British Druid Order
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The British Druid Order is an international organisation, once described as "religion without the boring bits."
From an initial grove established in Sussex in the late 1970s, the BDO was the brainchild of Philip Shallcrass, a Druid since 1974 and a High Priest of Alexandrian Wicca since 1979. Philip, or Greywolf (his Druid name), was recently described by Prof. Ronald Hutton as "a shaman quite convincingly diguised as a Druid." This reflects the fact that the BDO sees the Druids of old as having been the 'shamans' of Britain and Europe, a role they may still undertake today. The process of reconstructing Druidry as a spiritual system answering to the needs of the 21st century is referred to by the BDO as "rekindling the sacred fire."
[edit] Beliefs and Acts
The BDO has strongly promoted the importance of the bardic arts within Druidry, from music, poetry and storytelling to dance and digital photography. The BDO was responsible for establishing the Gorsedd of Bards of Caer Abiri (Avebury) in 1993 and has since seeded other bardic Gorseddau around the world. The BDO has always encouraged freedom of thought and independence of action, and has therefore attracted members seeking a haven from more formal or proscriptive groups.
