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Forty-three years in Allston

We’ve been Allston’s occult and metaphysical shop since 1983—older than a good share of the people who shop here—and in four homes we’ve never once left the neighborhood. Toni Fanning has run it the whole way and is every bit as woo-woo as that suggests. She’d be the first to tell you.

The shop's black doors at the Allston Mall, one painted with the Ritual Arts wordmark
Ritual Arts in the Allston Mall, where our odyssey began.
A black door at the Allston Mall painted with a white crescent moon with a face, a painted skeleton beside it
A closer view.
A blue wall painted with gold stars and a figure holding an ankh, at the Allston Mall
The wall, painted blue with stars.

Toni

Ritual Arts has only ever had one owner. Every call about it, from what goes on the shelves to when it was time to move, has been Toni’s, and the shop is still hers alone.

At about six she wanted to be a nun, the plan being to race horses and give the winnings to the Pope. Shot down by the cruel reality of gambling being a sin, this dream had to fade as all good things do. Not too long after, a report Toni did at her Catholic school on another religion grew into a whole project on the occult, and a theory she still holds: every spiritual path, however stodgy it looks from the pews, has a back room where the magic is kept.

Toni in silhouette against a window with the blinds down
Toni at the window.

What is Ritual Arts?

Say the word ritual and people picture something rote: the same steps, in the same order, every time, or it doesn’t count. Our view is the reverse. A ritual is whatever you bring to it, not the defined process. That is the art in our name, and it’s why we sell the materials and not the instructions.

Toni’s own practice is chaos magic, which borrows from every tradition it likes and keeps no rulebook. Come in looking for a spell and you’ll leave with one, plus the same advice she gives everybody: make it your own.

We started in 1983 in a room in the Allston Mall, the building on Brighton Ave above the Linden Superette. It was more studio than store: handmade occult pieces on display, wands, a monkey’s paw or two. The building had an underground video store, parties with live bands, one memorable night when the alarms went off and the police came up the stairs with their guns out, and Quimby’s, now a Chicago institution, starting out down the hall. It was there that we formally took the name Ritual Arts.

The room at the Allston Mall: a white wall with a crucifix and hanging pendants, black curtains over the windows, a black shelf of jars and bottles
The room at the Allston Mall.

Before the year was out, Toni had a job offer from Duplicopy, a copy shop on Harvard Ave: bring in new money, any way she could think of, and she’d be made a partner. Her answer was incense. In time the witchy side outgrew the copying, and when the owners left for Florida, the whole place became Ritual Arts. She had never wanted to run a copy shop, and now she didn’t have to.

Duplicopy's window, with a sign for copies, résumés, business cards, rubber stamps and UPS shipping
Duplicopy’s window.

For ten years Toni had her eye on another storefront on the same street. In 1993 the landlord’s son finally told her it was free, and we stayed for a generation.

There, Boston Magazine twice named us the best neighborhood shopping in Allston, in 2015 and 2017. Greg Bernstein painted grass across our front grate, forever growing its beautiful shade of green.

The old storefront at 153 Harvard Ave after the move: empty windows with signs pointing to 1211 Commonwealth Ave, a For Rent sign, ivy painted on the awning and grass on the grate
153 Harvard Ave, emptied out.

We opened in our newest home this October, 2026, under one roof with Wild Tiger Nails, with a weekend of tarot readings, a patch bar, face painting, and swag bags for the first fifty people through the door.

It’s the biggest place we’ve had, with room for everyone who walks in: regulars who followed us from the old shop, students finding us for the first time, and people in for their nails who wander over to look around. There’s more space for the work of local artists, too, who’ve been part of the shop since the studio days.

What you see on this site is only a sample. There’s far more on the shelves than we could ever photograph, so the best way to find what you’re after is to come in, take your time, and ask. We’ll be here.

Inside Ritual Arts on Commonwealth Ave: the glass ring case, oak steps up to the upper level, mint walls over purple wainscoting, and bookshelves beyond
Inside the new shop.

Our familiars

Over the years we’ve had our share of animals to help run the shop: dogs to siren passersby, cats asleep in the window, and parrots that can hold a conversation.

  • Enderby, a white dog with a chain collar, lying in the copy shop's window and watching it being washed
    Enderby
  • Abra, a black cat with amber eyes, sitting on the glass counter among boxes and statues
    Abra
  • Lovebomb, a long-haired dark cat with a white bib and white paws, lying on the glass jewelry case with one paw over its edge
    Lovebomb
  • Logos, an African grey parrot, on his perch, beak open
    Logos
  • El Puerco de la Muerte, a Boston terrier, close up, with wide brown eyes and white whiskers
    El Puerco de la Muerte
The grass painted across the grate at 153 Harvard Ave, with Lovebomb the shop cat in it
Lovebomb, painted into the grass on the old shop’s grate.