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…)

A waltz with me? I’m sure men would kill for that. But why the stampede? Would it be because I’m gorgeous and witty or could it be because I’m a life-line to personal power and magic? Difficult question. But nothing’s too difficult for India’s beloved witch. How do most people react to me — I mean apart from overawed men? They’re amazed at my guts, curious about my amazing youthfulness, (you know that line, about ‘her loveliness goes on and on’), and yes, I’ll be frank, most wives are a tad envious. In fact, sometimes terribly resentful. Specially since my autobiography Beloved Witch zoomed in and up and refused to come down from the top.

But fascinating though the subject is, let’s stop talking about me for a while. What is ‘Wicca’? It comes from the old English ‘Wicce’ meaning the craft of the wise. An ancient branch of wisdom, going back, some historians believe, nearly 25,000 years (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…)

More than 2,000 years after Alexander the Great founded the city, archaeologists are discovering its fabled remains, from the likely site of Cleopatra’s palace to pieces of an astonishing lighthouse that was one of the Seven Wonders of the World

There’s no sign of the grand marbled metropolis founded by Alexander the Great on the busy streets of this congested Egyptian city of five million, where honking cars spouting exhaust whiz by shabby concrete buildings. But climb down a rickety ladder a few blocks from Alexandria’s harbor, and the legendary city suddenly swims into view. (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…)

New Bedford, MA - Shawn Poirier talked to the dead for a living. Now he is among them.

Death was Mr. Poirier’s spiritual haunt and his livelihood. (more…)

After a rocket-propelled grenade struck Army Sgt. Patrick Dana Stewart’s helicopter Sept. 25, 2005, in Afghanistan, his widow, Roberta, faced religious prejudice.

Roberta applied to have the symbol of her husband’s faith placed on his grave marker in Nevada, but the Department of Veterans Affairs refused. The VA does not recognize Stewart’s religion, Wicca, often called witchcraft. (more…)