News obit: Page Bryant, psychic who identified Sedona and Asheville vortexes, dies

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Page Bryant, a psychic who brought “energy vortexes” in Sedona, Arizona, and Asheville to New Age awareness, died July 27 in Waynesville. She was 73. (Read Bryant’s obituary here.)

Jubilee! Community in downtown Asheville will host an end-of-life celebration in Bryant’s honor at 11 a.m. on Thursday. The church also plans to honor her with a vortex tour on Sept. 30. Medical intuitive Rachel Frezza of Asheville will lead a ceremony of peace. (Facebook event here.)

Bryant was living in Sedona when she was one of the first people to identify specific locations there of powerful energy centers that she called vortexes. A vortex “is believed to be a special spot on the earth where energy is either entering into the earth or projecting out of the earth’s plane,” according to visitsedona.com. “Vortexes (or vortices) are found at sacred sites throughout the world – the Great Pyramid in Egypt, Machu Picchu in Peru, Bali, Stonehenge, Ayers Rock in Australia, etc. It is believed that the vortex energy moves in a spiral, moving up or down.”

Page Bryant’s proclamations arrived just as the New Age movement was gathering momentum, and thousands of people moved to Sedona to be close to the energy centers she identified. Bryant later moved to Western North Carolina and, in 1994, published “The Spiritual Reawakening of the Great Smoky Mountains.”

The publication of that book came as the New Age movement was maturing in Asheville, and national media began tagging the mountain metropolis with the “New Age mecca” tag. This 1996 story by reporter Grant Parsons of the Greensboro News & Record really captures that moment in time and offers a great history of Asheville as hotbed of alternative thinking. A sample:

There are those who believe the Great Smoky Mountains possess the power to heal. That the Blue Ridge contains grids of natural power that humans can feel. That a vortex of natural energy centered in and around this mountain city of about 65,000 is re-emerging as a force in everyone’s lives.

So many people believe this, in fact, that Asheville is fast challenging Sedona, Ariz., as a mecca for the New Age movement.Come here and you can rid yourself of worries in a sweat lodge, consult with a “psychospiritual counselor,’ find healing through crystals, homeopathic medicine, herbal therapy, yoga, “lifestyle counseling,’ massage therapy and acupressure. Counselors claim to be able to heal you through the use of colors, sounds or hormones.

You can get your aura photographed and interpreted and your future told with tarot cards or by psychics, channelers and mediums.

You can buy “Tachyon’ energy products to revitalize yourself, get “Etherium Gold,’ a white powder that helps awaken the dormant parts of your brain, purchase $8 energy disks to plug your “auric field’ into the larger life force or buy a tipi, geodesic dome or yurt (a circular domed tent). You can balance your personal energy field, use herbal first aid on your soul and harness your own consciousness as the main healing force in your life.

Bryant became known as “a teacher of sacred ecology and Earth healing,” according to one bio description. She broke vortexes down into specific categories and described the benefits of specific mountain hikes as “a great place for awakening soul consciousness,” according to ashevillemountains.blogspot.com.