Seattle’s source for paganism and the occult, step into Capitol Hill’s magickal Edge of the Circle

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Anderson inside Edge of the Circle. Or is it Edge of the Circle Books? (Images: Alex Garland for CHS)

Anderson inside Edge of the Circle. Or is it Edge of the Circle Books? (Images: Alex Garland for CHS)

If there is an incantation for keeping a book store alive, it’s possible Capitol Hill’s Edge of the Circle is putting it to use.

The shop has been supplying Capitol Hill for 21 years, and is currently Seattle’s best source for paganism and the occult. And that’s just in its current location, on E Pike at Boylston, neighbor to The Honeyhole and Babeland. Edge got its start in “a hallway downtown,” owner Robert Anderson said, which progressed into “a shack on 14th and Union, which has since been torn down.” It’s there that Anderson, once a regular customer, got his start as a volunteer.

“It looked kind of like a two-room living space, if it had been emptied of all the stock inside. You wouldn’t have thought it was a store.”

It went by a different name then: Shamanic Convergence. The business moved to Capitol Hill in 1994 with a grand ambition: to operate two businesses at once. The Green Man Cafe, and Shamanic Convergence.IMG_1881

Around this time, the store underwent a name change, becoming the Edge of the Circle we see today, very visible on the northeast-jutting corner on E Pike just before QFC on Broadway.

When it first moved in, Edge was essentially two businesses in one.

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