About Celtic Shamanism

Celtic Shamanism is an educational project and a community. We are not a church, a school with a certificate to sell, or a lineage with a founder at the top. We are people who love the old stories and the old places, who have found the shamanic journey to be a real and reliable way of meeting them, and who want to share what we have learned with care.

Our Mission

To preserve, study and share the meeting of Celtic culture with shamanic practice, for the healing of people and the land, in a way that honours both the Indigenous roots of shamanism and the living Celtic nations.

In practice that means four kinds of work:

• Educate. Clear, well-sourced writing on shamanism, on the Celtic tradition, and on how the two are woven together. We say plainly what is ancient, what is medieval, what is folk memory and what is modern.
• Gather. Online journey circles, eight seasonal ceremonies a year, and support for people starting local circles wherever they live.
• Preserve. Pointing people towards the primary sources, the living languages, the folklore collections and the scholars, so that the tradition is met on its own terms rather than through a romantic haze.
• Bridge. Connecting the Celtic path with the wider shamanic community, and with the Indigenous teachers whose generosity made the modern revival possible.

Our Story

This circle began the way most circles do: a few people with drums in a borrowed room, a shelf of books by Michael Harner and Sandra Ingerman, and a stack of older books by Lady Gregory, Alexander Carmichael and W. Y. Evans-Wentz. We had learned to journey in the core shamanic way and found it worked. But when we closed our eyes and went looking for the Lower World, what we found was a well, a hazel, a mound with a door in it, and the sound of the sea.

The question that followed has shaped everything since. If the method is universal and the imagery is Celtic, what exactly are we doing, and how do we do it honestly? The answer we have arrived at is on the Integration page, and it is not a closed answer. It keeps growing as we read more, journey more and listen to more people.

What We Believe

Cultural Integrity

Celtic shamanism is a modern synthesis. We say so. We do not pretend that the druids drummed in the core shamanic manner, or that a Victorian folklorist is an Iron Age priest. Honesty about origins is a mark of respect, not weakness.

Rooted in Landscape

Celtic spirituality is a spirituality of place. It lives in named hills, named wells and named weathers. Wherever you are in the world, the first practice is to go outside and learn where you are.

Honouring the Sources

The word shaman is Evenki. The revival was taught to the West by Indigenous elders. The Celtic languages are spoken by living communities today. We owe all of them gratitude, reciprocity and plain dealing.

Open to All

The Celts were never one race; they were a family of languages and ways of life that spread across Europe and welcomed newcomers. This path asks for respect and patience, not a blood test.

A Note on the Word “Shaman”

None of us calls ourselves a shaman. The word belongs properly to the Evenki and other Siberian peoples, and in common use it has come to mean a person recognised by their community as a specialist in the spirit world. We use “shamanic practitioner” for people who use these methods, and “shamanism” in the broad cross-cultural sense in which anthropologists and the wider revival use it. For the Celtic side, the old words are better anyway: file for the seer-poet, bean feasa for the wise woman, draoi for the druid.

Who Pays for This?

We do. The site is run by volunteers and there is nothing to buy. If you want to support the work, support the sources instead: a Gaelic language class, a heritage trust that cares for a monument near you, or an Indigenous-led organisation such as the Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange.