People don't just come into Kelvin Richardson's Metaphysical Bookstore looking for books, they come in looking for The Truth.

His customers are looking for the cosmic kind of truth. They want answers to the 'why am I here?' sort of questions.

Taking a quick glance around the bookstore there are titles like 'The Gods of Eden' by William Bramley, 'The Psychic Bible: The Definitive Guide to Developing Your Psychic Skills' by Jane Struthers and also more mainstream writers such as Toni Morrison and Dan Brown.

Mr. Richardson feels he can help his customers find enlightenment, not just through literature, but also through meditation.

"We will be starting meditation classes for people who are interested in spreading light into areas that seem very negative and have stopped up energy," he said. He has run the Metaphysical Bookshop for 23 years and recently moved the store from Reid Street to the bottom of King Street near the junction with Front Street.

He is trained in a New Age occult concept called the Seven Rays. New Age is a relative term since elements of it reportedly go back to the Sixth Century.

Mr. Richardson said that with seven rays, you are working with several different masters of the rainbow.

"You are tuning yourself to a certain vibration or frequency," he said. "Each master has a different frequency. And you are basically asking that master to assist you and bring about change in a person's life."

He also teaches meditation, and is a master teacher of Reiki, a method of healing using touch and energy. He hopes to get the free meditation classes off and running in a few months.

"Metaphysical means that which is hidden," Mr. Richardson explained. "It is about looking for a deeper essence of the teachings of life."

He said Biblical stories like the story of Cain and Abel could be looked at as a story, not just about brother against brother, but lower self against higher self. "The lower self takes over the higher self, and the spiritual self dies," he said. "Abel is not able to express himself spiritually because he is spiritually dead."

There are deeper teachings to many stories like that.

And he is deeply concerned about the spiritual health of the Bermudian community.

"Bermuda is in the red," he said. "There is a lot of chaos and anger in the community right now. There is a lack of feeling and belonging. There is disappointment, hurt and anger. If we are not careful and harness that, we can trigger a natural disaster with our behaviour patterns."

He said he felt drawn to form a meditation nucleus to try to balance the negative energy in the community by adding some positive energy.

"You have to ask, is it worth saving ourselves," he said. "The law of self seems to dominate. It is like we are being programmed. The television and all the bells and whistles is taking away from you. The more the programmers get us to go outside of ourselves the more we become confused."

One of Mr. Richardson's customers, Karen L., a visitor from Hampshire, England, said meditation had helped her get through some dark places in her life. "I had a lot of pain in my life," she said. "It was mainly heartbreak and things like that. I have been quite resilient in the past, in terms of relationships, but for some reason this last time I wasn't as resilient."

When her last romantic relationship came to a poor ending, she sat down and reevaluated her life.

"I asked myself, why do things keep reoccurring in my life? I realised that you attract certain things into your life."

She said she always felt different growing up.

"I have always been very drawn to the metaphysical," she said, "even when I was really young I was very obsessed with certain things like angels.

"I have never been able to call myself religious. I went to the Church of England, but religion doesn't quite do it for me. I felt like it didn't quite make sense to me. Are we all praying to the same divine things really? When you start reading things and comparing things it is quite interesting how things have been done. We are all so divided, but ultimately all these different religions are not that different. Growing up I felt really odd. I was called weird by other people. It did take a lot of pain for me to go down that road (the metaphysical road)."

She said she'd found some peace by studying different aspects of metaphysics.

Mr. Richardson sat down to give The Royal Gazette reporter Jessie Moniz, and customer Karen L. a brief lesson in meditation. We began by imagining the sound of the ocean. We did some deep breathing, focusing on letting tension go from the crown of our heads to the bottoms of our feet. Then we walked up the rainbow, trying to "inhale" different colours.

Each colour of the rainbow meant something. Green was environmental energy, black was a void, white was the Christ-light, yellow was brightness and cheerfulness, blue was peace.

Climbing up and down the rainbow gave the brain something to focus on, so everyday anxieties didn't rabbit around during this mental downtime.

During the meditation, as our breathing deepened and muscles relaxed, sounds seemed to become louder. The smell of incense in the store became stronger. Then, as we went higher up the rainbow, these things faded again into the background.

"You are feeling totally relaxed," said Mr. Richardson. "Listen to your own stillness in your own being. Be at peace."

Then he guided his students to start a gentle walk down the rainbow, and back toward reality.

He said that sometimes certain colours stand out for people, individually.

"Some people have different experiences," he said. "Sometimes if you try too hard to see the colours you can get into your mind too much. It is not about getting into your mind.

"It is not like you are trying to make it happen, you just go there. That's why I use the ocean. It washes over you and takes all your negative energy away."

Karen L. said she found it difficult to concentrate at first, or not concentrate as the case may be. "I found it quite difficult at first to switch off everything," she said. "But the longer we did it, the easier it became.

"Sometimes I can get into meditation very quickly and other times it is more of a struggle for me."

Mr. Richardson said sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. "When you are meditating, if you get too much into your head and try to make it happen, that will cause more anxiety. You are the one that has to get out of your own way."

Mr. Richardson said as a kid, he always felt different from other children. "Water finds its own level," he said. "It is about reawakening to our true essence. That is what we are about. I am still awakening."