The Witch of Portobello Page 0,82

in the article, others bearing placards defending freedom of religion and freedom of speech. The venue would only hold two hundred people and so the rest of the crowd were all crammed together on the pavement outside, hoping for at least a glimpse of the woman who appeared to be the priestess of the oppressed.

When she arrived, she was received with applause, handwritten notes and requests for help; some people threw flowers, and one lady of uncertain age asked her to keep on fighting for women's freedom and for the right to worship the Mother. The parishioners from the week before must have been intimidated by the crowd and so failed to turn up, despite the threats they had made during the previous days. There were no aggressive comments, and the ceremony passed off as normal, with dancing, the appearance of Hagia Sofia (by then, I knew that she was simply another facet of Athena herself), and a final celebration (this had been added recently, when the group moved to the warehouse lent by one of its original members), and that was that.

During her sermon, Athena spoke as if possessed by someone else:

'We all have a duty to love and to allow love to manifest itself in the way it thinks best. We cannot and must not be frightened when the powers of darkness want to make themselves heard, those same powers that introduced the word sin merely to control our hearts and minds. Jesus Christ, whom we all know, turned to the woman taken in adultery and said: Has no man condemned thee? Neither do I condemn thee. He healed people on the Sabbath, he allowed a prostitute to wash his feet, he promised a thief that he would enjoy the delights of Paradise, he ate forbidden foods, and he said that we should concern ourselves only with today, because the lilies in the field toil not neither do they spin, but are arrayed in glory.

'What is sin? It is a sin to prevent Love from showing itself. And the Mother is love. We are entering a new world in which we can choose to follow our own steps, not those that society forces us to take. If necessary, we will confront the forces of darkness again, as we did last week. But no one will silence our voice or our heart.'

I was witnessing the transformation of a woman into an icon. She spoke with great conviction, with dignity and with faith in what she was saying. I hoped that things really were like that, that we truly were entering a new world, and that I would live to see it.

She left the warehouse to as much acclaim as she had entered it, and when she saw me in the crowd, she called me over and said that she'd missed me. She was happy and confident, sure that she was doing the right thing.

This was the positive side of the newspaper article, and things might have ended there. I wanted my analysis of events to be wrong, but three days later, my prediction was confirmed. The negative side emerged in full force.

Employing the services of one of the most highly regarded and conservative law practices in Britain, whose senior partners unlike Athena really did have contacts in all spheres of government, and basing his case on published statements made by Athena, the Rev. Buck called a news conference to say that he was suing for defamation, calumny and moral damages.

The deputy editor called me in. He knew I was friendly with the central figure in that scandal and suggested that we publish an exclusive interview. My first reaction was of disgust: how could I use my friendship to sell newspapers?

However, after we had talked further, I started to think that it might be a good idea. She would have the chance to put her side of the story; indeed, she could use the interview to promote all the things for which she was now openly fighting. I left the deputy editor's office with the plan we had drawn up together: a series of articles on new trends in society and on radical changes that were taking place in the search for religious belief. In one of those articles, I would publish Athena's point of view.

That same afternoon, I went to her house, taking advantage of the fact that the invitation had come from her when we met outside the warehouse. The neighbours told me that, the day before, court