Witchcraft goes mainstream

By Sarah Marsh

LONDON (Reuters) - Witchcraft got its annual public outing on Wednesday with the celebrations surrounding Halloween when the occult comes into its own.

And prominent witches say that after generations in the dark, witchcraft is becoming increasingly mainstream boosted by television programmes such as "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" and Harry Potter mania.

"Witches are getting more and more in demand. People want a pagan wedding," said Maxine Sanders, high priestess of the sacred mysteries and a promoter of the modern nature-based witchcraft movement of Wicca.

Sanders said that witchcraft was a taboo religion when she was initiated into a Manchester coven aged 16, causing a rupture with her family:

"It was awful, the catholic priest was brought in with two altar boys, I was told to recant the devil, the police were brought in ..."

Sanders earned notoriety in the 1960s when a newspaper published pictures of her carrying out a ritual naked. She told Reuters that she and her husband "wanted the right to practise our religion and fought for that right."

People are more tolerant on the whole nowadays, she added, and more interested in witchcraft.

WITCHCRAFT GOES MAINSTREAM