Christians, Pagans Compete (Gently) For Salem's Souls

By G. Jeffery MacDonald
Religion News Service

SALEM, Mass. (RNS) Paying customers were lined up outside witch houses and psychic parlors when 20-year-old Casey Sholes of Willimantic, Conn., finally stumbled across a place offering dream interpretations for free.

Inside, two interpreters at "The Vault" assured the aspiring nurse that despite her weird dream, the Creator has blessed her with special talents and a heart for the elderly.

It wasn't until she got up to leave that she learned she had just gotten a spiritual reading from Christian evangelists inside a church.

"I didn't even notice that this is a church," Stoles said, leaving the former bank building that's now home to a congregation called "The Gathering." "I'm just here for the spirit thing ... But (the interpreters) were pretty accurate. I love old people. So they're pretty good."

Every October, an estimated half-million visitors flock to this city that hanged witches in 1692 and wholeheartedly accepts them in 2010. Amidst the costumed revelry, pagans and Christians say they sense genuine hunger for spiritual depth and strive to help tourists embrace their respective traditions.

And in this festival atmosphere, both sides make a point not to vilify the other.

Founded 12 years ago, "The Gathering" has become so friendly with local witches that the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel cut its ties and funding, according to Pastor Phil Wyman.

But Wyman, whose church brings free personalized readings to about 3,000 people each October, has no regrets. He trains counselors not to fear witches and to disavow an "aggressive, warfare" mentality.

"That would ruin what we would do," Wyman said. "A dialogue is the only way that we're really going to find out what people think, what they really believe and where they stand. We have to be willing to hear what they believe as well as say what we believe. There's a give and take."

Salem's spiritual antenna is all abuzz during the Halloween season. Local Spiritualists, who regard Jesus as "a great medium," tell fortunes at their Angels Landing store, and invite the seriously curious to attend weekly circles for communicating with the dead.

But in this city best known for images of broomsticks and bubbling cauldrons, most people want to engage the witches, who worship both gods and goddesses in pagan rites that include casting spells and connecting with ancestral spirits.

"People come to Salem because of witches," said Rosemary Ellen Guiley, author of "The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca."

"It's been a flashpoint, a focal point and a Mecca for reclaiming witchcraft and for teaching it."

All throughout October, costumed partiers mix with ghost tour operators and vendors peddling wands, magic stones and other witchy paraphernalia. Visitors from near and far ask for disciplined direction in matters of love, health and money.

Laurie "Lorelei" Stathopoulos, who describes herself as a high priestess of witchcraft, called advice-seeking Catholics "my best clients" at her store, Crowe Haven Corner.

"They come in, they get readings, and they still stay Catholic," she said. "Their religion has had its ups and downs, so they're quite confused. They're not looking for a new religion, but they're looking for a little more hope and stability ... They don't want to go the church (for advice), but they'll come to me."

Pamela Lambert, a 46-year-old practicing Catholic from Dartmouth, Mass., said she makes a pilgrimage to Stathopoulos' shop every October.

"I'm a Christian, but I still have that spiritual side, too," Lambert said. "I believe in God, but I also believe in spirits. I'm fascinated by the whole season of witches, the October season. ...
People always look for answers."

Salem's witches tout their lifestyle as a peaceful one that honors humanity, animals and Earth alike. Lori Bruno, a local witch in her 70s, says witchcraft is the only religion whose practitioners never killed in the name of God.

"We hope more people will embrace the craft," Bruno said, "because it is for peace. It's not a religion that espouses war. We want mankind to shine -- like they were meant to. If you sat down with Jesus Christ, I'm sure he would say the same thing."

Witches here equip the curious to read books on witchcraft and to adopt individual practices, but they say no one -- not even Christians -- needs to renounce another religion in order to practice witchcraft.

"I'm not trying to convert anybody," said Kyri Spencer, a Salem witch with 30 years experience. "I encourage people to embrace witchcraft and their own belief system."

Both camps readily acknowledge that the other side sometimes wins converts. April, 29, grew up nearby and often visited local witchcraft museums as a teenager. One October, she accepted a free reading from The Gathering, and the conversation inspired her to learn more about Jesus.

"It was not Christianity as I was used to it, which was someone with a sign on the street, yelling at you," said Alario, who is now a Christian and attends The Gathering. "I went in to argue with them, but they were basically just very relaxed. They were asking me what I thought and believed. As I shared, I got to thinking: What do I believe?"

There are also moments of conflict. Wyman said some merchants who charge for readings -- from $35 to $150 -- have occasionally complained about his group's no-cost sessions. But occasional setbacks haven't kept Christians from getting involved in what they call a promising alternative to "classroom-style" Christianity.

Danette Strandell of St. Joseph, Mo., has tactfully brought the Christian message to various spiritual events, from London's Mind, Body, Spirit Festival to Burning Man in Nevada, where she met Wyman. This year, she added Salem to her list.

"What's happening here is part of a festival spirituality," said Strandell, who was one of Sholes' dream interpreters. "I came to get anything I can to help tear down walls of separation between people."

Comments

[Donald Simon]

06:36 AM on 10/27/2010

Lambert in this article says he believes in spirits but he also believes in God. Why does he see them as separate? What else does he see as separate from God? All is one.

[gappedtoothgodwarrior]

07:25 AM on 10/27/2010

"What else does he see as separate from God? All is one."
In your opinion sure, evidently he has a different theological world view.

[paleoimage]

12:58 PM on 10/26/2010

Far to many people are searching for imaginary "tricks and treats". Paganism, Christianity and religion, in general, are anti-intellectual and emotional relics from the bronze age. It's amazing that in 2010 grownups are still compelled to believe in childish fairy tales?

[brokerthanu]

07:02 PM on 10/25/2010

Pagans do not "compete for souls".

[gappedtoothgodwarrior]

07:20 AM on 10/27/2010

Actively? No probably not, but any alternative that exists in a market place is indeed a competitor for the demographic of other similar alternatives.

In a spiritual market place all faiths do indeed compete for the souls of those who might be looking for a spiritual outlet, even if they aren't actively proselyting/evangelizing.

[TeraWatt60]

12:48 AM on 10/25/2010

I always find it funny that so-called "Christians" really get so worked up in 2010 over things that ,by and large, were considered NOT worthy of consideration any longer even by the Church itself.

[Lisa Shields]

11:38 PM on 10/24/2010

Does anyone else find it ironic that they are "competing for souls" in a town we remember as the scene of religious hysteria, false accusation, and execution of the innocent?

So far as Tituba is concerned,she may have been aware of Yoruba, and its traditions, but she did not seem to be teaching the Protestant girls about the loa...or anything else of real significance. Like all the others, she was caught up in a wave of intolerance.

It should be noted that there was a bit of a land grab involved, as well. The land and holdings of the accused passed into the hands of some of the families of their accusers. A public penance was done years later...but none of the property was ever returned.Salem is the last place I would be trying to sell the Christian religion.

[gappedtoothgodwarrior]

04:01 PM on 10/25/2010

Nah, the reason I mention Tituba was that, in all likelihood she probably did know a bit of folk magic (nothing so much as a religious belief, just the fun little spells people tend to know if they are rural enough).

So she probably was the closest thing to a witch as far as the residents of Salem would understand it.

She also survived the hysteria, which was lucky.

[Bencaith]

11:12 PM on 10/25/2010

I'm extracting this from your dismissive attitude toward a woman who treated young women as people with minds of their own: "she probably did know a bit of folk magic (nothing so much as a religious belief, just the fun little spells people tend to know if they are rural enough)." This denigration of a way of being is why we pagans have mixed feelings about the word "pagan," which means something akin to "country bumpkin." Comments like yours, though, remind me why we embrace the term as a point of resistance against the religious bigotry of many Abrahamic believers. A reminder: one person's folk magic is another person's method of communing with the world or science. Some of the atheists on this page would relish the opportunity to pont out that you, too, are given to what they would call superstitions, no better than the "fun little spells" that we pagans presumably practice. The difference would be that the atheists are not (intentionally) being hypocritical or self-deceptive.

[kwinter]

12:06 PM on 10/24/2010

It appears that in Salem ... any woo will do.

Alert the Scientologists, alert Chopra, Lanza, the TVangelicals ... there's money to be made!

[Mag7]

10:49 AM on 10/23/2010

Salem is a beautiful place rich with history. But then you have the goth persona walking around like there's some mystical power that inhabits them, and frankly I feel sorry for them, and Salem. And there never were witches there, just religious hysteria and the effects it had on the young girls who started the episode.

[Bencaith]

11:28 PM on 10/25/2010

I am a pagan of a different strain than those of the Wiccan strain, so I do not want to misrepresent their unique views. Nevertheless, their are commonalities enough for me to respond. The Witches are not claiming Salem's persecuted as Witches; instead, they revering their lives, lives which were lost in the Church Fathers' attack on the literal and figurative "wilderness." Along with Native Americans (or American Indians) displaced and slaughtered by the colonists, they were a blood sacrifice to the New Canaan--a means toward the end of cleansing the New World of evil. As Nathaniel Hawthorne reminds us, though, the evil was created and executed by the colonists themselves--not by the Christian God or the Christian Satan. The pagan reverence for the Salem victims, therefore, is also a way of symbolically purging our country and our world of that evil.

[gappedtoothgodwarrior]

09:36 PM on 10/26/2010

"I am a pagan of a different strain than those of the Wiccan strain"
And yet just as fluffy as so many wanna-blessed-bes.

[Kiri the Unicorn]

09:43 PM on 10/22/2010

Also: I think it's pretty funny that many modern Wiccans embrace the victims of Salem (and of the European persecutions) as their own. Those poor folks would probably be appalled at the association, if they but knew!

[terragazelle60]

07:17 PM on 10/23/2010

Unicorn...so they would be appalled at the association with us? Religious bigotry is not nice.

You are the type of people that will say..."But I am not a bigot."

[gappedtoothgodwarrior]

07:31 PM on 10/23/2010

And you are incredibly, abundantly ignorant. Unicorn is right, the people who died in Salem were christian and would have been horrified by those who actually practiced things similar to what they were executed falsely for doing.

[Kiri the Unicorn]

09:04 AM on 10/24/2010

I was making the observation that the overwhelming majority of those people who were persecuted for practicing "witchcraft" were in fact good Christians who'd want nothing to do with modern Wicca.

Disclosure: for a time I was a practicing Wiccan/neopagan. I wrote rituals, brewed sacramental cider, joined a coven, did the spiral dance, the whole bit. I gave it up when I felt done with it. Please be more careful of who you call a bigot.

[Bencaith]

11:36 PM on 10/25/2010

Unlike people of the Abrahamic religions, we pagans are not restricted from unequivocally honoring people of other beliefs or non-beliefs. Whether the victims of the Salem atrocities--not to mention the atrocities committed during the Reformation, Anti-Reformation, ethnic cleansing in the 20th-century Balkans, or in today's Sudan--would be "appalled" is beside the point. The fact that fellow humans, regardless of religion, have been hunted down and murdered in blood sacrifices is what we mourn, and their life energy is what we honor.

[Kiri the Unicorn]

09:36 PM on 10/22/2010

Of course everyone is getting along with each other in Salem. There's money to made off all the tourists; religious strife would be bad for business!

[gappedtoothgodwarrior]

08:07 PM on 10/22/2010

"this city that hanged witches in 1692"
No, it didn't for a coupel of reasons.

1) The place where the hysteria was centered is actually the town up the road, it changed it's name from Salem years ago because the inhabitants were deeply ashamed of what their ancestors had done

2) None of the people hung (or indeed pressed under stones or burnt at the stake in other witch hysteria of history) were actually witches, well maybe Tituba (and she escaped the worst of it). No, they were fellow Christians just like the ones baying for their "evil" blood.

[c.w.]

12:28 PM on 10/22/2010

"The Gathering" is an offshoot of the Foursquare Gospel International Church. Despite the fact that the congregation has been officially kicked out of the Church for being too friendly with those Pagans, the Gathering's website still proudly proclaims their allegiance the the Foursquare Gospel Church.

The Church in question is one of the largest sub-sects of the worldwide Pentecostalist movement. And like most other Pentecostalists, the Foursquare folks are actively engaged in the systematic eradication of the surviving indigenous spiritual traditions of Latin America and Africa under the guise of "missionary work."

Pagans should have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Christians who are enthusiastically committed to the kind of cultural genocide that the Foursquare Gospel Church promotes and engages in!

[Weirdwriter]

11:36 PM on 10/21/2010

Interesting article. Shows that people of very different religious beliefs can find common ground when they put common decency and courtesy ahead of self-righteousness and distrust.

[LynneE]

12:34 AM on 10/25/2010

Yes, as has been shown in Salem in the past.

[Bencaith]

09:54 PM on 10/21/2010

There should be no competition because Christians and most pagans live according to widely divergent values. As a pagan, I revere the victims, most of whom were actually devout Christians, for their strength in the face of rabid intolerance, propaganda, hypocrisy, misogyny, and scape-goating. Christians are concerned about being forgiven, saving souls, and transcendence. Pagans of most stripes are not. I, for one, see what happened as an horrific, perverse blood sacrifice performed by people who wanted to reassure themselves of their exceptionality. Consequently, those who were sacrificed deserve my utmost gratitude and honor without any strings attached. They need no redemption, just reverence.

[emmanuel goldstein]

08:11 PM on 10/21/2010

Ahhhh, the power of $$$$$. Keep those tourist dollars coming in.

This article seems to stress 'readings', even though they have nothing to do with Witchcraft or Christianity. It's a money making scheme. Wicca is about dedication to powers, the coven, and performing ceremonial magick to improve the lives of the coven and others. Christianity is supposed to be about devotion to Jesus and his teachings.

[Naturechaplain]

07:44 PM on 10/21/2010

Maybe the other 364 days of the year both Pagans and Christians (and other believers and non-believers) could collaborate to do some practical service in the community. Live the "spirit" of the words beyond the costumes of religion.