Glastonbury, a small town in the south of England, is a center of mythic/mystical/neopagan activity. A sort of Lilydale or Cassadage across the Pond. Last weekend, a group called Youth2000 sponsored a retreat in Glastonbury that drew about 300 attendees. Conflicts between the pagans and Christians have made the news.

The Christians were visiting for the Lightswitch@glastonbury festival, the eighth such event organised by the Catholic charity Youth 2000. Promotional material tempted them there with slogans such as: “Has the light on your halo gone dark? Have your wings gone a bit grubby? Just want to switch your faith back on?”

Organised with the co-operation of the Catholic Parish Church and Shrine of Our Lady St Mary in Glastonbury, it was intended to be the Hallowe’en of choice “for those who have grown tired of tatty fancy dress and the Blair Witch Project”.

But police were called after militants told locals that they wanted to cleanse the town of paganism, cast salt around to exorcise “evil” spirits and called one woman a “whore witch”.

Yemaya Pinder, a witch and a member of the Pagan Federation who owns The Magick Box store, said thatshe believed the Christians should be prosecuted for a religious hate crime.

Mrs Pinder, a mother of two and grandmother of four, and whose sister is an Anglican vicar in Basildon, described how a group of Catholics had entered her shop and abused her.

She said: “It was as if we had returned to the dark ages. They told me they wanted to cleanse Glastonbury of paganism. They said they had lighters and were going to come back and burn us down. When the police asked them to apologise, they refused.”

The official statement from Youth2000 apologizes for the incidents, but says that there were only a few individuals involved, and that there are two sides to every story:

• There were several incidents that happened that same weekend that were linked to people who had come to Glastonbury for the retreat. One involved an abusive exchange of words in a local shop, which the owner found offensive and led to police intervention. Because of this, the person involved in this was not allowed to register at our retreat. Another involved directing blessed salt at some pagans witnessing the procession.
• Youth 2000 does not condone or encourage this kind of behaviour from anyone. We fully agree that differences on matters of faith cannot and should not be resolved by any kind of harassment.
• That said, we need to remember that there are two sides to every story. Youth 2000 is concerned that young people at the retreat were harassed, sworn at and even cursed by people present in the town at the time.

This blogger wasn’t present, but has some informed thoughts and points to this account of the Eucharistic Procession at the 2005 Glastonbury event:

Everyone’s spirits were very high and you could hear us coming from miles away. Many people were waving to us from their homes, and when we reached the High Street, several of the witch residents of Glastonbury had dressed up in their robes especially in preparation for when we passed their shop. Quite touching really that they went to such an effort for us.