Police use obscure law as a threat against Hanover metaphysics shop, storeowner says<\/a><\/p>\nThe issue centers on Pennsylvania\u2019s \u201cfortune telling statute,\u201d first established in 1861. <\/p>\n
The law says, in part, \u201cA person is guilty of a misdemeanor of the third degree if he pretends for gain or lucre, to tell fortunes or predict future events, by cards, tokens,\u201d and so on.<\/p>\n
Ravenswood said they initially did not believe the warning was serious. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a joke. At first, I thought it was like let\u2019s prank the witch, you know. And then when I realized, like, it was serious, I immediately called a lawyer,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Ravenswood filed a 17-page lawsuit against Hanover Borough and the police chief.<\/p>\n
Ravenswood said the case is now in the discovery phase. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have until November 30th to finish discovery, which is basically where the attorneys will gather all sorts of evidence and then submit them to the court,\u201d Ravenswood said. \u201cAnd then we have a general kind of sense of the witch trial will happen in June of 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until then, Ravenswood said they can continue to read tarot cards because of a court order. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2025, I was given something called a temporary injunction, which allows me to continue reading tarot cards currently,\u201d Ravenswood said. \u201cAnd because of this, I am the only person in the state that can legally read tarot cards right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ravenswood said the lawsuit and the response to it have had a major impact. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been, like, life-changing. Like I\u2019m very grateful again, that maybe not so much grateful that something bad happened, but that we have been able to turn something so like, potentially negative into something that is really, really positive,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"YORK COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) \u2014 A Hanover shop owner who built a business around tarot readings and spiritual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-257199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}