Реформистские Друиды Северной Америки: История и принципы

Druid organisation in North America

The Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) is an American Neo Druidic organization. It was formed in 1963 at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota as a humorous protest against the college's required attendance of religious services. This original congregation is called the Carleton Grove, sometimes the Mother Grove. There are over 40 groves and proto groves of the RDNA throughout the United States and Canada.

A liberal arts college, Carleton had been founded by the Congregational Church, but by the 1960s had become a non denominational institution. Nonetheless, the student handbook still held that "attendance is required at the College Service of Worship or at the Sunday Evening Program or at any regularly organized service of public worship." A number of students, including David Fisher, David Frangquist, Howard Cherniack, Jan Johnson and Norman Nelson thought this rule unnecessary, and formed their own religious group in protest rather than attend any of the extant ones. They thus created the RDNA, holding meetings near the college athletic fields, and marking the obligatory "chapel slips" correspondingly. As Nelson would later explain, "The sole motive was to protest the requirement, not to try for alternatives for worship There was never any intention to mock any religion; it was not intended that RDNA should compete with or supplant any faith. We tried to write a service which could be attended 'in good faith' by anyone." The RDNA believed that pain of hypocrisy would force the college authorities to validate their activities as public worship. Instead, the dean of men ignored the group, neither accepting the chapel slips nor disciplining the members. But the dean of women chose to accept the slips that the RDNA's two female members submitted. After extended discussion with the Druids, the college recognized its untenable position, and dropped the religious requirement in June, 1964. The college's President Nason and his wife attended the final RDNA ceremony that academic year, overlooking a ritual consumption of whiskey that technically violated college rules. But in challenging the college's chapel requirement, the founders had unwittingly fostered a rewarding environment for spiritual exploration. Many Druids had come to value the movement in their lives, and the founders were stunned to discover that demand for Druid services continued even after the college requirement disappeared.

Reformed Druidism emphasizes its lack of institutionalized dogma. Each Druid is required only to adopt these basic tenets:
One of the many ways in which the object of Man's search for religious truth can be found is through Nature. Nature, being one of the primary concerns in Man's life and struggle, and being one of the objects of Creation, is important to Man's spiritual quests. The original group were not Neo Pagan – most identified themselves as Jewish, Christian, agnostic, atheist, or as members of other faiths – and the movement still includes many who do not consider themselves Neo Pagan. Chas S. Clifton, an academic scholar of Neopaganism, made several suggestions as to where the early RDNA founders may have got their ideas about Druidry from, noting that there were British Druid groups such as the Ancient Druid Order operating at the time, who held annual ceremonies at the megalithic monument of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, attracting much media attention. Accompanying this, there were ideas about the ancient druids to be found in the "American literary consciousness", where they appeared as guardians of the natural world in the Romanticist poetry of Philip Freneau. Clifton's speculations are in contrast to the actual motivations for Reformed Druidism. In fact, at a meeting in Fisher's dormitory room about the religious requirement, Cherniack volunteered that his family had always responded to questions about religion by claiming to be Druids, and the group adopted this moniker. When someone pointed out that none of the group knew anything at all about Druids, the suggestion quickly arose that the new group call itself The Reformed Druids of North America, so it could create tenets and rituals out of whole cloth without having to know or care anything about any previous Druids.

In accord with the Basic Tenets, Reformed Druid worship is directed toward Nature. Services involve gathering in a wooded place periodically (the original group met weekly during warm weather) and on the festival days of Northern European Pagan tradition. Services typically include:
The singing of religious songs. The performance of ceremonial chanting. Prayers and meditations. The written liturgy calls for a "sacrifice of life". An early disagreement, recounted in The Druid Chronicles, was resolved by limiting the sacrifice to plant life, whence the term "Reformed" was adopted as part of the group's name.