Ethics & Cultural Respect

Every shamanic organisation we admire has a page like this, and for good reason. The revival of shamanic practice in the West has brought real healing to many people, and it has also brought real harm: traditions stripped from their contexts, elders quoted without consent, sacred objects sold in gift shops. A Celtic path has its own version of these dangers. This page is our attempt to name them and to say what we will and will not do.

On Shamanism and Indigenous Peoples

• The word shaman comes from the Evenki language of Siberia. We use it in the cross-cultural sense adopted by anthropology and the modern revival, and we acknowledge where it comes from.
• The methods taught in the modern revival, above all the drum journey, were learned from Indigenous teachers in Siberia, the Americas and elsewhere. We are in their debt and we say so.
• We do not perform, teach or imitate the specific ceremonies of any living Indigenous people. No sweat lodges, no pipe ceremonies, no ayahuasca, no borrowed songs. These belong to their nations.
• We support Indigenous-led work financially and by sending people towards it. We point to organisations such as the Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange and the preservation work of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

On the Celtic Nations

• Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, Cornish and Manx are living languages spoken by real communities today. The culture is not a museum piece and not a brand. When we use a Gaelic or Welsh word we try to use it correctly and to credit the language.
• We do not claim an unbroken lineage from the druids. No one has one. What survives is the literature, the folklore, the place-names, the festivals and the land. That is a great deal, and it is enough.
• “Celtic” has a long history of romantic misuse, from the Celtic Twilight to modern marketing. We try to read the scholars as well as the poets and to resist the urge to make the past more mystical than it was.
• Nobody owns Celtic culture, and nobody is excluded from loving it. We welcome people of every ancestry, and we ask everyone to approach it as a guest approaches a house: with thanks, with manners and with an open ear.

On Sources

When we say “the Celts believed,” we try to say which Celts, when and according to whom. Our main categories are:

On Safe Practice

• Shamanic work is not a substitute for medical or psychiatric care. If you are in crisis, please seek help from a doctor or an emergency service first.
• We do not use psychoactive plants or fungi in our circles. The drum, the voice, darkness and the land are enough.
• Healing work for others, such as soul retrieval or extraction, should be learned in person from experienced teachers and practised with consent, clear boundaries and humility.
• Anyone may leave a journey, a ceremony or a circle at any time, without explanation.

On Sacred Sites

Pilgrimage is at the heart of this path, and our monuments are fragile. When you visit a stone circle, a passage tomb or a holy well:

• Leave no trace. Take nothing but water from a well where it is customary; leave nothing but footprints.
• Do not climb on stones, light fires on or near monuments, or dig.
• If you tie a cloth to a rag tree, use natural fibre that will rot. Synthetic ribbons strangle the tree and litter the well.
• Respect farmers, landowners, other visitors and the local community. Many sites are on private land and open by courtesy.
• Follow the rules of the body that cares for the site: the Office of Public Works and National Monuments Service in Ireland, Historic Environment Scotland, Cadw in Wales, Manx National Heritage, and their equivalents in Brittany and Cornwall.