Australian Teenagers place faith in witchcraft
Pastor Dale Morgan
Australian Teenagers place faith in witchcraft*
Maxine Frith
September 30, 2007
MORE and more teenagers are signing up as trainee witches.
Witchcraft was once treated lightly in sitcoms such as Sabrina, The
Teenage Witch and Bewitched, or demonised in horror films, but it is
becoming increasingly mainstream.
In the last census more than 9000 Australians listed their religion as
Wicca, the witchcraft branch of paganism.
The number of Wiccans has increased fivefold in the past 15 years and
paganism as a whole is one of the fastest-growing religions in the
country - 0.13 per cent of the population are believers.
Wicca is a nature-based religion, which celebrates events such as full
moons and spring cycles, but it does not have a core orthodoxy.
Believers practise white magic - mixing herb potions and casting spells
- and perform rituals celebrating a goddess.
Rebecca Cox, 18, from Campbelltown, joined a local coven just over a
year ago and goes by the pagan name Malaika Skye. She performs rituals
in a park and casts spells with her partner, Ryan Thornton, whose pagan
name is Tempest Storm.