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 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…)

A small but enthusiastic crowd was gathered in Tappan Square with some people decked out in skirts and capes and sporting their finest piercings, while others were dressed in everyday clothing. But everyone was there last Saturday to experience the Beltaine Festival, which Tim Sullivan, an Oberlin resident and part-time student who helped organize the event, called a “Renaissance-esque Fair with a pagan bent.”

The Oberlin Pagan Awareness Network has been planning since September to get the festival — which is its biggest event of the year and the one most open to nonmembers — off the ground. The Beltaine holiday is an Irish tradition related to the May Day festival that celebrates renewal, rebirth and fertility in the moment between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. (more…)

Though Vermont has a reputation for being tolerant and accepting, one local high school student recently learned that disrespect has many faces. And sometimes it can be scary.
The student, a 15-year-old Marlboro resident who practices Wicca, never expected to have her beliefs attacked in the form of an offhand joke.

“I told him several times to knock it off, but he didn’t stop,” said Gwen Williams, about a classmate who was quoting from a Monty Python movie. (more…)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan–Members of the Wiccan religion celebrated the arrival of spring outside the Christian fellowship centre at the NATO military base here.

Canadian Maj. Malcolm Berry smiles as he recalls being approached a few weeks ago by a group of soldiers of the Wiccan faith – a neo-pagan religion strongly tied to nature. (more…)

Magic
1. The unseen motivating power of the universe or creation, and the thread that determines all the laws of nature.
2. The physical practices required to bring about what the practitioners are trying to bring about, and the praying and calling upon the Divine to make happen whatever part they can’t complete. (more…)

Southern Illinois - A group of slightly less than 30 people, some sporting rabbit ears, stood in a circle around a small wooden floor in the Davis-McCann Center in Murphysboro Saturday night, tracing the outline of their bodies with eggs.

The high priestess of the ceremony, Tara Nelsen, instructed the group that doing this would help pull the negativity out of their lives and breaking the eggs would completely remove it. (more…)

Springdale, AK - “This is the time of spring’s return — the joyful time, the seed time, when life bursts forth from the earth and the chains of winter are broken. Light and dark are equal. It is a time of balance, when all the elements within us can be brought into a new harmony. …

“This time of year is pregnant with new beginnings. Life emerges from the cocoon of winter. We open ourselves to balance and joy.” (more…)

A 200-year-old tree at the centre of worship by druids and witches has been chopped down to size after it became diseased.

The 80ft beech at Winterbourne Abbas has been reduced to a 10-metre stump by English Heritage because of fears it would die and fall over. (more…)

Sydney, Australia - On A darkened hilltop, against a rolling backdrop of electric storms, a group of Sydney pagans gather to celebrate the full moon.

Dressed mainly in black, some in hooded cloaks, one in top hat and suit, these adherents of one of Australia’s fastest growing religions, stake out their church by placing candles at four compass points, and invoke the four elements of earth, water, fire and air. (more…)