by Searles O'Dubhain
In July 2005, Searles O'Dubhain — one of the most prolific and theologically substantive voices on alt.religion.druid — posted a compact but far-reaching statement of Druidic belief. Rather than rehearse historical controversy or Celtic scholarship, he offered something rarer: a personal creed derived from years of study, practice, and vision.
The thirteen tenets he named are not a catechism imposed from outside but a distillation of what the Druidic path had revealed to him from within. Each is a doorway, as he writes, not a wall. The structure moves from the ultimate (goodness as the ground of all things) through the active (honor, truth, creativity) to the epistemological (how the mind, freed from its limits, acquires wisdom). The final tenet — that creativity is eternal though it yields at times to chaos and order — returns the seeker to the beginning, where goodness waits.
This post was written on alt.religion.druid in the summer of 2005, during a period when Searles was actively working on a book about Druidic teachings. It captures his theological voice at its most concentrated.
There exists a vast amount of confusion about what Druids believed and taught in their religion. I thought I'd offer up a few thoughts and understandings from my studies to help clarify the tenets of Druid religion. Here they are as I've found them in no particular order of importance (hopefully this list will grow as discussion continues):
- Goodness is the god of everything.
- Love is the quality of godliness.
- Honor is the noblest expression of action.
- Truth is the power in all actions.
- Spirit and truth are eternal.
- Spirit acts through mind and nature.
- Nature is a matter of subjective perception.
- Perception can be altered when consciousness harnesses the power of truth.
- The unbound mind can acquire wisdom that is beyond the limits of the world.
- Wisdom is the channel through which truth flows into the world.
- Creativity is the wellspring of truth.
- The parents of creativity are chaos and order.
- Creativity is eternal though at times it yields to chaos and order.
I've tried to express these tenets in a structure of sorts. There are many other structures and trees of life that can grow from the basic principles of goodness, truth and creativity. The 13 I've named here are a glimpse into the teachings of the Druids as I've studied and understood them. Each idea is manifold and diverse in its many possibilities, meanings and expressions. This list is not the limitation of the tenets of Druid religion. It is only one person's list among many. It is a doorway into realms of wonder and wisdom. It has many brothers and sisters beyond counting.
Hopefully, some will come forth with better wisdom and tenets than I've expressed in this brief posting. I've also no doubt that at times chaos and order will attempt to prevail over its child. I am heartened that goodness is honorably expressed through truth in love. All else is subjective and transient. To seek the eternal and the ultimate in truth and wisdom is to me the ultimate task of any Druid. As such and to me, the act of seeking mirrors the processes that empower all of life, being and perception. When the wellsprings are found and the goodness experienced within them, then one honors love and the gods.
Colophon
Written by Searles O'Dubhain and posted to alt.religion.druid on 8 July 2005. Searles O'Dubhain was a practitioner and teacher of Celtic Druidry and founder of The Summerlands, one of the early Druid online communities. This post was part of his ongoing effort to articulate the theological foundations of the Druid path from within the tradition.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected]
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