Witchcraft weddings are all the rage in Australia now that all states and territories have repealed laws that outlawed the observances of witches, wiccans, shamans, goddess worshippers and druids.
Four people with experience of the occult have qualified as marriage celebrants and are offering witch weddings or "handfastings," news reports said yesterday.
"The calls are coming in thick and fast and we've all been inundated with inquiries for weddings since we've been appointed," pagan priestess Ann-Marie Cloke told Australia's AAP news agency.
In a handfasting, the hands of the bride and groom are bound together with ribbon and they are jumped over a traditional broom.
Pagan Awareness Network (PAN) coordinator Gavin Andrew said the shaft of the broom and its bristled head symbolized the joining of the man and the woman.
Melbourne-based Cloke said she had requests to perform legally binding handfastings from as far away as New Zealand.
"It's a thrill to do," she said. "We're not scary people. We might have our seasonal worship stuff, but it's no different from how other people celebrate Halloween or Christmas."
Last month Victoria became the last jurisdiction in Australia to legalize witchcraft by repealing the Vagrancy Act. On the statute book since 1958, the act had outlawed "fortune telling and pretending to exercise witchcraft" as well as "any occult of crafty science."
The act had threatened pagans with punishment for practising "any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration."
PAN's Andrew said that at the 2001 national census 11,000 had identified themselves as pagans with 8,700 declaring themselves witches.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
RSS