Pagan & Shinto News: Wiccan Holidays Scrapped From University Religious Observances Calendar

Top stories in Paganism and Shinto this week:

Wiccan holidays scrapped from university religious observances calendar
PantheaCon announces 2020 will be final year
Locals oppose plans for witch memorial lighthouse in Scotland

Pagan News

Wiccan holidays scrapped from University of Victoria’s religious observances calendar

Martlet
Eight Wiccan holiday dates were removed from UVic’s annual religious observances calendar this year, in a move that leaves just four religions represented in the calendar, and students and faculty who identify as Wiccan without a way to request time off on a day that is not a statutory holiday…

PantheaCon announces 2020 will be final year
The Wild Hunt
In a post to the PantheaCon website and to the convention’s Facebook group, the conference’s founder and ringmaster, Glenn Turner, announced that 2020 will be the event’s final year…

Rita Morgan: Witch Mother, Force of Nature, Passing Beyond the Veil
Patheos Pagan: Ian Chambers
On the morning of September 23rd, the Pagan community lost one if its most stalwart bastions…

Pagan Pride in downtown Long Beach attempts to spread understanding of local pagan community
Signal Tribune
Religious groups, practitioners and vendors gathered in Rainbow Lagoon park in downtown Long Beach on Oct. 6 to celebrate Pagan Pride…

Pagans battling Neo-Nazis on stolen symbols
Bucks County Courier Times
Heathens Against Hate is a nonprofit based in Bristol, which seeks to educate the public about ancient pre-Christian symbols and their true origins in the pantheon of Norse gods and goddesses…

New Age Beliefs Are Making Serious Inroads in U.S. Jewish Life
Haaretz
Prayers featuring mindfulness meditation, yoga retreats, ‘intention setting’ sessions and lectures on the Zodiac — all are evidence of the contemporary spirit infusing synagogues of every stripe today…

Modern day sorceress ‘bewitched boss to land promotion’
Daily Star
Emma Kathryn Porter wore lucky charms and performed spells to boost her confidence as a witch…

31 Ways To Celebrate Samhain
Patheos Pagan: The Witches Next Door
Blessings of Samhain to you and yours…

From mystical tombs to Samhain festivities – why Boyne Valley is the real home of Halloween
Irish Examiner
An hour’s drive north of Dublin, this area is packed to the brim with ancient, mysterious sites…

Brujería Explained by Actual Brujas
Teen Vogue
Actual witches speak on the practice that stems from Africa…

Buckland Museum Celebrates And Demystifies Witchcraft In Cleveland
Idea Stream
A museum in Cleveland shows us that witches are more than just storybook characters on broomsticks…

Witches Are Having Their Hour
The New York Times
Pam Grossman, author and host of the popular “The Witch Wave” podcast, said witches are having a resurgence among feminists who want authority over their lives…

Screw Everything — I’m Becoming a Witch
The Bold Italic
There’s no better time to be a witch than now, when the world seems so out of control that people are searching for something — anything — to ground them…

Don’t Accept Witch Imposter Syndrome. Reclaim Your Power.
Patheos Pagan: Astrea
After much research about the root causes of imposter syndrome, I’m here to eradicate it. I have proof that you ARE indeed the witch you wish to be!…

Shinto News

Rugby World Cup fans urged to pray to Japanese thunder god Raijin to stop Super Typhoon
The Scottish Sun
Scots rugby fans have been urged to pray to the Japanese thunder god Raijin — to stop a storm that sounds like Haggis blowing away our World Cup dream…

Visits to Tokyo’s war-linked Yasukuni Shrine by ministers may resume after more than two years
The Japan Times
Ahead of an autumn festival at the shrine — which honors Class-A war criminals along with the war dead — set for Oct. 17, some within political circles have voiced concern that any ministerial visit to Yasukuni on the occasion may trigger a backlash from China and South Korea…

Japan’s Year of Imperial Succession Continues with Autumn Enthronement and Thanksgiving Ceremonies
Nippon.com
In October and November, two major rituals of imperial succession will take place in Japan…

Kunchi festival kicks off in Nagasaki
NHK World
An autumn event dating back more than 380 years has kicked off in Nagasaki City, southwestern Japan…

Inside Japan’s Kumano Brush Festival
Vogue
At the annual Kumano Fude Matsuri, or Brush Festival, brushes are given their due with a two-day celebration…

What Japan can teach us about cleanliness
BBC
In the West, we are taught that cleanliness is next to godliness. In Shinto, cleanliness is godliness…

Other News

Torryburn says no to lighthouse witch memorial
Dumferline Press
Torryburn families have said “No” to erecting a historic Fife lighthouse as a national memorial to the victims of Scotland’s witch-hunt…

Giuliani comparing impeachment to witch trials is a little right and a lot wrong, expert says
Greenwich Time
The impeachment inquiry, in which Congress gathers information about the president’s alleged impropriety, is not a trial. Giuliani’s comparison of the probe to the Salem witch trials was partly accurate, but he also got a lot wrong…

Mysterious Ancient Greek tablet finally deciphered to reveal 1500-year-old curse
The Mirror
The curse, written in Ancient Greek, calls upon various demons to inflict harm on a dancer named Manna, who is thought to have performed at the theatre…

Ancient Egyptian coffin contains ‘oldest map of the underworld’ inscribed 4,000 years ago
The Sun
The ancient doodle was designed to help the dead reach the afterlife by guiding them through the perilous obstacles of the underworld…

Mysterious Egyptian coffin covered with ‘nonsense hieroglyphics’ baffles archaeologists
The Sun
Scientists found the mysterious burial at an enormous cemetery just south of Cario, and say it dates back more than 2,000 years…

Israel discovers 5,000-year-old Canaanite city with ritual temple
XinhuaNet
A huge 5,000-year-old Canaanite city with a ritual temple was discovered in the center of Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) reported on Sunday…

Extinction Rebellion ‘deface’ famous White Horse monument just weeks after schoolchildren helped restore it
Mail Online
Neighbours of a famous White Horse have accused Extinction Rebellion of ‘defacing’ the monument by covering it with their logo just weeks after schoolchildren helped restore it…

Folklore is dying out due to rise of social media, National Trust warns
The Telegraph
The National Trust has warned that advances in technology and social media is causing traditional mythology to die out as it is no longer relevant to modern lives…

Architect John Marx reimagines a Greek myth for Burning Man pavilion
Dezeen
Architect John Marx and Brian Poindexter, with San Francisco art collective Playa Muses, built Andromeda Reimagined to subvert the ancient Greek story of Andromeda from a male dominated narrative into a tale of female empowerment…

Satanic Temple Considers Legal Action Against School Censorship
Rewire.News
The task of determining which web content students can access is outsourced to an Austin, Texas-based company called Lightspeed Systems, which had manually tagged The Satanic Temple’s website as “mature.”…

How This 30,000-Year-Old Figurine Continues to Captivate Today
My Modern Met
While the 2nd-century-BCE Venus de Milo is perhaps the most well-known sculpture of the goddess, it is not the oldest; in fact, that honor goes to the Venus of Willendorf, a piece that predates the myth itself by over 20,000 years…

Marianne Williamson and the religion of ‘spirituality’
The Conversation
We have seen a dramatic rise over the last few decades in the number of North Americans who self-identify as “spiritual but not religious.”…

Witchcraft is alive and well in Salem, the ‘Witch City’
USA Today
A major reason Salem is considered a destination for Halloween lovers is also a dark part of its history: the Salem witch trials…

South Africa: Reports of witchcraft degree at UniVen ‘fake news’
Jacaranda FM
The University of Venda (Univen) says it learned with shock about fake news which has recently been circulating on social media platforms stating that it is in the process of introducing a Witchcraft degree…

North Dakotan pleads guilty to attempted murder of person he believed was a witch
The Wild Hunt
Reports suggest that Mr. Azizov believed the woman to be a witch and, “the cause of all negativity in his life.”…

India: Elderly Couple Killed on Suspicion of Practising Witchcraft in Odisha
News18
The bodies of Sitaram Sing (62) and his wife Lato Sing (52) of Sitaram Sahi village missing since Sunday were recovered from the reservoir of Sono river by personnel of Odisha State Disaster Response Force and Fire Brigade on Wednesday…