First comment--I knew Isaac and circled with him during several periods in which he lived in California--in addition to the ADF he was an initiate of New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn (NeoPagan witchcraft order in Bay Area) and a Gardnarian (not sure which line). I _never_ saw him behave inappropriately with a child or preteen.
As for ADF not acting on the allegations by MZB's daughter--she didn't even have the courage to make an actual accusation--just vague hints in a book that seemed to extrapolate the crimes within her family to the entire Pagan community. What exactly was ADF supposed to do? Attacking your Founder for accusations made by a mentally ill person years after the event, and years after the Founder's death doesn't seem right. Were they supposed to hold a tribunal of some sort? How? no way to compel witnesses to appear, or to ensure their truthfulness. I have seen in discussions on line that everyone who has challenged the allegations has been accused of being a collaborator. Diana Paxson, for example said that Isaac was not living in her home at the same time as Moira was, leading to remarks to the effect that "she was part of that whole crowd too." Did we not learn from the Satanic Panic and the Recovered Memory movement that not all testimony is reliable? Unfortunately there are still people out there pushing the 'victims never lie' story and demanding mob action instead of fair adjudication.
As for the adult women--well, it was the 60s and 70s and a lot of people who were quite happily celebrating free love and "all acts of love and pleasure are Her rites" back then seem to be suffering from "frackers remorse" these days.
While I read the ADF publications I never joined--just didn't appeal. I did respect the re-constructionist idea of basing practice on history and knowledge of original languages. However, I am not sure how well a scholar's path mixes with building an effective religion. Isaac's ambitions for the organization were completely unrealistic. I remember an early document laying out training for the clergy of something like 7 levels in 13 paths or something like that. It would have been the equivalent of earning a dozen PhD degrees to reach the highest level. Ironically one of the first requirements was to have one's ordinary life and livelihood in order--something that Isaac seemed to have a great deal of trouble with. (this was before the illness from the contaminated tryptophan struck him).
Preoccupation with Christianity: Isaac seemed convinced that Christianity was exclusively a religion of gloom and doom, hell fire preaching, looking forward to or even actively promoting a nuclear war for the End Times. Not to mention the whole Burning Times myth of the Inquisition dragging the village's beloved herbalist off to execution. While there were Christian right wingers who were preoccupied with the End Times, a day of listening to a Christian radio station would be instructive to anyone who holds such views. You know, songs about love and hope and support from Jesus and talks about being guided through the hard times. Isaac was also preoccupied with Satanists and IMO wasted a lot of time attacking the few Satanists who wanted to hang out with Neopagans--energy that could have been used to actually publish the ADF newsletter on time. Sigh.
I don't know how much it influenced the structure or actions of ADF, but Isaac was also, in my experience, consumed with the idea that the Pagan world needed full time paid clergy. He wasn't the only one--many people were given to saying things like --real cultures support their shamans, artists, poets, etc. IMO trying to create an organization that requires full time leaders is putting the cart before the horse--like the dot.com startups who rented office space and hired people based on their optimistic projections of what they would need when business got rolling, only to go belly up when the projections didn't pan out. Not to mention that if you don't like the results of the Christian clergy model imitating it seems like a bad idea.
ADF is not the only Pagan organization flailing around for effective organization and leadership. I suspect it will also not be the only one to fall to the "OMB our early leaders lived by the mores of their time, not by ours" syndrome.
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branchandroot
Bonewits and ADF
Date: 2019-11-16 05:55 pm (UTC)As for ADF not acting on the allegations by MZB's daughter--she didn't even have the courage to make an actual accusation--just vague hints in a book that seemed to extrapolate the crimes within her family to the entire Pagan community. What exactly was ADF supposed to do? Attacking your Founder for accusations made by a mentally ill person years after the event, and years after the Founder's death doesn't seem right. Were they supposed to hold a tribunal of some sort? How? no way to compel witnesses to appear, or to ensure their truthfulness. I have seen in discussions on line that everyone who has challenged the allegations has been accused of being a collaborator. Diana Paxson, for example said that Isaac was not living in her home at the same time as Moira was, leading to remarks to the effect that "she was part of that whole crowd too." Did we not learn from the Satanic Panic and the Recovered Memory movement that not all testimony is reliable? Unfortunately there are still people out there pushing the 'victims never lie' story and demanding mob action instead of fair adjudication.
As for the adult women--well, it was the 60s and 70s and a lot of people who were quite happily celebrating free love and "all acts of love and pleasure are Her rites" back then seem to be suffering from "frackers remorse" these days.
While I read the ADF publications I never joined--just didn't appeal. I did respect the re-constructionist idea of basing practice on history and knowledge of original languages. However, I am not sure how well a scholar's path mixes with building an effective religion. Isaac's ambitions for the organization were completely unrealistic. I remember an early document laying out training for the clergy of something like 7 levels in 13 paths or something like that. It would have been the equivalent of earning a dozen PhD degrees to reach the highest level. Ironically one of the first requirements was to have one's ordinary life and livelihood in order--something that Isaac seemed to have a great deal of trouble with. (this was before the illness from the contaminated tryptophan struck him).
Preoccupation with Christianity: Isaac seemed convinced that Christianity was exclusively a religion of gloom and doom, hell fire preaching, looking forward to or even actively promoting a nuclear war for the End Times. Not to mention the whole Burning Times myth of the Inquisition dragging the village's beloved herbalist off to execution. While there were Christian right wingers who were preoccupied with the End Times, a day of listening to a Christian radio station would be instructive to anyone who holds such views. You know, songs about love and hope and support from Jesus and talks about being guided through the hard times. Isaac was also preoccupied with Satanists and IMO wasted a lot of time attacking the few Satanists who wanted to hang out with Neopagans--energy that could have been used to actually publish the ADF newsletter on time. Sigh.
I don't know how much it influenced the structure or actions of ADF, but Isaac was also, in my experience, consumed with the idea that the Pagan world needed full time paid clergy. He wasn't the only one--many people were given to saying things like --real cultures support their shamans, artists, poets, etc. IMO trying to create an organization that requires full time leaders is putting the cart before the horse--like the dot.com startups who rented office space and hired people based on their optimistic projections of what they would need when business got rolling, only to go belly up when the projections didn't pan out. Not to mention that if you don't like the results of the Christian clergy model imitating it seems like a bad idea.
ADF is not the only Pagan organization flailing around for effective organization and leadership. I suspect it will also not be the only one to fall to the "OMB our early leaders lived by the mores of their time, not by ours" syndrome.
Rita