British Druid Order

Does anyone know the significance to Druids of the Number 6?

My father was researching information on Druids and came upon a reference to the fact that the number 6 was important to us. In all my study of Druidry I cannot recall a reference to the number 6.
The best answer I could come up with was that our deities were tripartite in nature and both male and female in aspect.
I will admit my first thought when asked went right ot Terry Pratchett and the number 8 for the wizards.........

Hi Dave,
Plenty of threes and nines in Druidry, not so many sixes that spring to mind other than Pliny the Elder saying that Druids cut mistletoe from the oak on the sixth day of the moon. I like the idea of 6 being the conjunction of triple god with triple goddess though. Beyond that, I can't recall any other significant occurrences. Mind you, my memory is not what it was. I wish I could remember what it was, but I forget. Also, my extreme age means that I watched The Prisoner when it was first shown on TV in the 60s, so the Number 6 still brings up images of striped shirts, mini-mokes and penny-farthing bicycles for me.
I am not a number, I am a free man!
Greywolf /|\

PS. If you can locate a copy of Alwyn and Brinley Rees' 'Celtic Heritage,' published by Thames & Hudson, there might be something in there. I have a copy somewhere, but it's getting late and I'm too tired to go looking for it. Hmmm, there's no yawn emoticon ... Oh well, good night ...

Thank you Greywolf,

I will look for that book. I use a variety of literature including The Druids by Peter Berresford-Ellis that seems to lack any specific mention of numbers let alone the number 6. Nor, frankly does much of the other literature mention numbers. Strange.

I will do some research and see where this idea comes from. Dad was doing a web search so I have little idea where he got his information.

I too recall the Prisoner with a certain nostalgic warmth.
Rest well, warmer days approach.
Wishing you the Best.

dave

Right, heres the joke!

My father may have hooked into a World of Warcraft site!

Until I can see what he has printed out I cannot be sure however.

More to come.....

Hi Dave,
Yep, a lot of World of Warcraft tends to come up when you google Druids
But yes, do look out for a copy of 'Celtic Heritage.' It's been reprinted a few times and you can probably pick up a cheap second-hand one on Amazon. It has more about the significance of numbers in Celtic myth and legend than any other source I can think of. It's also got loads of stuff about the significance of the four directions (or five, six, eight, or nine) and Celtic board games among other things, much of which either doesn't appear elsewhere or, if it does, is quoted from 'Celtic Heritage.'
Peace,
Greywolf /|\

Greywolf,

Thank you! I have looked on Amazon and I have to review my library. I may have that or something similar.

Peace

Ahh, here is what I do have, Celtic Myths and Legends By T. W. Rolleston.

I will get a copy of 'Celtic Heritage.'

Well, perhaps I can shed some new light on the problem as this question should, to my knowledge, be answered using druidism's connections to ancient Pythagoreanism that much elaborated on the signifficance and sacred use of numbers (both in geometry and algebra). See the topic Pythagorean Druids here.

Six (in Pythagoreanism and classic Hermeticism) is the number denoting the Circle (and in Western Hermeticism and Alchemy also Heaven). Why six?

"Six around One" goes the line (only six equal circles fit around an equal circle). You may see for yourself: try to arrange some oranges around a single orange so that their rims all touch each other, you will find that six is the number that fulfills this condition. You may also draw it: draw one circle over another so that their rims run through each other's centres and then connect the points of tangencies to form a rhombus (two equilateral traingles). The figure "around" the rhombus is vesica piscis, an almond-shaped figure, often used in Celtic patterns to form triquetras; in Celtic illuminated manuscripts Christ is often seated within a vesica. Now if you add a third circle on the other side of the forming circle you will be able to see six equal equilateral traingles, and the points of tangencies will form a perfect hexagon. If you draw circles using the points of tangencies as their centres you will produce always only six such circles. So, in fact, everything in the Cicrle is about the number six.

The Biblical theme of six around one is actually a very fine one: it shows how the order of all Things is arranged around One (even in the story of the world being actively created in six days with the central one day of passiveness).

And the signifficance of the Circle in druidism, an indeed in all Indo-European cultures, you perfectly know of. If all things are viewed as perpetual, circular, spiral in the Celtic world, then six will be the number of the fulfilling of creativity, the Celtic horn of abundance, for it is in the process of forming the hexagon that the awenyddic triquetra (like the triskele, the symbol of all worlds and elements combined, and the perfection of druidic skills) is produced.

For a fine and simple reading on this I recommend the fabulous series "Ancient Science" by Wooden Books, to be found here.

Tin,

Thanks for that. It is a good read and has some interesting information. I didn't/don't pay much attention to the Pythagorean connection so that may be why I missed the information you presented.

Hi all, couldn't resist this one: I think numbers do, and always have played a big part in Druidry...

Science historian cracks "the Plato code"

28 Jun 2010
A science historian at The University of Manchester has cracked “The Plato Code” – the long disputed secret messages hidden in the great philosopher’s writings.
Plato was the Einstein of Greece’s Golden Age and his work founded Western culture and science. Dr Jay Kennedy’s findings are set to revolutionise the history of the origins of Western thought.

Dr Kennedy, whose findings are published in the leading US journal Apeiron, reveals that Plato used a regular pattern of symbols, inherited from the ancient followers of Pythagoras, to give his books a musical structure. A century earlier, Pythagoras had declared that the planets and stars made an inaudible music, a ‘harmony of the spheres’. Plato imitated this hidden music in his books.

The hidden codes show that Plato anticipated the Scientific Revolution 2,000 years before Isaac Newton, discovering its most important idea – the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. The decoded messages also open up a surprising way to unite science and religion. The awe and beauty we feel in nature, Plato says, shows that it is divine; discovering the scientific order of nature is getting closer to God. This could transform today’s culture wars between science and religion.

“Plato’s books played a major role in founding Western culture but they are mysterious and end in riddles,” Dr Kennedy, at Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences explains.

“In antiquity, many of his followers said the books contained hidden layers of meaning and secret codes, but this was rejected by modern scholars.

“It is a long and exciting story, but basically I cracked the code. I have shown rigorously that the books do contain codes and symbols and that unraveling them reveals the hidden philosophy of Plato.

“This is a true discovery, not simply reinterpretation.”

This will transform the early history of Western thought, and especially the histories of ancient science, mathematics, music, and philosophy.

Dr Kennedy spent five years studying Plato’s writing and found that in his best-known work the Republic he placed clusters of words related to music after each twelfth of the text – at one-twelfth, two-twelfths, etc. This regular pattern represented the twelve notes of a Greek musical scale. Some notes were harmonic, others dissonant. At the locations of the harmonic notes he described sounds associated with love or laughter, while the locations of dissonant notes were marked with screeching sounds or war or death. This musical code was key to cracking Plato’s entire symbolic system.

Dr Kennedy, a researcher in the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, says: “As we read his books, our emotions follow the ups and downs of a musical scale. Plato plays his readers like musical instruments.”

However Plato did not design his secret patterns purely for pleasure – it was for his own safety. Plato's ideas were a dangerous threat to Greek religion. He said that mathematical laws and not the gods controlled the universe. Plato's own teacher had been executed for heresy. Secrecy was normal in ancient times, especially for esoteric and religious knowledge, but for Plato it was a matter of life and death. Encoding his ideas in secret patterns was the only way to be safe.

Plato led a dramatic and fascinating life. Born four centuries before Christ, when Sparta defeated plague-ravaged Athens, he wrote 30 books and founded the world’s first university, called the Academy. He was a feminist, allowing women to study at the Academy, the first great defender of romantic love (as opposed to marriages arranged for political or financial reasons) and defended homosexuality in his books. In addition, he was captured by pirates and sold into slavery before being ransomed by friends.

Dr Kennedy explains: “Plato’s importance cannot be overstated. He shifted humanity from a warrior society to a wisdom society. Today our heroes are Einstein and Shakespeare – and not knights in shining armour – because of him.”

Over the years Dr Kennedy carefully peeled back layer after symbolic layer, sharing each step in lectures in Manchester and with experts in the UK and US.

He recalls: “There was no Rosetta Stone. To announce a result like this I needed rigorous, independent proofs based on crystal-clear evidence.

“The result was amazing – it was like opening a tomb and finding new set of gospels written by Jesus Christ himself.

“Plato is smiling. He sent us a time capsule.”

Dr Kennedy’s findings are not only surprising and important; they overthrow conventional wisdom on Plato. Modern historians have always denied that there were codes; now Dr Kennedy has proved otherwise.

He adds: “This is the beginning of something big. It will take a generation to work out the implications. All 2,000 pages contain undetected symbols.”

Plato quoted:

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”

“Ignorance: the root of all evil.”

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

“The price good men pay for indifference to publiuc affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”



okay, now that they've discovered this, then I guess now they will have to start looking at other ancient manuscripts in a new light: and they hold many Pagan secrets: i just know they do...