Salt Lake Pagan Society

The beloved Pagan and Magick shop of Utah County has decided to close its door. Gypsy Wagon, run by mother and daughter team Penny and Misty Mcinelly will be moving in the direction of festival vending, private psychic readings, and online shopping.

The shop has had a history of ups and downs over the last six years since it opened in Spring of 2009 in the basement of a house in Lindon, UT. President Cureton fondly remembers shopping there when he first became a Pagan.”I was thrilled they were so close, as I was a student in Provo at BYU. I don’t remember how I found them. Most likely their website, as I was new to Paganism and new to Utah as well, so I had to do Google searches and looking at Witchvox.com. I met Misty when I went to the house, which I had to enter through the back through a back door. It was very secretive, being in a highly Mormon neighborhood in Lindon, which is basically Orem. Misty and I got along great, and formed a friendship I still maintain till this day. She even participated in some of the early functions of the U of U Pagan Society and traveled with me to visit Utah State University Pagan Alliance (USUPA) in Logan over Beltane 2010.

I made my first purchase, a large one, of magick supplies from her in June of 2009. I also had my first psychic readings from her, which turned me on to divination. I paid for a few readings. We did a playing card reading, threw some herbs in some water in a scrying bowl, and the biggest one which provided the most detail was the coffee ground reading. She provided information about people I would later meet when I started helping out at LGBT pride, and at the LGBT Resource Center at the University of Utah in spring of 2010. She warned me about some, showing me the frowns and horns on some faces next to letters that had come up in the cup. I then purchased the Dragon Tarot by Terry Donaldson, which was my first tarot. Meeting her and having those discussions about my path and the changes I was contemplating at the time (transferring schools to the University of Utah) set me on the path I am on today.  Gypsy Wagon was an influential and important part of my history since the very beginning of my journey in Paganism and in Utah.”

The shop moved in 2010 to Pleasant Grove where in the fall they hosted a psychic fair on the front lawn of the house they were using, the same weekend, June 19, 2010, as the City of Fun Carnival which was held at the park a block away. President Cureton read at the fair, doing coral readings along with a few ladies who did tarot and angel cards. Troubles plagued them there, with marginalization from the community and the occasional window breaking from hooligans.  In 2011 the shop moved to a new location in American Fork, in a strip mall on 52 S. Main St where it stayed to date.

The store at one point was closing, but a secret partner stepped up in the spring of 2013 just as the doors were about to shut. So it continued for a while, until September 2014 when the shop made an announcement on its Facebook page that they are changing the structure and closing its door to focus more online, with private sales and festivals in the mix. SLPS wishes them all the blessings of the Goddess on this new journey, may they continue to be the lifeblood of the community in Utah County!

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