Vengeful Druids poisoned Gerald Gardner because he was an oath-breaker — did you know that?<\/p>\n
Probably not, because it never happened.<\/p>\n
I got this particular b.s. tossed by a Facebook friend (as opposed to an actual friend), a Druid from Kansas.<\/p>\n
I suggested that he might check one of Ronald Hutton’s books on Druidry or even Philip Heselton’s Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration<\/em>. Even though Heselton missed the obvious<\/a> about Gardner’s spiritual journey, his basic legwork and research in primary sources is outstanding.<\/p>\n None of this helped, because Kansas Druid just wanted to be abusive under the guise of asking questions about Paganism.<\/p>\n He seemed to have a bee in his bonnet about Gerald Gardner, making various claims such as that in 1947 the Ancient Order of Druids<\/a> (a more fraternal than religious form of Druidry) ordered its members not to associate with Gardner.\u00a0 (By my reckoning, Wicca did not yet exist in 1947.)<\/p>\n And although he listed Isaac Bonewits as a person he admired, he persisted in claiming that Druids were warriors. Isaac could have set him straight on that, since Isaac was quite interested in the theories of the Indo-Europeanists such as Georges Dum\u00e9zil<\/a>, who saw ancient patriarchal I-E societies (from Ireland to India) as “trifunctional,” divided into classes of priests, warriors, and commoners (farmers, artisans)<\/a> In that hypothesis, Celtic Druids equate with Indian Brahmins as ritual specialists, lore-keepers, etc. \u2014 not the aristocratic warrior class.<\/p>\n I thought about pointing that out to the Kansan, but by then I realized that I was dealing with a Pagan mall ninja<\/a>, someone who just wanted to spew about Gerald Gardner, Wicca, “hippies,” and so forth, fully armored in his ignorance.<\/p>\n The virtual food courts<\/a> of the Internet are full of them.<\/p>\n The larger point is this:<\/strong> at the recent American Academy of Religion annual meeting, two speakers in one of the Contemporary Pagan Studies sessions talking about walking the line between “pure” scholarship and “advocacy.” We don’t want to be Pagans talking about Paganism for other Pagans\u2014although some in Pagan media seem to expect that we should be doing that\u2014a topic for another post.<\/p>\n Instead, we want to show how larger issues in the study of religions work themselves out in Paganism\u2014or how Paganism can cause other issues to be re-examined, such as the whole sacred materiality\/idolatry thread that started at the 2009 annual meeting in Montreal and which is still playing itself out in The Pomegranate.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n But there was also discussion of a scholarship of service\u2014I think Ronald Hutton, for one, strives for this in the talks he gives at Pagan gatherings<\/a> in the UK and in the upcoming documentary on Gerald Gardner with which he is involved.<\/p>\n On the other hand, when people do not want to be exposed to ideas that challenge what they think they know, what can you do? How do you engage them at Orange Julius<\/a> or Sbarro<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vengeful Druids poisoned Gerald Gardner because he was an oath-breaker — did you know that? Probably not, because it never happened. I got this particular b.s. tossed by a Facebook friend (as opposed to an actual friend), a Druid from Kansas. I suggested that he might check one of Ronald Hutton’s books on Druidry or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,4],"class_list":["post-3547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-paganism","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-Vd","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":808,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=808","url_meta":{"origin":3547,"position":0},"title":"Death of a Chief Druid","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Tim Sebastion, chief of the Secular Order of Druids in the UK, died on February 1.He was always in the swirl of controversy around Stonehenge. This site, although dated, gives a feel for how that has gone.His order was formed in 1975 and the acronym was chosen deliberately, or so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Druidry\"","block_context":{"text":"Druidry","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=druidry"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":411,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=411","url_meta":{"origin":3547,"position":1},"title":"Episcopalians and Druids, cont.The saga\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Episcopalians and Druids, cont.The saga of the two married Episcopal clergy who were denounced by their denomination's conservative wing for participation in Druidry has a new twist. After resigning his pastoral post last November, the husband, William Melnyk, has decided that Druidry is more welcoming. (Registration may be required to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1179,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1179","url_meta":{"origin":3547,"position":2},"title":"Druidry and Made-up History","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is the YouTube trailer for a new documentary on British Druidry. Yes, that is Ronald Hutton at the beginning (long hair, glasses). (If the YouTube link does not work, try this one.)And here is the video clip dissected with a sharp knife by a different British Pagan academic.It's true:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Druids\"","block_context":{"text":"Druids","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=druids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0300144857","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":586,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=586","url_meta":{"origin":3547,"position":3},"title":"1939 and All ThatJason Pitzl-Waters\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"1939 and All ThatJason Pitzl-Waters draws attention to a 2001 interview with Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone recently re-published in the online zine The Wiccan-Pagan Times.Janet Farrar, who came to the Craft in the late 1960s, seems to dancing around a more skeptical position as regarding Gerald Gardner's finding a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":734,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=734","url_meta":{"origin":3547,"position":4},"title":"Druidry on YouTube","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagan instructional videos have actually been around since the late 1980s. Now it is the YouTube era, as Druid Ian Corrigan demonstrates. (Not counting clips from Charmed, of course.)If you understand Dutch, here is some news coverage. There is an English translation in the sidebar.Tags: Paganism, Druidry","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":304,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=304","url_meta":{"origin":3547,"position":5},"title":"One Druid Down","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Fr. William Melnyk, the Episcopal priest in Pennsylvania who was also an active Druid, has resigned.. His wife, Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk, also a Druid and Episcopal priest (no \"-ess\" allowed), faces disciplinary action.My last post on this issue is here. Notice that the man must suffer more; women lead us into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3547"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3615,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3547\/revisions\/3615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}