Thanks to the reader who sent in the following story, about a Wiccan trying to perfect the craft in a Lebanon cemetery. The results did involve blood.

"Lebanon police investigated an overnight incident in which a woman stabbed herself in the foot with a sword during a Wiccan ritual at a local cemetery.

"Police were called to the Witham Hospital emergency room around 2:00 a.m. on July 19, 2008 on a reported stabbing. The victim, Katherine Gunther, 36, 532 S. East Street, had been transported to the hospital by friends after running a 36-inch sword completely through her left foot.

"Gunther told police that she and several friends were in Oak Hill cemetery in Lebanon around 12:15 a.m. practicing a Wiccan ritual involving candles, incense and driving swords into the earth during the full moon. During this ritual, Gunther accidentally ran the sword through her foot; she also admitted to having consumed alcohol earlier in the evening."

What is it about Central Indiana and Wicca? A few years ago, the New York Times did a Halloween-related story about Wicca that featured a couple from, of all places, the Hoosier capital city. They both wore outlandish purple robes for the money shot.

More recently, we had Hoosier judge Cale J. Bradford of Marion County who in 2005 forbade a dicorced Wiccan couple from teaching the craft to their son, a pupil at a Catholic school in Indy. That ruling was overturned by the state appeals court.

But then, Indiana also had a pretty newsworthy yarn about a woman who shot herself in the foot while consuming vodka, then went on to that unique form of celebrity that only comes with an interview on the Bob and Tom radio show.

A friend into this sort of thing insists that Indianapolis is one of two spiritual apexes of the nation, the other being Taos, New Mexico. To think that everything other-worldy converges in central Indiana....that explains a lot.