LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa - Imagine a religion where 94 percent of its adherents are registered to vote and a significant number have served in the armed forces. Where there are almost three times as many women as men, and where almost 76 percent of the faithful count themselves as being members of either Generation X or Y, with most falling roughly between the ages of 26 and 39.

That religion, according to a recent poll conducted by the Graduate Center at The City University of New York, is the religious movement identified by its adherents as paganism, a group of faiths like Wicca and neo-druidism influenced by the pre-Christian traditions of early Europe.

"People have a specific image of witches and pagans, but it's one that's, for the most part, inaccurate," Brad Mengel, a practitioner of pagan witchcraft who lives in Reading, said. "We don't worship the devil or have bubbling cauldrons, and most of us volunteer or do socially responsible things like voting.

"I'm attracted to the openness of my religion. It teaches that things happen for a reason and that everything we do has an effect," said Mengel, who is currently finishing a degree in anthropology at West Chester University. "It looks at the world as being something like a spiritual ecosystem, and it's a kind of thinking that I haven't been able to find in other faiths."

For Jamie Lord, a pagan who works as a medical technician in a Harrisburg-area assisted-living community, paganism is something "you custom-fit" around your life.

"I've always felt really connected to nature and to Mother Earth, so paganism works for me," Lord said. "It's a religion of peace-loving people who have a profound respect for nature and mysticism, who wish nothing but prosperity and good will for others."

For area Wiccans, pagans, druids, neo-pagans and other practitioners of witchcraft, Dec. 21 through Dec. 22 marks the holy day of Yule, a time when the annual winter solstice is celebrated with gatherings that often involve a meal and gift giving, and where activities like feasting and wassailing are sometimes regarded as sacred.

Locally, Unitarian Universalist Church of Lancaster, 538 W. Chestnut St., will hold two Yule rituals for the general public, one at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 21 and the second at 4 p.m. Dec. 22. Admission is free, but tickets must be picked up at the church office in advance.

Sometimes referred to as the Craft or the Old Religion, paganism praises love, life and nature. Celebrating the virtues of the earth, many rituals and practices revolve around what the faithful call The Wheel of the Year, which breaks down the year into eight earth holidays, often called sabbats or holy days, that correspond to the earth's natural cycles — two solstices, two equinoxes and the four days equidistant between them, often called "cross-quarter days" by the faithful.

Though many Wiccans and neo-pagans interpret their faith differently, many believe in and worship a goddess and a horned god, sometimes symbolized as the Sun and the Moon; many also follow a code of ethics they call the Witch's Rede, which teaches "Do as you will and harm none."

For Cyndi Simpson, a Wiccan and retired epidemiologist now living in Lancaster, Yule is celebrated as being an aspect of the new year.

"When it comes to Yule there are a lot of ideas and images of rebirth and starting over," Simpson said. "Also, because of the solstice, we're now heading in a direction of when the days are longer than the nights. This marks the turning of the earth, and is a way of us celebrating the longest night of the year."

The "dark half" of the year, she said, is a time for planning, resting, nurturing and introspection. "But with the return of the light we begin moving toward another kind of energy," she said. "It's a time to put plans in motion and acknowledge that we are heading toward the direction of spring."

For Lord, a native of Hallstead who moved to Harrisburg to be with his life partner, it's important to understand that Wicca and paganism are separate things.

"Paganism embraces Wicca, in the same way that Christianity embraces, say, Lutheranism. Both faiths believe in many of the same ideas, but it's useful to think of paganism as being more like an 'umbrella,'!\p" he said. "But ... I also want to emphasize that I'm not any sort of spokesman for the pagan or Wiccan communities. That's one of the great things about my faith; everybody is free to have their own beliefs."

While Lord and Simpson came to their faiths through their own journey of self-discovery — Simpson through a book titled "Chalice and Blade" by Rian Eisler and Lord through a friend's blog in San Francisco — Mengel is rare in that he was raised as a witch through stories, lore and teachings passed down by his maternal grandmother, who had learned the Craft from her German parents.

"She began teaching me when I was 5 years old, and my religious instruction focused on respect for nature, as well as basic spell casting and an education in the use of medicinal herbs," he said. "At the time, of course, I didn't realize how unique I was, and it was only later when I began to realize that people in society don't usually understand how I see things, since I was raised in a faith remarkably different from that of my neighbors."

One of the hallmarks of his upbringing, Mengel said, is that it allowed him to feel like he was growing up as part of something "big, much bigger than myself."

"So often in life there are these nonsense moral codes, and one of the great blessings I got from my grandmother was that I wasn't raised with all of these hang-ups, these ideas that life 'must' be a certain way," he said. "Like the whole debate on how marriage can 'only' be between a man and a woman. I just don't get that kind of thinking at all.

For Mengel, he likens the experience of being a pagan as being similar to the electricity crackling in the air just before childhood thunderstorms.

"Remember back when you were a kid and it was summer, and there was that feeling of energy in the air just before a big storm? Just wind and lightning and nature and the feeling of energy coursing through your body?" he said. "As a pagan, I get to feel that way all the time."