<P> The earliest American Druid organizations were fraternal orders such as the United Ancient Order of Druids and the American Order of Druids . The former was a branch of a British organization that had split from the Ancient Order of Druids, while the latter was founded in Massachusetts in 1888 . Both were forms of fraternal benefit societies rather than religious or neo-pagan groups . </P> <P> In 1963, the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) was founded by students at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, a liberal arts college that required its members to attend some form of religious services . As a form of humorous protest against this rule, a group of students, who contained Christians, Jews and agnostics within their ranks, decided to create their own, non-serious religious group . Their protest was successful, and the requirement was scrapped in 1964 . Nonetheless, the group continued holding services, which were not considered Neopagan by most members, but instead thought of an inter-religious nature . From its beginning, the RDNA revolved around the veneration of the natural world, personified as Mother Earth, holding that religious truth could be found through nature . They had also adopted other elements of Neopaganism into their practices, for instance celebrating the festivals of the Wheel of the Year, which they had borrowed from the Neopagan religion of Wicca . </P> <P> While the RDNA had become a success, with new branches or "groves" being founded around the United States, the many Neopagan elements of the RDNA eventually rose to prominence, leading several groves to actively describe themselves as Neopagan . This was opposed by several of the group's founders, who wanted it to retain its inter-religious origins, and certain groves actually emphasized their connection to other religions: there was a group of Zen Druids in Olympia and Hassidic Druids in St. Louis for instance . Among those largely responsible for this transition towards Neopaganism within the organisation were Isaac Bonewits and Robert Larson, who worked in a grove located in Berkeley, California . Believing that the Reformed Druidic movement would have to accept that it was essentially Neopagan in nature, Bonewits decided to found a split - off group known as the New Reformed Druids of North America (NRDNA), which he defined as an "Eclectic Reconstructionist Neo-Pagan Priestcraft, based primarily upon Gaulish and Celtic sources". </P> <P> Bonewits still felt that many in the RDNA were hostile towards him, believing that he had infiltrated their group, and so in 1985 he founded a new, explicitly Neopagan Druidic group, Ár nDraíocht Féin (Our Own Druidism; a.k.a. ADF) and began publishing a journal, The Druid's Progress . Arguing that it should draw from pan-European sources, rather than just those that were considered "Celtic", he placed an emphasis on academic and scholarly accuracy, taking a stand against what he perceived as the prevalent pseudo-historical ideas of many Neopagans and Druids . In 1986, several members of Ár nDraíocht Féin openly criticized Bonewits for his pan-European approach, wishing modern Druidism to be inspired purely by Celtic sources, and so they splintered off to form a group called the Henge of Keltria . </P>

Who are druids and what do they believe