Shops for spirituality
Area stores cater to people’s metaphysical pursuits outside traditional religions
Some people wander into Blessed Be Spiritual Shop to ask questions about spirituality and the metaphysical and to browse its selection of crystals, sage, ritual tools and books.
Others are drawn to the Grove City store’s calming atmosphere and Zen environment, said co-owner Lily-beth Carman.
Whatever their reason, Carman has noticed more people coming in recently, and she is happy to introduce them to what the spiritual shop is all about.
“We have established ourselves as just a solid place for people of a lot of paths to go and feel welcome and understood,” said Carman, who identifies as pagan but whose shop serves all, including Wiccans, eclectics, druids, Norse pagans, agnostics, Catholics and Protestants.
Blessed Be is one of several spiritual stores in the central Ohio area that seem to be thriving, even as large Christian bookstores in Columbus and across the country are closing amid competition from Amazon. com, other e-businesses and e-books.
Metaphysical shops first became popular during the New Age movement of the 1970s, and their success today represents a resurgence of sorts.
In March,lifeway Christian Resources announced that it would close all 170 of its stores, including three in Columbus, because of declines in customers and sales. Two years earlier,family Christian Stores, a Michigan-based bookseller, closed all 240 of its stores because of shrinking sales.
Some people attribute thesuccess of the metaphysical shopsto another trend: fewer people identifying with a mainstream religion, and more describing themselves as religious “nones,”a popular term for those who answer“none of the above” on religion identification surveys. They include atheists, agnostics and people who identify as “nothing in particular.”
Although a number of people do not describe themselves as religious, nine in 10 Americans believe in a higher power, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.
Matthew Hedstrom, an associate professor of religious and American studies at the University of Virginia, teaches 240 students a year about that demographic.
Contrary to popular belief, Hedstrom said, many people believe in general in a higher power and might even pray— in whatever way theyunderstand those two concepts. Others might beseeking something else to believe in, he said.
Carman said that Blessed Be Spiritual Shop caters to a lot of people who are questioning, including those still involved in mainstream religions.
“We are all about answering as many questions as we can with the knowledge we have and letting folks know it’s not what Hollywood has portrayed(spiritual stores)to be,” she said.
The store sells oils, incense, herbs, statuaries, crystals and more.
When people ask what the shop — and the spiritual — are all about, Carman tells them it’s about balance.
“It’s about understanding where the energy around us comes from and how we can work with that energy to affect changes,” she said.
Across the city are other similar shops, including The Magical Druid, Pearls of Wisdom and the Preserve on Calumet, all on the North Side, Downtown’s Enchanted Elements, Mystic Sisters in Grandview Heights and Spirit of Tiphereth in Franklinton.
Heather Killen has a store in Newark, Violet Flame Gifts, that sells bath and body products she makes using only natural ingredients. The store also sells ritual altar items such as caldrons and chalices; tarot cards; crystals and incense; and a variety of books on topics ranging from herbs and home remedies to Wiccans and witchcraft.
Killen opened her store in 2003 and credits its long life to people’s interest in buying local.
“People want to be able to pick up and hold things and know where they come from,” she said, adding that people also come in seeking stress relief and comfort.
The Mystic Sisters store sells crystals, candles and jewelry, but it also offers astrology, mediumship, numerology, and palm, psychic and tarot card readings, said Meggin Mcanally, a co-owner with her sister, Melanne.
The shop doesn’t sell books, but it recently added a second psychic reader at the store daily to meet demand, Mcanally said. They’re available for appointments and walk-ins.
Spirituality offers an individual pathway, in the same way that evangelicalism can, Hedstrom said.
Instead of being focused on community or religions, “their main interaction is between the spiritual and divine,” he said. “It makes both very open to being pursued through means of wider culture, and in America, that largely means consumer culture.”
If people are still seeking to explore their spiritual interests but are through with organized religion, they might first go to the internet and then, maybe, a store such as Blessed Be Spiritual Shop or Violet Flame Gifts, Hedstrom said. “It’s lowcost, you’re not committing to anything, you can dip your toe in.”
He said bricks-and-mortar metaphysical stores might survive when Christian stores don’t because people’s beliefs are changing and the shops often “become kind of like community centers.”
At the Magical Druid, coowner James Seamus Dillard said the owners have tried to make it a “safe and sacred space.”
Store employees answer questions, and the store hosts readings and has an altar for events and use by the community.
“One thing we wanted to do ... was make sure we’re not just a capitalistic entity,” he said.