A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ISAAC BONEWITS

Isaac Bonewits was a well-respected, influential & sometimes a controversial leader in the modern Paganism movement in American. A pagan, priest, author, scholar, bard and activist, in 1983 he co-founded Ar nDraiocht Fein: A Druid Fellowship (or ADF), one of if not the largest druid organisations in USA; having groves in every state & associated members all around the world.

“Phillip Emmons Isaac Bonewits (October 1, 1949 – August 12, 2010^[1]) was an American Neo-Druid who published a number of books on the subject of Neopaganism and magic. He was a public speaker, liturgist, singer, songwriter, an expert on ancient & modern Druidism; as well as the founder of the Neopagan organizations Ár nDraíocht Féin and the Aquarian Anti-Defamation League.”

In a 2009 lecture in Canada, he said that for thousands years tribes used magic & had developed rules around it for the good of the tribe. But that there “wasn’t a whole lot being said about magic done to people who belonged to other tribes, “because people who don’t belong to our tribe, as we all know, aren’t completely human,” he said, as people laughed. “That’s the entire history of our species, unfortunately.”

For more than 40 years, Bonewits influenced the growing Earth religions movement, and he had no patience for some of the lies and exaggerations that certain leaders of Paganism and Wicca made about their origins and history. He influenced these movements to end claims of an unbroken lineage to the ancient world.

He understood that groups can easily turn into cults, and after the Jim Jones Peoples Temple massacre in 1978 he created a way to measure cult dangers: The Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame. It uses a scale of 1-10 to evaluate any group.

Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame: