Business & Tech
Business Spotlight: Open Secret Bookstore
This bookstore triples as a cafe, temple and spiritual wellness facility.
Open Secret Bookstore
923 C St., San Rafael
(415) 457-4191; rob@opensecretbookstore.com
What do they offer?
is a cultural center and a village clubhouse. Owner Robert Michael Calef is dedicated to "harvesting the gems in our community" and sharing them with the neighborhood. Open Secret featrues Radiance Cafe, stocked with delicious, healthy vegetarian fare. They also have a bookstore stocked in the subjects of spirituality, health and the mind.
The store's website proclaims an inventory of over 800,000 items, including books, videos, music, paintings, status and the largest collection of Tibetan Thanghkas in Northern America.
Open Secret hosts a small temple that welcomes all faiths. The cafe and temple are often home to events of all kinds, including concerts, dance, lectures, classes and book signings.
Who are they?
Born in New York City, Calef majored in psychology before deciding the subject was inadequate for his interests. He moved to California at twenty and became part of the consciousness movement. Calef visited teachers of a wide variety of traditions, ranging from the Dalai Llama to David Bohm.
Calef is a self-proclaimed "Quantum Anthropologist," or what he calls the appreciation and study of humanity with tremendous respect and love of the species.
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He is currently at work on a reality TV show that explores what makes humans happy, and how best to solve the world's problems. Along with that, Calef is also completing a documentary called The Heart Inside of a Mountain: The Damahurian Temples of Human Kind and finishing a book called The Utter Acceptance of Everything: Right Brained Wisdom For Those Transitioning From a Left Brained World.
How long have they been there?
Open Secret and the Rainbow Body Cultural Center will celebrate its 22nd anniversary on July 4.
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Why are they the Business of the Week?
"In my study of psychology, I quickly understood that we were a left-brained dominant culture, but a little nudge to the right could lead a person to a transformation," he said.
With these observations in mind, Calef set out to create an environment for San Rafael filled with books of wisdom and the art produced by that wisdom. To be able to have a business that uncompromisingly embodies your own spiritual and moral beliefs is a truly rare endeavor. And no one is more thankful than Calef.
