"We're Not Out To Hurt Anybody."

It may not be what you believe, but it's still a religion.

Pagans say they're usually misunderstood and rarely given a fair shot.

This is no movie, no Hollywood set, no game of dress-up.

You're going inside a very real and very reclusive religious ritual, performed by Pagans.

They call themselves Wiccans. Full Story

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Witchcraft Behind Wire

Canada's federal prisons are becoming bewitched.

According to figures obtained by Sun Media under Access to Information, the number of practising Wiccans and Pagans behind bars has tripled in the last five years. In 2002 there were just 25, compared to 77 in 2007, data from the Correctional Service of Canada show.

Also known as Witchcraft, Earth Religion and The Craft, Wicca falls under the umbrella faith of Paganism and has followers who worship Mother Nature rather than scripture.

Richard James, the Toronto-based founder and high priest of the Wiccan Church of Canada, has been involved in prison outreach programs and believes the official count is "woefully understated." More and more inmates are turning to Wicca because they've been let down by other faiths, he said. Full Story

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A Story Of Witchcraft And Wickedness

A violent, tragic and enthralling chapter in the history of the Vale of Belvoir will be laid bare in a new book released next week.

'Wicked Practise and Sorcerye: The Belvoir Witchcraft case of 1691', takes an in depth look at how a community came to turn on its own- leading to the hanging of two young women for witchcraft.

The story is told by Michael Honeybone, a former history teacher at St. Wulfram's Comprehensive School and author of the Book of Grantham, the Book of Bottesford and The Vale of Belvoir. Full Story

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Clearing the Air Charm

Color of the day: Black
Incense of the day: Sandalwood

Sometimes family members just need to clear the air so we can move on and create healthier, happier relationships. To clear the energy in your home today, clear the air—literally. To make a cleansing spray you can use for several months, add eight to ten drops of the essential oil of orange or lemon to half a cup of distilled water in a dark glass bottle with spray top. Invert the bottle three times to mix the ingredients. Hold the bottle while the rest of the family stands around you, everyone touching a hand or shoulder so that you are all connected. Remind them of the feelings of love, comfort, and laughter that you have shared. Have everyone imagine your family bonds as strong and joyful. Then send that energy into the bottle. Whenever you feel the need to clear the air, spray this around and loving energy will fill your home.

By: Kristin Madden

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A Tisket, A Tasket, Create A May Day Basket To Celebrate The Holiday

For those who celebrate May Day, it's all about the ding-dong-ditch - ringing a neighbour's doorbell, leaving a basket of flowers or candy and then racing to hide. Kids love it and so do some shameless adults.

The May 1 holiday goes virtually unnoticed for many people in North America States but it's a great opportunity to teach our children how to do nice things for other people.

May Day wasn't always an obscure, secular holiday. A thousand years ago, the Celtic pagans of the British Isles celebrated it as a cherished holiday that marked the beginning of the growing season. Full Story

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How To Sing Like A Planet

This is the kind of thing we forget.

This is the kind of thing that, given all our distractions, our celeb obsessions and happy drugs and bothersome trifles like family and bills and war and health care and sex and love and porn and breathing and death, tends to fly under the radar of your overspanked consciousness, only to be later rediscovered and brought forth and placed directly in front of your eyeballs, at least for a moment, so you can look, really look, and go, oh my God, I had no idea.

The Earth is humming. Full Story

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Stumbling Toward Stonehenge

What a week of contrasting images we’ve been treated to: The vicar of God jets west to meet with the president in Washington, while the nation’s nuttiest ex-presidential peanut farmer jets east to cuddle terrorists in Cairo.

Pope Benedict XVI washes the feet of his flock with apologies for priestly sins, while Jimmy Carter apologizes to Hamas for America’s sins.

Hillary and Barack squabble over who’s less elitist and who can better deliver government manna to Pennsylvania’s embittered Bible-clutching flock, while the pope reaffirms the Founders’ vision: Rights and freedoms flow from God, not government.

It seems to me that society stumbled, on that spring day in 1966, when Time Magazine notified Americans that God was dead. Full Story

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