Catherine Sanders - Wiccas Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality

Praise for
Wiccas Charm

Wiccas Charm is one of those books that charms and beguiles you even as it informs you. The reporting is seamless and the writing effortless. Catherine Sanders has made a brilliant debut as a writer on a spiritual matter that should be of deep interest to all thinking Americans.

D AVID A IKMAN , former senior correspondent for Time magazine, and author of Jesus in Beijing, A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush, and the novel Qi

For Christians who want to understand the culture our own failures have sown and are now reaping, and for those who want to reach out persuasively to this emerging culture, Sanderss warm, clear, and helpful introduction to Wicca is essential reading.

O S G UINNESS , author of The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life

Catherine Sanderss work in this book is careful, thoughtful, and respectful. It will enable many outside Wicca to understand it better, and it will also allow practitioners of Wicca and other similar ways to gain a deeper insight into the best of Christianity.

F REDERICA M ATHEWES -G REEN , author of The Illumined Heart: The Ancient Christian Path of Transformation

Catherine Sanders has provided an eye-opening, sensitive, and honest journey into the heart of Wicca. Ringing no false alarms, she has made an erudite contribution to understanding this contemporary movement.

L ILIAN C ALLES B ARGER , author of Eves Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body, and founder of the Damaris Project

Wiccas Charm is a must-read for parents! A fascinating account full of stories and personal interviews, Catherine Sanderss book provides wonderful insights into why young people seek alternative spiritualities and what Christians should know about it!

S USAN A LEXANDER Y ATES , best-selling author of several books, including, And Then I Had Teenagers: Encouragement for Parents of Teens and Preteens

Wiccas Charm is a fine demonstration of a rare Christian virtue: attentive listening. With a clear conviction that authentic Christian belief is a valid response to Wiccan yearnings, Sanders holds, in tension, a humble recognition that Christian compromise with materialistic rationalism and individualism in Western culture has driven many to take up dangerous alternatives.

P ETER H ARRIS , director of A Rocha International

Wiccas Charm provides an accessible, thorough, and sensitive guide to understanding contemporary interest in Wicca and neo-Paganism. It will be of help to anyone interested in understanding how nature worship under various names is reasserting itself in the Western world.

J AMES A. H ERRICK , professor of communication at Hope College, and author of The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition

Catherine Sanders spent more than a year listening to Wiccans in an attempt to understand the growth and appeal of Wicca today. She encourages Christians to dialogue with neo-Pagans, clarifying points of common ground while simultaneously pointing out with compassion and sensitivity the inadequacies of Paganism to fulfill their deep and legitimate longings.

M ARDI K EYES , codirector of LAbri Fellowship in Southborough, Massachusetts, and author of Feminism and the Bible

Wiccas Charm
A S HAW B OOK
P UBLISHED BY W ATERBROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Some names have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

Copyright 2005 by Catherine Edwards Sanders

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

S HAW B OOKS and its aspen leaf colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sanders, Catherine Edwards.
Wiccas Charm : understanding the spiritual hunger behind the rise of modern witchcraft and pagan spirituality / by Catherine Edwards Sanders.1st ed.
p. cm.
A Shaw Book
eISBN: 978-0-307-55109-2
1. Witchcraft. 2. OccultismReligious aspectsChristianity. 3. Christianity and other religionsNeopaganism. 4. NeopaganismRelationsChristianity. I. Title.
BR115.O3S26 2005
261.2994dc22

2005015526

v3.1

To Wallace, with love and devotion,
and in memory of
Sue Tucker Yates (19072005)

In the course of researching and writing this book, there were times I never really thought I would reach the point of writing acknowledgments. Many people helped me get here, but first and foremost I must thank Tom Phillips and the generosity of the Phillips Foundation for providing me not only with funding for this project but with encouragement and moral support along the way. Special thanks go to John Farley, Jeff Hollingsworth, and Claudia Winkler for their early reading of the manuscript and their support during my fellowship year.

I am grateful to all the people I interviewed and met with while writing this book. Tal Brooke and his staff at the Spiritual Counterfeits Project provided me with a warm welcome to northern California. Brooks Alexander was a wonderful resource, and I thank him for letting me accompany him during his own research. Thanks to Sara and Brian in Worcester, Massachusetts, for opening their home and lives to me. I am grateful to Jennifer Goodson for her support and for introducing me to Lilian Calles Barger and the Damaris Project. Thanks to Lilian for her encouragement on this project. Thanks also to Kristen Bucher for her continued interest and for going with me to southwest Virginia on that rainy day in May.

All those who provided me with a place to research and write were gracious and generous. Thanks to Tim Keefer, Bill and Robin Fetsch, and Connie Elliot, and to Lynn Gibson for a retreat in the city.

The C. S. Lewis Institute provided me with wonderful teaching and sound biblical scholarship while I wrote. I appreciate the efforts and work of those at the Institute and am grateful for the encouragement of Tom Tarrants and Art Lindsley. I am also grateful to Os Guinness for his encouragement during the writing and to Frederica Mathewes-Green for telling me that she knew the right agent for this project. She was right!