The largest and most successful Druid order of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United Ancient Order of Druids (UAOD) was founded in 1833 as a schism from the older Ancient Order of Druids (AOD). Many of the members of the Ancient Order wanted to adopt a beneficiary plan like the one introduced by the Odd Fellows, which provided sick pay and funeral benefits to members, but the AOD’s Grand Grove wanted nothing to do with such a project. In the end, most of the AOD’s groves (local lodges) and members broke away to form a new order, the UAOD, with a beneficiary plan. See Ancient Order of Druids; Odd Fellowship.
The new society spread rapidly, establishing groves in the United States from 1839 on and expanding into Europe and Australia later in the same century. The benefit system proved just as effective a draw for the Druids as it had for the Odd Fellows – the largest fraternal secret society in the world in the late nineteenth century – and the UAOD became one of the largest dozen or so secret societies in most of the countries where it had a presence at all. By popularizing the ancient Druids, it played an important role in laying the foundations for the modern Druid movement, and later orders such as the Ancient Order of Druids in America borrowed from its symbolism and rituals. See Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA); Druid Revival; Druids.
Like most of the fraternal secret societies of the time, the UAOD experimented with several different degree systems, but finally settled on the three degrees of Ovate, Bard, and Druid, drawn from the Welsh branches of the Druid Revival. In America, it also created a ladies auxiliary, the Druid Circle. See ladies auxiliaries.
The Order’s expansion in Europe, however, ended up unwittingly helping to create one of the twentieth century’s great nightmares. The ancient Druids were popular in Germany in the nineteenth century, and the UAOD’s expansion there attracted a minority of members from the German antisemitic far right. In 1913 some of these helped-create a new secret society, the Germanenorden, which drew heavily on UAOD ritual but pursued a racist political agenda utterly at odds with the UAOD’s traditions. The Germanenorden’s Bavarian branch, under the name of the Thule Society, sponsored a political front group which in 1919 became the nucleus of the Nazi Party. See Germanenorden; National Socialism; Thule Society.
The second half of the twentieth century was as difficult for the UAOD as for most other fraternal secret societies, and membership dropped to a small fraction of its nineteenth-century peak. It still survives in Britain, Australia, several European countries, and a handful of American states, almost completely ignored by the modern Druid movement it helped to launch.
SOURCE:
The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies : the ultimate a-z of ancient mysteries, lost civilizations and forgotten wisdom written by John Michael Greer – © John Michael Greer 2006