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Neopagans also believe in "magick," spelled with a k to distinguish it from stage illusionism; this is essentially a pagan way of working one's will through psychic means. Another neopagan staple is rites and festivals timed to the lunar and solar cycles or the seasons.
Neopagans are particularly fond of noting the similarities between such goddesses as Egypt's Isis and the Celts' Danu, which they believe show that paganism may have been a "world religion" in pre-Christian days. But believers stir with Bacchic indignation when people attempt to match up their male gods Osiris, Apollo, Pan or Lucifer with Satan, and thereby equate paganism as a whole with Satan worship. Impossible, neopagans protest: "In order to believe in Satan, you have to believe in Christ, since the devil is supposed to be the Antichrist. Well, we don't believe in Christ."
In fact, some neopagans complain that the only devil they have is the one they have been getting from Christians who are concerned for the state of their souls. Minerva Soiret, a member of the Parthenon West pagan temple in Richton Park, Ill., sometimes finds born-again Christians from a local church praying for her on her lawn. Rather than fight, she amiably joins them. Says she: "There we are, a bunch of Christians praying to Jesus on my behalf and me praying to Pallas Athena on theirs."