The animistic component
is a kind of shamanism and will be called so here. Certain typical
concepts are to be attributed to it: The idea of an Otherworld to
and from which there are entrances, transitions and exits; the ideas of
transformation, shapeshifting, metempsychosis,
comprising also several – though not arbitrarily chosen – animals; the
system of divinations, predictions and conjectures,
including messengers of bad luck and evil, which again often appear in
animals' bodies or as natural forces. Furthermore we have to subsume
here certain symbols as there are: the severed head, the boar,
the horse, the raven, symbols for otherworldly beings and
phenomena. It is here, where we have to place druids.
Druids are not the priests (flamen)
or the philosophers, they sometimes appear to be – they are this too, to
be sure, but these functions comprise just parts of a large druidical
complex. Druids are endowed with connections and relations to any kind
of supernatural, mysterious, incomprehensible and inaccessible phenomena
and forces and therefore they are historically late expressions of
shamanism. (It must be said here aside that Clemence of Alexandria
mentioned among the philosophers-magicians of the antiquity the druids
as well as certain Samanians from Bactria – are those the shamans of
inner Asia?)
The thesis of druidism and
Celtic religion being rooted in shamanism presupposes a continuity with
other shamanistic cultures. Several Eurasian and Siberian nations had
conserved shamanism up to our days (being themselves possibly in touch
with Mongolian or Turkish nations of Central Asia). From Neolithic
times on there might have been connections between Eurasian,
Indo-European and other central European cultures.
Shamanism of those Eurasian and Siberian nations will have been subject
to changes and several influences since the days of the Neolithic
period. Therefore, any congruencies between La-Tène-druidism and 20th
century shamanism should not be expected to be great. The more valuable
are those similarities actually found.