Pagan Rituals Help Katrina Victims Recover

October 31, 2005

Source: ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1256677

On October 31, 2005 ABC News reported, "When Tracey Johnson first moved to Petal, Miss. and opened The Circle of the Green Faery, she didn't receive the warmest of welcomes. It seems not everyone in the small, rural southern Mississippi community was willing to accept a witch who sold supplies for pagan lifestyles.

But ever since Hurricane Katrina, Johnson's shop has been bustling.

'The divination tools have flown out of here,' Johnson said. 'Tarot, pendulums, runes -- anything that people consider fortune telling'... She's found that people who come into her shop are looking for things that will help them heal after the storm, and are willing to try methods they may never have considered before -- even magic.

'Pagans talk about magic as the art of changing consciousness at will,' said Grove Harris, a paganism expert. 'It's not the same thing as some of the TV shows that portray a witch winking her nose and creating physical change.' Harris is the managing director of Harvard University's Pluralism Project... 'The way pagans can work with energy and clinical magic, in some ways it's similar to prayer,' Harris said. 'It's the sending of energy with intention.'

Several witches turned to magic in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, as well as in its aftermath."