of the Capitalist and Christian system in the West, because these two powers are not contradictory.

Doesn't the exchange, provided that it is competing, have the same result as the reciprocity of gifts?

Certain authors try therefore to make the exchange appearing as an advanced form of reciprocity, what amounts interpreting the reciprocity of gifts as an archaic form of economy. The thesis is based on the idea of Marcel Mauss that the original communities would mix objective and subjective, material and spiritual, relations. Over time, these prestations known as total would be divided into intersubjective relations, of pure reciprocity, at the base of the law and of the morality, and objective relations subjected to the own interest of the individuals. Once the peace, the confidence and the mutual understanding, established by reciprocity, the men could free up all their desires, and restore the primacy of their individual interest. As from the 18th century, the exchange becomes essential

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indeed in the Western societies. The transactions are no longer planned in order to generate human values, but more and more for an exchange value whose status is specified; it is no longer a medium term between two goods, but a power of accumulation which will soon make it possible the ones to define in their advantage the price of the work of the others. And this accumulation of blind power develops still nowadays whereas the forces of the religion which is associated with it, decline.

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BUAID No. 8.

COURAGE.

Personal, bodily or moral, courage (calmacht, Old Celtic galia).

Poets often attributed to the ancient druids an “appeasing or at all cost” pacifism. It is a fundamental mistake dating back to 16th or the 17th century. The druids were never pacifist at all cost (popular French “bleating”). They were for peace, but by no means at all costs (see the case of the Aeduan druid Diviciacus who was completely wrong by going too far in the collaboration with Rome). Their idea was not the non-violence at all cost, but the will not to take the initiative to harm without reason nor in a completely gratuitous way to whoever having done nothing against you , what was not the same thing at all. If they had lived at our time, they would have been able to regret with Churchill in 1938, in connection with the Munich agreements: “Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have and war and dishonor! ”

To be courageous is a virtue of the Celtic warriors but also of women, since they take part in the engagements […] the old men themselves fight until the end. See the case of Camulogenus and Vertiscus, so old that they are no longer able neither to stand nor to ride. The collective suicides of the Alpine peoples, of the Numantians, as well of the naked fighters in the Italic wars (gaesati) remained famous.

What more ours than our life? And yet it is given to us. We can only receive it and agree it, or commit suicide. If I must start by respecting the life of others, I can be, on the other hand, invited to give up my own life for a good which is higher to it. The worldly life is not an absolute (cf. the human sacrifices of the former druidism). To give one’s life for those we love, for justice, or by friendship, it is to admit that there are values even more important.

It is at this cost only that the human being can get his true freedom. If he refuses to consider the possibility of this gift, he is ripe for all slavery. Rather red, or white, than dead, could not be a Celtic slogan.

In Gaelic language “meisnech” (modern “misneach”) means courage in the sense of being able to stand up to somebody,” and comes from the root “med” which means “to count, to measure, to confront”). It implies the meaning of “able to control oneself.” “Calmacht” comes from the adjective “calma,” from a root meaning “hard” (old Celtic caletos) and implies the notion of endurance. Same thing for “cródacht” (modern “crógacht”), derived from “cródae” (modern “cróga”), which means originally something like “blood thirsty,” in other words, which evokes the hardness of that who is pitiless in the fight. The word came to mean “bravery” simply in the usual sense of the term. “Uchtach” comes from “ucht” “chest, breast” and designates originally an armor, but got then the meaning of protection, more mental than material or bodily. The Brittonic languages use “calon” (“kalon”/“kolonn”) “heart” to say “courage” (word also coming from the root meaning “hard”). The Welsh also uses the word “gwroldeb” derived from “gwrol” meaning “masculine, male,” just as “dewrder,” a word coming from “dewr,” having a similar meaning . The old Welsh also used the word “glew” which meant basically “bold, daring”- as in the name of the gatekeeper of King Arthur called Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr: “Grey lord of the mighty grasp.”

But courage is not only the bodily courage, that can also be the moral or intellectual courage, the strength of character (Greek menos). Menos applies to the whole of the psychic life. It is the character, the ardor. The connection with the stem dhrs “to be daring” underlines the heroic connotation of the menos that the true sons of kings must show.

Below how our friends of the druid network interpret the first proposal of the famous maxim attributed to the Fenians by Cailte answering St. Patrick questioning him on the question: neart inár lámhaibh.

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Strength in our hands and our feet does not want to say “big muscles,” but courage and bravery facing an enemy. That is worth not only for the warriors clashing by swinging their sword but to face any kind of fear in order to overcome them. It also seems obvious to us that also refers to the courage it is necessary to show in front of failures, pitfalls, disappointments, or other hard blows of all kinds.

There are people who withdraw themselves in their shell and leave it seldom, by excess of timidity, fear to be wounded, mental distress or inferiority complex. These prospects are completely unfamiliar to the myths, which abound which characters seizing full hand their existence and living it fully. For us, the force in question is therefore that which comes from the fact of living one’s life intensely, with passion, energy.

To what we add that the Celts nevertheless always took care of their bodies, and took care to be all ready for possible warlike expeditions. Strength in the hands also means big muscles, and hands which do not shiver. Mens sana in corpore sano the Romans said on their side.

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BUAID No. 9.

FAITHFULNESS (dilestos).

The word often used to translate this notion is that of dílis, old Irish “díles,” which comes from the old Celtic word dílestos, Welsh dilys “inalienable,” “belonging obviously to somebody and not to another one.” Enter the composition of certain words of medieval Welsh law. In modern Welsh “dilys” often means “genuine.” Old Irish Tairisiu means rather tenacity (a tenacity involving a mutual trust). Faithfulness to a man, a family, a tribe.

668, arrival of Saint Colman on Inishbofin ( island of the white cow, 200 inhabitants off Connemara, county of Galway) coming from Iona, in order to continue to be allowed to celebrate Easter in his own way, and not according to the date imposed over the see of the Northumbrian church as well as on the great scriptorium located in Lindisfarne of his time (663) whose riches will eventually attract the attention of Vikings in 793 (number of monks killed or enslaved unknown).

Conclusion: it is better to remain oneself and poor than to be rich but become another man.

To remain oneself (Sinn Fein in Gaelic language) is also a value and a value as important as those which are fashionable currently at least if we judge of it according to the resistance against Christianity of the last druids in Great Britain like Merlin during the battle of Arfderydd in 573, or of Ireland, and such is perhaps the ultimate message that, through their very example, they bequeathed us.

The high-level druids indeed never joined the cause of St. Patrick, the only ones to have done thus were intellectually very subordinate (bards or veledae) druids.

The druids druids always hated with a passion the forgery or the unauthentic one, because their religion was a religion of truth.

Everyone knows, or should know, the famous speech of Critognatus to the fighters in Alesia.

“The Cimbri, after laying Gaul waste, and inflicting great calamities, at length departed from our country, and sought other lands; they left us our rights, laws, lands, and liberty. But what other motive or wish have the Romans, than…? If you know not these things which are going on in distant countries, look to the neighboring Gaul, which being reduced to the form of a province, stripped of its rights and laws, and subjected to Roman despotism, is oppressed by perpetual slavery." (Caesar. B.G. VII, 77).

Was the speech of Critognatus inspired by the druids? Impossible to know it, but that which follows undoubtedly was so.

“My father Niall did not allow me to accept the faith* , but bade me to be buried on the ridges of Tara. In the manner of men at war, for the pagans, armed in their tombs, have their weapons ready, until the day of erdathe, that is, the day of the Lord's judgment according to the druids” (Memoir of St. Patrick by Tirechan). Editor’s note. Individual erdathe = rehabilitation in the Big Whole, collective erdathe = revival of the bitus or universe.

* In anything ?

This short quotation of the tripartite life of St. Patrick, blaming the druids, is extremely clear, and the attitude of King Niall was obviously inspired by these magi, i.e., by the druids, of his entourage.

Better is worth remaining oneself but poor than to be rich but become another one.

Such a desire to remain oneself can astonish today, but it is undeniable among the ancient druids, since even among traitors to the faith of their forefathers, there will remain traces of it.

See the case above (repetere = ars docendi) of the Irish saint named Colman at the time of one of the innumerable quarrels in connection with the date of Easter, having peppered the English Christianity of the Early Middle Ages (Synod of Whitby 664) . The King of Northumbria, Oswiu, concluded the debates by saying that Peter was a turnkey whom he would take good care not to resist, by fear of not finding somebody to open to him when he would appear in front of the gates of heaven. The king, the majority of the assembly, the bishop Cedd himself, raised by the Scots to the episcopate and who acted in the circumstance, as the interpreter of Colman, lined up in the manner of seeing from the spokesman of Rome, St. Wilfrid. The Irish monks as approximately thirty Northumbrians of the community in Lindisfarne remained attached to the doctrines of Colman. Seeing himself defeated, this one therefore required of Oswiu to name a successor to him in Lindisfarne, determined that he was to withdraw in Ireland.

Eata, the abbot of Melrose, whom he proposed, was approved. Then he came to Lindisfarne, where he took a portion of the bones of St. Aidan, and, with the poor troop of the disciples who had remained

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faithful to him, went to lona. From there he sailed towards lnishbofin, the island of the White Cow, located off the coast of County Galway; where he ended his days around 675.

Author’s note. There is something pathetic in the case of this stubborn person who goes away, loaded with the venerated relics of a saint of his race, to seek in the country of his ancestors the right to preserve the discipline that they bequeathed to him.

SEXUAL FIDELITY.

The taste the need or the will to reproduce constitutes one of the basic data of the human behavior. And if we see the interest well to channel or supervise such an instinct, engine of the greatest achievements, we do not see the interest of denying it or fighting it frontally as the intellectuals of today do it.

Man is neither angel nor beast but unhappily whoever wants to act the angel acts the beast. We see it today in many dramatic “civil” wars.

For obvious reasons holding linked the same time with biology (they are the women who make the children) and with sociobiology, since the dominant male realized that the children were born from their copulations and took for half after them (atavism), the female faithfulness became an imposed, tooth and nail defended, even sought, value.

There exist therefore many examples of women remained faithful until death to their husband or their fiancé.

See on this subject Plutarch subject: On the virtues of women. Particularly the example of the Galatian Deirdre worth of the Acadian Longfellow that were the beautiful Khiomara, wife of King Ortiagon (just like Deirdre indeed the wife of Ortiagon had also sworn not to know more than two men in her life); as well as the pure and gentle Camma, high priestess in Ancyra.

Let us remind, first of all, about her that from the druidic point of view chastity has an almost magic, value, only in the ritual field and not in the moral or social field. The man or the woman who achieves a rite, except in the Tantrism of the path of the Namnetes women, must have given up every sex act in the previous hours.

The unhappy Camma therefore had taken for refuge and consolation the sacred ministry attaching her to the goddess Artemis [or more exactly to the Celtic goddess concealed behind this name]; but, obliged by her family to marry the murderer of her first husband, she poured poison in the cup of their wedding and she died by involving the latter in her death.

Her last words were those: “"I call you to witness, O goddess most revered that for the sake of this day I have lived on after the murder of Sinatus, and during all that time I have derived no comfort from life save only the hope of justice; and now that justice is mine, I go down to my husband. But as for you, wickedest of all men, let your relatives make ready a tomb instead of a bridal chamber and a wedding."

Then she intertwined the altar and died there in front of the struck with astonishment crowd.

Khiomara was the wife of a public figure of the area of Ankara (Turkey) called Ortiagon. Polybius who knew her personally and admired her heroism, told us her history.

She had been captured at the time when the Romans crushed the Galatians. This woman of a rare beauty was, with a crowd of prisoners like her, in the care of a greedy and depraved centurion (a true roughneck soldier).Seeing that his infamous proposals made her move back with horror, he raped the unfortunate one that the war happenstances put in his power. Then he flattered his victim with the hope to be given back to hers, but fixed a price for that, and, to let none of hers in the secret, he made it possible to the prisoner to choose one of her companions in misfortune in order to go and deal with her ransom with hers. Appointment was made close to the river: two friends of the captive, two only, were to go there, with the gold, the following night, to do carry out the exchange. However, by a fatal chance for the centurion, precisely in the same prison was a servant of this woman. It was therefore him that she took for this mission and, at nightfall, the centurion led him out of the Roman camp.

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The following night, the two parents and the centurion with his prisoner were at the date. Gold is shown to him; while he checks if the agreed sum is well there, the woman orders, in her language, to draw his sword then to kill the centurion inclined towards his scale [according to Plutarch “as he was affectionately taking leave of her”]. His throat is cut, his head is cut off and, wrapping it in her dress, the prisoner will join her husband. This one, survivor of the battle of Mount Olympus, was come back in his home. Before kissing her, she threw therefore at his feet the head of the centurion. And as he was somewhat astonished and pointed out to her “that it was right to respect a deal,” she retorted to him: “It is even more beautiful than only one man having had close relations with me is still living.”

Rape, revenge, she acknowledged everything to her husband; and, all the time that she lived since (is it added), her conduct supported until the last moment the glory of her action. Plutarch. On the virtues of women. Titus-Livius. Roman History XXXVIII, 24.

Let us not forget either this other Celtic Deirdre that was the famous Eponine. Another example of female fidelity quoted by Plutarch (Moral Writings, On love, chapter XXV)

She proudly declared to Vespasian that by no means she feared death, the life having been sweeter for her under ground with her husband that for him from the top of his throne.

“I say more than this, that the love of virtuous women does not decay with the wrinkles that appear upon their faces, but remains and endures to their graves and monuments. Then again, we shall find but few male couples of true lovers; but thousands of men and women conjoined in wedlock, who have reciprocally and inviolably observed a total community of affection and loyalty to the end of their lives. I shall instance only one example, which happened in our time, during the reign of Caesar Vespasian.

Julius, who was the first that occasioned the revolt in Celtica, among many other confederates in the rebellion, had one Sabinus, a young gentleman of no mean spirit, and for fame and riches inferior to none. But having undertaken a very difficult enterprise, they miscarried; and therefore expecting nothing but death by the hand of justice, some of them killed themselves, others made their escapes as well as they could. As for Sabinus, he had all the opportunities that could be to save himself by flying to the barbarians; but he had married a lady, the best of women, which they called by the name of Emponen [Eponina], as much as to say a heroinE. This woman it was not in his power to leave, neither could he carry her conveniently along with him. Having therefore in the country certain vaults or cellars underground, where he had hidden his treasures and movables of greatest value, which were only known to two of his freed bondmen, Sabinus dismissed all the rest of his servants, as if he had intended to poison himself. And taking along with him his two faithful and trusty servants, he hid himself in one of the vaults, and sent another of his enfranchised attendants, whose name was Martalius, to tell his wife that her husband had poisoned himself and that the house and his corpse were both burned together, designing by the lamentation and unfeigned grief of his wife, to make the report of his death the more easily believed, which fell out according to his wish. For Emponen [Eponina] so soon as she heard the news, threw herself upon the floor, and continued for three days together without meat or drink, making the most bitter outcries, and bewailing her loss with all the marks of a real and unfeigned anguish. Which Sabinus understanding, and fearing her sorrow might prevail with her to lay violent hands upon herself, he ordered the same Martalius to tell her that he was yet alive and lay hidden in such a place; however, that she should for a while continue her mourning, and be sure so to counterfeit her grief that she should not be discovered. And indeed in all other things the lady acted her part so well, and managed her passion to that degree, that no woman could do it better. But having still a longing desire to see her husband, she went to him in the night and returned so privately that nobody took any notice of her. And thus she continued keeping him company for seven months together, that it might be said, to differ very little from living in hell itself. Where after she had so strangely disguised Sabinus with a false head of hair, and such odd sort of habit, that it was impossible for him to be known, she carried him to Rome along with her undiscovered to several that met him. Not being able to obtain his pardon, she returned with him back to his den, and for many years lived with him under ground; only between whiles she went to the city, and there showed herself in public to several ladies, her friends and familiar acquaintance. But that which was the most incredible of all things, she so ordered her business that none of the ladies perceived her being with child, though she bathed at the same time with them. For such is the nature of that ointment wherewith the women anoint their hair to make it of a red-golden color, that by its fatness and oleosity (its

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oiliness) it plumps and swells up the flesh of the body, bringing it up to an embonpoint. So that the lady, no less liberal of her ointment than diligent to chafe and rub her body limb by limb, by the rising and swelling of her flesh in every part, well calculated, concealed the swelling of her belly. And when she came to be delivered, she endured the pains of her childbearing alone by herself, like a lioness, hiding herself in her den with her husband; and there, as I may say, she bred up in private her two male whelps. For at that time she was delivered of two boys, of which there was one who was slain in Egypt; the other, whose name was also Sabinus, was but very lately with us at Delphi. For this reason Caesar put the lady to death; but dearly paid for the murder, by the utter extirpation of his whole posterity, which in a short time after was utterly cut off from the face of the earth. For during his whole reign, there was not a more cruel and savage act committed; neither was there any other spectacle which, in all probability, the gods and daemons more detested, or any from which they more turned away their eyes in abomination of the sight. Finally, she abated the compassion of the spectators by the stoutness of her behavior and the grandeur of her utterance, than which there was nothing that more exasperated Vespasian; when, despairing of her husband’s pardon, she did as it were challenge the emperor to exchange her life for his, telling him withal that she accounted it a far greater pleasure to live in darkness underground as she had done than to reign in splendor like him.”

According to certain authors, Eponine would have converted to Christianity. What is completely false, of course. The Christians tend a little to see Christians everywhere except where they were (Hitler, Stalin).

But that we have already said it.

Such designs of the sexual or sentimental fidelity until death apparently astonished the ancient (and even medieval if the legend of Deirdre is not older) world but we should not be mistaken therefore on the deep sense of the virginity or chastity in the former druidism.

For the ancient high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) indeed, chastity and virginity were only temporary even intermittent offerings or trials; only intended to condense the forces of fertility and nature and being therefore one day to be sacrificed to them with ardor.

The druidic thought, seen through what the authors of the classical Antiquity said about it, through the Irish and Welsh legends, the Arthurian romances and also the traditional popular tales, which are the continuation of it; is characterized by a total refusal of the dualism in all its forms.

It is impossible indeed to notice there a clear distinction between Good and Evil. The notion of sin proves to be unknown in the druidic tradition. There is only fault when an individual appears unable to achieve what he must do, when he is unable to carry out his own surpassing, to assume his destiny. But this concept of fault refers more to the observation of the weakness of the individual (ah this cursed disease of the Ulaid which can affect us all, one day or another) rather than to the transgression of a list of capital or not, sins, mortal or venial sins. There is what makes it possible to achieve your destiny or the destiny of the community of which you are a member, and what prevents from going towards this achievement; for lack of being sufficiently aware of the difficulty, of being well prepared, or for absence of information.

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BUAID No. 10.

THE TRUTH (fir).

Pilate ”What is truth?” (John 18, 38).

BUT FIRST OF ALL WHAT IS LIE?

To lie is to refuse truth to whom, however, is entitled to it…..

Our Western atavism accustomed us to look at a black and white version of the world: heaven and hell, sinners and righteous persons, Lucifer and Jehovah. Closer to us the paragons of virtue made us believe that the history of our jolly old earth is summarized in a battle between the good and the bad guys: Superman and John Wayne on a side; Saddam Hussein, Milosevic and Fidel Castro or the French of the other.

But is Lie so obvious than that? Is Lucifer therefore so stupid, that he shows his face openly, in order to be more easily located? If it were the case, it would have been ages since the Force of Good would have won the battle against the forces of the Evil and since we would evolve in a harmonious world, without wars, without injustices, without suffering even without death because the evil everyone is against. The one who is well right in all that it is the homegrown great thinker when he writes: “ Man is neither angel nor beast but unhappily whoever wants to act the angel acts the beast.”

Let it be our measurement in this field is the Pascal in question.

Moreover, the criteria of morality change from one time to another. The Indians, who yesterday were the bad and the cruel savages in the westerns, are today praised to the skies because they were ecologists ahead of time and spiritualistic well before the French come a mile off with their Bible.

The reality it is well indeed that they were the victims of genocide, that they were driven from their lands, that they were killed and that their children were placed in Christian schools, where they lost the sense of their civilization, their roots and learned how to scorn the habits of their ancestors.

Here is well the Lie, which is disguised in Good, the cupidity, the malice and the cruelty which becomes civilization. Damned French! The Hindus, still them, found a marvelous word to define what slows down, delays or destroyed in a few seconds centuries of evolution: Asura. The Asura, the instrument of the Lie on earth, is the greatest of the actors and is able to take all the disguises, especially that of Good and Virtue.

Were not the biggest massacres in the History besides perpetrated under the pretext of bringing the civilization to “savages,” or in the name of the “true” God? We will never say sufficiently the terrible genocide of the Aztecs and Incas in the hands of the Spanish, or that of the Hindus by Muslims…

Most frightening of the lies is always that which assumes looks of truth; the true Evil, it is the very one which claims to do Good; because the true Lucifer often hides behind the look of an archangel. “ Man is neither angel nor beast but unhappily whoever wants to act the angel acts the beast.” The Evil, it is in us! It lies in our animal weakness. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. The evil comes from the look that we have on the world. To somewhat paraphrase the great Nazarene rabbi we could say: “The evil does not come from the fact that a woman is naked but from the look that we have at a naked woman” (Mark 7.21: For out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, murder, theft, coveting, wickedness, deceit, envy, slander, hubris, foolishness….).

The Hindus understood that perfectly: there is no Lucifer nor Beelzebub in Hinduism, no sin, no original transgression, no fall, and all this fuss of our Judeo-Christian education, which pursues us through life and makes us eternally guilty, even if we did nothing evil. No, for Hindus, all that helps you to progress is good; and all that delays you on the way is bad. Only the goal is important; and if your goal is right and in line with Good (dharma), the means do not matter since they do not harm others : “All the ways lead to God,” Upanishads say.

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Let us move quickly on from the definition of the negative forces symbolized by the Fomorians or Andernas in the Celtic spiritual world, and that describes to us with the name of Asura or Asuric force François Gautier, born in Paris in 1959, but living from now on in Auroville close to Pondicherry in India, since 1969.

Of course, the Fomorians or Andernas they are firstly Hitler or Stalin, who let us remind of it anyway, were admired for a long time - and it is for that reason they were able to do so much evil.

But the negative forces can also be embodied in a Chamberlain, who temporizes with Hitler under pretext of not radicalizing him, or even in a mahatma Gandhi, a “great soul,” whose exacerbated non-violence precipitated the partition of India and caused the death of million Indians.

The negative force of Fomorians or Andernas is not materialized only in individuals like Bricriu. That can be a force which makes crowds move, influences opinions, makes appearing high what is without depth, gives to the Lie an appearance of virtue.

The Fomorean force , such as the Bress of the Irish legends, can also make oneself insignificant, invisible. Bress smiles, he is nice; it is himself who gives the illusion of the politically correct, even if he is the embodied lie; it is him who prevents people from seeing, hearing and understanding when they have the truth before them. At least the women in the Irish legend (misogyny?)

The Fomorians or Andernas are archangels who fell from the top of the albiobitus in the non-world or andumno, which cut themselves off from their source of light. In Fact, there is nothing diabolic, there is no concept of sin nor even of Fall in this Hindu notion: the fomorians or andernas it is quite simply the forgotten Divinity, it is the transcendent which became immanent; the Gwenn ha du or oxymoron, the chiaroscuro, God who fights against himself in order to reach a greater perfection.

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FIR FLATHA AND FIR FLAITHEMON:

THE SUPERNATURAL POWER OF TRUTH.

THIS SAID IN ORDER TO ANSWER THE QUESTION OF PILATE.

And the Ape became an idiot or the Dawn of Mankind, said one day (in 1972) the Italian cartoonist François Cavanna. According to Yuval Noah Harari homo sapiens is indeed the only primate able to believe in things that don't exist and able to evoke even before having breakfast during his morning prayer 6 impossible things (Brief History of Humankind).

Ancient Celts and druids were also in this case of course but unfortunately, we don’t know the detail of the philosophical or ethical approach of the former druids about the concept of “Truth.” On the other hand, we hold the certainty of the major importance that they linked to it, through two islander testimonies, in addition to its laconic mention in the triad quoted by Diogenes Laertius.

The lie (gaua), same word that for “fraud,” is one of the two major evils (the other being ignorance).

The requirement of truth noted in the ethical code of the “velledae” in Ireland, in other words, the “fili,” members of the druidic sodality or order. N.B. Of course, this general rule suffers some exceptions, as we will see it in the history of morality by Albert Bayet.

WHAT IS TRUTH NOW ?

It is important to begin by giving of this word a satisfactory definition.

There is, on the one hand, reality, on the other hand, judgments which are consistent with this one; there does not exist a third thing which would be the truth itself. The truth is the characteristic that certain judgments take, and nothing more. Consequently, the truth is not a self-made data, it is built, it is the result of effort and research.

We uns high-knowers of the modern druidaction we call truth therefore the agreement of our judgments of perception or knowledge with reality.

And reality they are the perceptions which impose themselves on me and every aware person, being like me in a waking state and in a normal state.

We can say that truth is the assertion of what exists or the negation of what does not exist; therefore, finally, the agreement of our judgments with reality.

It will be objected that metaphysical and absolute reality is not accessible to knowledge. To what we can answer that most of our judgments in nothing concern metaphysical and absolute reality, but simply the various beings and phenomena which are, for us, objects of experiments, in other words, of perception.

An idea can be called false, in the sense that it matches nothing real nor possible (for example the concepts of chimeras, centaurs, etc.), or true in the sense that it corresponds to real things (for example the concepts man or bison; or lion would say Yuval Noah Harari). But it is only in the judgment expressing knowledge that the mistake or the truth themselves seem to be. There is a mistake only for the one who affirms the existence of the chimera or of the centaur, in the same way there is some truth only for the one who denies their existence, or who affirms for example that of the man even of the bison. Such a theory of the truth is based on the idea that this one is to be in adequacy, or correspondence, with a real state of things.

Let us remark nevertheless that among the Celts truth often went hand in hand with justice, the research of justice in that case being often reduced to the search for the truth.

And unlike the politicians of today for whom truth is only an option (like another), our ancestors attached a very great significance to this notion to which they attributed even almost magical virtues. Lies break the cup of Cormac but a word of truth resolders it.The belief in this magic power of truth gave rise not only to the legal ordeal of the cold water where the defendant was thrown entirely, but also to the legal ordeal of the ebullient water where he put only the hand. The test of the ebullient

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water is Indo-European, we find it not only among the Celts and the Germanic tribes, its existence was noted among the Slavs, the Persians and the Indians.

One of the oldest known examples is given by Gregory of Tours, in his book entitled: In gloria martyrum. In connection with a theological discussion between Catholics and Arians: two ecclesiastics, one Catholic, the other Arian, wanted to resort to the judgment of the boiling water or, as it was said in Ireland and in the Germanic world, of the cauldron. Let a cauldron be put on fire , says one of them, let a ring be thrown in the ebullient water, and let each one of us try to draw this ring from the cauldron.

This test is called, in various Latin texts aeneum caldaria. There is in Ireland a similar metaphor; the test of the boiling water is called fir caire, “truth of the cauldron.”

The defendant, against whom is carried out the seizure procedure, has a right to the longest times it is possible to require, when for another lawsuit he committed to undergo the test of the cauldron; literally, when he is Fir fora nascar fir caire, “a man upon whom the test of the cauldron is enjoined.”

The analogy that the Irish expression and the Germanic expression offer to us is one of the many characteristics common to the law of the Celts and to the law of the Germanic peoples. But this agreement between the legal languages of two close peoples is an additional detail, and the test in question here is based on doctrines which make us go back to the primitive period of the Indo-European unity.

The ebullient water in which the defendant plunges his hand saw the crime, it knows who is the culprit, it will answer the call that an incantation sent to it beforehand.

N.B. Those who later, called “Divine judgment” the test of the boiling water, believed in the justice of a single higher being having created the world etc.etc, and intended to find, in the result of the test, a manifestation of this justice as infallible as the previous one.

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TO TELL AND DO THE TRUTH.

As Albert Bayet noticed it in his History of Morality, the requirement of truth also implies the search for science and knowledge. If we want to tell the truth in the broadest sense, it is necessary to know about what you speak and to have a little studied the subject beforehand. There is nothing more harmful than all these opinion makers journalists or politicians or religious people who repeat as parrots the ideas that they received without knowing what it is going on exactly and to whom slogans or self-made ideas are used as reflection. Our dear Barack Obama is neither negro nor son of an immigrant, as opposed to what most French intellectuals (sic) repeated to one’s fill in 2008 (what a lack of depth in the analysis, what a superficial nature!); but a mulatto (a mixed race if you want) born in an American territory, from the (rather short besides) union of a white woman in Hawaii and of a black student from Kenya, come back in his country after he got his diploma; and who always wanted to be American first (the best proof, it is that he must take time to get the support of the American black community); without another reference to an unspecified communitarianism. What is disconcerting with the (French or other) partisans of the interbreeding, it is that they refuse to recognize its result when they have it in front of them. That predicts nothing good. In any case as for the depth of their reflection on the sense of the things of the life, what is dangerous.

In a world where troops of disciplined intellectuals and controlled media are used as secular priesthood by the powerful, to read Chomsky represents an act of self-defense. It can make it possible to avoid false obviousness and selective indignation of the dominant speech. Noam Chomsky considers besides that the intellectuals who keep quiet about what they know, who ignore the crimes which ridicule common morality, are even guiltier when the society in which they live is free and open. They can speak freely, but choose to do nothing about it….

Below how our friends of the druid network interpret the third proposal of the triad attributed to the Fenians by Cailte answering St. Patrick who questioned him on this subject.

After the proposal dealing with strength and that dealing with truth, this last proposal of the famous motto of the Fenians seems to deal with eloquence. A language can be an admirable thing and can be used to make your life and that of the others more pleasant. It is besides why the complete reign of the Globish on this planet can only result in an impoverishment of our true first language: precision finer points subtleties or idiomatic expressions disappear.

Let us note, moreover, that the twin functions of the fili (poet) are the praise and the satire. If somebody achieved an honorable act, the bard sings it. It is not some brown-nosing (sic, the word is from our friends of the druid network ). If this good deed is not mentioned , nobody else will hear of it, and nobody else therefore will be incited to do in the same way, the good will never be spread. Moreover, a person who receives praises for what he has done will be much more prone to act again in this way than the one who is constantly forgotten or ignored.

Conversely, a dishonoring act which passes unnoticed lets the others are unaware of the identity of one’s author and therefore still vulnerable to his abuses. Moreover, those who plan to do in the same way can feel encouraged in behaving so deplorably at will by escaping what they would deserve. The satire is also a way of doing the victim justice, the public recognition that what was done unto him was undeniably a disgrace. This achievement by the word therefore is not really using rare or precious words, but speaking (by praising what is good, by stigmatizing what is bad), having the audacity to ask questions or to express ideas. Silence was not golden among our ancestors!

The very random nature of every political standpoint imposes to druids, vates, veledae and gutuaters/gutumaters, a more pressing than that of the simple laymen professional discretion. They must never absolutize this kind of quarrels in connection with the management of the City (of the Pagus or of the Tribe-State) and keep on the contrary an acute sense of the relativity of the things in the world of the goddess Maïa (Medieval Latin Fata Morgana). The fact remains that the duties and the rights resulting from this educational function of the druidic magisterium also comprise the responsibility of reminding constantly to the powers that be and to the royal power, of the fundamental gessa or ada of Celtic ethology; even with regard to the social order, and to decide on the affairs of the City or Tribe-State (pagus); but only insofar as the salvation of the soul of the peoples or men requires it. The kings or the kingly power must also be subjected to the legitimate requirements of the ethical code and of the fundamental rules of the natural law (rectu adgenias). To lose one’s soul is the

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biggest of the misfortunes threatening Man. It is better to be poor and remain oneself, that to be rich with I do not know what while becoming another man. Was able to say St. Colman (see above) by withdrawing on Inishbofin. The authenticity, it is the only thing which is true! Sinn Fein it is said in Gaelic language! It is besides undoubtedly similar reasons which formerly presided over the foundation of the town of Lugdunum in France. “Situated nearby is a mountain called Lugdunon. It was renamed for a reason of this sort. Momorus and Atepomarus, expelled from the realm by Seseroneus, were intending, according to an injunction, to found a city on this crest. While the foundations were being dug, ravens, having appeared out of nowhere and fluttered about, filled the trees all around. And Momorus, experienced in augury, named the city Lugdunum” (according to the Pseudo-Plutarch. De Fluviis VI, 4).

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NOTES IN CONNECTION WITH THE DEONTOLOGY TO BE RESPECTED BY THE FOURTH ESTATE: JOURNALISTS AND OTHER PROFESSIONAL OPINION MAKERS THROUGH IMAGES.

“Those tribes-states which are considered to conduct their commonwealth more judiciously, have it ordained by their laws that (…..) because it has been discovered that inconsiderate and inexperienced men were often alarmed by false reports, and driven to some rash act, or else took hasty measures in affairs of the highest importance “ (B.G. VI, 20).

Reflections in connection with the weapons of mass destruction allegedly had by the Iraq of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The case of the mass graves of Timisoara in Romania, which precipitated the fall of the Romanian communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1989, yet exemplary in this field (a textbook case of the lack of critical mind or even simply intelligence and of herd behavior or even simply lack of courage, on the behalf of the Western journalistic class) has in no way be used as a lesson since it has never prevented the Western media from re-engaging periodically with the craziest propaganda instead to do their job THAT IS TO SAY TO INFORM BY SUBMITTING PROVEN FACTS TO THE REFLECTION OF THEIR AUDIENCE.

It will be necessary to wait for an article by Colette Braeckman published in the columns of a great Belgian daily newspaper on the evening of January 27, 1990, under the title “I saw nothing in Timisoara,” so that this sudden moment of folly gradually fell little by little.

Until then and for weeks, televisions around the world had looped images supposed to show thousands of naked mutilated corpses tortured and exhumed hastily from the mass graves of the police.

The French press particularly stood out in the coverage of this macabre staging by taking over the figure of 4630 victims hit by the Agency France Press from December 22, 1989. In France there is only being ridiculous which does not kill ( Nicolae Ceaușescu, who has a leukemia, would need to change his blood every month!)

The intelligence denies itself by being satisfied with good faith and sincerity. The human intelligence denies itself by not seeking beyond these subjective states of mind. There exists, certainly, many cases where the truth can be relative , but there also exist cases suffering no discussion and where a third solution is excluded. Such thing is true or false, but cannot be both at the same time.The problem, whole the problem, is that there can be several definitions of Truth. The best is perhaps indeed…THE MATCH OF INTELLIGENCE AND REALITY.

The truth does not as good in the world as its appearances does evil in it (La Rochefoucaud).

The ethical questions around the problem of truth take on a new dimension with the modern means of social communication. Those widen for each one the duty to get information, but they ask precise rules for the journalists of the written, spoken or televised; press, and particularly journalists of Christian obedience or (i.e., including those who make some Christianity without Christ).

The latter play a positive role to reveal truth, to inform men about the realities which relate to them, to make public practices prejudicial to the common good, to educate the citizens; but Christianity also being a religion of resentment and hatred (see all the works of the atheistic or secular modern free thought on this subject); their power can also be used to spread lie or to create passionate climates not very favorable to the dawn of the necessary truths. The Christians played and play still a considerable part in what was incontestably the greatest drama of all times, the coming to power in Russia in 1917 of the (non-tribal) democracy and of the real socialism (million victims). It is, on the other hand, rather strangely around the men having fought this Bolshevism in the name of Europe (in 1920, in 1940, in 1952, etc.) that the Christians followed the pack by unleashing their daily hatred (media lynching, etc.); in complete contradiction with the message of love and forgiveness of their Nazarene Master. They show thus that their message is a religion of the resentment well (once again, see on this subject the works of the modern free thought, Voltaire and even of Vauvenargues) and they contribute in this way to make easier all the later crimes, of the same kind but having another label (the self-genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge Communists in 1976, for example).

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The buada or gessa of the former druidism do not allow lies, except in some quite precise cases (tortured resistant like Gutuater, hostages to save, etc.). The press laws (defamation), the presumption of innocence, not counting the jurisprudence, form the main part of the texts which put journalists in front of their responsibilities.

Freedom makes the Man responsible for his voluntary acts. The exercise of freedom does not involve the right to say everything. The freedom of the ones stops where that of the others begins.

The man has a share of responsibility in the faults or the mistakes made by others when he cooperates there;

- by taking part in them directly and voluntarily;

- by ordering them, advising them, praising them or approving them (see the remarks of the French Secretary or foreign affairs concerning the “good job” done by the Al Nusra Front, Laurent Fabius therefore has there also still blood on his hands in this case);

- by not revealing them or by not preventing them;

- by protecting those which act thus.

Case of the dramatic war having devastated Syria starting from 2011 for example

A good intention ( to fight against chauvinism, the domination or contempt racism o…) makes neither God nor just a behavior itself at fault (like the lie or the calumny for example); and an added again bad intention (the desire to be fashionable , to do like the others, to be well considered, to be popular in certain circles, to increase one’s chances to be elected, and so on…) ; makes bad an act makes which, itself, could have been good.

We should not mix-up what is, with what should be (according to oneself).

Every man has the right to have his ideas on the ideal society and to spread them, even Avigdor Lieberman, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs in the State of Israel, but those who proclaim their objectivity, make objectivity a trade, do not have the moral right to present as what it is (already) … what it is not (yet)…. especially by proceeding in a hidden way. Or then it is necessary to prevent clearly that it is a fiction.

“Will it be possible one day in this country to criticize journalists? ” You may criticize all the professions, but not that one. Will it be possible to request one day from our friends journalists that they look into the training of their and into their selection, into this repetitive way, starting from a wire or from a fact, to amplify it ad infinitum? ”

What I reproach the media, it is their ovine herd instinct, a famous lawyer explained (in connection with the affair of the mass graves of Timisoara in Romania: thousands of dead according to the French press). When a false information, perfectly perceptible as such by every even average citizen intelligence, comes out, the whole of the media follows. More than the revelation of an information, which is the trade of journalists, the checking should be important ; there should be a yellow line between the investigation work of the journalist and the disinformation. Because in Timisoara there were in reality only a few tens of victims.

COMMENTARIES.

The unjust questioning, the untrue charges, the personal attacks against which you cannot answer, should not be able to be uttered, spread, repeated ad nauseam. There are words, caricatures, images, which have the power of a bullet.

From the druids in any event, such satires are even liable to immediate excommunication (see on this subject the edifying story of the druid Nede druid, who was severely punished after having, by an unjust satire, usurped the throne of his chief) or at the very least of an appearing before the bratuspantium (disciplinary committee of the Sodality).

The druids of today finally agree therefore fully with the President when he declares about certain journalists what follows. “All the explanations of the world will not justify that one could deliver to the hounds the honor of a man, and finally his life; at the cost of a double failure from his accusers against the fundamental laws, those which protect the dignity as well as the freedom, of each one among us. Do the emotion, the sadness, the pain, will issue the signal since which new ways of clashing while respecting each other, will give another sense to the political life? I wish it, I ask it.”

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The society certainly is entitled to information based on transparency, truth, freedom, justice, and solidarity; but the good exercise of this right requires that the communication is, as for its object, always veracious, and in this intention never truncated nor manipulated through a deliberate choice of such or such image (others being deliberately dismissed) of such or such comment, of such or such translation. To translate “repudiation” by “divorce,” or sharia by penal code, it is to misled, and voluntarily, our fellow citizens. Let us repeat it once again because repetere ars docendi, “Those tribes-states which are considered to conduct their commonwealth more judiciously, have it ordained by their laws that (…..) because it has been discovered that inconsiderate and inexperienced men were often alarmed by false reports, and driven to some rash act, or else took hasty measures in affairs of the highest importance “ (B.G. VI, 20).

Each one must therefore be eager to make for oneself an enlightened opinion in order to resist the less honest influences. The respect of the honor of others prohibits every attitude and every word likely to cause him an unjust damage. In that we agree completely with our President.

The public authorities too must therefore give in time and honestly the information which relates to the general good, or answer the legitimate concerns of their citizens. Fear is a natural and extremely useful feeling if it is not changed into panic. The fear, made it possible from time immemorial, and still makes it possible, to survive. To fear the occurrence of totalitarian, theocratic, intolerant, regimes; is for example a legitimate fear it is criminal to stigmatize stupidly. Moreover many of those who make fun with or denounce certain fears (when they are developed among the others) are themselves, and, extremely legitimately besides, driven by such fears, for example, facing possible increases of intolerance or new Fascism, not to say Nazism, around us.

Like signaled higher, the intelligence is the set of the mental faculties making it possible to understand the things and the facts, to discover the relations between them; the aptitude to connect elements which without it would remain separate.

The intelligent man is often the one who senses as a single process what his contemporaries see as independent phenomena. And conversely, who senses well as distinct some phenomena which are seen as forming a whole by the others.

Since we live no longer today in societies ruled by monarchs or great lords, but under the vergobreture regime, it is important to stress that with regard to our fellow citizens aspiring to an unspecified political office and therefore standing for our votes, two cases are to be carefully distinguished.

The case when this political woman, or man, puts ahead especially one’s personal qualities, one’s personality, one’s character, and attach less significance (pragmatism) to philosophy or sociopolitical theory, concepts, ideas, or to his vision of the world; while referring only to a program dealing with secondary elements.

The case when this political woman, or man, puts ahead especially a philosophy or sociopolitical theory; in short some concepts, some ideas, or a vision of the world, as well as a collective work, being able to result in a program on dealing with actions, in-depth, even radical, having important consequences in short, medium or long term and not relating only to secondary elements which can be equated with details.

In the first case, the citizen at the time of these elections can be determined only according to the personality of the candidate aspiring to one’s vote, therefore according to his qualities or faults, as an individual, a man, or a woman. And for this reason nothing more revealing than the behavior of the candidate in his professional or private life (greed or generosity, altruism, faithfulness, sincerity, or on the contrary dissimulation, cheating, lies, etc.).

In short it falls to each voter to see what is essential for him in order to supplement this short list which is not exhaustive, far from it…it falls to each voter to weigh the importance of alcohol or sex and so on… in the personality of a man, or a woman who stands for to his votes.

In the second case, it is important to point out some basic concepts.

There is slander when, without objectively valid reason, we reveal to people who are unaware of them the faults and the errors of others.

There is calumny when, by remarks contrary to the truth, one harms the honor of the others by giving matter to false judgments in their connection.

Slander and calumny destroy honor and reputation. However the honor is the social homage paid to human dignity, and each one enjoys a natural right to the honor of one’s name, to one’s reputation and to respect. When a fault or an error, due to our human weakness, disservices somebody who in any

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way deserved it; it is then necessary to do one’s best to compensate it (for example, to restore the reputation of the one who was wrongfully calumniated, to compensate for the wounds or the handicaps, to restore the stolen items …). Every fault with regard to justice and of truth requires from the media and the journalists a duty of compensation. The legitimate right to the communication of truth is not unconditional. Nobody is bound to reveal truth to whom is not entitled to know it.

Good, and safety of others, respect of the private life or of the public good, must keep quiet what should not be known, or make use discretion in its expression.

The professional confidentiality (doctors, soldiers, etc.) must be observed, apart from the cases, exceptional, when the holding back of this information could cause very serious damage, only avoidable by the disclosure of the truth.

We should not denounce only to tell the truth, the faults or the vices of others. Except if these faults or vices can represent a threat. We should not either lay false charges against somebody (some unjust satire); because these calumnies reach wrongfully and dishonestly their victim, what is very serious, even if we then endeavor to compensate, because there remains still something about.

From the druids such satires would even be liable to the Bratuspantium (disciplinary committee). See on this subject the edifying story of the druid Nede , who died after having, through an unjust satire, usurped the throne of his king.

All these practices make contentious the life in society.

The deontology of media and journalists therefore has still large progress to make for a true, respectful of the facts and of the persons, information, whether they were men of the left-wing, or of the right wing, or Nazi and Stalinist criminals.

The other (political, legal, economic) powers caused compensatory powers actin as counterbalance (judicial authorities, trade unions, etc.); the fourth estate, that of the media, have not other counterforce only the sense of responsibilities of each one. The media being able to manipulate as they want (see on this subject the works of Gustave Le Bon). It is so easy to choose or propose the design of the ideal society according to oneself, without saying it, in a hidden way, whereas objective or statistical reality is not yet in tune; by contrast to conceal or draw aside the cases or the images which do not tally in reality with one’s own ideas on the aforementioned ideal society, to even ridicule them.

That politically motivated scenario writers act in this way is completely normal, but the question is: is the world that the journalist gives us to see to be the real world or is it to reflect the ideal world, according to him?

The high-knowers of the druidiaction yesterday and today, have the right to state that they reject this or that when that directly touches their current field of competence which is spirituality; it goes without saying indeed that they have the absolute right like every simple citizen to morally disapprove the decisions made by the officials of the city (of the pagus or the Tribe-State); and that they have the right to cease supporting the media openly tackling the druidism and its values (for example by ceasing to write in their columns or by being no longer a part in their programs, except, of course, in order to denounce these attacks). What the druidicist must do in short, it is to get rid of the false opinions.

The lay persons, by their naming ceremony and their virolaxton (dubbing), are, however, also entitled to work in this sense, and therefore may be a part of this moral magistracy of druidism. Although by no means infallible, the druidicists must respect this moral duty but nevertheless it is to be a question in this case of an adhesion of the will, but also of the intelligence, and not of a blind submission to the diktats of the ones or of the others. Are mainly concerned by this moral magistracy with regard to the nations which are their: the vates, veledae or gutuaters/gutumaters, directly and concretely responsible for soul care.

This moral magistrature of druidism involves that all the possible and conceivable means are used. Education of young people, direct preaching, defense and illustration of druidism in schools or academies, through conferences or meetings in any kind; its spreading by public standpoint at the time of certain events, as by media and other instruments of social communication; adapted to the comprehension of the audiences or to the needs of the time; that the high-knowers of the druidiaction must absolutely use to clear up these errors. Because if truth on this Earth is always one; mistake, itself, is always multiple. By all the means, but without losing sight for as much of the genuine and

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proven facts of Celtic civilization. The demonstration of the druidic knowledge is always to be made starting from these elements, and not to be disembodied.

CONCLUSION.

Truth therefore is the higher value in the Indo-European world; the respect of truth is consequently the first of the common duties. It is more than a moral obligation… Directed sometimes towards oath (as true as…), sometimes towards ordeal (if it is true that…), sometimes towards action (since I have such truth…). All that is inextricably linked without man being able to distinguish what is primary: the practice of the “truth act” (Sanskrit satyakriya), affirmation of a truth which carries out the realization of a wish, is magic; but this affirmation of a truth refers generally to the achievement of a duty of one’s status (for example for a warrior, to his deeds. It has therefore a political base. In the Celtic world just like in the Aryan world, the truthfulness of the king is the primary condition of the success of his reign.We find many parallels to these statements in the Aryan world; particularly in Iran, where the Holy Immortal Arta (Truth), “sovereign good,” is the principle which characterizes the world of good, known as Arta-van: “righteous.”

At the other end of the Aryan world, the Celts drew even from that the idea of “magic power of truth,” by binding it to the notion of “prince’s truth” (Uirà Ulatii, from where Fir Flatha in Gaelic language) responsible for the happiness or misfortune of his people. On the level of rulers and of politicians, the truth indeed involved uprightness and justice. (Fir flaithemon), therefore harmony and prosperity. The concept of truth t was very important in the ancient druidism, and had almost a cosmic value comparable with the Aryan, Zoroastrian, or Indian, rta, rita, arta, or asha. What is true, it is what is in conformity with the order of the world.

“Truth in our heart.” Let us notice here the interesting perspective brought by linguistics, since sincerity was said COUIRIA or COUIRA, and Truth, UIRIONA, two words resulting from the same root UIR-; which generated thereafter the Gaelic words fir = truth, fior = true, Welsh gwir = truth, gwir and cywir = true, Breton gwir and gwirionez = truth, gwir and gwirion = true.

Here below the commentaries of our friends of the druid network concerning the druidic duty to do and tell the truth.

An old Irish saying reminds of three candles illuminating every darkness: truth, nature, knowledge.

And the second proposal for this famous maxim attributed to Fenians by Cailte in his answer to St. Patrick questioning him on this subject, the truth in our hearts is taken over by other Celtic mottos emphasizing the importance of truth. Does not a Welsh druidic maxim speak about “the truth against the world” (Ygwir yn erbyn bid) standing in support of what you can be true, even if everyone thinks that you are wrong.

Good! OK! But everyone knows that all the truths are not good to be told, at least that it is necessary to respect conventions. And the moral dilemmas in this field are old as the hills. Do we have for example to tell to a patient that he is terminally ill? Do we have to tell the truth to an enemy who is no longer in open war against us? A vast issue dealt many times by the Muslim casuistry (taqiyya). We will return on it.

Truth in the heart thus suggests perhaps that it is more important to know the truth, that to proclaim it. The truth must not to be used in order to wound, if it is dealt without care. If somebody asks “Do I look fat in this dress,” and that it is answered her that she looks like a beached big whale , that may be true, but it is unnecessarily cruel. An answer like "I don't think it looks good on you" is enough. Truth can be expressed diplomatically. The druids played often also the role of ambassadors, and therefore were also used to convey certain truths in a sufficient diplomatic way not to cause too many hostile or negative aggressive reactions.

On the level of the simple toutiois (citizen), truth had also, of course, a great importance. The truth as a straightness of the saying has as a name veracity, sincerity, or frankness. That consists in not lying and in telling the truth in one’s words. Sincerity consequently is another factor , itself also essential, of the social harmony.

The human relations are based on confidence, and confidence is not possible without truth. We must therefore tell the truth. We can, certainly by doing that, to be mistaken, but such mistakes are not lies.

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This challenge of the truth in the human relations is particularly delicate. As the former druidism had seen it already very well, it brings into play a relation with truth, but also a relation with justice and with the friendship regulating the relationship.

The lie (because it is a violation of the veracity) is violence committed against others. The lie presages the division of the minds and the evils that it causes. It is disastrous for a society . It saps the confidence between men and tears off the fabric of the social relations. But this veracity must observe a happy medium between what must be expressed and the secret which must be kept. It implies the discretion in certain cases. The golden rule is to know to distinguish, in the concrete situations, if it is or not advisable to reveal the truth to whom requires it.

The gessa of the former druidism do not allow a lie, we said. But they do not oblige necessarily to tell as much all truth. Every s not inevitably good to be said. The former druidism had already sensed the problem besides.

Those tribes-states which are considered to conduct their commonwealth more judiciously, had noticed Caesar (VI,20) have it ordained by their laws, that, if any person has heard by rumor and report from his neighbors anything concerning the commonwealth, he shall convey it to the magistrate, and not impart it to any other; because it has been discovered that inconsiderate and inexperienced men were often alarmed by false reports, and driven to some rash act, or else took hasty measures in affairs of the highest importance. The magistrates conceal those things which require to be kept unknown and they disclose to the people whatever they determine to be expedient, etc.

We may therefore in certain cases when there is an individual or collective, danger of death, to conceal the truth. Certain druidic Schools pointed out besides that always to tell the truth whatever happens is a not easily bearable position in certain cases, and even very risky. Transposed today that give us besides the following problems.

Does the resistant patriot arrested then tortured by the army rabble of a dictator or by an army of occupation must to speak by revealing where his companions are hidden? Do we must say to a patient that he has only a few days to live? Is the accidental witness of a marital infidelity really doing good by going at once to tell everywhere what he saw by chance, without being asked on the subject?

There are indeed truths which kill, dangerous truths. An industrialist sometimes has the right to hide the difficult situation of his company. A secretary of the treasury, not only is not obliged to announce a decided devaluation, but on the contrary, must do everything to hide it, under the penalty of giving free rein to speculations ruinous for the public good.

These various situations are, however, only allowed. A defense lawyer for example must always do and tell the truth, except if it is to save the head of his client when this lawyer is personally against the death penalty. Is the lie acceptable in other cases?? In the touching story of Camma, we see a virtuous woman pretending to accept as husband the murderer of his first spouse and to poison him at the last time. Her pretense is obviously approved, is considered as a heroic deed (she avenges her husband).

The druidiction therefore turns a blind eye to :

- Ambiguity (argute loqui according to Cato).

- Silence (it is better to keep quiet than to lay it on a bit thick or to slander).

- The secrecy (the fact of not speaking, of hiding a truth, by refusing to reveal it, even under torture).

- The mental reservation.

The druidic ethology is consequently a toned morality which, while condemning the attack against truth, esteems that there is lie and lie and that this general rule can suffer some exceptions if the end justifies the means of them.

And if we can speak about a legitimate right to the truth, it is in the condition of adding that it is not unconditional, and that the truth in practice falls within the human relations. We should not hide the truth to whom is entitled to know it. On the other hand, an entrusted secret must be kept.

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BUAID No. 11.

SENSE OF JUSTICE (cert).

Uprightness or rectitude (Rectos or Coviros but coviros refers to the notion of truth).

A quick dive in the Celtic philology shows us that the ideas of Truth, Sincerity, Exactness, Relevance, Justice and Law , are expressed by words concerned falling under the same root; what highlights a mental association of these ideas, more marked among Celts than in the other Indo-European languages; more or less limiting the use of the derivatives of the I.E *weros to the only notion of “true.”

We can classify the elementary structures in two groups: binary reciprocity and ternary reciprocity. By ternary it is understood a relation where man acts on a partner and where he undergoes from another partner. The chain is therefore uninterrupted, and is closed either in a network or in a circle. It can be linear, or, when only one partner is used as the intermediary for all the others, in star shape: it is said centralized.

This form of reciprocity, the centralized or star-shaped reciprocity, having been very important in the Celtic society considering the role of the kings (or of the vergobrets) within it, let us start by saying some words about it.

The generic term to designate this virtue in old Irish is indracus, modern Irish ionracas, from “indraic” (modern “ionraic”). What generally designates somebody or something whose integrity was never put in question. The word racus undoubtedly goes back to the Indo-European root reg.-rag. The original meaning was that of straight, correct, or well arranged. In later Irish the verbs “cneasta” (old Irish “cnesta” “cured, come back to one’s initial form”) and “macánta” (“to behave as the son or the child of somebody”) are also often used to mean this notion. The idea therefore is that of ingenuousness,frankness, and friendship in one’s relations with others. The Welsh language uses the word “didwyll” (“without trickery”) Breton “reizh” (“right, just”) to mean “upright ,” though both also borrowed the word “onest” from French.

To pass laws does not seem to be a part of the kingly privileges or duties in Celtic land, the law being only a jurisprudence, in the hands of specialized druids, moreover. In the case of emergency, the king could nevertheless pass ordinances (rechtgae). His role, on the other hand, was to do justice. The justice that the kingly power must do was called fír flaithemon in Ireland.

This obligation is one of those we find more in the epic texts. The powers that be have to be the guarantors of law and justice, particularly with respect to the women, as Gawain reminds of it to Greoreas: “Maidens are protected in King Arthur land. The king has given them safe conduct, and watches over and protects them.”

The king represents therefore this social cohesion by having become, after his enthronement , at the same time the descendant of the great ancestors and the “father” of all the inhabitants. The sacrifice of the royal bulls regularly reaffirms this principle.

The “royal” value is a higher value, including, and which constantly affirms that the totality is not an addition, a juxtaposition of similar or symmetrical unit elements, but the symbolic gathering of the opposites; that, in addition, this level is always higher than the states where these opposites are sensed separately. Here the principle of union overrides the principle of opposition. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, there is synergy.

The kingship in this case is the expression of the unity of a totality of forces which, elsewhere, are separate. It joins together in one hand the power of revenge and the power of alliance. Thanks to it, the symbol of humanity will be able to be interpreted simultaneously in the imaginary one of revenge and the imaginary one of alliance.

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The kingship joins together the power of revenge and the power of forgiveness. The king holds in his hand the values of the positive reciprocity since he is the redistributor of all the tangible and spiritual properties; but also the values of the negative reciprocity: the decision of revenge or of war.

When the authority of the king is treated on a hierarchical basis, it is continuously delegated from the center of the community towards the periphery while weakening gradually to disappear in limits of the community. It is expressed either by the relationship or by the symbolic wealth. In this case, it is noted that the same symbol, often some cattle, is worth at the same time for the relations of positive reciprocity or the relations of negative reciprocity. This equivalence is not due to an unspecified law of exchange, but to the principle of union which imposes a single reference for antithetic operations. From where probably the equivalence between what is called the blood price and the bride price.

In Brahmanic India, Charles Malamoud observes: “The king, in addition, is sure to be in agreement with the dharma only if he has the opinions and the guarantee of Brahmans advisers. To tell the truth, when he acts under the inspiration of the Brahmans, the king is like the incarnation of the dharma.” And finally: “Frequent, almost mechanical, analogy, in the India of the former Brahmanism: every a little complex, human or divine activity, on condition that being directed towards a goal compatible with the dharma or a form of dharma, is readily analyzed as a sacrifice…”

These short quotations suggest that the king is the executive of the principle of union and of the religious power of the priests, of a power resulting from the sacrifice. His own life is equated with a long sacrifice, but he is also the judge with respect to whoever does not regulate his life on the observance of the generating dharma practices is the ethical power common to all the members of the community. The king is the man who implements or makes implemented the religious word, the Veda, legal codes , practical shaping of ethic, following the piece of advice or on the dictation of the Council of Brahmans. The king is consubstantially dharma when he obeys the Brahmans. The domination of the principle of union is here overwhelming ; but as soon as the king respects no longer his obligations, it is then the return to the clannish rules of the reciprocity according to the principle of opposition; as the long more or less mythical legend that Malamoud reports ( a never-ending story of offenses and revenges between two clans) indicates it…..

“The Celts readily take the cause of the one who is oppressed into their own hands. They indeed have at the higher degree the feeling of equity, of law and honor. They can suffer that somebody breaks his sworn word. The reputation of justice of some of their tribes, as the Volcae Tectosages who lived beyond the Rhine, went far. The Greeks transmitted to us the praise of one of their kings in the area of Constantinopolis: Cavarus, of Tylis” (Albert Grenier).

“She is a lucky woman that is a respectable man's wife ! ” We thus translate the Gaelic expression is maith ben ben to dagfir which is voluntarily perhaps, vague, even which means nothing, which is borderline pleonasm or tautology and which would be therefore perfectly in its place in the speeches of our time. In the consensual genre indeed nobody does better. The evil everyone is against. The only problem it is that we do not have the same definition of what the evil is (the proof they are the psychopaths, those who equate the State the Nation or the Country with their person, their own precious self often, etc.). In old Celtic in any event dagos has no moral connotation but refers rather to the notion of skill like in the case of the Irish god Dagda.

The evaluation of justice with full knowledge of the facts requires two considerations: who is affected and what is affected ?

Judeo-Christians and atheists annotated much on the deeply immoral or amoral nature of the druidic paganism. The specialists in the study of the religions like Judaism Hinduism Christianity Zoroastrianism or Islam….deduced from it that these gods or goddesses were ambivalent, at the same time angels and demons. In every case beyond the simplistic and silly Manicheism opposing the good to the evil.

The fact remains that we have at least in this field an example of druidic God more susceptible to the thoughts as to the actions than to the commercial value of their sacrifices or offerings, of the faithful of his worship, it is the god Grannus in the temple of Grand (Upper Germania, or Belgium, for the Romans).

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Grannus was the moral or ethical god (let us say the god of the moral beauty, of the beauty of the gesture) by definition because according to Cassius Dio (Book LXXVIII chapter XV)

speaking about the Roman Emperor Caracalla...

We know the famous Greek distinction between distributive justice and commutative justice.

It is obvious indeed that we should not give to a manual worker the same thing to eat as to a three-month-old infant. For the latter some milk, with bottle-feeding or breast-feeding, for the other bread wine or beer and sausage (distributive justice). It is therefore necessary to take into account the situations of the ones or of the others.

Commutative justice, on the other hand, ignores the differences between individuals and grants to each one the same things.

If a wound was inflicted, the victim was for example, in their eyes, entitled to ask for compensations. But commutative justice nowadays, in the leveling societies like ours, is especially claimed as regards political or civic rights. The men are born and remain unequal bodily speaking but equal….In rights *. AND IN DUTIES!

The former druids who were inveterate lawyers practiced instinctively like Cavarus one and the other of these designs of justice. Especially as regards compensation of the undergone damage since prison and death penalty were in fact unfamiliar to them.

As regards Celtic law, the rules of the hearing of the affairs falling under the procedure, we will consider here only the “who is affected? ”: the personalization.

Personalization, it is the taking into account of a certain right to be different, in so far as it does not injure others; it is therefore to consider possibly mitigating circumstances of social or psychic order when it is necessary to examine some offense.

But this relates especially to the NEGATIVE side, the potentially “repressive” aspect of the notion of justice. However it is to nobody to be oneself judge or jurist. With the exception of the magistrates specialized in this field. On the other hand, it is an individual duty for each one to be just.

To be just: such is the fundamental ethical requirement: it is there the POSITIVE side of the sense of justice and this one combines the two notions of Truth but also of Responsability therefore of Solidarity (distributive or commutative justice). What is not always easy, undoubtedly, because it is what is most missing in the jungle of the life in society with the system of the generalized resourcefulness or of the every man for himself (moreover preached by some Pseudo-Nietzschean or Pseudo-liberal Republicans, nowadays).

The requirement of Justice therefore came before “Charity” (caro). Logical, because more a society will be just and interdependent, less it will need charitable compensation.

* And once again let us repeat it, contrary to the current media-political delirium about the notion of equality (a Procrustean bed), that about what the Parisian revolutionists in 1789 spoke really is imagined (well) only in opposition to the privileges of the nobility of then. It is important to remind of it.

THE DIVINE ACTION OF THE FATE THROUGH THE SECONDARY CAUSATIONS THAT ARE THE ELEMENTS.

Intud i ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur : It is a strengthening of paganism if an evil deed be avenged - Senchus Mor, I, page 9, and as Queen Boadicea said it personally: “The gods almost always side with those who have been wronged.”

The political and religious designs of the peoples are interdependent.

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One of the oldest words for “Just” and “relevance,” in Irish language, in addition to that of “fir,” is perhaps “cóir” (formerly “coair,” which comes from an old Celtic “Co-uero” - “in conformity with truth.” Cf the transparent Welsh word “cywir,” which means correct in modern Welsh). As usual, we find there again the fundamental druidic notion of Truth, of in conformity with the cosmic order that men must respect. Other Celtic terms, the Welsh “cyfiawnder,” from “cyfiawn” “just” (literally “what is appropriate”), Breton “reizh” (from old Celtic “rextion”: “what is regulated, ordered”).

Those who later, called “divine judgment” various legal duels believed in the justice of a unique higher being having created the world etc.etc, and intended to find, in the result of these duels a manifestation of this as infallible and very powerful as indirect, justice.

The ancient druids were not unaware of this idea but they also believed that the elements could contribute to this divine justice.

For the primordial druids, the forces of nature are not changed , like already most of time in the Homeric Greece, into human shaped characters who have the ideas and passions of men; for example, Zeus, the sky; Poseidon, the sea; Hades , the ground. In the primordial druidic belief (of the time), each component of the material world that we see is still a mysterious being which hears our invocations and which sees our acts, it is from them that as of this life, when their intervention was caused, we receive the punishment deserved by those who do not observe their commitments. The Celtic oath indeed transports us in a background quite different from the Christian background, even previous to that of the epic Greece where, in the oath, people called upon the divine couple which, in the hell, punishes the perjury. In the primitive time, to which one of the formulas of the Celtic oath makes us go back, there are three powers that the man fears especially; they are sky, ground and water. But water is not only in the sea, it runs in the rivers; we can also put it on fire in a cauldron. N.B. Water has the same powerful abilities, without distinction between sea water river water and water contained in a cauldron.

This design of the poetic justice which is the expression of the naturalist ideas of the druids on the subject is found in the Irish documents quoted above and which mentions….:

1° Events which have, it is said, justified the establishment of the tax known as the Boroma.

2° Later facts which were the consequence of the collecting of this tax due to the high kings of Ireland by the inhabitants of the Leinster (the Boroma Laigen).

Synopsis of the story.

Loegaire, the king of the kings in Ireland, contemporary of St. Patrick, in the fifth century of our era, commits to no longer demand the Boroma. He gives as guarantors of his word all the elements: sun and moon, water and air,day and night, sea and earth. But he breaks this oath and undergoes the disastrous consequences of that: the earth absorbs him, the sun burns him, the wind refuses its air to him. The perjury of the king Loegaire was therefore thus put to death.

The legendary text which reports to us these wonders does not explain them yet by the divine justice, of which the concept had not entered yet the secular literature of Ireland when this account was written for the first time. It presents the punishment of Loegaire as the result of the direct action of the forces of nature upon which the perjurer king had called by a solemnly sworn oath first, then finally broken.

The sun, called to witness by Loegaire, burns him when the oath is broken. It is that the sun heard the oath and saw the breaking of it. It is one of the visible elements of this world, to the revenge of whom, in Ireland, in the fifth century, the pagan king Loegaire subjected himself in advance for the case when he would break his oath. Ground, wind, water, are neither deafer nor blinder than the sun. When the one who concludes a contract ask them to recognize it, they hear his voice, and, if the contract is not carried out, they inflict the punishment which is in their attributions; it is for this reason that the ground absorbed Loegaire, for this reason that the wind refused to him the air necessary to his breathing.

In the fourth century of our era, among the bordering Rhine Celts, when a husband doubted the fidelity of his wife, he put the newborn child on a shield and posed the shield on the river; if the river

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absorbed the frail skiff, the child was convicted of illegitimacy and the mother of adultery; the Rhine, people thought, had seen this adultery and he had heard the call on his justice from the offended husband.

The emperor Julian speaks about this use in a letter to the philosopher Maximus. In his second speech to the emperor Constantius, he comes back even to this habit.

The Celtic use about which Julian speaks provided besides the subject of an anonymous piece of poetry collected in the Greek anthology.

These three texts agree to note that in the eyes of the Celts the Rhine was a without appeal judge; among them existed therefore the notion of a higher power (Tocad, or Tocade in the feminine) of which the river, by a kind of supernatural manifestation, expressed the decision.

The last of these documents is categorical on another point, on which it agrees with the oath formula : “ May the overflowing sea submerge us. ” The Rhine gave the verdict by submerging, the acquittal by making the child float.

It is more than probable that in 336 before our era, the Celts used an oath formula that we will still find in Ireland in the Middle Ages. In 336 before our era, Celtic ambassadors (therefore some druids according to Christian J. Guyonvarc'h) came to meet Alexander the Great, then in the beginning of his reign. They forged an alliance with him. They confirmed the treaty by the following oath: “If we do not observe our commitments,” they said, “may the sky by falling on our heads crush us, may the ground by opening itself under our feet absorb us; may the sea by overflowing submerge us.”

From two texts of Greek authors contemporary of Alexander the great , we must conclude that this expression was indeed used by the Celts at the date that we indicate, namely - 336.

After having made the ambassadors drink, Alexander asked them: “What do you fear more? ”

Instead of answering him: “It is you” as doubtlessly Alexander expected it, the Celts, after having consulted , answered:

We fear nobody; we fear only one thing, it is that the sky falls on us.”

This answer was preserved to us among the remaining fragments of a book written by one of the most famous lieutenants of Alexander, Ptolemaeus, died king of Egypt in -283.

Alexander regarded the answer of the Celts as a bragging. His teacher, Aristotle, saw the thing differently since he noticed that the Celts feared neither the earthquakes nor the floods.Therefore they are all raving mad or insensitive to the pain. Such was the way of seeing the things of Aristotle, died in -322, namely fourteen years after Alexander’s interview with the Celtic ambassadors.

Completely idiotic, of course!

In the former primitive societies, people were unaware of the notion of a State sentencing to death and making the murderer of a citizen executed , or forcing the robber to restore the product of his larceny; they did not have either the notion of a god, either punishing in another life the man who in this world made himself guilty of a crime against his fellow being, or rewarding in another life the man righteous and charitable towards his fellow being.

Many Celtic legends show us nevertheless some traitors punished by the fate and ending very badly. They are illustrations of the eminently pagan concept of “poetic” justice. The traitor will not have been able to enjoy one moment the badly got good. As St. Patrick himself admitted it in the preface of the Senchus Mor, there is always strengthening of paganism, i.e., of the faith in gods, when an evil deed is punished or avenged (Intud I ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur).

The primitive gods (of before even former druidism) were indifferent to justice or to injustice of the human acts we already said. Such was the basic notion of the primitive religion of before the druidic Reformation having taken place somewhere in Central Europe 1000 or 2000 years before our era.

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But the former druids nevertheless found a way of thinking positive in this field . The gods are certainly indifferent to the justice or the injustice of the human acts but not to their honor. Or to their word or to their reputation.

The former druids therefore imagined that the men could place their contracts under the protection of such or such god.

The one who, after having recognized a contract by the oath does not carry out this contract, insults in turn the gods who will be avenged, not out of love for justice, but out of respect for their own dignity.

This design of the divine justice or of the role of the gods is the expression of an intermediate state of mind between the primitive theological design and the Egyptian design, which is that of the Christians: the oath is a process thanks to it we force the gods to leave their natural indifference for the human things and to become the defenders of the law.

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REMINDER ABOUT THE TRIPLE PATH OF DRUIDISM.

THE REDA.

“To understand the gods, to do nothing evil and to be a man, a true one” (Diogenes Laertius. Lives and doctrines of the famous philosophers. Book I, Prolog 6). “To do nothing evil…” Therefore to do nothing inappropriate against the previous positive ethical code: fidelity (dilestos), generosity (techtae), hospitality (briugas), uprightness (rectos), truth (firinne), justice (coviros). To do nothing which causes wrong to others unduly.

REMARKS INTENDED FOR THE COMBENNONES.

“ Druids deny that souls can die

[Driadae negant interire animas]

OR GO TO HELL

[aut contagione inferorum adfici] and

“They do not say that the manes exist “

[manes esse, non dicunt ]-

Adnotationes ad versum Lucani I, 454.

And since hell does not exist, it is well necessary that the soul/minds of our combenonnes go somewhere in the visible or invisible, universe, after death. It is a relentless metaphysical law, one of the constants of our universe as long as the latter lives by its long life (setlocenia).

Salvation cannot therefore , by definition, since Hell doesn’t exist, be reserved to some rare ascetics of the kinges type, or to a minority of druidicistic ategnati, but is to be also be accessible to all human beings. The way leading to the castle of the Grail is open to everybody. To finally get down with it is only a question of time.

The former druids never claimed besides that it was necessary to follow the heroic and ascetic path of the Fenians or that of the druidicistic ategnati of the awenyddion type (kission); to reach the blossoming of one’s soul (moksha in Hinduism); to be able to contemplate the Grail (renamed Kronos by Plutarch) in a way face to face, in its mysterious island of Avalon.

Absorbed that it is by the “struggle for survival,” the people of ordinary men indeed do not have this possibility. But the great cosmic law of universal balance, the fluid or tthe communicating vessels dynamics on the cosmic level (Tocade), makes that they can find another exit, and as happy, for their peregrination on this earth, since hell does not exist. It is the Shinjin principle of the Japanese druid Shinran)

This is why they can also find their salvation in the simple ethical gessa of druidism (reda), in other words, in the non-accumulation of bran, possible cause of ategeneto. How could it be different ?

If everybody became a vercinget or kinges, the society would be seriously disturbed (see the famous prophecy of the Morrigan on this subject).

The great law of the universal balance and of the communicating vessels on the cosmic level (Tocad) makes that for the

Common people of the combennones or broges is enough the fact of preparing for oneself better conditions for the final reintegration in the universal cosmic cauldron; after provisional reincarnation in the Vindomagos called Tir na nOg, Tir na mBan, Mag Meld and so on, according to the peoples and the times.

In this other world, they will thus enjoy thousands years of pleasure and divine power, before merging in the Big Whole.

Path of good deeds or path of works (of the daily and concrete action); such could be the name of this 3rd ford . This path, the ancient druids called it perhaps also Deivosentio, at the same time “luminous way” (divosentio) and “ divine path” (devosentio), by reference to its ultimate goal, its direction, its orientation. Even sentio in short.

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Such a druidiaction too, results from the path of the sacrifice or of the ritual acts, of the druidicist ategnati (and even of the vercingets or kinges), but in a much simpler way. Or more exactly, the Hesus Cuchulainn having fully played his role, was also associated with the path of the sacrifice and of the ritual exercises, another dimension, that of the ethical action, in order to make easier for the combennones the access to the world of the gods.

Said in the form of an ada and not in the form of a geis: “Be a good brogis (a good brewry or briugu), discharges your duties of third function without selfishness and by paying attention not to accumulate too much bran (too much bad potential of ategeneto)” and you will rise into the higher rank of the sacredness (nemet).

Editor’s note. To become a briugu was indeed a means of rising in the social ladder and of joining the ranks of the nobility in the former Ireland. Cf. Kelly, a guide to early Irish law.

Here what is still always easier said than done, of course, and they are not the Bricriu of every species who miss diverting each one from the straight and narrow.

To observe the basic gessa of the reda (to be courageous, to revere the gods, not to lie, to do nothing base, etc.) is enough for the men of the combennones or broges type to secure the salvation of their soul/mind.

This path claims neither external emigration, except in the event of need, nor internal emigration. No escape out of the nervousness of the world and no sidelining away from the society.

It is only in some well-defined cases that the druidicist sometimes felt a divine call inviting them to follow a particularly monastic way, like Merlin. But the ideal of the druids of today is not, more than yesterday, the unmarried monk. The single people among the druids are simply those who did not find the soul mate yet. The ascetics themselves who are the vercingets or kinges, were often fathers.

To like good food is legitimate. It is normal to know to appreciate the gifts of nature, only excess or abuse is poisons. (Drugs and alcoholism can lead to a horrible decline, as all what is excessive and inharmonious!)

The humanity of Cuchulainn is all what there is more authentic and it is not pretended as in Christianity. As Queen Medb says it very well about him, he has only one body, he is wound prone and can be made a prisoner. I n-óenchurp atá. Imgeib guin immoamgeib gabáil.

The best route marked out by Hesus Setanta Cuchulainn, the divodurum, is therefore in reality for us a way of the happy medium between the extremes of the sensuality or of the worship of suffering, between hedonism and masochism.

Many erroneous things were written on this idea of cert or justice among druids. Yes, of course, forgiveness is to be advised, but after compensation only, and not before (atescalto/wergild). Besides we should not mix up forgiveness and renouncement to justice, forgiveness and weakness. Forgiveness should not mean renouncement a priori to any response in the event of self-defense. Forgiveness should not be unbounded.

The position of Christianity on the matter is besides incomprehensible; because if our information is good, the rabbi Yehoshua Bar Yosef himself did not turn the other cheek when a man struck him in the court at the time of the Jewish phase of his ignoble lawsuit; he did not do himself what he advised to the others (to turn the other cheek) so then…

It is a strengthening of paganism if an evil deed be avenged ( St. Patrick. Senchus Mor. I. p. 9).

The gods almost always side with those who have been wronged (Boadicea. Queen of the Iceni. Year 61 of our era. According to Cassius Dio LXII , 11).

The ethical sense of our ancestors was more demanding than that of our modern Christians, of left wing or of elsewhere; who exonerate themselves a little too easily and as almost in advance from every fault or every personal liability, with their notion of Evil external to man, because coming from Satan or from the Devil.

Saul of Tarsus himself wrote to Romans: “The good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.”

In other words: “It is not my fault!!! ” Too easy!

The Catholic will confess himself, sick with hell’s fear, repents, “sincerely” of course, considering his fear of hell, and leaves absolved from all, in short, ready to start again!

Too easy such a lack of responsibility! The sense of personal, individual and portable, responsibilities, here is what distinguishes a true pagan from a monolatrous person.

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Except with regard to the others obviously, because so then, there, the democrat, republican or loyal towards their sovereign [of from the left, from the center, from the right , or from elsewhere] Christians, are unbeatable! No one better than them can underline or point out the responsibility of the others in what is not well. The Catholic religion is severe only seemingly. In fact, it forgives all… provided that you call upon his professionals. You see immediately to whom can be profitable such a system (of indulgence), which makes essential this very particular priestly function. But to confess never compensated something.

The man who has a really demanding ethical code should not be able to exonerate himself like that, without having compensate. It would be too easy!

Druidic ethic is higher than that of Christianity, because in addition to its extreme clearness (which is by no means absence of any requirement, but simply realism and indulgence towards the human weaknesses); it takes into account also the whole nature, plants and animals comprised. The blind exploitation of other forms of life by mankind can cause disasters.

Conclusion: “To understand gods, to do nothing evil and to be a man, a true one” (Diogenes Laertius. Lives and opinions of eminent philosophers. Book I, prologue 6). “To do nothing evil ” therefore to do nothing inappropriate against this positive ethical code, to do nothing which causes wrong to others unduly.

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BUAID No. 12.

FREEDOM.

What is really free in this low world since it is itself which conditions our freedom, it is the Tocade or Fate, developed on the cosmic, collective or individual, level.

To say of human freedom that it is only absence of obstacles put by others does not mean on behalf of the druids to dispute or deny its reality, but only to relativize it, because we cannot say of it neither that it does not exist, it only stops where that of the others begins.

Although freedom in the meaning where we understand it now was not a particularly obvious concern of the organizers of the former Celtic society, it appears nevertheless to have taken two particularly sought after, aspects:

- The autonomy or mental sovereignty of the elite individual having known to get his own control.

- The freedom of the community (touta), become after settling a soil (peion, Latin pagus) and by gathering of soils, a tribe-state, facing every foreign domination.

Let us begin by dealing with its opposite, slavery. Because just as in the reflections of the Revolution of 1789, the equality of rights is defined in opposition to its contrary, the existence of privileges (for nobility) * freedom in the ancient Celtic society is conceived only by opposition to its opposite.

The ancient druidism, just like Judaism Christianity and Islam, never forbade or prohibited slavery. Just like you could thus be Christian or Muslim and have slaves * you could very well be a druidicist and to have slaves. The ancient druidism required simply that you treat well or at the very least in a human way, these unfortunate persons.

Two great differences distinguished nevertheless the slavery practiced by the Celts and the slavery practiced in the other societies of the ancient world.

The economy of the Celtic societies was not as much based as among the Greeks or Romans, on slavery.

The slaves were most of the time defeated warriors or families of defeated peoples. And as there were not always many men surviving these battles (much preferring death to slavery precisely), there were clearly fewer slaves among the Celts than among the Greeks or Romans, and their status was connected rather with that of the prisoners. In his book about the roots of Europe, Michel Rouche admits himself that in Ireland for example the slaves appear absent due to scarcity of the prisoners of war.

Thirdly, finally. Nothing proves that the status of the slave was handed down to the children, what was undoubtedly the case among the Greeks and Romans, on the other hand.

Therefore on this point what occurred in the former druidism was somewhat comparable with what occurred in the Old Testament: few prisoners (because many massacres ordered by God in this case) and a slave status limited in time (maximum seven years) for the nationals in the case of the ancient spiritual ancestor of Judaism).

Our religion being only a religion of truth, some truths precisely on slavery, now.

The tall fair or russet-red ones with blue eyes were a long time the preferred game of the traffickers of slaves in the ancient world.

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Christian white similarly in North Africa starting from 1500 (more than one million?? Around 1675 in any case the Christian slaves formed the quarter of the population in Algiers).

The principal writer of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson, had slaves (for example Sally Hemings).

The American Civil War was not started in order to abolish slavery (the Republican party was opposed to the expansion of slavery but not to slavery in itself) and Lincoln abolished slavery only on January 1, 1863, for the States secessionists in the South (it was a means of weakening them) but on January 31, 1865, only, for the whole of the Union (therefore including the States in North).The ratification, requiring the adhesion of the three quarters of the states, was got a few months later and on December 18, 1865, this 13th amendment was therefore promulgated.

What is certain is that the Confederates seceded in the name of their right to self-determination, to protest against the election of the republican Abraham Lincoln and that conversely the initial objective of the Northerners was the keeping of the territorial unity of the country.

Slavery also remained very long time legal in north in the name of the “ fugitive slaves Act, ” of 1850 and besides 5 States still admitting slavery (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) lined up as of the beginning in the Yankee camp: the border states **.

The Arabs began the negro trade (million Zanj in Iraq ?) quite before Europeans (as from the 8th century) and continued it quite after.

The last traces of legal slavery were observed in Mauritania with the Haratin (slavery having been officially abolished in this country only in 1981).

Hey yes, the true truth is never simple and reality is always complex, what is not the case of the lie or of the mistake.

It goes without saying we do not have to do like the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Muslims who, captive of the letter of their sacred texts (Bible Quran) and of the monolatry which results from it (see the true worship which surrounds the man Muhammad as well as the heap of bound between them sheets, called Quran), therefore feel bound to always (more or less) justify the practices of their predecessors. We have, we uns celticists and more precisely druidicistic pagans, this advantage on them of always having attached more importance to the spirit than to the letter (the former druids accepted the writing only for secular uses Caesar says), and therefore to be less bound by the practices of our spiritual or not ancestors. This is why we will remind of it here for the case when that would prove to be necessary, for whatever purpose it may serve (because they are not the goffinets who are missing on earth): slavery was, of course, tolerated by the former druidism, but the neo-druidism could not do similarly. Slavery must be firmly condemned by the neo-druidism. You could not be Celticist or druidicist today and to have slaves. To be Celticist or druidicist and to have slaves, it is necessary to choose.

Now, to abolish slavery and to replace it by employees reduced to poverty is not enough. It goes without saying for the neo-druidism that every human being must be allowed concretely and not only theoretically, to earn a living correctly, and to provide for one’s needs or those of one’s children without being obliged to prostitute oneself, including in the broader sense of the term.

The powers that be have an obligation of best effort undertaking in this respect. All must be implemented by the vergobrets or Celtic good kings of in order to reach this result today. The deontology of the trade of Celtic king or vergobret requires that they do everything so that each one of their subjects can have the living wage enabling them to live with dignity.

As for the ideal society, the social doctrines of the Church having become obviously an incongruity for those who attend it (the hypocrites and the pharisees nowadays, who will bend in front of the pope and go to Mass every Sunday), we propose to our readers to refer to our legends about the other world.

All stage a society where hard work is no longer needed to live, to nourish oneself and feed, a society where you never die, where a divine music resonates everywhere, where the women are still young people and beautiful and even where the young people who are always looking for a fight are served. In short which resembles much the heaven according to Islam (yes yes yes, let us not hesitate to admit it, the resemblance is striking).

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* About slavery in the ancient society having produced Judaism to see Genesis Leviticus and Exodus.

Genesis 12.5. Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

Leviticus 25.43 to 46. Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life.

Editor’s note. How could people claim so a long time that such racist horrors were words from God??? As John Toland could have said it , the blindness of certain people will always astonish me. On slavery among Christians to see the poor quibble in Saint Paul’s epistle to Philemon as well as the case of Saint Blandina of Lyons and her son Ponticus (arrested at the same time as their owner, who was therefore also a Christian woman apparently). We will return later on what it is advisable to think of these Montanist fanatics and of their aggressiveness with respect to the other worships,particularly that of Cybele.

** Were added to them what was going to become Oklahoma Arizona and New Mexico which, although having few slaves, had laws authorizing slavery.

LIBERTY I: STARTING SITUATION ( 2000 OR 2500 YEARS AGO)

The positive collective responsibility, i.e., for the best (as a plaintiff).

Too many facts show that there exists a family solidarity which is not an empty word.

The group intervenes when the father is murdered because that can be only himself which claims the compensation of which the druid fixes the amount.

The negative collective responsibility, i.e., for the worst, in criminal affairs.

Albert Bayet devoted interesting remarks to this kind of responsibility.

There exists in the ancient Celtic society some traces of a collective responsibility. Manners admit that hostages are asked and given, and it is then regarded as normal that these hostages are put to death for an act in which they are not involved.

The ancient Celtic criminal law also admits in certain cases the confiscation of goods: when it is pronounced , it is the entire group which suffers from the act made by its chief.

The goods confiscation allowed by the laws is a punishment which strikes the family of the convicted person as much as the convicted person himself (B.G. VII, 43, V, 56).

It goes without saying that modern minds could not accept all the consequences of the Celtic principle of collective responsibility as regards sanctions or penalties.

Particularly with regard to the sentence of imprisonment or more. On the other hand, it is true that to touch the tangible properties of the parents of a robber, having profited from his larcenies, can be conceptualized. The confiscation of a more or less large portion of their goods, in order particularly to compensate the victims of their relative, can be conceptualized. These parents could then be regarded or treated as receivers, having taken part in a kind of receiving stolen goods.

N.B. Nothing to do with the principle of intellectual responsibility but interesting nonetheless. A study of the documents dealing with the appeal procedure, cóir n-athchomairc, literally new request, shows that in Ireland judges or arbitrators (brehon) were responsible from their own property in the event of procedural mistakes from them.

." The brehons, like the old Saxon judges, but unlike modern judges, were liable to damages or other punishments if their judgments were illegal or unjust….The grounds of appeal most frequently noticed are " sudden judgments," probably meaning those given without due consideration (Laurence Ginnel. The Brehon Laws pages 84 and 88 London 1894).

This being said for the record, it seems more judicious to us here to think of a widening of the individual responsibility, but with understanding. It would be for example perfectly judicious that all

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those who took part in the development of political decisions assume the consequences of them, including from their own goods, including after more thirty years. That would have at least the virtue of making a little more the elites in this country aware of their responsibilities. That would involve developing considerably the task of research for the responsibilities. What could perhaps be done effectively by allotting a percentage of the sums or values seized to every natural or legal person having contributed usefully to the establishment of the aforesaid responsibilities. There would be then very quickly kinds of bounty hunters specialized in this search for responsibilities.

But for that a whole legislative control should be set up, in order to define exactly what can be an intellectual responsibility in such cases.

It goes without saying the men must have the same rights (neither more nor less) than women; as regards the civil laws (inheritance, driving a car or what I still know). And political (to elect or to be elected, to rule). That is not discussed! That goes without saying! Just like equality in dignity.

In the professional field, on the other hand, it is necessary to take into account the abilities on average higher (on the bodily level), of men. We may expect more from them (on average). Although it is necessary to also take into account age and health (distributive justice).

As for me for example, I see badly a woman crawling in mud during hours with a knife between her teeth to cut the throat of an enemy sentinel, but I see very well a woman admiral, on the other hand.

It is necessary, moreover, to respect the natural vocation of women, which is to bear children (if you wanted the society to be renewed).

FROM DETERMINING TO SELF DETERMINING.

To become aware of the chthonian forces which inhabit us can help us better control them as we saw it with the technique that Christians, following St. Patrick, had the intelligence to recover, that of the lorica. “Breastplate of faith for the protection of body and soul against demons and men and vices. When any person recites it daily with pious meditation on God, demons shall not dare to face him, it shall be a protection to him against all poison and envy.”

Demons, vices, envy, and poisons, they are the harmful and negative ideas which too often haunt our unconscious. But by explicitly formulating them (as the example of the ancient druids suggests that we do it) in other words by making them pass from unconscious to conscious, we are likely to succeed in releasing ourselves from them. From where the famous gnôthi seauton of the Greek philosophers successors of the Hyperborean priests in Delphi like Abaris and Olenus.

The determining that exists (man is not completely free at the beginning), but we can be freed from them gradually and thus rise from the determining to freedom through autonomy; because the freedom of Man exists well, in the usual meaning of the word even if it is always transitory. (It is without essence nor substance.)

The relative nature of freedom is a fundamental thesis of druidic ethic.

The choice freedom of daily reality is relative because it is produced by circumstance , and that it disappears with them. Therefore it lasts only the time of a heartbeat, it exists only the length of an atom of time.

The Man, the Gdonios, is the only being in this world able to say no, even to the god-or-demons (see the Irish book of Conquests as well as the final victory won by the Men, the Fir Bolg, and the other tribes of this large family of peoples, AGAINST THE GOD-OR-DEMONS).

But this choice freedom therefore cannot, let us repeat it once again, have an own nature, because it is caused, occurs, and therefore proves doomed to disappear. And it is precisely because it has no own nature that it is transitory, that it can, certainly, to emerge but also disappear, therefore that we cannot say of it that it really exists.

Let us repeat it because repetere = ars docendi , what is really free in this lowly world since it is itself what conditions our freedom, it is the Tocade or Fate, developed on the cosmic, collective or individual, level. But this absolute and immanent freedom of the Fate or Tokad (Middle Welsh tynghed, Breton tonket, intended, old Irish tocad, destiny, toicthech “fortunatus,” tonquedec in Breton. The labarum is its sign); doesn’t deny the relative freedom of Man. It is a frame which on the contrary makes it possible to be expressed, even consolidates it, insofar as the infinite is not the limit of the finite, but what defines it, determines it, and therefore creates it or makes it possible, therefore in a sense achieves it. Without infinite no finite.

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The god-or-demons therefore let the human beings revolt against them and fall into history in order to exert in it their freedom , but for what reasons? For what future?

Even the druids do not know it very well in reality, themselves who were already so divided on the question of the existence of the god-or-demons and of their powers. “To you alone it is given the gods and celestial powers

To know OR NOT TO KNOW” (Lucan, Pharsalia, I, 444-462).

Since human being is as a god-or-demon on earth (the last one living on its surface besides), but his mental force reduced to nothing (the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak - Mt 26,41. Damn, for once!) makes him an almost slave.

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ON AUTONOMY OR FREEDOM IN THE CHOICES DAILY MADE BY THE INDIVIDUAL

Do ba maith an mac do bi ann sin... Nir er nech riam im séd na im ilmáine, agus ni tarda tuarasdal o rígh dó, agus nír gab séd ríam.

Cultivate a sense of the fault directly resulting from the Sumerian myth of Eve and Adam is useless even harmful, because such an attitude is not a remedy against the Evil. But this damned legend of the Heaven on earth marked whole generations (and besides, we did not leave yet there) as Gustave Le Bon in his book on the psychology of crowds saw it very well.

Short reminder of the Sumerian myth in question.

Here is indeed a man and a woman fulfilled by the life and happy-go-lucky. They never think of praying neither God nor Devil. One day, they are confronted with the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. God, capricious character representing the Good, demand them not to touch it. The Devil, character representing the Evil, invites them to be fed with it while saying them that after that, they will be like God, able to see the Good and the Evil. God wants they remain carefree and happy. The Devil wants they are aware and informed. Eve and Adam choose to eat the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. As a result, the Heaven on earth disappears, to give the way to a hostile earth where it is necessary to struggle in order to survive. Both God and Devil were right, but the human one made his choice. He may always choose, still today besides, between the frivolity to think that God deals with everything (Matthew 6:25-26. Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Matthew 10 :30. Even the hairs of your head are all numbered), and the anxiety of unceasingly having to be concerned with the following day. But can we truly speak about choice when we are subjected quite as much as free? We are free because we can do and think what we choose, but we are constrained with the risks of the life. Here is the human condition.

The men are in addition unaware of the chthonian impulses which occupy them, which haunt them, because they do not choose much with complete freedom, including their main basic orientations (sexual, social and therefore political, religious or others).

“ To you alone it is given the gods and celestial powers, to know OR NOT TO KNOW “(Lucan, Pharsalia, I, 444-462).

The earth which quakes, which is split, which swallows the man and his work; the water which raises and floods or drowns everything, the storm which carries everything in front of itself ! Here are the “diseases“ that for a long time we know to be due to the attacks of other living beings, and finally the painful enigma of death, of the death to which no remedy was discovered up to now, and will never be perhaps. With these forces, nature rises against us, sublime, cruel, inexorable, it points out to us our weakness, our distress, which we hoped to escape thanks to the labor of our civilization (Freud. The future of an illusion). The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak ! This congenital human weakness is, as we saw it, symbolized, in a rather picturesque way, it is true, by the legend of the famous sickness of the Ulaid.

The absolute free will is only an illusion or a well-practical lie from Judeo-Islamo-Christian monolatrous people . What exists for the Man, it is not the absolute free will, but a more or less large autonomy of individual; UNITED WITH THE ILLUSION TO HAVE A TOTAL FREE WILL and coming from both poles (purely theoretical and by no means Manichean) that are the Soul and the Matter. The objects which appear in front of us exist well, but through our senses. They have no absolute existence in themselves, but in ordinary reality (that of our mindset), they exist well. SUCH is also the case of human free will.

“Find a way therefore with that and try to be happy. Know that there are always two aspects of the things: one that you will like, the other that you will hate. God does not distinguish them. He is above all that, he is all. He is. But if you need for comfort and consolation, you may always speak to the innumerable more or less specialized divine entities, that every religion proposes in order to support you. You can even simply speak to a friend while imagining it is God who inspires him, “Arrian.

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Hunting Chapter XXXIV. “This law I follow with my fellows, because I declare no human undertaking to have a prosperous issue without the interposition of the gods.”

As for the Non-Good, the deity is innocent of it. And it does not come either from any devilish entity, whatever its name (great or little Satan, Lugifer, Iblis, etc.). It is exclusively the work of Man. God or the Demiurge is an impersonal being (although being able to be personally felt by each and everyone) and we do not therefore have to judge if it does Good or Evil. Evil and sin are besides in reality an illusion, separating us from our own inner divinity.

Because if God wants the good, and that he is almighty , how comes that he does not destroy the evil to eliminate it forever? Isn't the evil a specifically personal point of view? If we observe the flip sides of the same coin, we can also think that what is seen as “evil “ by one, may (always) be also regarded as positive by another. A volcano which has just erupted brings chaos and destruction, but after this disaster, the fertile magma will bear better harvests. War destroys lives and cities, it also makes it possible to rebuild more functional new cities. It is often also an opportunity to share techniques or products. The Arab Muslims brought back the paper to the Battle of Talas in 751, and the Crusaders brought back from the East fig, pomegranate, apricot, mulberry, cotton, sugar cane, indigo, rice , saffron, etc. (let us not talk even about the tobacco brought from America.) Like what the globalization of which the beautiful minds revel in is not new, what is relatively new it is the MASS GLOBALIZATION ALMOST INSTANTANEOUS OF EVERYTHING AND OF ITS CONTRARY DUE TO PROGRESS OF THE MEANS OF TRANSPORT.

Of course, to be able to consider these advantages of the “Evil “ an impersonal prospect should be adopted. Because from a personal point of view, nothing will be able to make us accept that destruction and death, are aspects quite as enviable as the good, the festival and the revival. But this value judgment between what is desirable or not is specifically human. The impersonal God or Demiurge is above all that, as we have already underlined it on several occasions; he is the good and the evil at the same time. He is the being, He is all, and it is only our strictly human point of view which makes us consider the things positively or not.

As everything is tied in nature, there is mutual interdependence of all the phenomena. The Man being also a chthonian animal (Old Celtic gdonios ) he is determined at the beginning, and his absolute free will never exists, apart from in the head of certain keen Manicheans. Human freedom is a product of innumerable relations, conditioned from all quarters and from all sides, in the unity of Life and Cosmos (Bitos). Human freedom is taken in a constant flow of interactions of various factors (emotional, physical, mental, etc.). It is therefore relative. It is born, grows, and passes.

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AUTONOMY AND FREE WILL.

Do ba maith an mac do bi ann sin... Nir er nech riam im séd na im ilmáine, agus ni tarda tuarasdal o rígh dó, agus nír gab séd ríam.

Among Celts the Celtic word Tokad designates the normal “layout “of all things (from the stem tonk- “to put a spell , to predestine “), or the Order, the Standard. The Tokad or Fate is the divine emanation which changes the non-put together into a put together stage (rta in India).

All the multiple destinies are controlled by the Tocade, the great universal Law. The Fate is therefore also a whole of resignations or acceptances ruling the ideal society in a merely extrinsic way. The notion of good or evil does not have a place there on the individual level, they are logic or deontological codes of trades.

The individual destinies can be very different according to the practiced trade. To kill another man for example is prohibited, but it goes without saying that to kill other human beings or to be oneself killed belongs to the vocation of soldiers.

In the human sphere, to act according to one’s destiny, it is to act according to the deontology of one’s status. We will speak in this case about destiny specific to each class, and lastly to each individual.

In the worship sphere, to act according to the Tokad, it is initially to perform the rites correctly according to the rules. Better, in the former druidism the idea prevails that the sacrificial act reflects the standard of the whole universe. There is syntony or harmony between the pertaining to worship tokad and the cosmic tokad. The sacrifice keeps the Tokad.

Had the former druids turned haphazardness into a god “sic” ? St. Columba of Iona refusing precisely and in full, in one of his loricae, to worship it. “I do not reverence the voices of birds….nor a child of chance, nor a woman; my druid is…..etc.”

The evocation of the voices of birds is undoubtedly an allusion to the divinatory practices of certain druids of the Irish decline. They would have practiced a mode of ornithomancy which consisted in predicting, not through the flight of birds, but through their song. The wren was used especially for these augural consultations.

Let us be monganian right to the end and let us not hesitate one second to say it; these Christians, of course, understood nothing about the way in which ancient druids designed the Fate or Tokad (Middle Welsh tynghed, Breton tonket, intended, old Irish tocad, destiny, toicthech “fortunatus,” tonquedec in Breton. The labarum is its message).

It was an inexorable divination in the long run, but flexible and keeping nevertheless the essence of human autonomy in the short or medium term as regards details, Diodorus of Sicily. The Library of History. Book V, XXXI evokes “men who are experienced in the nature of the divine, and who speak, as it were, the language of the gods ” (homophônôn in Greek); but, Lucan specifies (Pharsalia, I 444-451) “To you alone it is given the gods and celestial powers, to know OR not to know.”

There is in this “or” of Lucan all the difference which can be between the answers of the type: “You will overcome because such is the will of the god-or-demons” (prediction); and answers of the type: “You will overcome because you are the strongest ones” (forecast of the rational type in which the divinity has little to do).

An essential distinction confirmed by the remarks of the Aeduan druid Divitiacus himself, “who claimed to make predictions, sometimes by means of augury and sometimes by means of conjecture” (Cicero, De Divinatione I, 41.90).

In short, the frame in which our (very relative) freedom of human being, is spread, is preexistent. Our liberty is not limitless. the first of these limits being besides our animality (as for his body, man is an animal).

This congenital human weakness is symbolized besides, in a rather picturesque way admittedly by the famous legend of the sickness of Ulaid (ces noinden). This weakness of the master race (of the Ulaid) can all also strike us one day or another. The Gdonioi (Men) are generally unconscious of these chthonian impulses which inhabit them, because they do not choose many things with a complete freedom, including their main basic (sexual, social and therefore political, religious…) trends.

The Man is free only when he is confronted with a choice. Human freedom is especially matter of choice. Man has only the possibility of choosing between several solutions, he never has the possibility of being located out these dilemmas or of these alternatives. It is therefore in a way a freedom as things come. The counterpart of this autonomy of the individuals must be an increased responsibilization of the latter.

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Man has particularly the power to choose his own death voluntarily or in a way by default and the suicide was even always a duty for the druids. IN CERTAIN CASES. Facing what Albert Bayet calls the “simple morality,” which condemns every suicide, there exists - and probably always existed therefore - another morality, not favorable, the thing is inconceivable, but more “toned,” admitting even prescribing the suicide, in certain circumstances.

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FREEDOM OF WORSHIP OR INCLUDING SECULARISM.

The place of the former high-knowers was always to be alongside the king we have said. Alongside but not instead of!

The Irish term thus translated is well the Gaelic word rig. It is true, of course, that in the former druidism, in the absence of true government in the modern meaning of the word ( Ministers Secretaries of State, etc.) druids were used in a way as technical advisers of the kings in all kinds of fields. For a simple reason, it is that the druids of the time did more than to deal with religion or spirituality, they are that the druids of the time made more than to deal with the worship or the care of the souls, they also dealt with the care of the bodies as doctors or surgeons, they were teachers and formed youth, etc.etc. In short they were the intellectuals of the time! The ancient Celtic society was therefore not a theocracy, and there was no precise religion of State with one God and one worship, since everyone admitted as self-evident the existence of multiple gods and therefore of various worships.

The sectarianism was an unknown concept. There was therefore a kind of separation of Churches and State before even the aforementioned concept is reinvented in the 18th or t19th century. What we define we uns neo-druids since 1718 (The Probability of the Speedy and Final Destruction of the Pope, by John Toland) as a total religious liberty: no law privileging a religion or prohibiting its free exercise, and that my Parisian penfriends call secularity: by principle and at first glance are to be prohibited the laws which support a religion compared to another even which helps one or more religions, in this field it is necessary to set up a true wall between the various churches and the State. But while also insisting on the fact that concretely and on the ground, locally, the principle of the total religious liberty should not be generating breaches of the peace nor incentive to the personal hatred of the individuals as such (as men, as women, their belief, their ideology, their society proposal, it is another thing) and must in no case block the civil peace or the acceptance of a common life on good terms, including in fields as sensitive as that of the marriage between men and women (polygamy polyandry de facto union, etc.) the respect to show towards the symbols of a precious national unity transcending all the differences in religious tendencies (flag, etc..); therefore that the local authorities have the right to supervise it insofar as all the religions are treated in the same way. What takes precedence indeed they are the duties of the men the ones towards the others, being well understood that the duties of the men towards gods come under the field of the private life. The freedom of the beliefs and religious opinions between agreeing adults does not legitimate therefore all the practices of religious inspiration as the human sacrifice for example (whether it is of Abrahamic or Agamemnonian type, or other).

In order to take to its logical conclusion our non-sectarianism as regards religion, let us add to this remark that in the matter which is previous, the absence of every religion or agnosticism is also to be treated as a (full) religion since certain Celts were atheistic * according to Strabo. As our old Master Henry Lizeray noticed it very well , a tradition is always to be interpreted, largely even, and each one in the ancient Celtic society therefore interpreted in his way in all honesty and according to his reason, the great Panceltic myths made available by the druids. And nowadays still if by chance and for good reasons therefore people should come to read or to study our bibles to us in schools or universities, each one should be left free to interpret in all honesty the passages thus taken on and selected. What would be no longer completely the case, of course, in the event of a reading performed in a place of worship one of our sanctuaries or one of our temples, at the time of such or such a religious festival. There, of course, such readings could perfectly cause interpretations, leaning interpretations, moreover.

The quotation from Strabo now:“They live on a low moral plane, that is, they have regard, not for rational living, but rather for satisfying their physical needs and bestial instincts, unless someone thinks those men have regard for rational living who wash using urine which they have aged in cisterns, and brush their teeth with it, both they and their wives, as the Cantabrians and the neighboring peoples are said to do. But both this custom and that of sleeping on the ground the Iberians share with the Celts. Some say the Callaicans have no god, but the Celtiberians and their neighbors on the north offer sacrifices to a nameless god at the seasons of the full moon, by night, in front of the doors of their houses, and whole households dance in chorus and keep it up all night ” (Geography Book III, chapter IV, 16).

In short, we will return later in our small exercise books to this important distinction that it is necessary to do between the affairs of the State and those of the Religion. We suffered too much formerly because of the excesses from the latter (Inquisition, wars of religion, witches in Salem or elsewhere –

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the last unfortunate woman sentenced legally and officially for sorcery was so in 1782, in Switzerland: it was a certain Anna Goeldin ***) to consider that it is a subject of secondary importance. Because we are really sincere and we practice there no special casuistry nor taqiyya when we declare, we uns: “No constraint as regards religion! ” It is advisable therefore to be neutral and not to discriminate according to the religious membership, but this requirement makes sense only if there is reciprocity, only if the men and the women who ask to profit from such neutrality or such non-discrimination are also the first to practice such neutrality or such non-discrimination outside their places of worships and their private residences.

* Just like me who I am one of the last vassals of the Duchess of Normandy Queen of England and of Canada, etc.For my fiefdom of Ecrehoo.

** In reality Strabo mixes up perhaps the fact of not having temples out of stone or built with non-temporary materials with the fact of not having gods.

*** In France there were still thereafter other victims burned for sorcery in certain backward areas of the country but outside any official or legal supervision: on July 28, 1826, in Bournel and in 1856 in Camales, in Bigorre (the unfortunate woman was thrown into an oven).

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SECULARISM,GUARANTEE OF FREEDOM.

Caesar does not seem to have well understood the attitude of the druids facing what he precisely calls the regia potestas; a doctrinal speculation which, moreover, was to hardly interest a general worried by immediate political or military problems as we have already said (all this is only a repetition intended for the goffinets who will not fail to appear).

The druids never allot themselves kingly function. The druid advises and the king act: the spiritual authority never claimed (except through a striking deviation) the exercise of the temporal power, and the druid gives no order. They are not the druids who choose the king but the warriors (the politicians).

The name of the king in Italo-Celtic language , rix (Irish ri, genitive rig, old Welsh and old Breton ri), is not used itself to designate a religious concept, but only the regulating function considered on the social level. i.e., it comprises no religious principle if the druid is not there to represent it.

The druid seldom forgets that he is in the service of the king. The king knows it and uses it very freely. We could quote only a very restricted number of “king-druids” or “druid-kings” [the priest-king or wizard Hornunnos, called Nemet in Ireland, being pre-Celtic, Dejotarus being a Galatian prince in the East. Editor’s note.].

As we already had many times the opportunity to underline it, but repetere ars docendi, my Latin teacher said, there is, however, a druid - and not a warrior - who ends tragically his days because of a usurpation of the political power. It is a mythical druid , of course, but it is characteristic of the Celtic interpretation of Sovereignty that his, moreover triple ,fault, is neither disproportion nor ignorance, nor even the thirst or the appetite for power but the fact seizing the power. This file (or druid), called Nede, commits successively three serious errors.

1. On the level of the first priestly function: he delivers an unjust satire and he misuses his priesthood thus by claiming from the king a dagger that the latter cannot give him without infringing a taboo (geis).

2. On the level of the second warlike (and kingly) function: he usurps the kingship in a dishonorable way and this usurpation is worsened in our account by the pursuit and the death of the unfortunate monarch: waned physically by ulcers, he dies of shame.

The punishment of this guilty of breach druid, will be symbolically exemplary.

He is killed by a shard from the rock which explodes and “flames” to punish him for the death of the king that he has wrongfully satirized (our modern journalists could meditate about this legend).

The place of the former high-knower was always to be alongside the king we said. We are not forced to return to this situation, about which besides we should not be mistaken. It is not a theocracy, the druid advises (they are in a way the intellectuals of the time) but the king supremely decides and it is through that he is recognized. It is through that we recognize a great monarch or a good king, a Louis XIV or a Louis XVI my Parisian penfriends would say. We will return in detail to this clear distinction of the roles of the king (or of vergobret today, i.e., of the president) and of the druid (including secularism before the concept is invented ?)

N.B. This role of adviser of the former druids in that time was then very based on the analysis of dreams (see what we already wrote on this subject) as on the study of omens. Omen is a completely normal event, but which causes a feeling of concern of perplexity or other. There still therefore, as in the case of clairvoyance (see what we already wrote on this subject), all depends on the intrinsic qualities of the one to whom is given the responsibility to analyze it or to dissect it. We will return there. The “druids” of today focus rather on the evolution of the economic statistical curves or on the study of the pictures taken by satellites.

It is not up to the druids druids of today to make the rules. This very clear distinction of the roles between the kings or the vergobrets (presidents), and the druids, is still the best chance for the future and the civic cohesion of the Society, on condition to respect its spirit. No mixing up between the temporal power and the spiritual power, no king-priest no theocracy but neither conflict nor opposition between both. Distinction but collaboration and co-operation in the interest of the society (positive secularity). Nothing can justify a return back upstream, to the confusion of both laws, the common civil law which must be imposed on everybody without distinction and personal religious self-discipline based on a voluntary work and spirituality, even partial. The quest for the grail can only be individual,

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as the hair shirt and the discipline of the religious hypocrite (who, moreover, asks his valet Laurence to put them away in their closet).

It’s even on the contrary to a strengthening of this distinction and this autonomy that it is necessary to proceed, in order to secure some methods of harmonious civic and social life. However,over decades, the retrograde political forces, obstinately concerned to confuse both, multiplied the attacks against the spirit and the contents of the principle of separation between the King or Vergobret (the President) and the druids (between the State and the Church).

- Attempts to combine the pertaining to worship associations with the public affairs and to make clergies or religious activist proselytes some partners of the official life of the State.

- Public allocations to the de facto religious associations

- Religious badges and emblems wearing inside the public teaching service.

- Etc.

All that, let us repeat it, is absolutely contrary to the spirit of the principle of absolute distinction between the role of the king or of the vergobret (president it is said today) and that of the druids.

It is necessary to shelter the powers that be and their men (public services), against the denominational usurpations.

It is the king (or the vergobret, in other words, the president) who must always have the last word.

“One of the prohibitions of the Ulaid was to speak before the king; but one of the prohibitions of the king was to speak BEFORE his druids.”(Variant of the Mesca Ulad or “Intoxication of the Ulaid.”) The word “precedence” is deprived of every meaning in the context of the relations between the king and the druid, but it is well of that it is a question. The druid speaks before the king, in an official capacity, but he owes his advice to the king. Let us remind once more of the fact that this superiority of the spiritual one is that of the knowledge and of the science , and nothing else (positive secularity).

If, on the historical level in Ireland, the druid had regarded himself as superior to the king, we would have traces of this up-faking of the warlike class by the priestly class; and the political organization of Christian Ireland would have been very different, more theocratic than military. However we have no trace in this country of a social phenomenon similar to the “brahmanization” of the Hindu kshatriyas.

The druids are not civil servants strictly speaking, but specialists who help the king (or the vergobret) to rule. The king (or the vergobret) is not bound to take the advice of the druid, but the druid owes advice to the king or to the vergobret. A king cannot become druid and, conversely, a druid cannot claim the king name or dignity.

Ethic (or at least its ancestor ethology) is independent of any religion whatever it can be since having existed before the appearance of any concept of divinity, before even the appearance of any religion, so primitive it is; unless, of course, that we may consider…. that the gods could also equip animals with it.

However our modern (Judeo islamic Christian) societies succeeded in reversing this primitive relation of ethic with religion: what God wants, what is pleasant to God, it is what the human beings must find well, nice, or good. That is particularly true in Islamic land (dar Al Islam) where extremely debatable behaviors (contrary to the human rights) are regarded as good (licit) only because God wanted and ordered, or tolerated it (through the man Muhammad).

The druids of Antiquity, themselves, had done all the opposite. They had conversely tried to place under the protection of their gods a certain number of values in which they believed (oath, respect of one’s word …) ; they had tried to give them a divine guarantee (the gods for example were supposed to strike down or condemn over time perjurers like Loegaire).

However what was therefore the ethic of the Celts in Antiquity if not a length and multiform permanent oath.

It is therefore important to reverse this false value that centuries of Judeo-Islamic-Christianity instilled in us. It is not because the gods like something, that the men must find it good nice and well; it is because the men think something good nice and well that the gods must like that. The former high-knowers of the druidiaction , had understood it apparently well who generally conveyed that in a form of the kind: “The gods want, the god said, the deity orders that… etc.”

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This being said let us notice with Albert Bayet (volume I of his history of morals) that they never went as far as to equate ethic completely with religion, and for example to claim that by principle morality without religion could not exist. On the contrary they always admitted the possibility of an ethic relatively autonomous from religion.

Let us say it very clearly therefore, the today neo-druids therefore cannot take over the Judeo-Islamic-Christian idea that atheists or agnosticists (Kuffar) could not have an ethic. Atheists or agnosticists can very well have such a high ethic, as deep, as complex, as that of the greatest religious men. It is not because the current French president said it * by subordinating the teachers to the priests or the clergyman in one of his speeches (that of Lateran on December 20, 2007) in order to flatter the pope and his people, that it is true. Moreover there were also atheistic Celtic tribes according to the statement of Strabo.

“Some say the Callaicans have no god, but the Celtiberians and their neighbors on the north offer sacrifices to a nameless god at the seasons of the full moon, by night, in front of the doors of their houses, and whole households dance in chorus and keep it up all night ” (Strabo, Geography III, 4.16)

That did not prevent them from having also an ethic perhaps in an overall way comparable with that of their neighbors. The most serious of the sins is not atheism or agnosticism but the human stupidity (which gives well indeed an idea of infinite).

CONCLUSION.

In addition to the I.E fact of the importance given to Truth, to Reality; this study (leaning like the others of the heading ELEMENTS OF CELTIC PHILOSOPHY towards a reading of the current facts, a try of adaptation in faithfulness) therefore emphasizes an important concept. “There is no freedom possible without truth.” Freeing truth , but also sovereign, imperious Truth: it is the ULATIA UIRA, later Fir flathemon in Gaelic language, and also UIRI ULATO: the sovereignty of the true one. It will be well later still, the expression of John Huss, become the motto of the Czech nation: “Pravda vitezi” = “ truth prevails.”

This categorical imperative tallying well in the druidic ethic, seems to us therefore as a Pan-I-E, with universal vocation, value, a notion former to Druidism consequently, but put in the foreground by the primordial druids.

Andrew McQuaid wrote very interesting things about this in his thesis on the Tecosca (the Irish mirrors of prince) and especially on the exact meaning of the word flaith (king or lord?) therefore on the audience for which they were intended.

“In the wake of Jaski’s revision of the case for sacred kingship, however, one can no longer presume that fír flathemon applied only to kings”.

* «Dans la transmission des valeurs et l’apprentissage de la différence entre le bien et le mal, l’instituteur ne pourra jamais remplacer le curé ou le pasteur, même s’il est important qu’il s’en approche, parce qu’il manquera toujours la radicalité du sacrifice de sa vie et le charisme d’un engagement porté par l’espérance ».

N.B. What hypocrisy from a man whose first concern while reaching the presidency was to give himself a raise of 140% whereas he has already room and board through his function, and that his salary of a head of state therefore was in no way used to pay his daily bills like in the time of the general de Gaulle, with whom he claims to be affiliated nevertheless.

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POLYTHEISM OF VALUES.

Among all the believers with whom the druids worry to get or remain in touch, the hinduists are those who occupy the most favored place. They are members indeed of the last great peoples having kept bits of the remote hyperborean tradition, of the last of the great peoples favorite of the god-or-demons. The Hindu religion should not be unfamiliar in a strict sense of the term for us, it must be for us a religion sister; even if it has, for a long time, evolved in quite a different direction (change of the classes of the primitive Aryan tripartition into castes, exclusion of the plebs of the shudras, etc.).

Our druidism therefore can have with Hinduism relations it has with no other religion. The dialog with these other pagans, also worshippers of the true god-or-demons, but having not fully reached the truth, therefore must be one of our priorities.

This ecumenical work implies, of course, a frank polytheist attitude of mind, i.e., henotheistic and fully recognizing the existence of these god-or-demons of the others for the others, an important effort of mutual and reciprocal knowledge; as much patience, perseverance and tolerance (the druidism is naturally cantamantaloedis). But those who will devote themselves to it, there too, will realize very quickly that they will have usefully contributed to be renewed in the intelligence of their faith.

Such an open-mindedness must also relate to the Zoroastrians, the last pagans in the Hindu Kush (Kalash people), the Yazidis, the Odinists, etc. This polytheistic dialog must be even extended to the Jewish people so that it comes back to the Sumerian god-or-demons (of the father) of Abraham, and return finally on the right track.

N.B. Our relationship with the Jewish people? A true druid must pray so that the Jewish people, which has killed his god, or more exactly as the gods cannot die, lost his god-or-demons, also return one day, to the fold, by taking the best route of the Sumerian paganism, or another, and therefore finds the fullness of its national genius again. Such a movement exists already besides. For any information about it contact: MICHTAV-HABIRU, c/o ELIEZER IBN RAPHAEL.

It is a Jewish association dealing with this return to the Semitic, Canaanite, Ugaritic and therefore Hebrew; paganism, in line with the pre-Nietzscheism of the great philosopher Simon of Samaria known as Simon the Magician (this Jewish pantheist indeed identifies God or the Demiurge with a flow of uncreated life. Whoever becomes aware of such a presence in himself, becomes similar to it, in accordance with the ancient promise of the Snake in the biblical Genesis “and you will be like gods: Elohim”).

Idem for the Muslims in North Africa who must, for their greater good, as fast as possible to find again the ancient Berber religion of their ancestors of before Mecca and Rome. A true druid therefore must also pray so that the revelation of the MONIST AND RELATIVIST truth come finally to these unfortunate uprooted people, colonized from the inner side.

This dialog must extend besides to those who worship particularly no god-or-demon (Communists, Marxists and other atheists or agnosticists), because the dialog with them can enrich our reflection. According to Strabo certain Celts, and particularly the Galicians in Spain were atheistic besides. Is it a lack of nuance in the thought of Strabo, unable to understand the subtleties of certain druidic schools. In any case here again,considering its importance, the exact quotation. “Some say the Callaicans have no god, but the Celtiberians and their neighbors on the north offer sacrifices to a nameless god at the seasons of the full moon, by night, in front of the doors of their houses, and whole households dance in chorus and keep it up all night ” (Strabo, Geography III, 4.16).

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UNIVERSALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM OF DRUIDISM.

It is more necessary than ever in our time to show men the (divine) paths which have been found for a long time in order to succeed in the development of one’s soul (moksha in Hinduism); or one’s salvation (sooner or later, since there is neither hell nor eternal damnation, and that everyone will end up, one day or the other, by going "to Heaven" as it is said a little colloquially).

You are a holy nation, a hyperborean nation, a language chosen by the gods, and a people dedicated to the truth . This is, moreover, the formula that the primordial druids of long ago could have highlighted in the chapter on the druidic magisterium. The mission of the druids (to Celtize hearts and minds) is international. It concerns all those who feel Celts, deeply Celts, wherever they live (New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and even the so-called Latin countries like Galicia, even Brazil, France and Argentina, etc.).

The first to be affected by this fight for the truth are, of course, the men and women living on the same territory as the primordial druids, since it has everywhere preserved traces, memories and examples. We run up against at each step! Given the power of fertilization and life of druidism, it would be very selfish not to want also make the other profit from them, by sharing it with them.

The well-understood Celtic tradition can be the leaven of the world to come, to build with the best of the former one. Druidism must therefore be the best route that Man can follow in order to regain the sense of the sacredness that he has lost. All the teaching resources of adult education should be used in this regard.

A true druid, driven by the demands of this conviction, cannot forget the countries where druidism once flourished. From the Black Sea to the mouth of the Guadalquivir (Tartessos), from the North of Scotland to Galatia in the heart of Asia Minor (dikastes of Ankara). Druids must dialogue with all those who are interested in these questions, even in countries where druidism has long since disappeared (Ruthenia, Poland, Asia Minor ...)

Nor should they overlook the peoples who have emerged from it and who have now established themselves around the world; from Canada to Australia via Louisiana (South) Africa, Zimbabwe * etc. The high-knowers must ensure that these liberating truths reach the unbelievers in these regions of the Cruinne (Cruinne = Earth globe; it is a Gaelic term derived from the Celtic crundnios meaning spherical, the sphericity of the Earth also having discovered by ancient druids). For a true Celt, defending the rights of the truth, everywhere and in all places, is a fundamental duty (a dligeto), this is why the druids aware of their responsibilities must also take care of this re-cultivation of so many human fallows. The druidiactio must also shine in the regions of the world where it has not been for a long time, but also in those where it was never established. Provided that it is the subject of a quality acculturation or inculturation. The only way to do this is to have druidicists in these countries capable of founding new communities (touta) which, once developed, can continue the fight on their own initiative.

The druids would show that they no longer understand something about the Celtic principle of the royal hyperborean priesthood of Diodorus Book II chapter 47 ("They are all, so to speak, the priests of this god ... the government of this city and the guard of the temple are entrusted to kings called Boreadae, the descendants and the successors of Boreas ”) of a nation which gets close to the gods (admodum dedita religionibus) if they gave up following the flight of the birds of the ver sacrum or taking their coracle to go and seed these new nations as Abarix once did. Whether as a solitary knight-errant in search of his grail, a small remnant of the faithful or an entire community each one is a link in the sacred chain of amber, as a light in the night. The Celtic minded persons are the finger which indicates the moon because seen from their island, it appears so close to the earth that its relief can be seen, but reality exceeds them and their role is in the order of the testimony, not of the command.

Get up the dead (Pericard 1915) , holy nation, priestly nation, hyperborean nation, chosen language of the gods, and people dedicated to the truth because the fight for the truth does not fall only to the druids, vates, veledae or gutuaters / gutumaters because since his ceremony of the name every druidicist automatically takes part in this priestly and royal hyperborean function of the whole Celtic people.

The Renan of the prayer on the Acropolis, and not of the definition of the nation of which our elites have made an oxymoron empty of meaning by ignoring its essential and, however, long dealt with

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prerequisites, which we will also remind here, however, as it has almost be permanent ; was right who saw in our brothers, in the vanquished of all these wars, mythology, lyricism, epic, romantic imagination, religious enthusiasm. Renan who adds: “Why would they miss thinking now?”

Below the design of the nation of Ernest Renan rid of the few explosive lines which unfortunately caused its self-destruction (by resorting to the process called " You can’t see the wood for the trees.” The forest of good ideas on what a nation is).

A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form. Man, Gentlemen, does not improvise. The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of endeavors, sacrifice, and devotion. Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate, for the ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past, great men, glory (by which I understand genuine glory), this is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea. To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present; to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more - these are the essential conditions for being a people. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented, and in proportion to the ills that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and that one has handed down. The Spartan song -'We are what you were; we will be what you are" - is, in its simplicity, the abridged hymn of every homeland.

More valuable by far than common customs posts and frontiers conforming to strategic ideas is the fact of sharing, in the past, a glorious heritage and regrets, and of having, in the future, la shared] program to put into effect, or the fact of having suffered, enjoyed, and hoped together. These are the kinds of things that can be understood in spite of differences of race and language. I spoke just now of 'having suffered together' and, indeed, suffering in common unifies more than joy does. Where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties, and require a common effort.A nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future. It presupposes a past; it is summarized, however, in the present by [censored]…….

At the present time, the existence of nations is a good thing, a necessity even. Their existence is the guarantee of liberty, which would be lost if the world had only one law and only one master.

Through their various and often opposed powers, nations participate in the common work of civilization; each sounds a note in the great concert of humanity, which, after all, is the highest ideal reality that we are capable of attaining. Isolated, each has its weak point. I often tell myself that an individual who had those faults which in nations are taken for good qualities, who fed off vainglory, who was to that degree jealous, egotistical, and quarrelsome, and who would draw his sword on the smallest pretext, would be the most intolerable; of men. Yet all these discordant details disappear in the overall context. Poor humanity, how you have suffered! How many trials still await you! May the spirit of wisdom guide you, in order to preserve you from the countless dangers with which your path is strewn!

Let me sum up, gentlemen. Man is a slave neither of his race nor his language, nor of his religion, nor of the course of rivers nor of the direction taken by mountain chains. A large aggregate of men, healthy in mind and warm of heart, creates the kind of moral conscience which we call a nation. So long as this moral consciousness gives proof of its strength by the sacrifices which demand the abdication of the individual to the advantage of the community, it is legitimate and has the right to exist. If doubts arise regarding its frontiers, consult the populations in the areas under dispute. They undoubtedly have the right to a say in the matter »…...

It may be that, after many fruitless gropings, people will revert to our more modest empirical solutions. The best way of being right in the future is, in certain periods, to know how to resign oneself to being out of fashion ".

But back on topic. As according to Diodorus, the spiritually hyperborean peoples have always shown a lot of interest towards the Greeks and that these feelings go back to very remote times since one of our primordial druids Abarix would have traveled to Greece to place a magic arrow in the Delian temple of Apollo, graeca interpretatio of our national Belin / Belen or Abellio, below some lines of the prayer on the Acropolis of the poet born of barbarian parents, among the good and virtuous Cimmerians who dwell by the shore of a melancholy sea, bristling with rocks ever lashed by the storm. The sun is scarcely known in this country, its flowers are seaweed, marine plants, and the colored

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shells which are gathered in the recesses of lonely bays. The clouds seem colorless, and even joy is rather sorrowful there; but fountains of fresh water spring out of the rocks, and the eyes of the young girls are like the green fountains in which, with their beds of waving herbs, the sky is mirrored.

"My forefathers, as far as we can trace them, have passed their lives in navigating the distant seas, which your Argonauts did not know, I used to hear as a child the songs which told of voyages to the Pole; I was cradled amid the souvenir of floating ice, of misty seas like milk, of islands peopled with birds which now and again would warble, and which, when they rose in flight, darkened the air.

Priests of a strange creed, handed down from the Syrians of Palestine, brought me up. These priests were wise and good. They taught me long lessons of Cronos, who created the world, and of his son, who, as they told me, made a journey upon earth. Their temples are thrice as lofty as thine, O Eurhythmia, and dense like forests. But they are not enduring, and crumble to pieces at the end of five or six hundred years. They are the fantastic creation of barbarians, who vainly imagine that they can succeed without observing the rules which thou hast laid down, O Reason! Yet these temples pleased me, for I had not then studied thy divine art and God was present to me in them. Hymns were sung there, and among those which I can remember were: "Hail, star of the sea… Queen of those who mourn in this valley of tears…" or again, "Mystical rose, tower of ivory, house of gold, star of the morning…" Yes, Goddess, when I recall these hymns of praise my heart melts, and I become almost an apostate. Forgive me this absurdity; thou canst not imagine the charm which these barbarians have imparted to verse, and how hard it is to follow the path of pure reason.

There follow a few lines in honor of the Graeca interpretatio of the Mother of Gaels, our National Brigitte that we have no reason to censor.

"Oh Goddess, the worship of whom signifies reason and wisdom, thou whose temple is an eternal lesson of conscience and truth, I come late to the threshold of your mysteries; I bring to the foot of your altar much remorse. Ere finding you, I have had to make an infinite search. The initiation which you did confer by a smile upon the Athenian at his birth I have acquired by force of reflection and long labor….

If you knew how difficult it has become to serve you. All nobility has disappeared. The Scythians have conquered the world. There is no longer a Republic of free citizens; the world is governed by kings whose blood scarcely courses in their veins, and at whose majesty you would smile.

…

[Here is inserted a long evocation by Renan but in very literary terms, of his work for demystification of Christianity],…

I wrote in accordance with some of the rules which you love, O Théonoé, the life of the young god whom I served in my childhood, and for this they beat me like a Euhemerus and wonder what my motives can be, believing only in those things which enrich their trapezite tables. And why do we write the lives of the gods if it is not to make the reader love what is divine in them, and to show that this divine past yet lives and will ever live in the heart of humanity?

Do you remember the day when, Dionysodorus being archon, an ugly little Jew, speaking the Greek of the Syrians, came hither, passed beneath your porch without understanding you, misread your inscriptions, and imagined that he had discovered within your walls an altar dedicated to what he called the Unknown God? Well, this little Jew was believed; for a thousand years you have been treated as an idol, O Truth! for a thousand years the world has been a desert in which no flower bloomed. And all this time you were silent, O Salpinx, clarion of thought. Goddess of order, image of celestial stability, those who loved you were regarded, as culprits, and now, when by force of conscientious labor we have succeeded in drawing near to you, we are accused of committing a crime against human intelligence because we have burst the chains which Plato did not know.

You alone are young, O Cora; you alone are pure, O Virgin; you alone are healthy, O Hygeia; you alone are strong, O Victory! You keep the cities…..Energy of Zeus, spark which kindles and keeps aflame the fire in heroes and men of genius, make us perfect spiritualists! On the day when the Athenians and the men of Rhodes fought for the sacrifice, you did choose to dwell among the Athenians as being the wisest. But your father caused Plutus to descend in a shower of gold upon the city of the Rhodians because they had done homage to his daughter. The men of Rhodes were rich, but the Athenians had wit, that is to say, the true joy, the ever-enduring good humor, the divine youth of the heart.

The only way of salvation for the world is by returning to your allegiance, by repudiating its barbarian ties. Let us hasten into your courts. Glorious will be the day when all the cities which have stolen the

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fragments of your temple, Venice, Paris, London, and Copenhagen, shall make good their larceny, form holy alliances to bring these fragments back, saying: "Pardon us, O Goddess, it was done to save them from the evil genii of the night," and rebuild your walls to the sound of the flute….. »

* Zimbabwe. Note withdrawn by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau. Robert Mugabe’s policy, with the help of the international community, having succeeded in driving out all the Whites from this country, that risks being rather difficult today.

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BUAID No. 13.

TO DO NOTHING BASE OR TO HAVE THE SENSE OF HONOR (eniepos).

“Druids uttered their teaching in riddles, bidding for example to reverence the gods, to abstain from wrongdoing, and to be a man, a true one” (Diogenes Laertius. Lives and opinions of eminent philosophers. Book I Prolog 6).

“To abstain from wrongdoing…” Consequently, to do nothing against honor. Besides the “sons of dishonor” are quoted by name for us in an Irish text, the Tochmarc Luaine, transcribing like so many others a preliminary long oral tradition to wit, niggardliness, refusal,denial, hardness, rigor and rapacity (translation Whitley Stokes). Something to give as food for many triads…

Jullian is right to note that “the pride and the concern of one’s glory remain, until mankind acquires a higher virtue, the principal reasons for progress which are deposited in us.” “Glory is also one of the motivations of the joint life; with its opposite the shame (the massacre of the prisoners in Agincourt), it keeps the men and first the leaders, in the right track.”

The Gaelic word cliu is often translated by honor, and that is completely exact in comparison with the historical definition of the honor as a reputation and a status. But we would be wrong if we made it simply being personally and clearly aware of what is right or wrong, as it is often thought today. This personal dignity should not be mixed up with human dignity in general. The honor it is the image that each one has of himself and that he wants the others to have of him, it is the self-esteem, which, of course, is different from one individual to another, and can change, increase or decrease, and depends largely on the influence of others.

Concretely therefore the honor can be analyzed as a symbolic capital; insofar as any man has by definition some honor and that at the same time this honor is likely to vary, we can speak about a fixed asset and a variable capital, to continue the economic metaphor.

As we have had already the opportunity to say it higher, the twin functions of the fili (poet) following the example of the prophets in the Bible are the praise and the satire. If somebody achieved an honorable deed, the bard sings one’s praises. It is not some brown-nosing (sic, the word is from our friends of the druid network ). If this good deed is not mentioned , nobody else will hear of it, and nobody else therefore will be incited to do in the same way, the good will never be spread. Moreover, a person who receives praises for what he has done will be much more prone to act again in this way than the one who is constantly forgotten or ignored. Conversely, a dishonoring act which passes unnoticed lets the others be unaware of the identity of one’s author and therefore still vulnerable to his abuses. Moreover, those who plan to do in the same way can feel encouraged in behaving so deplorably at will by escaping what they would deserve. The satire is also a way of doing the victim justice, the public recognition that what was done unto him was undeniably a disgrace. This achievement by the word therefore is not really using rare or precious words, but speaking (while praising what is good, while stigmatizing what is bad), having the audacity to ask questions or to express ideas. Silence was not golden among our ancestors!

In the Irish medieval law, every breach against the honor of others was suppressed, including the verbal assault.

That included a range of insults, like the fact of making fun of the appearance of somebody, of inventing a nickname which remained, or of composing, of even repeating, a satire. The simple fact of making fun by gestures of the flaws of somebody could make an individual guilty of satire.

People at the time a design of the press freedom more restrictive than today in this field.

The satire could be publicly withdrawn by composing a praise poem. Such an act canceled the initial satire.

A satire could be legal, and be used as an instrument of justice, because that was also a pressure, particularly against high-ranking persons.

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For having satirized a person (“áerad,” to strike, or “rindad,” to cut), the fine was equivalent to the payment of the complete price of the honor of the victim.

And if somebody was the object of a satire after his death, the price of his complete honor was to be paid to his relationship, as if he was always living.

If a person, especially a king or a noble, tolerated a satire, he lost the price of one’s honor. If the satire was unjust, he was to get a compensation from the offender, if not he was to offer a pledge guaranteeing that he would pay from now on all the fines due.

The traditional Irish word which is usually translated by “ honor” is “oineach, a term which (through the form “ainech”) goes back to the old Irish “enech” a word meaning in the beginning “face” (from old Celtic “eniequos”) - connected with Welsh “wyneb,” with Cornish and Breton (of same meaning) “ enep.” The notion of honor is thus mainly related to that of the “face” which is to be shown in front of the community. A closely dependent concept, often mentioned in the same contexts, is that of “clú” (“reputation” or “renown”), which comes from an Indo-European root meaning “to hear” and therefore refers to what is told in connection with somebody. To be honorable, therefore, it is when you can save “face” with respect to the group and when it is “spoken” highly about you. Dishonor occurs when you lose “face” and when it is “spoken” badly about you. The word “enech” also expresses the idea of personal power, since, as long as you “did not lose face” you are able to influence the other group members. Thus people or things for which you are responsible or that are placed under your protection can be known as being “on” or “under” your “face.” When you lose “face,” of course, you are no longer able to carry out this protection. What comes out from all that therefore it is a sense of honor and dishonor vary depending on the group, rather than on personal codes of honor which are more characteristic of our modern way of thinking (Imbas.org Alexei Kondratiev. “Celtic Values”).

Christopher Thompson in a short article published by the new Canadian Tara also devoted to cliu some remarkable lines.

The Gaelic Cliu, or reputation (literally, “what is heard”) was a concept important in the traditional Gaelic society. In the close-knit, kinship-based society of the former Scottish Highlands, the reputation was an important means to appreciate somebody compared to the standards of the community. The expectation of the group pushed the individuals into being welcoming, honest, reliable, brave and faithful. These criteria were essential still more as regards the nobility of the clans, which was to show a boundless hospitality and generosity towards their entourage or the members of their clan, as towards the class of well-read men of the kind bards. The bards were indeed the true referees of the cliu of the nobility, the bards were to observe the chiefs and their warriors, and to praise their generosity as well as their courage while stigmatizing cupidity, cowardice, or dishonoring behaviors. The fear of a bardic satire constituted an important counter-force against the power of the ruling classes.

The texts that we have equate systematically the cainte or satirists to sorcerers. It is there perhaps an interpretation due to Christianity. The cainte is not a sorcerer in the strictest sense of the term. It is a bard who, instead of singing the praises of somebody, composes a satire about him. In a society as the ancient Celtic society where people really had excessively the sense of the honor and of the personal dignity -nothing to do with the political world of today, where remain only baseness slavish flattery towards the power, where it is repeated without shame towards the citizens that two plus two that makes 3, or 5, when the chief or the powerful one of the day decided on it thus 1) - such satires were catastrophic for the reputation of the great because these poems of the kind lampoon or satire circulated. From where then loss of esteem, influence, even of allied , what could quickly end very badly (a sure defeat during the next armed confrontation for lack of manpower or sufficient supports??)…

The improvised village bards fulfilled the same function for the ordinary members of the clan. A mocking song or poem could destroy the reputation of a man forever, while a song of praise could literally preserve his memory during centuries.

Various quotations about honor now.

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“A good name is better than riches.” The Galatian prince Deiotarus one day explained to Cicero in order to justify himself to have been a social climber or opportunist at the point to rejoin the party of Caesar (Concerning divination. Book I, chapter XV) that for him the sense of honor or the sense of his personal dignity was more important for him than wealth: “ I value my good name more than riches.”

Closer to us.

Dáig níbá miad nó níba maiss leiss echrad nó fuidb nó airm do brith óna corpaib no marbad. For he [Cuchulainn] did not deem it honorable or seemly to take the horses or garments or arms from the bodies of those he killed.

Duxtir/Dexivatera/Dechtire and Catubatuos/Cathbad now besought him that he would refrain and await Conall ; but he said, by no means will I wait, for my span and my triumphs are determined ; yet will I not for the world's lying vanities forsake my fame and battle virtues, seeing that from the day when first I took warrior's weapons in my hand I have never shirked fight or fray. Now therefore still less will I do so, for fame will outlive life.

Thomas Mathewson in his new treatise devoted to the basket-hilted broadsword in 1805 (Quoted by Brian Walsh the founder of the Canadian New Tara) evoked this kind of ethic based on the gossip and which is that we find in the Gaelic concept of cliu. The factors determining this cliu are numerous. There exists no precise list as in the Samurai code or Bushido. There exist nevertheless many sources enabling us to comprehend it.Gaelic proverbs, pieces of poetry, legends traditional lore, all provide us many examples of them.

The honor is therefore always an effort, i.e., a force, a power, what links the concept in an inescapable way to action. The honor is to be conquered, but especially to be defended.

-The British officer: “You French fight for money, while we British fight for honor.”

-Surcouf: “Sir, a man fights for what he lacks the most.”

The honor can be defined as a bond between a person and a social group which gives him his identity. The honor is won by acts admired by the community and the shame the consequence of scorned acts. In this sense, honor is a collective attribute, whereas virtue is an individual attribute. There can be secret virtues; no secret honor.

The honor is a collective value, since it depends on the esteem that people have of you. The acts of honor exist only recognized as such by a group of people sharing common values. Honor, but especially dishonor and shame are handed down to the close relations in a way by contagion.

And this is undoubtedly one of the explanations for the success..... This letter was read from the pulpit in the churches and cathedrals of the Kingdom and the result was not long in coming. Farmers and small craftsmen enlist while nobles and bourgeois went so far as to sell their crockery to finance the raising of regiments and the manufacture of weapons...met by the letter of appeal to the people published in Paris in 1709 below some extracts.

"The hope of a forthcoming peace was so widespread in my kingdom that I believe I owe to the fidelity that my peoples have shown me during my reign, the consolation of informing them of the reasons that still prevent them from enjoying the rest that I had intended to give them....

I had agreed, in order to restore it, to conditions quite opposite to...to join forces with those of the League, and to force the king, my grandson, to come down from the throne, if he did not voluntarily consent to live henceforth without a State, to be reduced to the status of a simple private individual. It is against humanity to believe that they only had the thought of committing me to form such an alliance with them. But, although my tenderness for my peoples is no less keen than that which I have for my own children; although I share all the evils that war causes to such faithful subjects, and although I have made it clear to the whole of Europe that I sincerely desire to make them enjoy peace, I am convinced that they themselves would be opposed to receiving it on conditions that are also contrary to justice and to the honor of the name ..... At the same time I want my peoples, in the scope of your government, to know from you that they would enjoy peace if it had depended only on my will to procure for them a good which they rightly desire, but which must be acquired by further efforts, since the immense conditions I would have granted are useless for the restoration of public tranquility... Since war must be fought, I prefer to fight my enemies rather than my children..... » The general De Villars reads the letter to his troops, result the battle of Malplaquet September 11, 1709.

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This conception of honor is in line with the notion of honor as it was understood in Europe and America until the late 20th century, when the dueling era came to an end, and the individualist idea of honor became predominant.

The definition of the sense of honor in the former druidism tells us finally few things on what honor is, if it is not in a negative way: to do nothing base. Without the burden of the shame and infamy, therefore with the bards specialized in the satire, the honor would be only an abstraction.

May it be allowed to the high-knower beginner that I am to notice nevertheless that today, and unlike what our reconstructions comrade Alexei Kondratiev of Imbas.org writes, in connection with the former druidism; the sense of honor must play even when you are alone to know what you did or not, that the sense of honor must also weigh in the secrecy of consciences. Because the honor is also to be an individual, subjective, feeling. It is not to betray the spirit of the former druidism that to preach such an attitude, it is only to realize what its vocation of wheat grain in the consciences was: to germinate to grow and to ripen.

As we saw higher, the Irish term usually translated by “honor” is “oineach” which, via the form “ainech” ultimately goes back to the old Irish “enech” meaning originally “face” (old Celtic eniequos). Welsh “wyneb,” Breton “enep” (same meaning). The basic idea is therefore not to lose face or to save face. The word “enech” also expresses the idea of authority, influence, credibility, or respect. People indeed listen more readily to somebody of whom it is very well spoken than to somebody about whom it is very badly spoken. Nobody takes his anger out onto neither his goods nor his people. When you lose face, on the other hand, such a protection disappears.

The related concept, often mentioned in this context, is that of “clú” (“reputation” or “renown”), which comes from an Indo-European root “to hear” and thus refers to what is spoken about somebody. To be honorable in this case means to enjoy a good reputation. Nobody speaks badly of you.

The various bases of this honor were reviewed higher: loyalty, respect of one’s word, etc.

We don’t know if the criminal law punished lies and cheating, but we know that the fellow citizens of Indutiomarus, as Albert Bayet notices it scrupulously, “bind themselves readily by oath 1). The Commentaries give us many examples of that. The proof that they must respect their oath, that the common morality obliges them to do it, it is that if they break their word, they don’t fear to make the hostages they delivered, perish. In a story of Parthenius of Nicaea, a married woman named Herippe is one day abducted by Galatians. Her husband brings the ransom requested. But the aforementioned Herippe , worrying little to come back with her legitimate husband, asks the Galatian to kill him then to keep the money. The Galatian, made indignant at such a bad faith, kills her himself.

This legend quoted by Albert Bayet, by its excesses themselves, proves to us that honesty was well already as of this time considered as a fundamental ethical rule.

The possibility of refundable in the Other World credits is also a piece of evidence of the importance of this honesty in the druidic ethical code. Bayet besides is categorical in this respect with regard to another field: the respect of treaties. “In principle, it is not doubtful that the respect of treaties is advised. The proof of that is the fact the parties often bind themselves by an oath and exchange hostages. At the time of the great uprising, the delegates swear an oath around their military standards brought together in stacks. It is obvious that treaties of this kind must theoretically be respected” (Albert Bayet).

It is not false therefore, quite to the contrary, to affirm that honor is the engine of all the feelings and of all the gestures of the Celtic warrior. Thurneysen had already noticed in his time - and it would be easy to produce many examples of it – that the Celtic hero will always make a point of honor of respecting the geis he gave himself, even at the cost of his life; because among the Celts the life is subject to honor.

The druidic ethic of war (fir fer) required for example that every fight is fought with equal weapons and without attacks by surprise (it was to be preceded by a declaration of intent in due form: a challenge or some provocations even some insults). The one who has been challenged in the duel was to face alone his adversary. Nobody was to intervene in such a fight. And before beginning , the adversaries were to agree about the rules to be followed: fights with bare hands or with weapons, fights to death or being to stop with the first blood shed, etc.

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As we could see it, the druids taught even the respect of the simpletons or of the mentally ill persons like Suibhne in Ireland; one of the maxims of the Fenians being categorical on this subject. “In battle meddle not with a buffoon, for, he is but a fool.” Noblesse oblige indeed! If one of the adversaries did not comply with the rules, the fir fer ceased by right, and all the parties were to intervene in order to put an end to the fight.

Honor was therefore a very important value for druids who literally prized it highly (in heads of cattle for example). People did not jest with the jokes about this subject. The pride in this time was the general rule (you have not like today, after 2000 years of Christianity, wether you are a redskin, white, or negro, to blush about your race, your ancestors, your trade, or anything other. Being proud about it was legitimate). Certain etymologies of the ancient anthroponymy prove it.

Aclutius “Very-famous.” Ueni-clutius “Famous because of his line.” Cluto-rigi “famous king.” Ueru-cloetius “of the great renown.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF HONOR AND THEREFORE OF THE SENSE OF HONOR in the Celtic society of yesteryear is amply demonstrated by the fact that the law of the time dealt a lot WITH THE PRICE OF THIS HONOR according to the social rank or wealth of individuals.

Brehon law is the oldest known law in Ireland. It is found in many manuscripts. The most important of the compilations is the Senchus Mor.

Another work entitled "Crith Gablach" also provides us with useful details on this subject.

In these works the notion of honor is evoked by the term enech which also means "face". As in the expression "saving face" or "losing face".

Enech was also a legal term related to compliance with appropriate social or war norms and truthfulness in general. Closely related terms include óg n-enech honor prize or cacc fora enech (failure to refute a defamatory satire, bearing false testimony or evading bail results in "feces on the face").

This was something so precise that it was associated with a very detailed financial tariff, a monetary scale having provided for all cases. This "monetary value" of individuals was used to calculate the amount of damages owed to them in case of physical (or moral) injury. Or which were due to their family in the event of a homicide. It was also taken into account when they posted bail.

The price of a woman's honor generally depended on the price of her legal guardian, first her father and then her husband.

N.B. This was what the ancient Druidism allowed. A Muslim-style situation.

But nothing prevents contemporary Celtic women or men from preferring a strict equality of rights in the couple.

What is certain is that in ancient times the nature of the marriage contracted helped to determine the price of the honor of a married woman or man and therefore what was honorable or dishonorable conduct.

The old Irish law distinguished several types of unions between a man and a woman according to the respective contributions of the spouses.

Lanamnas for ferthinchur: "union with contribution (implied superior) of the husband."

Lanamnas for banthinchur : " union with contribution (superior implied) of the wife."

Lanamnas for comthinchur: "union with equal contribution."

The most respectable form of marriage was one in which the wife and husband were of equal rank and wealth. This was the normal form of marriage for the nobility (air túise). Women in this category were called cémuinter, which means "owner" or "head of the family," although the term could also apply to the husband. In these marriages, the wife contributed one-third or one-half of the couple's property.

1) Second nature of politicians who have no personal conviction except for being on the side of the power. And if it should for that explain why the boss is right when he affirm that two plus two = five then they explain seriously why 2 + 2 = 5. You have doubts? They pretend to see Satan or some Hitlero-Trotskyism in your skepticism, before affirming two or three years later besides that they always said that (that 2+ 2 = 4). The period 2007-2012 in France was remarkable regarding this.

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2) One of the oldest rituals known (Gaelic oeth, Welsh tyngu). It is a commitment made in front of the Deity, normally together with the acceptance of a punishment; in the event of failure if the promise was positive (I swear to do this or that) or of transgression if it was a ban made to oneself.

The contents of a tongoito (of an oath) therefore can be similar to that of a geis, the oath being ever only a geis that is given to oneself.

The one is spontaneous and comes from oneself, the other is given or notified by a druid.

The formula of the oito (of the oath) generally begins with “I swear by the god on whom my community swears” or if we want, word for word: “I swear by the god who is called upon by my tribe.” In medieval Gaelic, it became the very repetitive formula: “Tongu do dia toingeas mo tuath.”

It is easy by etymological going back to find its probable wording in the ancient language: “Touongo adge deuu iom touongeti ma touta,” reference is therefore made to the God-or-demon ancestor and guardian divinity of the tribe in question, to the local “toutatis,” deity also taking care of the respect of the contracts and of the oaths, a remit among others. But for an atheist or an agnosticist the oath may, without problems, be sworn on his honor.

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BUAID No. 14: SIMPLICITY.

“ Temperaments that know not how to pay court or flatter, but only how to behave simply and frankly to all men alike” . Julian. The Misopogon or “Beard-Hater.”

According to the Greek and Roman authors, our spiritual ancestors were characterized by their lack of modesty even their boastfulness or their arrogance.

Particularly in two specific circumstances: the preliminaries of a battle or of duels, and the political declamation. Duly noted!

But nothing tells us that the same applied in the daily life. The great emperor Julian (331-363) tells us even precisely the opposite in his Misopogon.

“Therefore do not be surprised if I now feel towards you as I do, for I am more uncivilized than he, and more fierce and headstrong in proportion as the Celts are more so than the Romans. He was born in Rome and was nurtured among the Roman citizens till he was on the threshold of old age. But as for me, I had to do with Celts and Germans and the Hercynian Forest from the moment that I was reckoned a grown man, and I have by now spent a long time there, like some huntsman who associates with and is entangled among wild beasts. There I met with temperaments that know not how to pay court or flatter, but only how to behave simply and frankly to all men alike [ Greek haplos de kaì eleutheros ek tou ísou pasi prospheresthai]”.

ABOUT OUR COMMENTARY OF THE WOOING OF FERB (TOCHMARC FERBE).

Sualtam, without being a bad warrior, was not a superman, he was a good and brave warrior so-so. "Is amlaid ra boí Sualtaim acht nírbo drochláech é & nírbo degláech acht múadóclách maith ritacaemnacair".

According to the ancient Irish legends one of the old witches having precipitated the end of our Lord (of Muirthemne) would have told him whereas he passed in their vicinity:

- “Visit us, O Hesus Cuchulainn.”

-I will not visit you in sooth, said the Hesus Cuchulainn.

-The food is only a hound,said she. Were this a great cooking you would have visited us. But because what is here is a very humble cooking heart, you do not come. Ni tualaiṅg mór nad ḟulaiṅg no nad geib in ṁbec . They who cannot endure or accept a little are not capable of much.

Some people reproached much to us what follows in our commentary of the wooing of Ferb (Tochmarc Ferbe counter-lay No. 59): “In all matters where a good spear can avail… That one allows to the researcher in druidism I am, to be a little wearied by: this propensity to make use before all of one’s muscles instead of one’s head; the everlasting lack of modesty of all these warlike boastings; the infernal and endless revenge cycle.

It goes without saying an ill deed must always be punished and that it is well here an essential strengthening of any ethic worthy of the name (unlikely the curious Christian principle consisting of turning the other cheek); but the application of the principle of collective responsibility must also be done while being discriminating in one’s choice, and while always envisioning not to cause endless blood feuds.

As for the modesty of all these warriors or warlike classes, quite comparable with the behavior of our current politicians all over the world (it is enough to see the boastings or arrogance of the current French president, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy of Nagy Bocsa), the researcher in druidism who I am will not forget to return on the subject. Let’s remind, moreover, that it goes without saying we could not expect from a warrior or a fighter, the modesty of a wise. It does not mean that it is a fault. It is also possible to dream of a fighting elite (a little like the Fenians) knowing to combine with strictly warlike qualities, qualities of another order of ideas (the famous twelve books).

Modesty is generally not that of which we can accuse the men or the women with warlike disposition; but it is better nevertheless in many cases, to show a minimum of (druidic) wisdom. Because modesty is also a quality! For druids in any case!

The absolute opposite of the simplicity that we preach is therefore the hubris. The hubris is the very flattering opinion, generally exaggerated, that we have of our personal value at the expense of the

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consideration due to others, unlike the pride which has no need to measure oneself against the other nor to put him down. The one not being possible without the other, it is said that hubris appears only when the circumstances do not bring the man or woman showing pride, where they want. Hubris is therefore the other side of the coin as for the pride.

Just in case and without being really convinced, some words in the Vauvenargues way on this subject, as a humble high-knower of our time.

Our language does not distinguish sufficiently the hubris from the simple and legitimate pride. The principal difference between both is due to the reason for these two feelings.

If the reason for this feeling is quite ascribable to one’s own merits, one’s work, one’s efforts, one’s sacrifices (not to the luck or the chances of your birth) is really of a considerable importance, then we may speak about pride.

If the reason for this feeling is not really ascribable to one’s own merits, one’s work, one’s efforts, one’s sacrifices (but to the luck or the chances of your birth, even to serious faults of the personality like lie theft disloyalty) or that it is of a negligible importance, then we may speak about hubris (it is spoken besides today about “oversized” or “uninhibited” ego.

All the difficulty, of course, is to appreciate at its right value the importance of this reason for pride or hubris as well as the merits which are the cause and the origin of it. The hubristic one realizes rarely or then on late, his hubris. The pride, on the other hand, is by no means incompatible with clearness. You can be proud of yourself for what you carried out, precisely because you have sufficient clearness to become aware that you did much to deserve it.

The individual pride is the feeling which follows a success after the management of a project, of an action, having required efforts to overcome difficulties. This feeling is legitimated by three criteria: - personal commitment in the action and/or the project to be carried out - presence of trials to be overcome – success.

Such a legitimate pride is quite comprehensible and therefore constitutes a moral value.You may also be proud to be the member of a clan, a corps of “brave men,” such that of the firemen, or a school, a family having built many things, by dint of hard work.

Hubris or oversize ego, on the other hand, are diseases, or swellings of the mind, of the character. To be hubristic or to have an oversized ego is to have the feeling to be more important and more deserving than the others, to owe something to nobody, what results in contempt for the others. The hubris is a species of cyst, which must be worked in order to be partially or completely destroyed, it chokes the one who is puffed up with it, even if he does not realize, and purely and simply suffocate the others.

Modesty was not the principal fault of the lay Celts and the ancient high-knowers of the druidiaction were to have perhaps a long way to go in this field. Just like those of today besides. Our civilization knows no longer what is modesty (ardergna?) and multiplies the oversized egos (especially in politicks) mixing up the (legitimates) pride for what they really did with the (excessive) hubris or hybris in Greek language, of the upstart (who overestimates his personal merits). What times we live in!

To return from there to a more positive definition of simplicity.

The druidic concept of simplicity can mean several things: (1). The feeling not to be much , to be small compared with the world which surrounds us. (2) The attitude consisting in not believing that we are above the things and the others and through which we respect that with which the chance, the destiny or God, according to our personal assumptions, rewarded us.

N.B. The simplicity, i.e., the reserve in the way of speaking about oneself, the absence of hubris,of flashiness, was certainly a quality of the first knights since they were not members of the nobility in the beginning.

Freedom equality simplicity with everyone [Greek haplos de kaì eleutheros ek tou ísou pasi prospheresthai] will be thus our slogan in this work.

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ANCIENT LAWS AND INSTITUTES OF IRELAND

(SENCHUS MOR) VOLUME 1.

A ro siacht recht aicnid mar nad rochat recht litri.

The law of nature had prevailed when the written law did not reach….The world was at an equality until the Senchus Mor was established. The source of injustice, before the Senchus, was that everyone was equal before the law ???.

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THE DRUIDIC FIVE PATH (5 CONARA FUGILL)

FOR JUDGING WELL AND BEING WELL JUDGED.

Under this title we will group together the considerations which seem to us necessary for the life in society if we are to believe an 8th-century Irish law tract entitled Coic Conara Fugill, which literally means the five paths to a good judgment. The five questions that a judge probably had to ask himself in order to reason well. If we believe the law treatise entitled in Gaelic language Uraicecht Becc roughly dating back to the same period, it was initially intended to correspond quite simply to the Aryan tripartition.

Truth (fir). The best route by definition.

Duty (dliged). Section to which we can add the sense of honor the sense of sacrifice (way of the warriors).

Elementary justice or natural law (cert and aicned)

Things due (techta). Or not. Third function, that of producers.

Appeal (coir n-athchomaic).

As far as we are concerned, we will leave aside the legal quibbles of the n-athchomairc coir (appeal) to deal only with the ethical code that these legal treatises imply. See below.

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THE HUMAN DUTIES.

DLIGETO. Solidarity to ambicatu.

The Gaelic term "dliged" is one of the most ambiguous or ambivalent which is.

The electronic dictionary of the Irish language makes it a synonym of …… one page.

Charles-Edwards, Celtica xxiv 75-78 , proposes the following ordering….

I (a) an individual’s entitlement, right. (i) a right in respect of fair contract as opposed to naidm ‘binding surety’…..….

I In O.Ir. Glosses in various senses of the Lat. ratio which it freq. translates.

(a) In sense of Lat. ratio, guiding principle, law, or theory (regarded as basis of belief or action).

Hence (b) principle, rule, norm.

(d) reason, argument.

(e) reckoning, computation.

(f) nature, condition, kind, manner.

II Hence law in wide sense, of a prescript, code, or tradition based on authority of some kind and demanding obedience; `both law in general and a subjective legal right.”

III What is lawful or incumbent, duty, obligation .

IV What is right or due (to someone); due, right, prerogative.

V Due, tax, tribute.

VI Faculty of reason.

Albert Bayet in his history of Morality (1930), however, makes it a simple synonym of "duty" "obligation" "debt.”

It is true that the rights of somebody correspond, on the contrary, of course, to the duties or obligations of others.

Let’s try to see more clearly in that by broadening our point of view.

The ancient Celtic society was polar opposite of the current Judeo-Christian society which is urbanized, unitary, egalitarian (what does not mean equal opportunity, but leveling down) and completely individualistic. It was based on the natural or obligatory solidarity of its members and on another thing that the simple individual responsibility. This conception could even in certain circumstances go to the notion of collective responsibility, since the members of a group were also responsible for what had done one of theirs.

As the multilingual journal Carn writes it well, in an article about the Celtic law, one of the collective duties of the tribe was to support its members. The tribe therefore took care of those who have nobody to deal with them in the old age, the disease or the need. No member of the tribe, unless being an outlaw, had to fear to be abandoned in the need.

This obliged social solidarity went very far. A chapter of the Irish law particularly interesting, since it preserves a very old tradition on this subject, is that which relates to the obligation to look after the patients.

There exist two tracts on this subject. One has as a title “Judgments of blood-lying” (Bretha Crolige) and the other “the judgments of Dian Cecht” (Bretha Dein Checht) .

The group of which it is most often made mention in the legal texts, at least in Ireland, is the derbfine or “true relationship,” which comprises all the descendants of a communal great-grandfather. This group has considerable power over its members. Each parental group has its ancestral land , called fintiu, towards which each qualified male adult has some responsibility. This land can be sold only with the assent of the group. A man can cancel the contracts of the other members of his relationship in this field if he thinks that they are prejudicial to the aforementioned group.

On another side, the relationship in question is legally responsible for the infringements made by its members - the goods of a group member can be seized to pay the debts of another. If somebody is murdered, the parents receive a share of the eraic (wergild or blood price), and if the culprit does not pay, the family members can start a vendetta against him. The act to kill a member of its relationship

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(fingal) is particularly detested. The murderer loses his share of the family land, but remains always subjugated to the payment of the fines for the infringements made by the others. The chief of this widened family is called ágae fine or cenn fine (sometimes conn fine). He is chosen among the relationship, probably by election, on the basis of a higher wealth and rank or of good sense, and he acts and speaks in the name of his relationship in the special occasions.

The maternal relationship also plays a part. While marrying, the woman does not break all her ties with the family which saw her being born. The maternal relationship can have to take part in a vendetta. If the child of one of its girls is killed, if the culprit does not pay, it receives a share of the eraic planned for such a murder, and it must intervene if the education of a child is not correctly assured.

The very whole community indeed must deal with the children and this care should not be left to the only biological family. From where the generalized development of what is called altrom or daltachas among Celts (children will perfect their education in other families, where they will be treated as the own children of the couple).

Certain persons keep talking to us about the status of orphans in Islamic land. Muhammad himself having been an orphan, he would have devoted much attention to their education and their lot. It is to forget that we have, also, our own chivalrous traditions in this field (the defense of the widow and of the orphan precisely). Very different besides from the altrom or daltachas. The French of the false France, the France of before (which disappeared body and soul since), had in this field invented an interesting concept, that of war orphan. Law of July 29, 1917, article L461:

The nation adopts the orphans.

1º Whose father or breadwinner was killed.

Either in action.

Or in one of the overseas campaigns, subsequently to the war of 1914.

2º Whose father, mother, or breadwinner, died of wounds, or diseases, caught or worsened because of war.

Every member of a clan was entitled, coming from his tribe, to what was necessary to him in order to earn his living (see the ancient example of the Ambigatus of Livy).

The community must therefore deal completely and directly with the care and the education of orphans or abandoned children, whatever the reasons are besides; because the knowledge and the erudition of each individual can contribute to the very keeping, to the improvement, of the society (they can become engineers, inventors, magistrates, pedagogues…)

The solidarity between Celtic peoples (due perhaps to this habit of the children exchange) was not an empty word in the early time of druidism; as the quotation of Livy which follows proves it.

“When the ambassadors, after extolling the renown and courage of the Roman people and the greatness of their dominion, asked the Celts not to allow the Carthaginian invaders a passage through their fields and cities, such interruption and laughter broke out that the younger men were with difficulty kept quiet by the magistrates and senior members of the council. They thought it the stupidest and most impudent demand to make: that the Celts, in order to prevent the war from spreading into Italy, should turn it against themselves and expose their own lands to be ravaged instead of other peoples. After quiet was restored the envoys were informed that the Romans had rendered them no service, nor had the Carthaginians done them any injury to make them take up arms either on behalf of the Romans or against the Carthaginians. ON THE OTHER HAND,THEY HEARD THAT MEN OF THEIR RACE WERE BEING EXPELLED FROM ITALY, AND MADE TO PAY TRIBUTE TO ROME, AND SUBJECTED TO EVERY OTHER INDIGNITY. THEIR EXPERIENCE WAS THE SAME IN ALL THE OTHER COUNCILS. NOWHERE DID THEY HEAR A KINDLY OR EVEN TOLERABLY PEACEABLE WORD TILL THEY REACHED MARSEILLES.

Editor’s note. The word “race” is, of course, due to the translator of Titus-Livius and is by no means appropriate for this fundamental concept of ambicatu which was absolutely not racial; but well rather spiritual (the sacred duty to fight for justice and truth, both concepts in any event going together among Celts).

And of course, the peoples in question did not fall all into the camp of Hannibal (even if his victory in Cannae owes them much); but at least they refused to help a people (the Romans) which behaved so badly, it is the least we can say, with their brothers. With the peoples about which they felt confusedly that they were members of the same - o certainly not racial, but at least cultural and spiritual- family, as them. The Celtic word “ambicatu” “ambigatu” illustrates marvelously this concept: it means “who

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fights on all sides, or who fights on both sides.” Some people add even that it is a temporal, but also spiritual, fight (End of the paragraph about the ambicatu).

Historically speaking and on the continent, it is indeed to the Biturigian emperor (high-king) called Ambicatuos, that it came down to develop the first an authentically druidic political practice.

Ambicatuos seems the archetypal representative of druidic humanism and tolerance (cantamantaloedism). Ambicatuos can be regarded as the founder of a political thought based on druidic principles.

The Celtic king must set up a prosperous rule of law, producing an abundance of tangible assets which makes it possible to satisfy the social obligations of the tribe with regard to the poor and the patients; but which also makes it possible the largest number of men, possible, to progress spiritually on the path leading to the blossoming of his soul-mind (individual erdathe).

Editor’s note. A good Celtic monarch must defend and encourage all the religious communities (polytheism) but while feeling particular obligations with regard to druidism naturally. And as the king quoted by Caesar said it, Ambiorix: “My power was of that nature, that the people had as much authority over me as I over the people” Some participatory democracy???

Supplementary pieces of evidence of this mentality are offered to us by linguistics with the success of the stem anextlo- and uoreto- in the names of people as in the divine epithets. However these two words express concepts resulting directly from druidic philanthropy.

- Anextlo (or anextio) = protection/intercession. Many are the cases of intervention in this sense, reported in the ancient history of the Celts, and Caesar himself quotes some of them in his De Bello Gallico.

- Uoreto = help/rescue, is also a material for eulogistic names as Uoretouiros, Anauuoretos, etc., and historical examples can also be released.

The fact that these words were part of the onomastics of the Celts, so directed towards the praise, indicates that these concepts were well seen among them; as opposed to what some persons would like to make believed about a so-called European mentality focused on the only worship of force.

The aforementioned victorious and dominant force (sego) was, certainly, a virtue among Celts (woe to the vanquished indeed according to the great Brennus).

“When the ambassadors asking what injury they had received of the Clusinians that they thus invaded their city, Brennus, king of the Celts, laughed and made the following answer. “The Clusinians do us injury, in that, being able only to till a small parcel of ground, they possess nevertheless a great territory, and will not yield any part to us, who are strangers, many in number and poor. This is the same wrong which you too suffered, O Romans, formerly at the hands of the Albans, Fidenates, Ardeates, and now lately at the hands of the Veientines, Capenates, and many of the Faliscans or Volscians; upon whom you have considered natural to make war, if they do not yield you part of what they possess, to make slaves of them, to waste and to spoil their country, and ruin their cities. And in so doing , you were neither cruel nor unjust, but simply observers of the oldest of all laws, which gives the powerful one the possessions of the feeble ; beginning with the gods and ending with the beasts; since each and everyone always tries to have what belongs to weaker. And cease therefore to pity the Clusinians whom we besiege, lest you teach the Celts to be kind and compassionate to those that are oppressed by you.”

But the Druidism had known to moderate this force by an ethical balance, factor of social cohesion.

It should nevertheless be noticed that this ethical approach came much more under the concept of solidarity than under that of the more or less interested by the lure of salvation , “charity.” The trugocaria of the druidism was not this charity distorted during centuries, in the sense that Christians give it today.

There exists, in the Celtic tradition, a strong feeling of justice. “They readily take the cause of the one who is oppressed into their own hands. They indeed have at the higher degree the feeling of equity, of law and honor. They can suffer that somebody breaks his sworn word. The reputation of justice of some of their tribes, as the Volcae Tectosages who lived beyond the Rhine, went far ” (Albert Grenier).

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To return to the dligeto or sense of the duty. For an ordinary citizen (unlike the fir flathemon which concerns the rulers).

For the druids of the Early Time, and unlike Christians of today, to become monk or druidic initiate (comrunos) in no way exempted from the obligation to achieve one’s social duties, particularly the education or the settling of one’s children. There still, noblesse oblige!

According to Albert Bayet, the idea of moral obligation, of duty, was expressed by the Indo-European stem which produces in Celtic dligeto. Caesar translates it either by the – dus participle or by the verbs “debere, necesse est,” or by the substantive “officium.” Of course, that does not prove that there was in the language of Litaviccus or Indutiomarus a term which is the equivalent of the word officium ; but that proves that by calling on the idea that these words express, Caesar thought that he would be understood by men like Indutiomarus or Litavicuos.

In old Irish dliged means “thing to which you are entitled" rather than “thing that you owe,” but the second sense (that of obligation) is also attested: the expression dlegair (dligthir) ní duit, means for example approximately: “you owe something.” The word comes from the Indo-European root dleg- which means to commit. In Irish law every human action was either dliged (or dligid) or indliged (indligid).

The principle was that of fidelity to his word (the ancient Celts went even as far as lending each other REFUNDABLE IN THE OTHER WORLD money sums ) we already said.

Any individual must take on the responsibility linked to his status his state, or his gestures, and compensate in an appropriate way, preferably in this life, the wrongs caused to others. If the person in question does not make it, the responsibility for this compensation will follow him in the Next World (if it exists).

One of the recognized principles of the law, at least in Ireland, was, for a free man, the possibility of offering a legal protection (“snádud,” or “turtugud”) for a certain time, to another person of equal or lower rank. To kill or wound somebody placed under such a protection formed even the offense of “díguin” (violation of protection); an offense for which the author was to pay the honor price of the guard in question, besides every other fines payable by him only because of his act itself.

N.B. It was, however, illegal to offer one’s protection to certain categories of fugitives, for example an on the lam murderer. (KELLY 1988. Page 141).

Every free man was supposed consequently to exert a permanent protection on his own house and its surroundings, called “maigen dígona.” This responsibility generally covered the surface which he had enclosed to make his yard. If somebody was killed or wounded inside this space, this action made his author guilty of díguin against the host.

THE DUTIES OF ONE’S STATE.

Important note by the author of this compilation.

This (above mentioned) individual morality must in no way be confused, especially in democracies (confusion may take place in monarchies), with the duties of one's state, the duties each one has according to one’s family situation, of one’s trade, of one’s office.

As an individual, we may for example be generous. But when we are responsible for others, for a family, for a community, we may not allow ourselves to waste one’s resources, unless everyone agrees, of course. We are accountable for one’s money. What Max Weber rediscovered 2000 years later by distinguishing the ethic of conviction from the ethic of responsibility.

What the Catholic Church formerly defined in the following way: "The particular obligations that each one has as a result of one’s state, one’s status, and the situation he occupies.” The words "states,” "status" and "situation" respectively refer to the states of life (marriage, single, consecrated, employed, unpaid, etc.), how we are in this state (engaged or married, beginner, professional or amateur, etc.), the particular circumstances (entrepreneur, lawyer, journalist, student, retiree, etc.).

So there are the duties........

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1. Towards God (towards gods the polytheistic pagans say, towards the higher being and his hypostases the followers of philosophical and considered paganism say).

2. Toward one’s parents, one’s spouse , one’s children (financial aid, affectivity, devoted time , etc.).

3. Towards the nation and the community of which we are a member (tax, vote, military service, etc.).

4. In the professional context (rigor, diligence, honesty, etc.).

5. In social relations (friends, neighbors, etc.).

The Catholic Church specifies that a young married man, for example, does not have the same obligations as a man who has been married for a long time because their situations are different: sexual needs, marital connivance, the age of the children, professional difficulties lead to different duties.

It is therefore up to each one to discern one’s state, one’s status as well as the situation where one is and the requirements that follow from it. In a more prosaic or secular way, we may say that the student must study as best as possible, parents must educate their children as best as possible, the entrepreneur must manage his business as best as possible. These requirements are so important that they are moral obligations.

This very Celtic notion of duty of one’s state makes it possible to prioritize one's efforts, while being sure to respect a just order. Some people sometimes dream of an ideal of life that seems fairer or even greater (ethics of conviction Weber would say) but they forget the concrete situation in which they are. Or they will make efforts on secondary points, while forgetting the main thing.

THE DUTIES OF POLITICIANS OR STATESMAN IN A DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM.

The common good. Which, as Rousseau very well defined it, is not the simple sum of individual wills. The concept of general will, designed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his book entitled "The social contract,” refers to what every citizen should want for the good of all, including for his own interest. It is on the general will that the social contract is based.

The "general will" (or the will of the people) is the foundation of the legitimacy of political power.

State forces can only be directed by the general will (the agreement of particular interests) to tend towards the common good. Popular sovereignty may be delegated, by provisionally agreeing with the will of a man, but could not be subject in a long-term footing to the will of one man. It should be noted that the general will does not match the will of the majority. “There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter considers only the common interest, while the former takes private interest into account, and is no more than a sum of particular wills: but take away from these same wills the pluses and minuses that cancel one another, and the general will remains as the sum of the differences” ( The social contract, book II, chapter 3).

Yes, I know, democracy is complicated, the best is to have a good king.

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NATURAL LAW OR RECHT AICNID (RECTU ADGENIAS).

Word for word “law of the species” (adgenia) in old Celtic, from where recht aicnid in poetic and legal old Irish.

From his animal origin the Gdonios (the Man) inherits indeed a certain number of social behaviors (even animals have rules of life, as surprising as that can appear). The primates our ancestors did not spend their time in fighting and killing all and sundry. They had already rules of life.

The first gdonioi (first men) were therefore not deprived from every rule in their progressive super-animalization (hominization). They had already registered in their behavior, the elementary morality of our animal ancestors. The primates indeed have a very structured and developed family and social life: rare are those who lead permanently a solitary life. The litters are often reduced to one whelp , whose growth, very slow, makes possible a long period of training. Among the solitary species, each individual lives on a territory which is proper to him. The males are alone, and the females can be accompanied by their offspring, that they tolerate until puberty. Males and females meet only at the time of the reproduction period . It is the case of some African or Madagascan nocturnal prosimians, and of the orang-utans in Asia. But we can observe, among the other primates, a certain number of varied social structures.

Simplest being represented by the monogamist family: a father, a mother and their children, until their puberty. The couple of adults, generally stable, lasts several years. This organization is observed among some lemurians, like the indri, among certain cercopithecidae in Africa, like the De Brazza's monkey, a monkey of America, the titi, and especially among the gibbons in Asia. Among the latter, each family lives on a relatively restricted territory, actively defended against the neighboring families by the ritual making, particularly in the morning at the awakening, of very powerful modulated songs. The most widespread social structure among the primates is nevertheless the community without permanent couples: several males live with several females. Certain groups can be strongly dominated by the males, others by the females; lastly, some groups have no very clear hierarchy. The hierarchies are conveyed in many rules with which each member must comply, under penalty of exclusion. Most frequently, they are the males who dominate the females. It is the case among the Japanese macaques, the baboons and the gorillas. Among certain lemurs, on the other hand, the dominant individuals are the females.Among the chimpanzees or the howler monkeys in South America, there is no hierarchical order, but each group is made up of many basic cells represented by the females and their children.Among the gorillas and the chimpanzees, the groups are very stable. However, the females, more mobile, can pass from a group to the other, whereas the males remain in their birth group. In addition to these communities, we also frequently observe a structure of the type polygamous family: a male gathers a group of females around him, a “harem.” Among the African cercopithecidae, the troop is generally made of a family group controlled by one adult male. The same adult male can live several years with several females, on a restricted territory, defended through voice and gesture against possible groups of single individuals. This elaborate social life made possible the development of very complex social behaviors which secure the group cohesion. Many exchange multiple subtle and sophisticated signals, by means of the voice, of the facial expression, of the gestures, of the posture or of the behavior.

Nature therefore gave to the Gdonios (to the Man) since the beginning , the means of discovering, like by feeling, what went further in the direction of his superanimalization, of his dignity as well as of his freedom. They did not need for that a revelation from the God or Demiurge of Abraham Isaac or Jacob.

An excellent definition was provided to us by the inhabitant of Langres Denis Diderot. Was this because of his proximity of the Matrona’s spring where was at one time founded by Ronan ab Lug and Gal Crae the druidic Ollotouta?? Nobody knows.

The notion of rectu adgenias ultimately refers to the nature “nemet” of the human person. It is on the existence of the pact with the god-or-demons, concluded after the battle for the Talantio also known as the 3rd battle of Magos Turadion, or 3rd battle of the plain with burial mounds and with standing stones, that this nature “nemet” of every human person (his sacred inviolability) is based. This pact with the god-or-demons is the indispensable condition which makes all gdonius “nemet” i.e. “living in peace with the god-or-demons.”

In Celtic country every person holder of a knowledge or of a know-how was nemetos. Nemet the boaire, nemet the aes dana, nemet the bard, and so on. What leads us to another definition of the rectu adgenias, that which was proposed by Regis Boyer. “The right that has, by nature, and election,

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a given individual, to be treated on a certain footing by his fellows, and the legitimacy of his claims to a certain type of compensation for the breaches affecting his honor; i.e., of the very strong feeling that he has to take part himself in the sacredness, of the sacred order founded and guaranteed by the higher Powers. Revenge is a sacred right which comes from the very strong feeling of the intolerable nature of the sacrilege.” As noibo Patrick himself accepts it in the introduction of the Senchus Mor: there is strengthening of paganism if an evil deed is avenged.

“All is organized to protect the dignity of the individual, through him the honor of his family and, therefore, the fullness of the family of which he is a member .” As Regis Boyer noticed it very well , every crime or offense is therefore “a breach against the sacred - nemet. Editor’s note - nature of the offended individual, against his family, without whom he would not exist, and against the community into which he fits. Breach it will be necessary to offset. Capital punishment existed only in extreme cases, because the demise of the offender solves nothing. The sacred (nemet) is not repaired by removing the one who violated it, it is restored by filling the break in the continuity.”

Some monolatrous people have, of course, pretended not understand this fundamental druidic concept. They oppose the rectu adgenias to freedom (to their design of freedom more exactly).

They are right to defend freedom, but the “law” of which it is a question in this rectu adgenias is not the command of a divine despot limiting human freedom. Quite to the contrary, the rectu adgenias indicates a direction, a way so that this freedom does not remain only theoretical, but can take shape in a certain design of the world.

Others say that the Gdonios (the Man), through his civilization, is distinguished from nature. And they are right, but the word nature is taken here in another meaning. The adgenia of this law refers to the deep nature of the Gdonios (of the Man), i.e.to what constitutes him in his dignity, his reason, his spirituality, his responsibility, even his capacity to love (caro/care). Our philosophers were the first to recognize the wisdom of this rectu adgenias.

The modern monolatrous religions (Judaism, Islam, Christianity, etc.) insist much on the question of the culpability, but is it always necessary to feel guilty at all costs?

There exists in each one of us as an inner compass which helps to sense where truth is, therefore the forgery consequently, it is what is called the conscience. With it, each one learns how to distinguish what is good for him and for the others. The druids always underlined the nobility of the role of the conscience, this small inner voice which does not cease exhorting him to reverence the god-or-demons, to be courageous and to do nothing dishonoring. The conscience is the most secret initiatory center of the Gdonios (of the Man), the sanctuary where he is alone with the divinity and where his voice is made heard.

Although equated with the customary law of the brehon by Christian authors, it is obvious that the recht aicnid or law of nature was previous; the laws of brehons being already, of course, very elaborate and therefore being in no way reduced to a simple natural law.

The fact remains that the recht aicnid or law of nature is a useful and interesting light on the true good of Mankind. But the gdonios also profits, of course, from another perspective on the truth, the beauty, the good and the benefit: the druidic knowledge, of course. Because the consciences must be educated, need to leave this rather confused at the beginning rectu adgenias. Such was the task of the Brehon Laws. We are responsible in front of our conscience, but we are also responsible for our conscience. Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul. So that it becomes straight and true, it is necessary for us to keep it unceasingly at work, to exercise it in the concrete decisions and to test it; because it also happens that the Gdonios (the Man) stops worrying about the truth or the good, and that his Hornunnian original weakness makes little by little his conscience almost blind.

But in this case where to go and seek an ethical code which leads to the authentic truth of the Gdonios and of the mankind, i.e., ultimately to his supermanization ? So many systems, and so different are offered to men!

Unlike our president, who is not a model about this subject, the new druidism does not think that every ethical code is impossible without religion (Speech of Lateran on December 20, 2007). In addition to the fact that this design, meanly utility, of the God-or-demons, is shocking, the experience shows that the simple ethology of our distant ancestors forms for our various deontological codes a self-sufficient solid base. We don’t see why freedom, friendship, clannish solidarity… would be impossible without a direct reference to the god-or-demons. We should not deny the legitimate autonomy of the worldly values that are politics in the noble meaning of the term (as in the expression “Politics must take precedence over economics”), the culture, the ethical code or the science; what the monolatrous religions resulting from a racist sunburn (the biblical notion of chosen people, the topic of the eternal

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divine message written in Arabic language since always, etc.) do today merrily. Nobody has the whole truth. Even the atheistic materialists or Kuffar have their share of it and, sometimes, it is themselves who set an example to us. If the atheistic materialism is only the honest refusal from intelligence and heart to perceive that there is in us something which in no way disappears with the death of our body , the existence of things or forces which go beyond us, even of a higher Being; without preventing a normal life, nor even a serious interrogation on the destiny of Mankind; the atheistic materialism then is worthier of respect than the blind belief, and it is better that many suspect religious conversions. According to Strabo certain Celts, and particularly the Galicians in Spain were atheistic besides. We already had the opportunity to question us on this subject. Is this really possible or is it rather a lack of nuance in the thought of Strabo unable to understand the subtleties of certain druidic schools? In every case, for the record, here his quotation. “Some say the Callaicans have no god, but the Celtiberians and their neighbors on the north offer sacrifices to a nameless god at the seasons of the full moon, by night, in front of the doors of their houses, and whole households dance in chorus and keep it up all night” (Strabo, Geography III, 4.16).

The Gdonios (the Man) likes to think he is in the image of the god-or-demons; but he cannot become like one of them only by agreeing to change himself into that for what he is made, in what basically he is already.

Even breached by all kinds of unworthy weaknesses (inherited from the primordial Man symbolized by the unhappy Hornunnos); his reason, his responsibility, his tendency towards the beauty, the good, the benefit, in short towards the truth; push him into making choices which already enable him to be fulfilled in the most natural way possible by starting to release himself from nature.

His advance towards more responsibility, friendship, therefore towards the delivery of his very being , is, of course, often long and chaotic, hesitant. See on this subject all the aberrations, mistakes or crimes, of the other religions,whether it is Christianity, Islam, and even Hinduism (its unworthy caste system ), etc. His Hornunnian original weakness hinders him. It is difficult to become fully Gdonios (Man). Sometimes it is necessary to make sacrifices for that. To achieve his evolving vocation and to begin to earn the blossoming (moksha in India) to which he is intended, the Gdonios (the Man) has a ceaseless combat to fight.

To win the first victories over himself, he can be based on the force of the natural law. Rectu adgenias.

Nature, and at its top the Gdonios (the Man), are themselves the first of the moral sources. The Gdonios (the Man) being a social animal right from the start, his nature registered in him the rules of a co-operative in the absence of being harmonious,functioning.

This law of the deep nature of the human being, in relation with the others and with his environment, makes the Gdonios (the Man) able to see what is not good for him.

The freedom of Gdonios (of the Man) encounters constraints. It is handicapped, slowed down by all kinds of ponderousness, of after-effects of a badly made education, of old practices. By the bad examples of the entourage, or certain dehumanizing structures of the society, not forgetting the secret original weakness about which we have much spoken (his animal origin which makes that, if the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak,see the Ces Noinden or nine days’ affliction of the Ulaid). Freedom, in the rectu adgenias, is given to us more as a germ to make grow than as a reality well made up.

It is why ethics must remain a permanent fight in the heart of the Gdonios (in the heart of the Man), and in the world. This fight depends on the level of freedom of each one but nobody is capable of measuring really well the degree of freedom of the others. It is easier to judge behaviors and situations (for example the behaviors of the Christians, of Islam, of Judaism, of the democrats, of the republicans, of the royalists, of the left wing, of the right wing, the behaviors also of certain druids or so-called such, etc.). Because everything is not acceptable.

To judge behaviors, it is to act as a man, but to judge men is to consider oneself as a god-or-demon. Carry out one’s hard work of man on this earth is easy for nobody. Besides some have more difficulty than others. It can even sometimes happen that consciences can be mislaid, in consequence of various ignorances, without to lose their dignity. (Except for the torturers of the Christian Inquisition, mighty burners of witches before the Lord , great Hebrew captains slaughtering Philistines, Canaanites and even other Hebrews; Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Beria, Pol Pot, and other men of the left-wing kind Rene Bousquet in France, the famous author of the dishonoring anti-semite roundup of the Velodrome d’Hiver in July 1942. Rene Bousquet was indeed one of the ambitious youngsters of the French left wing of then. Etc., etc.).

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How to know in these circumstances if a law is idiotic or not, anti national or national, imbued with anti-Black, anti-Indian, anti-Arab, anti-Jewish, anti-white racism, or not? Human rights are a landmark, but of very uneven and sometimes changing value. It may therefore happen that a law, in order to please a given public opinion (democrat or republican, populist or monarchist, left or right, racist yesterday, anti-racist today, etc.); legalize practices which are completely opposed to natural law or which infringe freedom of conscience.

These laws then become immoral. What is legal is not always moral indeed, and it is even a banality to point it out. The druidicist must therefore work so that the immoral, according to him, laws, become more in conformity with natural law, without preventing others, for all that , by other means than through a disapproval manifest but falling within the freedom of opinion and / or expression, from complying with them. Being understood well that if the immoral laws in question do not oblige him personally, he must in this case not to use the faculties that they grant but on the contrary to campaign or to use his recognized political freedoms and particularly his right to vote, to change this situation or at least to make it evolve in the good direction according to him (moral magistracy of druidism).

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ON THE SURVIVAL OF CLANNISH PROPERTY IN SCOTLAND.

The main reason why enclosure represented a profound civilizational change is that such "improvement," as it was termed by its apologists, was associated with the concept of profit in the same way that the later term, "development," has become associated with "economic growth." Enclosure therefore represents not only the “robbery” of land from subsistence communities, but a profound step towards viewing the land and its people as things to be traded and exploited. As Carolyn Merchant discusses , enclosure represents a significant break in the organic conception of the cosmos; a break related to the ideological transformation from the Renaissance (in which the Reformation had its origins) and the Scientific Revolution; a break that involved the transformation of agricultural and industrial production in spite of the Earth rather than through the Earth.

The gradual enclosure of the commons in England saw the Medieval land communally managed system steadily replaced by either speculative crop farms producing grain crops, or fenced pastureland for sheep and cattle. Ancient meadows and heath lands were turned over to intensive production. By Tudor times large numbers of dispossessed peasants were causing unrest in the cities and country, so various legal brakes were applied to the enclosure movement with partial success. When the English Revolution of 1649-1660 brought power to the social classes that had benefited from the enclosure, the process began again in earnest. A large series of Private Acts of Enclosure, some 4,000 covering some 7,000,000 land acres, were passed even before the General Enclosure Act promulgated in 1845 and it is probable that at least the same amount of land was enclosed without recourse to Parliament.

Like their Roman predecessors who never made it further than lowland Scotland, the "Great Improvers" who had enclosed England and lowland Scotland came only late to the Scottish Highlands and Islands. This bioregion was an area at the remote periphery of the cities, and mostly mountainous. Today it supports a sparse population of some 350,000. Human settlement was based on hunters gatherers and subsistence arable and cattle agriculture, ruled by kinship based, often warring, patriarchal clan chiefs.

In 1707 the parliaments of Scotland and England combined for a mixture of reasons to do with religion, security, and access to mutual markets. This led to much popular resentment, the "traitors" in the Scots parliament, many of whom saw mercantile advantage or were offered incentives, being even equated with a “parcel of rogues" by the great national poet, Robert Burns.

After this and events surrounding the earlier 1603 Union of the Crowns, Scotland was in a state of civil war. The Catholic pretender to the throne, Prince Charles Edward Stewart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), raised an army from among the Highland chiefs and marched south, meeting little resistance. These "Jacobites" came within 120 miles of London but lacked the strength confidently to press on. The British army therefore gathered to make pursuit and, under the "butcher" Cumberland, massacred the Jacobites at the last battle to be fought on mainland British soil: Culloden, 1746. Interestingly, this was just three years after what was reputedly "the last wolf" had been shot in Scotland; a significant species local extinction foreshadowing cultural disintegration.

Intent upon preventing further rebellion, pacification of the clans became the immediate priority of the British State, comprising from now on the English, lowland Scots and royalist clan chiefs. A process known as "proscription" was set in place to eradicate the traditional Highland culture while leaving many outward structures intact for administrative purposes. Under other names —"civilization," "education," "Christianization" — this was to become a cornerstone of colonial policy around the world. Speaking from Latin America, Paulo Freire was later to describe the phenomenon as a true civilizational invasion:

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"In this phenomenon, the invaders penetrate the cultural context of another group, and ignoring the potential of the latter, they impose their own view of the world upon those they invade and inhibit in this way the creativity of the invaded by curbing their expression.... The civilizational invasion is thus always an act of violence against the members of the invaded culture, who lose their authenticity.... (It) leads to the inauthenticity of those who are invaded; they begin to respond to the values, the standards, and the goals of the invaders.”

The Act of Proscription took effect from August 1747 and was not repealed until 1782, and its effects were “internalized" into what Freire called a "culture of silence." Under pain of being "Liable to be transported to any of His Majesty's plantations beyond the sea, for seven years," the Act banned the wearing of the traditional dress, the meeting together , playing the bagpipes and other forms of traditional entertainment, and the carrying of arms. Bagpipes were treated as an instrument of war, to be played only within the British Army where their uses included variously impressing and frightening other natives of foreign lands. The traditional powers of clan chiefs were removed but most of the chiefs were left in place in a personal capacity. Those who did not accede to royalist jurisdiction had their lands forfeited and placed in the hands of government appointed surrogates.

Traditionally, the chieftains operated a system of usufruct under patronage. It meant overlapping patterns of rights to land and water usage, as distinct from outright Romanesque ownership.The land of the clan was not the private property of the chief, but the public property of the clan’s folk. Kinship was therefore focused around the personhood of the chief, not "his" lands. The post Cullodden regime was to change this into a latifundia-style system whereby land was commoditized and enclosure introduced.

"Many chiefs were as at home in Edinburgh or Paris as they were in the Highlands…While away from his clan, moreover, the typical chief conscious since childhood of his status, felt obliged to emulate, or even surpass, the lifestyle of the courtiers and nobles with whom he mingled. And it was at this point that the eighteenth century chief's two roles came into irreconcilable conflict with one another. As a southern socialite, he needed more and more money. As a tribal patriarch, he could do very little to raise it."

In Scotland, the charging of rents or a cattle levy were obvious revenue raisers. When that was insufficient to pay for gambling, drinking, women and such new "tartans" as the Paris tailors would come up with, more severe measures such as rent-racking or forcing tenants into the landlord's waged labor were introduced. If these too failed to deliver sufficient cash flow, the "estate" could be sold on in the rapidly growing land market. The new owner, who would generally be what we would now call a "venture capitalist," would (with some notable and worthy exceptions) have few if any traditional ties to the people and therefore fewer still scruples as to how he exploited nature and those to whom he was (and still is today) the "feudal superior." Often under the pretense that it was for the people's own good, the ultimate solution of the Clearances were devised to make way for the Highlands' first modern-scale cash crop - sheep for wool production. To apologist suggestions of benign intent, John McGrath, playwright of "The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black Black Oil," retorted:

"The fact remains that the intensive (sic) methods of cultivation of the Gaels had maintained a far greater number of people per acre than had been maintained elsewhere that the standard of living was not the sole criterion of happiness or worth, and that although many would have indeed left voluntarily, as they already had before the clearing began the majority of these people did not want to go. Furthermore, the fact remains that the fertile ground which had kept so many people through the centuries was now turned into useless land fit only for sheep. The cruelest and most important fact of all is that the criterion for the best use of land ceased to be the number of people it could support, and became the amount of profit it could make.”

Clearances were particularly brutal in Sutherland and the Uists. Carmichael, circa 1928, documents one account given by Catherine MacPhee of South Uist.

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"Many a thing have I seen in my own day and generation. Many a thing, O Mary Mother of the black sorrow! I have seen the townships swept from their inhabitants, and the big holdings being made of them, the people being driven out of the countryside to the streets of Glasgow or to the wilds of Canada, such of them as did not die of hunger and plague and smallpox while going across the ocean. I have seen the women putting the children in the carts which were being sent from Benbecula and the Iochdar to Loch Boisdale, while their husbands lay bound in the pen and were weeping beside them, without power to give them a helping hand, though the women themselves were crying aloud and their little children wailing like to break their hearts. I have seen the big strong men, the champions of the countryside, the stalwarts of the world, being bound on Loch Boisdale Quay and cast into the ship as would be done to a batch of horses or cattle in the boat, the bailiffs and the ground officers and the constables and the policemen gathered behind them in pursuit of them. The God of life and He only knows all the loathsome work of men on that day."

Conditions on marginalized land for those remaining at home were often miserable. The great potato famine of Ireland and Scotland was one consequence of people being forced onto inadequate plots and therefore having to replace a diversified agricultural mix with an "efficient" monoculture. By 1811 potatoes had come to account for four fifths of a Hebridean islander's food intake. Disaster followed in 1846, when the crops were struck with the potato blight fungus, phytophthora infestans, and in nearly every field the crop rotted. Norman MacLeod, a famine relief officer, could have been writing a field report for Oxfam when he visited the Hebrides in 1847 and reported.

"The scene of wretchedness which we witnessed as we entered on the estate of Col. Gordon was deplorable, nay heart rendering. On the beach the whole population of the country seemed to be met, gathering the precious cockles (shellfish).... I never witnessed such countenances— starvation on many faces, the children with their melancholy looks, big-looking knees, shriveled legs, hollow eyes, swollen like bellies— God help them, I never did witness such wretchedness!"

Linking the enclosure of the Highlands with the subjugation of people overseas, John Murdoch, a retired Nairnshire excise man who had worked part of his life in Ireland, writes in 1851, "The dying wail of the cheated redman of the woods rings in our ears across the Atlantic." And later whilst constantly criticizing British imperial policy in Highlander editorials, he was always quick to show that the little farmer's struggles were synonymous with those of oppressed peoples around the world. On hearing the news of Britain's invasion of Afghanistan, for instance, he declared: "What glory is to be had from fighting semi-civilized but brave and patriotic highlanders? Noble Afghan highlanders, our sympathies are with you!" Above all, he emphasized that "the cause of the Highland people is not dealt with in an exclusive and narrow spirit, far less in antagonism to other people." The key issue was in an awakening of spirit that allowed Highlanders to enter the wider world: "Their sympathies are widened, their views are elevated, and they learn to stand erect, not only as Highlanders, shoulder to shoulder, but as a battalion in the great array of peoples to whom it is given to fight the battles incident to the moral and social progress of mankind."

In 1873 therefore, Murdoch will found a newspaper ( The Highlander) to campaign on the Scottish cultural and land rights issue. He was certainly not the only significant campaigner, but we will focus here on his work because it is so perceptive and well documented. Not confined to simply managing the paper, Murdoch maintained close contact with the crofters and local communities.

Where once there were proud and independent societies with their own Gaelic tongue, now a subjected population had succumbed to what later critics would recognize as a culture of the oppressed with the English language forced through the education system. Afraid openly to discuss their plight, the Highland peoples had internalized their oppression to a degree that they were unable even to voice their complaints, let alone have them recorded.

Murdoch concluded that, "The language and lore of Highlanders being treated with despite have tended to crush their self_ and to repress that self-reliance without which no people can advance." The effects of "alien rule" and the experiences of land enclosure and eviction had created a "very

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provoking fear universally present among the people" who were consequently "afraid to open their mouths."_

Foreshadowing ideas that were adopted by the Highland Land League, he urged:

"Our Highland friends must depend on themselves and they should remember that union is strength.... We do not advocate that they should fight or use violent means, for there is a better way than that. Why do they not form societies for self-improvement and self-defense? Did they become, they would become conscious that they possess more strength than they are aware of."

The Skye Rent Strike 7 April 1882 marked the start of the remarkably nonviolent, "Crofters’ Wars.” Ten days later, 17 April 1882, arrests were made. Mud and stones were thrown when 47 imported Glasgow police faced a crowd of over fourteen hundred protestors who had arrived from all quarters of Skye led by their respective pipers. Recognizing that state authority was losing its grip, the British Government responded to Sheriff Ivory's call for help by action which was to be repeated on a number of occasions in the Highlands and other colonies: it sent in the gunboats with police reinforcements, over four hundred marines and one hundred bluejackets.

Finally, in 1886 the Crofters Act was passed, giving for the first time transferable security of tenure with controlled rents on those smallholdings defined as being of crofting status.

This 1886 Act fell far short of returning to the people land which had formerly been taken from them. By far the greatest areas of land will remained outwith crofting tenure. But the Act did secure the survival of this land tenure and of this lifestyle into the present era. It was not until 1976 that the Crofting Reform Act gave the crofter the right to buy the freehold of their land at 15 times the holding's fair rent. There was no rush to take this up, since freehold entailed perceived breach of community solidarity and loss of privileged crofting status with the agricultural grants which accompanied it.

During the Thatcher dominated 1980s, land prices spiraled as more and more people, whose personal lifestyles and corporate activities had destroyed their own countryside, wanted to buy into Scotland. Communities seemed powerless as to who controlled them and what happened to the ecology. The current turning point was undoubtedly due to the formation in 1985 of the Scottish Crofters Union. This, along with a cultural renaissance which started to see many young people recovering their history, music, language and poetry, as well as recognition of the growing social and ecological bankruptcy of mainstream Western life, has led to awareness of the potential to organize in mutual solidarity, drawing on old roots of community and place.

As Angus McHattie of the Scottish Crofters’ Union has observed: "On returning from Norway to Skye recently, I had occasion to compare the view from similar 1,000m granite hills in both countries. In Norway the valley, I looked down upon contained an autonomous village of 20 small farms, with their own crops, power supply, school, etc. a prosperous and happy place with a good trade surplus and a population with a healthy age structure. The Skye Valley had twenty blackface ewes and twelve lambs. Compared to what the Norwegians started with, we are sitting on a goldmine. The development potential in the Highlands and Islands is immense."

In 1991 a crofter from Scoraig in the West Highlands, Tom Forsyth, established a charitable trust with the grand objective of bringing ownership of the Isle of Eigg under community control. The landlord, Keith Schellenberg, "Scotland's best known English laird," bought out his divorced wife's share and took it back off the market. The West Highland Free Press of 3 July 1992 ran the banner headline, "Paradise Lost: Eigg back in the hands of Emperor Schellenberg: Bitter blow to trust community stewardship dream."

In powerful speeches, some of which were TV broadcast around the world, the Assynt Crofters Trust chairman, Allan MacRae, will draw parallels with the crofters' claim for land restitution and that of Africans, Native Americans and Aboriginals. Significantly, and probably for the first time in modern history, he claimed the phrase "native people" for the Highlanders with pride:

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This was the first ever large-scale crofter instigated reversal of enclosure in Scotland: "Even if , as Allan MacRae says, even if we did have to buy back what was rightfully ours!"

A second community buyout has now been effected by the crofters of Borve and Anniesdale on Skye. Others are being considered.

It is recognized that crofting as a component of global agriculture has no real future under reforms. But as a way of life where people can live from a diversified economic base in community and with the land, if not primarily from the land, its star is perhaps only now rising. Even a TV program like Tomorrow's World now featured the demonstrably long-term sustainability of much crofting practice as something which therefore points towards the future, not the past. Prince Charles has also raised crofting's profile, both through taking crofting holidays in the Hebrides and telling the Scottish Crofters Union Conference in Stornoway, 1993, that "The crofting provides a model which many other rural communities throughout the world would do well to emulate."

But what about England, indeed, the rest of Europe, whose people look in growing numbers to the Celtic fringe to recover something of their own identity? "We're still fighting the "Romans" and their long straight roads!" say the Dongas and Earth First! motorway protestors at Twynham Down.

And there is the nub. Right relationship with self and community grow from right relationship with place. The land is itself one of our greatest teachers. That is why closeness to nature is integral to being fully human and such a terrible loss when taken away.

If the lessons of the former Yugoslavia are not to be lost, it must be recognized that belongingness can no longer be defined in narrowly ethnic terms. Rather, the old Celtic concept of kinship by respect for place, community and culture, is perhaps what should matter most. This is expressed in the Gaelic proverb that, "The bonds of milk are stronger than those of blood”; meaning that nurturing counts for more than lineage. This opens the way for an inclusive identity, a "higher unity.” 1)

It has nothing to do with ethnic hatred as its detractors like to insinuate. It has everything to do with finding a mutually respecting place in a global plurality of civilizations in which past injustices are recognized, forgiven, and as far as possible, rectified.

Francis Thompson closes his short crofting history by emphasizing that the contribution of crofting is national, if not international. His conclusion could speak equally for many a similar peasant community around the world.

"These communities are instrumental in producing folk who are still proving to be the 'bank' of social values and ideas for the nation as a whole. And it is from those reserves of character that the hope to survive against multinational and national government interests is drawn” (Alastair McIntosh)

1) The Gaelic proverb in question reads: Is caomh le fear a charaid ach 's e smior a' chroidh a chomhalt and it is translated by Donald Macintosh at least in the 1785 edition as follows: a man's kinsman is dear but his foster brother is a part of his heart. This refers to the practice of fosterage and its limits. See the study by Alix MacAnTsaoir (booklet number 11). This goes beyond the framework of the family reduced to the couple with children but remains within the framework of the family in the broader sense of the term: cousins, sept, clan). This is in no way incompatible with a unity larger than that of the clan effectively (a nation?)

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HISTORY OF SCOTTISH CROFTING.

Robert Vachon. International Journal of Intercultural and Transdisciplinary Research, Montreal, Canada.

“On February 4, 1994, I received a letter from Alastair McIntosh, who directs the Master of Science postgraduate human ecology degree Edinburgh.....

Our people are waking up to the issue of Scottish land rights, inspired by the activities of Native Americans, Aboriginals, etc., this accompanied and informed by a cultural and historical renewal. It has direct consequences for the people of Canada, because many of the people who were cleared from the land over the past two hundred years, emigrated to Canada. The close bond we feel with the Canadians (and also the “Auld Alliance” with the French) is the reason why Interculture is the first journal I am approaching for consideration of publication of this text.So here it is! A good example of an ongoing resistance of Scottish people to the cultural colonialism worked by a certain modernity.

Are we ready to unpack our history? To reread history: remembering, revisioning, reclaiming the people that we are; learning how, for instance, half a million Scots have been forced off the land in the nineteenth century, to make way for commercial sheep farms and playboy sporting estates?

A question I want to put is whether we actually need a transatlantic cultural psychotherapy: a movement towards healing wounds of the broken and to this day laird-ridden disempowered communities left behind in the Old World, and also those of the sometimes brash breaking un-communities of the New World.

Yes, Alastair! Scots, French and Native peoples, coming together and remembering the resistance of their respective ancestors. But also awakening to the contemporary ongoing resistance of these three peoples to the same cultural colonialism which is being perpetrated today against them, even by some of their own people sometimes, in the name of modernity (Robert Vachon).

The "Highland Clearances," which forced Scottish people off their land from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, were an event of cultural genocide which paralleled and in many respects, pioneered patterns of colonial conquest elsewhere in the British Empire. The effects persist in the national psyche to this day; an aching sense of loss, concealed only by a thin plaster of relative material affluence, and a growing sense of the importance of reclaiming or commons.

A look through the Highland press quickly reveals that now, in the mid 1990's, summary dismissals, evictions, expensive procedural delays in planning matters and demolition of housing remain very much a part of estate control over communities. The West Highland Free Press, for instance, gives careful documentation on 30 April 1993 of how the estate factors (legal managers) of one of the world's richest absentee landlords, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoumm of Dubai, have bulldozed houses in his Wester Ross "glen of sorrow" to prevent human habitation, probably because of "the nighttime poaching activities of the local population." Twelve family homes have been reduced to rubble in a district which has 800 applicants on the local authority housing waiting list. The Sheik retains a certain support in some quarters because of his large donations to small local charities.

As for landowners whose exoticism is more ordinary, "Balmorality" or cheap junk “Ossianity” can be seen in its full 20th century glamour nowhere better selfexposed than in the August 1992 edition of the high society magazine, Harpers & Queen, which claims to be, "The World's Most Intelligent Glossy." No less ! Amidst "Advanced Night Repair" advertisements for cosmetics to combat "environmental damage" (that is, intensified sunburn, which "can cause as much as 80% of premature ageing" to the skins of the "beautiful people" whose lifestyles gave us the ozone hole in the first place), the magazine features the Queen at Balmoral; Mohamed al Fayed (proprietor of Harrods and the Ritz) with his "hereditary pipers" at the Highland castle he hardly ever goes to; "Three fab families" of Anglicized Scots aristocrats with "greyhoundlike physiques ... superintelligence ... and a sense of

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public duty’; five public schoolboys junior lairds who "look like a king" for the ladies to fancy ; six of "Scotland's bonniest" debutantes, who "adore smelling of horses," posing erotically in fantastic tartan dresses untraditionally slit to the crotch; and Lord Edmund Vesty, proprietor of the notorious Sutherland Estates, sporting his top hat and prim daughter at Royal Ascot.

Today throughout Scotland, just 4,000 people own 80% of private land. This figure would represent 0.08% of the resident population were it not that many are absentee landlords , English aristocrats, Arabian oil sheiks, Swiss bankers, South African industrialists, racing car drivers, pop stars, arms dealers and others not noted for their socio-ecological awareness. They include entertainers such as Terry Wogan and Steve Davis; pension funds such as Rolls Royce, the Post Office, Prudential Insurance and the Midland Bank; overseas interests like Mrs. Dorte Aamann Christensen, the Jensen Foundation and the Horsens Folkeblad Foundation from Denmark, or Mr. Paul van Vlissingen of the Netherlands. A 1976 study concluded that some thirty-five families or companies possess one third of the Highland's 7.39 million acres of privately owned land.

The international social set hang up their party boots at the end of July and depart for villas in the South of France or huge yachts in Sardinia. But not the Old Guard British, there's only one choice for them: the Highlands.... There's nothing like Scotland in August for sheer expenditure of physical energy; the grouse moor, the deer and the salmon river claim the chaps during the day, who then heave a lot of whisky down, change into kilt if they qualify, and go reeling until dawn with windburned girls adept at quick changes from muddy tweeds to ballgowns and tartan sashes. There's ... nothing like Scotland for stalking the biggest social game...."

Meanwhile, one million Scots, 20% of the population, live at or below the European decency threshold. On the Island of Eigg one of us was thus able to conclude at a land restitution public meeting in 1991.

"This is the condition of much of the Highlands and Islands today. The clearances continue under modernity. For example, tourism, one of our few growth opportunities for cottage industry, too often becomes controlled by estates which convert homes into summer timeshare. Those who belong to a place get squeezed out, leaching community. Go to the poor quarters of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Govan, and look where too many of our people live now. Oh yes, the fortunate ones have done sufficiently 'well' sometimes to forget their roots, but many of the names on doors of those living in the high-rise flats and 'priority treatment' estates are Highland Folk.”

In describing the present-day ecological consequences of the clearances, we illustrate how green consciousness is adding to social conscience in building political pressure for change. The process by which Highland communities have empowered themselves over the past centuries is outlined, parallels being drawn with similar processes of liberation in the South. Recognition is given that we have experienced not just enclosure of land, but also enclosure of the mind through "inner colonialism." Clearly, such chains must be broken if, in both North and South, we are to liberate our human potential to achieve social justice and environmentally sustainable livelihood; these, not just for dignified survival, but for the fullest articulation of creative life in each person as an integral part of nature in a calmed international community.

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The question of the origins of the property in Rome remains very discussed: was it initially of collective type, or was each paterfamilias individually owner? This problem falls more under anthropology than history of law, because as of the historical time (Law of the XII Tables), it is with personal property the sources deal.

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The civil property (dominium ex iure quiritium) is one of the forms of the absolute power that the paterfamilias had on the family people and goods. It comprises the right to use these goods at will (uti), to perceive the fruits (frui) of them, to deal with it in fact (by the destruction) or in right (by alienation) ; just like the right not to use, not to receive the fruits or no to deal with the goods, and that to prevent the third parties from using of the same prerogatives on the goods, without the assent of the owner.

The Roman property was often described as unlimited or absolute right. Nuances must be brought.

In the middle of the 11th century, the most elementary concepts of the Roman law (property, contract, obligation, responsibility, etc.) are used little, even forgotten. In this medieval economy, people do not know personal property, the goods belong to the families. The men are only usufructuary of this family capital during their life, and they do not have the right to give it up, because it must be used for the subsistence of the following generations. The capital passes from generation to generation.

The feudal economy knew two kinds of properties: the allodial tenure or freehold (Latin allodium), full, free and independent property; (example the Anglo-Norman small island of Ecrehoo for which France and United Kingdom clashed in the International Court of Justice of The Hague in 1953); and the tenure, property divided into a direct or eminent domain reserved to the lord, and a useful domain pertaining to the vassal or tenant. The freehold was the exception while tenure constituted the common form of the land property. The general rule is, indeed, under the feudal regime that man, whether he is a lord, vassal, tenant, or serf, possesses land only through a concession, and in exchange of services owed to the licensor.

The licensor never deprives himself completely: he gives up only the possession, the enjoyment, in other words, the useful domain, and keeps for himself a part of the freehold: the eminent or direct domain. Sometimes even, and the deeds we will study will provide a strange example of that, the license gives up only a strictly delimited part of the useful domain, keeping for himself, in addition to the eminent domain, the useful rights that he did not grant expressly. The tenant, who has the possession and the enjoyment , has all the advantages of the property. He is the true owner. The lord, however, did not give up any right on the tenure and makes pecuniary profits from the conceded land.

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GROWTH OR DEGROWTH?

The opinions expressed in this chapter do not coincide necessarily with the government views or policies.

Peter DeLaCrau is only an old gentleman who withdrew in his croft (old French borie) located in the middle of the island of Oleron, not far from the ornithological reserve and of the marshes, in a small thatched cottage in the shade (in the broad sense of the term) of the (Christian) bell tower and of the (pagan) lantern of the dead in the town of Saint-Peter.

He is far from being as intelligent, as informed, as wise, and as altruistic as the powers that be (our presidents and their political advisers, journalists, and so on…) who gave all to the poor, while keeping almost nothing for themselves; hardly their shirt and something to eat. In a word and to end on this chapter, he is therefore Hitlero-Trotskyist, Nazi-Stalinist, a hellhound on this Planet, torturing innocent small children each day, as of his breakfast. Racist, sexist, anti-young people (because he was never young and always looked older than he is), in favor of gerontocracy, billionaire, and so on…

All what he notes on the other hand (because for that not it is not necessary to have much studied, nor to show as much profundity in the reflection than a journalist or than a politician) it is that our world entered a major financial crisis, which will move on an economic crisis; by increasing scarcity of the raw materials (absolute or relative, absolute as regards, for example, fossil fuels; relative as regards the planetary division of the wealth, being given the increase in world population and the increasing in power of the countries known as emerging). The whole on a background of unprecedented climatic crisis. As Peter DeLaCrau is a selfish person who is not a member of the elites who know, and who share, all that they have, and therefore who have already the answer to all these challenges, since they know, then he has doubts. Some questions as those which follow. May our readers be kind enough to forgive in advance the futility or their redundancy. La Boirie, 01 13 2010.

The major financial crisis which strikes the worldwide markets, following the crisis of the subprime (February 2007) contributed to an important renewal of criticisms towards capitalism and “ultraliberalism.” Alan Greenspan himself, president during eighteen years of the central bank, and proclaimed “libertarian,” who defended the superiority of the self-regulation of markets compared with the official regulation; admitted besides, Thursday, October 23, 2008,

In front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, that he was “partially wrong” to be more confident in the market than in the government in order to control the financial system. He informed us even of his distress on this subject:

Mr. Waxman: “Were you wrong?”

Greenspan: “Partially… I’ve found a flaw [in my ideology] . I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”

Bruce Scott is Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and author of a work entitled “Capitalism, democracy and development.”

Capitalism and democracy didn’t appear simultaneously in History, Bruce Scott notices, and the question can be asked of knowing if they will be able to continue to dominate the systems of commercial exchanges or government in the world.

Since 1835, date of the publication of the remarkable work of Alexis de Tocqueville “Democracy in America”; the United States is known for its particular marriage of capitalism and democracy, which involves a decisional devolution, so much in economics than in politics.

Although there is no consensus on the definition of capitalism, this one became, since 1990, the almost universal economic system, including China and India; Cuba and North Korea looking as exceptions.

The democracy is even more difficult to define, and the number of democracies in the world varies according to the definition selected. The political specialist Robert Dahl, of the Yale University, thinks that more half of the 200-member countries of the United Nations, gathering two thirds of the world population, can be classified among democracies.

The capitalism, although defined in a little precise way, therefore reached the almost total domination of the worldwide economy, and democracy became the standard; although less dominant in the facts, since China built a remarkably effective capitalist system, but kept an authoritative political regime.

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We must therefore define capitalism and democracy with more precision before being able to determine if they will preserve their dominant position as a system of trade and government.

Immanuel Wallerstein and the final crisis of capitalism ??????????.

We are today clearly in the B wave of a Kondratiev cycle which started there are thirty or thirty-five years; after an A wave which was longest of the five hundred years of the history of the capitalist system (from 1945 to 1975).

In the A wave, the profit is generated by the material, industrial or other, production; in a B wave, capitalism must, to continue to generate profit, to take refuge in the speculation. For more than thirty years, the companies, the States and the households, have been involved in debt, massively. We are today in the last part of a B wave of Kondratiev, when the virtual decline becomes real, and that the bubbles explode the ones after the others; the bankruptcies multiply, the capital concentration increases, unemployment progresses, and economy experiments a situation of real deflation.

But, today, this moment of the short-term wave coincides with, and consequently worsens, a period of transition between two long-term systems.

I think indeed that we have entered for thirty years the final wave of the capitalist system. What basically differentiates this wave from the uninterrupted succession of the former short-term waves, it is that capitalism manages no longer to constitute a system, in the meaning in which the physicist and chemist Ilya Prigogine (1917-2003) understands it. When a biological, chemical or social, system, deviates too much, and too often, of its situation of stability, it manages no longer to find balance, and we see then a bifurcation.

The situation becomes chaotic,out of control for the forces which dominated it hitherto, and we see emerging a fight, not either between the upholders and the adversaries of the system, but between all his actors, to determine what will replace it.

The most recent crisis, similar to that of today, is the collapse of the feudal system in Europe, between the middles of the 15th and the 16th century, and its replacement by the capitalist system. This period, which peaks with the wars of religion, sees the influence of the royal, manorial, and religious, authorities, over the richest country communities and the cities, to crumble. It is there that are built, by successive gropings, and in an unconscious way, unexpected solutions, whose success will end up in forming a system by extending little by little, in the form of capitalism.

The period of destruction of value which closes the B wave of a Kondratiev cycle , generally lasts from two to five years, before the conditions of entry in an A wave, when a real profit can again be drawn from the new material productions described by Schumpeter, are met. But the fact that this wave currently corresponds to a system crisis sent us in a period of political chaos; during which the dominant actors, in charge of the Western companies and States, will do all that it is technically possible to find again the balance but it is extremely probable that they will not succeed in it.

We are in a rather rare period, when the crisis and the powerlessness of the powers that be, leave a place to the free will of each one. There exists today a period of time during which we have each one the possibility of influencing the future, by our individual action. But as this future will be the sum of the incalculable number of these actions, it is absolutely impossible to forecast what model will be essential finally. In ten years, we will see perhaps more clearly in it; in thirty or forty years, a new system will have emerged. I believe that it is quite as possible to see an economic system, as more violent than capitalism, to be settled, than to see on the contrary a more egalitarian and more redistributive model to be settled.

The crisis that we live matches also the end of a political cycle, that of the American hegemony, having also started in the1970s. […] The internal conflicts will therefore increase in the United States, which are about to become the country politically unstable country in the world. And do not forget that we, Americans, we all are armed (sic. In French in the text).

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Wallerstein is right to point out the character historical (and therefore transitory) of the “capitalism.”

Capitalism has nothing natural or normal, it is by no means the necessary and unsurpassable horizon of history, it is on the contrary a long and hard social construction. However what was built can also be deconstructed and, with the gathered materials, another thing can take its place.

In short, the assumption of a transition in progress comparable by its width with the transition from the “feudal” system to the “capitalist” system therefore is worthy to be examined ........

[Note of the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau : end of the page containing these remarks].

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THE DEGROWTH OPTION.

We are solicited from everywhere in order to know our position about degrowth . Here.

The growth was ignored during centuries. The notion of market forces was completely unknown by our ancestors, on the other hand, the policy, they knew very well what that was (alliance with Rome, or the Germanic tribes, Helvetian immigration, etc.).

“They readily take charge of the cause of the ones who are oppressed . They have indeed , at the highest point, the feeling of equity, law and honor. They can suffer that people breach their word. The reputation of justice of some of their tribes as the Volcae Tectosages who lived beyond the Rhine, extended too far. In Thrace, the wisdom of their king Cavarus caused that he was taken as arbitrator between Byzantium and the close Greek cities.”

The notion of growth, itself, is recent (17th 18th century, and it is specific to the West).

In the 16th century still, moreover, the great Reformed philosopher and thinker Peter Ramus (1515-1572) the author of two works against Aristotle, “Dialecticae partitiones” and “Aristotelicae, animadversiones”; insists on two aspects which are found, it is true, in the testimonies of ancient authors: freedom as well as frugality. Ramus sees it as an ideal of life, manual labor is not dishonor for the elites and does not make the nobles lose caste after working at a demeaning occupation (the French obsession of the time). Ramus was perhaps referring to the case of the Galatian prince Dejotarus 1), who took care himself of his farm if we believe Cicero.

Serendipity has it that the best known pettifog of the Roman courtroom has indeed fortunately for us, been brought to defend this great Galatian prince in a at the highest point political, case, having nothing to do with financial skullduggery.

The unfortunate man who remained faithful to the Roman Senate and to Pompey had indeed taken sides against Caesar. Oh ouch! We do not know if Cicero's argument was effective since Caesar was assassinated before giving his verdict but, however, on the other hand, it saved us valuable information about Deiotarus.

“Singularis et admiranda frugalitas… ..diligentissimus agricola et pecuarius haberetur… O tempora, o mores!”

Cicero therefore makes him a good farmer and an active farmer with a very frugal life (he had everything to please Peter Ramus indeed).

If it was necessary, the thing was confirmed by Diophanes of Nicaea who in his time saw fit to dedicate his agricultural treatise to him.

In France several centuries later, you could, sometimes, see gentlemen from great families with immemorial nobility plowing their fields themselves, their sword proudly worn by their side.

BUT ONLY BECAUSE THEY WERE RUINED AND THAT IT WAS THEIR PERSONAL LANDS (what therefore did not make them lose caste).

Noël Taillepied as for him (1540-1589) will develop the main features of a society where full employment as well as professional specialization secure a perfect balance of operation.

Masked under the name of “civilization,” the Europeans colonized the lately discovered lands, and by the same way brought to different people our new values. And today, in fact, they are no longer only the United States and Europe who align themselves with this infernal theory of the market economy, but also the countries which we described as emerging, China, India…

We are therefore for a just and sustainable…. degrowth! Socially just and sustainable from the point of view of economy.

Let us remind of the fact that it is in no way for us of a novelty. When we unloaded in Paris at the end of the years 1970’s, we then published in the newspaper entitled the (reconstituted) “People’s Cause” an article speaking of groupings of communal farming (GCF) and of given up villages; to make again living through a healthier life, after having burned all our diplomas, kibbutz kind. An article which, it was said to me, awoke at least one of the readers of this newspaper (about to disappear definitively).

It is indeed necessary to be a little more inspired by the wisdom of our ancestors. We are the only thinking beings on this planet, and therefore the only ones able to stop the descent into Hell that we have ourselves initiated.

The idea of growth is relatively modern and Man was not less man before this idea is essential. It is not a question therefore of creating a “New man,” but well of finding him again. By “finding the Man,” we want to say to find the values which make us Men, and not some animals; and these values are not financial nor traded on the stock exchange, but philosophical and spiritual. It is no longer a

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question of managing our world in the only perspective of economy, but also of reinstating in it the notions of spirituality, solidarity, culture, ecology, and many other things still.

What makes us men is not the money, then why is it the sine qua non condition for any political decision today…?

Culture, philosophy, spirituality, happiness, are never taken into account to estimate the profits/losses in the political decisions based on money.

The idea of unlimited growth is not defensible. Growth cannot be indefinite, because it runs up against the very limits of Mother-Earth.

If you take as an indicator of the environmental “weight” of our lifestyle, the ecological “imprint” of this one in necessary terrestrial surface; you get unsustainable results, as well from the point of view of the equity in the drawing rights on nature, as from the point of view of the regeneration capacity of the biosphere. We consume indeed on average 9.6 hectares (a Canadian 7.2, an average European 4.5, etc.). We are therefore very far from the planetary equality, and still more of a sustainable mode of civilization, which would require to be limited to 1.4 hectares per capita of the planet (by admitting that the current population remains stable).

The symptoms of a planetary crisis which is accelerating are obvious. The crisis becomes firmly fixed in the failure of the modern society, i.e., the substitution to Man of the machine. No one needs to be a great scholar to understand that an individual, or a community, drawing the major part of its resources from its capital, and not from its incomes, is doomed to bankruptcy. Such is well, however, the case of the Western societies, since they draw from the natural resources of the planet, a common heritage, without taking into account the time necessary to their renewal. Non-content with plundering this capital, our economic model, based on the indefinite growth, involves in addition a continuous increase of these taking away.

Under these conditions, the idea of unlimited growth is neither defensible nor desirable. Based on the accumulation of the material, and in no case of the spiritual, wealth, the growth for the growth is destroying the nature and generating social inequalities. “Viable” or “sustainable,” it remains not less a fools' deal in the long term. The rise in their standard of living from which most citizens in the concerned countries think to profit is more and more an illusion. They spend certainly more as regards purchase of goods and market services, but they forget to deduce from it the higher rise in the costs. This one takes various, market and nonmarket forms. Deterioration of the not quantified, but undergone quality of life (air, water, environment); expenditure of “compensation” and reparation (drugs, transport, leisure) made necessary by the modern life; rise in the prices of the rarefied commodities (bottled water, energy, green spaces…) ; waste of time and of energy. For example, the divorces in France, even any legal affair in this country, which requires months and months of procedure for finally often ending in an aberrant result. As regards divorce, it can happen that it is the spouse undergoing the most serious fall of his standard of living, which nevertheless is obliged to pay a compensatory allowance. The work of the legal institution, however, paramount in a country which prohibits to its citizens to take the law in their own hands, for want of money and means; devoted in reality to enrich personally the politicians who rule us, since to go into politics became today a means of growing rich; became a nonproductive black hole, unconstructive, but absorbing years of efforts from the person answerable to the law. The quality of the administering justice, kingly privilege by definition (its speed, its degree of recognition of reality, its balance…) should be taken into account in any calculation of the gross domestic product.

We could for example speak about the Index of Social Health, which takes into account factors much more realistic than the GDP of a country; and which shows that, if there is growth of the GDP, there is a decrease for the Index of social health.

For the ancient druids, the concept of wealth of a country (of a kingdom, of a reign, opposed to that of waste land) embraced all the, material or intellectual, tangible or not, things; which got utility or pleasures to mankind. Therefore it included as much the goods produced by the men that the quality of the social relations or that of the environment. But, nowadays, specialists take into account only the “measurable” wealth. In the course of History, the focusing on these indicators therefore gradually directed the definition of the wealth towards the only market productions. So that there exists a political consensus today on a correlation between growth of the GDP and improvement of the wellbeing. But many elements of wealth are not taken into account in the measurement of the GDP. Natural resources, but also leisure, social and political activities, quality of justice, of teaching, medicine and health, respect of the individuals, which are important determinants of the quality of life of the citizen.

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When you correct a gross domestic product by taking into account the losses due to the pollution, to the degradation of the environment, to the dysfunction of teaching, medicine; then you realize that, since the years 1970s, this indicator stagnates and even decreases , while that of the GDP does not cease increasing.

Therefore let us make a virtue of necessity and let us design degrowth as an objective from which man can take advantages. Thus understood, the degrowth would not mean a decline of the wellbeing. The degrowth does not propose to live less, but better, with fewer goods and more bonds.

But once again, let us repeat it, this degrowth does not have to be a negative growth, paradoxical and absurd expression which would mean literally: “To move forward while moving back”.

The sustainable degrowth can be part of the basis of another possible, and desirable society, where the essentials are distinguished from the inessential one; where the relations are not those from tradesmen to consumers, where the higher values are not the economic growth, the work at all costs, the competitiveness, the satisfaction of the shareholders, to the detriment of social or environmental criteria. What does not mean to return to using candlelight, but to demythologize these ruling values.

It is known that the deceleration of the growth plunges our societies in the distress, because of the unemployment and of the giving up of the social, cultural and environmental, programs, which secure a minimum of quality of life. It is easy to imagine what a disaster a negative growth rate would be! Just as there is nothing worse than a society of work without work, there is nothing worse than a society of growth without growth. It is what sentences republicans, democrats, liberals, royalists, loyalists, or institutional left and right wings, for lack of daring a true revolution, to the social liberalism. The degrowth is therefore possible only in a society having very different values.

To design a society of serene degrowth and to reach it, it is literally necessary to leave economy. That means to call into question its domination on the rest of life, in theory and in practice, but especially in our heads.

In any event to what growth is useful if it does not make happy? To what growth is useful since we don’t live better? For example the cellphones distort the personal relations, are very little recyclable, and need 630 times their weight out of fossil fuels to be manufactured, against twice its weight for a car. In short, the benefits increase for the shareholders, but the quality of life decreases (justice becomes for example increasingly lame and one-eyed, and makes a misery the life of the ordinary citizens).

Just as the druid takes precedence over the king, politics must take precedence over economics. It is up to the society as a constitutional body to decide the priorities which it gives itself, since in this world, all is not possible (at least at the same time and simultaneously). And it is up to economics to follow, not the reverse. The construction project, in the North as in the South, of convivial but also autonomous and economical societies implies, while speaking rigorously, more of an “a-growth,” as it is spoken about a-theism, than of a decrease. It is besides very precisely of the giving up of a faith and of a religion that it is a question: that of the economics at all costs. It is necessary to deconstruct the monolatry of the development.

A healthy policy of degrowth would initially consist in reducing, even removing, the weight on the environment of the loads which bring no real satisfaction. The calling into question of the important volume of men and goods moving on the planet, with their corresponding negative impact; that not less considerable of noisy and often harmful publicity; that finally of the accelerated obsolescence of the products and of the disposable devices, having no other justification than to make the infernal machine working more and more quickly and to line the pockets of our pseudo-elites, a planned obsolescence already denounced by Teilhard de Chardin in his time.

We may synthesize all that in a six points:program: to re-evaluate, restructure, redistribute, reduce, re-use, recycle. These six interdependent objectives should stat the virtuous circle of a serene, convivial and sustainable degrowth. We could even lengthen the list with the following points: to re-educate, reconvert, redefine,remodel, redesign , etc; and, of course, to repatriate, but all these principles are already more or less included in the six first.

It is seen immediately what the values are that it is necessary to put forward and which should get the upper hand compared to the current dominant values. The altruism should prevail over selfishness, the co-operation over the unrestrained competition, the importance of the social life over unlimited consumption, the taste for a nice piece of work over the productionist effectiveness, etc.

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The problem, it is that the current values are systemic: they are caused but also stimulated by the system and, in turn, they contribute to strengthening it. The changes of the French Post Office from 1990 to 2010 are a perfect example of the incredible wasting of human energy to which can lead, in a great public service, the seizure of power by nonentities; some executives with a limited intelligence, but with a mentality of mercenary soldiers.

To eat healthy food, to have less noise, to live in a balanced environment, to no longer undergo traffic constraints, and so on; must therefore be lived as a plus, as something intrinsically positive, and not simply as the obliged consequence of a renouncement to such a standard of living.

The degrowth is a political, economic and social concept, being placed opposite to the current political consensus around the economic growth. It calls into question the dominant idea according to which the increase in the production of goods (in the form of goods or of services) led to the increase in the social wellbeing; and proposes to decrease consumption and production in order to respect climate, ecosystem and human beings.

In the situations where the threshold of an ecological imprint corresponding to a whole planet, is exceeded individually and collectively, there is no longer economic development compatible with the keeping of a viable environment. The only durable evolution is based on a revision of the mechanisms which bring to exceed these limits. That led to the political need to organize, even to impose these changes; by keeping a certain growth for the zones little developed as well as the poorest communities or individuals, even in certain strategic sectors (to be determined: for example health, education, justice, research…). The degrowth must start by especially concerning richest, not poorest!

It is always necessary to differentiate the qualitative and human development (the development of the school, cultural,wellbeing, and of harmonious community functioning rules, etc.) well from the material aspects limited by their resource consumption.

It is a question of gradually reducing the ecological impact and the intensity of the taking away of the natural resources, in order to reach a level compatible with the recognized capacities of our planet.

It is necessary for us to set up a new economy, based on a new technology, less heavy, less material, and relatively more immaterial.

The development then becomes necessarily a more respectful of the environment and of the Man “eco-development.”

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to preserve the populations of a world economic situation of end of the vital resources.

Concretely, a sustainable degrowth could be reached by a curbing of our lifestyle, a reflection on the basic needs, and by the stop of an absurd and destroying overconsumption, by a voluntary simplicity. The passage to this voluntary simplicity would make it possible, moreover, to pool the gifts of those who get rid of their overflow of objects.

Of course, that applies to the Western countries which reached a level of development making more than largely possible to satisfy the vital needs of their population; while knowing that pockets of poverty remain - and increase - in their center. On the contrary, the countries where the population does not eat yet it’s fill, where the access to water are a rare privilege, where electricity remains a distant dream… cannot consider a drop of their standard of living. Therefore, it would be a question of considering growths/degowths according to the cases.

The degrowth also obliges us to reconsider the concept of work. Indeed, for the liberalism, the exploitation of paid work constitutes the first engine of the growth, combined with the obligation to consume, even to overconsume. To work more to earn more, to consume more, for more growth and more inequalities and injustices: it is quickly realized that falls under an almost - pathological obsession. Many would like to work even to consume less, to have more time to devote to the others, their families, and to privilege the social link to the accumulation of material wealth.

The degrowth would finally make it possible to the producers to be the real masters of their work, a little like the journeyman of formerly or the medieval guilds. All that would constitute the true change.

In addition let us cease thinking that work is the single source of profit being able to make men living. This retrograde and unrealistic idea of work ignores the not alienating and altruistic forms of work like the associative, artistic or other, work…

A massive reduction of the working time imposed to guarantee everybody a satisfactory employment could be the happy consequence of such a degrowth. No more than two hours per day to feed oneself, to get dressed, to find accommodation,to treat oneself, remains indeed an ideal, but such an approach could be concluded only if the whole world does the same thing. To develop in a few

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decades a “Garden of Eden” which would be destroyed by new “barbarians,” would be the worst mistake to commit.

The acceptance of a personal lifestyle in harmony with simplicity voluntarily similar to that of our ancestors of 2000 or 3000 years ago, can be one of these means. In other words, the productivity gains must be invested in time saved for non “natural resources consuming” leisure, and not reinvested to accelerate this consumption.

Admittedly, the choice of a different personal ethic, like that of the voluntary simplicity, can inflect the tendency and sap the fantasmatic bases of the system, but, without a radical reconsideration of the latter, the change is likely to be limited. Other approaches therefore should also be considered.

The repatriation of the economies (priority to the local production and consumption local as to the reduction of motorized transport) can be another, one in spite of the savage opposition of the anti-racist circles in this field. We wonder well why besides.

The sustainable degrowth is a way that we can describe as alternative facing the slides of the ultraliberal economic system which involve disastrous ecological, social, political, and others, damages. It is in no way a form of totalitarianism; it is not a question of imposing some form of - economic or other- policy. It is well in that the adjective “sustainable” is important; it suggests acting now, and together, voluntarily, first individually (voluntary simplicity), but also collectively, therefore politically (networks of repatriation of the economy, taking control of the policy by the citizen, and so on).

The solutions are political, but also individual we explained, in other words, let us take the personal liberty to give up the mass consumption. We advise for that a Canadian website very well done about the voluntary simplicity: www.simplicitevolontaire.org. Begin with the simple precepts, which are only common sense.

Conclusion. It is necessary for us to strive for a society based on quality rather than on quantity, on co-operation rather than on competition, and giving oneself the social justice as an objective. Our happiness is not necessarily based on more growth, more productivity, more purchasing power, and thus more consumption.

The policy in the noble meaning of the word must take precedence over the in the short run economic profit. It is not a question of avoiding the negative side effects of the growth, but of living differently to better live, by eating healthy food, with less noise, to be in a balanced environment, without undergoing constraints of circulation, etc.

The construction of alternatives supposes to cease initially thinking the wellbeing of the people in terms of increasing production, of economic wealth, of increase in the Gross Domestic Product. This construction must imperatively escape the tyranny of growth! For that, we must all undertake a “decompartmentalization of our imaginary world,” to invent lifestyles combining solidarity, sobriety, conviviality but also democracy. It is to this political construction work, in the noblest meaning of the word, that the high-knowers of today invite their contemporaries.

The degrowth will be sooner or later imposed by the increasing scarcity of the natural resources. We therefore propose to anticipate it so that it affects the least possible our quality of life, because this Degrowth is to be sustainable. By sustainable we want to say that started policies should not cause a disastrous collapse of the society. The qualifier sustainable translates at the same time the need for admitting the constraints of our environment, and that not to pave the way for a new inhumanity.

To be growth objector like us in this field should not mean to be for the stop of progress, but to be in the search for right answers to the material and socio-psychic (including health but also emotional, individual and collective safety) needs; and in favor of a shared growth of the quality or of the pleasure of living, of the knowledge and of the cultures. A modern quest for the Grail all in all!

But on the condition that it does not call into question the national defense in the broad sense of the term (cultural identity, language, freedom…) ; because as an ancient great strategist said (in Latin language) one day: vae victis!

“When the Roman ambassadors asking what injury they had received of the Clusinians that they thus invaded their city, Brennus, king of the Celts, laughed and made the following answer. “The Clusinians do us injury, in that, being able only to till a small parcel of ground, they possess nevertheless a great territory, and will not yield any part to us, who are strangers, many in number and poor. This is the same wrong which you too suffered, O Romans, formerly at the hands of the Albans, Fidenates,

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Ardeates, and now lately at the hands of the Veientines, Capenates, and many of the Faliscans or Volscians; upon whom you have considered natural to make war, if they do not yield you part of what they possess, to make slaves of them, to waste and to spoil their country, and ruin their cities. And in so doing , you were neither cruel nor unjust, but simply observers of the oldest of all laws, which gives the powerful one the possessions of the feeble ; beginning with the gods and ending with the beasts; since each and everyone always tries to have what belongs to weaker. And cease therefore to pity the Clusinians whom we besiege, lest you teach the Celts to be kind and compassionate to those that are oppressed by you.” (Plutarch. Parallel Lives. Camillus).

The degrowth is to be…

1) Sustainable (bearable). The growth in a finite world will bring us sooner or later to an undergone decrease made up of crises, even of collapses. The idea of sustainable degrowth is to save ourselves this “insupportable” decrease, this “failed growth.”

2) Balanced (in harmonious proportions). To avoid the crises and so that nobody is excluded, three processes must be combined simultaneously: reduction of consumption (of the“will to purchase”), reduction of the production and sharing (particularly of the work).

3) Democratic. The reorganization at various levels of the society as well as the sharing require more “democracy”: more participative and direct.

4) Convivial (taking into account the interest of others as much as his), ecological (respect of the ecosystems), social (respect between human beings), positive, cultural. The material (physical) and therefore economic degrowth must give way to many other (qualitative mainly) growths: disinterested relations, time for oneself and the others, equity, health, human warmth, nature, safety, art, sense of what surrounds us, poetry, empathy…

5) Fair. It must be applied initially to the 20% of favored persons living mainly in the industrialized countries. It must be a degrowth differentiated in order to tend towards a society more right in the industrialized countries but also on a world level.

6) Introducing innovations or returning to the best of the past, even of the primitive Communism, because there is nothing new under the sun, because there is nothing new only that was forgotten. It is a reconsideration of the current situation (particularly made up of highways and nuclear power plants…), in order to build a future based on a less consumption of resources, in which the innovation incorporated the notion of limits, rather than tending to avoid it. Certain innovations will be the subject of democratic debates and will be refused if they despise ethical or ecological limits (GMO, Nuclear energy, Nanotechnologies, etc.).

7) Diversified. The goal of the degrowth is to reach a sustainable society where each lifestyle is single while being potentially generalizable and shareable. The urgency and the seriousness of the problems imply approaches with various impacts and terms.

8) Targeted. It does not imply a degrowth on all the levels taken separately. The agricultural, energy-giving or of sustainable transport (etc.) alternatives, must grow, if they involve an equal reduction of the agricultural , energy-giving or of non-sustainable transport, techniques.

9) Local. It is founded on proximity economics, nevertheless open towards the World, but a local degrowth which involves a growth elsewhere or in the future is not a degrowth.

10) Only transitory. It is not a question of making degrowth for the pleasure to make some degrowth. The degrowth does not constitute an aim in itself but only a means. It must constitute a stage being to lead to a sustainable society, just, ecologically viable, democratic, participative, meeting the human needs, localized; with a large human, cultural, linguistic, ethnic, diversity; in each place if the viable keeping of such a diversity proves to be democratically possible on this scale, or on the planetary level; but also open towards the rest of the world; and of which the economics will be stationary.

In short, a new motto to be engraved on the pediments of our public monuments: voluntary simplicity, repatriation, sharing.

- VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY = development for instance of a more locavorous food.

- REPATRIATION: of production, exchanges and therefore of the currency.

- SHARING = unconditional existence income for all, authorized maximum income for certain people , but also exemption from payment as for the community properties (like water, air or land) etc.

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The challenge for next years will be of knowing where to make the demarcation line between what can be usefully concerned by the degrowth (the comfort, for example…) ; and what it would be imprudent to sacrifice to it, pass. Unlike what the nice and smart, anti-racists, modern, etc., people, do, in practice and concretely, the diversity of peoples, languages, cultures, civilizations, gastronomies, ways of courting, etc.; forms the wealth of Mankind; any language which dies it would be that of an Amazonian tribe of 300 people or the Romansh in the Swiss canton of Graubunden, impoverishes it. It is to each one to have the intelligence not to get stupidly caught up in something leading fatally to the globalized standardization and leveling. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions the lucid Christians say. For example, what are doing the young and modern anti-racists to prevent the disappearance of the Gaelic or of the Romansh language ?? For the record , let us remind here to the anti-racists of the fact that a language of this linguistic family, the Friulian, is also spoken in North-East Italy (Udine).

The answer is simple: nothing! Not even the promotion of the Esperanto as NEUTRAL language of international communication (personally we are indeed Esperantist) .

“It is to men in power, and politicians actuated with this noble disposition of mind, that we are indebted for all the religious liberty, which has not a little redounded to the great advancement of letters, Commerce, and civil concord. Whereas, on the contrary, to the spirit-haunted enthusiasts, or scrupulously pious, I mean we are owing all feuds,

animosities, mutinies, mulcts, rapines, stigmatizations, imprisonments, banishments, and deaths. This is necessarily must happen that one thing should be in the heart, and in a private meeting, and another thing abroad, and in public assemblies” (John Toland. Pantheisticon. Dissertation dealing with the two-fold philosophy of the pantheists).

We are, for once, in dissension with this great master of the modern druidism. A small number of individuals (approximately 1%) pertaining to a given group, developing a high level of coherence in its center, can entail an effect of coherence in all the group. It is a constant principle in nature, that we find in the laser effect, where the coherence of some photons is enough to make all the light beam also coherent. An extension of the effect 1% called super-effect 1%, makes it possible to reach an identical result with much fewer means. If the individuals develop a very intense coherence, it is no longer necessary to have one percent of the population for that, but the square root of one percent, to develop the same influence.

The lifestyle of the “bestial” paganism Astrea style brings a certain number of psychological changes; like the decrease in anxiety or in depressions, a reduction in the stress (decrease in the blood cortisol rate, the main stress hormone), a decrease in the muscular hypertonicity, a standardization of the blood pressure.

Other modifications brought by the lifestyle of the paganism Astrea kind: decrease in rapes, channeling of aggressiveness, increase in the harmony in the family relations, drop of criminal behavior.

The Quebec Network for voluntary simplicity recommends the three following works.

- Voluntary Simplicity, by Duane ELGIN (Bantam Books, New York, 1981).

- La Simplicité volontaire plus que jamais… by Serge MONGEAU (Montreal, Editions Écosociété, 1998).

- Simplicity for people and the Planet by Mark Alan BURCH (Montreal 2003).

Founded in 2000, the Quebec Network for voluntary simplicity is a non-profit-making organization which runs thanks to a minimal duty (a part-time employed person) and which develops thanks to the unpaid involvement of the members within regional groups or various committees.

1) He will build model farms, will take part with his intelligence and his hands in their exploitation; will like even to lead himself the carruca, the famous four wheeled plow, with several plowshares and pulled by eight oxen. He will be like Kemal, many centuries later, a skillful and diligent stock breeder and horse breeder. (Fernand Lequenne. The Galatians.1959)

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THE DEGROWTH OR MORE EXACTLY THE VOLUNTARY NON-GROWTH AMONG CELTS.

Come at this point of our short, too short, talk, for beginners (or let us say intended to give a first impression of the druidism in all its fullness, wanting to be an initiation to druidism, to be looked deeper into or developed thereafter during a few years, with others); our reader will wonder perhaps if it is quite true that such problems [that of the degrowth or voluntary simplicity] could be theorized formerly by the Celtic peoples?

Well, it is the case as we will see it. Let us resume.

In the time of independence of all these societies, two millennia ago or more, before our era; what strikes the archeologists it is the enormous disparity of the civilization level between Celtic peoples. Let us take the case of Great Britain, for example. The peoples enjoying the materially richest civilization live in the south-west, in the Kent even more precisely ( at least according to Caesar) and the least advanced (always as regards the material civilization) in the north: the famous Picts (who even don’t speak a Celtic language according to certain authors).

Very well will you tell me, it is undoubtedly true, there is nothing astonishing in that besides, but were these peoples aware of such a shift, and had they really drawn from that a theory or some principles?

Well, yes precisely, we have the proof of that in the commentaries of Caesar, as we will see it. But, in the meantime, let us review the case of the Celtic peoples which have formerly made their voluntary election to lead a life simpler than that contemporary technology made it possible for them.

As Albert Bayet did in the volume I of his history of morality, let us begin by oldest testimonies.

“On the question of the luxury, we find in the Celtic world the same conflicts which divide the Greek world and the Roman world: on a side the partisans of what we would call today the indefinite growth and on the other the partisans of the life hard and simple who align themselves with the tradition of the forefathers; the ecologists let us say today.

On this point the manners indicate the existence clearly of two attitudes, of which one requires simplicity, while the other admits or approves a comfortable, even sumptuous, life.

Out of the battlefield, several people led a very simple life. Posidonius says that those who live in the area of Tolosa “are not extravagant in their ways of living,” and Strabo notices that, on this point, Posidonius agree with many other authors. Polybius, speaking about the Celts settled in the transpadane regions, describes them as “ living in open villages, and without any permanent buildings. As they made their beds of straw or leaves, fed on meat, and followed no pursuits but those of war and agriculture, they lived simple lives, without being acquainted with any science or art whatever.”

We could believe admittedly that morality is for nothing in this simplicity, whose poverty alone is the cause. But Polybius notes that, very far from appearing poor to the rest of the Celtic world, the Celts in Italy are regarded as exceptionally wealthy and Posidoniuss notices that the inhabitants of the region of Tolosa were rich in gold. It is therefore well by principle that they are satisfied with such a hard life.

Among all Nervians are characterized by their horror of luxury: “Traders Caesar says, had no means of access unto them, for they allowed no wine nor any of the other appurtenances of luxury (rerum ad luxuriam pertinentium) to be imported, because they supposed that their spirit was like to be enfeebled and their courage relaxed thereby. Fierce men they were, of a great courage, denouncing and accusing the rest of the Belgae for that they had surrendered to Rome and cast away the courage of their sires.”

The end of this sentence shows clearly that there is a conflict between two moralities: the Nervians, attached with the traditions received from their forefathers, want a life simple and hard and attribute the cowardice of the other Celts to the luxury which feminizes them. But elsewhere, men decide clearly in favor of what the civilization is, i.e., in favor of a more refined life. Because the covered with gold handsome warriors who break across the Alps did not expect the Roman influence to have jewels. And it is not either to the Romans that the Celts owe the variegated brightness of their clothes, streaked, inlaid, mottled and embellished by drawings with thousand shades. The indigenous manufacturers make wool carpets with bright colors, soft mattresses; the enameling is a typically

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Celtic art whose these “Barbarians” know the secret; the glassmaker manufacture jewels with skillful colors; beside the heavy, solid and vulgar pottery,we see urns and vases decorated with complicated drawings and fantastic animals, appear.”

Let us notice nevertheless that this luxury or these civilization refinements would seem quite cruel to us men of our time and that the fervent partisans of the degrowth or voluntary simplicity do not even consider would be one moment to come back to such a “primitive” stage compared to ours, of the civilization.

However let us observe that, considering our place in the time, there would be nothing easier for us to reconcile the two positions… by sticking to the material standard of living reached by the Arverni, Aquitani, Aedui, Helvetii or Cantii (in the Kent) of the time; while carefully avoiding scandalous social disparities or inequalities between poor on a side and rich persons of the other.

While taking as example or reference or inspiration source the material standard of living reached by the Aquitani, Helvetii or Cantii (in the Kent) of the time; in all that is organic agriculture, ecology, lifestyle (a little less TV but a little more evening by the fireside, or festival in the village, etc.).

Except perhaps as regards medicine, computer science, even national defense ............................

In short, we will have understood it, the synthesis between this return to the past on certain points and the technical progress (let us not speak about moral progress, the human being never managed to do it ) REMAINS TO BE INVENTED but by doing this it is important to avoid ending up in a situation in the way of the Fritz Lang’s Metropolis….

The good example to be thought out, most relevant, is perhaps still that of the Amish people.

The first Amish rule is: “You will not conform to this world which surrounds you.” One would believe to hear St. Colman the ex-abbot of Lindisfarne.

The Amish people come from the Anabaptist communities settled in Switzerland, particularly in the relatively vast territory at the time of the canton of Bern. But the Anabaptism arouses a problem to the authorities of the time which think that the dead non-baptized children cannot be saved. On January 4, 1528, the Edict of Speyer prohibits it. The Anabaptists live on, however, in the rural regions where they keep good neighborhood relations. They are even reinforced by the abuses from the Bernese order of patricians which cause an exodus of certain peasants discontented with the official Reformed Church towards these breakaway groups which practice the evangelical values and have a simple life.

The violence of the suppression carried out by the Bernese authorities which crush two country revolts during the 17th century leads various groups to emigrate particularly towards Montbeliard and the Alsace, and initially towards the territories which accommodate the migrants readily at ends of repopulation after the tragedy of the Thirty Year’s war.

The lord of Ribeaupierre,a nobleman of Protestant denomination tries to find farmers for his lands devastated by the war. About sixty families of Anabaptist Mennonites, who have just been expelled from the canton of Bern, find refuge there. They take refuge around the community of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, in Alsace, in the Vosgean mountains. They profit from a military exemption in return for the promise not to make proselytism.

The presence of the Anabaptists in Alsace is attested particularly by the “synod” of Ohnenheim of February 4, 1660; in this small Alsatian village, representatives from all the Anabaptist communities in Alsace whose many Swiss persons recently settled on the spot, ratify, Jean-Paul Oser presiding, the Convention of faith common to all the Anabaptists. This confession of faith, whose text dates back to 1632, is still in force currently in the American Amish communities.

The Amish schism begins starting from 1693. The Anabaptist pastor of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Jakob Amman (1645-1730) causes a debate with the whole of the communities including those remained established in remote areas of the Bernese Oberland and of the Emmenthal Valley. He has several concerns on the doctrinal relaxation and the lack of rigor in the discipline which he believes to observe particularly in the Swiss communities. It should be said that those still live under persecution, owing their survival in these isolated regions only to the benevolence and the respect of their neighbors,

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whereas the Alsatian ones profit from a total tolerance. The six points of opposition are the frequency of the Holy Communion (that Jakob Amman would like to make pass from once a year to twice a year), the generalization of the practice of the washing of feet, the salvation of the souls of the non-Anabaptists (that the Swiss ones admitted for the“sincere persons” among their non-Anabaptist neighbors ) and three points on the discipline: the sins which were to cause admonition even excommunication, the disciplinary proceedings and the rigor of excommunication, the Amish insisting that the excommunicated person is not only excluded from the communion table but deprived from every contact or social relation with the members of the community. For lack of agreement, the schism divides the Anabaptist community. On 69 pastors, 27 were in favor of Jakob Amman including 20 coming from Alsace and five of the Palatinate. The great majority of the Alsatian Anabaptists thus becomes Amish. The notion of a total exclusion put forward by the Amish is what will give to their community the capacity to resist every integration and every outside influence, particularly when it is gathered in an isolated region.

In 1712, Louis XIV tries to expel these Amish immigrants . The majority of them take refuge in the principality of Montbeliard, which was then an independent Protestant enclave, while others choose to remain around Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, in spite of the order of expulsion. At the time of the advent of Louis XV, certain refugees benefit from it to come back to Alsace. Montbeliard passes under French control at the time of the French Revolution, and in 1792, the Amish profit again from an exemption of military service. They lose this privilege at the beginning of the 19th century, under the authority of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Amish in France realize their difficulties of reconciling their lifestyle with that of their fellow citizens, and massively leave the country to settle in the United States of America and in Canada.

Starting from 1781 indeed, William Penn, a member of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers and founder of Pennsylvania, welcome there all the outcasts, on the only condition that they tolerate the others. The Mennonites then Amish thus settle as from this moment in the United States (Pennsylvania). Strongly gathered under the authority of their presbyteral council, known as “council of Elders, under a very strong discipline based on the supreme weapon of the excommunication and of the social exclusion (German Meidung, English shunning), these communities reject all that can incite to move away from Gospel or to divide, particularly the hubris ( German Hochmut). The “councils of Elders of each community ruled little by little on all the technical and social innovations, generally prohibiting from using them, what led the Amish to refuse to enter the technical progress and the consumer society, and to preserve a lifestyle become marginal today, with sometimes some differences between communities. If the Amish communities disappeared in France, it was not the same thing in the United States.

Among the various communities, the practices differ, but generally the Amish are dressed in dark colors. The men let their beard grow since the weddings. The women wear a headdress close to the head scarf of the Vendean country. The ideal of all consists in being modest. The Amish of the Old Order have characteristics: they have, still today, only horse-drawn carriages, the buggy, the plowing is done without tractors (certain communities have tractors without tires, with iron wheels).

The Amish market a part of their agricultural production in the traditional distribution systems. These products have a strong success with the American consumers because they seem healthy products, cultivated without GMO nor plant health products, according to the traditional methods of the Amish people: they would be the equivalents of the products resulting from “the Organic Farming.”

The daily life of Amish requires important bodily efforts. On average the men take 18,500 steps per day and women a little more than 14,000, much more than the 10,000 steps per day recommended to be in good health (the Amish people, particularly the children, also go very often bare feet). Their physical activity would be six times more important than that of an average adult in North America.

Their food is very rich in fat content and sugars since they consume a lot of meat, potatoes, bread, cakes and eggs. The Amish cooking is simple and copious, near to those of the countries in Northern Europe, in which the members of this community are often originating. We can particularly quote the soups with vegetable oils (containing chicken), the Boova Shenkel (potato dumplings), Shoo-fly pies (kinds of crumble with cinnamon and nutmeg) or the Scripture cake .

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In spite of that, the Amish are less victims of obesity than the majority of the Americans and of the Canadians. According to researchers of the Tennessee University, none of the Amish farmers is obese and only 9% of the women of the community are so, the researchers concluded.

Amish privilege traditional medicines, like the naturopathy. If necessary, they call on modern medicine, attend the American hospitals and accept the organ transplants. They often accept, even if it is with reservations, vaccinations (in fact this acceptance can vary from a community to another community).

From the age of 16 years, in the conservative communities comes the rumspringa (word resulting from the Pennsylvania Dutch which means literally “to run in all the directions”), a kind of rite of passage during which the teenagers are temporarily released from the rules of the community. They are authorized to go out with their friends during the weekend, most of the time brought together in the form of groups of young people. Certain groups are chaperoned by adults. They meet for sporting tournaments, snacks, to swim together… Other groups are self-managed by the young people themselves. Among them, some try their hand at the practices of the modern life, like drinking alcohol, smoking, to wear modern clothing, to listen to rock'n'roll and pop music… They can possibly leave the community during this period. This practice is discussed within the Amish churches. Many gave up it and tries to promote a decent and in conformity with biblical moral behavior at any time of life.

At the end of this period, approximately 90% of the Amish young people ask for baptism and live according to the traditions of the community. A negligible minority of teenagers leaves the community definitively and decides for the modern life. If they make the choice to leave the community after being baptized, they are banished and can no longer come back and see their family.

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ON IMPORTANCE FOR THE KINGS

OF A GOOD WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION (TECHTAE).

However, it should be made clear at the outset that in the Irish medieval law the Gaelic term techtae concerns only the part of the harvest which must go to the lords or to the owners of the land; but we may extend this notion to the sharing of income, namely what can be kept and the share that is to go (at the time) to the lord.

All the historians of the Celts agree on this point, the great monarch or good king by definition is the one who is generous with his men. The true great seeks in no way to grow rich personally (as for example the French president lately elected did in 2007: his first concern after being come to power, after the dispatch of his divorce, was to increase his salary or his pay). The good monarch is the one who redistributes at once the wealth he can be in control. It is besides in his interest: he makes sure thus of the loyalty or of the fidelity of his, because there is no true wealth but men. More a great has many clients in the old meaning of the term, namely some people in his debt, more he has power.

Below for example the portrait of the young prince called Mani such as he is described to us in the Irish legend entitled Tochmarc Ferbe.

Bá ségda súairc sobesach in rígmacc boí rempu. & ciarbo maccoem iar n-aís ropo mílid iar mórgasciud.ba halgen curmthigi. is ba dúr debtha. & ba nathir nemi. Bá cumnech écraiti. Ba oíbel ága. bá comnart comergi. ba logthanach sét. ba hanaccarthach imgona. ba tene aradna. bá nertlia fergi. ba tond bratha ar buirbe. bá íaru ar athlaimi. ba dair ar damgni. ba hé rind ága & imgona na teora Connacht. & ba hé a cendmíl airechta & a lám thairberta sét & a sodomna ríg.

Stately, love-worthy, and of pleasant bearing was the king's son that went before them. Though to the eyes of an older man he seemed but a boy, he showed himself afterward to be a warrior of great valor. Pleasant was he in the banqueting hall, but hard in the fight ; he was a poisonous snake ; he was wary of the craft of his enemies ; he was the heat of battles ; he was a fit match for a foe that rose against him ; he was generous with his treasure ; he could show compassion to the wounded ; he could blaze up at an insult ; he was the personified strength ; ba tond bratha ar buirbe, he was like a surge of justice overwhelming undressed ignorance ? He was nimble as a ? ; he was steadfast as an oak ; he was at the head of the battle and wounding of the three provinces of Connaught; he was their chief in assemblies, their arm distributor of treasure, and a sodomna rig the king of their great lords.

The wealth redistributive function of a king is emphasized : he was generous with his treasures ..... their arm distributor of treasures.

This genuinely “Celtic” “policy” was to be developed, of course, at all the levels of the society. The sub-kings or the subordinate kings of provinces were to act similarly just like the great lords and so on.

Our ethical position to us druids of the 3rd millennium is therefore clear: we think that the powers that be today must be worried firstly not about their personal enrichment but about the redistribution of the wealth produced collectively by those who depend on their authority.

Three problems arise then immediately.

Are those who are not kings nor monarchs for life but democratically” elected presidents “ (vergobretus) from our point of view subjected to the same ethical requirement?

The answer is yes because the elective nature of its function by no means exempts the modern ruler from such a duty; since the ancient Celtic kings were also most often elected (by and among the great warriors). The vergobretus who succeeded the kings are therefore bound to continue the same policy what is besides in their interest as the conflict having opposed the great Aeduan lords and their vergobretus in the year 5 of our era, shows it.

This being said, the druids of today leave to the economists the task to work out the best way of redistributing the aforementioned wealth.

Is the enrichment of the political friends enough to be a good king (of Celtic type)?

No because if it is quite true that the ancient Celtic king enriched initially his political friends, all his vassals were in the same way bound to show such generosity or redistribution of wealth towards their subordinates. If the political friends of the king or of the vergobret do not act in the same way, if they

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do not behave as good relay runners of the mechanism of wealth redistribution, there is in this case infringement of the moral contract binding them in turn to their vassals to them, to their clients in the old meaning of the term. And the society is blocked, what can be dangerous besides for the king or the vergobretus presiding over the destinies of the people. It is therefore in the best interest of the powers that be, of our modern vergobrets or elected kings, to take care themselves neatly that there is a good redistribution including down to the bottom of the social scale, of the wealth produced by the community in charge of which they are, even to check it themselves including by “short-circuiting” the aforementioned objectively faulty relay runners (see the case of the Swiss Orgetorix in the commentaries by Caesar as of all those who then like him were based on the people and not on a becoming middle-class aristocracy.

Before redistributing wealth, shouldn't be necessary to start with producing them? Of course. You cannot indeed distribute or divide wealth which does not exist, or which exists no longer.

This primary remark, in the neutral meaning of the term, must not justify the accumulation of wealth in the hands only of a few persons, while waiting for a future and hypothetical redistribution that we would owe to their “great” generosity. The fable of the bees and the invisible hand are only metamorphoses of the Christian notion of divine providence.

N.B. And in the event of shortage, then the example must come from the top because noblesse oblige. In the event of economic disaster or of war, it is indeed scandalous even dangerous that a minority is less affected than the others, and could continue to live lavishly compared with the others. Because once again let us remind of it, what is important it is not the accumulation of money, even dematerialized, since it is no other true wealth but men. In the event of economic war or of crisis, those who are at the top of the social scale must adopt a very simple standard of living. What in any event should be if they observed the tacit rule of the Celtic social contract: the redistribution of wealth.

We leave to the modern economists the task to convey in acts these principles (equality before the tax, fiscal policy, socially just degrowth, etc.).

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REDISTRIBUTION OF THE WEALTH (TECHTAE) PRODUCED BY THE COMMUNITY.

Let us point it out that in Ireland in the Middle Ages whole chapters of any self-respecting tract of law were under the name of techtae devoted to the question and particularly to determining the part of the harvests which should go to the lord or the king.

“Good was the son who was there, to wit, Illann the Fair son of Fergus. He never refused any one respecting jewels and many treasures; and he did not receive pay from a king; and he never accepted jewels, from somebody except from Fergus [his father] only.

This excerpt of one of our legends shows the importance of generosity well (redistribution of wealth when you have men or women below yours) in the medieval Irish society.

The Celtic society indeed regards the king much more as a stabilizer or a wealth dispenser than as a holder of civil and military powers. It is towards him that the taxes and tributes from the vassals and the subjected peoples, from the allies, go up, but it is from him also that the gifts, largess, and generosity, come.

The ancient historians handed down to us about the Celtic sovereigns a bright image, probably preserved by the songs of the bards. King Luern, who lived about the middle of the second century before our era for example, remained famous for his wealth and his prodigalities. He had made enclosed, Posidonius says, a twelve stades sided square (more than two thousand meters) inside which vats full of an excellent drink were laid out, and such a quantity of food that, during several days, all those who wanted could enter it in order to benefit from these accumulated supplies, served without interruption.

The monarch had scheduled a date for this gigantic feast. One of the poets had arrived late but after having nevertheless met the king, he sang his magnificence, while deploring having missed the appointment.

The king, taking a purse of gold, threw it to the poet who improvised a new song saying that from the furrows left in the ground by the royal chariot came up a harvest of gold and benefits for men.

N.B. The kingship was then perhaps more favorable to the people than the aristocracy, because it is in the plebs that it sought its support against the noblemen.

Keen to surpass all the other tetrarchs in Galatia “He gave notice that he would give all the Galatians a banquet every year: he erected tents of stakes and rushes and osiers, each containing about four hundred men " (Athenaeus IV, 34).

The very archetype of the Celtic sovereign is the one to whom a good administration and a remarkable material luck, make it possible to give lavishly, without miserliness, nor refusal. In the reign of a great monarch or of a good king, abundance is universal: land is fertile, animals are fecund, justice is easy and mild-mannered. The bad king is on the contrary the one who overpowers his subjects with taxes and tributes.

WITHOUT GIVING SOMETHING TO THEM IN RETURN…

Because he has badly accommodated a file or “poet,” in other words, a druid, the men in Ireland demanded from the temporary king Bres or Bregsos the restitution of the sovereignty that they had entrusted to him…

But look out , it was not a question of removing the taxes (the Celtic kings devoted on the contrary much time to the tributes which were owed to them, see for example the Irish text entitled the siege of Druim Damhghaire); only to make the most people benefit from their redistribution.

The archetypal Celtic property was the clannish or tribal property and druidic morality was always unambiguous on this subject. Wood, mines, fields, pastures, ponds and rivers, did not belong to individuals in particular, but to the community, to the clan or to the tribe-State, and the high-knowers of

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the druidiaction (druidecht), distributed the farming of it among their fellow citizens (combroges) so that each one can live there as well as possible.

“The Vaccaei each year divides among its members the land which it tills and making the fruits the property of all they measure out his portion to each man, and for any cultivators who have appropriated some part for themselves they have set the penalty as death” (Diodorus of Sicily. Historical Library. Book V, XXXIV).

The inheritance was distributed with equity. See this quotation of Caesar in connection with the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht). “These assemble in a consecrated place in the territories of the Carnutes..... Hither all who have disputes, assemble from every part, and submit to their decrees and determinations. For they determine respecting almost all controversies, public and private; if any crime has been perpetrated, if murder has been committed, if there be any dispute about an inheritance, or about boundaries, these same persons decide it; they decree rewards and punishments” (Caesar. B.G. VI, 13).

If the inherited good consists of a waterway which makes a mill turn, it belongs for example to all. But who will be the owner, on the other hand, of the honey from a swarm of bees which settles on it ? Well, the judgment was delivered.

The Irish have at least 6 different traditional terms for the varieties of naturally occurring bee swarms. The 7th century Bechbretha,an Old Irish law tract on beekeeping, details these and many other old beekeeping practices. If bees belonging to one man swarmed on the land of another, the produce was divided between the two. If the bees owned by an individual gathered their honey from the surrounding district, the owners of the four adjacent farms were entitled to a portion of the honey: after the third year each was entitled in turn to the whole honey of the swarm.

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SOME REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE TECHTAE (WEALTH) REDISTRIBUTION GLEANED ON WIKIPEDIA (modern druidism).

In an overall neutral way, it is clear that there was always a transfer of wealth or economic transfers between the various actors of a more or less organized by the political authorities of the moment (from the prehistoric chief of a tribe to the modern multinational company) society,.

There exist different levels of intervention of the political authorities in the economy of a country, ranging from the Policy taking precedence over the Economy to the contrary, the Economy supplanting the policy, even reducing to nothing the field of the policy.

Pooling of the means of production AND OF THE GOODS (of consumption).

Pooling of the means of productions only.

Mixed economy, coexistence of private companies and of companies belonging to the community.

There is generally in this case distinction between small (private) medium-sized companies (in cooperative or belonging to a local community) big companies (more or less nationalized or state-controlled).

Colbertism (intervention of the State in economy to direct it in such or such direction).

Capitalism.

N.B. Because of the character deeply a-moral attached by definition to this socio-economic design which refers

ultimately to the role of the money in the society, this word is often replaced by the euphemisms liberalism or free enterprise *; but our absolute condemnation of the harmful role of the money in many circumstances does not go as far as condemning the latter as such. The money is a human invention which indeed advantageously replaced barter, and its use as a very practical means of exchange really allowed an amazing economic advancement. But as Peter Ramus noticed it, the money should not be accumulated for itself, it must be reinvested. Because once again let us repeat it, there is no (true) wealth but men. What we condemn absolutely it is money for money’s sake, the financial speculations.

Measures are often of tax and social nature (mandatory contributions on a side, welfare payments, tax relief and subsidies of the other).

These economic transfers can have several results of which some are sometimes openly set up in a goal to be pursued, others not.

Examples.

Reduction, keeping or amplification of the inequalities of the social stratification.

Economic development.

Increase in the military power.

Policy to increase the birth rate.

Etc.etc.

This redistribution can be done in monetary forms (wealth tax, corporation taxes, capital tax) which make it possible the payment or the rebalancing of the welfare payments (disease, retirements, minimum welfare benefits, or in kind according to various forms: pooling of the means of production and particularly of the lands (mainly in the former societies where the land was often the property of the local god or of the clan) or redistribution of the lands within a land reform. Nationalization (expropriation by the State and payment of compensation lower than the real value of the good).

The redistribution between social classes can also be done at the time of the successions or through death duties.

Nevertheless the extent and the optimal forms of this redistribution remain prone to debate.

The Malthusian analysis maintains that the social state depends on major laws linking the growth of resources and that of the population, and that a redistribution policy which de facto would contribute to the growth of the population would therefore do more harm than good.

Some critics underline the risk “to reduce the size of the cake” if you oppose too much the interests of those who have the financial means to produce, by too strong redistributions, tax rates inciting to the tax expatriation of certain economic actors (natural people or companies).

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There is about officially consensus in our modern “democratic” societies and for good reason on the idea that there must be a minimum of downwards wealth redistribution would be this only to ensure the most of equal opportunity in the life (at the beginning).

The inefficiency of the taken measures arouses then in this case the question of the sincerity, or of the incompetence (of the real level of intelligence beyond books and brilliant repartee), of their decision makers.

Since 1768 and Turgot, we know very well indeed the hard economic iron law of the diminishing returns: the more tax increases, the less it is effective. The human nature being what it is, to increase a tax by 5% does not yield 5% but a little less. Turgot to realize that had indeed started from a very simple principle: man always begins by doing his utmost where it is most profitable, and he works the rest only if that appears really necessary.

N.B. As regards judging the sincerity of the politicians the citizen has only few means.

His environment of origin (but it often happens that a man can withdraw from it).

The past of the politician in question. With the understanding that we can always change or evolve.

His political friendships (his affiliations, his party, his alliances, in short whom he sees frequently).

His ideas his writings (when there is some relevant).

His qualities or his faults as a man (or woman). In short his private life (his behavior). Especially important when his ideas are thin, non-existent as for the content or rather conformists, what amounts to the same thing).

From where the importance of the reflection or of the critical mind, in the political field, of the liberty of the press, of information (of the transparency) even of opinion, of the general knowledge, of the curiosity or of the will to know.

* Although everybody knows the famous joke on this subject: that speaking of the free fox in the hen house, also free of course (everyone is free…). It would be necessary to decide once and for all calling things by their right name, the challenges would be less difficult even unsolvable. As Camus said it : “Naming things badly adds to the misfortunes of the world” (to be thought out by journalists).

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FOR A DEMOCRACY WHICH IS NOT

THE WORST OF ALL THE GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS

EXCEPT FOR ALL OTHERS.

Some people reproached me on several occasions for quoting a work of Friedrich Engels, origin of the family, private property and the State. Friedrich Engels indeed describes the Iroquois matriarchal society as the realization of his ideal: a society without state, bank, classes, police, judges, prisons, poor, egalitarian, feminist,

“And a wonderful constitution it is, this gentile constitution, in all its childlike simplicity! No soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits - and everything takes its orderly course. All quarrels and disputes are settled by the whole of the community affected, by the gens or the tribe, or by the gentes among themselves; only as an extreme and exceptional measure is blood revenge threatened-and our capital punishment is nothing but blood revenge in a civilized form, with all the advantages and drawbacks of civilization. Although there were many more matters to be settled in common than today - the household is maintained by a number of families in common, and is communistic, the land belongs to the tribe, only the small gardens are allotted provisionally to the households - yet there is no need for even a trace of our complicated administrative apparatus with all its ramifications. The decisions are taken by those concerned, and in most cases everything has been already settled by the custom of centuries. There cannot be any poor or needy - the communal household and the gens know their responsibilities towards the old, the sick, and those disabled in war. All are equal and free - the women included. There is no place yet for slaves, nor, as a rule, for the subjugation of other tribes. When, about the year 1651, the Iroquois had conquered the Eries and the “Neutral Nation,” they offered to accept them into the confederacy on equal terms; it was only after the defeated tribes had refused that they were driven from their territory. And what men and women such a society breeds is proved by the admiration inspired in all white people who have come into contact with unspoiled Indians, by the personal dignity, uprightness, strength of character, and courage of these barbarians.

We have seen examples of this courage quite recently in Africa. The Zulus a few years ago and the Nubians a few months ago – both of them tribes in which gentile institutions have not yet died out – did what no European army can do. Armed only with lances and spears, without firearms, under a hail of bullets from the breech-loaders of the English infantry - acknowledged the best in the world at fighting in close order – they advanced right up to the bayonets and more than once threw the lines into disorder and even broke them, in spite of the enormous inequality of weapons and in spite of the fact that they have no military service and know nothing of drill *. Their powers of endurance and performance are shown by the complaint of the English that a Kaffir travels farther and faster in twenty-four hours than a horse. His smallest muscle stands out hard and firm like whipcord, says an English painter.

That is what men and society were before the division into classes. And when we compare their position with that of the overwhelming majority of civilized men today, an enormous gulf separates the present-day proletarian and small peasant from the free member of the old gentile society.” (The origin of the family, private property and the State - Friedrich Engels.)

It is important to replace this quotation within its background and particularly in our evocation of the Indians since our thesis is that some Native Americans were very close to the ancient Celts.

In the whole east in North America, the Indian nations had formed confederacies ** before the coming of the European immigrants: the Seminoles in what is now Florida, the Cherokees and Choctaws in the Carolinas, and the Iroquois and their allies the Hurons in the north of the state of New York and the Saint Lawrence Valley. The colonists knew especially the confederacy system of the Iroquois, because the latter played a key function in the diplomatic field, not only with regard to the relations between the English and the French, but also as regards relationships with the other Indian confederacies. Called Iroquois by the French, and Five Nations (and later Six Nations) by the English, the Iroquois people called themselves Haudenosaunee, what means People of the long houses. They controlled the only relatively flat land passage between the English colonies on the east coast and the French trading posts in the Saint Lawrence Valley.

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The Iroquoian family consists of six confederacies, each one gathering many Native Indian nations. Hurons, Petun, Neutrals, Eries, Susquenhannocks and Iroquois, form the six confederacies. Each one of them gathers a certain number of nations. The Huron-Wendat and the Iroquois are the two best known nations of this family, as well as the Tobacco nation (Petun), which had, however, several others of them on the coming of Europeans. Within this large family, two subgroups are distinguished, which are spread out over a territory of several hundred square kilometers: the settled tribes on the east coast, which live especially on agriculture and fishing, and the tribes of migrating hunters, which are dispersed between the north-eastern coast, the center and the north of Quebec, around the Great Lakes Erie, Ontario and Huron, the north of lake Superior and the Saint Lawrence Valley.

*Battle of Isandhlwana January 22, 1879.

** The confederacies are political and strategic alliances between several nations which, thus gathered, can guarantee the defense of their territory.

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ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE ROLE OF THE DRUID

AND OF THE SOVEREIGN.

In the Celtic society, the king who does not protect the life of his subjects against the violence of their fellow citizens, does not intervene more to guarantee for each citizen the free enjoyment of his goods. Any dispute can give opportunity to a private war, unless the two parties agree to accept an arbitration, or, that saving the blood of their parents and of their clients, they agree to resort, either to the duel, or to the king.

Let us remind here of the fact that in Celtic law the word arbitrator, in a dispute between private individuals, is more exact than the word judge. It is besides a general rule in all the primitive legislations that we know. The judges are only arbitrators having the task to make an attempt at conciliation. The primitive druidic procedure was only an attempt at conciliation. If it did not succeed, the war could begin or begin again between the parties.

The druids, in the first century of our era, therefore too were only simple arbitrators. Posidonius left us a poetic picture of their peaceful intervention:

In the disputes between private individuals, there was indeed no obligatory jurisdiction, and only the arbitration was known. Once again let us repeat it, in the ancient Celtic society indeed, when they are private interests, the judgment is merely arbitration and the two parties appear in front of the judge only if beforehand they agreed to do it. And the judgments being arbitration, they are carried out only if the two parties accept it.

The druids (file in Ireland) who practiced the trade of jurists owed part of their credit to the threat of excommunication which weighed against those who didn’t subject themselves to their decisions. The text of Caesar is categorical in this respect.

KINGLY POWERS.

The recourse to the kingly authority of the State (to the king of the tribe-State) therefore was applied only in the event of the refusal of arbitration of the two parties or when one of the parties was unknown but the crime manifest. There, there was public nuisances and the kingly power was to intervene.

Usually, the judgment was given by the king on the report of the jurist or brehon and in agreement with the assembly of citizens (for important cases) .

Generally, when, in the old Irish law, someone wants to distinguish the act from the jurist who proposes a decision, and the act of the people or of the king who accepts and imposes this decision, the act of the jurist is expressed by the formula beru breith, ruccim breith “I pronounce judgment” or by the verb midiur “I think, I judge” and the act of the people or of the king by the verb fuigillim “I decide” even by the substantive fuigell, “sentence, decision.” The technical term which designates the jurist, brithem, in the plural brithemon, “brehon” with English transcription of the modern Irish pronunciation, does not stem from fuigell, decision of the people or of the king, but from breth, in the singular accusative breith, technical denomination of the solution proposed by the jurist.

Thus the jurist proposed a sentence, the king or the people accepted this sentence and gave it legal value, and it was possible to distinguish these two acts one from the other by different words, it is something analog with what occurs in our country in the Assizes, but the order is opposite (the representative of the king or of the people, the prosecutor, proposes a sentence, the jury decides). In Ireland, the jurist gave the verdict and the people the decision which was pronounced by the king.

It was much annotated here and there about the absence of State or the weakness of the State among Celts and on the exact meaning of the passage from the kingship to the vergobreture (presidential system) in a certain number of tribe-States in the time of Caesar.

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Our matter here is not to discuss it since we will admit from the start that the concept of State among ancient Celts had only very little things to do with what we understand generally with this word today.

The State among ancient Celts was still embryonic, minimized: the exercise of the kingly functions, and still, even with an elected vergobretus instead of the king.

Such is the subject of this reflection, which is especially not political in the meaning where we understand it currently. Our readers can also in a personal capacity being in favor of a more or less constitutional monarchy *

than of a republic with a presidential system, or an assembly system, a council system, in favor of the direct or indirect democracy, in favor of the e-voting, even in favor of a peaceful anarchy, or what I know still, and we have nothing to do here with the notions of right-wing or left-wing (was Lucterius of left-wing ? is for example a question which does not have its place here) even of the center, because the truth as always, is out there. Let us repeat it once again, we are not involved in politics , and our readers are free in personal capacity to do what they want in this field. We only ask from them they are in good standing with the laws of the country and not to be sued by justice for offenses (except perhaps for minor offenses kind prohibited parking, etc.).

What is important for us it is spirituality. But as man lives in society by definition, we cannot avoid having comments to make on this subject. It is to each one then to see at what distance it is pleasant for him to be located compared to all that. A total adequacy would be worrying because that would tend towards proving that he cannot show personal reflection and that he behaves as for our writing like a Muslim believing everything which is written in the Quran and the hadiths. A total opposition and on everything should, on the other hand, encourage him to wonder what he does in the rows of our paltry troop (and this more especially that to be Celtic minded neo-pagan is a tall order or a still risky challenge nowadays: it is not a question of being so in Mecca nor even elsewhere in Saudi Arabia for example, the whole country being equated to a mosque by pious Muslims).

These carefully phrased remarks having been taken let us come now on our subject itself.

Here what was, in times of peace, the week of an Irish king of tribe-State (tuath) according to the Crith Gablach.

On Sunday, he drinks ale with his subjects, in the eyes of whom the merit of a great monarch king depends on the largess with which he distributes the precious beverage.

On Monday he hears the litigants.

On Tuesday he plays chess (in fact tablut).

On Wednesday he looks his hounds hunting.

The Thursday is devoted to the achievement of its marital duties.

On friday he excursions on horseback.

On Saturdays he gives his judgments. And he has interests so that they are not bad judgments. “There are indeed, the foreword of the Senchus Mor says, four dignitaries of a tribe-State who may be degraded; a false judging king; a stumbling bishop, a fraudulent file (druid), an aire (noble) who doesn’t fulfill his duties (eisindraic); compensation is not due to those.” (They are outlawed?)

Let us notice nevertheless that these judgments given by the king were in fact dictated to him by his druid (his jurist or brehon), so that neither the solution of the points of law nor the drafting gave him great difficulty, and that it was given in agreement with the assembly of the citizens, what therefore excludes the litigations concerning only ordinary persons. The judgment, when they are private interests, is purely arbitration in Celtic law. The two parties come in front of the judge only if they mutually agreed to dot it. The Celtic king in reality did only proclaiming the results of the more or less committing the community, cases.

This had to be done every Monday, according to the Crith Gablach, an 8th century Irish legal tract (Luan, do breithemnas, do choccertad tuath).

toto

Let us remind also of the fact that the financial responsibility of the king was committed in certain cases where he finds himself responsible without being guilty of anything. From where for him the need for having substantial financial resources.

This responsibility for the king is not special to the Irish law. We find it in India: a Brahmanic code obliges the king to compensate the victim of a theft when he cannot find and make the taken object be given back. The responsibility of the king is only a form of the responsibility of the community or of the

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canton which is found in a large number of old legislations. It would be said today that as a last resort it is the State which compensates or which pays. What proves that it is not there a very new idea.

* The concept of enlightened absolutism was defended with brilliance by certain authors because it is certain that the best it is still a good king. But the whole problem of hereditary monarchies it is that good kings can engender “bad kings.” From where the famous reaction of Churchill on the problem: democracy is worst form of government ….except for all the others! ”

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A CONSTITUTION OR A MAGNA CARTA BEFORE THIS NOTION IS INVENTED.

The powers of this king were in any case closely limited by a kind of before this notion is invented (1215), unlike Germanic king, whose name (könig, king) refers primarily to the notion of power, the Celtic king (rix) could not be out of control.

In Ireland for example, article 42 of the tract about the immediate seizure (atgabail tul) written down in the Senchus Mor, allows, of course, a king or a clan chief to expropriate definitively one of his recalcitrant subjects (not fulfilling his duties towards him) at the end of a three-day deadline, but the article 26 of the tract about the seizure with time (athgabail iar fut) , as for it, provides that the king or the clan chief cannot expropriate one of his subjects before the expiration of a 9-day deadline. Or more exactly before the expiration of three successive times of three days each one (aurfocre or apad then anad). The long procedure of the article 26 is therefore more favorable to the subjects and vassals than that of the article 42.

The only fact that that it is possible on the Continent to speak about a Aeduan constitution proves that there exists, at least in certain Celtic Tribe-States, a political philosophy already developed and anxious to reconcile the rights of the State and those of the individuals (of the knights).

On the Continent, and more precisely among the Aeduans, the love for freedom leads the aristocrats to work out what we would call today a constitution. It is a question of securing the unity of the Tribe-State without having to fear personal power. A vergobretus is therefore elected (we do not know how is made up the electoral college: in other words who votes) but meticulous precautions are taken so that he cannot reign as a tyrant. His power lasts only one year. He does not have the right to leave, even in time of war, the territory of the Tribe-State; consequently, he cannot order the army except in the event of a strictly defensive campaign: and, indeed, in the supreme time of the War of Independence, it is not the vergobret who is in charge of the Aeduan troops. It is not either a religious leader since he is seen, in an exceptional case, resorting to the arbitration of the druids. According to Caesar, he has the right to life and death.But it cannot be a question of a discretionary power, at least with regard to the aristocrats: none of them can be executed indicta causa. Moreover, the powers of the vergobret are limited, in the legal field , by the existence of the (family) domestic and military justices and by the possibility of an arbitration from the druids.

From the political point of view, even concern for restricting the power of the highest magistrate. Undoubtedly he has theoretically all rights that the king had: regiam potestatem. But if he reigns alone, he rules only with the participation of the aristocracy. The aristocratic councils are two: the Senate and the assembly “of the people” i.e., the mass of the knights or of the warriors. It is probable that, in times of peace, this people do not have considerable rights: when the conflict between Cotus and Convictolitavis breaks out, it takes up arms, but it seems well that it would have no legal means to make its will prevail. In the same way, when the Aulerci Eburovices and the Lexovii decide to make war, they do not have another means of making their opinion prevail that to kill their senators: that proves well that the rights of the populus, whatever they are, remain lower than those of the Senate and this is why Strabo is right when he calls these tribe-States some “aristocracies.”

But, in time of war, everything changes. All the powers fall in front of that which the armed warriors brought together have. The first act, when a Tribe-State therefore decided to fight, is the summons of a concilium armatum; so that all the warriors come there without delay, the use has that the one who comes lastly is killed (a kind of human sacrifice in a way), and it is in this assembly that the leaders expound their plan. Caesar says expressly that it is there a lex communis which is found in all the tribe-states. We see Indutiomarus indeed submitting to an assembly of this kind his plan of attack against the Remi and Labienus.

“My power was of that nature, Ambiorix says during a campaign that the people has as much authority over me as I over the people.”

According to Strabo, the “multitude” would have even the power to choose its general, and perhaps that would explain why, during the campaign against the Helvetians, Dumnorix is in charge of the Aeduan cavalry, although he is the determined adversary of the sitting vergobretus.

These facts show that aristocracy, enthusiast for freedom, intends to define the powers of the vergobret carefully. The Aeduan “constitution” does not separate the three legislative , executive, and legal, powers, as we do it generally nowadays but it separates within the executive the interior powers of administration and the military powers. In the field of foreign policy, the rights of the vergobretus are limited by those of the Senate. As regards justice, they are limited by those of the family courts, and of

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the druidic courts, and, moreover, nothing tells us that in the court of the Tribe-State, the opinion of the vergobret is prevailing. Caesar does not speak to us about the legislative power. But the general spirit of the constitution suggests that it is also divided; the iura et leges which cut down the power of the highest magistrate were, of course, voted by assemblies.

But specialists sometimes wondered if constitutions of this kind were not mere facade , if the noblemen, the great, were not, in fact, the only masters.

Lucterius has during some time a great influence on his fellow citizens and, because of his revolutionary aspirations, semper auctor rerum novarum, he has much authority. But the example is not convincing. We see well that the undertaking genius of Lucterius, his revolutionary tastes, gives him a great influence among the Cadurci. But nothing shows to us in him an agitator facing the established powers. Nothing says us that, in his propaganda in favor of new and bold ideas, he left the legal actions. Lucterius is, of course, like Dumnorix, an adversary of the Romans but we have no reason to think that he tramples on the laws of his Tribe-State.

It is seen, all these examples intended to prove the omnipotence of the great like Orgetorix, prove rather the opposite. Nowhere in the 1st century we find trace of a punch system removing in fact the political law and giving up the nation to the individuals.What resulted in the fact that some people could be mistaken there, it is that the political life was very active among our forefathers.

Moreover the relative omnipotence of the great has an unexpected consequence. It guarantees to the plebeian ones a certain independence and perhaps even, in critical hours, a certain influence. Speaking about the organization of the factiones (parties), Caesars says: “This seems to have been an ordinance from ancient days, to the end that no man of the people, ex plebe, should lack assistance against a more powerful neighbor; for each man refuses to allow his own folk to be oppressed and defrauded, since otherwise he has no authority among them.”

In first reading, we could believe that there is there an allusion to the clientship, to the duties of the patronage of the noblemen. But, as Caesar says that the families themselves, the households, are divided into factions (etiam in singulis domibus factiones sunt), it cannot be a question of “clients” in the ordinary meaning of the word; moreover, the factiones (parties) are in each Tribe-State only two, whereas the “patrons” are, of course, much more numerous.

It should be well admitted therefore that, within a canton, within a house, a man can be a member of the “Dumnorix party,” the other of the “Diviciacus party”; the role of the two leaders is to prevent that the members of one or the other party are mauled by powerful people.

This system guarantees not only to the plebeian themselves a certain political freedom; but it can happen that a head of party is based , in serious circumstances, on the plebeian mass which approves him and which thus intervene indirectly in the public life. It is in this meaning, in my opinion, that it is necessary to interpret the story of Correus of which it is a question higher. Caesar is right to be skeptical when people come and tell him that it is the plebs imperita which made the war declared against the liking of the Senate and of the principes. But what is true, it is that Correus and the other principes in favor of the fight against Rome were undoubtedly based on the mass of their plebeian partisans to force the hand of the Senate: thus the opinion of the plebs infima, strengthening one of the two parties, was enough to tip the scale. This intervention of the plebs undoubtedly can be made brutal and leave legality, like when the Aulerci and Lexovii massacre their senators. But it is not on an exception of this kind that we can judge the political ethical code of the Celts of then. Theoretically, the plebs intervenes only as support of one of the two great political parties which fight over the power. What it is necessary to notice, it is that then it does not put its power in the service of personal ambitions (which exist, of course, on both sides) but in the service of ideas, of programs proposed by a party. From where again the example of Lucterius.

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CONCLUSION.

The political life of the tribe-States is therefore not dominated by the individual and dissolute action, of some great adventurers, and the constitutions similar to that of the Aeduans are not a simple window-dressing. The love for freedom which motivates the members of the aristocracy does not degenerate into anarchistic initiatives. The Tribe-State manages and disciplines the individuals.

As we could see it, the king or the Celtic vergobret was far from dealing as much with the life of the ordinary citizens as our modern administrations or as the civil servants working in our modern capitals.

The oldest design of the State is very different from that which traditional practices impose on our spirits. The State, in our eyes, has two main tasks to fulfill.

The first consists in the inside government : the State is an upholder of the law, it must regulate in accordance with the law and, as much as possible, equitably, the relations of the citizens between them, punish every crime committed by a citizen against another citizen, to force to restitution the one who seized the good of his fellow-citizen.

The second government obligation relates to foreign relations: it is to protect the people and the goods of the citizens against the attacks from foreigners, it is to defend the territory threatened with invasion by the national enemy.

Of these two roles of the State, the second was the only one that was understood at the origin of the societies. To the date of the Roman conquest, the Celtic world attributed to the State still no other function only to keep the independence of the tribe and the entirety of the goods of the people or of the nation against the attacks from the peoples or from the close nations. The State, the city, was a group of families united against the foreigner, but the families who composed the State settled to their liking their relations between them, without the State having the right to intervene to determine the mode of these relations.

The political and religious designs of the peoples are interdependent to each other. In the primitive societies, they don’t imagine a state sentencing to death and making the murderer of a citizen executed, or forcing the robber to restitute the stolen good; they don’t imagine either a god, punishing in another life the man who in this world made himself guilty of a crime against his kind, or in this other life rewarding the man righteous and charitable towards his neighbor.

Among Celts, the belief in the immortality of the soul had a power which struck the minds (the Romans, but this belief was not, as among Christians, linked with the theological doctrines of heaven or hell. The dead, it was thought, found again in the other world a life similar to this one, and in which, as in this one, every divine distribution between hell purgatory or heaven or every poetic justice, was absent).

The Celts therefore did not have in this world the notion of prosecution and conviction, unless it was a crime against the State. In the relations between private individuals, the private revenge that, with the support of its clients or its patron, the offended family wreaks, was among them the simplest and most direct means to see done justice.

The king of the primitive tribe is therefore indifferent to the justice or the injustice of the relations of his subjects between them. But the ancient Celts had found two ways of curing this primitive deficiency of the tribe-state.

First way: the feudal system before the word is invented. Thanks to the ancestor of what was going to become many centuries later the feudality, the poor and the weak ensure the support of the powerful men against injustice.

Second way. And through the oath, the men place their contracts under the protection of the gods. The one who after having guaranteed a contract by the oath does not carry out this contract, offends thus the gods who will be avenged.

The oath is a process with which man forces the gods to leave their natural indifference for the human things and to become the defenders of the law.

N.B. Let us remind here with force of the fact that what was previous was only an analysis of the former druidism, in order to release from it the best principles *, here in fact that of the recourse to the arbitration in the most possible cases. But it is obvious that an integral return to this situation would be neither possible nor desirable considering the current complexity of our societies. There is a happy medium to find between the fact that the citizens take the law in their own hands and the persnickety

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intervention in all the fields (a phone booth in a village or in the “depths” of a mountainous district for example) of the army of the civil servants of the monarch and of his capital. The state and the civil servants of his capital deal with a little too many things nowadays. The State should not intervene only in the event of deficiency of arbitration in the civil society. And perhaps conversely, it would be necessary to encourage or develop the recourse to arbitration in our country.

* Our goal is indeed to build the new man with the best of the former one.

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FOR COMPARISON BELOW SOME WORDS ON THE GAYANASHAGOWA.

An exemplary constitution which surpasses the Roman law.

The Gayanashagowa,” great binding law” or ” great law of peace,” is the oral constitution of the confederacy of the 6 Iroquoian nations. These laws were handed down since the 14th century according to the indigenous tradition or since the 16th century according to the observers of European origin, in the form of maxims written on a whole series of wampum belts (small shells) which are currently preserved by the Onondagas. The prophet Dekanawidah, called the Great Peacemaker, and its follower Hiawatha, who preached the Great Peace, gathered the chiefs in a Congress in the Onondaga tribe during which these laws were enacted.

Written in English in 1720, the Gayanashagowa is made up of 117 paragraphs which comprise a constitution and some rare customary provisions. Its operation had been described in detail as soon as 1702 by Louis Armand Delom d'Arce.

The Gayanashagowa codifies the functions of the Great Council of the Iroquois and indicates how the five, then six Iroquoian nations, must do in order to solve their disagreements, to balance their exchanges and to coexist peacefully.

In 1744 in Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, the tadodaho (chief of the confederacy) Canassatego besides presented thus to the White in the area, their design of democracy.

“Our wise forefathers established union and amity between the Five Nations. This has made us formidable. This has given us great weight and authority with our neighboring Nations. We are a powerful Confederacy and by your observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken you will acquire much strength and power; therefore, whatever befalls you, do not fall out with one another.”

In 1751 in order to make the reluctant English colonists feel ashamed and to encourage them to accept a union Benjamin Franklin quoted in an example, the Iroquoian democracy besides: “It would be a very strange thing if Six Nations of Ignorant Savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such a Union and be able to execute it in such a manner, as that it has subsisted ages, and appears indissoluble, and yet a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies to whom it is more necessary and must be more advantageous.”

In 1787, in a letter to Edward Carrington, Jefferson had established a link between the freedom of expression and happiness, by giving the Indians in America as an example: I am convinced that those societies [as the Indians] which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments.”

The Iroquoian Confederacy was the most powerful in North America political entity, during the two centuries which were previous or which followed Christopher Colombus.

” All the members of an Iroquois gens were personally free, and they were bound to defend each other's freedom; they were equal in privileges and in personal rights, the sachem and chiefs claiming no superiority and they were a brotherhood bound together by the ties of kin. Liberty, equality, and fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal principles of the gens. These facts are material, because the gens was the unit of a social and governmental system, the foundation upon which Indian society was organized.It serves to explain that sense of independence and personal dignity universally an attribute of Indian character “ (Lewis Henry Morgan. Ancient Society).

The first 34 articles of the constitution of the Iroquois nation organized the political power and the system of representation by defining the functions of the fifty spokespersons, called royaneh, sachems, who sit at the Council of nations. This constitution is confederal: it does not establish a unitary government and gives to each nation different roles.

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Rights, Duties and Qualifications of Lords (articles 17 to 34).

Election of Pine Tree Chiefs (article 35).

Names, Duties and Rights of War Chiefs (articles 36 to 41).

Clans and consanguinity (articles 42 to 54).

Official Symbolism (articles 55 to 66).

Laws of Adoption (articles 66 to 70).

Laws of Emigration (articles 71 to 72).

Rights of Foreign Nations (articles 73 to 78).

Rights and Powers of War (articles 79 to 91).

Treason or Secession of a Nation (article 92).

Religious Ceremonies Protected (articles 99 to 104).

The Installation Song (articles 105 to 107).

The system of decision-making is based on the subsidiarity principle.

Customary Provisions.

Rights of the People of the Five Nations (articles 93 to 98).

Protection of the House (article 107).

Funeral Addresse (articles 108 to 117).

Mohawks (Agniers) and Oneidas had three clans, the other Iroquois nations had from eight to ten clans. For the majority, these clans bore animal names (Bear, Wolf, Tortoise, Eagle, etc.). The league was controlled by a council of 50 sachems, and each founding nation of the confederacy was represented by a delegation from 8 to 14 members. The individual tribes and villages were governed by their own council of sachems and chiefs.

Today still, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is regarded as a sovereign nation, on its territory of Grand River, in Ontario, in Canada. Since 1977, they have their own passport, recognized internationally in UNO.

For more details see GAETAN PELLETIER. Quebec Info. The American savages, some democratic peoples.

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EPILOGUE: THE DRUIDISM, A FORMER RELIGION FOR NEW TIMES.

In a true democracy (that of the council of an old chief in an Indian tribe) politics should not be a trade. No one has the right to grow rich by governing his own kind. No one even should earn a living by governing his own kind. The society should only compensate for his shortfall so that it is not a privilege reserved to the rich person, who besides in the absolute should not exist more than the poor. The parasites profiting from this system will be, of course, against what I say, and always supposedly in the name of democracy of course (the rich person always take refuge behind the poor to defend their privileges).

Can a return to the ancestral druidism, in a certain way, to bring a solution to the lamentable collapse of our society due to the appalling mediocrity of our political, media, journalistic, intellectual, philosophical and others (pseudo) elites? Elites unable to distinguish citizenship (official allegiance) from nationality (the community of which you are a member by birth) race, religion, culture, non-homophilia from homophobia?

Now then there, let us be honest, I do not know something about it. Would this be even desirable? All that we can say it is this.

The monolatrous religions, or mass religions, resulting from getting sunburnt in the Egyptian deserts or on the roads leading to Damas, are especially dogmatic and antiscientific, in short obscurantists, because based on alleged revelations (ah the visions due to sunstroke! Isn’it Saul?) Without going as far as demanding that Muhammad is thrown in a ditch in order he his bitten or trampled by the pigs and the dogs as the song of Roland says it in France; let us remind nevertheless of the fact that in his relationship with the Deity, the Muslim is mainly a (subjected) slave, the Christian a (converted) sinner, whereas the Celtic minded person as for him, always remains a (protestor) lawyer, a little like Jean Jaures.

Not very many are those who, currently, can understand druidism entirely and in its entirety, i.e., including the druidism of the amarcolitanos or aventieticos type (anatiomaroi, semnothei, vates veledae or gutuaters/gutumaters).

This decisive breakthrough in the History of Mankind, was a new stage, towards more truth or knowledge, as we could see it (for example the concept of setlocenia or cycles of life with a vast durations with regard to the life of the universe).

In the Book of Lismore (fo.151, b 2) we indeed find the following passage.

“Three years for the field (three-field system ?)

Three lifetimes of the field for the hound.

Three lifetimes of the hound for the horse.

Three lifetimes of the horse for the human being.

Three lifetimes of the human being for the stag.

Three lifetimes of the stag for the blackbird

Three lifetimes of the blackbird for the eagle.

Three lifetimes of the eagle for the salmon.

Three lifetimes of the salmon for the yew.

Three lifetimes of the yew for the world from its beginning to its end.”

That our favorite author [[Eleanor Hull, “The Hawk of Achill or the legend of the oldest animals in the world,” Folklore, Vol. 43, No. 4 (1932): pp. 376–409] comments in this way.

“We arrive thus at 59,050 years,i.e., two multiples of three more than the Westminster calculation, which made 6561 years ; i.e., down to the salmon in the Irish list.”

Strabon’s quote about the end of this world in a general conflagration seems to imply even more phenomenal cycle times if we consider that water and fire actually symbolize matter and spirit.

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“The druids, but others as well, say that men's souls , and also the universe, are indestructible, although both fire and water will at some time or other prevail over them” (Geography, Book IV, IV,4).

Shamanism and Indo-European paganism therefore were not useless, and they constituted outlines, imperfect outlines, of course, but outlines beneficial to men nevertheless.

There is God-or-Devil but the fabulous Destiny which waits for us and the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) were its best interpreters. Contrary to all the racist ineptitudes conveyed by the right-thinking people concerning the allegedly “barbarian” nature of this language (the Roman lawyer Ulpian, however, admitted himself, in his “digestes,” that the “Trusts [Latin fideicommissa] can also be left in any language, not only in Latin or Greek, but also in Carthaginian, Celtic, or the idiom of any nation whatsoever.” It is to the Celts (or in Celtic language?) that the Divinity most clearly spoke to men, at least according to Diodorus of Sicily (they were homophonon. V, 31) or the primordial druid called “Fenius Farsaid” in the Irish legends. The Celts are therefore a chosen language, and the men of the 2nd millennium before our era (those in Central Europe) therefore were right to follow their primordial druids in the conquest of the world .

These first high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) undertook the simplification of the shamanistic rites and a larger democratization of Indo-European rituals.

Archeologists found in Germany in a grave exhumed in Obermenzing in Bavaria, the body of a man who was probably a surgeon high-knower, living about year 200 before our era. He had been buried indeed with a sword, a spear and a shield, but he was especially a doctor and not a warrior; since they found in his grave trephine ( making it possible to withdraw from the cranium small bone sections in order to reduce the pressure exerted by the brain-pan on the brain), a probe and a retractor. Cf Jose Maria de Navarro and his study on the grave of a Latenian surgeon found in Bavaria, published in 1955 by the prehistoric Society.

Wasn't also the goal of the high-knowers of the ancient druidiaction, “the healing of wounds, of every wound, the absence of every weakness, the thwarting of death ” in other words in Gaelic language “Slanugudh cnedh, esbaidh cach, ac dichur euga?”

By doing this, they reached an unprecedented religious level as we could note it throughout this opuscule; with their idea of non-existence of hell, non-stoning the adulteresses and protection to be granted as a priority to the transiting stranger. A reasoned xenophilia in fact, reasoned because it was a question of getting information being able to prove to be useful on the surrounding people and of avoiding reprisals from the other nations or tribes in the event of an attack against their nationals. That clash, of course, compared with painful and hard quibbles of the Jewish law (halakhah) about the rodef or moser; with the painful and hard considerations of the Islamic law (sharia) on the adulteresses (in the Gaelic mythology of Ireland dealing with Partholon, it is the dog which is stoned, not the wife!)

And our ancestors received from these primordial druids an incommensurable inspiration, courage and force, whereas the Man is nevertheless in the beginning literally a “Chthonian” being since such is the meaning of this word in Celtic language (Gdonios).

It is besides perhaps this etymology which is at the origin of the famous remark of Caesar: “They assert that they are descended from Dis Pater…. this tradition has been handed down by the druids” (B.G. VI, 18).

Ammianus Marcellinus. “Throughout these provinces, the people gradually becoming civilized, the study of noble sciences flourished [….] The vates investigated the system and sublime secrets of nature, and sought to explain them to their followers. Among them came the druids, men of loftier genius, bound in brotherhoods ; their minds were elevated by investigations into secret and sublime matters, and from the contempt which they slightly entertained for human affairs they pronounced the soul/mind immortal (Rerum gestarum libri. Roman History XV, 9.8).Pomponius Mela: “They have both…. And their own teachers of wisdom: the druids.” Latin: “Magistrosque Habent tamen… sapientiae druidas” (Chorographia III, 2.18).

Strabo: “…4. Among all these peoples, generally speaking, there are three sets of men who are held in exceptional honor; the bards, the vates and the druids. ... while the druids, in addition to natural philosophy, also study moral philosophy. The druids are considered the most just of men, and on this account they are entrusted with the decision….. (Geography IV, 4.4.)

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Caesar: “They are engaged in things sacred, conduct the public and the PRIVATE SACRIFICES, AND INTERPRET ALL MATTERS OF RELIGION” (B.G. VI, 13).

This other commentary of Caesar proves obviously that the ancient high-knowers of the druidiaction, dealt as well with the private religion as with the public religion and even with many other things still.

The ancient Celtic religion, unlike what occurred among many other peoples, therefore also had to be a religion involving too personally the individual. From where the ultimate remark of the famous conqueror on this subject: “The nation of all the Celts is extremely devoted to religious rites” (B.G. VI, 16).

The Celts were literally adopted by the Divinity as soon as their childhood. The dear children of the demons (gesta deorum per Gallos) according to the somewhat contradictory it is true, Greek legends in connection with the Hyperboreans (or Galatians).

The Celtic Christian practice of the auricular confession was especially monastic, in the beginning and therefore came perhaps (at the origin) from a very old druidic practice: the trust given to the anamchara (the friend of the soul/mind) of the Irishmen, or to the Welsh periglor, by his pupils.

It was one of the essential conditions to progress in the chosen path, but the laymen also, of course, could resort to this “medicine of the soul/mind” of the druid of anamocaros type.

In the event of a fault against the ethical code of his social function (against its deontology), the anamocaros druid asked generally to the culprit then, to compensate his wrongs, and the compensation depended, of course, on the caused damage as well as on the means of their author. All was envisaged by the custom. These laws not written in the beginning appear strange to us today and persnickety (See the Senchus Mor the Crith Gablach the Irish penitentials.).

Very Celtic in the spirit as in the form, they did not have less universal dimensions since they imposed themselves little by little over the catholicity, as the rest proved it.

This system, and particularly the Irish penitentials, very rigid for our time, was made more flexible through the commutations of punishments: the envisaged compensation could be replaced by a harder, but shorter, punishment. It is not forbidden to see there the distant origin of the Catholic practice of indulgences. The high-knowers of the druidiaction seem to have been further and to have admitted, in certain circumstances, neither the commutation of the punishments, but straightforwardly the commutation of the penitents. It is another person who compensates for the caused wrong or damage, the main thing being that there is compensation.

These druidic habits and particularly that of the anamocaros were therefore admirable instruments of spiritual advice and made it possible to refine the moral and religious conscience of the West, quite before the coming of Christianity. But it is not only a question of being good, it is also a question of being oneself. SINN FEIN, it is said in Gaelic language. Sinn fein, even in poverty like St. Colman in Inishboffin if it is needed, because what is important it is the wealth of the soul and not gold or money! Better is worth being free and poor than sprawled in a gilded cage. To understand part of all that can help already very much.

IT IS THEREFORE HIGH TIME TO REDISCOVER A LITTLE THIS HUGE LOST CONTINENT OF THE HUMAN THOUGHT. BY TRYING TO RECONSTRUCT AS SCIENTIFICALLY AS POSSIBLE, BUT ALSO “FROM THE INNER SIDE” THE FAITH OF THE ANCIENT CELTS. STARTING FROM SURE AND ATTESTED HISTORICAL REALITIES OR FROM THE SENSE GIVEN BY THE ETHNOLOGISTS TO COMPARABLE FACTS OF CIVILIZATION.

Even if the use of “similar” models (religious comparative literature) has its limits.

FROM WHERE THESE NEW BASIC ELEMENTS AND THESE SOME BOOKLETS, TO BE READ URGENTLY, CONSIDERING THE IGNORANCE OR THE GENERALLY ACCEPTED IDEAS ON THIS SUBJECT WHICH MASK THEM.

If the genuine ancient druidism, had been able to remain as the Brahmanism in India, it could have evolved by itself. But now,we are not here, we are even very far!

Our religion being in a way only a religion of truth, it is necessary not to hide it. The derivation Iolo Morgannwg is especially cultural (folk some people say!) and it is neutral as regards religion (too much benevolent towards Christianity, even crypto-Christian some people say). Moreover it is very marked by the Welsh or Breton medieval literature, and it has little to do with Panceltic, or let us say, Common Celtic , genuine (vocabulary, and so on) historical reality.

It is therefore better to refer clearly to the state of mind of John Toland who, in addition to the fact that he began quite before Iolo Morgannwg (in 1717); had also the virtue to be really non-Christian (let us be a little Monganian,what the devil!) and even non-Muslim; and to have also had a little more philosophical or metaphysical profundity (herbal teas containing mistletoe were not his cup of tea!)

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Our religion being a religion of truth as we saw, it was necessary therefore that these things are said!

There are vulgar ambitious and mediocre persons in the neo-druidic milieu. More than elsewhere? It is not certain! What is specific to the neo-druidic milieu , it is that it exists multipliers with particularly high rate.

By mediocre or ambitious (in the little and low meaning of the term), I want to say charlatans without scruple (materially interested, by money or honors…) or individuals wanting to be leaders at all costs.

Even semi-well-read men who want to compensate for their intellectual mediocrity by shining easily or who want to impress laypersons. But this, rather paradoxically, is only one of the necessary consequences of the huge intellectual importance that the ancient high-knowers of the druidiaction, the true ones, had. Everyone wants to attire oneself in the feathers of the disappeared eagle.

One of the first true factors multiplying ad infinitum the level of harmful problem of these characters, it is, of course, the absence of consensus, even minimal, on what the ancient druidic doctrines were really. It is there, of course, the first consequence of the intellectual coma which affected the genuine druidism between the 5th and the 15th century.

We can from now on, find everything and anything under the label “druidism” (from Atlantis to the flying saucers).

Such a situation would cause already many arguments among sincere druidicists, then when they are ambitious in the crude meaning of the term in addition, do not speak about it!

Nothing easier than to disguise as ideological dissension what only a personal competition is. Suckers will not be missing seeing the things thus.

What all these smart Gentlemen, these Great Ladies or these nice Squires, forget, it is that it is also good to take

inspiration from the example given by the foster father of our Lord (of Moritamna / Muithemne).

He was a man as everybody else, modest, self-effacing, living very simply, and without making a fuss, although having nothing to reproach himself. At least according to what the very text of the cattle raid of Cooley teaches us about him: Sualtam, without being a bad warrior, was not a superman, he was a good and brave warrior so-so. "Is amlaid ra boí Sualtaim acht nírbo drochláech é & nírbo degláech acht múadóclách maith ritacaemnacair".

There exists also another multiplier resulting directly from this shipwreck of the genuine high-level druidism … the fact that it is a circle with reduced and divided manpower. This absence of transparency and of public confrontation of ideas (no valid democratic selection, style republican elitism, is conceivable in much too small a group) makes possible all the maneuvers that you can imagine, all the scheming.

What is missing to current druidism, it is 300 million sets of eyes to judge all that, to observe who does what and how.

Third multiplier lastly, the fact that it is always a marginal approach from its enthusiasts.

Nobody can claim to be a doctor, architect, or lawyer, without having evidenced a minimum of knowledge and rigor. But now as regards neo-druidism yes! Anybody can claim to be a traditional true super druid from father to son or from secret initiation to secret initiation… and there is no check!

There are an Order of the doctors, of the lawyers, or the architects, what is missing it is a druidic Order and a (disciplinary) committee ( Bratuspantium?) which can punish every abuse in this field, effectively and officially.

The main obstacle to the development of neo-druidism they are…. neo-druids themselves! The current neo-druidism is an underculture. Most of its leaders, alas, are either little educated, and therefore credulous with regard to the baloneys of their predecessors, or not very intelligent and, therefore,lacking critical mind, even both at the same time. They are not either remarkably courageous (the rule is rather to run away while leaving the buddies alone in front of the difficulties). Most dirty tricks are always played, of course, behind the back of the main interested parties , or 10 against 1; and they are very dirty tricks, some punches very below the belt (they meddle in private lives, marriages, divorces, family names, filiations, etc.). The current neo-druidic milieu is quite a small milieu, including with the moral meaning of the word.

Lies,thefts, cheating and breaches of trust or cowardly treasons - let us say lacking honesty if the word shocks - are common practice in it; it is always a question of having his own group for oneself or of being promoted in a lightning way.

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And I do not speak about materially interested swindlers, cranks, visionaries, or sex cases.

The “druids” of today are too often definitely very low, and not at all worthy of their religion in any event!

Because the faith of our ancestors was also a religion, since the ancient high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), were priests speaking the very language of the gods (Diodorus of Sicily, V, 31: they were homophonon).

But a religion with strong philosophical overtones. Unlike these poor little neo-druids with such skimped ideas, or unlike many supposedly monotheistic religions (in reality monolatrous), which are, as for themselves, overall incompatible with the “free” science and reflection.

But why to speak about religion concerning druidism will you tell me?

Because every religion is an experimented meeting with the sacredness, whether it is the sacredness understood as a-personal divinity or as personal God-or-demon, as single God-or-Devil or as God-or-Demons, or quite simply as a Universal Everything Including in which to be melted oneself.

“The religion is the relation carried out on the individual-social level, intended to be expressed in a living way in a tradition and a community (in doctrines, ethical code and often also rites); relation with something which goes beyond or includes the man and his world, with an ultimate true reality whatever the way in which it is designed; a frame of reference based in transcendence and spreading out in immanence, thanks to which Man is directed intellectually, emotionally, existentially” (Hans Kung. Christentum und Weltreligionen. But did I understand well? My four years of German language in the MPS of Autun are distant!)The Celtic religion had to be especially an individual religion. The religion was especially a private affair, and there were only some cases in the year when the presence of each one was obligatory, and when some dietary prescriptions (some prescription and not some prohibitions) were to be observed ; at the time of ceremonies besides more national or political than another thing, for example the festival of the trinouxtion samoni (os) or All Souls' Day on November first.

Or the seven búada of the king of Tara.

A sheacht mbúadho .i. íascc Bóinne, fíadh Luibhnighe, mess Manann, fráechmess Brígh Léthi, biror Brossnaighi, uisci thopuir Thlachtga, mílrath Náissi nó Maisten. Hi kalaind Auguist doroichtis sin uile do rígh Themruch. In blíadain dano i toimliuth insin ní theéghed i n-áirim sháeghuil dó, ocus is ríam no maidith for gach leth. The fish of the Boyne, the deer of Luibnech, the mast of Mana, the blueberries of Brí Léith, the cress of the Brossnach river, the water from the well of Tlachtga, the hares of Naas (or of Maistiu). All of these to be brought to the king of Tara and the year he consumed them he was victorious in battle on every side.

It is this character which made Caesar point out that all the Celts are very devoted to the things of religion (admodum dedita religionibus). It is what explains why the religious practices were never codified in writing and on a scale larger than that of the place where they were carried out. In the same way, druids never worried of writing down the myths, nor the worship regulations, not even the divine genealogies. The beliefs and the worships owed their existence only to that of the god-or-demons, who seemed to have produced them. However either these god-or-demons were on the spot since so distant times that they seemed coming under the field of eternity,or they had been brought with the new populations during their migrations.

The religion, like the art, of the Celts, proceeds from a continuously using its aptitude for metamorphosis, dynamism, which makes it single in the ancient world. The religious mentality of the Celts was infinitely more flexible than that of the Romans was ever, who combined pragmatism and legalism. The artistic expression gives us the purest impression of it, even if for it we have no code of deciphering, which makes it remain forever enigmatic for us. The freedom which is expressed in the style known as “plastic” around the 3rd century on the uninterrupted tori of the bracelets or torcs and on the disproportionate flat surfaces of the sleeves; could develop only on a spiritual ground where the spirit of invention and the sense of the fantastic reigned limitlessly.

Up to a late, contemporary or after the conquest, time, these works were deprived of every form of realism. However it is each time the ornamentation of sacred or having an obvious magic character, artifacts (torcs, perhaps liturgical crockery, sleeves of sword…), ornamentation which drew its inspiration from the mythological bestiary or the divine genealogies. We are led therefore to think that

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these masterpieces of Celtic art deliver to us, in their way, the quintessence of the spirituality of the Celts which, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries before our era, also had to reach its most purified expression.

Druidism is not a religion being worth only for the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) in a stricter sense of the term (druids of the aventieticoi type and others). Druidism was never a psychosomatic technique intended only for a minority capable of a radical choice; having all the room to meditate or to devote itself to the most various spiritual and mental exercises (the druidism does not deny the society to that point!) druidism relates to everybody, on the contrary, including those who are forced to work, to live and make theirs, living. The druidic message is open to various possible forms of life and therefore can be lived variously. There exist several paths or side roads (divodoron) to reach the grail, the way of the druids, of course, but also the heroic way (kission) or the way of the producers of wealth who work for themselves but also for the community (combennones of the reda).

The (druidic) teaching was accessible to whoever was able to grasp it and did not consist of an accessible only to successful candidates (in short secret) occult, puzzling, or esoteric , handing down . As the Irish druid Nede said it very well, in the Dialog of the two sages (Immacallam in da thuaraid): “Welcome is even the piercing sense of wisdom.”

The message of druidism is intended for everybody, but, of course, considering the diversity of men, each one understands it in a different way. Let’s return for example to the quote from Strabo who is visibly astonished at it, regarding the end of this cycle.

“They affirm that the soul and the universe are indestructible, although both fire and water will at some time or other prevail over them” (Strabo Geography IV, 4). The cosmic cycles or setlocenia considered by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) end therefore , not like those usually evoked in this time; i.e., under the action of water OR fire, according to the case, but under the action of both JOINED TOGETHER. These “druidic” super-cycles including or exceeding, and by far, the others, surprise always, of course, those who are hardly accustomed to such important durations as regards cosmogony.

Some people therefore understand the druidism in its totality, others understand it only half, but even in this case the druidism can be useful to them. The renouncement of the tangible properties is not essential (by itself) only at the last stages of certain ways giving access to the true world; but man can reach it after death quite simply, without giving up possession, home or marriage.

Druidism rejects neither body, neither sexuality, neither women, nor men. Marriage has nothing impure in its eyes, and monogamy or polygamy, polygyny, even polyandry, are also acceptable if the situation of the men or women in question makes it possible (it is necessary to be able to love in the same way and not to be unjust).

The high-knowers of the druidiaction are the envoys or the agents of no clan, and they received a revelation from nobody even if they speak the same language as the gods (gods and druids are homophonon) .

Their religion is only a reflection, a knowledge they reached through their own means (thanks to innumerable generations of researchers and philosophers, from the prehistoric Shamans and the Indo-European priests to the primordial druids). These paths do not depend on the personality of those who tested them firstly.

It is possible to step in them without having ever heard of them. The high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) are only the first sages having been able to recognize and to mark out these ways, that’s all.

This is why, in parallel with the defense and the illustration of their faith, the true druids also exhort not to be satisfied to believe in it stupidly, but to check by oneself and by the practice, the accuracy of this teaching; because it is always dangerous to cling blindly to a religion, would be that of the purest druidism.

Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul. As Renan once magnificently realized on the Acropolis of Athena, it is better to renounce the gods than we no longer understand. Oh, of course, he said it in his way but he said it. "A vast stream called Oblivion hurries us downward towards a nameless abyss. Thou art the only true God, O Abyss! the tears of all nations are true tears; the dreams of all wise men comprise a parcel of truth; all things here below are mere symbols and dreams. The Gods pass away like men and it would not be well for them to be eternal. The faith which we have felt should never be a chain, and our obligations to it are fully discharged when we have carefully enveloped it in the purple shroud within the folds of which slumber the Gods that are dead."

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But there is stronger, more Celtic, more druidic. To distinguish between to believe and to know.

To believe is a thing, to know is another, like had already seen it very well in his time the Celtic prince Indutiomarus blamed by Cicero in his Pro M. Fonteio Oratio.

To repeat the slogan “The Druidism is the best interpreters of the human approach of the thought about the Divinity,” does not mean, however, that it is infallible like the pope or Muhammad.

And this is why we should in no case to impose druidism. The druidism is cantamantaloedis. As regards religion, there should be no constraint! This being said without Taqiyya.This tolerance besides must go quite beyond the simple indulgence. The druidism can coexist perfectly with other forms of religious expression, including inside the same individual.

The druids or St. Patrick, Termagant, Muhammad or our lord Belin, that must be possible! We must be able to choose, or not to choose besides.

It is only required to listen to, to understand, and to draw all the conclusions which are essential. The druidism is a means which has no proper function, a little like a boat (out of crystal, out of bronze, no importance) that you give up soon as you landed on the other shore (the true world). But this boat, it is necessary nevertheless how to know to steer it, this is why the druidism is a boat which “even tossed by the waves , does not sink” (motto of the boatbuilders in Paris. Latin Translation: “fluctuat nec mergitur”).

The message druidic is provider of senses, certainty, assurance; but it is also a source of explanation, doubt and liberation (see the atheism of certain tribes according to Strabo).

There is not necessarily contradiction between meditation and action, between integration or emancipation, between order and justice; the mystical experiment of the aventieticos type and the social action don’t exclude themselves. Mysticism does not imply the negation of the world or the passiveness necessarily. In the authentic druidism, the release of Man by the Divinity as well as the liberation of Man by the Man, go hand in hand.

The neo-druidism must therefore fulfill a function of clarification and of explanation, by the criticism of the other religions particularly, because its tolerance (cantamantaloedism) is a tolerance which also draws attention to certain non-truths, in spite of all the truth. It is neither blindness, neither an intellectual cowardice, nor an intellectual resignation (Irenicism) as those which dishonor the “elites” since the end of the 20th century, in France.

Without going as far as throwing Muhammad in a ditch to make him bitten by the pigs and the dogs, as in France the saga of Roland demands it with insistence ; let us say nevertheless that we should never exclude a priori from criticism certain religious positions or certain religious decisions.

Such indifferentism could lead only to a cheap tolerance, a tendency to admit everything, a badly understood liberalism, which would minimize the question of the truth or even would no longer dare to ask it.

Critical dialog consequently (which calls the other religions, not to justifying all, but rather to saying themselves what they have better or deeper).

Most of the rites of the Muslim pilgrimage in Mecca are for example of Pre-Islamic, and therefore pagan, origin. Ah pagans my brethren, if you had not existed it would have been necessary to invent you. Even if Muhammad changed the meaning of them considerably. But that we have already said it!

For that, the druidism will never cease appealing constantly to the reason and to the capacities of knowledge of Man. Atheism it will be said!

It is true that according to Strabo, some Celts and particularly the Galicians in Spain were atheistic. Is it possible or is it rather a lack of nuance in the thought of Strabo, unable to understand the subtleties of certain druidic schools? In any case here his text. “Some say the Callaicans have no god, but the Celtiberians and their neighbors on the north offer sacrifices to a nameless god at the seasons of the full moon, by night, in front of the doors of their houses, and whole households dance in chorus and keep it up all night” (Geography III, 4.16).

The druidism is a teaching agreeing with the reason, appealing in no way to blind beliefs of the type credo quia absurdum in Latin language, but inviting on the contrary each one to test its truth by practice and meditation.

The druidism is a knowledge corresponding to a universal reality; or more exactly a science not depending on Scriptures nor on any intangible revelation, definitively written down 1000, 2000 or 3000 years before, like in the case of the Judeo-Islamic-Christianity. Because the sacredness, it is initially the man (nemed). And the druidic faith is not initially the adherence to one or more persons, were they divine or half divine like the Hesus Cuchulainn, but the adherence to one or more truths.

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These longtime truths were gradually discovered by the primordial druids, successors of the Prehistoric shamans and of the Indo-European priests come from the East , there are three or four thousand years, and they were therefore experimented, lived, and finally spread, by them, that’s all. “Follow your own Destiny (your individual Tokade) and not the druids,” could even say some persons today, because these cosmic laws, discovered by the first high-knowers of the druidiaction (for instance hell doesn’t exist, as good new that it is a good new), are indeed more important than the personality of his first discoverers and even as the personality of his gods.

The druidic message does not draw its truth from the fact that they are the druids who proclaimed it, because it is all the opposite: the high-knowers proclaimed it because it was true.

And this longtime truth is one, in spite of all the different approaches of it that we can make. But watch out, the truth in fact is not identified with the fact, even historical. Truth and historical fact are two different things.

The story of Tristan and Iseult for example, is only a legend, but it contains much more truth on the power of love than thousand treatises on sexology.

And similarly the Epic of Cuchulainn in Ireland, an example of superhuman courage in spite of the failures of his fellow countrymen (the famous sickness of the Ulaid or Ces Noinden) or crimes of his coward enemies (the Irishmen of the queen Medb ). In Short in spite of our human condition because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

In this meaning the druidism is a universal truth, applying to all the men, and graspable by their reason, because it is identified with the Destiny of the Universe founding the order of the things.

But to the conventional truth of the usual druidism adapted to the capacities of comprehension of the druidicists of then must now succeed a higher truth. It is time to proclaim lessons more profound than those of the Former Druidism of the primordial or ancient druids.

We must seek to understand the druidism, such as the Celts of the time of the former druids apprehended it, only to apply it to the current living conditions if that turns out to be a better thing. Because, let us remind of it, the goal is to succeed in making a new man grow BUT WITH THE BEST OF THE FORMER ONE.

The high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) of today, always seek “the healing of wounds, of every wound, the absence of every weakness, the thwarting of death” (slanugudh cnedh, esbaid cach, ac dichur euga). But it is no longer essential for them to be also miracle workers, the druids of today (the true ones in any case) do not claim to do wonders.

The neo-druidism must make a success of its Aggiornamento by showing adaptation, assimilation, and integration. Whether it is the contents of the faith or of the practices, it must indeed adapt the former one and absorb the new one. The myth must be endowed with new meanings, what is outworn must be reinterpreted, what no longer its reason for being has (the human sacrifices, the exclusion of women from the priesthood, and so on) must be purely and solely given up.

As Solinus says it , quoted by Henry Lizeray in his S.D.D. “Pagan theology is to be interpreted with broadness of outlook.”

We should not be satisfied with receiving purely and solely the Celtic tradition, it is necessary to bring it up to date or to reinterpret it, in the light of our personal experience, in order to answer the following questions: what Man can expect? How the supreme Fate should be understood? How can we recognize it? What is its will, what must we do to achieve our destiny on the individual level?

The druidism is a testimony which can and must be handed down in an unceasingly renewed, variable, according to time, place and people, form, in order to prevent every discrepancy with society, in order to avoid in a constructive way specific conflicts being possibly able to oppose it to the sciences of nature.

We must particularly reconsider the question of the god-or-demons completely in the light of the last progress of the scientific study of paranormal phenomena like telepathy, hypnosis, and so on (cf. on this subject the work of Charles Richet, Pierre Janet, as those of all their other fellow members). Lastly, in short, for more details, on this subject see the parable of Ogmius/Heracles explained to Lucian of Samosata by a druid of Marseilles (it is necessary to speak in Greek language with the Greeks, and so on).

“We cannot be sure the Greek has well understood and repeated everything, but the old witness statements are too rare so that we can neglect one of them. It is also possible this high-knower moderated his interpretation in order to calm down the irritation of his interlocutor. But the form of the

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explanation, which shows a large keenness of intelligence, was at the very least to come from a good expert in theology.

To designate his interlocutor he textually writes philosophos. Philosophos is used in the sentence only as an adjective; but as substantive it is the word used by the Greek to generally indicate the druids [….] It is important to notice the existence in this country, presented to us as barbarian, and uncultivated, of personalities able to discuss on an equal footing and in his language, with Lucian of Samosata.

Nothing says that this scholar able at the same time to quote Greek lines of verse and to carry out a brilliant comparative mythology between Ogmius and Heracles was a druid but the presumption is rather strong.

Lastly, it should be noted that if the Celt outclasses the Greek, it does not benefit from that to try to convert him, and it is perhaps there most important lesson of this text” (Francoise LE ROUX).

Therefore let us not hesitate for that, to call in question the traditions and the so-called “esotericisms”, hermeticisms or occultisms, considered as “druidic.”

Let us be nevertheless clear on a point: the new druidism is not there to abolish the former one, BUT TO FULFILL IT. The goal, I repeat, is to generate a New Man with the best of the former one.

The high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) of today bring development only insofar as the former druidism were forgotten, because it is nothing new that what was forgotten. They claim by no means the absolute truth, like in the case of the Judeo-Islamic-Christianity.

The new druids are only men; who are interested in the former druidism or in the medieval druidism, and in their messages; who interpret them and express them into new situations and times; who explain them according to the places, times, and persons. The neo-druidism therefore must be, like the former druidism, a harmonious juxtaposition of different interpretations, placing the emphasis on new aspects, or considering the things differently; a juxtaposition which does not preserve unnecessarily out-of-date traditions, but a juxtaposition which takes into account the different levels of experience of each one. Because the authentic druidic faith is not the adherence to one (or to several) person (s), but the adherence to one (or to several) truth (s); we said.

The neo-druidic message does not imply a socio-legal order, it is not a New Right, style Christian fundamentalists or GRECE (in Europe). It is a quest for the Goly grail!

Let us notice on this subject that, twenty-eight years afterwards, the perpetrator of the famous attack which had moved the entire France in 1980, has just been identified. The attack committed on October 3rd against the synagogue of the Copernic street in Paris, by a Canadian named Hassan Diab.

I remember it very well! At the time, I worked at night and I had therefore the possibility of reading much during my pauses. Whole France had then demonstrated in a row in the streets to protest against the extreme left right and this unfortunate G.R.E.C.E…

Once again it is the proof, if proof were needed, of the deeply harmful character (waste of money of time or energy of credibility, temporary giving up of the other big challenges, like those of the ecology, of the climate warming, or of the necessary degrowth) of the antiracism; WITHOUT REFLECTION AND INTELLIGENCE. BECAUSE THE NON-CONSIDERED ANTIRACISM, MAKES IT POSSIBLE IN FACT THAT THE TRUE CULPRITS OF A CRIME ESCAPE JUSTICE FOR A CONSIDERABLE LENGTH OF TIME AND EVEN GIVES THEM LARGELY THE TIME TO START AGAIN, BEFORE THEIR ARREST.

And it is certain that the best means of removing all intelligence from a however normal, human being, is today to switch him on the ground of the racism or more exactly of the antiracism. Then we witness inevitably a true festival of nontruths, untruths, ignorances, generally accepted ideas, sophisms, inconsistencies, and even often obviously, reverse racism. It is to believe that every normal intelligence needs for a dead center or a blind spot to be able to work normally otherwise. And in France, in this country which has been great formerly (after the battle of Denain in 1712? Between 1914 and 1962 ?), apparently this Bermuda Triangle in which whole sections of these large intelligences that are the intellectuals, the journalists or the politicians - they are often the same ones besides – sink, it is the racism and its double. The eye to function correctly needs a blind spot also known as Mariotte’s spot *. And now it is the same thing perhaps for the human intelligence. It needs a blind spot to be able to work correctly otherwise.

The misfortune is that at our latitudes, this blind spot of intellects is racism/antiracism (or religion and particularly Islam). Two fields where reflection, objectivity, general knowledge and relativism, should

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be on the contrary of the greatest need, in order to succeed in really getting things done , instead of not getting anywhere, even moving back (genocide in Rwanda, disappearance of the Christians in the East, and other Yazidis).

Our religion is not a law (din) and our spirituality do not determine in the least details how man must revere or worship the god-or-demons, pray, fast, even what hygienic rules he must observe. De minimis non curat druis. There are besides no permanent food prohibitions in our country, only food regulations certain feast days. Our religion is not there to implement a secular law which would concern all the fields or each situation of the daily life, from the politics to the trade through the dental care, the way of behaving at table, of courting somebody, etc., etc. Once again let us repeat it! De minimis not curat druis. It is not a multiplicity of laws that the druidism of today must proclaim, but some simple, transparent, freeing, calls, giving up the arguments of authority or tradition.

The druidism does not need a (finally hopeless) restoration, but well a transformation, with a promising future.

We therefore need, in the former druidism and even in the medieval druidism, to distinguish between what bears the mark of its time and what a permanent value has; between what is essential and what is secondary; between what is constructive and what is destroying.

Celtic minded man my brother, what is your motto?" The sun is my father, the earth is my mother, nothing that is human is unfamiliar to me, a little internationalism takes away from homeland, a lot takes back to it, the earth is my spaceship".

The druidism cannot solve all the conflicts in the world nor to prevent them, but it can contribute to reducing intransigences, hatreds, and enmities (between peoples or individuals).

It is not a question of denying the trials. What the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) of today, want to say, it is that they can change their symbol and like in the case of the Hesus = Cuchulainn to pass from the couiocanton (from the negative) to the couocanton (to the positive) in order to let the current of life flow. And it is in this cauldron that abundance and resurrection will be. But that we have already said it.

Signed: a simple “defense lawyer” of the druidism of our ancestors.

PETER DELACRAU.

*It is in the 17th century, while proceeding to the dissection of a human eye, that the physicist Edme Mariotte discovered indeed the area of the retina where the optical nerve is attached to the eyeball. He deduced from it, as it was deprived of light receptor cells, the light was not to stimulate this area and that, consequently, each eye was to have a small area of the field of vision where it is blind. What was shown thereafter.

That being said let us remind nevertheless of the fact that we are not favorable to the GRECE, we are completely neutral about it , what interests us, they are the Celts.

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APPENDIX No. 1.

THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE TEN COMMANDS.

ON MANY AND EVEN INNUMERABLE POINTS however fundamental, the druidism differs therefore from Judeo-Christianity. The current Christians attribute to Christianity all that it formerly or at once, fought: human rights, democracy, respect of the strangers (of the Barbarians or Goyim)… Such a reversal, of course, does not contribute to clearing up the situation in the field of the ethical code. The research of the Good being the business of the Religion, the rest (the research of the Truth) being the business of the Science. It seemed to us useful therefore to say a few words of its Decalog and its context. You surely saw that in the movies or on television, but a small reminder is nevertheless essential!

THE JEWISH LAW!

''If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him” (Leviticus, 24, 19).

Law of retaliation that we find besides in a more complete way, in the Exodus.

“But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” (Exodus. 21, 23-25).

After the exodus from Egypt, Moses and the Hebrews enter the desert. Arrived before Mount Sinai, Moses climbs it, alone and there, in a flood of fire, he receives from God ten commands engraved in stone that the Hebrews must respect (if they do not want that, some troubles happen for them). These ten commands are a summary intended to facilitate the memorizing of the most important laws of the community, those which include capital punishment for a member of the clan, whatever he is. All in all, there would be here a kind of list of the “mortal sins.”

The Torah reports to us that Moses received them on the Sinai and presented them to the people, during a solemn ceremony, at the base of the mountain.

But the account of the Exodus reporting this episode (19, 25) comprises a singularity which can only intrigue any person endowed with a minimum of reflection. It is written there indeed that Moses went down from the mountain and took the floor to tell them… To tell them… But we do not know what, because the account precisely stops at this place. And at once after it is no longer Moses who is supposed to speak, but God himself, who promulgates personally the ten commands (20, 1). Exactly as if somebody had replaced at this place some words attributed to Moses by another, later, but attributed to God this time.

It is now obvious that these commands do not seem to correspond really to the time of Moses, which was a time of peregrinations through the desert and of wandering life. We can consequently suppose that they were rather established at the time of the judges, around the year 1100, that is to say about one hundred and fifty years after his supposed death.

Moreover, the Bible repeats that these commands (these “words”) are 10 (Dt 4.13; 10.4), but when they are counted, we find not ten of them but… 12.

Here (Exodus 20,3-17):

1.You shall have no other gods before me (line of verse 3).

2.You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of etc.etc. (line of verse 4.)

3.You shall not bow down to them or worship them etc.etc. (line of verse 5.)

4.You shall not misuse the name of Yaweh your God (line of verse 7).

5.Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy (line of verse 8).

6.Honor your father and your mother (line of verse 12).

7.You shall not murder (line of verse 13).

8.You shall not commit adultery (line of verse 14).

9.You shall not steal (line of verse 15).

10.You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor (line of verse 16).

11.You shall not covet your neighbor’s house (line of verse 17,a).

12.You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, etc.etc.(line of verse 17,b.)

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There is therefore there what to be intrigued.

What meaning can well have indeed the prohibition of coveting the “house” of the neighbor for peoples who do not live in houses yet, but under tents? It is only after their settling in the Promised land that the Hebrews will build houses with non-temporary materials. The command prohibiting the false testimony supposes, as for it, the existence of courts, judges and legal lawsuits. Impossible thing during the crossing of the desert. And when the rest of the Sabbath is imposed, it is specified: “You shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female slave.” But how could these people have slaves, whereas themselves were all fugitive, having recently left Egypt?

All that therefore led the historians to think that the ten commands belong in fact to a later time; that when the people is already settled in the land of Canaan, and has an organization including moral or legal standards, adapted to another time.

Assumptions on the process having led to this result.

At a given moment,before the abundance of laws and the need for having a summary where would appear the most serious crimes, likely to endanger the life of the community; some people decided to make a short list of the latter. To this end people sought among the laws all those which included capital punishment, i.e., all those which ended in the wording : “Thus you must purge the evil from among you.” Most of these regulations were besides in the Deuteronomy, since this book, by definition (deuteronomy means second law in Greek language) was a collection.

Editor’s note . The only one of the commands which did not appear already in Deuteronomy is that which is relating to the rest of Sabbath. Undoubtedly because in the past, not being regarded as a sufficiently serious matter to constitute a “mortal sin,” it did not appear in the series of the infringements sanctioned with capital punishment. But later, on the return of exile, when the observance of the Sabbath became a decisive criterion, it was therefore added to the list.

Hereafter therefore, the legal regulations appearing here and there separately, in the Deuteronomy.

Dt 13,2-6. If a man arises among you and say: “Let us go after other gods,” distinct from Yaweh, this man shall be put to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Dt 17, 2-7. If there is found in your midst, a man or a woman who has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, then you shall stone them to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Dt, 17,8-13. Anyone who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the Lord your God is to be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel.

Dt 21,18-21. If someone has a rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother, then all the men are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you.

Dt 19,11-13. If someone kills a neighbor, the killer shall be handed over to the avenger of blood to die.

Dt 22,13-21. If a man takes a wife and that no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, the men shall stone her to death. So you must purge the evil from among you.

Dt 24.7. If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil from among you.

Dt 19,16-19. If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, if the witness proves to be a liar, then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. You must purge the evil from among you.

Dt 22.22. If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die, so thou shalt put away evil from among you.

Editor’s note. As for you we do not know, but in what concerns us , a thing is sure, we do not see something divine in such laws just worthy of the most barbaric Islam (that is to say non-Sufi non Mutazilite, etc.).

Over time, this list took such importance among the Hebrews, that they came to ascribe it to Moses himself.

People then considered for certain the fact that Moses had been the law giver and the organizer of the legal life of the Jewish people. To write what Moses had given these laws on the Sinai, it was therefore, in a certain way, not to lie, in any case to remain in the field of the possibility, even of the probability.

Let us note that the various religions of the Book do not agree completely about this Decalogue; and that the Catholicism uses for its teaching a text which is not admitted , for example, by the exaggerated Biblists who are the Jehovah's Witnesses.

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If there are really ten commands , how to count them to reach this number?For a long time, Jews and Christians discussed this problem and proposed various ways of solving it.

The first attempts were those of the Jew Philo of Alexandria and of the historian Flavius Josephus. This classification distinguishes four commands relating to God and six relating to the neighbor. It was accepted by several old writers, such Origen, Tertullian and St. Gregory of Nazianzus. It is also that which currently Lutherans Calvinist or Anglicans, adopt.

The official Judaism refused the classification of Philo and Flavius Josephus. When the rabbis wrote the Talmud, their sacred book, they proposed another way of distributing the commands.

As from the 16th century, when catechisms started to be spread, some people foresaw the need for fixing the ten commands in the memory of the faithful; in order to facilitate the preparatory examination of conscience necessary for the confession, and to give a stimulant to the spiritual life. However, such as they were written, these commands appeared somewhat out of date even null and void, since they referred at a time when the Israelites still observed a primitive morality.

The Decalogue mentioned for example other gods, since in that time, the Israelites believed that there existed various deities for the other peoples; it prohibited the images, whereas, in the New Testament (Col 1.14), the Christ is presented as the image of the invisible God, and that it is therefore allowed to the Christians to use images to express their faith. It ordered to sanctify the Sabbath, whereas the Christians celebrated the Sunday, considered by them as the Lord’s day.

The Church therefore decided to work out a new Decalogue for its catechism. It had already acted in the same direction, besides, by excluding from its rules the sacrifices of animals, advised by the Former Law, the throat cutting of ewes, the cremation of bull calves, and the bloody immolation of lambs, which were to take place each day in the Temple.

Islam, on the other hand, kept the sheep cutting throat.

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APPENDIX No. 2.

LIMITS OF THE GOLDEN RULE.

“Do not do to others what you would not want done to you.”

Harry Gensler: “To do A to X is incompatible (cannot be combined) with the fact of not accepting the idea that X does to you the same thing in an exactly similar situation = do to others only what you accept that they do to you in the same situation”.

In this form the “golden rule” is only a geis, a negative rule, passive (“do not do…”) in the field of morality or ethical code, giving only a minimalist view of the relation to others. It refers to no worship, to no deity, and therefore is not incompatible with the absence of religion or of belief in God. In its secular version, by definition respectful of the freedom of conscience of each one, such restrictions could not exist.

Expressed positively the golden rule in question could be conveyed as follows: “Do to others all the good you would like to receive from them.”

We find this principle in close wording in many religions, philosophies or civilizations in the world. It is the barrier that morality builds against selfishness and those who think of being able to fulfill their freedom only by trampling that of the others (psychopaths or sociopaths). This precept, based on the reciprocity, is of a great simplicity and easy to understand, what undoubtedly contributed to its success. Its recognition by most civilizations and cultures seems to make it a common denominator to Mankind.

Nevertheless we should not forget that this golden rule was often implemented with a strong , implicit, even explicit, restriction, namely that “others,” “the other, “the neighbor,” the “brother”… is the brother of religion, the co-religionist….

Only Christianity was very explicit in this field with its parable of the good Samaritan: “others,” “the other, “the neighbor,” the “brother” it is not necessarily somebody who has the same religion as you. Too bad for the infidels, the non-believers the kufar or the followers of another religion like the Yazidis the (trinitarist) Christians …. but this is another debate. It is there an undeniable moral superiority of Christianity over Judaism or Islam, a superiority which it shares only with the druidism according to Nicholas of Damascus.

Collection of remarkable customs. Fragments preserved by Johannes Stobaeus. “Among them, man is punished more rigorously for the murder of a stranger than for that of a fellow citizen: in the first case, death, in the second exile only.”

Let us remind lastly of the necessity in this field of non-putting on the same level as regards the authority the extracts of the founding texts and the commentaries of later commentaries of the kind “papal bull or hadith,” even "debate between Hillel and Shammai".

The first of the limits of the golden rule was well highlighted by the famous joke of George Bernard Shaw: “Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may be different" (Maxims for revolutionists).

Most radical of the criticisms of this principle is indeed that it is difficult to know how others would like to be treated. The simplest way is to ask them but that supposes that they are able to understand the aforementioned question and are endowed with a minimum of comprehension, what excludes already the too young children and some mentally handicapped persons.

Karl Popper thus specified: “The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by “. Wherever reasonable… ”. Karl Popper therefore introduces the reason into the problems.

Iain King in his work entitled “How to make good decisions and be right all the time” remarks, first of all, that the generally negative expression of the golden rule (what we should not do rather than what it is necessary to do) of course has as a consequence the keeping of a status quo supporting evil and selfishness. As for the positive wording (do to others all the good you would wish to receive from them) of the potlatch type, it can lead to the ruin of the individuals and of the societies.

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Because should also be taken into account the fact that the interests of the ones and others can differ (what about masochists or kamikazes who seek martyrdom or death in action?) That the situations can differ (what about the job of a judge, what about the man who was rightly sentenced?) Therefore that the golden rule could not be the only geis (guide) to be taken into account. A platinum rule remains to be worked out for that.

There will always be differences related to the age, the bodily capacities, the intellectual or moral capacities, the exchanges from which each one could profit or not, the unequal wealth distribution…

The ethic of the high-knowers was worked out starting from a long reflection on the functional tripartition of the human activities (religion, politics, economy), ideology highlighted by the works of Dumezil.

Notice from the editor of this collective work. We have there, once again, a proof of the inauthenticity, therefore of the untrue character, of the neo-druidic groupuscules whose names follow: G ..... C… C…. d. I. F… d….C ...... d..B ..... (phew!) Bulletin A.G… led by J… T…. ; C…. d…. d. G ...... Bulletin A.G…. led by H ..... C ...... etc.

However, according to them, all more traditional the ones than the others. Because it is in the field of ethical code that their deception is most obvious. They are so Christian minded that it is even unaware coming from them. Their morality is that of the ten commands of the Bible about which we have just spoken. It never came to the mind of these super druids that this Christian Decalogue was only one of the possible approaches of the difficult trade of Man on this Earth, and not the better besides. It never came to the mind of these supposedly traditional and genuine "super druides" , that human groups could have other designs of ethical or deontology codes.

Because the principle of the tripartite ideology of the genuine druids it was not “the same single and universal morality for everybody,” but a “in a way professional morality, or a morality different according to the cases, in short a differentiated morality.” Beside some principles similarly valid for all, though on various levels, a multiplicity of deontological codes. Of particular deontological codes.

Editor’s note: We will say therefore “Decalogue” between quotation marks, because among the former High-knowers, this kind of precept went rather by three (triads).

The first of the druidic commands, if there were a single Celtic “Decalogue,” would probably have been: “The druid takes precedence over the king *, the law (the recht aicnid) takes precedence over the nertis (takes precedence over the strength.” In other words: the soldiers and the police officers should not deal with intellectual questions (religion, constitution, art, etc.).

The disorders in the world are almost always due to the fact that the third function is designed more according to the helps that it provides to the society; but also that the second function, the politics, seeks to seize the intellectual (or spiritual) authority. What the Hinduism names pejoratively revolt of kshatriyas (the Nazism in the 1930s Germany was for instance a revolt of kshatryas). It would have been necessary to put the nertis in its place,

which is the second (the defense of the nation) and not to mix it more or much more, to the politics in the higher sense of the term.

* The exact formula is "It was forbidden for the Ulaid to speak before the king, it was forbidden for the king to speak before his druids.” Gaelic language "Is amlaid ra batar Ulaid: geiss d'Ultaib labrad rena ríg, geis don ríg labrad rena druidib.”

A rather ambiguous formula, moreover, because it also implies that it is the king who must have the last word.

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APPENDIX No. 3.

WORKING PAPER.

“Maidens are protected in King Arthur land. The king has given them safe conduct, and watches over and protects them.”

THE IDEALS OF A MODERN ROUNDTABLE.

Or “the nine commands” (the nine sacred responsibilities, the nine buada or gessa).

Let us insist well to finish, on the personally disinterested nature which should characterize every politician worthy of this name; whereas nowadays, it should be admitted well, like formerly for the caste of the lords in the Middle Ages, politics became a means of personal enrichment, or to make a career. Wasn't feudality resulted from a dismemberment of the central power?? We saw it well with what occurred in Great Britain, after the departure of Romans. These territories become independent, without to have really wanted it, started by being managed by the captains or the senior officials remained on the spot, then after their death their districts were divided. It was there the beginning of feudality in this country.

The new race of masters today, they are the high-level executives or politicians. To be executive or to do politics is even become today the only means of growing rich personally. It is enough to have no scruple, to be a born liar, to be intellectually coward, but to be rather full of himself to believe oneself essential. Having had in the family (by marriage) a congressman and mayor having brought nothing to the nation or to his people, but having left the political world much richer than when he had entered it, we are well placed to know it.

However any human community worthy of this name must nevertheless entrust to hand-picked men or women, the responsibility for the good performance or the good progress of the public needs which follow.

To feed (solids or liquids). To dress. To accommodate (if required to warm). To treat. To Educate. To Inform. To make peace or civil concord prevail (justice and police). To carry out the defense against the enemies from outside.

(Formerly in Ireland the civil servant or the steward responsible for taking care of the first three activities was called briugu).But there was also don’t forget it.To treat (the bodies AND the soul/minds). To protect (against the external attacks). To educate (children or populations). To produce (or to get, what is necessary for the previous activities). To do justice. To preserve law and order. To carry on (at least to take care of the renewal of generations).

...................................................................................................................................

The whole under the leadership of a vergobretus (executive power) having the task to coordinate the activity of these various sacred ministries.

...................................................................................................................................

Note concerning the verb, “to educate.”

It is, of course, an education in the high sense of the term (daltachas), i.e., of quality. It is a question of handing down the basic values forming every community worthy of this name: philosophy, culture, ethical codes, sense of sacrifice (devotion), history of religions, habits and customs, etc.

Of quality but also in sufficient quantity! Fewer and fewer men or women must be blinded by the religious obscurantism, fanaticism, intolerance, ignorance of the (real) conditions having presided over the birth of the World and of the Mankind… To enlighten or to free our human brethren is also a duty worthy of the ideals of the Round Table.

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The very ideal would be that this office or at least the specialized structure of this office, sets itself for each year numeric targets to be realized.

Although not appearing at the top of the list, this ministry (the word ministry is well that which is essential considering its goal) is paramount and its direction should be entrusted only to a member of the group having very serious human qualities.

A man or a woman polar opposite, for example, the executives of the French Post Office of the end of the 20th century (or beginning of 21st); who were neither very intelligent, nor very educated (weak general knowledge), without scruple with respect to their subordinates; but cowards or courtiers with respect to their own superiors to them (in short especially worried to build their career without worrying about the interest of the community or of others).

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APPENDIX No. 4.

THE PARABLE OF THE SHREWD RICH PERSON.

Gospel according to Luke, chapter 16, lines of verse 1 to 9:

“Jesus told his disciples: There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him,what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.The manager said to himself: What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg. I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first: How much do you owe my master? Nine hundred gallons of oil, he replied. The manager told him: Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.Then he asked the second: And how much do you owe? A thousand bushels of wheat, he replied. He told him: Take your bill and make it eight hundred. The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

PASTICHE IN THE CELTIC MIND.

“Once upon a time there was a very rich man, anxious about his future. I know what I’ll do so that, when …the end is missing.

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APPENDIX No. 5.

THE DIALOG OF LORDS AND FARMERS.

(pastiche of the story of Philemon and Baucis).

As we already had the opportunity to say it, one of the key concepts of druidism is, after that of occultation of the gods, its concept of parousy of the god-or-demons, or of return of the god-or-demons, or of the new reign of the god-or-demons.Being to occur just before the erdathe or end of the Worl intended to clear up for a new universe, for a new Bitos.

Below the imaginary dialog, perhaps inspired by the adventures of Trefuilngid Tre-Eochair on earth , composed by one of our more famous poets, in connection with this return of the god-or-demons, in order , to some extent, of re-enchanting the world and in connection with the accounts that the men will possibly have to give them about its use.

THE GOD-OR-DEMONS OF THE SEDODUMNON.

Oh you men, what have you done with the land and the herds that we entrusted to you; after the incredible battle that you fought in order to have their possession?? What did you do with our forests, our mountains, our rivers and our lakes, as well as with all their denizens??

The god-or-demons will say then to the bad briugu in order to satirize them: “Without food quickly on a dish, without cow's milk on which a calf grows, without a man's habitation after darkness remains, without storytellers,let that be your condition!

There is no wealth in your premises! Because we were hungry and you did not give us something to eat. Because we were thirsty and you did not give us something to drink, because we were naked and you did not dress us.”

THEN THE BAD BRIUGU WILL ANSWER.

“But lords, when we would have seen you therefore, being hungry and thirsty, naked and sick, without helping you? ”

THE GOD-OR-DEMONS OF THE SEDODUMNON.

“In truth we say it to you, each time you did not act so for the last Fianna warriors coming to knock at your door on a winter’s night, for the last of the kingetes which sought us, for the last of the priests who served us, for the last of the men who revered us from the bottom of their heart, it is to us that you refused it! ”

THE GOD-OR-DEMONS WILL SAY THEN TO THE GOOD BRIUGU TO BLESS THEM.

“Come and move forwards, combennones, in order to take possession of this new country which expected you since always, the large luminous plain where the always green grass grows. Because we were hungry and you gave us something to eat. Because we were thirsty and you gave us something to drink. We were naked and you have dressed us. May be blessed the good briugu. Sunaritu!!!

AND LADY CAMHA WILL ANSWER.

O Lords, but when we would have seen you therefore? You were hungry and we fed you? You were thirsty and we gave you something to drink? You were naked and we dressed you? ? But when did that happen therefore ? ? Up to now we have accommodated only vagrants or paupers in rags.

THE GOD-OR-DEMONS OF THE SEDODUMNON.

Each time you did it for the least of the Fianna warriors or for one of those who walk on the Kingeto path, for the last of the priests who served us, for the last of the men who revere us from the bottom of their heart, it is to us that you did it. And now do you want to go back to live again as before this blessed day of our return among you? ? We can, if you wish it, send you back into it.

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THE GOOD BRIUGU.

“For pity's sake lords, spare us, do not prevent us from finally awakening to the true life, do not seek our death, do not give us again in the claws of the tempting or dangerous illusions of the previous world, but free us from it definitively. Let us remain in the pure light of the eternal plain, at the base of the golden rock on which the grail of Plutarch takes center stage, because at this point in time we will be really fully men, here the moment when we are brought into the world for good indeed! What have we to do with the previous world?

AND ALL THEN WILL GO AWAY!

The good briugu in order to go and to take possession of the (re-enchanted) promised land intended for the saints, before the return into the big whole of everything and of their contrary; the black sheep, the avaricious briugu and all the anmati, in order to go and to join the lost soul/minds (seibaros) who wander or mope around in the non-world of Tethra or of Donn/Hornunnos.

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APPENDIX No. 6.

THE 4 SUITCASES

(pastiche of nothing at all, simple modern tale).

STORY OF THE MAN WITH AN ORANGE SUITCASE.

Once upon a time there was an old Sir who had worked throughout his lifetime, 25 hours per day, for the development of an extraordinary invention due to his labor: the meal pill.

He had indeed finalized, through research, a true source of wealth in itself, a very small orange pill, as nutritive as two or three very copious meals (the pill was breakable besides).

Throughout his lifetime, as early as age seven, and while getting up every day at three o'clock in the morning; whereas his brothers and sisters, themselves, continued to sleep or to play games of their age, he had worked to his invention. And one day, when he was eighteen years old, he had known to take responsibility: he had used his pocket money and his Christmas presents to manufacture, on a large scale, his wonderful pills. The beginnings were difficult, but success was there, and the person in charge of this extraordinary undertaking found himself little by little very rich.

Become very old, when he was eighty years age, he decided to change all his savings into orange meal pill he had designed ; and to go to the other end of the world to join his son; in order to take by his sides a well-deserved retirement.

Unfortunately for our man, the plane flying to the city at the other end of the world in which his son lived, crashed on a desert island before arriving safe and sound.

The old Sir and his suitcase stuffed with orange meal pills survived , as 99 other passengers.

One year later, the helps discovered them.

The old Sir had been able to survive thanks to his small orange pills (his suitcase was still almost full with them besides); but all the other survivors of this air crash, themselves, had died of hunger.

The old Sir settled in the house of his son, and he was on the verge of ending there his days in a well-deserved luxury and pleasure, when in the area bloody food riots broke; followed by a terrible revolution and an atrocious civil war.

The president Honorius, before evacuating the country, promulgated a last very simple ruling.

Article 1: from now on may each one manage as he can! There is no longer enough money to ensure the continuity of public services, nor even to pay the soldiers and the police officers.

Article 2: the law of the jungle is restored.

The famished crowd rushed into the house of the old Sir it had not recognized, in order to seize all his goods, and to devote itself to what usually crowds do in such cases: the plundering.

His son begged that he is saved; but a terrible and as emerged from beyond the grave, voice, exclaimed at once: “And him, does he have pity of the members of our families when he found himself alone beside them on this desert island; with this cursed suitcase stuffed with orange pills which could have saved them? ”

STORY OF THE MAN WITH A GILDED SUITCASE (modern tale).

Once upon a time there was a young man from a good family whose father had just died. Up to that point, he had lived in the most complete debauchery, while getting up every day at past midday to have fun, all night long.

He decided one day to change all his inheritance, which was immense, into gilded meal pills which can feed a man during two or three days. An extraordinary invention from the father of one of his friends; and he took a plane to meet him t at the end of the world, in order to continue to have fun with him.

Unfortunately for our man, the plane flying to the city at the other end of the world in which his friend lived, crashed on a desert island before arriving safe and sound.

The young and rich debauched heir as his suitcase stuffed with gilded meal pills, survived, as 99 other passengers.

One year later, the helps discovered them.

The young man had been able to survive thanks to his little gilded pills; but the other survivors of this air crash too, because the debauched young man had shared with them the meal pills from his suit case.

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The young man found himself ruined, but as, on the other hand, he had found his soul mate on this desert island, they got married and therefore lived happily ever after, and never food riots or civil war devastated the country.

STORY OF THE MAN WITH A SILVER SUITCASE (modern tale).

Once upon a time there was an old Sir who had worked throughout his lifetime, 25 hours per day, for the development of an extraordinary invention due to his labor: the meal pill.

He had indeed finalized, through research, a true source of wealth in itself, a very small orange pill, as nutritive as two or three very copious meals (the pill was breakable besides).

Become very old, when he was eighty years age, he decided to change all his savings into banknotes, shares, and gold ingots, and to go to the other end of the world to join his son; in order to take by his sides a well-deserved retirement.

Unfortunately for our man, the plane flying to the city at the other end of the world in which his son lived, crashed on a desert island before arriving safe and sound.

The old Sir and his suitcase stuffed with gold survived , as 99 other passengers, all young people in the prime of life and perfectly healthy.

There was what to feed oneself on this desert island, but that required many efforts. It was necessary to go all day to find some fruits or to have some fish, even some birds or some eggs.

The old Sir, himself, of course, the poor one, could not do the same thing; but he could nevertheless hold out two or three months by eating some paper from his shares or from his banknotes, which he made boiled in water. But as the ink was very toxic, he died poisoned.

One year later, the helps discovered them.

The 99 young people were all still living, and about healthy, though much thinner; but the old Sir, himself, was found died beside his suitcase, still full with gold ingots, shares or banknotes.

STORY OF THE MAN WITH A EMPTY SUITCASE (modern tale).

Once upon a time there was an old Sir who had worked throughout his lifetime, 25 hours per day, for the development of an extraordinary invention due to his labor: the meal pill.

He had indeed finalized, through research, a true source of wealth in itself, a very small orange pill, as nutritive as two or three very copious meals (the pill was breakable besides).

Unfortunately for our man, the plane flying to the city at the other end of the world in which his son lived, crashed on a desert island before arriving safe and sound.

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The old Sir and his suitcase stuffed with gold survived , as 99 other passengers, all young people in the prime of life and perfectly healthy.

There was what to feed oneself on this desert island, but that required many efforts. It was necessary to go all day to find some fruits or to have some fish, even some birds or some eggs.

The old Sir, himself, of course, the poor one, could not do the same thing but he could nevertheless buy every day a little food from each one of these young people. One year later, the helps discovered them.

The 99 young people were still living, and about healthy, though much thinner. The old Sir too, on the other hand, he was no longer as rich as previously, but he had been able nevertheless to keep on his person a small nest egg, in his pocket.

The son of the old Sir became acquainted with one of the young survivors; they married, and had many children. The old Sir died happy, centenary and surrounded by a crowd of grandchildren, and even also of friends; all those with whom he had formerly divided his suitcase of gold ingots and banknote, on the desert island where they had lived together during a year.

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AFTERWORD IN THE WAY OF JOHN TOLAND.

Pseudo-druids with fabulous initiatory derivation (the famous and indescribable or hilarious perennial tradition) having multiplied since some time; it appeared us necessary to put at the disposal of each and everyone, these few notes, hastily written, one evening of November, in order to give our readers the desire to know more about true druidism.

This work claims to be honest but in no way neutral. It was given itself for an aim to defend or clear the cluto (fame) of this admirable ancient religion.

Nothing replaces personal meditation, including about obscure or incomprehensible lays strewing these books, and which have been inserted intentionally, in order to force you to reflect, to find your own way. These books are not dogmas to be followed blindly and literally. As you know, we must beware as it was the plague, of the letter. The letter kills, only spirit vivifies.

Nothing replaces either personal experience, and it’s by following the way that we find the way. Therefore rely only on your own strength in this Search for the Grail. What matters is the attitude to be adopted in life and not the details of the dogma. Druidism is less important than druidiaction (John-P. MARTIN).

These few leaves scribbled in a hurry are nevertheless in no way THE BOOKS TO READ ON THIS MATTER, they are only a faint gleam of them.

The only druidic library worthy of the name is not in fact composed of only 12 (or 27) books, but of several hundred books.

The few booklets forming this mini-library are not themselves an increase of knowledge on the subject, and are only some handbooks intended for the schoolchildren of druidism.

These simplified summaries intended for the elementary courses of druidism will be replaced by courses of a somewhat higher level, for those who really want to study it in a more relevant way.

This small library is consequently a first attempt to adapt (intended for young adults) the various reflections about the druidic knowledge and truth, to which the last results of the new secularism, positive and open-minded, worldwide, being established, have led.

Unlike Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which swarm, concerning the higher Being, with childish anthropomorphism taken literally (fundamentalism known as integrism in the Catholic world); our druidism too, on the other hand, will use only very little of them, and will stick in this field, to the absolute minimum.

But in order to talk about God or the Devil we shall be quite also obliged to use a basic language, and therefore a more or less important amount of this anthropomorphism. Or then it would be necessary to completely give up discussing it.

This first shelf of our future library consecrated to the subject, aims to show precisely the harmonious authenticity of the neo-druidic will and knowledge. To show at which point its current major theses have deep roots because the reflection about Mythologies, it’s our Bible to us. The adaptations of this brief talk required by the differences of culture, age, spiritual maturity, social status, etc. will be to do with the concerned druids (veledae and others?)

Note, however. Important! What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are not (higgledy-piggledy).

A divine revelation. A (still also divine) law. A (non-religious or secular) law. A (scientific) law. A dogma. An order.

What I search most to share is a state of mind, nothing more. As our old master had very well said one day : "OUR CIVILIZATION HAS NO CHOICE: IT WILL BE CELTISM OR IT WILL BE DEATH” (Peter Lance).

What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are.

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Some dream. An adventure. A journey. An escape. A revolt cry against the moral and physical ugliness of this society. An attempt to reach the universal by starting from the individual. A challenge. An obstacle fecund to overcome . An incentive to think. A guide for action. A map. A plan. A compass. A pole star or morning star up there in the mountain. A fire overnight in a glade?

What the man who had collected the core of this library, Peter DeLaCrau, is not.

- A god.

- A half god.

- A quarter of God.

- A saint.

- A philosopher (recognized, official, and authorized or licensed, as those who talk a lot in television. Except, of course, by taking the word in its original meaning, which is that of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge.

What he is: a man, and nothing of what is human therefore is unknown to him. Peter DeLaCrau has no superhuman or exceptional power. Nothing of what he said wrote or did could have timeless value. At the best he hopes that his extreme clearness about our society and its dominant ideology (see its official philosophers, its journalists, its mass media and the politically correct of its right-thinking people, at least about what is considered to be the main thing); as well his non-conformism, and his outspokenness, combined with a solid contrariness (which also earned to him for that matter a lot of troubles or affronts); can be useful.

The present small library for beginners “contains the dose of humanity required by the current state of civilization” (Henry Lizeray). However it’s only a gathering of materials waiting for the ad hoc architect or mason.

A whole series of booklets increasing our knowledge of these basic elements will be published soon. This different presentation of the druidic knowledge will preserve nevertheless the unity as well as the harmony which can exist between these various statements of the same philosophical and well-considered paganism : spirituality worthy of our day, spirituality for our days.

Case of translations into foreign languages (Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, etc.)

The misspellings, the grammatical mistakes, the inadequacies of style, as well as in the writing of the proper nouns perhaps and, of course, the Gallicisms due to forty years of life in France, may be corrected. Any other improvement of the text may also be brought if necessary (by adding, deleting, or changing, details); Peter DeLaCrau having always regretted not being able to reach perfection in this field.

But on condition that neither alteration nor betrayal, in a way or another, is brought to the thought of the author of this reasoned compilation. Every illustration without a caption can be changed. New illustrations can be brought.

But illustrations having a caption must be only improved (by the substitution of a good photograph to a bad sketch, for example?)

It goes without saying that the coordinator of this rapid and summary reasoned compilation , Peter DeLaCrau, does not maintain to have invented (or discovered) himself, all what is previous; that he does not claim in any way that it is the result of his personal researches (on the ground or in libraries).

What s previous is indeed essentially resulting from the excellent works or websites referenced in bibliography and whose direct consultation is strongly recommended.

We will never insist enough on our will not be the men of one book (the Book), but from at least twelve, like Ireland’s Fenians, for obvious reasons of open-mindedness, truth being our only religion.

Once again, let us repeat; the coordinator of the writing down of these few notes hastily thrown on paper, by no means claims to have spent his life in the dust of libraries; or in the field, in the mud of the rescue archaeology excavations; in order to unearth unpublished pieces of evidence about the past of Ireland (or of Wales or of East Indies or of China).

THEREFORE PETER DELACRAU DOES NOT WANT TO BE CONSIDERED, IN ANY WAY, AS THE AUTHOR OF THE FOREGOING TEXTS.

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HE TRIES BY NO MEANS TO ASCRIBE HIMSELF THE CREDIT OF THEM. He is only the editor or the compiler of them. They are, for the most part, documents broadcast on the web, with a few exceptions.

ON THE OTHER HAND, HE DEMANDS ALL THEIR FAULTS AND ALL THEIR INSUFFICIENCIES.

Peter DeLaCrau claims only one thing, the mistakes, errors, or various imperfections, of this book. He alone is to be blamed in this case. But he trusts his contemporaries (human nature being what it is) for vigorously pointing out to him.

Note found by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau and inserted by them into this place.

I immediately confess in order to make the work of my judges easier that men like me were Christian in Rome under Nero, pagan in Jerusalem, sorcerers in Salem, English heretics, Irish Catholics, and today racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, person, while waiting to be tomorrow kufar or again Christian the beastliest antichrist of all the apocalypses, etc. In short as you will have understood it, I am for nothingness death disease suffering ……

By respect for Mankind , in order to save time, and not to make it waste time, I will make easier the work of those who make absolutely a point of being on the right side of the fence while fighting (heroically of course) in order to save the world of my claws (my ideas or my inclinations, my tendencies).

To these courageous and implacable detractors, of whom the profundity of reflection worthy of that of a marquis of Vauvenargues equals only the extent of the general knowledge, worthy of Pico della Mirandola I say…

Now take a sheet of paper, a word processing if you prefer, put by order of importance 20 characteristics which seem to you most serious, most odious, most hateful, in the history of Mankind, since the prehistoric men and Nebuchadnezzar, according to you….AND CONSIDER THAT I AM THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF YOU BECAUSE I HAVE THEM ALL!

Scapegoats are always needed! A heretic in the Middle Ages, a witch in Salem in the 17th century, a racist in the 20th century, an alien lizard in the 21st century, I am the man you will like to hate in order to feel a better person (a smart and nice person).

I am, as you will and in the order of importance you want: an atheist, a satanist, a stupid person, with Down’s syndrome, brutish, homosexual, deviant, homophobic, communist, Nazi, sexist, a philatelist, a pathological liar, robber, smug, psychopath, a falsely modest monster of hubris, and what do I still know, it is up to you to see according to the current fashion.

Here, I cannot better do (in helping you to save the world).

[Unlike my despisers who are all good persons, the salt of the earth, i.e., young or modern and dynamic, courageous, positive, kind, intelligent, educated, or at least who know; showing much hindsight in their thoroughgoing meditation on the trends of History; and on the moral or ethical level: generous, altruistic, but poor of course (it is their only vice) because giving all to others; moreover deeply respectful of the will of God and of the Constitution …

As for me I am a stiff old reactionary, sheepish, disconnected from his time, paranoid, schizophrenic, incoherent, capricious, never satisfied, a villain, stupid, having never studied or at least being unaware of everything about the subject in question; accustomed to rash judgments based on prejudices without any reflection; selfish and wealthy; a fiend of the Devil, inherently Nazi-Bolshevist or Stalinist-Hitlerian. Hitlerian Trotskyist they said when I was young. In short a psychopathic murderer as soon as the breakfast… what enables me therefore to think what I want, my critics also besides, and to try to make everybody know it even no-one in particular].

Signed: the coordinator of the works, Peter DeLaCrau known as Hesunertus, a researcher in druidism.

A man to whom nothing human was foreign. An unemployed worker, post office worker, divorcee, homeless person, vagrant, taxpayer, citizen, and a cuckolded elector... In short one of the 9 billion human beings having been in transit aboard this spaceship therefore. Born on planet Earth, January 13, 1952.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE BROAD OUTLINES.

As regards the bibliography of details see appendix of the last lesson because, as Henry Lizeray says it so well, traditions that must be interpreted. It is there the whole difference which exists between former druidism and neo-druidism.

Lebar Gabala or The Book of Invasions. Paris 1884 (William O'Dwyer)

Base of the druidic Church. The restored druidism. Henry Lizeray, Paris, 1885.

National traditions rediscovered. Paris 1892.

Aesus or the secret doctrines of the druids. Paris 1902.

Ogmius or Orpheus. Paris 1903.

CONTENTS.

FIRST PART.

Sources Page 005

Principles and orientations of this booklet Page 011

For a total inversion of the current values (in order to generate a new man with best of the former one) Page 014

Tradition and druidic magisterium Page 018

Moral magistracy of neo-druidism Page 023

Ethic and ethical codes Page 025

Neo-druidic Ethic and life in society Page 029

Good thoughts, good deeds, and good words Page 031

Advantages of oral tradition (Nate Nate…) Page 032

Various ethical codes. Page 033

DEONTOLOGY OF THE CALLING OF DRUIDS Page 034

Remarks in connection with the moral magistracy of druidism Page 039

Former druidism: law takes precedence over force? Page 042

To distinguish between holiness and sacredness Page 045

The role of the druids in the army today Page 050

Druidism and military service Page 052

The Stockholm syndrome first part Page 059

To understand the Celtization of hearts and minds (continuation) Page 061

Notice on the sacred character of certain wars Page 065

Various types of sacred war Page 067

Note on vergio and vergilius Page 070

More mundanely today Page 072

The druidism and the art of war Page 073

Means causing no moral problem Page 075

Just wars Page 079

Problems of the just wars Page 081

Perversion of the concept of just war Page 082

St Bernard and the Templars. Page 083

Reminder as a transition to what follows Page 085

ETHICAL CODE OF THE TRADE OF SOLDIERS.

The Celtic warrior and the death Page 092

Ethical code of the trade of professional soldiers Page 100

For comparison the chivalrous virtues Page 102

Pieces of advice of Melusine to her sons. Page 104

ETHICAL CODE OF THOSE WHO ARE NEITHER DRUIDS NOR SOLDIERS Page 105

The golden law of reciprocity Page 107

409

History of money Page 111

Reflection about money Page 115

Early Christians and money Page 121

More mundanely Page 128

Helpful hints for everyone Page 125

The case of the Fenians Page 126

Biographical Notice about Fionn Page 128

Working Paper Nr 1. Page 129

Helpful hints continuation Page 130

The ideal great monarch Page 131

Instructions of Cuchulainn to his son Page 133

Pieces of advice of Cormac to his son Page 136

Pieces of advice of Vindobarros to the Fenians Page 138

Folk Wisdom. Page 139

Reminder on the Teagasc na Riogh. Page 142

SECOND PART. Page 145

THE 14 PATHS OF DRUIDISM (14 CONARA FUGILL). Page 146

KISSION Page 147

Buaidh No. 1: Rectu adgenias: to be a child of the Earth. Page 150

Critical collapsology/Criticism of collapsology Page 154

To speak a language is a way of thinking Page 174

From Scotland to Amazonia everywhere the same necessity Page 175

Open letters to the princes who rule over us Page 178

Ecology or death! Page 181

Growth or degrowth Page 183

Life of forests Page 185

History of the landscapes in Europe Page 188

The silvopasture system Page 197

The reintroduction of disappeared animal species Page 198

Ecological hunting Page 204

Gardening Page 207

Amish Agriculture and crofting Page 208

Architecture and construction Page 213

Conclusion Page 216

Buaidh No. 2: to avoid useless violence Page 217

Exceptions to the rule Page 223

War and human rights Page 231

For comparison Page 233

Justice law and force. Page 235

THE 12 PATHS OF DRUIDISM (12 CONARA FUGILL).

Buaidh No. 3: love friendship or pity Page 238

Buaidh No. 4: Social Fir Fer Page Page 251

The druidic decalog Page 253

THE TEN (BEST KNOWN) CHAPTERS (OF THE MORAL) LAW.

Buaidh No. 5: the sense of hospitality Page 255

Buaidh No. 6: generosity. Page 258

410

Always to behave as a great lord I and II Page 260

THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF DRUIDISM (OCHT CONARA FUGILL).

Geis No. 7: reciprocity. Page 265

Can the reciprocity of gifts constitute a political principle of economy? Page 272

Reciprocity as regards religion. Page 274

On the reciprocity of gifts reduced to an exchange, carried out on a large scale by capitalism Page 275

Buaidh No. 8: courage Page 277

Buaidh No. 9: faithfulness Page 279

Buaidh No. 10: the truth (Fir) Page 283

The supernatural power of truth among Celtic kings Page 285

To tell and to do the truth Page 287

Ethical code to be respected by the journalists or the fourth estate Page 289

Buaidh No. 11: the sense of justice (cert). Page 295

THE REDA Page 301

Buaidh No. 12: freedom Page 304

Autonomy or freedom in daily choices Page 309

Autonomy and free will Page 311

Freedom of worship Page 313

Secularism only guarantee of freedom Page 315

Polytheism of valors Page 318

Universalism and internationalism of druidism Page 319

Buaidh No. 13: to have the sense of honor Page 323

Buaidh No. 14: simplicity (on the wooing of Ferb) Page 329

THE DRUIDIC QUINTUPLE PATH (5 CONARA FUGILL)

The human duties. Page 333

Natural law Page 338

Survival of the clannish property in Scotland Page 342

History of the Scottish crofting Page 347

Growth or degrowth? Page 350

The degrowth option Page 353

Degrowth among Celts Page 360

Importance for the kings of a good wealth redistribution Page 364

Redistribution of the wealth produced by the Community Page 366

Reflection about the wealth redistribution gleaned on Wikipedia Page 368

For a democracy which is not the worst government system Page 370

Distinction between the role of the druid and that of the sovereign powers Page 372

Constitution or Magna Carta ? Page 375

Conclusion Page 377

For comparison the democracy among the Iroquois nations Page 379

Epilogue. Page 381

APPENDICES.

Appendix No. 1: the true history of the ten commands Page 392

Appendix No. 2: Limits of the golden rule Page 395

Appendix No. 3: Working Paper Page 397

Appendix No. 4: The parable of the shrewd rich person Page 399

Appendix No. 5: the dialog of lords and peasants Page 400

Appendix No. 6: the 4 suitcases Page 402

Afterword in the way of John Toland. Page 405

Bibliography of the broad outlines. Page 408

411

BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

1 Quotations from the ancient authors speaking about Celts or druids.

2. Various preliminary general information about Celts.

3. History of the pact with gods volume 1.

4. Druidism Bible: history of the pact with gods volume 2.

5. History of the peace with gods volume 3.

6. History of the peace with gods volume 4.

7. History of the peace with gods volume 5.

8. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 1.

9. Irish apocryphal texts.

10. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 2.

11. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 3.

12. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 1 (druidic mythology).

13. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 2 (druidic mythology).

14. The hundred ways of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 3 (druidic mythology).

15. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 1.

16. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 2.

17. The druidic pleroma: angels jinns or demons volume 1.

18. The druidic pleroma angels jinns or demons volume 2

19. Mystagogy or sacred theater of ancients Celts.

20. Celtic poems.

21. The genius of the Celtic paganism volume 1.

22. The Roland’s complex .

23. At the base of the lantern of the dead.

24. The secrets of the old druid of the Menapian forest.

25. The genius of Celtic paganism volume 2 (liberty reciprocity simplicity).

26. Rhetoric : the treason of intellectuals.

27. Small dictionary of druidic theology volume 1.

28. From the ancient philosophers to the Irish druid.

29. Judaism Christianity and Islam: first part.

30. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 1.

31. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 2.

32. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 3.

33. Third part volume 1: what is Islam? Short historical review of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

34. Third part volume 2: What is Islam? First approaches to the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

35. Third part volume 3: What is Islam? The true 5 pillars of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

36. Third part volume 4: What is Islam? Sounding the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

37. Couiro anmenion or small dictionary of druidic theology volume 2.

412

Peter DeLaCrau. Born on January 13rd, 1952, in St. Louis (Missouri) from a family of woodsmen or Canadian trappers who had left Prairie du Rocher (or Fort de Chartres in Illinois) in 1765. Peter DeLaCrau is thus born the same year as the Howard Hawks film entitled “the Big Sky”. Consequently father of French origin, mother of Irish origin: half Irish half French. Married to Mary-Helen ROBERTS on March 12th, 1988, in Paris-Aubervilliers (French department of Seine-Saint-Denis). Hence 3 children. John Wolf born May 11th, 1989. Alex born April 10th, 1990. Millicent born August 31st, 1993. Deceased on September 28th, 2012, in La Rochelle (France).

Peter DELACRAU is not a philosopher by profession, except taking this term in its original meaning of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge. And he is neither a god neither a demigod nor the messenger of any god or demigod (and of course not a messiah).

But he has become in a few years one of the most lucid and of the most critical observers of the French neo-druidic or neo-pagan world.

He was also some time assistant-treasurer of a rather traditionalist French druidic group of which he could get archives and texts or publications.

But his constant criticism both domestic and foreign French policy, and his political positions (on the end of his life he had become an admirer of Howard Zinn Paul Krugman Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore); had earned him moreover some vexations on behalf of the French authorities which did everything, including in his professional or private life, in the last years of his life, to silence him.

Peter DeLaCrau has apparently completely missed the return to the home country of his distant ancestors.

It is true unfortunately that France today is no longer the France of Louis XIV or of Lafayette or even of Napoleon (which has really been a great nation in those days).

Peter DeLaCrau having spent most of his life (the last one) in France, of which he became one of the best specialists,

even one of the rare thoroughgoing observers of the contemporary French society quite simply; his three children, John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent (of Cuers: French Riviera) pray his readers to excuse the countless misspellings or grammatical errors that pepper his writings. At the end of his life, Peter DeLaCrau mixed a little both languages (English but also French).

Those were therefore the notes found on the hard disk of the computer of our father, or in his papers.

Our father has of course left us a considerable work, nobody will say otherwise, but some of the words frequently coming from his pen, now and then are not always very clear. After many consultations between us, at any rate, above what we have been able to understand of them.

Signed: the three children of Peter DeLaCrau: John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent. Of Cuers.