The Occult Bookstore

This image is of Ray’s Occult Books, the rundown fictional NYC bookstore opened by Ghostbuster Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) in the time between Ghostbusters I and II,.

Ray had problems dealing with life then. The city of New York had a restraining order on them for the property damage incurred while they saved the city from Gozer in the first Ghostbusters film. Those were hard years following the collapse of the Ghostbusters. He opened a store that specialized in bizarre, strange, and hard-to-find books. Ray tells someone that his books cover alchemy, astrology, apparitions, Bundu Magic Men, demon intercession, U.F.O. Abductions, psychic surgery, stigmata, modern miracles, pixie sightings, golden geese, geists, and ghosts. Peter Venkman was a frequent customer. We know that in 1989, Peter ordered a book a copy of Magical Paths to Fortune and Power.

Discovering this little piece of movie trivia, I immediately remembered an occult bookstore I had gone to with my friends Karen and Bob. Ray’s store exteriors were filmed at 33 St. Mark’s Place, but the store was supposed to be in the cooler part of Greenwich Village. The store I went to was also in the Village back in the 1970s but I don’t remember the location. We always called it “the occult bookstore” and I’m not sure what was its official name – if it had one. It was as odd as Ray’s and equally odd were the staffers and customers. You could get into some interesting conversations there with people.

On one visit, I bought a copy of The Tibetan Book of the Dead , runes and some incense. The book is for the living to prepare yourself or others who are dying for liberation and the passage between worlds in the bardo.

I’ve thought about that store and that book, especially when Bob passed from this world and I wondered if he was somewhere in that intermediary place between life and death and the next step.

I know Ghostbusters is played for laughs but I have been haunted my whole life by the idea of ghosts (only once by a ghost) and wondering if there is an afterlife.

You don’t have to go to Ray’s store to find Tobin’s Spirit Guide: Official Ghostbusters Edition or Tobin’s Spirit Guide: Revised 4th Edition. Is all this fiction? Well, since its first publication over 100 years ago, Tobin’s Spirit Guide has remained the authoritative source of information about the Denizens of the etheric plane. Earlier editions of this guide were used by Paranormal Researchers to save New York City in the great “Gozer the Gozarian” Invasion of 1984, and Vigo the Carpathian’s attempt at world domination in 1989. This revised edition features 50 new entries, and 200 updates to existing entries, making it the most complete guide for paranormal researchers ever brought before in print. This is the 4th edition of Tobin’s original spirit catalog. With a Forward By R. Stantz, Ph.D. & Dr. E. Spengler, Ph.D. and Afterward By P. Venkman Ph.D.

Ray’s store shows up in Ghostbusters II, and the third film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and in the comic book series and board and video games.