Pagan Tama
Top stories in Paganism and Shinto this week:
- Japan celebrates Coming of Age Day
- ‘Disturbing’ rise in children suffering abuse after being accused of witchcraft in the UK
- Campaigners fight to save ancient holy well
Read more below…
Pagan News
Local pagans prepare for welcoming of spring, St. Brigid’s Day
Denton Record Chronicle
Sixteen sets of hands bent reeds, folded corn husks and wrapped yarn Sunday afternoon in preparation for Imbolc…
Celtic Imbolc Festival at the Hook Lighthouse
The Munster Express
The Hook Lighthouse is set to celebrate Ireland’s ‘Fire Goddess’ through the Imbolc traditional festival marking the beginning of spring from February 1st to 3rd…
Women artists to celebrate Saint Brigid in London
Irish World
Following on the immense success of its first-ever celebration of Ireland’s women for St Brigid’s Day, the Embassy of Ireland is hosting an exhibition in Westminster dedicated to the Irish saint…
OBOD Members Travel to 2019 Southern Hemisphere Assembly
The Wild Hunt
Members of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids are travelling to New Zealand this week to take part in the eighteenth annual Southern Hemisphere OBOD Assembly…
‘An iconic, bucket list experience’: Major international Halloween festival set for Meath this year
TheJournal.ie
It wants this new festival to focus on creating a festival that will “celebrate Ireland as the original home of Halloween which began as the ancient tradition of Samhain – the ancient New Year”…
Witchcraft and wizardry the focus of new exhibition to go on show in Scunthorpe
Grimsby Live
The Waking the Witch display reflects the British Isles’ strong relationship to magic and the occult, with the chants of witchcraft echoing throughout its history…
Blood Moon 2019 superstitions and beliefs to know before January eclipse
Express
A Blood Moon eclipse this month will see the Full Moon turn a deep hue of red during totality, leading many to associate the event with superstitions…
Witchfest returns to Croydon
Witchfest
Witchfest, the largest Witchcraft festival held in the world, is to be held in Fairfield Halls, Croydon on the Saturday November 9th 2019…
Millennial mysticism: why contemporary poets are turning to the occult
The New Statesman
Spells: 21st-Century Occult Poetry argues that poems are spells…
The Witch of Kings Cross: Kiwi occultist who scandalised Sydney
NZ Herald
Her name was Rosaleen Norton, “Roie” to those who knew her, a New Zealand-born artist and witch who made her home in Darlinghurst, near Sydney’s Kings Cross, in the 1940s and ’50s scandalising the conservative establishment…
Witch charges couples £100-a-day for trips to Loch Ness ‘fertility hotspot’ graveyard
The Sun
Witch Kevin Carlyon, 60, has been helping couples with fertility problems for two decades by taking them to sites with ‘energy’ that will help them conceive..
Hoodoo Pharmacies in New Orleans
The Wild Hunt
Louis J. Dufilho, Jr. opened the first licensed pharmacy in the US in 1816 in New Orleans. In 1950, the site became The New Orleans Pharmacy Museum. Not only does that site have a place in the history of US pharmacies, but it also has a place in the history of New Orleans Voodoo and Hoodoo in the US…
Diving Into the Occult with Grace Wales Bonner and Ishmael Reed
Interview Magazine
Grace Wales’ newest venture, a multi-sensory installation at London’s Serpentine Gallery called A Time for New Dreams, which opens tomorrow, turns the white cube gallery setting into a portal for mysticism and the occult…
Shinto News
Coming-of-age ceremonies in areas of Japan devastated by last year’s disasters hold extra poignancy
The Japan Times
Coming-of-age ceremonies were held in many places across the country over the weekend, including areas devastated by natural disasters last year…
Seijinshiki 2019: Best wild kimono outfits from Coming of Age Day celebrations in Kitakyushu
SoraNews24
It’s a public holiday in Japan today, and the annual day off is called Seijin no Hi, or “Coming of Age Day”, where the nation’s 20-year-olds celebrate their legally recognised age of adulthood with their friends and family…
Female imperial family members to be barred from key succession rite
Japan Today
The government decided Thursday only male adult imperial family members will attend one of the key ceremonies to mark Crown Prince Naruhito’s ascension to the throne on May 1, following the example set by Emperor Akihito’s enthronement in 1989…
Antique hina doll exhibition starts in Tokyo
The Japan News
An annual antique hina doll exhibition, the 10th of its kind, began Friday at the Hyakudan Kaidan exhibition hall in Tokyo, with collections having been handed down in families over centuries…
Keio Plaza Hotel hosts “Hina-matsuri (Girls’ Doll Festival)” event
Antara News
One of Japan’s most prestigious international hotels located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, will host an event entitled “Hina-matsuri through Tea Ceremony Culture and Hanging Art” to help guests celebrate Japan’s cultural event known as Girls’ Doll Festival or “Hina-matsuri”…
Japanese plunge into ice bath at Tokyo shrine in purification ritual for New Year
The Telegraph
Nearly one hundred people gathered at a Tokyo shrine to wash themselves in an icy bath on Sunday to purify their souls and wish for good health in the new year…
‘Boars Galore’: The Year of the Boar finally gets it day
The Japan Times
Four years ago, the Kyoto National Museum reinstituted its annual series foregrounding the Chinese zodiac animals. It now celebrates China’s Year of the Pig — Japan’s Year of the Boar (inoshishi)…
The Religion of Marie Kondo and her KonMari Method of Tidying
The Media Project
“Shintoism, for me, is not particularly a religion in my life, but it is a natural habit in our daily life”…
How Hindu deities are deified in Japan
Madras Courier
Hindu deities are worshipped in Japan even today…
Other New
Campaigners fight to save ancient holy well
Gazette
Campaigners have slammed plans to build two ‘aspirational dwellings’ on a small parcel of land near Wotton, which contains an ancient well…
‘Disturbing’ Rise In Children Suffering Abuse After Being Accused Of Witchcraft And Demonic Possession
Huffpost UK
Hundreds of child abuse cases in the UK are linked to faith and belief – and experts say they are only the tip of the iceberg…
Parents used witchcraft to try to cover FGM of three-year-old daughter, court hears
Evening Standard
The parents of a three-year-old girl who are accused of female genital mutilation cast witchcraft spells to “silence” police and doctors while their child lay in a hospital bed, the Old Bailey heard…
Damage to Ancient Carving of Egyptian Couple Was Meant to Hurt Them in the Afterlife
Live Science
An intentionally damaged limestone carving found within a 3,500-year-old shrine at Tell Edfu, in southern Egypt, shows what appears to be an ancient couple who someone tried to vanquish in the afterlife…
Villagers dress up for ancient Macedonian festival marking beginning of their New Year
Mail Online
Pagan festival is held annually on the eve of the feast of St Basil to mark the New Year for the Julian calendar…
A Medievalist’s Guide to Magic and Alchemy in A Discovery of Witches
io9
To give layfolk a sense of how dope an obscure, 15th-century alchemical manuscript can be, we’ve prepared a medievalist guide to some of its features—from the philosopher’s stone to the alchemical child and more…
Trump’s reference to Wounded Knee evokes the dark history of suppression of indigenous religions
The Conversation
Wounded Knee is among the worst massacres in Native American history. It was also one of the most violent examples of the repression of indigenous religion in American history…
A Beautiful Documentary About the Yamabushi Monks in Japan Who Immerse Themselves In Nature
Laughing Squid
In the short documentary “Mountain Monks”, filmmaker Fritz Schumann (previously) has captured the quiet beauty of the Yamabushi and the monks who climb mountains and traverse waterfalls without shoes on their feet in a meaningful ritual that symbolizes death and rebirth…
India: Man accuses mother of being a ‘witch’, murders her before burying her body in his own backyard
MirrorNowNews
A man from Jharkhand’s Mungeli district accused his mother of being a ‘witch’ and murdered her in cold blood before stuffing her body in a sack and burying it in the backyard of his family home…
India: Elderly couple killed, buried near river bank over witchcraft suspicion
Zee New
odies of a septuagenarian couple, apparently killed over suspicion of practising witchcraft, were recovered from the bank of a river in Assam’s Chirang district on Wednesday, police said…
Why The Elderly Are Being Killed In Kenya
The Voice
According to African tradition when a person reaches old age they have reached a level of wisdom that younger generations can learn a great deal from. However, this is not the case in coastal Kenya where older people are regularly killed after being suspected of practicing witchcraft…
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