NEW YORK -- Inmates in New York are suing the state corrections department over the decision to lock down prisons during next Monday's total solar eclipse.

The suit filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York argues that the April 8 lockdown violates inmates' constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event.

The plaintiffs are six men with varying religious backgrounds who are incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Woodbourne. They include a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-...

Ramon Nieblas fixed his tearful eyes on the small golden statue, a beloved icon of Cuba's patron saint. Whispering, he asked the Virgin of Charity of Cobre for a miracle: Please save his sick son.

"I came to pray for his health," said Nieblas, a Cuban living in Brazil who traveled thousands of miles to the basilica in eastern Cuba, a pilgrimage site nestled in the shadow of the Sierra Maestra mountains.

He sat in Mass, wrapping his arm around 26-year-old Hernando Nieblas, a physician undergoing treatment for leukemia. They were among the thousands who visit the...

A member of the second-oldest Black Catholic order in the United States.

A voodoo priestess.

A gay atheist woman.

A new documentary from the National Museum of African American History and Culture explores the range of faith and spiritual expressions of Black millennials and the choices they have made to reject — or embrace — the religious rituals of their childhood.

Source: https://religionnews.com/2023/10/24/documentary-on-black-millennials-depicts-wide-range-of-religion-rebellion/

Though Alain Pierre-Louis grew up in a Haitian family that attended Catholic church services most Sundays, he always felt a spiritual pull toward something else. Vodou, a Haitian religion rooted in ancestral remembrance, nature, healing, and justice, was embedded everywhere in his Boston childhood—in the traditional rasin, or “roots,” music blaring from the living-room speakers, and in the Haitian-folkloric-dance performances he would go to with his relatives. But though the art influenced by Vodou was celebrated, the religion itself was considered taboo and a nonstarter at...

Yvette Montoya, 35, has been making "concoctions" since she was a little girl, grinding up berries and making "soups" with leaves, petals, and water. There were no recipes or spellbooks; it was something that she'd been drawn to, as though something...

“No wonder this stuff’s getting so damn popular,” exclaims Shirley to her friend Joan at the start of George Romero’s 1972 film “Hungry Wives.” Joan and Shirley, two neglected middle-age suburban housewives, are on their way to a tarot reading.

What’s getting “so damn popular” is witchcraft.

“The religion offers a retreat” for repressed women, Shirley notes, adding, “Christ, what other kind of women are there?”

Source:...

Last October, a TikToker uploaded a short instructional video in which she claimed to teach a technique to "make someone think of you 24/7." All a person needed to do was follow a few simple steps: Write the name of their unrequited love on a piece of paper three times, fold the paper three times, and put it under their pillow. Subsequently having a dream about them would mean it had worked, she said.

The TikTok, which is one of hundreds on her account teaching followers simple "spells," has since been viewed more than 20 million times and received 1.4 million likes, but the...

In 2020, the onset of the coronavirus pandemic changed the way many Americans worked, as companies closed their doors to limit workplace contamination. The uncertainty around Covid-19 caused people to seek hope in religion and spirituality, resulting in industry growth. For many Black women, like Shontel Anestasia, the current spiritual boom is not only a way to connect to one’s higher self, but also a means of making money.

Anestasia, owner of the...

When Gloria Arvizu was a young girl growing up in southern Arizona, she remembers her mother reaching for rue—an aromatic and medicinal herb—to soothe the pain from her occasional earache. 

...

Yelaine Rodriguez is used to people making assumptions about her identity and what she does.

A first-generation Afro Dominican American born and raised in the Bronx, the now-30-year-old artist remembers the backhanded compliments she would receive as a teen and young adult -- comments like, "Oh, you don't seem like you're from the Bronx," weren't uncommon.

Even after Rodriguez started teaching at her alma mater, Parsons School of Design, some parents of her students seemed surprised by her background: "Your parents must be so proud of you," she can recall being told...

SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 9 – Julio Nieves was in prison at Green Haven Correctional Facility when he was searched, and his Santeria beads were demanded.

He offered to place them on his shrine was but beaten and put in a the Special Housing Unit. He sued.  

On July 9, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Ronnie Abrams held a proceeding. Inner City Press covered it.   

Source: ...

Cuba has Santeria.

Brazil has Candomblé.

Jamaica still practices Obeah.

All are African religions brought by the more than 4 million people stolen from their homes to be slaves in the Caribbean during the 15th and 16th centuries.

University of Miami senior Kay-Ann Henry, who was born in Jamaica, decided to explore the ways that those enslaved people used the Obeah practices to try to liberate themselves.

Source: ...

You can judge a good “hoodoo” store by the smell. 

If you walk in and smell incense, herbs, and candles, you’re in the right place. This is especially true at Motown Witch, a metaphysical supply store that recently opened in a beautiful open space at 16844 Schaefer Hwy. on Detroit’s west side. 

Painted a bright yellow, the store is spacious with a large display of herbs like jasmine, lavender, and hibiscus in glass jars behind the counter that immediately beckon to customers. Scents like Wild Berry incense permeate the air and seduce the senses.

Source...

Jamaica Plain is home to a trio of botanicas. If you have ever walked past the on Centre Street, the on Washington Street, or South Street's Botanica San Miguel, you may have stared in awe at these beautiful storefronts decorated with colorful statues, candles, and other items

"Botanica" can literally be translated as "botany," "botanist," or "botanical" but these unembellished meanings scarcely describe the scope of goods and services available at these stores. Herbs are indeed for...

Two separate crimes against children in recent days have one haunting similarity: authorities have pointed to Voodoo rituals as a possible motive.

But practitioners of Haitian Vodou, which adherents spell differently to distinguish it from other variants, say the religion does not sanction violence and fear the crimes will spark a backlash against their community.

Source: '...