Daily Archives: November 6, 2023

Here's how many modern day witches and Satanists are living in Southend (Image: File photo / Pixabay)

DOZENS of modern day witches are living in Basildon and Southend, according to the latest census figures.

As spooky season takes over south Essex, a look at the most recent census figures shows there are a surprising number of folks who identify as witches, pagans, and even Satanists.

In Basildon, 32 people selected Wicca as their religion in Census 2021, while 52 people selected the religion in Southend.

The religion developed in England during the first half of the 20th century with its name deriving from the Old English "wicca" and "wicce", the masculine and feminine term for witch.

Across England and Wales, over 12,800 people opted for Wicca as their religion a slight jump from 11,800 in 2011.

Separately, the number of people selecting Witchcraft as their religion has fallen from nearly 1,300 in 2011 to under 1,100 in the recent census.

The figures show eight people selected Witchcraft as their religion in Southend in 2021, compared to five in Basildon.

While the witch population has not soared, there has been a 30 per cent rise in pagans - from 56,600 people in 2011 to over 73,700 two years ago. In Basildon, 171 people said they were pagan.

In Southend, 312 people said they were pagan.

Halloween, which falls today has roots in paganism, originated from the Celtic celebration of Samhain that marked the end of summer and the beginning of the winter.

Celts believed the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred on this night.

Celtic priests would build bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

Eventually, the influence of Christianity spread into Celtic lands and All Soul's Day and All Saint's Day or All-hallows was created, incorporating some of the original pagan traditions. To celebrate the days, people would light bonfires, throw parades and costume as saints, angels and devils.

Speaking of the devil, Satanism is also on the rise across the nations. Nearly 5,100 people identified as Satanists in the recent census more than doubling from 1,900 a decade prior.

Despite the name, not all Satanists believe in a literal Lucifer. Instead, it is often a metaphor for questioning authority and rejecting mainstream religion.

In Southend, 18 people said they were Satanists, compared to 11 people in Basildon.

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Here's how many modern day witches and Satanists are living in Southend - Yahoo News UK

Writer Paul Crenshaw found himself trying to make sense of the fear that engulfed everything in his 1980s childhood in small-town Arkansas and the world around him. The Cold War. Stranger Danger. Satanic Panic. In his most recent book of essays Melt with Me: Coming of Age and Other 80s Perils, published by The Ohio State University Press, Crenshaw covers a lot of territory: death, Christian evangelism, Satan and Soviets, the parallels between the dissolution of marriage and treaties between nations, Star Wars and real wars, Bugs Bunny, and adversity. And quicksand.

Crenshaw graciously agreed to talk to The Smart Set, which previously published two of the essays included in this book. The interview has been edited for time and clarity.

Erica Levi Zelinger: What was the inspiration to group these particular essays into a book?

Paul Crenshaw: It was a long process. I didnt really start writing it as an essay collection until I had written five or six essays, and then I started to see connections. I started out with a vague idea about writing about the 80s. I narrowed that down to the 80s and the Cold War. And to other scary things that were going on. Thats when the book changed. I started seeing and thinking, Wait, we are still scared of these things. This is still a problem. I started tracing back Stranger Danger and the Satanic Panic, Dungeons & Dragons panic, the AIDS and HIV panic all of these things and it just sort of became its own creature.

ELZ: You had to constantly be on the lookout for Satanists, child molesters, Christian comedians. Were you fueled by fear as a child? Does it still fuel you?

PC: The biggest fear for me was the church. I went to a Southern Baptist church, and we were told constantly that the world was going to end in fire. Armageddon was coming. Some people looked forward to that, as if it were a good thing. Woohoo. I was terrified of nuclear war as a child. I dont think I constantly walked around being afraid, but that fear was definitely there.

The Satanic Panic was very real. There were stories everywhere, even in our small town, police officers came to my school to show how to watch out for those who worshipped the occult. These were guys who went to the same high school like 10 years before me and they had no training whatsoever in it.

There was also Mike Warnke, the former Satanist turned born-again Christian, who I write about in The Satanic Panic. I went to YouTube and listened to his old albums, and I remembered the jokes he was telling. This is a guy who told us straight up 100 percent your children will get into Satanism if you dont stop them. They will get into drugs. They will get into sex. They will get into all these unsavory elements. We were being told that all the time. As good Christians in a small southern town, we were told we always had to be on the lookout for Satan. He was always out there. So, yeah, there was a lot of fear growing up in the 80s.

To answer the second part of your question, I dont know that Im fueled by the fear now so much as I am fueled by trying to make sense of it.

ELZ: As the (fairly new) managing editor of The Smart Set, I am particularly drawn to your first-person narratives that on the surface are about something mundane like mooning your way through junior high, and wrestling, and playing Atari, but your underlying meaning is so much more: This was a chance to say fuck you to the world you were raised in, the world that was causing your parents to fight and to smoke and causing the bad guys to fight the good guys and causing death and destruction. Anywhere was better than where we were, you wrote. You also write, Surviving those times to carry all your unwanted anxieties into adulthood is encumbrishment. Was it easier to write these essays because you are still encumbered by childhood?

PC: Sure. Emotionally in some ways. There are lots of things that the older I get the more I can see a direct correlation to childhood. I dont want it to sound like I had a bad childhood. I had a good childhood. My parents were very loving. But they also worked very hard. There were lots of things bless their hearts that they just didnt know. My brother and I were always told youll go to college. But there wasnt a lot of other advice given. We didnt talk about what the best jobs, what would be a good career to go into. They were just trying to get by. My parents were tired from working all day. They had a lot of love, but they didnt have a lot of extra energy. We didnt go on vacations.

When I think about that time, I think about just a lot of exhaustion. Reagan was setting out to destroy the middle class. My parents worked for an institute for the developmentally and intellectually disabled, and one of the first things Reagan did when he took office was try to close it down.

ELZ: You look back on the 80s like the character Kevin Arnold from The Wonder Years reflected on the 1960s. The narrator speaks directly to the audience to share his regrets, and the audience cries at his breakups, and we feel his pain when hes bullied by his older brother. I watched it as a child and I loved it because I could identify with Kevin, but I started rewatching that show recently with my 11-year-old son and saw it in a new light. I could identify now with the parents. Did writing these essays give you more insight into who your parents were and who they became?

PC: Yes, but first of all I have to talk about The Wonder Years. My partner and I recently started rewatching it, too. She actually had to quit because the episodes were so depressing. The first couple of episodes are so depressing to me now, the first episode especially the trauma of the first day of school and he comes home, and the neighbor has just died in Vietnam. Its just absolutely devastating. Then I watched one where Kevin goes to work with his dad. His dad is always irritable and grouchy. That was the iconic dad of the 60s. Dad worked his ass off and when he came home, you didnt talk to him, you leave Dad the hell alone. It wasnt that way at my house, but you did kind of give them a berth when they came home because they might have had a bad day. We just knew that growing up. Or we didnt realize it and we acted like the little assholes we were and then mom lost her mind. I love that you brought up The Wonder Years because you nailed it. I was Kevin. And now Im Kevins dad and how the hell did that happen?

When I started grad school 27 or 28 classmates would talk about summer vacations. Europe or Canada. I was thinking we would go to Magic Springs, an amusement park two hours away maybe if we were lucky, wed go for one day. It didnt really seem weird to me because even without understanding it, we didnt have a lot of money. I didnt really understand that as a child. We just watched TV. That was our family entertainment.

Yes, I 100 percent understand my parents a lot more. You dont realize as a child what having a 40- to 50-hour week job does. My parents didnt really choose their careers. They ended up there. It helped me to understand or maybe articulate and internalize the things I already sort of knew but didnt realize as a child.

ELZ: Does writing energize or exhaust you?

PC: It energizes me. The only thing that ever bothers me about writing is not having enough time to write. I compartmentalize writing. Im much happier when I get up and knock it out first thing in the morning.

ELZ: Your first essay is a choose-your-own-adventure style and for readers not familiar with that series these books allowed you to hop around a book to cultivate the outcome you wished to have. What would you think if a reader read these essays out of order?

PC: I would prefer that they read them in order, but most people dont do that. If I just bought a new book, I might flip to something short to get a taste. I deliberately put Choose Your Own Adventure first because it sets up the book. It sets up all of the fears. Most of them irrational. It sets it up in the fact that there arent any good choices in choose-your-own-adventure. You cant get out. That was very much the point of the book. So, in my book, I am saying that we cant just forget that all these things happened. We cant just forget that we were this scared because its still causing us to do things that are bad. Those fears are still there, and we have to account for them somehow.

ELZ: The Dead Baby essay caught me off guard. It felt different than the others. It fits with the fear theme, but I wondered if there was more of a backstory there. PC: I have an essay in my first book that tells the full story: how my nephew died, how the stepfather was convicted of murder. I wrote that essay before this book became a concept so I can see why it feels a bit different. But I think its a good example of childhood fears vs. writing as an adult. The emphasis was on how youll look back at things later. The dead baby jokes were everywhere. I remember telling them and thinking how funny they were. And of course, now I have two daughters and I cant even think about jokes like that. I was a complete idiot at 17. I just remember telling those jokes over and over and lots of other very tasteless jokes. The is about how in the 80s, we could find something that distasteful funny. But what I love about that essay is I quote this folklorist, Alan Dundes. He did all this research about tasteless jokes about how and why we tell them. He said, What scares us, we seek to make ridiculous. Whats ridiculous cant hurt us. My line after that is, Which is, of course, ridiculous.

ELZ: The essay Optimism also takes another turn. For one, its optimistic. It has a reach-for-the-stars kind of feel. Was this written at a different point?

PC: My partner Jennifer, who reads a lot of my work, is often my sounding board. Hemingway called it a bullshit detector. Shes a bullshit detector. There are a couple of the essays that she didnt think fit in the book, but I overruled her. Optimism was written at a slightly different time. It came out a little bit different, but I included it and also the last essay, The Sadness Scale, because despite how terribly sad they are, I actually think they are hopeful. And I wanted there to be a little bit of hope. I write very dark stuff. There is a lot of death and thinking about death. I wanted there to be something happy. Who wants to read a book thats all doom and gloom?

I think the book is optimistic in the way that it ends. We are still searching. Still searching and trying to find what it means to be on this Earth.

Jennifer will be very happy that you pointed this out!

ELZ: Right here, Right Now is about the song We Didnt Start the Fire and all the other songs of the 80s that tell the stories of rival nations and the fear of the end. You reference Modern Englishs Melt with You in this essay and then you go on to name this book Melt with Me. How did you settle on that title? PC: I wish I had a great story. I think it just kind of came to me. I had Melt with Me as a title very early on. Even without knowing the essay, people who had seen the title were picking up on the connection with the song. The problem was my subtitle. This is my second book with The Ohio State University Press and my editor there, Kristen Elias Rowley, actually changed the title of my first book to This One Will Hurt You, which was a way better title than what it was. So, when we got this book accepted, and started discussing the subtitle, we kind of went back and forth and came up with the subtitle, which Ive forgotten what it was! Oh yeah Coming of Age and Other 80s Perils, which I really liked, because I didnt even realize the coming-of-age aspect to it I was so close to it. I didnt see that a lot of these essays were about adolescence and navigating that difficult world.

ELZ: A few of these essays originally appeared on The Smart Set Breakdown and Star Wars if these essays hadnt previously been published in journals and anthologies, do you think a book would have still happened? PC: At this stage in my life, probably so. Ive done the leg work. As a first book, Im not sure. I would like to think that it would have found a publisher, even if none of the essays were published. But who knows? The publishing world is just so difficult. My first collection was published in 2019 and it was a finalist in the [Middlebury] Bread Loaf [Writers Conference] Bakeless Prize in 2011. It didnt win, so it didnt get published, but it was a finalist. It still took me eight years to get the book published, even with the credential of it being a finalist. And lets be honest essays are not the top seller when it comes to publishing.

ELZ: What has it meant as a person, a writer, a father to revisit your youth in writing? PC: Being able to see yourself honestly. To be an essayist, you really have to try and see things honestly. You have to understand how you saw the world at that time and be able to comment about the world at that time and how you saw the world at the time. There are all these layers of truth, what really happened, how things really were.

Going back to your question earlier about, Do you see your parents differently now? I respect them a hell of a lot more than I did when I was a kid. Revisiting raising my children plus looking back at my childhood its easy to see why I did some of the things as a parent that maybe I shouldnt have done. And see some of the things I should have done. Writing essays forces you to see or should force you to look very honestly at things.So perspective.

ELZ: These essays all highlight that there was so much stuff to be scared of in the 1970s and 1980s. But you were still sneaking out of houses, and mooning couples in their living rooms and smoking. You wrote, If we had rules, none of them were written down But, as a reader and a parent, now those rules are written down. And kids cant just stay out until dark. Does that play into your reflection on childhood? Does it make you more wistful or longing to go back? PC: My daughters are grown now. My older daughter just had her first child a grandson, and my younger daughter just graduated college. Now that theyve reached this threshold, we talk more honestly about their childhood. I recently found out that not just one but both of them snuck out of the house at night while my wife and I were asleep. They didnt do the terrible things that I did, but they did do that. I cant be mad at them because it was after the fact. But I was also a little bit proud of them in a way. I would have ripped them apart if I had known about it then, but I think kids are always going to do those things and parents are always going to be a little bit oblivious. If you are a parent, and you think you know everything, I promise you you dont.

ELZ: I love this passage that you wrote: Those tinny notes hit for me some sweet spot of nostalgia and melancholy: for a time long gone; for the simple act of immersion into another world without the cares and fears of this one; for the way we all, even those of us careful with our words, roll entire decades into a zeitgeist of music and politics and cultural icons when all we really mean is the way we felt.

PC: I used to see these memes on social media. Id see this meme pop up, We stayed out until our parents called us in and we drank from the garden hose, and Im kind of torn when I see that, because, in a way, we did do that. But its the way the meme is posted these were the good ole days when you could do this. And every time I see it, pardon my language, but fuck you. Thats bullshit. It wasnt that way. Yeah, you could stay out until after dark and you could drink from the garden hose, but you arent thinking about all the other things the serial killers and kidnappers. The strangers in vans. The Satanists. It annoys me a bit when people look back at the halcyon days, because they are only remembering the good times.

ELZ: Are you still afraid of quicksand?

PC: I bring up quicksand a lot. It always seemed like quicksand was everywhere. And then I found out its not like in the TV shows. I dont think you can actually die of quicksand, and, considering there is actually not much quicksand in the world, no, I am no longer worried about it.

I am still afraid of nuclear war. I am still afraid there will be a war that just escalates until its the end. Growing up, I was sure the world was going to end in the 80s. Everyone said so.

But I didnt check my kids Halloween candy for razor blades when they were growing up. And I know now kids are much more likely to be kidnapped by a family member than a stranger in a van, so Ive lost a few of those old fears.

Quicksand we are good on As long as I never see it. But if I ever do, the first thing Im going to do is have a video of me jumping into quicksand and extracting myself safely.

Paul Crenshaw is the author of three essay collections: This One Will Hurt You, This Well Defend, and Melt With Me: Coming of Age and Other 80s Perils. Other work has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Pushcart Prize, and Oxford American.

See the article here:

When the Satanists Moved In - The Smart Set

Witches lurk in the shadows of our imaginations, worshiping demons and wreaking havoc on society. Still, the collective imagery of the "evil witch" is a far cry from the truth.

Real witches walk among us.

They don't cast horrifying spells on unsuspecting bystanders; they raise their children and work regular jobs.

Today's witches practice in peace, and their numbers are growing.

How Many Witches Are There?

Complete data on the number of practicing witches in the United States is unavailable. Studies on religious affiliations often group witches under "other" or "unaffiliated," making it challenging to track adherents to their beliefs.

Trinity College conducted a massive research program seeking to track the changing religious landscape of U.S. citizens. The American Religious Identification Survey looked at religious affiliations across time, comparing statistics on self-proclaimed religious identities from 1990, 2001, and 2008 to highlight changing trends in religious affiliations.

The study found a rise in the numbers of witchcraft practitioners over the years. The 1990 report estimated there were only about 8,000 Wiccans, but by 2008, their numbers soared to over 300,000.

A 2014 Pew Research Religious Landscape Study offered a "new age" category for spiritual practitioners who didn't fit into other religious affiliations. The study found that .4% of the population approximately 1.3 million people identify with a new-age religion.

Numbers can be misleading, however. Wicca is only one form of witchcraft, and many self-proclaimed witches wouldn't identify with the Wiccan religion.

The study also ignores the millions of so-called Christian witches who practice their craft to supplement their primary religious belief system and the spiritual witches who practice magic while rejecting any form of organized religion.

A 2021 Statista study found that 21% of Americans believe in spells and witchcraft, showcasing a discrepancy between what many religions people identify with and what they genuinely believe.

But witches can't be defined by their religious beliefs. They come from nearly every walk of life.

Michelle Lefler, a Jewish Witch and founder of Living Moon Meditation, defines witches as wise people who use magic and nature to aid their spiritual devotion and practice. She reminds us that witchcraft has no god or goddess and that the association with Satan is untrue.

Witches embrace their inner energy and that of the world around them, using it to guide their spirituality.

Evil witches abound in legend. The familiar trope of the sultry enchantress working magic to lure unsuspecting men to their doom arises repeatedly in stories, myths, and songs about witches.

These tales inundated our collective imagination with horror at the thought of practicing magic, but these fictional representations bury the truth. Witchcraft is no more dangerous than any other spiritual practice.

The Truth About Witchcraft

Witches believe natural items have innate qualities and energy. When performing a spell, they purposefully select ingredients with qualities that enhance their spell's purpose. For example, a practitioner creating a prosperity spell would use colors, herbs, and symbols representing wealth. They'd light green candles, focus energy through jade or pyrite, and anoint their symbols with oils made from chamomile or cinnamon.

All these items work together with an incantation to focus the witch's intention toward their goal, much like modern Catholics use rosaries and prayer.

Lefler compares witchcraft to visualization practices. We often visualize ourselves achieving what we desire. Although many people wouldn't consider that simple process magic, witches do.

Magic is the essence we create with our minds. The positive energy we put into the world helps our thoughts become a reality.

Although stereotypes showcase witches cursing their enemies and hexing those who do them wrong, most witches care deeply about consent and personal freedom. Most follow the two basic tenets of Wiccan morality. "An' ye harm none, do what ye will," which means following the craft however you wish as long as it doesn't hurt others. And the Rule of Three states that anything you do, good or bad, will come back to you threefold.

Rethinking Outdated Views on Witches

Witchcraft has a long and sordid history. The stigma against witches drips with misogyny and makes false accusations of devil worship to keep women in their place. Patriarchal religions were terrified of knowledgeable women, rebranding beloved medicine women and healers as witches for daring to compete with men in these professions.

Women were persecuted, oppressed, and burned for expressing their inner feminine power.

Although governments no longer burn witches at the stake, the negative view remains. Earlier this year, Target became the center of a controversy after AI-generated images appeared, making it look like the massive retailer sold children's clothing with a pentagram, a symbol attributed to both Witchcraft and Satanism.

In April, social media exploded after an accusation that Taylor Swift promoted Witchcraft and Satanism in her Eras tour. Though many users made light of the situation, the fact that the charge exists in the first place highlights the cultural stigma witches still face.

Many still view modern witches as evil devil worshipers set on summoning demons and stealing children's innocence.

All Spiritual Practices Deserve Respect

The U.S. is a beacon of hope for those wishing to explore their inner power. Celebrating religious freedom means witches can practice in peace without fear of imprisonment for their beliefs, even if they stand outside the mainstream.

Wiccans, pagans and other believers deserve the same dignity and respect that Jewish, Christian, and Hindu practitioners enjoy.

It's time to end the panic over witchcraft and respect people's choice to worship how they see fit.

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Toil and Trouble Misunderstood: Rise in witchcraft forces a rethink of ... - Frederick News Post

Personally, I would not trust Boris Johnson with running the junior tuck shop at Eton, let alone the country, or Matt Hancock in shaking a health charity collecting can on his local high street, while former Chancellor of the Exchequer and now Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks dumb, deadly contrivance of Eat Out to Help Out clearly caused accelerated rates of transmission, untold illness and additional unnecessary fatalities; serious and sustained mismanagement and endemic misconduct for which all three - and others - will require to answer for before long.

What has seeped out through the sewers of Downing Street's septic tank reveals a governmental response to the most serious, complex threat to the UK in living memory that has seen a contemptuous, desultory, dysfunctional and disgraceful scattergun approach taken mostly by men of a certain age, who all volunteered for their role with a presumption of competency and suitability, many seemingly intoxicated by their own sense of self-importance and self-regard at a time when humility, calm and a steely steadfast strategy were essential.

Meanwhile, as the huckster Hancock and the PMs not-so-special adviser Dominic Cummings appear to have escaped scot-free, Johnson and Sunak, both millionaires many times over have been "punished" with a 50 civil penalty while hundreds, possibly even thousands, of their fellow miscreants operating in the real world have been hit with swingeing five-figure fines and a criminal record, while multiple offender and serial liar Johnson has even been supported through publicly-funded legal fees currently standing at 265,522 and counting, all while "Ordinary Joe" outwith the comfort zone of the Westminster bubble has paid a heavy price for breaching Johnsons laws.

Given the inherent incompetence and deceit, a clear and obvious absence of sound judgment and credible leadership by those serving at the Court of King Boris, criminal sanction should - but wont - be considered; misconduct in public office, health and safety at work and even corporate manslaughter would all sound appropriate to me, but, of course, those in and around the heart of government are immune.

Mike Wilson, Longniddry.

Regan move does not mean crisis

I WAS surprised to see the front page of last week's Herald on Sunday headlined "New crisis for SNP" (October 29); no crisis, Ash Regan joining the Alba Party was coming as sure as Christmas, the only surprise is that it took her so long to officially jump ship. Her repeated denials that she was going to join Alba always reminded me of the old guy in the Vicar of Dibley: "No, no, no, no... yes".

Surely more deserving of the front page would have been the real, horrendous crisis in the Middle East, and the responses from Sir Keir Starmer which have seen growing tensions and a rash of resignations from the Labour Party, with several high-profile members diverging from the official party line due to Sir Keir's position.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

Read more:Just what does Ash Regan stand for?

Yousaf is no racist

ACCORDING To Elon Musk First Minster Humza Yousaf is a racist for complaining in a 2020 speech about the number of senior posts in Scotland that were held by white people.

Mr Yousaf may well be incompetent but racist he is not; he has experienced racism in Scotland himself.

At the last count 96% of the population in Scotland was white so it is not beyond comprehension to understand why most senior positions in Scotland are held by white people.

Holywood however defies the statistics in having both Labour and SNP leaders coming from Pakistani backgrounds.

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen.

Fergus Ewing is aHighland hero

THERE is currently a Facebook page, numbering 62,000 subscribers, devoted to highlighting the dangers and tragedies of the A9 north of Perth. There is palpable anger directed at the abandonment of the promise made by the SNP quotient of the Scottish Government, once committed to the dualling of the main artery servicing the communities of Highland Scotland and beyond by 2024.

There is one man who, steadfastly to the point of alienating his political colleagues rather than opponents, has striven to secure safety for his constituents and all those who travel this notorious road. Effectively, Fergus Ewing ("The people of Scotland want tarmac, not talk", October 29) has the support of quarter of the entire population of Highland Scotland and this comprises only those who take the time and have the possibility to subscribe to this valuable example of social media. A man of his word and a man of honour, Fergus Ewing's is an example all politicians should seek to emulate.

Christine Martin, Inverness.

Go for the Swedish option

IT is very interesting that Fergus Ewing's opinion piece does not mention the far cheaper Swedish 2+1 with wire rope median system when referring to the need to avoid head-on collisions. This design has one continuous lane in each direction, and a middle lane changing direction every few kilometres, with a median barrier separating the two traffic directions. Head-on crashes are eliminated. It will mostly fit into the present single-carriageway roadspace. This, combined with grade-separated junctions, would avoid very many accidents.

Our transport budget is limited, and much of it will be required to achieve the modal shift from road to rail which is Scottish Government policy. It's hard to understand why this solution is not already being seriously considered. Let's hope this changes soon.

Ian Budd, Bishopbriggs.

Read more:Fergus Ewing calls on Scottish Government to deliver on A9

We must fund Scottish Water

YOUR report on the discharge of sewage into the environment ("How illegal sewage spills pollute the countrys beauty spots", October 29) and the many previous similar reports shows the extent of the challenge Scottish Water faces bringing its drainage networks up to modern standards. But when we criticise Scottish Water we are criticising ourselves as we own Scottish Water and we all contribute to the inflow of sewage into its, or rather our, drainage networks.

The problem of underinvestment in our water and drainage networks goes back years. We have been living off the legacy of our Victorian ancestors who invested heavily in bringing clean water to our towns and cities and in providing sewers to carry away our waste. Their treatment of the waste may have been, in many cases, non-existent, but they provided a core network of drains which we still rely on.

However, for far too long investment has lagged behind what was needed as our population grew and the environmental standards applied to the water industry rightly tightened. Margaret Thatcher may have admired Victorian values but she did not match their far-sighted investment in public infrastructure. The rot she started, or at least accelerated, remains to this day. Scottish Water is investing in capital works to address the challenge but not to the extent that is needed to bring our water and drainage infrastructure up to the standards we all need.

This should not be a party political issue, politicians and voters of all parties contribute to the sewage flow. They all have an equal responsibility to face up to the need to fund Scottish Water properly so that it can boost its capital spending. It wont be easy, a penny - or whatever - on income tax to fund sewage works is not an easy election promise to sell, but doing nothing should not be an option.

Alistair Easton, Edinburgh.

Paganism is empowering

I REALLY enjoyed Vicky Allan's article on the rise of Paganism in Scotland ("Scots embrace ancient religion searching for spirituality in nature", October 29). It was a positive and warm depiction of the true beliefs of those of us who love the Earth on a spiritual level and engage in rituals to observe the seasons. Paganism has long suffered from disinformation, fearmongering, and false links to Satanism. Satan, being a Christian deity, is not recognised by Pagans.

Ms Allan points out that many of us practise pagan rituals, whether we even know it or not. This can include decorating an evergreen tree, blowing out candles on a cake, or eating chocolate eggs in spring. The pagan Samhain festival has endured as "Halloween", but many are now reclaiming this ancient festival as a time to honour and remember the dead and the transition into the dark half of the year.

The 1990s saw a ridiculous moral panic that the Harry Potter books would indoctrinate young people into witchcraft, leading to demonic possession. There are reasons why more people, especially young women, are finding fulfilment in Pagan practices and witchcraft. Mainstream religion can be fulfilling and valuable for many people, but for a lot of us, it feels patriarchal, oppressive, and anti-feminist. Witchcraft, on the other hand, is empowering, peaceful, and feminist. One thing Pagan communities have never done is try to inhibit or infringe upon the freedom of other people. Pagans have never opposed abortion rights or attempted to obstruct LGBT equality. And yet, according to a recent Scottish Pagan Federation survey, more than 40% of the community have experienced direct discrimination.

Paganism is a massive umbrella term that encompasses Druids, witches, Wiccans and a host of other spiritual paths, but there is an understanding among the vast majority to live by the Wiccan rede: "An' ye harm none, do what ye will." If only the religious right, so obsessed with the bodily autonomy and free will of others, could live by a similar ethos and respect the natural world, we would all be much happier.

Gemma Clark, Paisley.

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Letters: Boris Johnson and co must not be allowed to get off scot-free - HeraldScotland