Psychics, what do you think?

Hey all,

So I spent two lovely weeks with Kaitlin Barnet- which I'm sure you can imagine, was a riot. Amazingly, Religion, Sports, and Education were all integrated into our travels along with... well... fitness and sunbathing and boating and such.

Since Carolyn so thoughtfully reminded me of our wonderful blog, I thought I'd share a little story from Kaitlin and my travels: a visit to Salem and a consultation with a witch!

I decided at some point in the beginning of the summer that I wanted to get a psychic reading done- this is such an uncertain time in our lives, you know? so I wanted some mystical insight. When I realized that I would be visiting Kaitlin in the town next door from Salem, we decided that a psychic reading from a Salem witch was a MUST. So we drove over to Crow Haven Corner, the shop originally owned by the official Witch of Salem, Lorie Cabot and I met with Lorelei- read more about her here: http://www.crowhavencorner.net/aboutus.html

There's a lot of interesting parts of my consultation with Lorelei, but here are a few thoughts/moments that I thought all of you as religion majors would appreciate or be able to respond to:

- How do you feel about Witches offering up their services to the public? Does it make what they are doing less legitimately religious? I felt momentarily guilty or wrong for being a part of a sacred service that I didn't actually subscribe to- but I got over that for interest in what the reading would produce.

- In the beginning of the Reading, Lorelei claimed that everyone has psychic abilities, she has just trained hers more than others. What do you think about this?

- At the end of the meeting with Lorelei, she did a Witches circle where we stood around some candles, anointed us with some sort of oil on our wrists, and welcomed in the God and Goddess and the Elements. After all of the welcoming, she announced: "we are now in a sacred space"- of course at this point my religion major alarm went off like no other- I can't decide what I think about such a rash declaration of the creation of Sacred space. And it made me wonder, does or should it matter how or in what time frame sacred space is established? What does it mean about my understanding of religion if I think that more is required in the creation of sacred space than the lighting of candles and announcing that it exists?

So, there's some food for thought. Just know that I'm thinking about and missing you all, hope summer is being wonderful to you!

Abby