0:02

I don't try and get anybody to believe

0:04

any you know, I don't care what it's your

0:07

business. For those that believe,

0:09

no proof is necessary. For those that

0:12

don't know, proof is sufficient. I

0:14

can't make you believe something you don't

0:17

want to believe. I can only tell

0:19

you my experience. This

0:21

is my uncle Dennis, the medium.

0:25

My experiences in reading came about

0:27

because through the course of having

0:30

normal jobs working in a warehouse,

0:32

drivn't know for what drop whenever I was doing every

0:35

job I had, you didn't

0:37

last they closed or I was fired,

0:40

and it's thought that I wasn't a good worker. It was just

0:42

that's the way it happened. The

0:45

last job I had, which I plan on staying

0:47

are they closed. And

0:50

at that point in time, I thought to myself,

0:53

you're either gonna do something you enjoy or

0:55

something you can do, or you're going to start

0:57

at the bottom wrong again. And I

0:59

just didn't want to do that. So

1:01

I picked up the Tarot deck, which I had used

1:04

it a long time, and I

1:06

began to realize that, you

1:08

know, people were interesting. He

1:10

learned to read tarot from his mom, who

1:12

learned from her mom, who learned from

1:14

her mom on the face they were averaged,

1:17

low income New Englanders, but in private,

1:19

the family had been working as mediums,

1:21

readers, and psychics everywhere from

1:24

New Age shops to tea rooms.

1:26

Sort of an old, tiny undercover way of saying

1:29

New Age shops and at one point where

1:31

the Boston Police Department cops

1:34

suck, don't do that for

1:36

generations. I got

1:38

to speak with my uncle Dennis a few weeks ago

1:40

while my mom was visiting him and my auntie

1:42

Karen in South Carolina. Mom's

1:45

dad, my grandfather, just passed away,

1:47

and she's down there to be with them and

1:49

remember and hang out. They

1:52

retired there a couple of years ago. But Uncle

1:54

Dennis Dennis Callahan, fourth

1:56

generation hereditary, which according

1:58

to his website, still does do readings.

2:01

He grew up in what used to be a funeral parlor

2:03

in Massachusetts, sorry funeral

2:06

Paula in Massachusetts. That was mean,

2:08

and he tells me that he became sensitive to spirits,

2:11

seeing, hearing, smelling beginning

2:14

around middle school age. He's

2:16

carried on the family tradition as a professional

2:18

medium for decades now and was my first

2:21

connection to spiritual ideas when

2:23

I was really young. Well him

2:25

in a distant aunt named Susie who said

2:27

I was cursed with negativity and wouldn't

2:30

start living until I turned thirty,

2:32

which on the first point kind of true.

2:34

Second point to be determined. I'm

2:36

so fucking young and virile.

2:39

But you know, my parents were a little upset. You know, you

2:41

probably shouldn't tell a ten year old that they're

2:43

cursed. I don't think it's affected

2:47

me though, Just kidding

2:49

anyways, Uncle Dennis, he's

2:51

a medium, except he doesn't

2:54

like that word because it comes with

2:56

all this baggage when

2:58

you people's talk about being a

3:01

medium in a psychic

3:04

I mean, I'm not trying to be mean here, and I'm not saying I'm

3:06

any better than them. I'm not because there are true people

3:08

out there to do that, but very shut These

3:11

people are sort

3:13

of playing on people's emotions,

3:15

and that's what they do. Somebody,

3:17

you know, they lose a son because

3:20

of addiction. They want to talk to this son.

3:22

They'll believe anything. Well, you

3:24

know what, you don't choose who you've talked.

3:27

When spirit comes through, you don't

3:29

know who it's gonna be. And if you don't know

3:31

what you're doing, don't play with it.

3:33

It is not a game by any search of the imagination.

3:36

His current reading room has amazing

3:39

light, these green walls, a

3:41

pentagram area, rug, a small

3:43

table, and his tarot cards

3:45

and ruins. In a separate room

3:47

is a table full of crystal skulls in

3:50

a painting that needs

3:52

to be seen to be believed. It

3:54

was made by one of his long time clients.

3:56

I will try to do it justice. It is

3:58

a painting made of my uncle

4:01

looking very serious, holding

4:03

a black cat and a sword. Below

4:06

him are the phases of the moon. Beside him

4:08

are a honk in crystal and

4:10

a goblet. Above him is saturned

4:13

the stars, a glowing candle,

4:16

and a massive, massive

4:18

ghostly angel over

4:20

his left shoulder, just arms outstretched

4:23

with these big old wings and no

4:26

face at all. It's it's

4:28

terrifying, it's magnificent. You

4:31

gotta see this painting anyways.

4:34

Uncle Dennis was a practicing medium

4:36

and reader in Massachusetts.

4:39

Could you tell that from the accent. I've

4:41

spent years getting rid of that, But

4:43

he's practiced forever there, and

4:45

I'm biased in obvious ways,

4:48

but I can say with certainty that he does

4:50

not abide by anyone's rules

4:52

on how living a spiritual life works

4:55

other than his own. That

4:57

is to say, he talks to ghosts

4:59

but is not a member of ghost Church.

5:02

And of the mediums that I've spoken to, he's

5:05

the most openly skeptical of a

5:07

lot of readers working today.

5:09

Let me show you what I mean. You know, it's

5:11

like the fake psychics. I'm I'm

5:14

sensing the letter and okay,

5:17

I agree, you're a moron. Is your

5:19

employment? Okay? Easily

5:23

most basic tricks that they

5:25

use, and it's like that's I

5:28

used to get very amy because it's like, that's not

5:30

what I do. Okay, I'm I'm

5:32

reading a story. I'm looking at these things

5:34

and putting these things together because

5:36

people because they're gonna hear

5:38

this and they gonna think of terrible people are cheaping the more

5:42

they don't know how to ask a question. I

5:44

would have people coming me and go, what

5:46

colored drash? Sho? I wait to the promp. You're

5:49

gonna sucking ask spiritus what

5:51

colored drash? Get away to the prom

5:54

Yeah, the archangel Michael is sitting there, going, I

5:57

go with a baby blue. I

5:59

come to us. Intellectual split in

6:01

the road. Pretty often, you

6:03

can believe in talking to spirit and

6:07

think a lot of people who claim to speak with spirits

6:09

are opportunistic assholes. Members

6:12

of Cassadega, the spiritualist camp

6:14

that I visited this year, expressed

6:16

similar views on mediumship. Part

6:18

of why the training at Cassadega is

6:21

so thorough without shutting

6:23

the door to the possibility of communication.

6:26

Two things have to be true here. At

6:28

best. I cannot, in good

6:30

conscience tell you that there hasn't

6:32

been a shipload of fraud in this profession.

6:35

Just as and I'll keep reminding

6:37

you of this, every religion

6:39

in existence is burdened with varying

6:42

degrees of frauds who are happy

6:44

to exploit the belief or vulnerability

6:47

of somebody else. One

6:50

thing that's very interesting about American

6:52

spiritualism to me is that it's

6:54

a religion that has existed entirely

6:57

in a time of mass media. To some

6:59

degree, unlike most of

7:01

the big religions, it's a little

7:04

harder to gloss over any incidents

7:06

of fraud or dubiousness because

7:09

they're so well documented. It's not really

7:11

possible to say, well, yeah, everyone

7:13

was on board right away, and anyone who

7:15

wasn't was probably wrong. But

7:18

in spite of the history of spiritualism,

7:20

being available in the public sense. Most

7:23

of it is associated with sensation

7:25

and scandal, but it's a little

7:27

harder to nail down the specifics

7:30

of what spiritualists actually believe.

7:33

Yes, death is merely a transformation

7:35

of energy, but there's more than that. There's

7:38

moving tables and spirit teams

7:41

and divination tools and things

7:43

that aren't immediately obvious in neat

7:45

cliffs notes of their story.

7:47

So today we return to Cassadega

7:49

for a gala day and for my

7:52

first spirit message service, and

7:54

we check in with the founding Fox Sisters,

7:57

first brush with modern celebrity,

8:00

all before hitting the eighth grade. All

8:02

right, let's get the theme going. Actually,

8:05

you know what, one more word from

8:07

my uncle Dennis. And I always tell people

8:10

if somebody was an asshole in life, they

8:12

were an asshole when they're a spirit. Okay,

8:15

I'm not going to suddenly die and be a nice person.

8:17

Oh I'm dead, I'd better be nice, Thank

8:20

you, Uncle Dennis. Okay. Theme

8:22

Songka.

9:21

The day I arrive at Cassadega, I am

9:23

fresh off a sleepless night spent

9:25

at a Super eight on the outskirts of Orlando

9:27

that was wedged between this mini golf

9:30

course that had live baby

9:32

Gators. Is that legal? I

9:34

guess it's legal. And an outlet

9:36

mall where you can buy an absolute goblin

9:39

of a knockoff Mickey Mouse toy. That's

9:42

another thing about the Cassadega community

9:44

that has a clear bearing on the sorts of

9:46

people who come to visit. It's only

9:48

a half hour from one of the most synthetic

9:51

tourist capitals on the planet, just

9:53

an uber ride from disney World, the kind

9:55

of place that crops up in books with ridiculous

9:57

fonts that say weird floor and

10:00

attract curious families on a budget

10:02

between draining financially punishing

10:05

days at corporate theme parks. Now,

10:07

Cassadega pre dates all of

10:10

this Floridian excess. It

10:12

was first founded in eighteen ninety four to

10:14

disney Worlds seventy one,

10:17

but there's no denying that in the current sense

10:19

it exists in the same financial ecosystem

10:22

as the cursed mini mall you can buy a

10:24

t shirt at that says tinker Bell

10:26

is My Home girl. Oh my God. And

10:29

this is one of the main differences between Cassadega

10:32

and their sister camp in lily Dale,

10:34

New York, which was founded in the eighteen

10:36

seventies in the Rochester and Buffalo

10:38

area and the same camp where the Fox

10:41

House was relocated as a historical

10:43

monument for a time before, like

10:45

most spiritualist landmarks do, for some

10:47

reason, it burned down under mysterious

10:50

circumstances. The lily Dale

10:52

Camp is its own organization, but is very

10:54

close to Cassadega and how it operates.

10:57

Mediums live on site, they provide

10:59

session ends and hold services. They

11:01

often attract upstate New Yorkers on weekend

11:04

trips, but not quite the tourist

11:06

ilk that their southern sister camp does.

11:09

Cassadega exists in an area

11:11

of infinity tourists in an

11:14

area where there's pretty low oversight

11:16

as it pertains to uh

11:18

COVID safety. Remember

11:20

this is the land of Governor Ron De Santis

11:23

and an environmental climate where they can

11:26

be open year round where they often

11:28

called lily Dale can't. On

11:30

the Sunday I get to Cassadega. The mediums

11:32

are exhausted. The previous

11:34

day was their quarterly Gala Day,

11:37

a fundraising event where camp mediums and

11:39

community members give talks on their area

11:41

of expertise and provide quick readings

11:44

on the sidelines to raise money and keep

11:46

the camp open. When I tell you this

11:48

is not a religion of means, I'm

11:50

not kidding. This event raised

11:52

them about six thousand dollars and

11:55

they're over the moon about it. I mean

11:57

they're struggling to keep their post office open.

11:59

It all feel very Mickey Rooney, let's

12:01

go in a barn and save the local whatever

12:03

kind of vibe. I wasn't able

12:05

to attend, but I do watch all of these

12:07

Gala Day talks on Zoom on the bus

12:10

from Tallahassee, and two mediums

12:12

talks stand out to me in particular, in

12:15

part because they have kind of the same old

12:17

man boomer haircut, but also because

12:19

the ideas that they're expressing are completely

12:22

abstract and yet important

12:24

to spiritualism. I want

12:26

to tell you about them. The first is

12:28

by Reverend Dr Don

12:31

Zangi, presenting a talk called

12:34

Being Awareness. Reverend

12:36

Dr Don is another long time

12:38

cassadegga convert sharing more

12:40

than a name with a main cast member of

12:42

the show Oz. Yes, I did

12:44

pick that up, Like what but anyways,

12:47

Reverend Doctor Don Zanki approaches

12:49

the podium in a dan flash is

12:52

great print, just an absolute

12:54

dizzying vomit of patterns,

12:57

and he also wears this Indiana Jones

12:59

hat, reminding everyone that he'll be preaching

13:01

tomorrow as well. A lot of his students

13:03

are there. Don's students seem more

13:06

fervent and loyal than any other group

13:08

that I see on the campgrounds, and he's got

13:10

one of the nicer houses that a medium lives

13:13

into. That's something that I come

13:15

to know. You need to be a member of the

13:17

community to own a house in the area,

13:19

which requires not only the training,

13:22

but approval from the board.

13:24

There's a lot of things that involve approval

13:27

from the board, including uh

13:29

me. Some of the houses in

13:31

Cassadega are in pretty bad shape because

13:33

mediums don't make a ton of money for

13:35

people who are consistently labeled as

13:38

capitalist frauds. But the Reverend

13:40

Doctor Don's house is tall, it's bright

13:42

purple, It's got this golden metallic

13:44

sun hanging on the side. It's

13:46

bigger than most of the houses, more inviting,

13:49

and again constantly open to

13:51

and brimming with students. He's

13:53

also extremely influenced by Eastern

13:56

specifically Indian spiritual teachings,

13:59

and has increa recently tied this into his

14:01

own curriculum. Yes, he

14:03

is an old white guy and today he

14:05

is talking to us about being awareness.

14:08

He is a character. Today

14:12

we're talking about what awareness and consciousness

14:15

is. Awareness or consciousness

14:17

is everything seen or unseen,

14:19

he tells us, gesturing to the crowd

14:21

and telling us how to access the divine

14:23

within us, spirit that exists

14:25

in us. You know, spiritualists

14:28

believe in God sort of, but

14:30

not that judgmental, punitive God

14:32

that most of them grew up with. They

14:34

believe in a loving and forgiving God

14:36

who moves the energy of spirit around

14:39

the earth and through us all. So

14:41

how do we access it? It strays

14:43

into a combination of Eastern, Western

14:45

and Gwyneth Paltrow e philosophy.

14:48

It's about ditching the ego of the lower

14:50

self and accessing the egoists

14:52

present higher self. Reverend

14:54

Dr Don says, your lower consciousness

14:57

ego personality is living in

14:59

the three dimen sational world and has nothing

15:01

to do with the divine within you. He's

15:04

extremely charismatic, and

15:06

I had to know who he was before he came

15:08

to Cassadega. He's got

15:10

a weird journey and not saying something here. Don

15:13

ZENI first learned about Spiritualism at

15:16

the lily Dale Camp. Zangi is

15:18

from the Buffalo area himself, and

15:20

he had worked locally at the Zoo in

15:22

the Museum of Science before starting a

15:24

longer career at the Eric County

15:26

Juvenile Detention Center. Being

15:29

around troubled youth motivated Zenki

15:31

to found a martial arts and self

15:33

defense school, with the idea

15:35

being that kids needed a way to get out physical

15:38

anger and aggression in a controlled space

15:40

with discipline and structure. This

15:42

was a huge success and he had two

15:44

schools with hundreds of students and to

15:46

this day is in the Black Belt Hall

15:49

of Fame of Filipino Martial Arts in

15:51

Manila in the Philippines. Just

15:53

a quick aside, yes, this reverend

15:56

doctor is also a sense and

15:58

we just need to accept that. Okay.

16:01

Let that in since a dawn and

16:03

become reverend doctor down And

16:05

on one night in he went

16:08

to a Spiritualist message

16:10

service in lily Dale, the same kind

16:12

of service that I would be attending in Cassadega.

16:15

At each message service, mediums

16:17

approached the podium, point at

16:19

someone in the crowd and give them a message

16:22

from spirit right on the spot. It's

16:24

pretty incredible, especially when it's done by

16:27

someone as charismatic as Reverend Doctor

16:29

down when really since dawn, Like

16:32

many in his generation, he'd been raised Roman

16:34

Catholic, but spiritualism spoke to

16:36

him and he found himself in Cassadega

16:38

by and never laughed

16:41

up until recently. The Reverend Doctor has

16:43

run Sunday lyceums in Cassadega,

16:46

essentially an adult Sunday school for spiritualists

16:49

that he curated guest speakers for anyone

16:52

can attend for free, and all of the lessons

16:54

and talks are on YouTube, and the curation

16:56

reflected Don zaying Ki's journey as well.

16:59

Topics included spiritualism,

17:01

comparative religions, natural

17:03

law, and parapsychology, and

17:06

touched on Zangi's transformative

17:08

experiences meeting in Indian

17:10

guru named Satpaul G. Maharaj

17:13

who visited Cassadega in two thousand and

17:15

eight and profoundly affected

17:17

the sense A. Reverend Doctor zank

17:20

You went on to become a devotee of the Guru

17:22

and has visited Egypt, India and

17:24

Machu Picchu since, and he still

17:27

remains a major proponent of

17:29

incorporating more Eastern ideas

17:31

into spiritualism as it exists today.

17:34

When he took a step back from lyceum in to

17:36

focus on his classes, he told a local

17:39

paper this our group

17:41

is not a religion again,

17:43

it's the teachings and experiences from

17:45

what all religions have risen. I

17:48

find that the teachings of spiritualism and

17:50

the teachings of the Guru are not incompatible

17:53

to me. They are part of greater whole.

17:56

His students, both in Cassadega and at

17:58

a nearby ashram where they could sit for a

18:00

weekend sat song where one listens

18:03

to truth teachings, are all

18:05

about Reverend Dr Don. This

18:08

man is so fast, like does he ever wear

18:10

his black belt during class? I have so many

18:12

questions, but Don Zangy is too busy telling

18:14

me about being awareness.

18:17

His advice is rooted in spiritualism,

18:19

but it's basically a rehash

18:22

of that billion dollar piece of advice,

18:25

be fucking present for once

18:27

in your life and develop a deeper

18:29

understanding of consciousness. Man

18:33

Zangy expands on this by using a Hindu

18:35

philosophical term called turia,

18:38

a phrase which here means pure

18:40

consciousness. He closes by saying,

18:43

all right, you're awake, well,

18:45

maybe I put you to sleep, but you're awake,

18:48

and that is the cult of Reverend

18:50

Doctor Sense don ZANGI. Another

18:54

talk I heard at Gala Day was

18:56

their keynote speaker, another

18:58

Reverend Doctor Philip DeLong.

19:01

I'll encounter Reverend Dr Phil again during

19:03

my stay at Cassadega in a class called

19:06

Healing one oh one that he was kind enough to let

19:08

me drop in on at Pastor Debs suggestion.

19:11

But the first time I hear him speak, he's talking

19:13

about my spirit team.

19:16

This is a concept that has actually gone kind of mainstream.

19:18

You can find it in those YouTube videos I

19:21

love watching. But it's also a

19:23

little weird and a little abstract.

19:25

Your spirit guides are well,

19:28

I had no idea. There's certainly

19:30

plenty of groundwork that's been laid here

19:32

for the concept throughout centuries of

19:34

religion, but the notion is actually

19:36

kind of specific here. It reminds

19:38

me a little of how in scientology you

19:40

eventually learned that there's aliens. Except

19:43

this is spiritualism, and so they're not keeping

19:45

anything from you. Your spirit team

19:47

is just as normal a concept to them as

19:49

standing and singing him on a Sunday.

19:52

Reverend Dr Phil doesn't have the huge

19:55

personality that Reverend Dr Don does.

19:58

He's a little shyer, more soft oaken,

20:00

still with an old man hat, but has a

20:02

low gray ponytail and a soft voice.

20:05

He has a full hour to talk to us

20:08

and wants to use us to tell us how

20:10

to meet our spirit guides. He

20:13

shares a little bit about his journey to spiritualism.

20:16

He had a near death experience that pulled

20:18

him into the religion. He is something called

20:20

a crystal skull caretaker. He

20:23

grew up Catholic. He was formally ordained

20:25

by the International Association of

20:27

Metaphysics. This is all very interesting

20:30

to me, but what I'm more curious about is

20:32

what people did before they became spiritualists,

20:35

something that he is a little less worthcoming

20:37

about than others I talked to. Reverend

20:40

Doctor Phil tells us that there are extremely

20:42

specific categories of spirit guides

20:45

to learn from. Our guides are with us

20:47

all the time, but the Reverend Doctor tells us

20:49

that they do not interfere with our free will.

20:52

There is the master Guide, the

20:54

spiritual Guide, the emotional

20:56

guide, and the mental guide. Reverend

20:59

Doctor Phil says this we appoint

21:02

them, but it is all toward our spiritual

21:04

development how we treat our guides,

21:07

and it is very powerful how you treat

21:09

your guide. So okay,

21:12

it's most important to meet your master guide

21:14

first. I default to what I

21:16

think of as a master which is a woman who

21:18

is a little taller than me and clothes that fit

21:20

her really well, and she has like this spine

21:23

that looks good from every angle. When

21:25

I think of master guide, I think of a woman who can really

21:27

really pull off a hat, a woman who

21:30

would not have spoken to me in high school. But

21:32

Reverend Dr Phil says that the master

21:34

guide is actually a very

21:36

specific vision. Your master

21:39

guide, he says, will appear to you in

21:41

a cape. A cape, but

21:44

okay, a spirit in a cape

21:46

without exception. They got to be wearing a cape

21:49

and they're your master guide. Reverend

21:51

Doctor Phil says this, some of you

21:53

will be scared when you first see this guide,

21:55

but remember, fear is

21:57

the opposite of love. I

22:00

promise myself I will not fear

22:02

the spirit in the cape when he comes. No

22:04

way, everyone has a master

22:06

teacher, and every master teacher

22:08

has mastered life and death.

22:11

The next guide that we're introduced to is

22:13

our doctor guide. When he refers

22:15

to as the physician. This

22:18

is the spirit guide that looks over your physical

22:20

health. This guide is counterbalanced

22:22

by the material doctor or

22:25

the philosopher. This guide

22:27

oversees our career and finances, and we

22:29

call upon them to direct our decision

22:31

making and blending our spiritual and personal

22:34

lives. Essentially the vibes doctor.

22:36

I would love to get in touch with the vibes doctor because

22:38

my life is so funked up right now.

22:41

The material doctor is the guy who

22:43

handles all the law of attraction

22:45

stuff the secret. But Reverend

22:48

Dr Phil warns us, don't

22:50

be too specific in your manifestations

22:53

or you'll always be disappointed and get

22:55

your material doctor's ass. And a little

22:57

twist, and he mentioned

23:00

a karma teacher. I'm paraphrasing

23:02

here because the spiritualists in CASCADEGA

23:04

were not able to export this zoom

23:07

call like they said they could because

23:09

they are old and they live in Florida. But

23:13

Reverend Dr Phil says something like this

23:15

instant karma does not exist. Forgiveness

23:18

plays a part in the lesson the Karma

23:21

teacher gives, and it's here that he

23:23

moves to an element of spiritualism

23:25

and the spirit team that I take the most

23:27

issue with the concept of

23:29

the Native American or a Native

23:31

protector guide. This is

23:34

one of the most major red flags

23:36

of spiritualist rhetoric that hasn't changed

23:38

at all in the over century and a half

23:40

that the religion has existed, and it's

23:42

a topic that I'll be getting into in much

23:45

further detail in future episodes. In

23:47

short, this majority white religion

23:50

frequently invokes images of a

23:52

blend of tropes that are levied against

23:54

Indigenous Americans as guides

23:57

and magical beings intended to

23:59

guide them a white colonizer

24:02

and assumed protagonist. Given

24:04

that there is a notable lack of Indigenous

24:07

members of the religion and that Cassadega

24:09

itself exists on seminal ground,

24:12

this is tone deafness at best, an

24:15

act of perpetuation of stereotypes

24:17

at the expense of the Indigenous community.

24:19

At worst, It's worth mentioning

24:21

that the volume of Indigenous imagery

24:24

that American spiritualism invokes at

24:26

Cassadega never references

24:28

the violence committed toward that same

24:30

community on the ground where spiritualism

24:33

now struggles to survive. And

24:35

we will be circling back to this in more depth

24:37

and future episodes. But I

24:39

mean my God. Reverend

24:42

Dr Phil does expand the idea

24:44

of a native teacher to be a spirit

24:46

from anyone's country of origin. He

24:49

said that if you are from England, this could

24:51

be a druid spirit or a Viking, and

24:53

on and on, and it's this guide's

24:55

duty to be a protective guide

24:58

or to give you strength and quote

25:00

courage to speak the spoken truth unquote,

25:03

as well as healing. More

25:05

indigenous tropes pop up here. He

25:08

says that quote, they are close to nature. They

25:10

work with the plant, animal, and mineral

25:12

kingdom, and they use animal guides

25:14

and totems unquote. He

25:17

arbitrarily says that you can have as many as nine

25:19

spirits with you at a time, and I'm starting

25:21

to honestly get claustrophobic to think of

25:23

this many ghosts in a room with me at

25:25

any given time. He

25:27

takes a moment here to address the idea

25:30

of spirit guides conceptually and

25:32

how they might chafe with tenets of

25:34

other religions, especially the Catholicism

25:37

he grew up with. He said that he grew

25:39

up with an imaginary friend who he later

25:41

learned was a spirit guide, a

25:43

little boy named and plays

25:45

bear with me here Tommy Tommy

25:48

chustle Fire, who immigrated from

25:50

England to the United States and the mid eighteen

25:52

hundreds and was both kidnapped

25:54

and raised by an indigenous

25:57

tribe. I just so

26:01

Tommy, Tommy chessel Fire returned

26:03

to Phil as a crystal guide. And

26:06

my head is about to explode hearing

26:08

this weird racist story. When

26:11

Reverend Dr Phil drops another

26:13

bomb and says that one of

26:15

his spirit guides is JP

26:18

Morgan. Like the

26:20

something interesting is that the more I get used to

26:23

spending time with spiritualists, I hear

26:26

one hundred things like this a day

26:28

that removed my brain from my spinal cord.

26:30

He said that his spirit guide was

26:32

JP Morgan and doesn't

26:34

give anyone the opportunity to ask

26:37

a single question and to round

26:39

them off. You've got your nurse guide

26:42

and your joy guide, and mercifully,

26:45

that's the whole team. That's a that's

26:47

a lot of guys. The Master and the

26:49

physician are your most important guides. But

26:51

holy sh it, that's a lot of guides. But

26:54

the Reverend Doctor isn't just there to tell us

26:56

who these guides are. His speech

26:58

is on how to work with them. He guides

27:00

us through this fifteen minute guided

27:03

meditation to meet someone.

27:05

Taking us through a pretty standard meditation,

27:09

You're filled with divine light and

27:11

close your eyes and walk down to

27:13

a dune beach where you're joined by

27:15

your spirit animal. You walk

27:18

to the beach and your spirit guide pops

27:20

out of a fire. You ask them a question,

27:23

they give you an answer, and I'm

27:25

happy to play along with this. I

27:27

close my eyes, I go down to the

27:29

beach and I see my

27:32

grandma and the fire. I asked

27:34

her how she is, and in

27:36

my mind she looks so happy

27:38

and very beautiful. She asks

27:41

me how my dad is, and I say he's good.

27:44

And then Reverend Dr Phil instructs

27:46

the spirit guide to go back into

27:48

the flame on the beach that doesn't exist,

27:51

and so she does. The meditation

27:53

has you walk away from the beach, back

27:56

up the stairs and into the temple. You

27:59

open your eyes and Reverend Dr Phil

28:01

says to keep talking to our spirit

28:03

guides. Ask them questions and be

28:05

patient and observant as they answer

28:07

them over the course of weeks and months.

28:10

He says, to ask them for what you want. He

28:12

says, to ask them what their names are,

28:15

and for all of the freaky,

28:17

weird stuff and the Tommy Tommy

28:19

Chestil fire and the JP Morgan

28:22

of it all. That night I put

28:24

my feet on the ground and ask

28:26

my freaky caped master spirit

28:29

what their name is before going to sleep

28:31

in the chlorine stained sheets of a Super

28:33

eight in Orlando. I'm going to

28:35

drink the kool aid. All

28:46

right, We are vaulting back

28:48

in time. We're getting into our little

28:51

hot tub time machine, people,

28:53

and we're going back to where

28:56

the first spiritualists, as it

28:59

were. The Fox sisters are

29:01

two mediums. Kate Fox middle

29:03

schooler and Maggie Fox high

29:05

schooler, are met with their eldest

29:08

thirtysomething sister, Leah Fox, who's

29:10

just arrived at the family home where

29:13

her siblings are said to be speaking

29:15

with spirits. By

29:18

April of eighteen forty eight, things had

29:20

really started to pop off in Hydesville,

29:22

New York. Every day Maggie and Kate

29:24

would bring through new information from the spirit

29:27

doing the wrappings. It claimed to be

29:29

the spirit of a shoe peddler killed over

29:31

the five dollars to his name, and

29:33

these answers started to yield day after

29:35

day information that reflected

29:37

the house's previous tenant. So

29:40

there had been a renter of the Fox

29:42

Home named John Bell, just as

29:44

the spirit had said, The spirit revealed

29:46

that his name was either Charles

29:49

b Rosna or Rosma,

29:52

depending on the source, and for

29:54

the record, Charles b Rosna or

29:57

Rosma has never been confirmed

29:59

as e sting at least by this name.

30:02

It said that John Bell had once hired

30:04

a shoe peddler, but for your reference,

30:07

a Rosma never materialized

30:09

in official records, But locals

30:12

were captivated by him, and it's not surprising

30:14

why the majority of people assembled

30:17

at the Fox Home would have had a lot in common

30:19

with Charles Rosna Rosma.

30:22

They were working class people themselves,

30:25

often subjected to the John Bell's

30:27

of the world, getting fucked over by

30:29

those with more money than they had. What

30:31

was unfortunate, and would become one

30:34

of spiritualism's first real ethical

30:36

knots, was that John Bell was

30:38

a real person who was being accused

30:40

of murder by a spirit whose name

30:42

no one could verify as a person who would

30:45

ever existed. Later

30:47

in her life, Maggie Fox reflected

30:49

on this in a book written by Harry

30:51

Houdini. Did I mention that

30:53

Harry Houdini, the world most famous

30:56

magician, would later develop a vested

30:58

interest in disproving spiritual is

31:00

um did I mention that he did

31:02

that because he had an even more vested

31:04

interest in undercutting the work of his former

31:07

best friend, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who,

31:09

before you start banging your head against the table,

31:12

is indeed the author of Sherlock

31:14

Holmes, because yeah,

31:17

man, spiritualism is real. Weird. We

31:19

haven't even gotten to the part where Frederick Douglas

31:22

shows up. But Maggie Fox

31:24

describes this first week of visits later

31:26

in life, deflecting a little bit

31:28

and saying that the discovery of John

31:30

Bell was completely a notion

31:33

of her neighbors. The firsthand

31:35

accounts at the time chafed with this a little

31:37

bit, but as you'll continue to learn, everyone's

31:40

got their own story. Here, Maggie

31:42

says, quote, they the neighbors,

31:45

were convinced that someone had been murdered

31:47

in the house. They asked the spirits

31:49

through us about it, and we would wrap

31:51

one for the spirit answer yes, not three,

31:53

as we did. Afterward. The murder,

31:55

they concluded, must have been committed in the house.

31:58

They went over the whole surrounding

32:00

country trying to get the names of people who

32:02

had formerly lived in the house. Finally

32:05

they found a man by the name of Bell, and

32:07

they said that this poor innocent man

32:10

had committed a murder in the house, and

32:12

that the noises had come from a spirit

32:14

of the murdered person. Poor Bell

32:16

was shunned and looked upon by the whole community

32:19

as a murderer unquote. Tough

32:21

break for John Bell, but there were many

32:23

in the community that discredited the Fox

32:26

sisters from the start for this reason alone.

32:29

But the draw of spirit was too

32:31

much for most people to ignore. By

32:34

the time their sister Leah arrived in the first

32:36

week of April, hundreds were

32:38

coming to the Fox home every day

32:40

to witness the wrappings, in

32:42

a move that was foreshadow where American

32:45

spiritualism was headed. The neighbors

32:47

wanted to know more from the spirit than what had

32:49

happened to the deceased. They

32:51

wanted to know about themselves

32:54

or confirmed things about the great

32:56

beyond that they already knew or wished

32:58

was true. This would eventually evolved

33:00

into people seeking out they're

33:02

dead in particular, but in these first

33:05

weeks, Hidesville neighbors were happy

33:07

to quiz Charles Rosna Rosma

33:10

on the specifics of their own lives.

33:12

Communicating with the Spirit became a

33:15

bizarrow community building activity.

33:17

Neighbors would quiz the Spirit on

33:20

how many children, they had, how old

33:22

they were, their full names. They

33:24

were almost definitely learning about each other

33:26

as the Spirit relaid the information. The

33:29

questions were yes or no at first,

33:31

but the girls quickly developed a somewhat

33:33

more sophisticated system, with the Spirit

33:36

having it wrap. When certain letters

33:38

were called, the Spirit attempted

33:40

to lead a neighbor with a candle to the seller

33:42

where they were buried, but digging hadn't

33:44

begun before Margaret took the girls from

33:47

the house for good, going to their neighbor's

33:49

house for their own protection. During

33:51

this time, the Spirit also made its religious

33:53

leanings known. It made no noise

33:56

when asked if it believed in the Universalist

33:58

doctrine, then made a strong

34:00

noise when asked about Methodism.

34:03

It may not be a coincidence that

34:05

Maggie and Kate's father, John, was

34:08

a devoted Methodist. A

34:10

week after the girls first called their mom to

34:12

their room, half the population of

34:14

Arcadia County, a few hundred

34:17

people came to the Hydesville house

34:19

one night. It was the Fox sister's

34:21

first big crowd, but definitely not

34:23

their last. The immediate community

34:26

tried to guard the house and its spiritual

34:28

integrity, all of a week old, from

34:30

the masses that wanted to go inside and

34:32

ask the spirit questions. At

34:35

this time, Maggie and Kate were surrounded

34:37

by the spectrum of what it could mean to be

34:39

a woman in a time where the definition

34:41

of women in society was

34:43

changing. In one sense,

34:46

they were about to bear witness to the Seneca

34:48

Falls Convention and the fight for women's right

34:50

going mainstream. On the other

34:53

end, there was still the reality

34:55

of day to day. Their options were

34:57

to get married like their sisters Elizabeth

35:00

than Maria had. They could work

35:02

in one of these new fangled factories,

35:04

or they could become a teacher in the way that their

35:06

oldest sister Leah had to support

35:09

herself and her daughter. Back

35:11

at the house, Maggie and Kid's older brother

35:13

David took charge of continuing

35:15

the investigation of where Charles

35:18

Rosma's spirit claimed his body

35:20

was buried. After digging three

35:22

feet, he hit an underground stream,

35:25

stalling progress and tried for

35:27

days to get further, but weren't really

35:29

able to. Even as the crowds

35:31

of hundreds continued to show up,

35:34

and show up, and show up.

35:36

Mary Redford, the neighbor, now convinced

35:39

of the spirit's authenticity, started

35:41

asking it bigger questions. Still, She

35:43

told the local reporter that she quote

35:46

asked if there was a heaven to attain and

35:48

got three raps unquote, an

35:51

affirmative from the spirit and an

35:53

interesting one, as this would be significantly

35:56

course corrected in the years to come, as

35:58

it's understood now spiritualists

36:00

fully in they continuity of life

36:03

and not a Christian heaven or hell. Still,

36:06

the neighbor received a different answer and

36:08

pressed the spirit on what had become

36:11

of a child who she'd lost. Almost

36:14

right away, the locals were more invested

36:16

in their own stories than what happened

36:18

to some random shoe peddler who may or

36:20

may not have existed five years ago,

36:22

and the shoe peddler spirit was happy

36:24

to oblige. The community

36:27

continued to attempt to identify where

36:29

the wrappings were coming from, and many

36:31

suspected fraud. By April

36:33

twelve, local papers were fully

36:35

engaged in the sensation. A

36:37

paper called The Western Argus

36:40

reported, quote, the good people

36:42

of Arcadia, we learn, are in quite a

36:44

fever in consequence of the discovery

36:46

of an underground ghost or

36:48

some unaccountable noise. Picks

36:51

and bats were at once brought into requisition,

36:53

and on digging down about four feet, a

36:55

stream of pure water gushed forth and

36:57

filled the ghost hole unquote,

37:00

not the ghost hole. The room

37:02

where the spirits were wrapping in the Fox

37:04

house remained dark, and Maggie

37:06

and Kate remained on the bed where they had first

37:08

called their mother. Their family physician

37:11

was summoned to the house by their father when Kate

37:13

was said to have gotten sick, at which point

37:15

the doctor reported that there had been quote

37:18

great commotion in the room of his patient, snapping,

37:21

cracking noises all about the bed. As

37:23

fast as he changed places, the raps would

37:25

do the same unquote. He also

37:27

mentions that he thought that Kate maybe

37:30

quote, in some way manipulating

37:32

the joints or muscles of the fingers,

37:34

toes and knees unquote,

37:37

put a pin in that or a bone crack.

37:40

Manifesting spirit wraps by dislocating

37:43

their joints and muscles is a charge that

37:45

will haunt the Fox sisters, unbeknownst

37:47

to them now, for the next forty

37:50

years of their life, and will haunt

37:52

the religion until right

37:54

now. But even with light pushback

37:56

from local residents and press, the

37:58

local interest in the sisters and their spirit

38:01

rappings steadily increased and gained

38:03

credibility. When the family who had lived

38:05

in the house before the Fox family came

38:07

forward with similar charges, they

38:10

told the press they had also heard

38:12

the raps. Local reporter E.

38:14

E. Lewis writes, quote,

38:17

hundreds have been there. Skeptics have first

38:19

carefully examined the premises, have gone

38:21

into the ghostly presence, still incredulous

38:24

and disposed to treat the affair with levity,

38:26

have held converse with the unknown one until

38:29

the cold sweat oozing from every poor

38:31

has coursed down their limbs, and they have been

38:33

compelled to acknowledge that they felt themselves

38:35

in the presence of one from the spirit country

38:38

unquote. For good measure,

38:40

he included a petition signed by more than

38:42

forty of the real life John Bell's supporters,

38:45

who insisted that he was not a murderer.

38:48

But for all his thorough work, one

38:50

thing Lewis never did was

38:52

interview Maggie or Kate Fox.

38:56

Barbara Weisberg in her biography,

38:58

it mentions an interesting through line about the

39:00

Fox women, that being that they suffered

39:02

from intense migraines their whole lives.

39:05

Some suggest this led to an increased

39:07

sensitivity to the supernatural, and

39:09

others had other opinions,

39:12

but Wiseberg says that this manifests

39:14

as a quote pain that can

39:16

create a sense of standing outside

39:18

oneself, of not being oneself

39:21

but another person altogether unquote.

39:24

Leah arrived and witnessed her youngest

39:26

siblings working with spirit and

39:28

saw how terrified her parents were

39:31

and how her brother David was struggling to

39:33

hold everything together. She suggested

39:35

that the girls be separated. She

39:38

would take Kate back to Rochester and

39:40

Maggie would remain in Hydesville, and they

39:42

would see if the spirit followed. It

39:44

did follow them both. By

39:47

the end of summer eight, the

39:49

Fox sisters were notorious and had already

39:51

left their father back in Hydesville, beginning

39:54

to entangle with the progressive literati

39:56

of Rochester. They were considered

39:58

extraordinary, potentially leaders

40:01

of science or religion, or both,

40:03

and they were young women forging

40:06

their own weird path in a way that

40:08

may not have been possible even ten or

40:10

fifteen years before. And Leah

40:13

kind or fifteen years older saw

40:15

her younger sisters, saw the changing

40:17

times, and saw an opportunity.

40:20

All it was going to take was one little

40:22

white lie to get the girls on board, and

40:24

that lie was that everything was

40:27

going to be okay,

40:39

okay. Back to the present,

40:41

or I guess the recent post past

40:45

services in Cassadega take place

40:47

at Colby Temple, named for the camp's

40:50

founder. Colby Temple is the five

40:52

billionth thing to be named for the formal

40:54

founder of Spiritualism. A big

40:57

beige cement in wood church with the same

40:59

wooden cabin interior that defines

41:01

every camp building. It was

41:03

first built shortly

41:05

after the camp was established, at first

41:08

an octagonal building where Colby

41:10

himself, a well known trans medium,

41:12

would conduct services and seances.

41:15

This was later rebuilt into the pale

41:18

sand brick structure it is today

41:20

not too pretty from the outside, but

41:23

has a cozy congregational church

41:25

vibe on the inside. There are about

41:27

forty people at the service on the morning

41:29

I attend, and we're handed the same

41:31

Xerox programs, blue hardcover

41:34

hymnals and sit in the same creaky

41:36

pews as boomers talk too loudly

41:39

that I associate the church I went to as

41:41

a kid, but of course

41:43

there are differences. Healing

41:45

is already taking place in the back of the church

41:48

when I sit alone with my program and

41:50

my hymnal. There are a number

41:52

of students from the community who will be

41:54

evaluated on their healing performance,

41:56

and they're all lined up as those

41:58

attending service sit with their eyes

42:01

closed. A healing looks

42:03

like someone slowly

42:05

waving their hands methodically

42:08

energy healing while the recipient

42:11

reacts everywhere from nervous

42:13

twitching, not being sold

42:15

on it, or appearing deeply

42:18

meditative and healed. Depending

42:21

on what they write on the little yellow slips they'll

42:23

be handed for the complimentary service

42:25

afterward, a student could get

42:27

one step closer or further from

42:29

being recognized as a Cassadega

42:31

healer, the process that takes

42:34

about three years. I flipped

42:36

through the program and I'm shocked at how familiar

42:38

it is to the services I grew up attending.

42:41

There is an invocation. There are

42:43

candle slit for mind, body,

42:45

and Spirit. Instead of Father, Son

42:47

and Holy Ghost, I mean health. The ceremony

42:50

opens with a singing of Amazing

42:53

Grace, a moment for

42:55

the spiritualist hymnel. It is this

42:57

fascinating blend of Christian hymns that do

42:59

not reference have for nor health, the two things

43:01

spiritualism does not recognize. But

43:04

you'd be surprised there's a lot of diet Christianity

43:06

at play here. The service frequently

43:09

invokes Jesus in the context

43:11

of being a great spiritual healer. It

43:13

does not shy away from the Christian hits,

43:15

but it also sprinkles in a number of

43:17

Spiritualist hymn originals that lean

43:20

more heavily on the idea of the religion,

43:22

specifically lines like y

43:49

oh boy, the singing is the

43:52

singing is running

43:55

the service today. Is the first

43:57

person I spoke with connected with Cassadaga,

44:00

Pastor Debt, who encouraged

44:02

me to visit the camp in spite of my not

44:04

being quite cleared by the press board

44:07

yet, and whose kindness extends

44:09

through my trip and into the present.

44:12

She is very, very familiar

44:14

and kind in person. She wears

44:16

a cross around her neck, she has these

44:19

gold bauble earrings, short

44:21

haircut, long blue navy sleeves.

44:23

Very pastoral. You know, you can tell

44:26

she grew up Christian and you can tell

44:28

that she very, very firmly believes

44:30

in spiritualism. At

44:32

the front of the room. She leads us in a

44:35

hallmark of a spiritualist church ritual,

44:37

a moment in which the congregation recites

44:40

the tenets of the church, which

44:42

explains the core ideas of the religion

44:44

more clearly than I ever could on my own. So

44:47

let's let them explain themselves. We

44:49

recite in unison. We

44:51

believe in intelligence. We

44:54

believe that the phenomenon of nature,

44:57

both physical and spiritual, or

44:59

the expression non infinite intelligence.

45:02

We affirm that a correct understanding

45:04

of such expression, and living

45:07

in importance therewith, constitutes

45:09

true religion. We affirm

45:12

that the existence and personal identity

45:14

of the individual continue

45:17

to change. Called death, we

45:19

affirm that communication with the so

45:22

called dead is capt scientifically

45:24

proven by the phenomena of spiritualism.

45:28

We believe that the highest morality

45:30

is contained in the Golden Room.

45:33

Whatsoever he would that others

45:35

should do unto you, do you

45:37

also unto them. We

45:39

affirm the moral responsibility

45:42

of the individual, and that he

45:44

makes his own happiness or unhappiness

45:47

as he obeys or disobeys nature's

45:49

physical and spirituals. We

45:52

affirmed that the doorway in a reformation

45:55

is never closed against any

45:57

human soul. Here or hereafter

46:00

we have for recepts of prophecy

46:03

and healing, invading the Bible

46:05

our divine attributes through

46:08

mediumship. Then

46:10

we read the prayer of spiritual healing

46:13

from the back of our hymnal because,

46:15

in another nod to Christianity, spiritualists

46:18

do remote healing for congregation members

46:20

who expressed interest, in the same way

46:22

that Christians often pray remotely,

46:25

especially during COVID times. I

46:28

request healing from my immediate family

46:30

who I love, and for my haters

46:32

who are very lost. Healers

46:35

sanitize their hands between healings

46:37

while the rest of us are guided by Pastor

46:39

Dub in a guided meditation. Her

46:42

voice is calming, assured, bringing

46:45

energy in and out as a body.

46:47

As a dull music plays in the background,

46:49

the vague humming of something spiritual

46:52

happening. We sing another hymn

46:55

and it's rough spiritualists

46:58

or not singers or organists,

47:00

but it brings us to the speaker of

47:02

the day. It's your boy, Reverend

47:05

Dr don Zangi. He has

47:07

Pastor deb drop into his intro that yes,

47:10

he's been to Machu Picchu, okay,

47:12

And he takes the podium and yet another

47:15

incredible outfit. My man's wearing a

47:17

black sweat band around his bald

47:19

head. My son says, got a cross around

47:21

his neck. He's wearing a purple button down.

47:24

He's got a burgundeed pastor

47:26

quote whatever this is called the draping

47:28

thing unquote. I'll let him explain

47:30

himself. So we talked about

47:33

spiritualism. That's

47:35

such a big subject. The

47:37

characteristics of spiritualism go

47:39

back way before when

47:42

consciousness first dawned on humans.

47:45

They starting to realize themselves

47:47

as humans. They realized that

47:49

there were something bigger than themselves,

47:51

and today we call it spiritualism.

47:54

So yes, I've been here a long time. As

47:57

long as Jerry and

47:59

I came here. I'd like to say it was a

48:01

blame slate. I'm not even

48:03

sure I wasn't a slate and know nothing about anhing.

48:07

We're all seeking something higher and better

48:09

than ourselves, and for many of

48:11

us, it starts with what spiritualism

48:14

is about. And so yes, I've

48:16

traveled, have done some things that

48:19

involved in many other spiritual

48:21

endeavors, but it

48:24

starts with we

48:27

don't die. That

48:29

is basically to all auso

48:31

teric and metaphysical teachings. It starts

48:34

with that and the

48:36

only place I know they

48:39

can prove that. The

48:41

spiritualism in this place, I

48:43

hear because we're you're to be

48:45

here before the

48:47

truth of what I'm talking about becomes

48:51

evident. I've

48:53

seen it, I've heard it. I

48:55

don't believe it, I know it to be

48:58

true. The

49:00

spirit comes through. Well,

49:02

there's still a message you're reading,

49:05

and you can't deny with

49:07

spirit manifest in physical ways

49:10

that you can't deny with

49:13

spiritual healing helps you and

49:16

perhaps no one else and nothing else can. Your

49:19

consciousness begins to open up

49:21

heels like. It's pretty anti capitalist.

49:24

Mr. King of the Dojo. He criticizes

49:26

other religions Pensiant for taking taking

49:29

taking money from its congregation instead

49:31

of enriching their lives. Cradle

49:35

Rave got cost of something. But again,

49:37

there's this element of Christianity included

49:39

this. I don't love Christianity,

49:42

but I'm not a big Bible

49:45

thumper, but there's wonderful teachings in there,

49:47

if you know how to look. I kind of love

49:49

Reverend Dr Don honestly. He has

49:51

these phrases. He'll use stuff

49:53

like I've got three thousand books and another

49:55

one coming in the mail, and he describes

49:58

the feeling of true faith in spirit

50:00

of certainty, you know what I mean.

50:03

He's a proponent of continual learning,

50:05

of looking at other religions

50:08

to see what is valuable about them to add

50:10

to your own spiritual journey. He

50:12

describes his spirit guides and how they change

50:14

over time because people grow and change

50:17

over time. Several times

50:19

he puts God in quotation

50:21

marks when talking about it. The

50:24

service ends and we're encouraged to go

50:26

to the message service down at the Andrew

50:28

Jackson Davis Building, the bookshop

50:30

meeting hall hybrid and I trickle

50:33

down with the crowd. It's a solid

50:35

half tourist, half regular crowd

50:38

that heads back down the street and into the gift

50:40

shop, where I flipped through a copy of a book

50:42

called Is Mother Nature Mad?

50:45

Before heading through the double doors to

50:47

my first spiritualist message

50:49

service. Here's

50:51

how it works. There are five mediums

50:54

and forty people, all of us sitting

50:56

in the hall at a long, wooden cafeteria

50:59

style table. It's kind of summer

51:01

camp meets night class at twelve thirty in the afternoon,

51:03

and we're surrounded by cassadaga

51:05

paraphernalia. It wouldn't sign

51:08

declaring where we are a framed copy

51:10

of the Spiritualist Principles, framed

51:12

black and white prints of their founders,

51:14

photos from the one hundred twenty five year celebration

51:17

that took place a couple of years ago. A

51:19

few paltry cups of coffee that were room

51:21

temperature long before we got

51:24

here. How are you going to have a thriving religion

51:26

without halfway decent coffee? I mean,

51:28

guys, get it together. The room

51:30

hushes as the events organizer introduces

51:33

the service. This is the time where

51:35

mediums come to the front podium like auctioneers,

51:38

point at one of us and say, yes, Spirit

51:41

has a message for you. Then

51:44

spends the next two minutes describing what

51:46

the spirit looks like, what their relationship

51:48

to you is, what their messages, all

51:51

while tacitly confirming that it is resonating

51:53

through nods of yes or no from

51:56

the person listening. The yes

51:58

and no is important. We'll get there and

52:00

each medium gets a turn. The

52:02

room hushes as the first pastor takes

52:05

the podium and begins. It's

52:08

here where I start to put some general observations

52:10

on how different mediums read

52:13

differently. It has just as much

52:15

to do with personal style as any other

52:17

public speaking or art form does this.

52:20

First Pastor is gentle but direct

52:22

in her delivery. Pastor deb comes

52:25

up and her voice is musical, and she's

52:27

very descriptive. It's kind of great how

52:29

much description she gives. Oh, there's

52:31

an old woman standing behind you with her hand

52:33

on her shoulder. Do you know who I'm talking about.

52:36

There's a lot of older women who show

52:38

up in these readings of spirit because statistically

52:42

it's who you're most likely to be looking for.

52:44

Grandmothers. For the younger set, of which

52:46

there are not many. The only people

52:49

are in their twenties, have come with her parents,

52:51

or they're me, and old women

52:54

appear as deceased mothers.

52:56

For the more middle aged people who are trying

52:58

to make contact and send of the people

53:00

who raised them and then disappeared

53:02

one day, it's during this session

53:05

that if you made it through the ghost church

53:07

service proper, your belief

53:09

in what the spiritualists do is

53:12

truly tested. Sure,

53:14

you can say the tenants, but when someone

53:16

comes to you with a spirit message,

53:19

do you believe it or not? The

53:21

reaction in the room about forty

53:23

people, again mostly but not all white

53:25

and middle aged, About half tourists

53:28

and half regulars. Is

53:30

generally positive, but definitely

53:32

mixed. You can tell when someone wants

53:34

to be there to receive a message. They kind

53:37

of lean forward in their seat a little. They're

53:39

quick to answer the yes or no questions

53:41

of whether it's resonating. They usually

53:43

seem to have some sort of idea of who they

53:45

want to contact. You can also

53:47

tell when a skeptic is a believer's

53:49

plus one, whether it's their friend,

53:52

their spouse, their kids, their friend from college

53:54

that is maybe curious but sits

53:56

back legs crossed, takes

53:58

a little more time to answer, or questions show

54:01

me what you fucking got kind of energy.

54:04

Sometimes they seem impressed with the

54:06

specificity of who or what comes

54:08

through, and other times their eyebrows

54:11

rise a little if the message isn't resonating

54:14

or appears too vague for their

54:16

liking. Here are some of the spirits

54:18

that come through at the message service. One

54:20

says, I'm seeing an old woman behind

54:22

you. She's a little sexy. One

54:25

says, I'm seeing an older woman behind

54:27

you. She's tall and looks all about

54:29

business. Someone says, I'm seeing

54:31

a man behind you and he's a soldier. He came

54:34

up in the military and was served well by

54:36

his experience in the military. Another

54:38

says, I'm seeing a medium sized dog

54:41

running around and this makes someone burst

54:43

into tears right away. Someone else

54:45

says he looks kind of like gill Again,

54:48

does everyone know who Gilligan is? And

54:50

the spirits aren't just described either.

54:53

When you receive a standard message like this, the

54:55

recipient will first get a description

54:57

of the person in question, and then a mess

55:00

from them directly, stuff like this.

55:02

One says, he's saying, you're all

55:04

play and no work. Do you have a

55:07

job because you live for pleasure And it's

55:09

not pleasure that's hurting anyone, it's bringing

55:11

joy, So keep doing it. Another

55:13

message I liked. They're telling me that

55:15

you're not finished. There's a new venture

55:18

and you need a big open sky and space,

55:20

maybe some sort of trip. Some

55:23

people cry at least one

55:25

really really wants to understand

55:27

but can't quite get there. How

55:29

tall was the man standing there? She asks?

55:32

How old was he? Who's a child

55:34

with him? Well it could be

55:36

this guy, but well, no, that doesn't match

55:39

up with the height you described. And no,

55:41

I don't have any kids and haven't lost any

55:43

kids close to me. There are people

55:45

who want to connect the can't, and the earnestness

55:48

with which one medium tries to meet her in the middle

55:50

is interesting. When a message hits

55:53

it's exciting, and when it doesn't, it pings

55:55

a little skeptic in my own brain. We

55:57

were told at the beginning of the service to switch

56:00

our phones off so as not to

56:02

introduce whatever cell

56:04

phone waves into the air and interrupt

56:06

spirit. But the mediums don't

56:08

turn their phones off at all. They're on their phones

56:11

while their peers are at the podium the whole time,

56:13

like their stand ups waiting to go on stage.

56:15

Two of them show each other memes on their phones

56:17

and giggle softly while a woman who came

56:19

with her college friends receives the spirit message

56:22

from a dead brother across the room.

56:24

It's interesting there's this contradiction

56:27

going on right in front of us. But

56:29

at the same time, it's kind of fun to watch

56:31

mediums be friends and show each other

56:34

memes while someone else talks to a ghost

56:36

right next to them. And you know who

56:38

is one of the seven people who does not get

56:40

a reading in the entire room,

56:43

listener, It was me, And

56:45

it's hard not to feel self conscious. About it. I'm

56:48

sitting right in the front, and I can't tell if

56:50

I'm being overly cautious by feeling

56:52

that the mediums already know who I am,

56:54

given my status of being under

56:57

consideration by the PR committee,

56:59

that very well could be in the room with me

57:01

right now. And I learned moments

57:03

later. Absolutely is when

57:06

the service ends. I approached Pastor Deb

57:08

to introduce myself. As she texts someone,

57:10

She's got a lot on her plate. She's got an elderly

57:13

parent, she's got a day job over an hour

57:15

outside of Cassadega. She's a pastor,

57:17

she's a girl friend, she's the head of PR.

57:20

She's tired, but she's incredibly

57:22

nice to me and is enthusiastic when

57:25

I shyly introduced myself. This

57:27

is not my strength in this

57:29

world. I love people and I love learning about

57:31

them, but the approach is

57:34

not my strength. Dev tells me that

57:36

everyone is exhausted from gala day,

57:38

and those within earshot agree, but

57:41

they raised over six thousand dollars. It

57:44

was a success, and it ties into what

57:46

she told me on the phone a couple of days before. There

57:49

is an uptick and interest in the Spiritualist

57:51

camp and in the last year, potentially

57:54

due to the mass loss of life with COVID.

57:57

I want you to keep in mind that six thousand

57:59

dollars is a big deal for

58:01

this religion, all but an endangered

58:03

species. We're standing in a hall that

58:05

hasn't been updated in nearly fifty years,

58:07

and there's not enough coffee and styrophone cups

58:10

or snacks to go around scientology.

58:13

This is not a religion that

58:15

can really afford to court new members.

58:18

This is not I have

58:20

significant PTSD with moms who

58:22

have pastor Deb's haircut due to my

58:24

time in MENSA. You can reflect on

58:26

that on your own time, thank you very much. But

58:29

Deb is extraordinarily nice and

58:31

eager to introduce me to other members of

58:33

the pr committee who are present a list

58:36

that is not publicly available. But

58:38

not everyone here seems to share her enthusiasm

58:41

for meeting me. There's one volunteer

58:44

who isn't a medium, that is extremely kind,

58:46

kind of an alpha type, who is in the middle of sweet

58:49

talking someone else saying he can

58:51

talk to me when it's approved, And one

58:53

who is so nervous about my intentions

58:55

that she crosses her arm and doesn't shake

58:58

my hand when I reach out to her. The

59:00

whole flurry is very quick, and

59:02

Pastor Dab is on her phone for most of it, and

59:05

so I try not to let it sink into my bones

59:07

as the rejection by

59:09

mediums that it feels like. It's

59:12

one thing to feel rejected by someone and

59:14

it doesn't feel good, But it's another

59:16

thing to be rejected by someone who believes

59:18

that they are connected with a higher power and

59:20

know whether your intentions are good or

59:22

bad. This is an anxiety that will

59:25

follow me through the entire week. If

59:27

you're anything but completely skeptical.

59:29

It's not just a rejection from a Floridian.

59:32

It's a rejection from a Floridian and

59:34

the entire fucking ghost realm, ghosts

59:37

that have their own opinions and ties to infinite

59:39

intelligence. Over the course of

59:41

the week, I see a number of mediums

59:43

donate to Cassadega on their way out of their

59:45

services where they've just been volunteering.

59:48

This is a clear community effort. It's

59:50

the coffee hours of my youth with even less

59:52

resources, no Dungan, don'tus budget,

59:55

plus a light smattering of talking to

59:57

the debt. So now you have a better

59:59

feel for what Ghost Church

1:00:02

is about there are some elements

1:00:04

of diet Christianity. Then

1:00:07

they hit you with the spirit messages and the spirit

1:00:09

teams and all the elements of the

1:00:11

religion that are considered to be unusual.

1:00:15

But these elements don't come from

1:00:17

nowhere. Both the Fox Sisters

1:00:19

in the mid nineteenth century and people

1:00:22

in Cassadega and other spiritualist

1:00:24

sites right now formed

1:00:26

their religious practices by pulling

1:00:28

from elements of other religions

1:00:30

and traditions, and especially

1:00:33

from the concept of the seance.

1:00:36

So next week we're going to look at what

1:00:38

that history is, how the spiritualists

1:00:41

interpreted it to make it their own.

1:00:43

And yes, I am going

1:00:45

to have a full on conversation with

1:00:48

a table in Florida. All

1:00:50

that, plus I walk forty minutes to

1:00:52

a gas station to get some pringles. Next

1:00:55

week on Ghost Church.

1:00:57

Oh wait, and thank you to my uncle. Then,

1:01:00

as Callahan, we will be hearing from him one more

1:01:02

time. And I'm not saying that there's a heaven

1:01:04

or hell. What I'm saying is there

1:01:07

is something more than we are

1:01:09

certainly aware. It

1:01:11

just doesn't make sense to me that all we have is

1:01:13

life. And you know, I love

1:01:16

atheist because those are the people that are really screwed

1:01:18

because you don't believe in heaven, you don't believe in hell,

1:01:20

and when you die, you ain't a fucking no place

1:01:22

to go. You

1:01:25

know, Well, Mormons, That's that's my

1:01:27

biggest feed My biggest fear is that Mormans

1:01:29

had it right, because I'll be like standing at

1:01:31

the gates of Heaven with an extra large coffee, going,

1:01:34

all right, that's enough, see you next week. Ghost

1:01:37

Church is a Cool Zone Media production created,

1:01:40

written, and hosted by me Jamie

1:01:42

Loftus. Guest voices in this episode

1:01:44

came from the wonderful Miles Gray

1:01:47

and Daniel Goodman. The show is produced

1:01:49

by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Ian

1:01:51

Johnson. Our theme song is by

1:01:53

Speedy Ortiz, That's c DG

1:01:56

Clee, Andy Moholt, Ardres

1:01:58

Whiteside and Joey Dubeck. The music

1:02:01

is by Zoe Blade

1:02:03

h