Pagan & Shinto News: ‘Witch’ Used ‘Wicca Book of Spells’ And Shotgun to Set Fire to Cars at Dealership

Top stories of the week in Paganism and Shinto:

• US: ‘Witch’ used ‘Wicca Book of Spells’ and shotgun to set fire to cars at dealership
• Japan faith-based tourism market to grow at 10.5%
• UK: Hundreds want Earth Goddess statue removed ‘with immediate effect’

Read more below…

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Pagan News

US: ‘Witch’ used ‘Wicca Book of Spells’ and shotgun to set fire to cars at dealership
Daily Star
A woman has been arrested after police say they caught her using a spell book and shotgun to set fire to cars at a used dealership…

UK: Hundreds want Earth Goddess statue removed ‘with immediate effect’
ITV
417 people have signed an online petition to remove the artwork “with immediate effect”, with one person referring to it as “an offence to God”…

The viral TikTok honey spell, explained
Mashed
A love spell involving honey that hails from a specific culture has recently surfaced on the app…

UK: Witches ball to be highlight of popular pagans festival coming to Coventry
Coventry Telegrapy
A glamorous witches ball is set to be the highlight of a popular festival for witches and pagans, which returns for the second time this year in September…

Canada: Pagan festival coming to Duncan
Cowichan Valley Citizen
Vancouver Island Pagan Pride day is headed to Duncan in 2022…

UK: Psychic predicts next heatwave date and Love Island heartbreak ahead of ‘strange’ summer
The Mirror
Inbaal Hongiman, 49, who uses tarot cards to look into the past, present and future, is a self-professed Wiccan high priestess and has made some predictions for the months ahead…

Skies across the world lit up by stunning Sturgeon supermoon on its final appearance of the year
Mail Online
Skies across the world have been lit up by the final ‘supermoon’ of the year tonight – with keen astronomers having the chance to see shooting stars from the Perseids Meteor Shower too…

Should Witches and Pagans be accorded religious freedom?
Patheos Pagan (Tony Mierzwicki)
On Saturday, July 16th 2022, the Witch’s Fest event held in Astor Place, New York City (NYC), was invaded by a group of evangelical Christians who clearly believed that their religion was the only one which should be followed…

Shinto News

Japan faith-based tourism market to grow at 10.5% through 2032 amid rising interest in spirituality among tourists
Newstrail
Tourism in Japan has increased, with more people visiting both well-known and lesser-known areas. This has heightened interest in numerous areas of Japanese culture, tradition, and society…

Gigantic geyser erupts from Shinto shrine’s forest on the night before its summer festival
SoraNews24
The way it looks, sounds, and smells all have people paying attention to this amazing display of the force of nature…

Japanese minister Nishimura visits Yasukuni Shrine
Bloomberg*
Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura visited a controversial war shrine on Aug. 13, Kyodo News reported, in a move that could potentially sour relations with China and South Korea…

Japan’s consumer affairs agency to probe ‘spiritual marketing’
NHK World
Japan’s new minister in charge of consumer affairs, Kono Taro, has instructed his agency to set up a panel to investigate the marketing practices of groups involved in so-called spiritual sales…

Part-Time Priestess
Metropolis
The miko-san in a modernizing Tokyo…

The Gion Matsuri: Energizing and celebrating the Kami
Japan Forward
From ancient times, horses, especially white horses, were highly revered in Japan, and it was believed that sometimes kami arrived on horseback…

Japan’s Obon festival: how family commemoration and ancestral worship shapes daily life
The Conversation
Each year in Japan, people celebrate ohigan, a period of seven days around both the vernal and the autumnal equinoxes, and obon, which stretches over a few days on either side of August 15…

Other News

Hong Kong: 2 women sentenced to 120 hours of community service for sacrificing rabbits and rats for witchcraft
Coconuts
Two Hong Kong women who engaged a tertiary level student to perform witchcraft with the sacrifice of small live animals such as rabbits and rats were sentenced to 120 hours of community service on Friday, according to local media reports…

Australia: Ancient Parthenon brought to life as ‘Temple of Boom’
Greek City News
Former ancient temple on Greece’s Athenian Acropolis, the Parthenon, will be brought to life once again this summer in the National Galley of Victoria courtyard in an epic, evocative reimagining…

Nigeria: Why we are worshiping Osun — foreign devotees
Daily Trust
Some foreign devotees at the just concluded Osun-Osogbo festival have expressed belief in the sanctity of the Osun deity, saying the annual fiesta offers an opportunity for worship through the sacred grove…

In this novel, witchcraft makes women powerful, and vulnerable
The New York Times*
In “The Women Could Fly,” women are uniquely capable of magic, which leads the government to strictly monitor and regulate them…

‘Witch hunts’ past and present

In Africa, ‘witchcraft delusions’ spark deadly mob violence
Worldcrunch
In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, ‘witchcraft’ allegations occasionally flare into violence and death…