ecosophia | Why You Joined, Why You Left

In the course of the ongoing conversation over on my blog, the Druid organization Ar nDraiocht Fein (ADF) came up for discussion. Quite a few people mentioned that they had been members of ADF but left the organization, most of them recently -- and one of my longtime readers and students mentioned that he's long been interested in the religious dimension of Druidry and is looking to set up an organization for people who share that interest. That got a lively response from the former ADF members, and the questions that came up immediately were:

Why did each person join ADF in the first place?

Why did they leave?

That's what this post is for: a frank discussion of what attracted people to ADF and what convinced them to quit. Full disclosure here: I'm also a former ADF member, though I left quite a while ago, and I'll be adding my own reflections to the conversation.

I'm well aware that this is a topic about which some people -- notably those who are still members of ADF -- may have strong feelings, and may not express those with the courtesy and thoughtfulness I expect from my commentariat. For that reason, any attempt at trolling, concern trolling, derailing, flamebaiting, or other bits of online gamesmanship will be deleted. This post is a place for those of us who have had experiences with a troubled Druid organization to talk about those experiences, so that a different organization can learn from them. Those who don't want to participate in that conversation are welcome to go somewhere else -- and those who might want to interfere with that conversation are welcome to go shinny up a stump. 'Nuf said.

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Out of curiosity, what books weren't allowed?

Here's some listed on the public side of their site. From a comment in the "Prophect and Loss" discussion on the Other Blog, though, it sounds like there's a broader purge underway.

We recommend that the beginning student avoid any nonfiction by Robert Graves, D.J. Conway, Lewis Spense, H.P. Blavatsky, Edward Williams (aka Iolo Morganwg), or any works by others based on their writings, or those of Merlin Stone, Barbara Walker, or other revisionist ideologues.

https://www.adf.org/training/resources/reading.html

And they couldn't even be bothered to spell Lewis Spence's name correctly. Gives a whole new meaning to "Why Not Excellence?"

(Spence is a fave of mine, thus my grumble...)

Come to think of it, I may just launch a Lewis Spence Reading Club one of these days. His book on the minor traditions of British mythology is a classic, and his books on Atlantis are about the sanest things ever written on that much-vexed subject.

Wasn’t Lewis Spense the favorite author of John Michael Greeg?

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’ll be good now.). 😄

I'd love that!
I think I own pretty much everything Spence has written about Druidry and Atlantis, and some of his works on folklore to boot.

- Brigyn

"Come to think of it, I may just launch a Lewis Spence Reading Club one of these days."

Count me in!

... and, incidentally, one of the grandfathers of the modern Scottish independence movement: he founded one of the Scottish nationalists parties which merged into the ancestor of present day SNP (mind, not sure if he would sit comfortably next to Sturgeon...)

Manuel

I'll take Lewis Spence as a spiritual teacher over Stuart Piggott any day.

Well I would agree on avoiding Barbara Walker, who IMO should literally have stuck to her knitting. Her knitting books are excellent. However her _Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets_ is full of 'logic' along the lines of "the X people have a sea goddess named Glob, the Y people (7000 miles away) have a river goddess named Glodda, they are obviously the same."

There was a lot of feminist spiritually writing along the same lines. Women brought up in Christianity, especially Protestant, were thrilled at any evidence that the female had ever, anywhere, been regarded as sacred, worthy of worship or imitation. Merlin Stone's _When God was a Woman_ came as a revelation. So they got carried away. Although one might note, in fairness, that it was male authors such as Bachofen who got the idea of ancient matriarchies rolling. For writers like Robert Graves, it was obvious that the patriarchal god had made a mess of Western culture and that it was time to give goddesses another try. Almost dying in a pointless war will give people ideas like that.

Rita

I'm not familiar with Lewis Spence, but I wouldn't recommend Conway or Blavatsky or Stone or Walker to a beginning student of neopaganism or Druidry. You don't want to hand a beginner a lot of stuff they will have to unlearn later, either because it's misinformation or the underlying viewpoint is not very compatible with the religious or spiritual system they are interested in learning.

Graves would be on this list because he knew no Celtic languages and what he writes about the beliefs of the ancient Celts is extremely speculative. I presume Morganwg is on the list because he passed off his own writings as being older material, something that has been frowned upon in recent centuries.

I don't see anything there about these being forbidden books. Some are worth reading later, but not ideal for a beginner who doesn't know chalk from cheese.

Edited 2020-06-24 00:14 (UTC)

Graves was on the list because the ADF hierarchy loathes The White Goddess. Iolo is there because of his forgeries --- but the laugh is on ADF there, because recent textual analysis has shown that much of what he published is actually authentic medieval Welsh material.

They may no longer describe these books as forbidden, but when I was in ADF they did so --- and the Mother Grove constantly debated whether or not to kick out members who owned or had read these books. One MG member in particular would go on and on and on about it at great length at every opportunity, and in fact eventually quit because ADF wouldn't do what he wanted.

Myself, I find much of the material on the present list definitely fit for burning, but I've always thought that ADF missed the opportunity to teach its members how to engage in critical thinking and critical reading, so they could read such books without swallowing the lies and errors therein.

Graves also wrote that lovely book on poetic inspiration, which so many Neopagans have taken as Holy Gospel. While the White Goddess may be inspired, it isn't sacred writ, at lest not to me.

Of course -- but I've wondered for years why it was that the ravings of an inspired poet were off limits in an organization that claimed Celtic inspiration!

(LK again)

I read The White Goddess and couldn’t make head or tail of it. What point was he trying to make?

I think that it was because poetic inspiration didn't match well with Isaac's plea for "Why not Excellence".

Hmmm, I thought D.J. Conway could pass through their filter. I wonder why they couldn't tolerate her works.

It is surprising to see that they avoid Blavatsky's work. They share the same enthusiasm for Indo-Europeans (ahem, Aryans).

I checked the current webpage and on the list of recommended reading, it says "We recommend that the beginning student avoid any nonfiction by Robert Graves, D.J. Conway, Lewis Spense, H.P. Blavatsky, Edward Williams (aka Iolo Morganwg), or any works by others based on their writings, or those of Merlin Stone, Barbara Walker, or other revisionist ideologues." It's less specific than it used to be, but it also doesn't appear to have been updated with any new heretics. The rest of the reading list looks much as at did 20 years ago, when it already seemed distinctly musty.

OP here. At that time, which was in the 1990s, the list was long. It included anything from the old speculative material about neopaganism, from Robert Graves to Charles Godfrey Leland; anything relating to Iolo Morganwg or the Welsh cultural revival; anything related to WB Yeats or the Irish cultural revival; anything that could be labeled as "romantic"; anything from or about (but not critical of) the Druid Revival; and any of the old books featuring theories about Stonehenge. (They missed the fact that William Stukeley's claim that Stonehenge was built by intelligent elephants was a satire.)

Basically, anything that didn't fit into ADF's theories but was popularly read by neopagans got onto the list at one time or another.

Why You Joined, Why You Left

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