Isaac Bonewits

Bonewits was born on October 1, 1949, in Royal Oak, Michigan, as the fourth of five children. His father was a Presbyterian while his mother a Catholic. Spending much of his childhood in Ferndale, Michigan, he was moved at age 12 to San Clemente, California, where he spent a short time in a Catholic high school before he went back to public school to graduate from high school a year early. He enrolled at UC Berkeley in 1966 and graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in magic, perhaps becoming the first Bonewits, in his article "My Satanic Adventure", asserts that the rituals in Satanis were staged for the movie at the behest of the filmmakers and were not authentic ceremonies. ==Career==

1970s: writer and editor Bonewits' first book, Real Magic, was published in 1971. Between 1973 and 1975 Bonewits was employed as the editor of Gnostica magazine in Minnesota (published by Llewellyn Publications). He established an offshoot group of the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) called the Schismatic Druids of North America, and helped create a group called the Hasidic Druids of North America (despite, in his words, his "lifelong status as a gentile"). He also founded the short-lived Aquarian Anti-Defamation League (AADL), an early Pagan civil rights group. Bonewits was a regular presenter at Neopagan conferences and festivals all over the US, as well as attending gaming conventions in the Bay Area. He promoted his book Authentic Thaumaturgy to gamers as a way of organizing Dungeons & Dragons games. In 1983, Bonewits founded Ár nDraíocht Féin (also known as "A Druid Fellowship" or ADF), which was incorporated in 1990 in the state of Delaware as a U.S. 501(c)3 non-profit organization. and in January 2006 was the keynote speaker at the Conference On Current Pagan Studies at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA. ==Personal life==

Bonewits was married five times. He was married to Rusty Elliot from 1973 to 1976. His second wife was Selene Kumin Vega, followed by marriage to Sally Eaton (1980 to 1985). His fourth wife was author Deborah Lipp, from 1988 to 1998. On July 23, 2004, he was married in a handfasting ceremony to Phaedra Heyman Bonewits, a former vice-president of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. At the time of the handfasting, the marriage was not yet legal because he had not yet been legally divorced from Lipp, although they had been separated for several years. Paperwork and legalities caught up on December 31, 2007, making Bonewitz and Phaedra legally married. Bonewits' only child was born to Lipp in 1990. ==Illness and death==

In 1990, Bonewits was diagnosed with eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome. The illness was a factor in his eventual resignation from the position of Archdruid of the ADF. On October 25, 2009, Bonewits was diagnosed with a rare form of colon cancer, for which he underwent treatment. He died at home, on August 12, 2010, surrounded by his family. ==Accusations of sexual assault==

In 2018, Moira Greyland (daughter of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Walter Breen) accused Bonewits of sexually abusing her when she was six years old. Greyland wrote in her book, 'The Last Closet: the Dark Side of Avalon': In light of this accusation, ADF, the lead pagan organization that Issac Bonewits founded, removed his name from their website and repudiated him. ==Contributions to Neopaganism==

In his book Real Magic (1971), Bonewits proposed his "Laws of Magic". These "laws" are synthesized from a multitude of belief systems from around the world to explain and categorize magical beliefs within a cohesive framework. Many interrelationships exist, and some belief systems are subsets of others. This work was chosen by Dennis Wheatley in the 1970s to be part of his publishing project Library of the Occult. Bonewits also coined much of the modern terminology used to articulate the themes and issues that affect the North American Neopagan community. • Pioneered the modern usage of the terms "thealogy", "Paleo-Paganism", "Meso-Paganism", and numerous other retronyms. • Possibly coined the term "Pagan Reconstructionism", though the communities in question would later diverge from his initial meaning. • Founded Ar nDraiocht Fein, which was incorporated in 1990 in the state of Delaware as a U.S. 501(c)3 non-profit organization. • Developed the Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame (ABCDEF). • Coined the phrase "Never Again the Burning". • Critiqued the Burning Times / Old Religion Murray thesis (in ''Bonewits's Essential Guide to Witchcraft and Wicca''). • In his book Real Magic (1971), Bonewits proposed his hypothesis on the Laws of Magic, which were then elaborated in his RPG supplement Authentic Thaumaturgy. The book makes it clear it is an adaptation of the ideas from Real Magic to gaming with the Laws presented being abbreviated from those in Real Magic. == Bibliography ==

Music • Be Pagan Once Again! – Isaac Bonewits & Friends (including Ian Corrigan, Victoria Ganger, and Todd Alan) (CD) (ACE/ADF) • Avalon is Rising! – Real Magic (CD)(ACE/ADF) Spoken word • The Structure of Craft Ritual (ACE) • A Magician Prepares (ACE) • Programming Magical Ritual: Top-Down Liturgical Design (ACE) • Druidism: Ancient & Modern (ACE) • How Does Magic Work? (ACE) • Rituals That Work (ACE) • Sexual Magic & Magical Sex (with Deborah Lipp) (ACE) • Making Fun of Religion (with Deborah Lipp) (ACE) Panel discussions • The Magickal Movement: Present & Future (with Margot Adler, Selena Fox, and Robert Anton Wilson) (ACE) • Magick Changing the World, the World Changing Magick (with AmyLee, Selena Fox, Jeff Rosenbaum and Robert Anton Wilson) (ACE) ==References==