Witchcraft warning from Wales: The Church of England Newspaper, April 6, 2012 p 6.

Bishop Dominic Walker

The Bishop of Monmouth has voiced concern over the illicit celebration of black magic rituals in churches and graveyards performed by devotees of Wicca in Wales.

In an interview with WalesonLine, Bishop Dominic Walker said that the rise in popularity in the occult and wicca may have led to a rise in break-ins.  “Churches get disturbed and you can see someone’s carried out a ritual in a graveyard,” the bishop said.

“They’ll have drawn pentagrams and they will have performed rituals summoning up spirits.  Sometimes it’s difficult to know what’s happened whether it’s just sheer vandalism, kids playing, or whether it really has been a witchcraft group,” Bishop Walker said.

In an interview published last month with WalesonLine, Bishop Walker spoke of his work in deliverance ministries and exorcism helping people break free from the entanglements of the occult.

“Those who belong to occult groups – where someone has got into black magical group or satanic group or involved with the black arts – they can find it very difficult to get out,” the bishop said, adding that there can be “peer pressure and sometimes they’re controlled by fear – they’re told if they leave, if they disclose any of the secrets you’ll be cursed. It’s sort of religious version of belonging to a gang.”

Some hoped to use the occult for “good, for healing and for love” the bishops said, while others sought to practice the “black arts.”   “White magicians would say they’re an ancient religion which give equality to men and women … but also occult powers can be used for evil so the other side of it is that there are more involved in the black magic,” he said, noting “they hex, curse people [and] they try to use their powers for their own personal gain.”

While exorcism and deliverance ministries in popular imagination may be linked with the Roman Catholic Church or charismatic groups, some Church of England dioceses have clergy licensed by the diocesan bishop to perform exorcisms.

In 1972 the SPCK published a report entitled “Exorcism: the Findings of a Commission Convened by the Bishop of Exeter” that summarized the Church of England’s views on the phenomena.  In the foreward to the report, Bishop Robert Mortimer said the “unhealthy and near-hysterical publicity” given by the press to the subject led him to convene a group of Anglican and Roman Catholic scholars to investigate the theological, scriptural and pastoral issues involved.

In the 1970s, the bishop reported, few within the Church of England had knowledge of exorcism.  The church’s “general attitude” seemed to regard “exorcism as an exercise in white magic or a survival of medieval superstition.  It was seen as the purely negative action of expelling an evil force or cleansing an evil environment.  Its positive aspect as an extension of the frontiers of Christ’s Kingdom, and a demonstration of the power of the Resurrection to overcome evil and replace it with good was overlooked.”

The situation today within the church had changed, Bishop Walker said.  While some remained skeptical , “We know people practice black magic and if we believe that prayers and blessings are effective then you could say there must be spiritual forces that are evil and oppress people.”

“I think most of our clergy would say they know when they’re involved in a spiritual battle, when good things are happening and the Holy Spirit seems to be at work there does seem to be a force working against it as well,” the bishop said.

First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.