The Future of Alt-Spirituality: A Druidic Religion?

[causticus]

This is sort of a follow-up from a more extensive entry I wrote awhile back. This is also inspired by a re-reading of an old Ecosophia thread from about a couple of years ago regarding the feasibility of forming a new "Druidic" religious organization that lacks the dysfunctional, woke, and clusterfracky characteristics that defined ADF to the core. I saw some very insightful comments, among many others that expressed a lot of confusion on how a Druidic religious organization might differ from that of an initiatory order. I don't blame them for this confusion, as nearly all Druidic orders (with the exception of RDNA and its offshoots) have belonged to the latter category.

Here is the organizational wish-list JMG posted in the first comment:

- I'd like something with plenty of room for solitary practice. Not everyone is well suited to group activities, and some of us would rather eat live tarantulas than go through round after round of group meetings.

- I'd like something that makes room for Christian Druids. I'm not one, but I know quite a few of them, and I've never understood the attitude that insists that you can take any deity for your patron but Jesus. At the same time, appropriate protections need to be put in place to keep anyone from forcing their god on anyone else.

- I'd like something that doesn't pretend to be ancient. The Druid Revival has been around for 300 years; that's ample heritage to claim.

- I'd like something set up to minimize internal politics. The more energy needed for internal group management, the less will be available to worship the gods. If there have to be elections, let them be at long intervals. If elections can be avoided, even better. A lot of nonprofits have a board of directors that appoints its own new members, and ordinary members can vote with their feet if they don't like the existing policies; that might be a model worth considering.

Well, this sounds a lot like the basis of a Fraternal "Grand Lodge" type of organization; something like Freemasonry. Basically, an organization that requires only a vague belief in a Divine Power(s), with nothing specific beyond that. The inclusion of both "Christian Druids" and "Druids" who venerate non-Celtic pantheons means that a shared liturgy, shared set of holy days and festivals, or shared mythos involving specific divine names is off the table right out of the gate. So then how is this a religion exactly? It seems like we're circling back to the disjointed mess that was/is ADF. And this raises the obvious question that many commenters raised: What exactly makes this organization specifically Druidic? Many ADF members who had nothing Celtic about their own beliefs and practices certainly felt the "Druid" identity* of ADF was rather confusing and nonsensical. If this organization is to use the Druid Revival as a common theme and mythic backdrop WITHOUT an explicitly Celtic pagan spirituality being shared among all members, then this will be a non-religion and essentially a duplication of what AODA/OBOD has already been doing. Then what's the point exactly?

And then we come upon what I found to be one of the most on-point comments:

Perhaps this is just my perception, but I feel like we are discussing two different potential organizations. One being a "druid" religious organization and the other being a polytheist religious organization.

Personally, I don't consider myself a druid or really anything in religious terms but I am a polytheist of the plain old uncategorized variety.

I am not much drawn to organized religion but I feel like I would be interested in a polytheist religion that was actually concerned with how to relate to deities. When you throw druid into the mix though I feel like you immediately start down some well worn paths, for example needing to protect the environment. I am all for taking care of the environment, but I don't necessarily see that as something related to relating to the divine, or at least no more so than any other activity can be linked to the divine.

I think charity is another of these issues. What's wrong with helping those less fortunate? Not a thing but, again, I don't necessarily see that as directly related to relating to the divine.

I think having a polytheistic religious organization that was serious, rather than the aforementioned larp party, could be a great thing but I think that, especially given the current climate, it would need to keep a hard focus on being a religion in order to avoid the slippery slope into a politics, social agendas and the like.

Yes, it does seem like there were two different conversations going on. I think what's really wanted here is a "polypantheonic" religious organization. Basically an Ecosophia version of ADF. And once again we are faced with questioning the logic of having "Druid" be in the name/identity of the organization. If "Druid" here means "Druid Revival" (which is a specific tradition) then this really whittles down the appeal the organization might have to what's otherwise a general polytheist (and open-minded Christian) member base. The Ecosophia community is already tiny and geographically-scattered enough; those among this group who are specifically attracted to the DR tradition is an even tinier slice of an already-tiny group.

I think this is all interesting food for thought. In another follow-up I might elaborate on what a viable "alt spirituality" organization moving forward might look like. In the most general sense, it will be more like a think-tank or a guild rather than a church.

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*ADF's Druid branding was a holdover from its founder Isaac Bonewits branching off ADF from RDNA (Reformed Druids of North America), of which he was a member. RDNA started off as a joke organization and its "Druidry" was basically an "anything goes" ethos, with a vague nod to environmentalism. By that, RDNA is a social club, not a religion. And so it seems that beyond its obscure RDNA origins, it seems that there was nothing all that "Druid" about ADF. This became an endless source of confusion and disorientation among the membership. In reality, ADF functioned (barely) as a Pan-Neopagan Church.

Comments

[sanctuaryofroseandchalice]

Dear Causticus:

I really enjoyed reading this post, and I've been following the topic of the "new Druid church" debate since it first emerged a couple of years ago with vested interest. I think you rightly point out that two separate conversations were going on, and that for further clarity they should be two separate, but related projects. I'm interested in what a "panpolytheonic" religious organization (that's not ADF) would look like. I believe in an earlier post you mentioned the possibility of an Americanized Cultus Deorum, and that might be a good analogy to work with. Although, I speculate that this might be the working foundation for Eastern and Midwestern states, while in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaiian Islands it would be an Americanized Shinto. You also mentioned on a comment on I think Violet Cabara's blog a year or two ago about seeing a polytheist analog of High Church Tory Anglicanism; as a polytheist-friendly High Church Tory Anglican myself that's also something I'd be interested in seeing. There's also the recognition that there's another form of spirituality emerging in North America that might as well be called the Green Path based on herbalism, astrology, music, alchemy, etc. (https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/187900.html?thread=31485436#cmt31485436). I see both the Green Path and a "panpolytheonic" Assembly of the Gods as possibly the defining features of the new religious landscape (one where hopefully polytheists and Christians can at least respect each other in fraternity. I need to get going, but hopefully this discussion can continue later. Peace and blessings to you.

Sincerely,
SanctuaryofRoseandChalice

[jprussell]

I'm glad to see you following this thread a little further along, and I look forward to your expanded thoughts - it's a topic I've also given some thought to, as we've discussed on previous posts.

I wasn't regularly following the Dreamwidth journal when that thread was posted, so I'll have to read it to catch up, but a few thoughts based just on what you have here:

1) On the breadth of Revival Druidry: when I first read JMG's descriptions of Revival Druidry, it did not sound appealing to me at all. At the time, I was deep in the grips of reconstructionism as my guiding religious light. After taking up magical practice, though, I ended up getting nudged to find a complete system to work through instead of trying to kitbash my own, and the Druid Magic Handbook seemed flexible enough to handle where I was religiously while still giving me a complete path that would require discipline and will to finish. Over the past year (almost exactly!) working with the rituals and doing the meditations while still keeping up a primarily Germanic prayer practice, I have come more and more to appreciate what a fine balance Revival Druidry as presented by JMG strikes between "believe what you want about the Gods" with "here's a solid spiritual and philosophic core and set of ritual practices that you should mostly stick with". Now, to be fair, I've only done solitary practice, so I don't know how well it would actually work in practice for me to try to celebrate the summer solstice with a handful of other Revival Druids. Considering the whole point of an organization would be to have some kind of shared experience with others, this could be a problem.

2) On the Guild as a model: your last comment intrigues me greatly, as I've been reading more about guilds of late. The Ealdrice Theod (Theodish group in Virginia) actually changed their model of local religious groups from "Kindreds" to "Haliggilds" (Holy Guilds). Their founder has a pretty interesting essay on the history of the concept in Anglo-Saxon times here: https://ealdrice.org/guild/ . JMG also has had a lot to say about guilds in at least his fiction, and I've started to track down some historical books on the concept. For the current topic, one of the things that seems promising about a guild is that you can have broader bylaws for the overall guild, and then local guilds can be more specialized. Have a large group that worships Germanic Gods in your city and others who worship the Roman Gods? You could either have two different locals or one more open one. The default "apprentice, journeyman, master" structure also allows for fairly flexible governance - masters mostly get to do what they want with their groups, bigger questions get decided by a meeting of masters, and every level has certain rights and duties associated with it. Perhaps advancing in levels requires demonstrating some level of ritual, scholarly, or artistic competence. These are all just vague ideas so far, but a very interesting line of thought!