"At first, the religion was simple Nature worship: worship of the Earth mother and the Sky Father. But it began to grow in complexity as the people rediscovered the old sources of power and obtained new knowledge by experimentation and meditation.

The religion taught of male and female deities which, together, created the Great Spirit. The female deity evolved into the Goddess represented by the earth and moon, ruling over birth, life, love, death and rebirth. The male deity evolved into the God represented by the sun, ruling over the seasons. These precepts are fundamental to our faith and belief today. From this early religion Druidism developed. Thus four Sun and four moon Sabbat.

The doctrines of the Druids were much the same as those of the Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, and the priests of Egypt. Like them, the Druids had two sets of religious doctrines, exoteric and esoteric. They practiced their rituals in Britain and Gaul, but their religion was brought to much greater perfection in the former country, where the Isle of Anglesey was the center and heart of their religious practice.

The word Druid is generally considered to be derived from DRU which means Oak Tree, which is sacred, although its etymology may also be found in the Gaelic word Druidh, "a wise man" or "magician."

Their temples, wherein the sacred fire was preserved, were generally situated on the tops of hills and mountains, and in dense groves of oaks. The adytum or cave of the mysteries was called a Cromlech, and was used as the sacred altar of regeneration. It consisted of three upright stones on which a broad, flat stone rested, making a small cell. This construction was used during initiation.

The grand periods of initiation were quarterly, and determined by the course of the sun, and its arrival at the equinoctal and solstitial points. But the two main celebrations were at May-eve and November-eve, Beltaine and Samhain. At these times, fires were kindled on all the cairns and cromlechs throughout the land, which burned all night to introduce the Festivals. Round these fires choral dances were performed in honor of the Goddess and the God who were said to be rising from their tomb - the Goddess at Beltain and the God at Samhain. The festivals were also a time of peace and joy and continued from sundown on the eve of the festival and continued to the next evening when the priests and priestesses retired to the forests where lovemaking was the order of the hour.

Initiations were performed at midnight and consisted of three major degrees. The first was the Ovate, the second the Bard, and the third the Druid. The candidate was placed in a tomb, where his symbolic death represented the death of Hu, the sun; and his restoration in the third degree symbolized the resurrection of the sun. He or she had to undergo trials and tests of courage similar to those practiced in the mysteries of Orpheus.

The Druids taught the doctrine of one supreme creative force which was personified as a mother Goddess and father God. They believed in the immortality of the soul through reincarnation. Their authority in many cases exceeded that of the monarch. They were of course the sole interpreters of religion, and consequently supervised all rituals; for no private person was allowed to perform a ritual without their sanction. They possessed the power of excommunication, which was the most horrible punishment that could be inflicted next to death. They determined all disputes by a final and unalterable decision, and had the power of inflicting the punishment of death.

Priestesses clothed in white, wearing a metal girdle, foretold the future from the observation of natural phenomena. Druids were both men and women and were held in the highest esteem prior to the invasions of the Romans. According to Tacitus, in the first century A.D. the object of worship was a Great Goddess whose shrine was a grove of Oaks upon an island in the Sea. It was at Stonehenge that the British Apollo was seen harping and dancing. Although Stonehenge was a Druid religious center, equally revered by and belonging to ALL British tribes, it had been constructed by Pre-Druidic peoples. Pythagoras, whose philosophy was very similar to the Druids, is said to have visited the Hyperboreans in search of Truth, and to have received the Arrow of Abaris, which had been carried around the world. Aristotle affirms that a mystical philosophy did not pass from Greece to Gaul (the Celtic Druids) but was received FROM them.

The native religion of the Britons so closely resembled those in the Mediterranean area that the Romans could identify the native gods and goddesses with their own. However, the Britons placed a stronger emphasis on the Holy Family. Different tribes and different areas of Britain had their own tribal deities, such as Brigantia (Brigid) for the Brigantes, but the manner of worship and overall theology was fairly uniform throughout the southern half of the island."