Pic: CESNUR

The Center for Study on New Religions (CESNUR) has released a report about Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF), one of the most widely spread forms of modern druidry or druidism. This paper called A Pathway to Druidism is the text of a paper read by Michael T. Cooper, Ph.D. (Trinity International University, Deerfield Illinois, USA) at the 2006 International CESNUR Conference. Unfortunately, I do not have permission to quote from it but hopefully my introduction will prompt you to head over to CESNUR and read it. My introduction and paraphrase follows:

The Introduction to the paper examines Druidism as one of the expresses of the Neo-paganism movement, whose ideals can be expressed as egalitarianist, pantheist and environmental responsibile. He defines ADF as a typical example of North American neo-paganism that meets these ideals as well as the spirituality of North Americans.

Research Description

He explains the difficulties in copllecting research data as well as the unreliability of the Internet as a data soiurce, examining the culture of the cyber-community. He discusses the possible ethical considerations of using the Internewt to gather data and then erxplains the methods by which he could.

Defining Druidry

He puts forward the two terms: revivalist and reconstructionist to define the two approaches to Druidry.  He explains that ADF is typically a reconstructionist path, preferring to research history and archeology as well as the way that people lived and believed. He then quotes several definitions of Druidism from ADF members as well as Isaac Bonewits, the founder of ADF. He finishes by stating that ADF is a revivalist movement of Paganism.

Brief History of North American Druidry

Michael tells us how the ADF developed from the Reformed Druids of North America (the RDNA) and how Isaac Bonewits wanted his Druidry to be not just Pan-Celtic, but Pan-European. He then tells us how the leadership passed from Isaac. He discusses the growth patterns of the movement adn estimates that today there are some 30,000 Druids in North America.

Pathways to Ár nDraíocht Féin

In this section he discusses the hows and whys of the path to druidic membership. He identifies three themes of motive that promoted the switch to ADF.

Disillusion with Wetsern Christianity

In this section he quotes many examples of people’s reasons for abandonning Christianity.

Religious Identity

Here he discusses the desire to establish a religious identity with other believers that involves both nature and ancestry.

Religious Legitimacy: Scholarship and Antiquity

|He discusses the 18th Century Druidry revival as well as the paucity of historical data about the pre-Christian Druids.

Discussion of Pathways

He discusses the Lofland-Stark model of religious conversion and then investigates the discrepancies between the model and his test results of ADF members.

Congruency of Western Religious Belief and Druidry

In this section he sets the context in which ADF is to be set against the broad canvas of Western religious belief. He gives several tables that show the breakdown statistics of religious belief across North America.

Conclusion

In his conclusion (which I won’t give away entirely ), he concludes that Druidry will continue to grow but it must stay congruent with North American culture.

What a fascinating article!  I can only urge you to hop over to CESNUR and read it.

Originally posted 2008-10-23 09:47:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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