“This morning, August 12, 2010 at approximately 8 AM ET, Isaac Bonewits passed away peacefully in his sleep. All his brothers and sisters arrived at his side last night. His family and friends surround him now.”
I met Isaac in 1975 at the beginning of my journey along this path. I have always viewed him as one of my touchstones ... May the blessings of the Sea be with him, may the blessings of the Land be with him, may the blessings of the Sky be with him. May the Sidhe welcome him with open arms, and in time may we meet again.
His official obituary...
Philip Emmons Isaac Bonewits, founder and Archdruid Emeritus of of Ár nDraíocht
Féin: A Druid Fellowship, one of North America's leading experts on ancient and
modern Druidism, Witchcraft, magic and the occult, and the rapidly growing Earth
Religions movement, died today after a short struggle with cancer.
Mr. Bonewits first came into the public eye when he graduated from the
University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Magic and
Thaumaturgy (1970). During his tenure there, Mr. Bonewits worked with many
renowned professors including Nobel Prize Laureate Owen Chamberlain. The work he
did for that degree became his first book, Real Magic: An Introductory Treatise
on the Basic Principles of Yellow Magic (1971).
In 1983, he founded and became the first Archdruid of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid
Fellowship (ADF) an international fellowship devoted to creating a public
tradition of Neopagan Druidry. In 1995, he retired from a leadership role due to
complications from eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome. ADF has grown to become the
best-known Neopagan Druid group based in North America. At his death, Mr.
Bonewits held the title of ArchDruid Emeritus.
During his forty years as a Neopagan priest, scholar, teacher, bard, and
polytheologian, Isaac Bonewits coined much of the vocabulary and articulated
many of the issues that have shaped the rapidly growing Neopagan movement in the
United States and Canada.
Mr. Bonewits was internationally known as a speaker who educated, enlightened
and entertained two generations of modern Goddess worshippers, nature mystics,
and followers of other minority belief systems, as well as explained these
movements to journalists, law enforcement officers, college students, and
academic researchers.
His personal papers will become part of the American Religions Collection at the
Library of University of California at Santa Barbara.
One of his most influential contributions was the Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger
Evaluation Frame (the "ABCDEF"), developed in 1979 as a response to the Jim
Jones People's Temple tragedy. It has been translated into many languages and
used around the world to evaluate how dangerous or harmless an organization
might be. It was the first such scale to use theories of mental health and
personal growth to judge rather than theological or ideological standards.
His other books include Authentic Thaumaturgy (1979, 1998), The Pagan Man
(2005), Bonewits's Essential Guide to Witchcraft and Wicca (2006), Bonewits's
Essential Guide to Druidism (2006), Neopagan Rites (2007), and Real Energy
(2007), which was co-authored with his wife, Phaedra, as well as numerous
articles, reviews and essays. As a singer-songwriter, he released two albums, Be
Pagan Once Again (1988), and Avalon is Rising (1992).
He is survived by his wife, Phaedra, his son from a previous marriage, Arthur
Lipp-Bonewits of Bardonia NY, his mother Jeannette, his brothers Michael and
Richard, and sisters Simone Arris and Melissa Banbury.
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