By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
ROSSVILLE, Ill. — When Witch School came to town, Mayor Terry Prillaman stopped in to welcome the owners, as he does whenever a new business opens. "If you don't like them, don't patronize them," he says. "It's like a tattoo parlor: You don't have to go in."
Youth pastor Andy Thomas, though, believes the arrival of witches in this town of 1,200 created a "spiritual battle" pitting "the forces of darkness against the forces of light."
Rosella Ray, who runs the Village Art & Culture Center, a shop near the school, keeps her distance from the witches. "They just do their thing, whatever their thing is," she says.
Witch School opened in July on Chicago Street, the main drag here, between the Harris Insurance Agency and Wally's Pub & Eatery. Since then, it has been the chief topic of conversation, rumors and speculation around town. The witches couldn't be happier.
"It's been great for business," CEO Donald Lewis says. "I do understand that some people, not understanding what we are, might be afraid, but they shouldn't be. … There are no headless cats, there are no missing children."
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The witches bought a building that had housed a gift-basket shop and moved here from their former headquarters in Hoopeston, 7 miles north. There are no classrooms; the school operates mostly online.
Lewis says it has more than 190,000 registered members. Five people run online classes, ship books and merchandise and sell wands, incense, candles and other items.
On Halloween, two workers wore long black robes and pointy witches' hats. The school's website refers to Rossville as a "pagan colony." The school offers séances, initiations and rituals six days a week.
Prillaman says two people showed up at a City Council meeting to object to the school. He has had maybe four phone calls from people who said the witches shouldn't have been allowed to move here.
"I told them, 'I don't remember voting on you coming into town,' " he says. "Back in the 1920s, there was quite a presence here" of the Ku Klux Klan, Prillaman says. "What do you suppose people were saying back then?"
Witch School pays property taxes, collects sales taxes and uses city-owned water and gas systems, the mayor says. And it occupies a building that otherwise probably would be empty in a town that already has plenty of vacant storefronts.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Rossville's streets were lined with antique shops that made it a popular tourist destination. Many have closed, and a block of them burned down in 2004. A ConAgra plant that makes aerosol products is the town's biggest employer.
Two of the four churches here have led the opposition to the witches. Thomas, who works at Rossville Church of Christ, and other residents organized weekly prayer meetings focused on the school.
Church members put up a billboard that reads: "Worship the Creator, not creation." Some witches, whose religion is called Wicca, believe that elements of nature, symbolized by the earth, sun and moon, are deities.
Thomas worries that young people will be attracted by the witches' spells, potions and aura of mystery. "We're concerned and uncomfortable," he says. "I think people would be happier if they weren't here, but it's not our goal to run them out of town."
Debbe Tompkins, president of Witch School, says she doesn't resent people who fear her and her colleagues. "I was raised fundamentalist Baptist, and I understand exactly where they're coming from," she says. "I can't fault them."
Last month, church leaders invited Robert Kurka, a theology professor at Lincoln Christian College, to talk about Wiccans. About 150 people showed up. He urged them to study the Bible and be prepared to talk to the newcomers about their own Christian beliefs.
Before that meeting, Ray says, she thought getting rid of the witches would be best. Afterward, she says, Kurka's advice "made most of us feel like maybe we should just be even stronger in our own faith. … We decided as a community to live and let live."
Judy Rayfield, who cuts hair at the Chicago Street Hair Co., isn't so sure. "Some people say 'live and let live,' but the main thought of the Christians is we would like to see them close," she says. "They're in darkness. They're deceived."
Lewis, who like Tompkins bought a house here, says Christians have nothing to fear. "We want to challenge the community to be more open-minded," he says.
Even opponents, he says, "know that we are not Satanists, that we are not sacrificing cats in the back room. … We have always hoped to attract other pagans to the area, but our religion doesn't normally recruit in the way Christians do and in the way they're afraid we will."
Thomas worries that some people here think the witches are harmless or humorous and that the Witch School could deter people from buying homes or opening businesses.
"Our ultimate goal would be to convert them to Christianity," he says. "If that doesn't happen, I don't know what will be next."
