A visit to "Where Faeries Live"

by Mike Perschon - Copyright © Mike Perschon 2002

This is paper I recently did for my World Religions class; the assignment was to go and observe or interact with a faith community we had studied this past semester.

Finding a place to engage the “community of faith” with Wicca was a near impossible task, but one which I was determined to succeed in. As a young teen, I was fascinated by the concept of white magic, but being that it was the early 1980’s and preceded the greater acceptance Wicca has found in the late 1990’s and early 21st century, there was little information on the subject, and remained but a curiosity even after I became a Christian in 1985. As a young adult, I believed I sensed the call of God to minister to people caught up in the New Age movement and began to research the movement, not as Evangelical Christians classically look at things they believe to be ‘deceptions of Satan’ or simply ‘cults’. This approach assumes the utter deprivation of the people involved in the movement, and that their beliefs have no value to us. At best, Evangelical Christians will tip their hat to the fervor with which Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses seek to proselytize, going door to door. But to actually admit that there would be something we could learn from the New Age movement, or worse yet, Wicca with its witches and pentagrams would be heretical.

In my research, I found a faith which I could not already learn from, but agreed with in many places. How truly different is the Wiccan Rede, “An ye harm none, do what ye will’ from Saint Augustine’s paraphrasing of Christ’s commandment and Paul’s belief in the freedom of the believer when he said, “Love God and Love each other and then do as you will.” The number of bridges that should exist between the Christian and Wiccan communities, but do not, intrigued me.

Initially, I will admit that my desire to gave a Wiccan experience of faith community was to make contact with a friend of mine from High School who owns Clea’s Bookstore, and is a psychic reader, out of evangelistic fervor. God in His wisdom did not allow this to occur, as Kenny was away at Psychic Fairs most of November. As the due date for the paper drew nearer, I began phoning around to other New Age shops, asking about Wiccan covens or celebrations.

Had I thought it through, I would have attended a Samhain celebration back in October; the next major Wiccan celebration would not be held until Yule, on December 22, which left me in a tight spot. Stubbornly determined to make a positive Christian contact with a practitioner of Wicca, I continued calling around. The phone trail only confirmed what I had read in my research; many witches practice either in a solitary fashion, or in a guarded coven. My only other option was to take four evenings of Basic Wicca for $80. Being a student, I kept looking, and stumbled across the bookstore “Where Faeries Live” in the Yellow Pages. I had been to the shop before, and couldn’t believe I had forgotten about it; I recalled a very earthy décor to the place, and hoping this meant it was operated or owned by a Wiccan, phoned over.

Dorothy, the woman who answered my call, informed me that there wasn’t really much that I could do that would encompass the idea of a ‘community of faith.’ She explained the solitary practice and guarded coven issue to me, at which time it occurred to me that one of the practices done by Wiccans was divination. I asked if they had anyone at the shop that did divination. Dorothy informed me that indeed, they had a lady who did Tarot readings; she said she would pass my name along to her and that she would give me a call. Hardly an hour later I received a call from Terry Lotzer.

Terry asked about the nature of my project, and invited me out to a gathering the store was having on December 6 where all sorts of pagans would get together for a forum of sorts, to help neophytes in the belief. I explained that this would be too late, so she acquiesced to my request to do a Tarot reading. To Terry and Dorothy’s credit, they were both very sensitive to the fact that I am a Christian. Terry gave me due warning that my having a reading done might be met with a negative response from classmates or even professor. Believing bridges need to be built, I forged ahead.

On Thursday, November 28, at fifteen minutes before my appointment of 6:00, I stepped into “Where Faeries Live.” The store was different than I remembered it, but all the expected elements were present. I believe that bookstores like this are as close a thing to a Meeting Place that the Wiccans of Edmonton have. There is no official society of Wicca in Edmonton, but the tools of the craft and books on the subject are to be found in places like these. They are run by people who believe in Wicca; the primary function is not financial gain. Kenny runs her shop out of awareness that there is a desire in society for connection with the mystery of the Divine; “Where Faeries Live” is the same.

It is a small shop, the front of which is densely packed with wands, athames(ritual knives) crystals hanging from the ceiling, books lining the walls alongside faux aged plaques adorned with runic symbols or pentagrams, or ceramic faces of the Green man. For all the multitude of items, it is not cluttered. There is a sense of order to the place. It feels peaceful. Like most stores of its kind, there is the latent scent of incense in the air. Dorothy emerges from the back room, a slender middle-aged woman with a nose ring wearing earth toned clothing. Aside from the nose ring, there is nothing to indicate something ‘different’ about her. I tell her who I am, she ushers me into the back room to meet Terry, who is waiting for her supper to arrive.

The back room, which looks more like the seating area of a coffee shop than the back room of a store, filled with several tables with chairs around them. Friends of Dorothy’s and Terry’s sit around these tables, talking about perfectly normal things like the frustrations of traffic in Montreal or foods they are adverse to; comments regarding garlic never stray into their effects on vampires. All are women, save me and the husband of one of the ladies. Every now and again Terry makes a disgruntled remark about the fact her supper has still not arrived, at one point saying “where is that little witch?” with her tongue obviously in cheek. Terry is dressed in a long flowing gown, but no pentagrams, moons or satyrs adorn it. It would look at home on my mother-in-law, I contemplate.

Her supper arrives only a minute before my appointment is to begin, and she graciously foregoes sustenance to begin our session. Terry walks with a cane, and leads me through a beaded curtain into a small room filled with books and clutter of an arcane sort. Incense dust has collected beside and upon an incense burner which seems to resemble a dragon. Terry comments she’s still in process of organizing the room as I sit down opposite her at the table with the incense burner and assortment of crystals and other spell crafting tools such as a gold-plated athame which looks like it might just be a letter opener.

Terry takes out her deck of Tarot cards, which turns out to be a standard deck: nothing fancy, typical Rider-Waite designs. She tells me the reading she is going to do will encompass the next nine months. I am to cut the deck three times, re-stack the cards, then fan them out over the table and reflectively choose four cards. After I did this, Terry laid the cards out on the table in front of me. From left to right, my reading contained Temperance reversed, the Knight of Wands, the Page of Swords, and the Wheel of Fortune reversed. The first and last cards belong to the major Arcana, which means that they represent the really pivotal archetypal elements of life; having two in a reading of four cards was significant Terry informed me. She then went through the meaning of each of the cards; Temperance reversed meant that life had been out of balance for me lately, and that I hadn’t been “feeling myself.” This was definitely true, as balancing marriage, work, school and volunteering at church was too full a plate. The next two cards involved movement in life; the Knight of Wands meant rapid changes were coming, while the Page of Swords meant that while I would deal with some troubles, I would have the mental acuity to cope with them. The Wheel of Fortune reversed meant that there would be a delay in the fruition of all these things. The last three cards had a pretty generic tone to them, but the way in which Terry interpreted them resonated with decisions I’m facing right now.

With the reading complete, Terry asked me if I had any specific questions to which a “yes” or “no” answer could be attributed. I thought about this for a moment, and then nodded. Using an amethyst crystal pendulum, Terry asked it to show me first it’s ‘yes’ response, which was a lateral back and forth motion. When she asked it to show me it’s ‘no’ response, it went in more of a circular motion. She then stopped the crystal from swinging, and told me to ask the Universe my question. I did silently, and then nodded to Terry, who allowed the amethyst to hang freely once again. It began moving in the lateral back and forth motion, which was ‘yes.’ Terry had spoken of the crystal as being a ‘he’ so I enquired about this. She got me to hold it and spoke about male and female energies. Had we time, she would have shown me a crystal with distinctly feminine energy so I could sense the difference.

After she put the crystal away, Terry asked if she could hold my hand. Taking my right hand in both of hers, she stared at my chest intently, reading my aura. Of all the experience, this was the most jarring to any skepticism I may have harbored. She began by telling me about my general health, and then commented that I have a strong immune system, which I always have, and that I not a smoker of cigarettes, but perhaps cigars. I occasionally smoke a pipe. Her next reading really took me aback. Both my legs under the table, she made comment about injury to my knee on my right leg; I immediately thought, “there it is, she blew it” but then she said, “not a serious injury…more like bruising, some discomfort…” I suddenly realized my right leg had fallen asleep and was numb. She also commented that I have what she called an ‘addictive body’ which she explained to be a physical form that likes patterns. This hit very close to home, as I tend to be almost anal retentive in eating the same thing for breakfast each day, and fall apart without a schedule. I have always struggled with a form of addiction, and so asked her if she had any insights on how to come free of that.

She told me that I needed to meditate more, but that it was going to have to be a process, not something I should force. She encouraged me to create a ‘mental basket’ to place this addiction in on days when it was interfering with my life, and then picking it up if necessary. All her words spoke directly to the problem, and I was genuinely amazed by the depth of her intuition.

Our time up, we said our goodbyes and I thanked her deeply for her time and the experience. On my way out I stopped to buy some Sandalwood Incense and talk with Dorothy. She indicated interest again in how my Christian community would react to me having gone to a witch for a Tarot reading. We talked at length about tolerance and openness in the area of faith, and then I left.

As I sit, contemplating events only hours old, I am at a loss for what to think. I prayed extensively before and during my visit, and believe I have a sensitivity to demonic activity, none of which I sensed. And yet, there is a part of me, the part trained in Bible School and then Seminary to think of this as ‘of the devil.’ This part isn’t getting much of a hearing though.

I do not understand everything in the universe. I do not know how ESP or telekinesis works. I have never seen an angel, or for that matter a devil. So as a seeker of God’s face, I can only say that I believe that tonight I participated in a numinous event where I connected with something Divine and was enlarged for the experience.

As I was working on this paper, a friend I went to Bible School with in the early 90’s was on MSN chat. When I told him of my experience, he asked, “why can’t I go to a pastor and have him be that insightful into my life?”

My reply was simply, “I guess we have some things to learn from these people.”