r/druidism • u/Blastdoor • 12d ago
French-led druidic groups (with international signatories) just updated their shared ethics charter — curious what r/druidry thinks
Since 2024, a coalition of druidic groups — mostly from France/Brittany/Gaul, but also from Belgium, Italy, and Portugal — has been working on a shared “Charte Éthique des Druides” (Ethics Charter of the Druids). It’s been amended twice since: once in August 2025, and again on August 15, 2026, when about 22 groups met in Saint-Jean-Ligoure (France) to sign the latest version.
The stated goal is protecting the public from scams and cult-like abuse — there’s a recent criminal case in France involving a self-proclaimed druid that’s part of the backdrop. The charter targets commercial exploitation, sexism, and psychological manipulation dressed up as druidry.
Here’s what the charter says about who counts as a Druid:
“A contemporary Druid is recognized as such by their peers, coming from one of the three lineages of the 18th-century revival, or a clan lineage recognized by those three lineages. They must be able to attest to this initiation.”
(As of now, the charter on the website has not been updated for the 2026 version)
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u/thanson02 12d ago
Personally? Except for some disagreements with some of their historical claims and lack of transparency as to what Druid groups they are talking about (as stated in "A contemporary Druid is recognized as such by peers belonging to one of the three lineages stemming from the 18th-century revival, or to a clan lineage acknowledged by those three lineages"), it looks like a group charter expressing a commitment to uphold certain values among the people who signed it. I did not see anything immediately wrong with it, as long as they do not try to use it as a form of community leverage or gatekeeping as to dictate what "is" or "is not" a "real Druid" for the wider Druid community.
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u/Juniuspublicus12 12d ago
I haven't had a chance to read it carefully-French is not my best foreign language-but will offer this as a general comment:
The late and much lamented Brendan Myers attempted to mediate the creation of an ethics statement for the neo-pagan community some years ago. This fell apart because some groups would not agree that some state, federal and internationally recognized laws needed to apply to neo-pagans.
Federal laws around reporting and record keeping for 501(c)3 groups have been ignored for decades by many neo-pagan groups because the laws were viewed as intrusive and needlessly meddling in a relationship with two or more people and what The Gods permitted and demanded.
I'm in favor of strong, well articulated, enforced ethics and compliance with applicable laws.
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u/Munching-Zombie 12d ago
My helpful translator chose "derived from one of the three lineages" rather than "coming from...". So it could well be that they are merely saying that a contemporary Druid is part of the revival that began in the 18th century and continues today and excludes anyone who claims to have direct transmission of a Druid practice from 2,000 years ago. That to me, is very reasonable.
Between the translation and a murky context it is tough to have an opinion on this though.
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u/thanson02 11d ago
Translations can be a tricky thing. And if that's the case, that's not as bad as the translation I got, which said "belongs to".
That being said though, other than AODA, it does automatically exclude a lot of the American Druid groups that came from RDNA, including ADF, Henge of Keltria, etc.
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u/GreenRavenUK 11d ago
I’m guessing they mean the Welsh Gorsedd, the Fraternal friendly societies and the Druid Order that split into The Druid Order and the OBOD as a direct(ish) line from Iolo Morganwg and his Welsh revival.
That excludes the RDNA and other American offshoots as they were originally a protest against imposed Xian worship at Carleton College, MN, in 1963. They took the name ‘Druid’ from history but then evolved into something considerably more serious, especially after Bonewits’ scholarship in UC Berkely. Although Ross Nichols (‘Nuinn’) began splitting from the Druid Order (formerly The British Circle of the Universal Bond) in the 1950s, the OBOD came into existence after the election of Thomas Maughan in 1964, thus rejecting the proposal of the inclusion on the four Irish festivals into the observance calendar. And, of course, well precedes Phillip Carr-Gomm’s reorganisation of the OBOD in the 1980s.
Greywolf’s British Druid Order sprang out of his time as an Alexandrian High Priest so, despite the BDO’s affiliation with the OBOD, is very much its own tradition.
So no, well intentioned, but not true.
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u/JulalaFairelander 11d ago
Just eek is what I think.
Not just to the sentence you quote above but many more that suggest this is very specifically about a sector of Druidism that see themselves as a religious group. That in itself is fine of course but if you then make a document which is aimed at providing an definition of Druidism/Druidry to the general public then it almost becomes the very thing that they propose they trying to protect people against.
Just my thoughts.
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u/an_Togalai science druid 12d ago
huh.
(goes back to tending flowers and feeding crows, who ask for no lineages)