This is Religion News Blog's news page on Witchcraft. See our front page for more religion news.

Dozens of villagers in the Kenyan district of Kisii are falling prey to superstitious groups accusing them of witchcraft.

The poverty-stricken western district, known as Kenya’s sorcery belt, has seen an increase in mob attacks on individuals and even killings.

The poor and elderly in particular are being targeted. [video]
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Witchcraft, more recently repackaged by some as Wicca, is a pagan and/or neo-pagan religion.

Sadly, as many of the items in our Witchcraft news tracker show, throughout much of the world both practitioners and non-practitioners of witchcraft are subject to persecution based on superstitious beliefs.
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Of course it isn’t all that unusual for a pastor to claim healing powers. Witness the blow-dried televangelists of America and elsewhere, who often advertise their dramatic healing powers in infomercials.

But in western Kenya the belief in the supernatural is far deeper, and the line between Christianity and the occult is thin at best.
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An increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of “witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.

Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

“It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity,” said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria. [video]
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A memoir by George W Bush’s former speechwriter claims that Bush administration officials objected to giving JK Rowling a presidential medal of freedom on the grounds that her Harry Potter books “encouraged witchcraft”.

Latimer, whose memoir Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor was published last week by Crown in the US, says that the “narrow thinking” of “people in the White House” led them “to actually object to giving the author JK Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged witchcraft“.

See also: Harry Potter is converting Christian critics, Christian themes abound in Potter and How the boy wizard won over religious critics — and the deeper meaning theologians now see in his tale
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GENEVA (Reuters) – Murder and persecution of women and children accused of being witches is spreading around the world and destroying the lives of millions of people, experts said Wednesday.

The experts — United Nations officials, civil society representatives from affected countries and non-governmental organization (NGO) specialists working on the issue — urged governments to acknowledge the extent of the persecution.

Aides to U.N. special investigators on women’s rights and on summary executions said killings and violence against alleged witch women — often elderly people — were becoming common events in countries ranging from South Africa to India.

And community workers from Nepal and Papua New Guinea told the seminar, on the fringes of a session of the U.N.’s 47-member Human Rights Council, that “witch-hunting” was now common, both in rural communities and larger population centres.
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ADAMSTOWN, Pa. — In the rolling hills of deeply religious rural Pennsylvania sits Stoudtburg Village, a tiny hamlet modeled on a German town. On weekends, tourists come here to visit shops on the ground floors of closely set three-story houses painted bright colors on pedestrian-only streets.

But this weekend, plans for a nature-worshipping group of modern pagans and witches to hold a festival in this picturesque section of Adamstown are getting a mixed reception, with some shop owners welcoming the visitors but others saying they plan to close.
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In many African countries, as in other parts of the world, children are blamed for causing illness, death and destruction, prompting some communities to put them through harrowing punishments to “cleanse” them of their supposed magical powers.

Pastors have been accused of worsening the problem by claiming to have powers to recognize and exorcise “child witches,” sometimes for a fee, aid workers said.
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The RNB Religion News Roundup for Friday, Apr. 24, 2009 includes items about Scientology, Aum Shinrikyo, Korean cult leader Jeong Myeong-Seok, the continuing popularity of Aum Shrinrikyo’s jailed cult leader, and China’s on-going ban on Falun Gong.

Also: • A US state must pay benefits to the wife of a Jehovah’s Witness who died after refusing a blood transfusion  • A killer turned pastor upsets his victim’s son  • Nigerian preacher speaks out against witch hunts  • Vampire story gets demoted…

Plus: what do you see? Pareidolia?
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Victims of a purge on witchcraft in the secretive west African state of Gambia have told of horrific ordeals including rape after being force-fed potions inducing hallucinations.

According to Amnesty International and anonymous police sources in Gambia, as many as 1,000 people have been kidnapped and held by so-called witch hunters backed by armed men carrying out orders from the Gambian authorities.
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Lawrence Harris, 26, who had an interest in witchcraft, told police his two stepdaughters had died when a spell he cast to protect their teenage brother reversed itself, killing them. His attorneys attempted to prove he was legally insane.

But after two weeks of testimony, jurors took only a couple of hours Thursday to find Harris guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.
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Police testified they took black and white candles from Harris’ home last January, along with bells, a necklace, and several books on Witchcraft.

The knife Police found in a master bedroom closet tested positive for Alysha Suing’s blood and Larry Harris’ fingerprints.
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Officer Williams said Harris became more upset — hunching over, dry heaving — when firefighters brought the girls’ bodies out of the house.

Officer Charlotte Gorter testified that when she asked Harris what he thought could have started the fire, he told her it might have been a consequence of a spell.

Harris said he practiced witchcraft, Gorter said, explaining that a spell might have reversed.
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After more than a year of preparation and several delays, a jury will hear from attorneys and witnesses today as the double-murder trial of Lawrence Douglas Harris Sr. begins.

Harris, 26, is accused of killing his young stepdaughters during some kind of ritual. He has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers will try to prove that he was legally insane when the crimes were committed.
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In the basement, officers find candles, Larry’s ritual knife, stained with DNA from one of the girls, a symbol of Baphomet, representing Satan and believed to have occult power, bells and an amulet with an inverted pentagram — all items used in rituals described in “The Satanic Bible.”

Larry tells police he has a spell notebook in his and Marla’s bedroom closet. The notebook contains drawings from the book “Pagan Ways,” references found in the occult fiction book “Necronomicom” and page numbers corresponding to “The Satanic Bible,” including one specific spell.
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A woman in rural Papua New Guinea was bound and gagged, tied to a log and set ablaze on a pile of tires this week, possibly because villagers suspected her of being a witch, police said Thursday.

Her death adds to a growing list of men and women who have been accused of sorcery and then tortured or killed in the South Pacific island nation, where traditional beliefs hold sway in many regions
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Increasingly Nigerian children accused of witchcraft are tortured, murdered or abandoned. The director of one child protection agency says the teachings of some churches are partly to blame.

“Churches have strong influence on people and some church leaders get some parents to sheepishly believe that their kids are witches and wizards. This is the focus of most of these churches, which have departed from preaching righteousness and salvation of souls to stigmatisation of children as witches and wizards.”
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A belief in witches and the evils purportedly wrought by them – from famine to sporting failure – is widespread among tribal communities in the country’s impoverished rural hinterland.

It is estimated that 750 people, mostly elderly women, have been killed in witch-hunts in the states of Assam and West Bengal since 2003.

Also: Some academics claim that witch-hunts are an economic phenomenon.

Related: 16-year-old girl was beaten to death by villagers.
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A student accused of assaulting a teacher with water and a lighter because he believed she was a witch who needed to be purified was ordered Thursday to undergo a psychiatric examination to determine whether he is competent to stand trial.

Darin Najor, 20, of Ferndale is charged with misdemeanor assault and battery.
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A Kenyan pastor who prayed to protect Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin from witches is being criticized at home after it emerged that his chief claim to power – that he forced an evil, spell-casting woman from town – was false.

The woman in question is preaching just down the road from his church. [video]
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Campaigners are seeking a posthumous pardon for the men and women who were executed as British witches centuries ago.

More than 400 people were put to death in England for alleged witchcraft, and over 2,000 were executed in Scotland, before the 1735 Witchcraft Act put an end to the trials, they said.
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A 20-year-old man is facing an assault charge after allegedly accusing his English literature teacher of being a witch and then pouring liquid on her.

The man also threatened the teacher with a cigarette lighter and cigarette.
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A Southeast Arkansas woman who argued she lost custody of her son because of a judge’s perception of her alleged practice of Wicca lost her appeal Wednesday before a divided state Court of Appeals Wednesday.

In a 4-2 ruling, the appeals court affirmed a decision granting custody to the child’s father, though the judges disagreed on whether the lower court considered the mother’s religious beliefs.
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A football player’s alleged use of black magic has sparked a deadly riot at a stadium in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As is the case elsewhere in Africa, many Congolese hold traditional animist beliefs and use spells, fetishes and charms to practise witchcraft, often combined with other religions like Christianity or Islam.
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The old-fashioned attitudes and hierarchies of churches are causing a steep decline in the number of female worshippers, according to an academic study.

The report claims more than 50,000 women a year have deserted their congregations over the past two decades because they feel the church is not relevant to their lives.

It says that instead young women are becoming attracted to the pagan religion Wicca, where females play a central role, which has grown in popularity after being featured positively in films, TV shows and books.
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1. Shane Lynch: My Spell of Witchcraft
2. Teen witch caught up in spells
3. Witch School Opens Doors in Midwestern Town
4. Witches fight for symbols on gravestones
5. The Army Chaplain Who Wanted to Switch to Wicca? Transfer Denied.
6. Veterans Administration to decide on use of Wiccan symbols
7. A hallowed day for real witches
8. Witches call up magic in Mexico's Los Tuxtlas
9. Wicca is stepping out of the shadows
10. Wiccan ex-barista sues Starbucks over religion

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