Drawing Down the Moon (book)
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''Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today'' is a sociological study of
contemporary Paganism Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Afric ...
in the United States written by the American Wiccan and journalist
Margot Adler Margot Susanna Adler (April 16, 1946 – July 28, 2014) was an American author, journalist, lecturer, Wiccan priestess, and New York correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR). Early life Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Adler grew up mostly ...
. First published in 1979 by
Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquire ...
, it was later republished in a revised and expanded edition by
Beacon Press Beacon Press is an American left-wing non-profit book publisher. Founded in 1854 by the American Unitarian Association, it is currently a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association. It is known for publishing authors such as James B ...
in 1986, with third and fourth revised editions being brought out by
Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', the book "is credited with both documenting new religious impulses and being a catalyst for the panoply of practices now in existence"Goldscheider, Eric
Witches, Druids and Other Pagans Make Merry Again in the Magical Month of May
''The New York Times'', May 28, 2005.
and "helped popularize earth-based religions." Adler was a
Neopagan Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Afric ...
and "recognized witch" herself and a reporter for
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
. The book is an examination of
Neopaganism in the United States Modern paganism in the United States is represented by widely different movements and organizations. The largest Neopagan religious movement is Wicca, followed by Neodruidism. Both of these religions or spiritual paths were introduced during the ...
from a
sociological Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
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. 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 Susan Brownmiller (born Susan Warhaftig; February 15, 1935) is an American journalist, author and feminist activist best known for her 1975 book '' Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape'', which was selected by The New York Public Library as o ...
, ''
The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'' and the ''Journal of the
American Academy of Religion The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the world's largest association of scholarly method, scholars in the List of academic disciplines, field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association, serving as a profes ...
''.


Background


Paganism and Wicca in the United States

Contemporary Paganism, which is also referred to as Neo-Paganism, is an
umbrella term In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other wor ...
used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various
pagan Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...
beliefs of pre-modern Europe. Carpenter 1996. p. 40. The religion of Pagan Witchcraft, or
Wicca Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was ...
, is one of a number of different Pagan religions, and developed in England during the first half of the 20th century. The figure at the forefront of Wicca's early development was the English occultist
Gerald Gardner Gerald Brosseau Gardner (13 June 1884 – 12 February 1964), also known by the craft name Scire, was an English Wiccan, as well as an author and an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist. He was instrumental in bringing the Contemporary Pag ...
(1884-1964), the author of ''
Witchcraft Today ''Witchcraft Today'' is a non-fiction book written by Gerald Gardner. Published in 1954, ''Witchcraft Today'' recounts Gardner's thoughts on the history and the practices of the witch-cult, and his claim to have met practising witches in 1930s ...
'' (1954) and ''
The Meaning of Witchcraft ''The Meaning of Witchcraft'' is a non-fiction book written by Gerald Gardner. Gardner, known to many in the modern sense as the "Father of Wicca", based the book around his experiences with the religion of Wicca and the New Forest Coven. It was ...
'' (1959) and the founder of a tradition known as
Gardnerian Wicca Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian witchcraft, is a tradition in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner (1884–1964), a British civil servant ...
. Gardnerian Wicca revolved around the veneration of both a
Horned God The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in Wicca and some related forms of Neopaganism. The term ''Horned God'' itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th-century syncretic term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god partl ...
and a
Mother Goddess A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or th ...
, the celebration of eight seasonally-based festivals in a
Wheel of the Year The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by many modern pagans, consisting of the year's chief solar events (solstices and equinoxes) and the midpoints between them. While names for each festival vary among dive ...
and the practice of magical rituals in groups known as
coven A coven () is a group or gathering of witches. The word "coven" (from Anglo-Norman ''covent, cuvent'', from Old French ''covent'', from Latin ''conventum'' = convention) remained largely unused in English until 1921 when Margaret Murray promote ...
s. Gardnerianism was subsequently brought to the U.S. in the early 1960s by an English initiate,
Raymond Buckland Raymond Buckland (31 August 1934 – 27 September 2017), whose craft name was Robat, was an English writer on the subject of Wicca and the occult, and a significant figure in the history of Wicca, of which he was a high priest in both the Gardner ...
(1934-2017), and his then-wife Rosemary, who together founded a coven in
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
. In the U.S., new variants of Wicca developed, including
Dianic Wicca Dianic Wicca, also known as Dianic Witchcraft, and, to some also as "Dianism," "Dianic Feminist Witchcraft," or simply "Feminist Witchcraft"' is a modern pagan, goddess tradition, focused on female experience and empowerment. Leadership is by wo ...
, a tradition founded in the 1970s which was heavily influenced by
second wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains. Wh ...
, 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 Starhawk (born Miriam Simos on June 17, 1951) is an American feminist and author. She is known as a theorist of feminist Neopaganism and ecofeminism. In 2013, she was listed in Watkins' ''Mind Body Spirit'' magazine as one of the 100 Most Spir ...
(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.


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. Lloyd 2012. pp. 235


Synopsis

''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. One reviewer noted that the alterations made for the 1986 edition "often creates a vivid contrast with events and persons first described in 1979." Herndobler 1987.


1996 revision


2006 revision

The 2006 edition includes a new section on Greencraft (pp. 127–129), a Wiccan tradition emerging out of an
Alexandrian Wicca Alexandrian Wicca or Alexandrian Witchcraft is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, founded by Alex Sanders (also known as "King of the Witches") who, with his wife Maxine Sanders, established the tradition in the United Kingdom in th ...
coven A coven () is a group or gathering of witches. The word "coven" (from Anglo-Norman ''covent, cuvent'', from Old French ''covent'', from Latin ''conventum'' = convention) remained largely unused in English until 1921 when Margaret Murray promote ...
, and which features its own
rune Runes are the letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, a ...
alphabet and a non-
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
form of
Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
based on work by Neopagan author R. J. Stewart; it emphasizes the practice of Wicca as a nature religion and as a
mystery religion Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiation rite, initiates ''(mystai)''. The main characterization of this religion i ...
. It also gives a more complete and sympathetic treatment of the Northern European Neopagan revivals grouped under the rubric " Heathenism," which she admits to having consciously omitted from the first edition because of discomfort with the more conservative social values of this form of Pagan revival, and because some far-right and even
neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
groups were using it as a front for their activities at the time (pp. 286–296). And she prefaces her chapter "Women, Feminism, and the Craft," which discusses the emergence of 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 The ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', formerly the ''Journal of Bible and Religion'', is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). The ''JAAR'' was e ...
'', Mara E. Donaldson of the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
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". In a 1996 paper discussing the various sociological studies that had then been made of Paganism, the sociologist
Sarah M. Pike Sarah M. Pike is an American author and professor of comparative religion in the Department of Religious studies at California State University, Chico. Her interests include paganism, environmentalism, religion and ecology, and ritual studies. He ...
noted that ''Drawing Down the Moon'' had gone "a long way towards answering the question" as to "what makes these agan ritualactivities 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 Nachman Ben-Yehuda ( he, נחמן בן יהודה; born 8 March 1948) is a professor emeritus and former dean of the department of sociology and anthropology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. Masada myth One of his notable subjects o ...
, which Pike felt had failed to answer this question. Pike 1996. p. 362. 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"." 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." Pike 1996. p. 363.


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."


Influence


Pagan community

Writing in his later biography of
Eddie Buczynski Edmund "Eddie" Buczynski (January 28, 1947 – March 16, 1989) was a prominent American Wiccan and archaeologist who founded two separate traditions of Wicca: Welsh Traditionalist Witchcraft and The Minoan Brotherhood. Born to a working-class fa ...
, the Pagan independent scholar Michael G. Lloyd noted that Adler's book was a marked departure from earlier books dealing with Pagan Witchcraft which continued to equate it with either historical Early Modern witchcraft or Satanism. In her 1999 study of American Wiccans, '' A Community of Witches'', the sociologist Helen A. Berger noted that ''Drawing Down the Moon'' had been influential in getting many Wiccans to accept the non-existence of a historical
Witch-Cult The witch-cult hypothesis is a discredited theory that states the witch trials of the Early Modern period were an attempt to suppress a pre-Christian, pagan religion that had survived the Christianisation of Europe. According to its proponents, t ...
from which their religion descended. Along with
Starhawk Starhawk (born Miriam Simos on June 17, 1951) is an American feminist and author. She is known as a theorist of feminist Neopaganism and ecofeminism. In 2013, she was listed in Watkins' ''Mind Body Spirit'' magazine as one of the 100 Most Spir ...
's ''
Dreaming the Dark ''Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics'' is a 1982 book by Starhawk about magic, spirituality, politics, ethics, and sex. Along with Margot Adler's '' Drawing Down the Moon'' (1979), the book politicized practices of Paganism and witchcra ...
'' (1982), Adler's book politicized practices of Paganism and witchcraft by emphasizing their radical and feminist aspects, and as a result drew many
radical feminists Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other ...
into their orbit.


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. Orion 1995. p. 7.


Editions

* Original edition 1979, hardcover, (Viking, New York) * Original edition 1979, paperback, (Beacon Press, Boston) * Revised edition 1986, paperback, (Beacon Press, Boston) * Revised edition 1996, paperback, (Penguin, New York) * Revised edition 2006, paperback, (Penguin, New York)


References


Footnotes


Bibliography

;Academic books and papers * * * * * * * * * * * * ;Book reviews * * ;Other sources *


Reviews

*Bittner, Amy
'Review of Margot Adler, ''Drawing Down the Moon''
*Dangler, Michael

*Donaldson, Mara E. Untitled review in ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', Vol. 50, No. 2 (Jun., 1982), pp. 303–304.


Interviews

* ''The Wiccan / Pagan Times''

{{Authority control 1979 non-fiction books Pagan studies books Modern paganism in the United States Viking Press books Books about folklore 1970s in modern paganism