Wolrd Religion

The defense in the faith-healing trial in the June 2008 death of 16-year-old Neil Beagley began its case Monday with a medical expert witness who said the teen's symptoms weren't necessarily so bad that a reasonable person would think he could have died.

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If the word "psychedelic" conjures up images of San Francisco or Woodstock, there's much more to learn from journalist Don Lattin's mind-blowing guided tour of the colorful people who gave birth to America's psychedelic era in an unlikely place: Harvard University.

Says Religion News Service: In his new book, "The Harvard Psychedelic Club," which has received enthusiastic reviews and generated interest in Hollywood, Lattin expertly shows how Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil crossed paths at Harvard in the fall of 1960 before going their own separate ways.

Lattin, a veteran religion reporter who walked on the wild side more than a few times himself, traces how the four men forever changed the way people — both straight and stoned — think about spirituality.

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Motivational speaker James Arthur Ray who led a sweat lodge ceremony in Arizona that turned deadly said he feels horrible about what happened but declined to comment on whether he was responsible for the deaths.

He refers instead to letters drafted by his attorneys that state he was not criminally negligent.

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PARIS -- A parliamentary panel will recommend on Tuesday that France ban face-covering Muslim veils in public locations such as hospitals and schools, but not in private buildings or on the street, the group's president said.

The decision appeared to indicate that the 32-member, multiparty panel had heeded warnings that a full ban of the all-encompassing veils would be unfair, possibly unconstitutional, and could even cause trouble in a country where Islam is the second largest religion.

A 2004 law already bans Muslim headscarves in classrooms.

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