SALEM — Salem witches are not impressed with Christine O'Donnell.
The Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Delaware has been in the national spotlight since she upset a nine-term congressman in that state's primary, a victory won with strong backing from the tea party and a late endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
The spotlight intensified last weekend when O'Donnell canceled scheduled appearances on Sunday morning news programs after a video surfaced in which she said she "dabbled in witchcraft" in high school.
O'Donnell's laughing comments about witchcraft were made during a 1999 appearance on "Politically Incorrect," a late-night talk show hosted by comedian Bill Maher.
"I dabbled in witchcraft. I never joined a coven," O'Donnell said. "I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. ...
"One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's a little blood there and stuff like that. We went to a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar."
Those comments pander to negative stereotypes and display a lack of knowledge of Wicca, a pagan religion, two Salem witches said.
"She's obviously very ignorant about witchcraft," said Teri Kalgren, director of the Witches Education Bureau. "To say she dabbled in it — what is dabbling? And how do we know people she was hanging out with were really witches?
"... She also used satanic in the same sentence as Wiccan or witchcraft. They are two different things. That's like saying Pentecostal and Episcopalian. ..."
Kalgren said she didn't "know any group of witches that use blood on an altar."
Gypsy Ravish, high priestess of The Temple of the Nine Wells, which holds a Halloween vigil on Gallows Hill, had no kinder words.
"First of all, the comments she made about witchcraft are misleading," she said. "I don't know what she was doing, but it certainly wasn't any craft I know about. It just sounds like she is not too clued in.
"I can understand teenagers and young people looking for alternate spiritual paths, even if it's different from their birth religion," Ravish said. "I think it's healthy for people to explore their spirituality. It doesn't seem like that's what she was doing. I think she should have made some better choices if she wanted to explore Wicca. That was not the way to do it."
Kalgren said she has little sympathy for O'Donnell, who has become fodder for late-night comics.
"I'm glad it's coming back to bite her in the butt," she said. "I'm sure the witches in Delaware aren't going to vote for her."
Material from The Associated Press was used in this article.
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