The Weirdest Religion Stories of 2006

There are then the stories that are just plain bizarre no matter how you look at them: the African criminal who asked a judge to release him from court so he could pay the prostitute who had cursed him; the request was urgent because the rooster she had placed inside him was crowing . This is perhaps not as bizarre a courtroom drama as the story of the Judge in the Philippines who was relieved of duty for talking about the mystical dwarves who aided his work just one too many times. (Or his spiritual double, the time-traveling chiropractor )

Then there's the healer who claimed he was scorched by a goblin in an exorcism gone wrong , which gets my vote for funniest headline, ever. Or, how about the witchfinder whose witch-revealing trick involves licking goat's blood ? (Hint: if your insides fall out, you're a witch!) And if none of that grabs you, the tale of Saudi authorities' bid to arrest a nude witch they believe crash-landed at a hospital in a broom flying attempt gone wrong ought to do the trick. No? How about a resurrection cult hoarding corpses they hoped to reanimate ?