My article below will appear in the April 2026 issue of the Fraternal Chronicle ISSN 3069-535X. A huge thank you to Past Grand Arch Druid Greer and Grablnd Arch Druid if Fire Campbell for their help. The Fraternal Chronicle website is www.fraternalchronicle.com
Up In Smoke
The history of American fraternalism is often a story of meticulous minute books, financial ledgers and various ephemera. But for the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), the trail into the past is not paved with ink and paper; it is with the ashes of a 1998 purge and attempted erasure.
In an email exchange with the Fraternal Chronicle, John Michael Greer, Past Grand Archdruid and the primary architect of the order’s modern revival, revealed the obstacles facing historians and researchers of the AODA tradition. According to Greer, in 1998 the then-Grand Archdruid Robert Johnson attempted to dissolve the order, destroying nearly all records and paraphernalia in the process.
“All we have now are scraps,” Greer noted, “and nearly all of those are included in the history lecture on our website.”
For readers of the Chronicle, many of whom are active in the Masonic or Odd Fellows traditions, the most provocative revelation lies in Greer’s theory regarding the AODA’s parent body, the Ancient Archaeological Order of Druids (AAOD).
Greer hypothesizes that the original Druidic rituals were essentially “reverse-engineered” Masonic degrees. In the 19th century, it was a common belief that Freemasonry was a direct survival of ancient Druidry. Greer suggests that founders like Robert Wentworth Little attempted to strip the “British Craft” degrees back to what they imagined were their “Druid originals.”
This connection, however, carried significant risk. “I know exactly what would have happened to Bro. James Manchester [the 1912 reorganizer of the AODA] if anyone in any U.S. Grand Lodge had found out what they were up to,” Greer said, implying that the early AODA operated with the extreme secrecy typical of a clandestine Masonic body.
The transition from a fraternal lodge to a nature-based spiritual path was not a sudden shift, but a gradual evolution and one that left physical traces well into the 21st century.
When Greer took the mantle of Grand Archdruid in 2003, he found the order at a “low ebb,” still clinging to its fraternal DNA. “There were still significant elements of Blue Lodge ritual in the AODA ceremonies when I got to work on them,” he recalled. “The officers still wore the same jewels worn in a Blue Lodge.”
Under Greer’s leadership, the rituals were extensively rewritten to remove these Masonic remnants, a move designed to allow “regular” Masons to participate in the AODA without the conflict of joining an unauthorized Masonic body. This followed an earlier revision by Juliet Ashley, who had infused the rituals with Jungian psychology mid-century.
As of writing this article, the Ancient Order of Druids in America has more than three thousand members and has four chartered groves, and seven chartered nemetons. A grove is run by an Adept which is a 3rd degree member. A nemeton can be run by a Companion which is a 2nd degree member. Despite the AODA’s current growth, the “Golden Age” of fraternalism remains a black hole for fraternal writers and historians.
Today, the AODA stands as a unique survivor of the fraternal era, though its bridge to the 19th century is held together by the memories of only a few elderly members and the scattered records that they have. For the modern historian, it remains a puzzle of what might have been, had all the records survived the flames of 1998.