Why are People Being Mysteriously
Drawn to this Southern Mountain Town?
Asheville Magazine
presents
By Virato

Why are People Being Mysteriously
Drawn to this Southern Mountain Town?

"There is a speeding up, time seems to move faster here...and I can feel it." "I don't know why I'm here." "I felt magically or mystically drawn to this area." These are some comments people in a 50 mile radius of Asheville, North Carolina can be heard making.
It happened to me the first time I drove here from Philadelphia. Heading southwest on Interstate 40, I "felt it" about 20 miles northeast of Asheville, as I approached Black Mountain, and I felt it again around Waynesville, and Magee Valley, about 40 miles to the southwest...it's a feeling of lightness and love that seems to permeate the physical body.
Mystics say these are the vortex entrance portals...some say it is the cradle high valley between the mountain ridges...still others speak of extraterrestrials, and a heritage to Atlantis, to have landed here after their demise...stories abound. On the East and West, the area is embraced by two loving arms of the Appalachian range--The Blue Ridge Mountains and The Great Smoky Mountains.  The mountains are considered to the oldest range on the planet, and thought to once be as high as the Himalayas.
In fact, Mt. Mitchell, outside of Asheville-rising to over 6,684 ft, is the highest elevation east of the Rocky Mountains.

People who have spent time in the Rockies, the Himalayas, and other mountain ranges have said that although those other mountains are indeed majestic,  they did not get "the nurturing feeling" they do from this area.
There is something quite powerful, mysterious and wonderful happening in
this area...and it's happening fast! CBS News, Eye On America did a feature
on the area, calling us "America's New Age Mecca." Like most TV programs, it
covered more of the tinsel, but the program did reach over 43 million
people.  Rolling Stone Magazine did a piece on Asheville in 2000, the New York Times
did a feature on Asheville on September 8, 2002, and US TODAY did a 2 page
feature in October 2003. The noted channel Kwan Yin also talks about
Asheville.  People from other so-called new age places like Sedona, Arizona; Santa Cruz,
CA and Marin county, CA; Boulder, CO; Maui, HI; Seattle, WA, Ashland, OR, as
well as many from Florida, and from all over the country, are flocking to
the mountains of Asheville. Really flocking… In fact, since I've moved here, I would say that about half of the people I
meet have been here less than a year, with many arriving a few weeks or days
ago. In fact, it's the thing most everyone around here has in common.
For those who saw the science-fiction classic, Close Encounters Of The Third
Kind, you know what I am talking about. People indeed are being "drawn"
here. 

How I Got Here

Starting with myself, a few years ago if you had said that I would be living
in North Carolina, I would have said you were nuts! Me, a Brooklyn-born-boy
in the bible-belt, no way! That was in October 1994. What transpired from
then is indeed part of the mysterious and magical dance taking place in
this....America's most powerful vortex, and the doorway to another dimension
of Universal existence. In a one week period, I received over 20 pieces of correspondence from North
Carolina. I think only one piece was from Asheville itself. After calling
all of the people and companies, I was stunned to learn that they were all
from the Asheville area. Every last one of those pieces of correspondence.
This was way beyond coincidence. I shared this with a number of people in
our Philadelphia office. I even had a mystical experience with a magical
fellow I met in Philadelphia only a week before I was to leave that city. He
was from Magee Valley, near Asheville! Like wanderers to a Promised Land, spiritually-minded people are being drawn inexplicably to the breeze- swept city of Asheville. For many, it invokes a
sense of coming home.


To Be…

The North Carolina state motto is Esse Quam Videre, which means "To Be,
Rather Than To Seem." It is as if whatever muse visited the early
legislators who adopted that motto foresaw the region as a setting for the
unfolding of a new paradigm of personal and cultural transformation. In the
western portion of the state, where the French Broad River bends and winds
through the startling beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains is Asheville,
population 65,000 (185,000 within a 40 mile radius), rapidly emerging as one
of the world's most dynamic focal points for the individuals and
organizations coalescing into a new society with love, advanced
consciousness, healing abilities, and creativity. The city's motto of course
is "Altitude Affects Attitude."  "If you feel impulsed to visit or move to Asheville, helping to build a
strong Community of Light of the next Millennium, you will be welcomed with
open and loving arms." People who arrive here, who are also involved in matters of spirit and
consciousness, are quickly and pleasantly disabused of obsolete notions
regarding the political and religious climate of the south, or at least this
part of the south. To be sure, the large fundamentalist Christian
organizations in the region do not lack influence or membership, but neither
is there the tension or enmity that so often occurs in areas where change
and transformation are in full and rapid growth...
When CBS News blazoned the words "New Age Religion Comes To Bible Belt" a
few years ago, conscious and new thought spiritual people across America
took note of Asheville, North Carolina.

There's plenty here to attract aware folk...

The temperate climate (society and geology), and the peaceful strength of
the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains have to some extent permeated the
consciousness of both native and immigrant alike, rendering the place, as
well as the culture, fertile ground for transformation. And, underlying the
potent spirituality exuded by the place itself is a power that seems to
reach far beyond these ancient mountains to draw kindred souls home.

There is rarely anyone, even peripherally involved in New Age consciousness
here, who does not have a story of remarkable synchronicities culminating in
a move to Asheville. Few seem to have "moved" here, so much as they have
"ended up," here as a result of serendipity, fluke or coincidence.  And with few exceptions, they are people whose lives are at an apogee of  creative and spiritual flux. They seem to arrive at a time when their
spiritual energy is high and their creative juices are flowing. Perhaps that
at least partly explains why in the last few years there has been a
phenomenally prolific and largely successful surge of spiritual and creative
endeavor, not excluding New Frontier Magazine's move to the area.
I met an attractive woman at a Unity Sunday service, an active participant
in the new community who moved here a few years ago. She, like many others I
have chatted with over the past four years gave a story: "Everywhere I
looked, I saw something about Asheville. Word on the 'metaphysical street'
hinted that Asheville was fast becoming the new spiritual Mecca," she
shared.  Living in Sedona, Arizona at the time, she read an article in Arizona's
major new age paper by the noted psychic and author, Page Bryant discussing
the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville. Soon after reading the article by
Bryant, she attended a conference in Colorado where prophecy futurist
Gordon-Michael Scallion related an experience of flying over Asheville and
seeing its future as one of the pivotal 'Cities of Light' for the new
Millennium.

Page Bryant Moves to Area

Since moving to Waynesville, NC, not far from Asheville, Page Bryant (who
left Sedona to come here) has written the definitive metaphysical book about
the area, The Spiritual Reawakening Of The Great Smoky Mountains. According
to Bryant, there are many vortices (bioelectric energy points) spread across
the planet. These vortices could be compared to acupuncture points on the human body.
They are junctions of crossings of ley lines, or meridians, that cover the
earth's surface. Some of these vortices are dormant, much the same as dry
river beds, while some are awake or awakening. There are twenty-four active
vortices between Black Mountain and Waynesville, and many more power spots.
This is one of the most concentrated number of vortices and power points
anywhere in this country...over 24 major ones! A vortex has a very high
level of energy projecting in a relative small area, whereas a power spot
has a larger area with lower energy. Mt. Pisgah is the major power spot of
the area, where the Watcher, or Guardian Angel of this entire area resides.
Clingman's Dome on the other hand in nearby Tennessee is a vortex with very
powerful electromagnetic energy.  The most concentrated number
of vortices and power points, anywhere in the world, are here
The Great Smokies "Underlying the potent spirituality exuded by the place itself is a power
that seems to reach far beyond these ancient mountains to
draw kindred souls 'home'."

Native Americana

The summit of Looking Glass Rock is composed of pure quartz crystal, and has
long been held sacred by the native Cherokee Nation. In fact, the town of
Cherokee, which is also the largest Native American reservation in the East,
is just outside Asheville  Unfortunately, most of the Cherokee culture has been usurped by Pizza Huts,
Burger Kings, Saturday night Bingo, and now America's Big time gambling
casino Harrah's. However, herbal medicine, the oral tradition of
storytelling, ceremonial dancing, sweat lodges as well as shamanic practices
also permeate this wondrous area. The Cherokee have said that one cannot have a true sense of self without
simultaneously having a true sense of place. Other Native Americans have
discovered the sacredness of the area. Joseph Rael, also known as Beautiful
Painted Arrow, has selected a "sounding cave" near Linville Gorge as one of
several sacred sites in the world. He makes pilgrimages here every year, and
brings others with him to experience the healing force of the site
Add to the native Americans the pagan culture, which also permeates greater
Asheville. You can hardly go into any shop and not see a drum for sale, or
hear of a drumming circle nearby. I have also heard that their are many
witch covens, with thousands of witches here, right amongst a Baptist
churches located just about every half mile or so. Pure magic!.

Science or Mystery?

Some have said that because this area's mountains are filled with quartz
(several trillion tons of it!), a piezoelectric effect is acting as a
psychic magnet drawing people. Others say the land is divinely blessed and
that the Atlanteans once lived here, after fleeing their dying continent.
The native Americans of course see this land as sacred. What is true is that
people are coming. There is rarely anyone involved in mysticism who does not have a story of
remarkable synchronicities culminating in a move to Asheville If personal and social transformation is about anything, it's about rising  above appearances and assimilating the truth of one's own being, as well as
that of the intricate web of consciousness that exists among individual
place and culture. Around 400 BC, Hippocrates was practicing a kind of "relocation therapy,"
treating both mental and physical afflictions by prescribing a change of
natural environment.
The modern science of biometeorology has so thoroughly confirmed and
expanded upon what the ancient Greek doctor knew (as well as shamanic and
natural healers throughout history) that the profound connections between
place and consciousness are no longer seriously questioned.
Not always on deeply subtle levels, what is essential about a place will
become essential in the individual and collective psyches of the people who
inhabit it. The land, climate and topography will find expression in the
hearts and minds of the people who come to resonate with it, and it will
attract such people to itself.

Who's Here?

So what has this area attracted? Newcomers are thrilled with the smorgasbord
of events and places to choose from. While many restaurants in the Asheville
area offer a vegetarian choice, new agers will find themselves attracted to
a few special places such as Cafe Terra in Asheville's largest natural foods
store, Earth Fare, with nearly 20,000 square feet of food for a conscious
consumer. Recently another large natural foods supermarket, Green Life
Grocer also opened downtown. Rumors around town say that Whole Foods, the
largest healthy food supermarket chain in America is planning a move to
Asheville. For a pleasant veggie lunch, there's Rosetta's on Lexington Avenue, and
Melanie's Juice Bar on Broadway are delightful. New Age music legend, Steven
Halpern conducted an event here in 1997, then bought a resort in nearby
Magee Valley, where he frequently travels. New age musicians that have
relocated to these mountains include Steven Halpern, Patrick O'Hearn,
Richard Shulman, and cellist Ron Clearfield, We even have our own "mad
scientist," Dr. John Blackwell and his North American Institute for
Psychoacoustic Research and recording studio doing research on, and piping
in sound for local musicians, trance dances, raves, etc..


At Laughing Seed Café on Wall St., you can also enjoy their own homebrew
beer. You might me also meet actress Andie MacDowell, who makes Asheville
her home, or me, Virato, and my wife Dhiraja when we are not conducting
consciousness expanding events in such cool places as Moscow and St.
Petersburg, Russia, the Nepal Institute…or doing stuff here on the net.
Recently Academy Award recipient (Best Actor) Robin Williams purchased
property in Asheville and Andie MacDowell can often be seen shopping at
Earth Fare, a 24,000 sq. ft. natural foods supermarket and restaurant Into TM? No problem, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, bought the entire Princess  Hotel in town! ...and 8,000 acres nearby! There are also countless other
meditation places, and a dozen or so yoga centers.


Back to Eating…

Bravo, an Osho sannyasin who is also a trained Viennese Master chef, offers
a regional vegan catering service called The Organic Gourmet. And for the
best salsa I have ever tasted, see Hector of Salsa's near Pack Square. The
owner says that the place is a spiritual place. He says he eats a certain
kind of mushroom atop one of the mountains and goes into a spiritual,
creative state in which he makes his sauces, recipes and food combinations.
Be sure and tell him "the swami" sent you.  There are several food cooperatives in the area, the two in Asheville are
French Broad Food Cooperative and Haywood Road Market in West Asheville.
West Asheville has become the defacto new age section of the city. One
favorite place is the West End Bakery on Haywood Rd. When owners, Cathy and
Krista hatched the idea for their business back in 1999, they were inspired
by the growing vibrant neighborhoods of West Asheville and the need for
community-oriented walkable businesses. They both share a passion for
healthy eating and a commitment to providing a welcoming atmosphere where
families and neighbors can relax. Another unique spot in West Asheville is A
Cup of Tea, which is not a cafe, but rather a new age learning salon. You
can see their listing in Mountain Xpress each week under Cosmic Buffet.

New Age Shopping?

Sure, why not? Looking for things new age from books to incense and environmentally
appropriate gifts? Then you'll surely want to visit Silver Armadillo (right
near Earth Fare, also loaded with goodies for the conscious shopper); A Far
Away Place has a special energy (with a large photo of Sai Baba on the
wall), and there's Mystic Journey, and Cosmic Connections bookshop, also
downtown, and Crystal Visions in Naples, (about 20 minutes from downtown
Asheville), also offers a potpourri of lectures. Also check out Light
Works on Sweeten Creek Rd. Enviro Depot, Earth Guild, Karma-Sonics Music.
Lexington Avenue and Biltmore Avenue have also become the streets for the
young at heart with shops to please any card-carrying "new ager."
At night, if you aren't at a metaphysical or spiritual gathering, Bean
Street's coffeehouse; Asheville Pizza Co. & Brewery Melllow Mushroom and
Barley's offer socializing and entertainment, and, at the rate this area is
attracting new age folk, you can expect many more places to open soon.
For the Haight-Asbury crowd, Lexington Avenue offers Instant Karma, Octopus
Garden, Vincent's Ear (definitely NOT new age), and the Mystic Coffee house.
There's often a whiff of interesting "herb" smoldering on this street. For
Trance Dancers...look up what used to be Tribes downtown
Recently West Asheville has seen the addition of a food cooperative and
other shops catering to an aware shopper.

New Age Consciousness

It's impossible in this small space to list all the holistic, metaphysical
and spiritual organizations that are in the Asheville area. There are
hundreds of meditations, UFO, paranormal and other groups that seem to meet
daily. One worthy of special mention is the Unity Center, about 12 miles from
downtown Asheville, in Fletcher. Chad O'Shea, the minister, is a mix between
a Southern Baptist preacher and George Carlin. In fact, this center has
become the area's meeting place every Sunday, with over 500 attending
services there each week A visiting representative from Unity headquarters in Lee's Summit, Missouri
described it as being "like a seven-foot Japanese man; it shouldn't be, but
there it is." His reaction of delightful surprise at the size, energy and
vitality not only of the Unity Center, but of the whole flourishing New Age
movement in the Asheville, area was fairly typical. there's now another
Unity group that meets at Earth Fare each Sunday morning, and another one on
Shelburne Rd.  "Living in Asheville has proven to be an enriching, healing and
life-enhancing experience for thousands who have been called
to this area."  Then there's Jubilee; The Church of Religious Science; The Light Center
(housed in a geodesic dome located right on a vortex in nearby Black
Mountain); the Center For Creative Living; Center For World Servers; and The
Nepal Institute; Samasati Center, are some other open-minded, spiritual
places.

Holistic Health

The famed herbal extract and tincture company, Gaia Herbs, Inc. has chosen
to move from up in Massachusetts to nearby Brevard, NC, Red Moon Herbals is
in nearby Black Mountain, and many Wiccan folk have their own cottage
industry herb businesses. This is ideal plush country for growing all sorts
of herbs.  American Miso Company has been near here for 24 years (now a part of Great
Eastern Sun, also located in Asheville. We even have our own herbal soft
drink company, Morganic Herbals, in West Asheville. There are a number of dome structures going up all over the Asheville area,  which seems to be in keeping with Gordon-Michael Scallion's (Earth Changes
Report) predictions of the area. He foresaw many such domes housing healing
centers, and saw people from all over the world would come here to be healed
or to heal. The domes are starting. There's even a certified monolithic dome
home manufacturer nearby in Concord, NC.  Not yet in a dome, the Grove Street Healing Arts Center; Moving Forward  Alternative Health; The North Carolina School of Natural Healing; the
Society of World Healers, Energy Medicine Clinic; The Source For Healing;
The Lighten Up! Yoga Center, The Center for Effective Living and Biltmore
Yoga Center are only a few of the many other healing centers in the area. In
nearby Black Mountain has a number of spiritually oriented holistic places,
such as the vegetarian Green Life Café and Spirals. From Black mountain to
Waynesville, holistic health places seem to be opening daily!  There are hundreds of individual practitioners offering just about every  possible healing modality, from massage to psychotherapy, acupressure to
Zen. Asheville's The AHA Directory includes nearly 600 listings of them. One
particularly interesting place is A Cup of Tea located in West Asheville.
The climate of this area has long made it a place people come for healing.
The town of Hot Springs, just minutes from Asheville, is fed directly from
the earth's center with healing volcanic hot waters. Dr. Paul Fleischer, a transpersonal psychologist, came to this area from San  Francisco. He and his wife were drawn to Asheville because of its reputation
as being “the San Francisco of the South,” and because of the aura of the
mountains. “We wanted to live in a place that has great natural beauty and a
strong progressive community; Asheville was at the top of the list!” Asheville even boasts a holistic Drug Rehab organization, Oasis Mountain
Wellness Center.

Natural Living

If you are into getting back to basics, there's the Mountain Barter Partners
Network; Transformative Adventure Vacations; Nepal Institute, Earth Green
Medicine Lodge; Southern Dharma Retreat; World's Edge Springs; The Organic
Gourmet; Glade Mountain Retreat ; the Lake View Lodge in Lake Fontana (which
offers yoga and meditations), and the Dillsboro Inn. All have a spiritual
metaphysical atmosphere and essence.  However, just five minutes outside of Asheville, in any direction, will
place you in the loving embrace of nature on some mountaintop. Many new age
seekers have moved into log cabins with no telephone, television or other
connection to the grid. There are still some Cherokee who live on the land
in tents, urts, lean-tos, and yes, even teepees.  The rainbow nation is also deeply entrenched in these mountains, or finding  a crash pad downtown. Some, like Burton Smith, a former Krishna devotee, who
spent a winter in his teepee at Gypsy's End, a former witch hang-out in
nearby Weaverville. Many, many dormant gurus live in mountain cabins, some
as small as a single room, and some quite luxurious. They are beginning to
come to town of late…

The Media & Networking

As for the media, not only has New Frontier Magazine relocated to the area,
but there's also Spirit In The Smokies; New Life Journal, Asheville
Magazine, Unity News, Asheville Holistic Alternatives , and Asheville Global
Report, and a poorly written Asheville Disclaimer. There are several local
new age publishers. Ironwood Productions, an award-winning film and video
company and a few other film companies have nested in Asheville as well.
A year after I arrived on "mountain time," I hosted New Frontier On The Air,
a new age talk radio program on WSKY, the city's CBS affiliate, and got rave
reviews until the owners decided to sell to some conservative
fundamentalists; however, I've come back and now have a new age radio show
on Clear Channel Broadcasting's 880 AM The Revolution called VIRATO LIVE!
There is now an Asheville Chat Room. There's even a Chamber of Consciousness in town, right along side the
Chamber of Commerce (a number of whose members are also into new age
thinking), and an Asheville Conscious Business Association where hundreds
attend the 3rd Monday of the month for networking.

Space & Beyond…

For the space and metaphysical folk, CSETI, The Center for the Study of
Extraterrestrial Intelligence; the Human Dimensions Institute; The Star
Foundation; the Council of the Empyreum; and Dr. Colette M. Dowell, leading
international researcher on Crop Circles, have relocated to this area.
Colette Dowell, author of Circular Times has been seen on Fox's Sightings,
Encounters, NBC's The Other Side and other national TV programs. In addition
to here Crop Circle work, Dr. Dowell also claims to be an alien abductee,
and MRI scans have shown an implant in the center of her brain.
Most others are quite quiet about their UFO and "other dimensional" work in
this area as well. Nearby Brown Mountain has been internationally examined
for its "Brown Mountain Lights." Mysterious balls of lights that seem to
come of the ground and move around. These have also been documented on shows
such as Sightings.

So, What Is Happening?

What is afoot here extends far beyond what has been termed by the more
traditional local media as "a subculture of consciousness." Where business
and political leaders of an Appalachian mountain town are being offered--and
availing themselves of--such things as meditation classes, Sufi-based
conflict mediation, or group consciousness training via therapeutic drumming
circles, things have progressed beyond the transitory self-interests of a
subculture, into the community at large, and that is the bright glint of a
shifting paradigm  Evolution isn't always gradual and steady. It's sometimes a sequence of
relatively sudden mutations alternating with protracted periods of
adaptation. Those mutations almost invariably occur in hospitable
environments, in places where successful adaptation is most likely. This
holds in biology as well as in social structures and matters of individual
and collective consciousness. That which is approaching its time of
mutation, or transformation if you prefer, will be attracted to a place
conducive to that process. Asheville is such a place, a spiritually potent
context in which many are making the transformation from what seems to be to
what is: Esse Quam Videre.  Living in Asheville has proven to be an enriching, healing and
life-enhancing experience for thousands who have been called to this area.
You are invited to listen with your heart and soul.
This is a living article and may change from time to time as
the area grows, changes, transforms.


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