Christian activists briefly disrupted a Hindu invocation in the U.S Senate on Thursday, marring a historic first for the chamber and showing that fundamentalism is present and shouting in the U.S too. (more…)

By John CastellucciJournal Staff Writer  PAWTUCKET — On the face of it, there was nothing irregular about Rhode Island Pagan Pride’s plans for a Sept. 22 autumnal equinox festival in Slater Memorial Park.

There would be opportunities for pagans of all persuasions, including Wiccans, shamans and druids, to practice their religion. (more…)

by Terry Rombeck

It seems like discussions in faith circles about the evils or virtues of Harry Potter have simmered down since the first books and movies originally came out.

Or at least there seem to be fewer news stories about the religious debate. (more…)

THE SUSSEX Archaeological Society has apologised to protesters after they allowed a controversial stunt by ITV to give the Long Man of Wilmington a sex change.

ITV and the archaeological society caused fury among Pagans and other protesters when they allowed fashion gurus Trinny and Susannah to add breasts and pigtails to the figure many believe is sacred. (more…)

By Louise Flanagan

Witches are not criminals, but have religious and spiritual rights too.

That’s the argument the South African Pagan Rights Alliance (Sapra) wants to use to protect the belief of witchcraft against a newly proposed bill. (more…)

People accused of witchcraft in America aren’t executed anymore (we are 300 years and a First Amendment away from Puritan Massachusetts). These days they just lose their jobs.

Don Larsen discovered this the hard way. A year ago, Larsen was a Pentecostal Christian minister serving as an Army chaplain in Iraq. But then he converted to Wicca, whose members are self-described witches, and applied to become the first Wiccan chaplain in the U.S. armed forces. (more…)

Before playing Tituba, the alleged conjurer and caster of spells from Barbados, one year in the class play at Parkview High, the most mileage I’d logged was a summer road trip’s distance between Little Rock and Baton Rouge. This was during a time when an authentic Caribbean clip was hard to hear in my Arkansas hometown.

Ignorant, I affected an accent I’m certain was astonishingly off kilter, though the drama teacher seemed hardly to have noticed. She gave me wide berth. Down on my knees onstage, I begged for mercy in some dreamt-up voice of a black woman who, in real life and in Arthur Miller’s border-shattering play “The Crucible,” was enslaved on a Barbadian sugar plantation, then carted by the plantation owner, a London-born Harvard grad and self-appointed preacher, into servitude in his Puritan household in Salem, Mass. Based on accusations by the owner’s young daughters, Tituba was the first woman tried in the famous Salem witch trials of four centuries ago. (more…)

Pagans want to sit alongside Christians, Jews and Muslims on a body which influences how religion is taught in Plymouth schools. Practising Pagan Laura Watters, from St Budeaux, has written to Plymouth City Council, Devon County Council and Cornwall County Council asking for a place on each authority’s Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE).

Mrs Watters has even met Cornish council chiefs in Truro to discuss the matter, and all three councils say they are willing to include the issue in talks. (more…)

Mocksville, NC - William Russell Shaver never thought that the MySpace page he shares with his wife would get him into trouble.

But it did.

Last year, he lost his job as a high-school bus driver for Davie County Schools and was asked to leave the Cooleemee Volunteer Fire Department, where he was a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician. (more…)

A witch who worked in a school told pupils she could teach them spells, an employment tribunal heard today.

Sommer De La Rosa, 34, a practising white witch of the Wiccan faith, is claiming unfair dismissal after being sacked from the Dorothy Stringer school in Brighton, East Sussex. (more…)