In 1985, Wesley Vincent kept a few bookcases of used metaphysical books inside a psychic center on San Mateo. That was the whole enterprise: books, and the conviction that Albuquerque's seekers — all of them, whatever the path — deserved a place where knowledge could change hands.
Wes put the mission in writing in the shop's first newsletter, April 1986: to be "the clearing house where knowledge and/or healing can be exchanged." And the line that still runs the place: "the most valuable assets are the people."
Four decades, several homes and one Emporium later, that's still the operating manual. The bookcases became a bookstore; the bookstore grew shelves of crystals, incense, candles, herbs, statuary and jewelry around itself; readers came and made the back room theirs, seven days a week. Wes passed in 2007, twenty years into a partnership with the crew who carry it forward today. The shop has been in its Juan Tabo home in the Northeast Heights ever since the wandering stopped.
All paths. Actually all of them.
From the beginning, Blue Eagle honored all traditions and spiritual paths, from the old ways to the new age — Pagan, Celtic, Wiccan and Norse practice, Egyptian and Ceremonial Magick, Native American traditions and Shamanism, and Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism on the same shelves, with the same respect. In 1985 that breadth was unusual. It still is, and it is the thing we'd least want to lose.
It means a Catholic grandmother buying a saint candle stands in the same aisle as a heathen buying a Mjölnir, and both get knowledgeable help. Nobody gets asked to justify their path at the counter. That's the house rule, forty years running.
The people behind the counter
Read our reviews and one word repeats: knowledgeable. Staff who know what's on every shelf and where it comes from, who take time with beginners and talk shop with thirty-year practitioners. That was Wes's real invention, and it's the part of the shop we guard most carefully.
Makers & the local shelf
New Mexico makes remarkable things — Fred Soll's incense is dipped here, and local hands blend, carve and craft work you won't find in catalogs. We're building a dedicated home for local and handmade work in the shop and on this site. Watch this space.