The Silver People

There are several lines in a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song, "Wooden Ships", that refers to "the silver people." The song was also covered by Jefferson Airplane in a somewhat more dramatic version. Airplane's version is lesser known, but more effectively conveys the necessary passion and imagery of the lyrics for its full meaning and import to register upon the listening ear.

For those acquainted with the song, we interpret the song to refer to the exile of Druids in Ireland during the Roman exodus authored by one who was later sainted as Patrick. Modern legend has it that St. Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland, but what he really did was to force the Druids to depart their homeland in an effort to better support Roman imperialism and colonization. The case of St. Patrick is the most famous mass eviction to occur within Celtic history, but was summarily expunged from the history books by the Roman Catholic Church. 

It is not our intent at this time to rehash the rightness or wrongness of this action, nor is it our purpose to bash Romanization nor the underlying motivation of Christian expansionism and dominance within the British Isles - a title claim still contested to this day.

Our interest, then, is to focus more intently upon the reference to the "silver people." They were the guiding spirits, those that the Druids communed with as part of their "spiritual" practice. (We dare not say "religious." Philosophical practice would be appropriate, yet metaphysical would be more accurate.)

The Druidic exile occurred circa 347 A.D. The legends that are still passed down to this day basically summarize Patrick as a Roman citizen whose mother was raped and killed by passing wizards.

The story goes that Patrick was kidnapped and shanghaied - before such a term was known to the Western mind - and sold into slavery. He managed to free himself, somehow, and vowed to avenge the heritage of his mother, and purge Ireland (Eire) of its snakes. (His press agent knew a born martyr at first sight.)

It has also been said that Patrick's sanity was in question, but in any respectable coup d'etat, it would be counter-productive to a group effort to have a prima facie (instrument of Fate) that wasn't noted for self-destructive tendencies.

As laughable as this may sound today, it doesn't take a deep-seated scholar to know and admit that - 1,000 years after the advent of Christianity in the form of Jesus' birth - people still believed in wizards, hexes, curses, etc. Things haven't changed much in the last thousand years, in the sense that people in general still fear that which they do not immediately recognize and understand.

Take facts, history, and common sense, and distill the perceptions into one small generality to simplify matters as they were after the first Millennium. People were afraid of that which was different or mysterious.

One thing to understand about the Roman Empire, and of its many wonderful, absolute, and sincere accomplishments, was that it tried, as a collective whole, to establish order and unity. It is incontestable that - even today - the modern world has much to be thankful for, regarding the mass Romanization of western continents.

In short, we credit the Roman Empire, as a whole, with having massive good intentions. Yet, they faced a problem then, as we still do today, about how to prescribe singular methodologies intended to be for the good of the whole, without sacrificing the freedoms and essential spirit of the individual.

But, the credit that we give is to the unit (the Roman Empire) as a whole. There were some bad apples in the Roman orchard, and it is to that aspect that we address our attention to decry the faults of the Roman occupation of the British Isles.

Yet, this unit as a whole, the Roman Empire, still exists, and is still guilty of conspiring against Humanity by allowing the "bad apples"  and their heirs to cloak their motives and intentions, to hide their deceptions; but most heinous of all, to keep Humanity, as it exists today,  in the dark about its own heritage.

Patrick conspired with the Roman armies to invade Celtic lands. The Roman armies had no prior incentive to do this, as the Celts had been peacefully cooperating with the Roman government. As there had been no conflict, up to that time, there had no been a need for military occupation.

But Patrick sold the idea to the Roman centurions that the Druids were in secret rebellion, and worse, were in collusion with their Norse brethren and were secretly planning the overthrow of the Roman Empire. The Roman centurions were not exactly scholars, and terms such as "rebellion", "overthrow", and "collusion" didn't really mean that much to them, but they did understand "Roman Empire" - and the implied threat to a way of life that at least guaranteed job security to a handful of rabble that relied upon the military to keep the "opposing rabble" in its place. Patrick persuaded the leaders of Roman armies that the "snakes" in Ireland were "opposing rabble" who were also magical, spiteful, and venomous.

Patrick, then, led an army against the Druids. He successfully invaded a nation of scholars, historians, healers, and philosophers. It must have severely shocked Romans to encounter vigilante Druids who would brandish wands (staffs) and invoking such martial concepts as, "I am mildly annoying you" in an effort to combat violence.

 Patrick, and his cohorts, were very careful in their bodily damage that they inflicted upon the Druids. Patrick had made it clear, when rousing sympathy from the Romans for his cause, that the Druids were "very dangerous" because they knew secret spells and other magical invocations, and so the Romans must be very careful in dealing with recalcitrant Druids who might not (immediately) submit to Christian authority.

Thus, the Romans were told to blind the males by striking their eyes with swords, to stab the females by impaling them from breast to loin (that they would not reproduce, even if they lived), and to decapitate any Druids who offered resistance.

There were no particular orders regarding the Druid children; the males could be emasculated (for fun!), and the females, assuming they hadn't reached "maidenhood" (had not had their first menstrual cycles) could be claimed as slaves, or house-servants, because they hadn't reached the age of their full initiation into Druidic mastery. It was assumed they had not reached their level of "magical maturity" and therefore weren't dangerous.

The Druids had no notice that an invasion was going to occur; indeed, they were completely unaware of any conflict whatsoever (because there wasn't one, until Patrick told the Romans there was.) There were enough Druids who saw and heard what was going on that they were able to signal to certain Norse and Viking friends, and they were able to make their escape on ships that took them to across the Atlantic. Some survived the trip.

Others walked into the ocean. A massive amount of Druids walked into the ocean, like lemmings. They knew they'd been betrayed, and they understood the depth and extent of the betrayal. They also knew how far it was going to go. Their "cycle" was up; it was time to return to the "Great Wheel" of Life.

A handful of Druids survived and remained in the British Isles.

The surviving Druids "went underground"; they never really knew the full story, but they knew enough to know their culture had been decimated. They learned to never have anything "covert" in writing, and they became utterly secretive. 

They also learned distrust.

Other pieces of the story are told elsewhere within the Druidry site, such as how the women Druids learned to combine Druid and Christian magic to wreak pain against an enemy, and also how some Druids and Vikings settled Nova Scotia and seeded an empire of magical consciousness within the Native Americans.

But the cost that cannot be calculated is the absolute death of spiritualism, and the death of communication between the two realms of consciousness. If I were to charge the persona of Patrick, I would charge the absolute murder  of multi-dimensional realities, and the support they provide to the very limited, and very fragile, third dimension. In short, Saint Patrick's crime goes beyond butchering a few Druids; his crime goes beyond killing the living; this man even killed "the dead." He so terrified the spirits, the "silver people" that they don't want to speak anymore.

The "silver people" were the guides of Humanity. Patrick's offenses reached such a mortal level within the spiritual plane that the toxicity remains with us, and anyone (including me) has felt a certain reluctance upon the part of "Tom, Dick or Harry" to come through. It wasn't Christianity that killed spirituality, but the crimes committed in its name.

Jesus was a savior; Patrick was a lunatic.

History (in our dimension) seldom reports that the Druids had waited for the birth of Christ, as had the Greeks, and others. Universally, it seemed, the planet had waited for the birth of the "Unknown God."

Patrick, in our opinion, was able to set himself up as a god, and preyed upon people's fears, and he was able to divide and conquer a nation. Our second charge is that he was a master at making people fear their neighbor. We say he did this deliberately with full intent.

We also doubt he would be so smart now.

Love, Galadriel
10/19/2003
Druidry/patrick.htm