Witchcraft suspected after 5 animal hearts found outside church
In a disturbing incident, animal hearts surrounding candles were found on a triangulation pillar near an English countryside church, just over a month after a dead cat was found hanging from a flagpole at the same location, according to a report.
Five hearts were found lying on top of a triangulation station with candles in a circle around the stone landmark near the 12th century St. Peter’s Church in Bramshaw near Southampton, The Times (U.K.) reported.
When the incident was reported to police, officers reportedly said they were patrolling that area as it had previously been a target of suspected satanists.
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Last month, the church’s vicar, the Rev. David Bacon, told the press that women came to clean the church to prepare it for Christmas and found a dead cat hanging from the flagpole.
Just weeks earlier, a dead fox was found lying on the church’s doorstep. “Every so often we get things like this happening. It makes everybody feel very uncomfortable,” the vicar said at the time.
In 2019, sheep had been stabbed and sprayed with pentagrams, and graffiti with the same occult markings were found on the church walls.
In January 2020, The Telegraph reported that St. Botolph’s Church in the Lincolnshire countryside was being repeatedly desecrated by satanists who would break in to perform occult ceremonies and scatter the blood of sacrificed animals.
“They sometimes bring chickens and slit their throats and the blood spills out all over,” Martin Chapman, a farmer who had been visiting the church site to clear the remnants, was quoted as saying. “It’s just escalated over the years. They damage and break things. They make rings of candles and salt. They smash graves. There is no fear. There’s a group of serious witches that come down.”
Many young women had been traveling to St Botolph’s, Chapman added.
“Churches often have a palpable sense of God and goodness because they have been saturated with the prayers of people down the ages,” Justine Allain Chapman, archdeacon of Boston in the Diocese of Lincoln, was quoted as saying at the time. “That quality doesn’t disappear easily, and so people are drawn to religious places. It is important to remember that God’s blessing is stronger than any curse, and light more powerful than darkness.”
