Why You Joined, Why You Left
Jun. 23rd, 2020 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-24 10:54 am (UTC)During my time it seemed no one took it seriously and it was more about small cliques than the gods.
I remember many an election in the group that just had one candidate, a member of the clique running. Why didn't I run? Well, you couldn't declare candidacy, you had to be nominated without asking for it (at least where the clique could here you. I got nominated once and got asked for bank account information and other finance info I wasn't comfortable sharing. Didn't see any requirement for that information either. )
A few other tidbits.
During elections if you asked a candidate about the office they ran for you'd get "from our website [Discription of office]" even if you asked, "in your own words, what does this office mean to you."
When we did video chats a few times a member used it to promote a product called "green smoke." Yes promoting a tobacco product during a religious chat.
One female member was to found of threatening violence on men if you disagreed with her.
I had a member cuss out a friend on Social Media as a racist for... Having opinions on her OWN race, she's Purto Rican / Lebanese and her father immigrated to the US but she doesn't follow the left's views on immigration.
When said members attacks got too much, the member is clergy, I contact ADF and nothing happened, follow-ups they claim a report was never made.
Another member called Samhain cultural appropriation even when done BY Irish members born and raised in Ireland. When she was asked to explain mods threatened to ban anyone questioning it for harassment.
The attacks on anything not 'historic' even though their Earth Mother cult isn't historic.
With one training program, I wrote about how the seasons affected my area, at the time I lived on the Jersey shore in a VERY suburban area. I was told it didn't focus enough on 'nature' i.e. an agrarian area. I figured if I'm writing about my environment it should be the place I live and practice 99.9% of the time NOT someplace I could rarely get to without a car, I didn't have a car at the time, or paying a lot of cash for an Uber.
It was finally around the time Trump started running I left as the group became more and more political and less and less about the gods.