About Talisman Soul

I Didn't Build This From Nothing

Talisman Soul existed before me. For years it lived in a cramped four-hundred-square-foot room under its previous owners, and I'd wandered in plenty of times, always taken with what they'd made. So when I heard it was for sale in the spring of 2024, I jumped — I couldn't stand the idea of a place like this disappearing. I bought it, found a better space a few doors down, and opened our doors there on July 1st, 2024.

Here's what I didn't expect. Back then I kept my own spirituality to myself; I wasn't even sure it was for me. But month after month behind that counter, I met people from all over Coeur d'Alene and the panhandle who were exactly the same — curious, quietly drawn to something, and long practiced at keeping it to themselves.

It turned out I wasn't the only one keeping quiet. Not by a long shot.

More Than a Shop

What people told me — sometimes out loud, more often between the lines — was that they weren't just after a crystal or a deck of cards. They wanted somewhere to be themselves, ask the questions they'd never felt safe asking, and find other people walking a similar road. That became the whole point.

At the start of 2026 we moved into the space we're in now and finally built in what had been missing: a coffee bar to actually sit at, and a room in the back where we hold events and host the people who keep showing up.

I'm a fantasy nerd through and through — I even spent a few years at D&D Beyond and Wizards of the Coast before this — so making a place where crossing the threshold feels like stepping into another world came naturally, never as a gimmick. But after my time in the corporate world, what I wanted was simpler than a career: to do good work with good people, and build something that actually means something to everyone in it.

We're all turning through a vast dark on the same small rock, each of us trying to find our purpose. Mine is to keep this door open — and to leave this little slice of the world better than I found it.

A Note From Alex

I came up in Christianity, so I know that road well. These days I study history and religion because they fascinate me — but I'll be straight with you: I'm no expert in any of it. I'm just a guy who knows a few things and is learning every day, same as everyone who walks in.

If you want a label, I'd call myself an eclectic pagan. My own practice runs toward the chthonic and the animistic — the kind of thing some folks would call dark, or strange, or worse. I've made my peace with that. And it's exactly why the shop is built the way it is: if my path has a place here, so does yours.

Come in. Ask the strange question. Stay for a coffee.

— Alex

IN ARCANIS ET VERITATE — in the arcane, and the truth.