Blood & Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain

by Ronald Hutton

There was one final aspect of the British preoccupation with Druids during the late Georgian and early Victorian periods which was to have significant consequences in the early twentieth century; and it was one that developed even as that preoccupation was waning. It arose from three of the strongest impulses in Victorian culture: a desire for increased knowledge of, and control over, the world; a yearning for continued faith in an original divine plan for the universe and a special divine revelation to humanity; and a continued joy in clubs and societies with a controlled membership. These features came together, from the 1860s, in the foundation of organizations dedicated to the recovery of ancient wisdom, and especially of a kind, already represented by the traditions of Freemasonry, that was alleged to have been handed down in closed circles of initiates. Two of these have already been mentioned: the Societas Rosicruciana and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Theosophical Society was another.