(spooky music)
- We really are one of the last holdouts for that kind of
authentic, old school, rare book kind of thing.
And that's what we really are into.
- You got Harry Potter? (record scratch)
I'm Mark Wilson, at the Occult Bookstore in Chicago,
which is one of the oldest in the world,
and you have to see this.
(dramatic music)
- Occult really has the same root as the word "ocul,"
which is "to see." So when you say "occulted," it is
hidden from sight. Any strange thing you could find,
we probably have. Or we can get to.
- I walk in, I have no clue what I'm looking for,
what do we do now?
- What we'd usually do is we'd say, "okay,"
"go around the store and just look at things."
"And if something attracts you, if something
calls to your eyes, we'd tell you to grab it."
(mysterious music)
- Eragnite? Eragnite? - [Shop Owner] Aragonite.
- Aragonite star cluster.
I can already tell, the jewelry doesn't really
click for me as much, but I'm really seeing where
the occult geekdom and geologist geekdom intersect here.
This is a note ... okay. So these are jack balls.
As they were explained to me, spells in your pocket,
one to keep tickets away,
O-M-G sex, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation ...
I want to get this for James but not tell him
why we got it for him. (laughter)
Let's tell him it did something different.
Hey, James, James. This is for you.
We got you a little gift.
Spell in a bag. That's what it is. Spell in a bag.
It looks like a truffle, kind of, but you don't eat it.
You just hold onto it.
You might want to put it in your pocket, heart, whatever.
Okay.
Topaz. Self-confidence, creativity, clarity,
peacefulness, psychic ability, and inner guidance.
This feels like almost like the cheat code.
Hmm. This is a tough call.
This is actually a pretty tough call.
- So do you remember your dreams?
- Sometimes, but I used to more.
- [Shop Owner] Uh huh.
- If that makes sense?
- Yeah, totally, totally. A lot of times, what we will do,
is we will make a dream pouch for people.
We will put different herbs in that and we will
ask to you put that in your pillow.
It'll smell nice, it'll have these different energies in it,
it tends to affect your dreams and the recall of them.
- I'm leaning toward that. That to me,
that would click for me.
- Of course.
- Whoa, that's a big dream pouch.
- I know. Because I gotta give you
enough herbs to put under ...
- This, I don't want to say I dream harder
than other people, but that feels like ...
- [Shop Owner] (laughs)
- I imagined a dream pouch about this big.
So what drew you into this?
- [Shop Owner] Oh my gosh, I was sixteen,
I was raised kind of Christian Scientist
- [Mark] Okay.
- [Shop Owner] Which is very stoic, if you know them.
They're very silent and "we can heal ourselves."
To Baptist. My mother was Baptist. So that was all,
"Praise the Lord, fall down, God's descending."
That left me with this kind of polar framework
in which I kind of developed in and learned
about religion and the Other.
- So people come in a little bit lost sometimes?
Or at least confused, I would imagine?
- Lost, confused, or seeking a common ground
for people who've been ostracized in a certain way.
Smell this and tell me that that does not-
- Whoa, that's intense. - ...smell very unique.
- Yeah, it's a comforting smell.
- Good, so we did our job.
- We'll see if I remember my dreams. Then we know.
- Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
- [Mark] If nothing else, my bedroom will smell better.
- Yes. Yes, yes.
- [Mark] So about that dream bag, I got it home,
and it just seemed a bit too potent for my pillow.
Hey James, how did the jack ball work out?
- [James] Mark started texting me a few weeks later
asking if anything had changed in my relationship,
and I didn't really know why. But nothing has,
and I'm here to report all is well.