SALEM, Massachusetts (Reuters) - She brews potions, wears flowing black caftans and says she can speak with the dead and cast spells with a gentle wave of a wand.Laurie Cabot is a proud witch, and she's fighting for her civil rights. At age 73, the official witch of Salem says her craft is stronger than ever, as she sits in an overstuffed chair behind a pink table where she does psychic readings -- and where, she says, spirits of the dead often "pop through."
"I can't see them with my eyes, I just know they are there," said Cabot, whose cheek is tattooed with a spiral and whose long gray hair, streaked with black, covers her shoulders and much of her back. "They talk to me and tell me things that no one would know. And of course the person I'm reading for is either totally shocked or they end up crying a lot," she said.