So, if you want to develop your connection to the divine and to your own inner light by following the path of the Christian Witch, consider what it means to you. While we can certainly call on Jesus to assist us, we can also call on the energy of the Christ Consciousness or Christ Light to activate and work within us, helping us to become more Christ like, embodying the energy, love and light of the Christ energy.

Another way the Church is responding to people who have been attracted to witchcraft is by answering the many queries that roll in. The Church of England’s National Adviser for Mission Theology, New Religious Movements and Alternative Spiritualities, Dr Anne Richards, says that she receives around three enquiries a day, often from teenagers on social media, who say they are unhappy with their experience of what she calls “cultural witchcraft” (i.e. linked to popular culture).One of the girls provided another piece of inspiration when she asked to play in a wardrobe in Lewis's house. He soon set out to write a story for the children, who, he thought, did not read enough. One can detect the author's own voice behind the professor's repeated cries of "What do they teach them at these schools?"

Lewis's first Christian fiction was Out of the Silent Planet, a science fiction novel written for adults, which was the first in a trilogy. Joy's death was hard for Lewis to cope with and tested his Christian faith. He kept a record of his thoughts and feelings throughout the grieving process, and published it, using a pseudonym, as A Grief Observed. (So many people recommended the book to Lewis to help in his own grief that at last he was forced to admit he wrote it.) Pagan chaplains are to be found in some universities, hospitals, and prisons. In 2009, the Police Pagan Association was formed to support pagan officers and counter stereotypes. The Pagan Federation was admitted to the UK Inter Faith Network in 2014, shortly after joining the Religious Education Council of England and Wales. Only you know the way for you, so make time to get quiet, meditate and listen to your own heart and soul. There are no rules here. No dogma. No ancient traditions or rituals to follow. There’s just you and your own beliefs. To me this is everything.

OTHER STORIES

But I also feel there is so much love to be found in other paths, in the connection with nature, with other teachers and deities, which is part of the reason why being a Christian alone never worked for me. One former pagan who is considering ordination and asked to be named in this article only as May encountered Christianity at university where mutual curiosity created “a lot of overlap” between the memberships of the pagan social group and the Christian Union. Now a funeral minister who identifies as a High Anglican, May says she has “blended” her beliefs with her old beliefs rather than leaving them all behind.

The Screwtape Letters consists of a series of letters from a senior demon to a junior tempter, advising him in his pursuit of a human soul. The Letters had originally been published weekly in a Church paper called The Guardian (not the same as the British national newspaper), before being collected as a book. Lewis began writing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1948. The inspiration is not difficult to guess. A few years earlier, during the Second World War, Lewis's household had played host to a group of children evacuated from London and other cities: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe begins with four evacuees staying in the house of an old professor. Narnia gave Lewis an opportunity to indulge his love for animals and mythological creatures. In Narnia there are both normal animals and intelligent, talking ones; valiant Mice and proud Horses live alongside giants, unicorns and satyrs. Some people go to church and read the bible but also use oracle cards and work with the cycles of the moon. Jesus himself didn’t create the church, and as much as I love a good singalong at a mega church, I’m not convinced any of the churches that exist right now were exactly what Jesus had in mind.Lewis condemned vivisection absolutely, and said so in a 1947 essay. He deplored the popular arguments in favour of experiments on animals, calling them "easy speeches that comfort cruel men". He pointed out that the same ideas could be used to justify experiments on humans, and explicitly drew a comparison with the Nazis. I love the New New Testament which includes many of the lost gospels. Follow your heart and create your own path CHRISTIANS continue to be cautious about witchcraft, even fearful. Dr Richards is critical of those who distance themselves from it. “There’s a kneejerk reaction to the word ‘witch’ or ‘witchcraft’ in certain circles . . . Some Christians say, ‘I don’t want to find out that because it might contaminate me.’” She believes that some Christians misinterpret what pagans do. “I have had to talk to vicars and churches where they’re very upset by pagan activity and cursing: it is usually just anti-social behaviour.” The third book in the 'Space Trilogy' is called That Hideous Strength and set on Earth. It describes and extrapolates what Lewis saw as the evil ideas in contemporary science, personified in an organisation called (with heavy irony) N.I.C.E.

It may surprise readers who imagine that Lewis set out from the beginning to re-tell the Christian tale to find out that Aslan, the Christ-like lion, was not even thought of until some way into the story. Then, as Lewis put it, he "came bounding into it" and brought with him all the ideas Lewis needed to finish the book. Why do some people leave Christianity for witchcraft? “Partly, I think it’s a failure in the Church,” Mr Cudby says. “A lot of the people I’ve met left either because they were simply not allowed to ask questions or because they just found church very dry and unspiritual.”

Is there Such a Thing as a Christian Witch?

Then there are others who will follow more of a Wicca or more traditional Witchcraft path but will choose Jesus and Mary as their patron and matron deities. I pray to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit every single day, many times a day. I am comfortable in the knowledge that God hears my prayers as does the Goddess and both are constantly working to help me create the best life possible for myself and my family. The rules of the church don’t work for me. I can’t have someone telling me “this is how it’s done because this is how it’s always been done”, especially when “the church” of today was built upon layer upon layer of “stuff” that has very little to do with Jesus himself. Mr Cudby, one of the C of E’s five active New Religious Movements advisers, says: “There are an awful lot of people called Christian witches — [who practise] a more or less orthodox faith, but they believe they have spell-crafting gifts.” Would these not be identified as prophetic gifts by parts of the Church? “It’s difficult to say.” Resurrection would be meaningless for some animals: "If the life of a newt is merely a succession of sensations, what should we mean by saying that God may recall to life the newt that died to-day? It would not recognise itself as the same newt". If the newt was not aware enough to be made miserable or happy by pain or pleasure, there would be no way to reward it or compensate it for its life on earth.