Patti's Paganism / Wicca Blog

An interesting bit of news out of Kentucky -- a London, KY, couple has lost their foster parenting privileges because they refused to stop attending a church in which snake-handling ... Read More

At the risk of sounding like a Pagan version of Martha Stewart, one of the things I love about the winter holidays is the food. There's lots of it, and ... Read More

Many of us in the Pagan and Wiccan community acknowledge the presence of spirit guides -- some of us have them, and those who don't have one generally know someone ... Read More

Several people have emailed me asking about books that are good reading for Pagan and Wiccan kids, and with the holidays rapidly approaching, I thought I'd put together a list ... Read More

We all remember the big "Satanic panic" scares of a couple of decades ago, where random people showed up on talk shows, weeping about the horrible abuse they'd endured at ... Read More

One popular mythos among neoPagans today is that of the Oak King and the Holly King, and it's not uncommon to see re-enactments of the battle between these two mighty ... Read More

No one partied quite like the ancient Romans, so it should come as no surprise that they had a huge way of celebrating around the time of the Winter Solstice. ... Read More

Check out your local tv listings, because PBS affilliates will be airing "Prayer in America" at various times over the next few weeks. The film is a documentary based on ... Read More

Ah, mistletoe. It's small, it's cute, and if you're really lucky, you might get a lip lock from someone special when you stand underneath it. Any plant that gets me ... Read More

Sometimes, it's hard to find a good balance of Yule with Christmas. In other words, we may want to celebrate the Winter Solstice as a Pagan or Wiccan holiday, but ... Read More

Yule is coming, and there are some seriously important questions that need to be looked at. Things like, "What the heck is a figgy pudding?" and "How come Santa can ... Read More

I love this time of year. The air is crisp and cool, the skies are a little gray, everything smells like falling leaves, and the evenings are just perfect for ... Read More

It's November, Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I've had my tonsils successfully removed... that can only mean one thing. It's time to start talking about Yule! How many of you have ... Read More

"Witchcraft Made Me Steal Beer." I think that pretty much says all there is to say.

Thanksgiving is next Thursday, and that can only mean one thing. It's time for the uber-conservatives to start howling about how the winter holidays aren't quite Christian enough. Case in ... Read More

A fascinating blog entry from Starhawk's On Faith column has gotten me thinking. She discusses the idea of forgiveness, and how, exactly, it is of benefit to us. Not to ... Read More

From the Pagan/Wiccan news files, an update on Fred Phelps and his cronies at Westboro Baptist Church. You may recall they were on the losing end of a $10M judgment, ... Read More

As if they didn't already have enough problems with public perception, the Los Angeles Police Department was briefly toying with the idea of "Muslim mapping," in which a database would ... Read More

Maxine Sanders, one of Wicca's living legends, has an autobiography she's about to release. Scheduled for its debut on November 23, Fire Child is being published by Mandrake of Oxford. ... Read More

From the Pagan/Wiccan magical email bag, a reader named Leigh says she's thinking about starting her own study group: "I have a few friends who are interested in Wicca as well. ... Read More

A temple estimated to be about four thousand years old has been unearthed in northern Peru, and archeologists say it could well be the oldest site in the Americas. According ... Read More

From the slightly-older-but-still-relevant Pagan Wiccan news files, the folks at WitchSchool are settling into their new digs in Rossville, Illinois. A story from USA Today points out that not everyone ... Read More

From the Pagan/Wiccan magical email bag, K-Bong writes, "I've been reading about Wicca and think it might be the right path for me. I hang out with a couple of ... Read More

From the Pagan Wiccan news files: In New Hampshire, the grave of an nineteenth-century woman was recently dug up and robbed, and a local police officer commented that it looked ... Read More

The other day, I glanced up and saw that the header at the top of my blog no longer said "Pagan/Wiccan Religion". Instead, it reads "Paganism/Wiccan". After my initial Whiskey Tango ... Read More

If this is true, it's possibly one of the stupidest things I've seen in ages. Rumor abounds among the Heathen/Asatru communities that social networking site MySpace may have banned the display ... Read More

Despite rapidly spreading rumors that lottery winner Elwood "Bunky" Bartlett was starting up his own version of Witch School with his winnings, it would appear that's not exactly the case. ... Read More

Margot Adler, author of the always-enlightening Drawing Down the Moon, appeared on Nevada's KNPR talking about how modern Paganism and Wicca have spread. You can listen to the podcast by ... Read More

Image © Patti Wigington Faith writes to the magical email bag: I'd like to use a Ouija board for divination, but someone told me they're evil. Is that true? Well, here's the ... Read More

So this weekend I was invited to attend the Buckeye Book Fair, which was huge fun. I met blog readers Opal and Jay, who stopped by to visit my table ... Read More

Although Yule is still a good six weeks away for those of us here in the northern hemisphere, it's never too soon to start planning -- especially if you're sending ... Read More

For those of you following along, a day or two ago attorneys for Damien Echols filed a 700-page brief stating that new forensic evidence shows that Echols and the two ... Read More