Drawing Down the Moon (book)

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Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today
LC Class
BF1573

Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today is a sociological study of

contemporary Paganism in the United States written by the American Wiccan and journalist Margot Adler. First published in 1979 by Viking Press, it was later republished in a revised and expanded edition by Beacon Press in 1986, with third and fourth revised editions being brought out by Penguin Books
in 1996 and then 2006 respectively.

According to

National Public Radio.[3]

The book is an examination of

Neopaganism in the United States from a sociological
standpoint, discussing the history and various forms of the movement. It contains excerpts from many interviews with average Pagans, as well as with well-known leaders and organizers in the community.

The first edition of the book sold 30,000 copies.[4] Successive versions have included over one hundred and fifty pages of additional text and an updated contacts section. It has been praised by Theodore Roszak, Susan Brownmiller, The New York Times Book Review and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.[5]

Background

Paganism and Wicca in the United States

Contemporary Paganism, which is also referred to as Neo-Paganism, is an

Mother Goddess, the celebration of eight seasonally-based festivals in a Wheel of the Year and the practice of magical rituals in groups known as covens. Gardnerianism was subsequently brought to the U.S. in the early 1960s by an English initiate, Raymond Buckland (1934-2017), and his then-wife Rosemary, who together founded a coven in Long Island.[8][9]

In the U.S., new variants of Wicca developed, including

second wave feminism, rejecting the veneration of the Horned God and emphasizing female-only covens. One initiate of both the Dianic and Gardnerian traditions, who used the pseudonym of Starhawk (1951-), later founded her own tradition, Reclaiming Wicca, as well as publishing The Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979), through which she helped to spread Wicca throughout the U.S.[10]

Adler and her research

In 1976, Adler publicly announced that Viking Press had offered her a book contract to undertake the first wide-ranging study of American Paganism.[11]

Synopsis

Margot Adler in 2004.

Drawing Down the Moon offers a guide to the Pagan movement across the United States.

Republication

1986 revision

In 1986, Adler published a revised second edition of Drawing Down the Moon, much expanded with new information. Identifying several new trends that had occurred in American Paganism since 1979, Adler recognized that in the intervening seven years, U.S. Pagans had become increasingly self-aware of Paganism as a movement, something which she attributed to the increasing number of Pagan festivals.[12] One reviewer noted that the alterations made for the 1986 edition "often creates a vivid contrast with events and persons first described in 1979."[13]

1996 revision

2006 revision

The 2006 edition includes a new section on Greencraft (pp. 127–129), a Wiccan tradition emerging out of an

feminist forms of Neopaganism
, with discussion of how her personal feelings about such groups have changed, but "decided to leave the chapter pretty much as is, with a few minor corrections, and address the question of feminist spirituality today at the end."

Reception

Academic reviews

Writing in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Mara E. Donaldson of the University of Virginia commented that Adler's book provided an "extensive study of paganism" that "demythologizes" the movement "without being sentimental or self-righteous." Considering it to be a "serious corrective to common misconceptions" propagated in the media, Donaldson stated that it was "worth reading" despite what she herself perceived as "neopaganism's weaknesses", namely the movement's lack of "historical-traditional-cultural memory" and a lack of "sensitivity to the Western problem of evil".[14]

"Drawing Down the Moon is unmatched in its sweeping survey of Neo-Pagan culture and for the historical perspective it provides on the emergence of various small groups within the larger movement. More a report from the trenches than rigorous analysis, Adler's straightforward account of these groups is not an attempt to justify their existence or to explain them away. Her examination of the meanings that individuals make out of their lives through the encounter with and construction of Pagan culture is a welcome shift away from the focus of sociologists on questions of "deviancy" and "conversion" - all concepts defined from outside."

Sarah M. Pike, American sociologist, 1996.[12]

In a 1996 paper discussing the various sociological studies that had then been made of Paganism, the sociologist Sarah M. Pike noted that Drawing Down the Moon had gone "a long way towards answering the question" as to "what makes these [Pagan ritual] activities valid and viable to those who engage in them". In doing so, Pike believed that Adler's work was an improvement on earlier sociological studies of the movement, namely that of Nachman Ben-Yehuda, which Pike felt had failed to answer this question.[15] Noting Adler's position as a practicing Wiccan, and the impact which this would have on her study, Pike however felt that the book was "less defensive and apologetic than sociological studies conducted by many supposedly objective "outsiders"."[15] Summarizing Drawing Down the Moon as being "unmatched" in its "sweeping survey" of the Pagan movement, Pike notes that in providing an overview of the subject it failed to focus on "detailed examination of specific issues and events."[12]

Other reviews

Writing for The Women's Review of Books, Robin Herndobler praised Adler's "clear, graceful prose", and the manner in which she had written about Paganism "with interest and compassion."[13]

Influence

Pagan community

Writing in his later biography of

radical feminists into their orbit.[17]

Academia

In her sociological study of American Paganism, Loretta Orion, author of Never Again the Burning Times: Paganism Revisited (1995), noted that she had "benefitted" from Adler's study, believing that it contained "insightful reflections" on those whom it was studying.[18]

Editions

  • Original edition 1979, hardcover,
    ISBN 0-670-28342-8
    (Viking, New York)
  • Original edition 1979, paperback,
    ISBN 0-8070-3237-9
    (Beacon Press, Boston)
  • Revised edition 1986, paperback,
    ISBN 0-8070-3253-0
    (Beacon Press, Boston)
  • Revised edition 1996, paperback,
    ISBN 0-14-019536-X
    (Penguin, New York)
  • Revised edition 2006, paperback,
    ISBN 0-14-303819-2
    (Penguin, New York)

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Goldscheider, Eric. Witches, Druids and Other Pagans Make Merry Again in the Magical Month of May, The New York Times, May 28, 2005.
  2. ^ Ramirez, Anthony. Another Hit Could Give Witches a Bad Name, The New York Times, August 22, 1999.
  3. ^ NPR. 2006. Margot Adler, NPR Biography, NPR website, accessed August 27, 2006 [1]
  4. ^ Orion 1995. p. 130.
  5. ^ 0807032530 – Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler – 9780807032534
  6. ^ Carpenter 1996. p. 40.
  7. ^ Lewis 2004. p. 13.
  8. ^ Hutton 1999 pp. 205–252.
  9. ^ Clifton 2006.
  10. ^ Hutton 1999.
  11. ^ a b Lloyd 2012. pp. 235
  12. ^ a b c Pike 1996. p. 363.
  13. ^ a b Herndobler 1987.
  14. ^ Donaldson 1982.
  15. ^ a b Pike 1996. p. 362.
  16. ^ Berger 1999. pp. 21-22.
  17. ^ Epstein 1991, p. 170.
  18. ^ Orion 1995. p. 7.

Bibliography

Academic books and papers
Book reviews
  • Donaldson, Mara E. (1982). "Review of Drawing Down the Moon". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Vol. 50, no. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 303–304.
  • Herndobler, Robin (1987). "Review of Drawing Down the Moon". The Women's Review of Books. Vol. IV (12). p. 16.
Other sources

Reviews

Interviews

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