Lighthouse Bookstore

Elite '08

25

175

Jef B.

Homewood, IL

One of the country's great New Age bookstores. If you're into that sort of thing.

The wall murals are a nice, and relatively recent, touch.

My kudos to the manager for dissuading me from purchasing a ripoff book - I had picked up an Annie Besant monograph titled "What the Mystic Means by the Eternal Now." It was only 48 pages so I stupidly assumed it would have a $2 pricetag or some such. When we brought our purchases to the counter, the woman there pointed out that the book was priced at $15, and about half of the supposed 48 pages were actually blank! That was one of the nicest things a shopkeeper has ever done for me - prevented me from making a costly mistake.

I can only give Lighthouse three stars because it is a fairly conventional New Age bookstore with a depressingly familiar stock of titles. Nothing new here.

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40

403

Dustin G.

Denver, CO

Yes! Finally, my philosophy degree can get some practical use...by telling you all that 'metaphysical' book stores are not only almost exclusively full of wishy-washy wishful thinking crap...but also that they are misusing the term 'metaphysical.'

Let us get educated:

Metaphysics (thank you Wikipedia, I heart you):

is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world.[1] Its name derives from the Greek words (met) (meaning "after") and (physik) (meaning "after talking about physics"), "physics" referring to those works on matter by Aristotle in antiquity.[2] Metaphysics addresses questions that have existed for as long as the human race - many still with no definitive answer. Examples are:

   * What is the meaning of life?
   * What is the nature of reality?
   * What is mankind's place in the universe?
   * Does the world exist outside the mind?
   * What is the nature of objects, events, places?

A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into what types of things there are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions by which people understand the world, including existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility.

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Ok, so New Agers thought it would be a cool idea to high-jack this respectable and ancient field of inquiry by stealing the term metaphysical. This I suppose was to bring out the fact that they were interested in what was beyond this physical world: i.e. spirits, faith-healing, or self-faith-spirit-Buddhist-incense-psychic-clairvo yance-healing, or whatever.  

Anyway, the Lighthouse Bookstore on the corner of Pearl street mall and Broadway is one such shop. I came in here not on my own volition but since someone else was enamored. Nonetheless, I bought some incense - not because I think it will help me to see another dimension, or help me meditate (which I'm not against btw) but simply because it smells nice? The guy at the counter was quite aware of his role as liaison to the 'metaphysical' which I guess didn't come off that well, since the guy in front of me yelled something at him and left in a huff.

Eh....incense was cheap. The other stuff I wouldn't suggest, but hey...it's your time and money, yo'

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