C U R R E N T N E W S S U M M A R Y by the Editors of ReligionToday

November 10, 2000

Paganism is getting more popular on college campuses. A growing number of students throughout the country believe they’re witches, and more are starting to come out of what pagans call the “broom closet,” the Boston Globe (see link #3 below)

reported. More than 100 groups have formed on campuses in nearly every state and at schools from Australia to the United Kingdom. Scholars say there are as many as a million pagans in the United States. …Pagans meet regularly and hold bizarre rituals. They may kneel before an altar chanting, casting spells, and calling up energy fields. The groups are “a spiritual offshoot of the emerging counterculture of greens and antiglobalists,” the Globe reported. …Colleges are tolerant, but many students still don’t want to risk revealing their pagan beliefs to their parents or friends, the newspaper reported. Some parents have threatened students, and others warned that they would cut off finances unless they left paganism.

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