Occult Bookstore Near Me in Alphabet City: Enchantments and Its Candle Counter

If your search for an occult bookstore near me lands in the East Village, start with the shop that has been doing this longest. Enchantments opened in 1982 and calls itself New York's oldest occult store, and since February 2022 it has traded from 165 Avenue B, between East 10th and East 11th Streets. Books are only one shelf of the story here; the counter where staff carve candles to order is what people cross town for.

Hours are shorter and later than most shops, which catches first-timers out. Enchantments opens Wednesday through Sunday from 1:30pm to 8:30pm and stays closed on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday was historically the slowest day of the week, which is why the owners eventually gave it up. It also closes on New Year's Day, July 4, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and usually closes early on Halloween, so on October 31 aim for the early afternoon.

The house specialty is the carved seven-day candle. You pick an intention, and a staff member carves symbols, your name and your astrological sign into the wax, anoints it with oil and finishes it with glitter while you wait, a process the shop says takes between 15 and 45 minutes. Pre-designed custom candles are $55. If you would rather leave the choice to the staff, the $65 option includes a ten-minute phone consultation first.

There are firm limits on what gets carved. The shop will not make negative or harmful candles, and it does not cast spells on a customer's behalf; the work is yours, and the candle is the tool. Named designs on the menu include Fast Luck, Apartment Hunt, Ganesha and Hecate candles, which tells you a lot about what New Yorkers actually ask for. An apartment candle in this city is a practical purchase, not a joke.

For smaller budgets the plain stock is reasonably priced. A seven-day pull-out candle is $14, a single coach candle is $1.25 and small spell candles are $0.60 each, so you can build a full altar setup for less than one carved piece. An Uncrossing Kit is $22, pewter talismans are $33, and salt scrubs are $25. Figure candles in skull and cat shapes sit on the same shelves as the incense.

The apothecary wall is the part that rewards slow browsing. Enchantments blends more than 100 oils and keeps powder incenses, ritual baths, six kinds of ouanga bags and close to 200 herbs and resins in jars behind the counter. Some of its formulas trace back to Herman Slater's The Magickal Formulary, a formula book by the founder of the Magickal Childe shop, and blends such as Millionaire's Dream and Crown of Success carry names straight out of that tradition.

Readers come for the decks and the reading material. The shop carries around 130 tarot and divination decks, more than 100 pewter talismans, statues of deities and a shelf of books on witchcraft and ritual practice. Crystals are deliberately limited, so if a geode is the goal, Enchantments is the wrong stop. Its focus is the working material of candle magic and herbalism, plus the books that explain how to use it.

Ordering ahead follows rules worth reading before you go. Enchantments does not take orders over the phone. To skip the wait for a carved candle, you can prepay in person or order on its website and choose in-store pickup, giving at least two days' notice. Online orders that ship are running at four to five weeks, so a candle for a specific date is better collected. There are no returns or exchanges.

Founding history explains the shop's reputation. Enchantments was opened by Lady Rhea and Carol Bulzone, known in the community as Lady Miw; Lady Rhea sold her stake in 1987 and went on to write and teach about candle magic. The store spent decades on East Ninth Street, first on the block between First and Second Avenues and later at 424 East Ninth, before the 2022 move to Avenue B.

Today the business is led by Stacy Rapp, whom the shop's own site calls its head witch. The press shelf is long: The New York Times reviewed it in a 2008 Critical Shopper column, The New Yorker wrote about it in 2015 and The Guardian in 2016, and the store appears as a location in Marisha Pessl's 2013 novel Night Film. Few occult shops anywhere have that kind of paper trail.

First visits are less intimidating than the reputation suggests. The shop explicitly welcomes novices, and the most useful thing to bring is a concrete goal, such as a job interview, a new lease or a fresh start. Arrive with one clear intention rather than a list, and you will leave with a candle and a short set of instructions instead of a bag of unrelated jars. If the carving counter has a queue, browse the decks while you wait.

Pair the visit with Tompkins Square Park, which begins one block south of the shop at East 10th Street and runs between Avenues A and B down to Seventh. Its elms turn in late October, and the paths along the Avenue B side are the quickest route south toward the community gardens. The park is also where the shop's neighborhood regulars tend to sit and compare purchases after a visit.

On weekend afternoons between April and October, the 6 and B Garden at East Sixth Street and Avenue B opens its gates from 1pm to 6pm, a short walk south through the park. It is one of the volunteer-run community gardens that dot this part of the East Village, and a good place to sit with a new deck before you start shuffling. Avenue C and the rest of Loisaida continue east.

Plan for Wednesday to Sunday only, and allow up to 45 minutes if you want a carved candle made on the spot. Avenue B has no subway, so build in the walk from First Avenue or take the M14A. Purchases are final, so decide on the intention before the carving starts.

Enchantments suits practitioners who want materials rather than souvenirs, first-time candle workers who need a guide, and anyone curious about how a New York witchcraft shop has survived four decades of rent and real estate change. It is not the stop for crystal shopping or antiquarian books. Come on a Wednesday afternoon, order the carved candle, and give yourself time afterward for a slow lap of Tompkins Square.