"Out of the Broom Closet"

Stumbling through the thick bushland, my eyes try to adjust to the growing darkness. In front of me, five hooded figures clad from head to toe in bleck move in and out of the shadows, silently making their way through the bush.

And I wonder, not for the first time, what the hell I have let myself in for...

It's a perfect evening for a full-moon rite and the members of the Cleveland-based Coven of Lothlorien are keen to start their monthly ritual invoking their main deity, the Goddess, symbolised by the moon.

In a clearing in the bushland the circle is cast, the altar, with its ritualistic tools of Wicca, is set and the High Priest raises his sword to formally begin the ancient ceremony.

For a girl who was raised a Catholic in the western suburbs, it's all a little confronting, especially when the coven members later bring out their athames, or daggers, as part of the ritual.

But ultimately, I found I had nothing to fear from the Coven of Lothlorien, nor from its High Priest, Uther, otherwise known as Danny Searle.

An information technology administrator at Brisbane's Cleveland library, Searle, like all white witches, has taken a coven name, Uther, but is called by his given name outside the coven.

As a long-practicing witch, Searle is one of an ever-increasing group of Australians embracing the earth-based pagan religion and its spiritual aspect of white witchcraft, Wicca.

Once shrouded in mystery and myth, Wicca is finding acceptance in mainstream society, with popular women's magazines now sporting user-friendly columns purportedly by white witches, a quarterly Australian magazine called Witchcraft and even Hollywood heavyweights Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman weighing in with a soon-to-be-released film about witches, Practical Magic.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that in the 1996 census, 4353 Australians said they were pagans, while 1849 said they actively practised Wicca.

But anthropologist Lynne Hume from the University of Queensland said that was a very conservative figure, because some Wiccans were still reluctant to reveal themselves.

"While there is no doubt it is becoming more and more accepted, there are still cases where people fear losing their jobs or friends if they identify themselves as Wiccans," Dr Hume said.

Searle, who was introduced to Wicca in Adelaide 11 years ago, also believes the figures are higher - he estimates that in Queensland alone there are 5000 Wiccans.

He has just formed the Wiccan Guild of Queensland to try to consolidate members and formalise the number of covens.

"As Wicca gets more popular the concer is it becomes a bit gimmicky, a bit frivolous and Wicca is anything but," Searle said.

"But conversely, it's good that it's coming out of the closet, so to speak, because it's been all the mystery surrounding Wicca that has led to all those myths about it, that we're devil worshippers, that we like to be cruel to small animals."

The 30-year-old father of two says the biggest myth about Wiccans is that they worship Satan.

"Satan is a Christian deity, not a Wiccan one. We don't even believe in him. To us, a Satanist is basically a Christian gone wrong.

"We believe in the duality of deity, which is a male and female aspect in the one source, so we worship a Goddess and a God.

"We see the Goddess in certain things like the Mother Earth, the moon and the oceans while the God is the male aspects of that - the sun, the mountains, the forest.

"We see our deities in all of nature, in all of life, and none of them are evil.

"I would like to point out that the biggest rule in Wicca is simply this - Harm None.

"This is why another myth about us is untrue, that we sacrifice animals - or worse.

"We are told very clearly in our instruction: 'Shed not blood in ritual for the Goddess and God need not blood to be duly worshipped.'"

Instruction for people wanting to become Wiccans is, according to Searle, a lond and laborious process.

"We are the only teaching Wiican coven I know of in Brisbane, which means we are open to new members, whereas most of the others I know of are closed.

"Basically you learn within the coven, the elders are the teachers and you follow a formal curriculum.

"You have assignments and exams, you learn both the practical and theoretical sides, like learning how to use crystals and studying comparative religions.

"There are four stages and each takes a year and a day to complete. You begin as a novice, then you do your first degree, second and third, then you become a High Priest or Priestess. When you become a High Priest or Priestess you can hive off, or form your own coven.

"I've had mine for about seven years and so far I guess I've initiated about 45 witches."

Searle says novices learn only what is known as fol magick (Wiccan spelling), simple healing spells and elementary use of crystals and herbs. The second and third degrees are designed to bring on the "sight", or clairvoyant abilities.

"This is more your psychic development, so at that stage you would do things like mirror work, to help you see auras.

"You hold a mirror and look at the top of your head and let your gaze go out of focus. You first just see a white line, but as you get better you will see colours and eventually auras.

"Anyone can do these things - these are all learned practices. Witches do not necessarily have a special gift.

"When you get to the third level, that's when you start high magick, which is closely associated with ceremonial magick, astrally projecting, invoking the spirits... there's nothing that can't be achieved."

With this in mind, I aske Searle, why, as a high magick practitioner, he lives in a modest house and works for a living rather than using his skills to become, for example, fabulously wealthy.

"You have to weigh up both intent and need and you must remember the Law of Three, another Wiccan absolute rule to live by and that is: 'What you put out returns to you threefold, good and bad'.

"So you want to be very careful about how you use your powers."

While every coven has its own Book of Shadows, or spell book, Searle says spells are generally used as a last resort and only if the intent is good and the need is true.

"We will accommodate somebody with a genuine need. We won't help you win the lottery, but if someone needs something desperately, yes, we can make it happen.

"A woman came to us and we found out she had two small children, one of whom needed to go to hospital three times a week.

"She had no car and it took her about two hours by bus and train to get there, so we performed a spell and directed her to enter a specific competition where the first prize was a new car.

"Yes, she won. Did we know she'd win? Yes, we did."

Searle also says as a High Priest he is regularly called upon to rid homes of malevolent or just plain restless spirits.

"There was one place recently, a tourist attraction, actually, that was having trouble with a particularly bad spirit, very violent.

"I went in there far too nonchalantly - once you've done hundreds of these things you an get blase - but I learnt my lesson that day.

"I was literally thrown around the room and I had to leave and get three other very powerful witches to come back and help me."

Wiccans believe that while mortals live in the third dimension, spirits live in the fourth and that those who cause trouble are having trouble getting to the "other side".

"Basically you have to help the spirit to do that and that is done by directing them through the gateway to the spirit world.

"We might use what's known as a smittening rod to nudge them a little and this one really fought going.

"But once a spirit does leave and everybody who has witnessed this will tell you the same, the room is filled with the most beautiful scent. Personally I think it's like jasmine."

If Wicca is indeed so powerful, I ask Searle, what is to stop people with less than admirable intentions learning its secrets.

"About 90% of the time people come to us with questionable motivations, but we weed them out immediately.

"That's one of the good things about being a witch, you get to read people accurately and quickly.

"But there are some who practise what is known as the black arts. They follow the left-handed path, we follow the right.

"I do know of a couple of black groups in Brisbane and we are sometimes called on to help people who have become involved with them.

"One recently was inflicting control and pain on a person, so we needed to create a protective energy around them and mirror it back to the black group to let them know we were aware of what they were doing."

BACK at the full-moon ritual, things are in full swing and I am feeling much more relaxed - there's not a dead chicken in sight and I must admit I'm thankful that this isn't a Skyclad, or naked, ceremony.

"Some of our rituals are Skyclad, because as a nature-based religion, it makes sense.

"We are presenting ourselves to our gods as we are, we are not hiding behind costumes, and it's also to show novices that we are all the same, it's a great guard against egotism.

"Apart from the full-moon ritual, we also have eight sabbats throughout the year to mark the equinoxes and solstices.

"It's our time to respect and mark our religion, just like Catholics go to church every Sunday."

The full-moon ritual basically involves the casting of the circle, an invocation of the guardians of the north, south, east and west to protect the circle and the passing of the cup of friendship.

Members of the coven use dance and chanting to create what they call an energy vortex, designed to draw down the moon, or the Goddess, into the body of the High Priestess.

A meditation is followed by cakes and ale (biscuits and port), the quarters are thanked for their protection and it's time to head home.

Back at Searle's house, where his coven is based in a small room equipped with the tools of Wicca, as well as everyday items such as a home computer, my eyes fall on a sooler with a skull and crossbones and "Do Not Touch" written on it.

Suddenly a little nervous again, I ask Searle: "Um, what's in that?"

"Beer," he says. "Just a little Wiccan humour."