{"id":808,"date":"2007-02-05T16:47:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-05T16:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=808"},"modified":"2007-02-05T16:47:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-05T16:47:00","slug":"death-of-a-chief-druid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=808","title":{"rendered":"Death of a Chief Druid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>
Tim Sebastion, chief of the Secular Order of Druids in the UK, died on February 1.
He was always in the swirl of controversy around Stonehenge. This site, although dated, gives a feel for how that has gone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His order was formed in 1975 and the acronym was chosen deliberately, or so I have been told. Based on my couple of meetings with Tim (the last in a Bath pub in 2004), it seemed that by appearing to not be totally serious, he was able to be very serious.<\/p>\n

He also held the Bardic Chair of Caer Badon (Bath) after founding a gorsedd (poetic competition) in 1995.<\/p>\n

A ton of British Druid Web sites exist: Here is a sampling<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Sebastion, chief of the Secular Order of Druids in the UK, died on February 1.He was always in the swirl of controversy around Stonehenge. This site, although dated, gives a feel for how that has gone. His order was formed in 1975 and the acronym was chosen deliberately, or so I have been told. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14,21],"class_list":["post-808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-druidry","tag-england"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-d2","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":304,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=304","url_meta":{"origin":808,"position":0},"title":"One Druid Down","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Fr. William Melnyk, the Episcopal priest in Pennsylvania who was also an active Druid, has resigned.. His wife, Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk, also a Druid and Episcopal priest (no \"-ess\" allowed), faces disciplinary action.My last post on this issue is here. Notice that the man must suffer more; women lead us into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":414,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=414","url_meta":{"origin":808,"position":1},"title":"When is a Druid not\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"When is a Druid not a Druid?Another twist in the William Melnyk affair. Jason Pitzl-Waters has the conspiracy theories.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7362,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7362","url_meta":{"origin":808,"position":2},"title":"Irish Druids Now Officially “Indigenous” \u2014\u00a0They Say","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"That is how the Celtic Druid Temple frames government recognition as an \"official charity.\" The Celtic Druid Temple is a full member of the World Druid Order and now has legal and formal recognition in Ireland as a religious charity with a CHY number 20684 issued by the Dept of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Druids\"","block_context":{"text":"Druids","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=druids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.celticdruidtemple.com\/uploads\/2\/0\/0\/7\/20074727\/1395427677.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2640,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2640","url_meta":{"origin":808,"position":3},"title":"Quick Review: Caesar’s Druids","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I am a little more than halfway through Miranda Aldhouse-Green's Caesar's Druids: Story of An Ancient Priesthood. As the British archaeologist Stuart Piggott pointed out back in the 1960s, there are no texts written about Druids by Druids. The sum of what ancient writers of the Greco-Roman world wrote would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Cover image of Casar's Druids by Miranda Aldhouse-Green","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51AAWVY--yL._AA160_.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":845,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=845","url_meta":{"origin":808,"position":4},"title":"Polytheism at The New Stateman","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The New Statesman, a British news magazine, has been offering polytheists a platform in its online religion column:A Blackboard Epiphany in Ancient Delphi (March 19)The Ancient Gods of Greece Are Not Extinct (March 20)A Liberal Religion (March 21)Worshipping the Ancient Greek Gods (March 22)How Did I Become a Druid?\" (March\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":411,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=411","url_meta":{"origin":808,"position":5},"title":"Episcopalians and Druids, cont.The saga\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Episcopalians and Druids, cont.The saga of the two married Episcopal clergy who were denounced by their denomination's conservative wing for participation in Druidry has a new twist. After resigning his pastoral post last November, the husband, William Melnyk, has decided that Druidry is more welcoming. (Registration may be required to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}