Speaker 1: I don't try and get anybody to believe any you know,
Speaker 1: I don't care what it's your business. For those that believe,
Speaker 1: no proof is necessary. For those that don't know, proof
Speaker 1: is sufficient. I can't make you believe something you don't
Speaker 1: want to believe. I can only tell you my experience.
Speaker 1: This is my uncle Dennis, the medium. My experiences in
Speaker 1: reading came about because through the course of having normal
Speaker 1: jobs working in a warehouse, drivn't know for what drop
Speaker 1: whenever I was doing every job I had, you didn't
Speaker 1: last they closed or I was fired, and it's thought
Speaker 1: that I wasn't a good worker. It was just that's
Speaker 1: the way it happened. The last job I had, which
Speaker 1: I plan on staying are they closed. And at that
Speaker 1: point in time, I thought to myself, you're either gonna
Speaker 1: do something you enjoy or something you can do, or
Speaker 1: you're going to start at the bottom wrong again. And
Speaker 1: I just didn't want to do that. So I picked
Speaker 1: up the Tarot deck, which I had used it a
Speaker 1: long time, and I began to realize that, you know,
Speaker 1: people were interesting. He learned to read tarot from his mom,
Speaker 1: who learned from her mom, who learned from her mom
Speaker 1: on the face they were averaged, low income New Englanders,
Speaker 1: but in private, the family had been working as mediums, readers,
Speaker 1: and psychics everywhere from New Age shops to tea rooms.
Speaker 1: Sort of an old, tiny undercover way of saying New
Speaker 1: Age shops and at one point where the Boston Police
Speaker 1: Department cops suck, don't do that for generations. I got
Speaker 1: to speak with my uncle Dennis a few weeks ago
Speaker 1: while my mom was visiting him and my auntie Karen
Speaker 1: in South Carolina. Mom's dad, my grandfather, just passed away,
Speaker 1: and she's down there to be with them and remember
Speaker 1: and hang out. They retired there a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: But Uncle Dennis Dennis Callahan, fourth generation hereditary, which according
Speaker 1: to his website, still does do readings. He grew up
Speaker 1: in what used to be a funeral parlor in Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: sorry funeral Paula in Massachusetts. That was mean, and he
Speaker 1: tells me that he became sensitive to spirits, seeing, hearing,
Speaker 1: smelling beginning around middle school age. He's carried on the
Speaker 1: family tradition as a professional medium for decades now and
Speaker 1: was my first connection to spiritual ideas when I was
Speaker 1: really young. Well him in a distant aunt named Susie
Speaker 1: who said I was cursed with negativity and wouldn't start
Speaker 1: living until I turned thirty, which on the first point
Speaker 1: kind of true. Second point to be determined. I'm so
Speaker 1: fucking young and virile. But you know, my parents were
Speaker 1: a little upset. You know, you probably shouldn't tell a
Speaker 1: ten year old that they're cursed. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: affected me though, Just kidding anyways, Uncle Dennis, he's a medium,
Speaker 1: except he doesn't like that word because it comes with
Speaker 1: all this baggage when you people's talk about being a
Speaker 1: medium in a psychic I mean, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: be mean here, and I'm not saying I'm any better
Speaker 1: than them. I'm not because there are true people out
Speaker 1: there to do that, but very shut These people are
Speaker 1: sort of playing on people's emotions, and that's what they do. Somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, they lose a son because of addiction. They
Speaker 1: want to talk to this son. They'll believe anything. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, you don't choose who you've talked. When
Speaker 1: spirit comes through, you don't know who it's gonna be.
Speaker 1: And if you don't know what you're doing, don't play
Speaker 1: with it. It is not a game by any search
Speaker 1: of the imagination. His current reading room has amazing light,
Speaker 1: these green walls, a pentagram area, rug, a small table,
Speaker 1: and his tarot cards and ruins. In a separate room
Speaker 1: is a table full of crystal skulls in a painting
Speaker 1: that needs to be seen to be believed. It was
Speaker 1: made by one of his long time clients. I will
Speaker 1: try to do it justice. It is a painting made
Speaker 1: of my uncle looking very serious, holding a black cat
Speaker 1: and a sword. Below him are the phases of the moon.
Speaker 1: Beside him are a honk in crystal and a goblet.
Speaker 1: Above him is saturned the stars, a glowing candle, and
Speaker 1: a massive, massive ghostly angel over his left shoulder, just
Speaker 1: arms outstretched with these big old wings and no face
Speaker 1: at all. It's it's terrifying, it's magnificent. You gotta see
Speaker 1: this painting anyways. Uncle Dennis was a practicing medium and
Speaker 1: reader in Massachusetts. Could you tell that from the accent.
Speaker 1: I've spent years getting rid of that, But he's practiced
Speaker 1: forever there, and I'm biased in obvious ways, but I
Speaker 1: can say with certainty that he does not abide by
Speaker 1: anyone's rules on how living a spiritual life works other
Speaker 1: than his own. That is to say, he talks to
Speaker 1: ghosts but is not a member of ghost Church. And
Speaker 1: of the mediums that I've spoken to, he's the most
Speaker 1: openly skeptical of a lot of readers working today. Let
Speaker 1: me show you what I mean. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: the fake psychics. I'm I'm sensing the letter and okay,
Speaker 1: I agree, you're a moron. Is your employment? Okay? Easily
Speaker 1: most basic tricks that they use, and it's like that's
Speaker 1: I used to get very amy because it's like, that's
Speaker 1: not what I do. Okay, I'm I'm reading a story.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at these things and putting these things together
Speaker 1: because people because they're gonna hear this and they gonna
Speaker 1: think of terrible people are cheaping the more they don't
Speaker 1: know how to ask a question. I would have people
Speaker 1: coming me and go, what colored drash? Sho? I wait
Speaker 1: to the promp. You're gonna sucking ask spiritus what colored drash?
Speaker 1: Get away to the prom Yeah, the archangel Michael is
Speaker 1: sitting there, going, I go with a baby blue. I
Speaker 1: come to us. Intellectual split in the road. Pretty often,
Speaker 1: you can believe in talking to spirit and think a
Speaker 1: lot of people who claim to speak with spirits are
Speaker 1: opportunistic assholes. Members of Cassadega, the spiritualist camp that I
Speaker 1: visited this year, expressed similar views on mediumship. Part of
Speaker 1: why the training at Cassadega is so thorough without shutting
Speaker 1: the door to the possibility of communication. Two things have
Speaker 1: to be true here. At best. I cannot, in good
Speaker 1: conscience tell you that there hasn't been a shipload of
Speaker 1: fraud in this profession. Just as and I'll keep reminding
Speaker 1: you of this, every religion in existence is burdened with
Speaker 1: varying degrees of frauds who are happy to exploit the
Speaker 1: belief or vulnerability of somebody else. One thing that's very
Speaker 1: interesting about American spiritualism to me is that it's a
Speaker 1: religion that has existed entirely in a time of mass media.
Speaker 1: To some degree, unlike most of the big religions, it's
Speaker 1: a little harder to gloss over any incidents of fraud
Speaker 1: or dubiousness because they're so well documented. It's not really
Speaker 1: possible to say, well, yeah, everyone was on board right away,
Speaker 1: and anyone who wasn't was probably wrong. But in spite
Speaker 1: of the history of spiritualism, being available in the public sense.
Speaker 1: Most of it is associated with sensation and scandal, but
Speaker 1: it's a little harder to nail down the specifics of
Speaker 1: what spiritualists actually believe. Yes, death is merely a transformation
Speaker 1: of energy, but there's more than that. There's moving tables
Speaker 1: and spirit teams and divination tools and things that aren't
Speaker 1: immediately obvious in neat cliffs notes of their story. So
Speaker 1: today we return to Cassadega for a gala day and
Speaker 1: for my first spirit message service, and we check in
Speaker 1: with the founding Fox Sisters, first brush with modern celebrity,
Speaker 1: all before hitting the eighth grade. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: the theme going. Actually, you know what, one more word
Speaker 1: from my uncle Dennis. And I always tell people if
Speaker 1: somebody was an asshole in life, they were an asshole
Speaker 1: when they're a spirit. Okay, I'm not going to suddenly
Speaker 1: die and be a nice person. Oh I'm dead, I'd
Speaker 1: better be nice, Thank you, Uncle Dennis. Okay. Theme Songka.
Speaker 1: The day I arrive at Cassadega, I am fresh off
Speaker 1: a sleepless night spent at a Super eight on the
Speaker 1: outskirts of Orlando that was wedged between this mini golf
Speaker 1: course that had live baby Gators. Is that legal? I
Speaker 1: guess it's legal. And an outlet mall where you can
Speaker 1: buy an absolute goblin of a knockoff Mickey Mouse toy.
Speaker 1: That's another thing about the Cassadega community that has a
Speaker 1: clear bearing on the sorts of people who come to visit.
Speaker 1: It's only a half hour from one of the most
Speaker 1: synthetic tourist capitals on the planet, just an uber ride
Speaker 1: from disney World, the kind of place that crops up
Speaker 1: in books with ridiculous fonts that say weird floor and
Speaker 1: attract curious families on a budget between draining financially punishing
Speaker 1: days at corporate theme parks. Now, Cassadega pre dates all
Speaker 1: of this Floridian excess. It was first founded in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety four to disney Worlds seventy one, but there's no
Speaker 1: denying that in the current sense it exists in the
Speaker 1: same financial ecosystem as the cursed mini mall you can
Speaker 1: buy a t shirt at that says tinker Bell is
Speaker 1: My Home girl. Oh my God. And this is one
Speaker 1: of the main differences between Cassadega and their sister camp
Speaker 1: in lily Dale, New York, which was founded in the
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies in the Rochester and Buffalo area and the
Speaker 1: same camp where the Fox House was relocated as a
Speaker 1: historical monument for a time before, like most spiritualist landmarks do,
Speaker 1: for some reason, it burned down under mysterious circumstances. The
Speaker 1: lily Dale Camp is its own organization, but is very
Speaker 1: close to Cassadega and how it operates. Mediums live on site,
Speaker 1: they provide session ends and hold services. They often attract
Speaker 1: upstate New Yorkers on weekend trips, but not quite the
Speaker 1: tourist ilk that their southern sister camp does. Cassadega exists
Speaker 1: in an area of infinity tourists in an area where
Speaker 1: there's pretty low oversight as it pertains to uh COVID safety.
Speaker 1: Remember this is the land of Governor Ron De Santis
Speaker 1: and an environmental climate where they can be open year
Speaker 1: round where they often called lily Dale can't. On the
Speaker 1: Sunday I get to Cassadega. The mediums are exhausted. The
Speaker 1: previous day was their quarterly Gala Day, a fundraising event
Speaker 1: where camp mediums and community members give talks on their
Speaker 1: area of expertise and provide quick readings on the sidelines
Speaker 1: to raise money and keep the camp open. When I
Speaker 1: tell you this is not a religion of means, I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding. This event raised them about six thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and they're over the moon about it. I mean they're
Speaker 1: struggling to keep their post office open. It all feel
Speaker 1: very Mickey Rooney, let's go in a barn and save
Speaker 1: the local whatever kind of vibe. I wasn't able to attend,
Speaker 1: but I do watch all of these Gala Day talks
Speaker 1: on Zoom on the bus from Tallahassee, and two mediums
Speaker 1: talks stand out to me in particular, in part because
Speaker 1: they have kind of the same old man boomer haircut,
Speaker 1: but also because the ideas that they're expressing are completely
Speaker 1: abstract and yet important to spiritualism. I want to tell
Speaker 1: you about them. The first is by Reverend Dr Don Zangi,
Speaker 1: presenting a talk called Being Awareness. Reverend Dr Don is
Speaker 1: another long time cassadegga convert sharing more than a name
Speaker 1: with a main cast member of the show Oz. Yes,
Speaker 1: I did pick that up, Like what but anyways, Reverend
Speaker 1: Doctor Don Zanki approaches the podium in a dan flash
Speaker 1: is great print, just an absolute dizzying vomit of patterns,
Speaker 1: and he also wears this Indiana Jones hat, reminding everyone
Speaker 1: that he'll be preaching tomorrow as well. A lot of
Speaker 1: his students are there. Don's students seem more fervent and
Speaker 1: loyal than any other group that I see on the campgrounds,
Speaker 1: and he's got one of the nicer houses that a
Speaker 1: medium lives into. That's something that I come to know.
Speaker 1: You need to be a member of the community to
Speaker 1: own a house in the area, which requires not only
Speaker 1: the training, but approval from the board. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that involve approval from the board, including uh me.
Speaker 1: Some of the houses in Cassadega are in pretty bad
Speaker 1: shape because mediums don't make a ton of money for
Speaker 1: people who are consistently labeled as capitalist frauds. But the
Speaker 1: Reverend Doctor Don's house is tall, it's bright purple, It's
Speaker 1: got this golden metallic sun hanging on the side. It's
Speaker 1: bigger than most of the houses, more inviting, and again
Speaker 1: constantly open to and brimming with students. He's also extremely
Speaker 1: influenced by Eastern specifically Indian spiritual teachings, and has increa
Speaker 1: recently tied this into his own curriculum. Yes, he is
Speaker 1: an old white guy and today he is talking to
Speaker 1: us about being awareness. He is a character. Today we're
Speaker 1: talking about what awareness and consciousness is. Awareness or consciousness
Speaker 1: is everything seen or unseen, he tells us, gesturing to
Speaker 1: the crowd and telling us how to access the divine
Speaker 1: within us, spirit that exists in us. You know, spiritualists
Speaker 1: believe in God sort of, but not that judgmental, punitive
Speaker 1: God that most of them grew up with. They believe
Speaker 1: in a loving and forgiving God who moves the energy
Speaker 1: of spirit around the earth and through us all. So
Speaker 1: how do we access it? It strays into a combination
Speaker 1: of Eastern, Western and Gwyneth Paltrow e philosophy. It's about
Speaker 1: ditching the ego of the lower self and accessing the
Speaker 1: egoists present higher self. Reverend Dr Don says, your lower
Speaker 1: consciousness ego personality is living in the three dimen sational
Speaker 1: world and has nothing to do with the divine within you.
Speaker 1: He's extremely charismatic, and I had to know who he
Speaker 1: was before he came to Cassadega. He's got a weird
Speaker 1: journey and not saying something here. Don ZENI first learned
Speaker 1: about Spiritualism at the lily Dale Camp. Zangi is from
Speaker 1: the Buffalo area himself, and he had worked locally at
Speaker 1: the Zoo in the Museum of Science before starting a
Speaker 1: longer career at the Eric County Juvenile Detention Center. Being
Speaker 1: around troubled youth motivated Zenki to found a martial arts
Speaker 1: and self defense school, with the idea being that kids
Speaker 1: needed a way to get out physical anger and aggression
Speaker 1: in a controlled space with discipline and structure. This was
Speaker 1: a huge success and he had two schools with hundreds
Speaker 1: of students and to this day is in the Black
Speaker 1: Belt Hall of Fame of Filipino Martial Arts in Manila
Speaker 1: in the Philippines. Just a quick aside, yes, this reverend
Speaker 1: doctor is also a sense and we just need to
Speaker 1: accept that. Okay. Let that in since a dawn and
Speaker 1: become reverend doctor down And on one night in he
Speaker 1: went to a Spiritualist message service in lily Dale, the
Speaker 1: same kind of service that I would be attending in Cassadega.
Speaker 1: At each message service, mediums approached the podium, point at
Speaker 1: someone in the crowd and give them a message from
Speaker 1: spirit right on the spot. It's pretty incredible, especially when
Speaker 1: it's done by someone as charismatic as Reverend Doctor down
Speaker 1: when really since dawn, Like many in his generation, he'd
Speaker 1: been raised Roman Catholic, but spiritualism spoke to him and
Speaker 1: he found himself in Cassadega by and never laughed up
Speaker 1: until recently. The Reverend Doctor has run Sunday lyceums in Cassadega,
Speaker 1: essentially an adult Sunday school for spiritualists that he curated
Speaker 1: guest speakers for anyone can attend for free, and all
Speaker 1: of the lessons and talks are on YouTube, and the
Speaker 1: curation reflected Don zaying Ki's journey as well. Topics included spiritualism,
Speaker 1: comparative religions, natural law, and parapsychology, and touched on Zangi's
Speaker 1: transformative experiences meeting in Indian guru named Satpaul G. Maharaj
Speaker 1: who visited Cassadega in two thousand and eight and profoundly
Speaker 1: affected the sense A. Reverend Doctor zank You went on
Speaker 1: to become a devotee of the Guru and has visited Egypt,
Speaker 1: India and Machu Picchu since, and he still remains a
Speaker 1: major proponent of incorporating more Eastern ideas into spiritualism as
Speaker 1: it exists today. When he took a step back from
Speaker 1: lyceum in to focus on his classes, he told a
Speaker 1: local paper this our group is not a religion again,
Speaker 1: it's the teachings and experiences from what all religions have risen.
Speaker 1: I find that the teachings of spiritualism and the teachings
Speaker 1: of the Guru are not incompatible to me. They are
Speaker 1: part of greater whole. His students, both in Cassadega and
Speaker 1: at a nearby ashram where they could sit for a
Speaker 1: weekend sat song where one listens to truth teachings, are
Speaker 1: all about Reverend Dr Don. This man is so fast,
Speaker 1: like does he ever wear his black belt during class?
Speaker 1: I have so many questions, but Don Zangy is too
Speaker 1: busy telling me about being awareness. His advice is rooted
Speaker 1: in spiritualism, but it's basically a rehash of that billion
Speaker 1: dollar piece of advice, be fucking present for once in
Speaker 1: your life and develop a deeper understanding of consciousness. Man
Speaker 1: Zangy expands on this by using a Hindu philosophical term
Speaker 1: called turia, a phrase which here means pure consciousness. He
Speaker 1: closes by saying, all right, you're awake, well, maybe I
Speaker 1: put you to sleep, but you're awake, and that is
Speaker 1: the cult of Reverend Doctor Sense don ZANGI. Another talk
Speaker 1: I heard at Gala Day was their keynote speaker, another
Speaker 1: Reverend Doctor Philip DeLong. I'll encounter Reverend Dr Phil again
Speaker 1: during my stay at Cassadega in a class called Healing
Speaker 1: one oh one that he was kind enough to let
Speaker 1: me drop in on at Pastor Debs suggestion. But the
Speaker 1: first time I hear him speak, he's talking about my
Speaker 1: spirit team. This is a concept that has actually gone
Speaker 1: kind of mainstream. You can find it in those YouTube
Speaker 1: videos I love watching. But it's also a little weird
Speaker 1: and a little abstract. Your spirit guides are well, I
Speaker 1: had no idea. There's certainly plenty of groundwork that's been
Speaker 1: laid here for the concept throughout centuries of religion, but
Speaker 1: the notion is actually kind of specific here. It reminds
Speaker 1: me a little of how in scientology you eventually learned
Speaker 1: that there's aliens. Except this is spiritualism, and so they're
Speaker 1: not keeping anything from you. Your spirit team is just
Speaker 1: as normal a concept to them as standing and singing
Speaker 1: him on a Sunday. Reverend Dr Phil doesn't have the
Speaker 1: huge personality that Reverend Dr Don does. He's a little shyer,
Speaker 1: more soft oaken, still with an old man hat, but
Speaker 1: has a low gray ponytail and a soft voice. He
Speaker 1: has a full hour to talk to us and wants
Speaker 1: to use us to tell us how to meet our
Speaker 1: spirit guides. He shares a little bit about his journey
Speaker 1: to spiritualism. He had a near death experience that pulled
Speaker 1: him into the religion. He is something called a crystal
Speaker 1: skull caretaker. He grew up Catholic. He was formally ordained
Speaker 1: by the International Association of Metaphysics. This is all very
Speaker 1: interesting to me, but what I'm more curious about is
Speaker 1: what people did before they became spiritualists, something that he
Speaker 1: is a little less worthcoming about than others I talked to.
Speaker 1: Reverend Doctor Phil tells us that there are extremely specific
Speaker 1: categories of spirit guides to learn from. Our guides are
Speaker 1: with us all the time, but the Reverend Doctor tells
Speaker 1: us that they do not interfere with our free will.
Speaker 1: There is the master Guide, the spiritual Guide, the emotional guide,
Speaker 1: and the mental guide. Reverend Doctor Phil says this we
Speaker 1: appoint them, but it is all toward our spiritual development
Speaker 1: how we treat our guides, and it is very powerful
Speaker 1: how you treat your guide. So okay, it's most important
Speaker 1: to meet your master guide first. I default to what
Speaker 1: I think of as a master which is a woman
Speaker 1: who is a little taller than me and clothes that
Speaker 1: fit her really well, and she has like this spine
Speaker 1: that looks good from every angle. When I think of
Speaker 1: master guide, I think of a woman who can really
Speaker 1: really pull off a hat, a woman who would not
Speaker 1: have spoken to me in high school. But Reverend Dr
Speaker 1: Phil says that the master guide is actually a very
Speaker 1: specific vision. Your master guide, he says, will appear to
Speaker 1: you in a cape. A cape, but okay, a spirit
Speaker 1: in a cape without exception. They got to be wearing
Speaker 1: a cape and they're your master guide. Reverend Doctor Phil
Speaker 1: says this, some of you will be scared when you
Speaker 1: first see this guide, but remember, fear is the opposite
Speaker 1: of love. I promise myself I will not fear the
Speaker 1: spirit in the cape when he comes. No way, everyone
Speaker 1: has a master teacher, and every master teacher has mastered
Speaker 1: life and death. The next guide that we're introduced to
Speaker 1: is our doctor guide. When he refers to as the physician.
Speaker 1: This is the spirit guide that looks over your physical health.
Speaker 1: This guide is counterbalanced by the material doctor or the philosopher.
Speaker 1: This guide oversees our career and finances, and we call
Speaker 1: upon them to direct our decision making and blending our
Speaker 1: spiritual and personal lives. Essentially the vibes doctor. I would
Speaker 1: love to get in touch with the vibes doctor because
Speaker 1: my life is so funked up right now. The material
Speaker 1: doctor is the guy who handles all the law of
Speaker 1: attraction stuff the secret. But Reverend Dr Phil warns us,
Speaker 1: don't be too specific in your manifestations or you'll always
Speaker 1: be disappointed and get your material doctor's ass. And a
Speaker 1: little twist, and he mentioned a karma teacher. I'm paraphrasing
Speaker 1: here because the spiritualists in CASCADEGA were not able to
Speaker 1: export this zoom call like they said they could because
Speaker 1: they are old and they live in Florida. But Reverend
Speaker 1: Dr Phil says something like this instant karma does not exist.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness plays a part in the lesson the Karma teacher gives,
Speaker 1: and it's here that he moves to an element of
Speaker 1: spiritualism and the spirit team that I take the most
Speaker 1: issue with the concept of the Native American or a
Speaker 1: Native protector guide. This is one of the most major
Speaker 1: red flags of spiritualist rhetoric that hasn't changed at all
Speaker 1: in the over century and a half that the religion
Speaker 1: has existed, and it's a topic that I'll be getting
Speaker 1: into in much further detail in future episodes. In short,
Speaker 1: this majority white religion frequently invokes images of a blend
Speaker 1: of tropes that are levied against Indigenous Americans as guides
Speaker 1: and magical beings intended to guide them a white colonizer
Speaker 1: and assumed protagonist. Given that there is a notable lack
Speaker 1: of Indigenous members of the religion and that Cassadega itself
Speaker 1: exists on seminal ground, this is tone deafness at best,
Speaker 1: an act of perpetuation of stereotypes at the expense of
Speaker 1: the Indigenous community. At worst, It's worth mentioning that the
Speaker 1: volume of Indigenous imagery that American spiritualism invokes at Cassadega
Speaker 1: never references the violence committed toward that same community on
Speaker 1: the ground where spiritualism now struggles to survive. And we
Speaker 1: will be circling back to this in more depth and
Speaker 1: future episodes. But I mean my God. Reverend Dr Phil
Speaker 1: does expand the idea of a native teacher to be
Speaker 1: a spirit from anyone's country of origin. He said that
Speaker 1: if you are from England, this could be a druid
Speaker 1: spirit or a Viking, and on and on, and it's
Speaker 1: this guide's duty to be a protective guide or to
Speaker 1: give you strength and quote courage to speak the spoken
Speaker 1: truth unquote, as well as healing. More indigenous tropes pop
Speaker 1: up here. He says that quote, they are close to nature.
Speaker 1: They work with the plant, animal, and mineral kingdom, and
Speaker 1: they use animal guides and totems unquote. He arbitrarily says
Speaker 1: that you can have as many as nine spirits with
Speaker 1: you at a time, and I'm starting to honestly get
Speaker 1: claustrophobic to think of this many ghosts in a room
Speaker 1: with me at any given time. He takes a moment
Speaker 1: here to address the idea of spirit guides conceptually and
Speaker 1: how they might chafe with tenets of other religions, especially
Speaker 1: the Catholicism he grew up with. He said that he
Speaker 1: grew up with an imaginary friend who he later learned
Speaker 1: was a spirit guide, a little boy named and plays
Speaker 1: bear with me here Tommy Tommy chustle Fire, who immigrated
Speaker 1: from England to the United States and the mid eighteen
Speaker 1: hundreds and was both kidnapped and raised by an indigenous tribe.
Speaker 1: I just so Tommy, Tommy chessel Fire returned to Phil
Speaker 1: as a crystal guide. And my head is about to
Speaker 1: explode hearing this weird racist story. When Reverend Dr Phil
Speaker 1: drops another bomb and says that one of his spirit
Speaker 1: guides is JP Morgan. Like the something interesting is that
Speaker 1: the more I get used to spending time with spiritualists,
Speaker 1: I hear one hundred things like this a day that
Speaker 1: removed my brain from my spinal cord. He said that
Speaker 1: his spirit guide was JP Morgan and doesn't give anyone
Speaker 1: the opportunity to ask a single question and to round
Speaker 1: them off. You've got your nurse guide and your joy guide,
Speaker 1: and mercifully, that's the whole team. That's a that's a
Speaker 1: lot of guys. The Master and the physician are your
Speaker 1: most important guides. But holy sh it, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of guides. But the Reverend Doctor isn't just there to
Speaker 1: tell us who these guides are. His speech is on
Speaker 1: how to work with them. He guides us through this
Speaker 1: fifteen minute guided meditation to meet someone. Taking us through
Speaker 1: a pretty standard meditation, You're filled with divine light and
Speaker 1: close your eyes and walk down to a dune beach
Speaker 1: where you're joined by your spirit animal. You walk to
Speaker 1: the beach and your spirit guide pops out of a fire.
Speaker 1: You ask them a question, they give you an answer,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to play along with this. I close
Speaker 1: my eyes, I go down to the beach and I
Speaker 1: see my grandma and the fire. I asked her how
Speaker 1: she is, and in my mind she looks so happy
Speaker 1: and very beautiful. She asks me how my dad is,
Speaker 1: and I say he's good. And then Reverend Dr Phil
Speaker 1: instructs the spirit guide to go back into the flame
Speaker 1: on the beach that doesn't exist, and so she does.
Speaker 1: The meditation has you walk away from the beach, back
Speaker 1: up the stairs and into the temple. You open your
Speaker 1: eyes and Reverend Dr Phil says to keep talking to
Speaker 1: our spirit guides. Ask them questions and be patient and
Speaker 1: observant as they answer them over the course of weeks
Speaker 1: and months. He says, to ask them for what you want.
Speaker 1: He says, to ask them what their names are, and
Speaker 1: for all of the freaky, weird stuff and the Tommy
Speaker 1: Tommy Chestil fire and the JP Morgan of it all.
Speaker 1: That night I put my feet on the ground and
Speaker 1: ask my freaky caped master spirit what their name is
Speaker 1: before going to sleep in the chlorine stained sheets of
Speaker 1: a Super eight in Orlando. I'm going to drink the
Speaker 1: kool aid. All right, We are vaulting back in time.
Speaker 1: We're getting into our little hot tub time machine, people,
Speaker 1: and we're going back to where the first spiritualists, as
Speaker 1: it were. The Fox sisters are two mediums. Kate Fox
Speaker 1: middle schooler and Maggie Fox high schooler, are met with
Speaker 1: their eldest thirtysomething sister, Leah Fox, who's just arrived at
Speaker 1: the family home where her siblings are said to be
Speaker 1: speaking with spirits. By April of eighteen forty eight, things
Speaker 1: had really started to pop off in Hydesville, New York.
Speaker 1: Every day Maggie and Kate would bring through new information
Speaker 1: from the spirit doing the wrappings. It claimed to be
Speaker 1: the spirit of a shoe peddler killed over the five
Speaker 1: dollars to his name, and these answers started to yield
Speaker 1: day after day information that reflected the house's previous tenant.
Speaker 1: So there had been a renter of the Fox Home
Speaker 1: named John Bell, just as the spirit had said, The
Speaker 1: spirit revealed that his name was either Charles b Rosna
Speaker 1: or Rosma, depending on the source, and for the record,
Speaker 1: Charles b Rosna or Rosma has never been confirmed as
Speaker 1: e sting at least by this name. It said that
Speaker 1: John Bell had once hired a shoe peddler, but for
Speaker 1: your reference, a Rosma never materialized in official records, But
Speaker 1: locals were captivated by him, and it's not surprising why
Speaker 1: the majority of people assembled at the Fox Home would
Speaker 1: have had a lot in common with Charles Rosna Rosma.
Speaker 1: They were working class people themselves, often subjected to the
Speaker 1: John Bell's of the world, getting fucked over by those
Speaker 1: with more money than they had. What was unfortunate, and
Speaker 1: would become one of spiritualism's first real ethical knots, was
Speaker 1: that John Bell was a real person who was being
Speaker 1: accused of murder by a spirit whose name no one
Speaker 1: could verify as a person who would ever existed. Later
Speaker 1: in her life, Maggie Fox reflected on this in a
Speaker 1: book written by Harry Houdini. Did I mention that Harry Houdini,
Speaker 1: the world most famous magician, would later develop a vested
Speaker 1: interest in disproving spiritual is um did I mention that
Speaker 1: he did that because he had an even more vested
Speaker 1: interest in undercutting the work of his former best friend,
Speaker 1: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who, before you start banging your
Speaker 1: head against the table, is indeed the author of Sherlock Holmes,
Speaker 1: because yeah, man, spiritualism is real. Weird. We haven't even
Speaker 1: gotten to the part where Frederick Douglas shows up. But
Speaker 1: Maggie Fox describes this first week of visits later in life,
Speaker 1: deflecting a little bit and saying that the discovery of
Speaker 1: John Bell was completely a notion of her neighbors. The
Speaker 1: firsthand accounts at the time chafed with this a little bit,
Speaker 1: but as you'll continue to learn, everyone's got their own story. Here,
Speaker 1: Maggie says, quote, they the neighbors, were convinced that someone
Speaker 1: had been murdered in the house. They asked the spirits
Speaker 1: through us about it, and we would wrap one for
Speaker 1: the spirit answer yes, not three, as we did. Afterward.
Speaker 1: The murder, they concluded, must have been committed in the house.
Speaker 1: They went over the whole surrounding country trying to get
Speaker 1: the names of people who had formerly lived in the house.
Speaker 1: Finally they found a man by the name of Bell,
Speaker 1: and they said that this poor innocent man had committed
Speaker 1: a murder in the house, and that the noises had
Speaker 1: come from a spirit of the murdered person. Poor Bell
Speaker 1: was shunned and looked upon by the whole community as
Speaker 1: a murderer unquote. Tough break for John Bell, but there
Speaker 1: were many in the community that discredited the Fox sisters
Speaker 1: from the start for this reason alone. But the draw
Speaker 1: of spirit was too much for most people to ignore.
Speaker 1: By the time their sister Leah arrived in the first
Speaker 1: week of April, hundreds were coming to the Fox home
Speaker 1: every day to witness the wrappings, in a move that
Speaker 1: was foreshadow where American spiritualism was headed. The neighbors wanted
Speaker 1: to know more from the spirit than what had happened
Speaker 1: to the deceased. They wanted to know about themselves or
Speaker 1: confirmed things about the great beyond that they already knew
Speaker 1: or wished was true. This would eventually evolved into people
Speaker 1: seeking out they're dead in particular, but in these first weeks,
Speaker 1: Hidesville neighbors were happy to quiz Charles Rosna Rosma on
Speaker 1: the specifics of their own lives. Communicating with the Spirit
Speaker 1: became a bizarrow community building activity. Neighbors would quiz the
Speaker 1: Spirit on how many children, they had, how old they were,
Speaker 1: their full names. They were almost definitely learning about each
Speaker 1: other as the Spirit relaid the information. The questions were
Speaker 1: yes or no at first, but the girls quickly developed
Speaker 1: a somewhat more sophisticated system, with the Spirit having it wrap.
Speaker 1: When certain letters were called, the Spirit attempted to lead
Speaker 1: a neighbor with a candle to the seller where they
Speaker 1: were buried, but digging hadn't begun before Margaret took the
Speaker 1: girls from the house for good, going to their neighbor's
Speaker 1: house for their own protection. During this time, the Spirit
Speaker 1: also made its religious leanings known. It made no noise
Speaker 1: when asked if it believed in the Universalist doctrine, then
Speaker 1: made a strong noise when asked about Methodism. It may
Speaker 1: not be a coincidence that Maggie and Kate's father, John,
Speaker 1: was a devoted Methodist. A week after the girls first
Speaker 1: called their mom to their room, half the population of
Speaker 1: Arcadia County, a few hundred people came to the Hydesville
Speaker 1: house one night. It was the Fox sister's first big crowd,
Speaker 1: but definitely not their last. The immediate community tried to
Speaker 1: guard the house and its spiritual integrity, all of a
Speaker 1: week old, from the masses that wanted to go inside
Speaker 1: and ask the spirit questions. At this time, Maggie and
Speaker 1: Kate were surrounded by the spectrum of what it could
Speaker 1: mean to be a woman in a time where the
Speaker 1: definition of women in society was changing. In one sense,
Speaker 1: they were about to bear witness to the Seneca Falls
Speaker 1: Convention and the fight for women's right going mainstream. On
Speaker 1: the other end, there was still the reality of day
Speaker 1: to day. Their options were to get married like their
Speaker 1: sisters Elizabeth than Maria had. They could work in one
Speaker 1: of these new fangled factories, or they could become a
Speaker 1: teacher in the way that their oldest sister Leah had
Speaker 1: to support herself and her daughter. Back at the house,
Speaker 1: Maggie and Kid's older brother David took charge of continuing
Speaker 1: the investigation of where Charles Rosma's spirit claimed his body
Speaker 1: was buried. After digging three feet, he hit an underground stream,
Speaker 1: stalling progress and tried for days to get further, but
Speaker 1: weren't really able to. Even as the crowds of hundreds
Speaker 1: continued to show up, and show up, and show up.
Speaker 1: Mary Redford, the neighbor, now convinced of the spirit's authenticity,
Speaker 1: started asking it bigger questions. Still, She told the local
Speaker 1: reporter that she quote asked if there was a heaven
Speaker 1: to attain and got three raps unquote, an affirmative from
Speaker 1: the spirit and an interesting one, as this would be
Speaker 1: significantly course corrected in the years to come, as it's
Speaker 1: understood now spiritualists fully in they continuity of life and
Speaker 1: not a Christian heaven or hell. Still, the neighbor received
Speaker 1: a different answer and pressed the spirit on what had
Speaker 1: become of a child who she'd lost. Almost right away,
Speaker 1: the locals were more invested in their own stories than
Speaker 1: what happened to some random shoe peddler who may or
Speaker 1: may not have existed five years ago, and the shoe
Speaker 1: peddler spirit was happy to oblige. The community continued to
Speaker 1: attempt to identify where the wrappings were coming from, and
Speaker 1: many suspected fraud. By April twelve, local papers were fully
Speaker 1: engaged in the sensation. A paper called The Western Argus reported, quote,
Speaker 1: the good people of Arcadia, we learn, are in quite
Speaker 1: a fever in consequence of the discovery of an underground
Speaker 1: ghost or some unaccountable noise. Picks and bats were at
Speaker 1: once brought into requisition, and on digging down about four feet,
Speaker 1: a stream of pure water gushed forth and filled the
Speaker 1: ghost hole unquote, not the ghost hole. The room where
Speaker 1: the spirits were wrapping in the Fox house remained dark,
Speaker 1: and Maggie and Kate remained on the bed where they
Speaker 1: had first called their mother. Their family physician was summoned
Speaker 1: to the house by their father when Kate was said
Speaker 1: to have gotten sick, at which point the doctor reported
Speaker 1: that there had been quote great commotion in the room
Speaker 1: of his patient, snapping, cracking noises all about the bed.
Speaker 1: As fast as he changed places, the raps would do
Speaker 1: the same unquote. He also mentions that he thought that
Speaker 1: Kate maybe quote, in some way manipulating the joints or
Speaker 1: muscles of the fingers, toes and knees unquote, put a
Speaker 1: pin in that or a bone crack. Manifesting spirit wraps
Speaker 1: by dislocating their joints and muscles is a charge that
Speaker 1: will haunt the Fox sisters, unbeknownst to them now, for
Speaker 1: the next forty years of their life, and will haunt
Speaker 1: the religion until right now. But even with light pushback
Speaker 1: from local residents and press, the local interest in the
Speaker 1: sisters and their spirit rappings steadily increased and gained credibility.
Speaker 1: When the family who had lived in the house before
Speaker 1: the Fox family came forward with similar charges, they told
Speaker 1: the press they had also heard the raps. Local reporter E. E.
Speaker 1: Lewis writes, quote, hundreds have been there. Skeptics have first
Speaker 1: carefully examined the premises, have gone into the ghostly presence,
Speaker 1: still incredulous and disposed to treat the affair with levity,
Speaker 1: have held converse with the unknown one until the cold
Speaker 1: sweat oozing from every poor has coursed down their limbs,
Speaker 1: and they have been compelled to acknowledge that they felt
Speaker 1: themselves in the presence of one from the spirit country unquote.
Speaker 1: For good measure, he included a petition signed by more
Speaker 1: than forty of the real life John Bell's supporters, who
Speaker 1: insisted that he was not a murderer. But for all
Speaker 1: his thorough work, one thing Lewis never did was interview
Speaker 1: Maggie or Kate Fox. Barbara Weisberg in her biography, it
Speaker 1: mentions an interesting through line about the Fox women, that
Speaker 1: being that they suffered from intense migraines their whole lives.
Speaker 1: Some suggest this led to an increased sensitivity to the supernatural,
Speaker 1: and others had other opinions, but Wiseberg says that this
Speaker 1: manifests as a quote pain that can create a sense
Speaker 1: of standing outside oneself, of not being oneself but another
Speaker 1: person altogether unquote. Leah arrived and witnessed her youngest siblings
Speaker 1: working with spirit and saw how terrified her parents were
Speaker 1: and how her brother David was struggling to hold everything together.
Speaker 1: She suggested that the girls be separated. She would take
Speaker 1: Kate back to Rochester and Maggie would remain in Hydesville,
Speaker 1: and they would see if the spirit followed. It did
Speaker 1: follow them both. By the end of summer eight, the
Speaker 1: Fox sisters were notorious and had already left their father
Speaker 1: back in Hydesville, beginning to entangle with the progressive literati
Speaker 1: of Rochester. They were considered extraordinary, potentially leaders of science
Speaker 1: or religion, or both, and they were young women forging
Speaker 1: their own weird path in a way that may not
Speaker 1: have been possible even ten or fifteen years before. And
Speaker 1: Leah kind or fifteen years older saw her younger sisters,
Speaker 1: saw the changing times, and saw an opportunity. All it
Speaker 1: was going to take was one little white lie to
Speaker 1: get the girls on board, and that lie was that
Speaker 1: everything was going to be okay, okay. Back to the present,
Speaker 1: or I guess the recent post past services in Cassadega
Speaker 1: take place at Colby Temple, named for the camp's founder.
Speaker 1: Colby Temple is the five billionth thing to be named
Speaker 1: for the formal founder of Spiritualism. A big beige cement
Speaker 1: in wood church with the same wooden cabin interior that
Speaker 1: defines every camp building. It was first built shortly after
Speaker 1: the camp was established, at first an octagonal building where
Speaker 1: Colby himself, a well known trans medium, would conduct services
Speaker 1: and seances. This was later rebuilt into the pale sand
Speaker 1: brick structure it is today not too pretty from the outside,
Speaker 1: but has a cozy congregational church vibe on the inside.
Speaker 1: There are about forty people at the service on the
Speaker 1: morning I attend, and we're handed the same Xerox programs,
Speaker 1: blue hardcover hymnals and sit in the same creaky pews
Speaker 1: as boomers talk too loudly that I associate the church
Speaker 1: I went to as a kid, but of course there
Speaker 1: are differences. Healing is already taking place in the back
Speaker 1: of the church when I sit alone with my program
Speaker 1: and my hymnal. There are a number of students from
Speaker 1: the community who will be evaluated on their healing performance,
Speaker 1: and they're all lined up as those attending service sit
Speaker 1: with their eyes closed. A healing looks like someone slowly
Speaker 1: waving their hands methodically energy healing while the recipient reacts
Speaker 1: everywhere from nervous twitching, not being sold on it, or
Speaker 1: appearing deeply meditative and healed. Depending on what they write
Speaker 1: on the little yellow slips they'll be handed for the
Speaker 1: complimentary service afterward, a student could get one step closer
Speaker 1: or further from being recognized as a Cassadega healer, the
Speaker 1: process that takes about three years. I flipped through the
Speaker 1: program and I'm shocked at how familiar it is to
Speaker 1: the services I grew up attending. There is an invocation.
Speaker 1: There are candle slit for mind, body, and Spirit. Instead
Speaker 1: of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I mean health. The
Speaker 1: ceremony opens with a singing of Amazing Grace, a moment
Speaker 1: for the spiritualist hymnel. It is this fascinating blend of
Speaker 1: Christian hymns that do not reference have for nor health,
Speaker 1: the two things spiritualism does not recognize. But you'd be
Speaker 1: surprised there's a lot of diet Christianity at play here.
Speaker 1: The service frequently invokes Jesus in the context of being
Speaker 1: a great spiritual healer. It does not shy away from
Speaker 1: the Christian hits, but it also sprinkles in a number
Speaker 1: of Spiritualist hymn originals that lean more heavily on the
Speaker 1: idea of the religion, specifically lines like y oh boy,
Speaker 1: the singing is the singing is running the service today.
Speaker 1: Is the first person I spoke with connected with Cassadaga,
Speaker 1: Pastor Debt, who encouraged me to visit the camp in
Speaker 1: spite of my not being quite cleared by the press
Speaker 1: board yet, and whose kindness extends through my trip and
Speaker 1: into the present. She is very, very familiar and kind
Speaker 1: in person. She wears a cross around her neck, she
Speaker 1: has these gold bauble earrings, short haircut, long blue navy sleeves.
Speaker 1: Very pastoral. You know, you can tell she grew up
Speaker 1: Christian and you can tell that she very, very firmly
Speaker 1: believes in spiritualism. At the front of the room. She
Speaker 1: leads us in a hallmark of a spiritualist church ritual,
Speaker 1: a moment in which the congregation recites the tenets of
Speaker 1: the church, which explains the core ideas of the religion
Speaker 1: more clearly than I ever could on my own. So
Speaker 1: let's let them explain themselves. We recite in unison. We
Speaker 1: believe in intelligence. We believe that the phenomenon of nature,
Speaker 1: both physical and spiritual, or the expression non infinite intelligence.
Speaker 1: We affirm that a correct understanding of such expression, and
Speaker 1: living in importance therewith, constitutes true religion. We affirm that
Speaker 1: the existence and personal identity of the individual continue to change.
Speaker 1: Called death, we affirm that communication with the so called
Speaker 1: dead is capt scientifically proven by the phenomena of spiritualism.
Speaker 1: We believe that the highest morality is contained in the
Speaker 1: Golden Room. Whatsoever he would that others should do unto you,
Speaker 1: do you also unto them. We affirm the moral responsibility
Speaker 1: of the individual, and that he makes his own happiness
Speaker 1: or unhappiness as he obeys or disobeys nature's physical and spirituals.
Speaker 1: We affirmed that the doorway in a reformation is never
Speaker 1: closed against any human soul. Here or hereafter we have
Speaker 1: for recepts of prophecy and healing, invading the Bible our
Speaker 1: divine attributes through mediumship. Then we read the prayer of
Speaker 1: spiritual healing from the back of our hymnal because, in
Speaker 1: another nod to Christianity, spiritualists do remote healing for congregation
Speaker 1: members who expressed interest, in the same way that Christians
Speaker 1: often pray remotely, especially during COVID times. I request healing
Speaker 1: from my immediate family who I love, and for my
Speaker 1: haters who are very lost. Healers sanitize their hands between
Speaker 1: healings while the rest of us are guided by Pastor
Speaker 1: Dub in a guided meditation. Her voice is calming, assured,
Speaker 1: bringing energy in and out as a body. As a
Speaker 1: dull music plays in the background, the vague humming of
Speaker 1: something spiritual happening. We sing another hymn and it's rough
Speaker 1: spiritualists or not singers or organists, but it brings us
Speaker 1: to the speaker of the day. It's your boy, Reverend
Speaker 1: Dr don Zangi. He has Pastor deb drop into his
Speaker 1: intro that yes, he's been to Machu Picchu, okay, And
Speaker 1: he takes the podium and yet another incredible outfit. My
Speaker 1: man's wearing a black sweat band around his bald head.
Speaker 1: My son says, got a cross around his neck. He's
Speaker 1: wearing a purple button down. He's got a burgundeed pastor
Speaker 1: quote whatever this is called the draping thing unquote. I'll
Speaker 1: let him explain himself. So we talked about spiritualism. That's
Speaker 1: such a big subject. The characteristics of spiritualism go back
Speaker 1: way before when consciousness first dawned on humans. They starting
Speaker 1: to realize themselves as humans. They realized that there were
Speaker 1: something bigger than themselves, and today we call it spiritualism.
Speaker 1: So yes, I've been here a long time. As long
Speaker 1: as Jerry and I came here. I'd like to say
Speaker 1: it was a blame slate. I'm not even sure I
Speaker 1: wasn't a slate and know nothing about anhing. We're all
Speaker 1: seeking something higher and better than ourselves, and for many
Speaker 1: of us, it starts with what spiritualism is about. And
Speaker 1: so yes, I've traveled, have done some things that involved
Speaker 1: in many other spiritual endeavors, but it starts with we
Speaker 1: don't die. That is basically to all auso teric and
Speaker 1: metaphysical teachings. It starts with that and the only place
Speaker 1: I know they can prove that. The spiritualism in this place,
Speaker 1: I hear because we're you're to be here before the
Speaker 1: truth of what I'm talking about becomes evident. I've seen it,
Speaker 1: I've heard it. I don't believe it, I know it
Speaker 1: to be true. The spirit comes through. Well, there's still
Speaker 1: a message you're reading, and you can't deny with spirit
Speaker 1: manifest in physical ways that you can't deny with spiritual
Speaker 1: healing helps you and perhaps no one else and nothing
Speaker 1: else can. Your consciousness begins to open up heels like.
Speaker 1: It's pretty anti capitalist. Mr. King of the Dojo. He
Speaker 1: criticizes other religions Pensiant for taking taking taking money from
Speaker 1: its congregation instead of enriching their lives. Cradle Rave got
Speaker 1: cost of something. But again, there's this element of Christianity
Speaker 1: included this. I don't love Christianity, but I'm not a
Speaker 1: big Bible thumper, but there's wonderful teachings in there, if
Speaker 1: you know how to look. I kind of love Reverend
Speaker 1: Dr Don honestly. He has these phrases. He'll use stuff
Speaker 1: like I've got three thousand books and another one coming
Speaker 1: in the mail, and he describes the feeling of true
Speaker 1: faith in spirit of certainty, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: He's a proponent of continual learning, of looking at other
Speaker 1: religions to see what is valuable about them to add
Speaker 1: to your own spiritual journey. He describes his spirit guides
Speaker 1: and how they change over time because people grow and
Speaker 1: change over time. Several times he puts God in quotation
Speaker 1: marks when talking about it. The service ends and we're
Speaker 1: encouraged to go to the message service down at the
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis Building, the bookshop meeting hall hybrid and
Speaker 1: I trickle down with the crowd. It's a solid half tourist,
Speaker 1: half regular crowd that heads back down the street and
Speaker 1: into the gift shop, where I flipped through a copy
Speaker 1: of a book called Is Mother Nature Mad? Before heading
Speaker 1: through the double doors to my first spiritualist message service.
Speaker 1: Here's how it works. There are five mediums and forty people,
Speaker 1: all of us sitting in the hall at a long,
Speaker 1: wooden cafeteria style table. It's kind of summer camp meets
Speaker 1: night class at twelve thirty in the afternoon, and we're
Speaker 1: surrounded by cassadaga paraphernalia. It wouldn't sign declaring where we
Speaker 1: are a framed copy of the Spiritualist Principles, framed black
Speaker 1: and white prints of their founders, photos from the one
Speaker 1: hundred twenty five year celebration that took place a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. A few paltry cups of coffee that
Speaker 1: were room temperature long before we got here. How are
Speaker 1: you going to have a thriving religion without halfway decent coffee?
Speaker 1: I mean, guys, get it together. The room hushes as
Speaker 1: the events organizer introduces the service. This is the time
Speaker 1: where mediums come to the front podium like auctioneers, point
Speaker 1: at one of us and say, yes, Spirit has a
Speaker 1: message for you. Then spends the next two minutes describing
Speaker 1: what the spirit looks like, what their relationship to you is,
Speaker 1: what their messages, all while tacitly confirming that it is
Speaker 1: resonating through nods of yes or no from the person listening.
Speaker 1: The yes and no is important. We'll get there and
Speaker 1: each medium gets a turn. The room hushes as the
Speaker 1: first pastor takes the podium and begins. It's here where
Speaker 1: I start to put some general observations on how different
Speaker 1: mediums read differently. It has just as much to do
Speaker 1: with personal style as any other public speaking or art
Speaker 1: form does this. First Pastor is gentle but direct in
Speaker 1: her delivery. Pastor deb comes up and her voice is musical,
Speaker 1: and she's very descriptive. It's kind of great how much
Speaker 1: description she gives. Oh, there's an old woman standing behind
Speaker 1: you with her hand on her shoulder. Do you know
Speaker 1: who I'm talking about. There's a lot of older women
Speaker 1: who show up in these readings of spirit because statistically
Speaker 1: it's who you're most likely to be looking for. Grandmothers.
Speaker 1: For the younger set, of which there are not many.
Speaker 1: The only people are in their twenties, have come with
Speaker 1: her parents, or they're me, and old women appear as
Speaker 1: deceased mothers. For the more middle aged people who are
Speaker 1: trying to make contact and send of the people who
Speaker 1: raised them and then disappeared one day, it's during this
Speaker 1: session that if you made it through the ghost church
Speaker 1: service proper, your belief in what the spiritualists do is
Speaker 1: truly tested. Sure, you can say the tenants, but when
Speaker 1: someone comes to you with a spirit message, do you
Speaker 1: believe it or not? The reaction in the room about
Speaker 1: forty people, again mostly but not all white and middle aged,
Speaker 1: About half tourists and half regulars. Is generally positive, but
Speaker 1: definitely mixed. You can tell when someone wants to be
Speaker 1: there to receive a message. They kind of lean forward
Speaker 1: in their seat a little. They're quick to answer the
Speaker 1: yes or no questions of whether it's resonating. They usually
Speaker 1: seem to have some sort of idea of who they
Speaker 1: want to contact. You can also tell when a skeptic
Speaker 1: is a believer's plus one, whether it's their friend, their spouse,
Speaker 1: their kids, their friend from college that is maybe curious
Speaker 1: but sits back legs crossed, takes a little more time
Speaker 1: to answer, or questions show me what you fucking got
Speaker 1: kind of energy. Sometimes they seem impressed with the specificity
Speaker 1: of who or what comes through, and other times their
Speaker 1: eyebrows rise a little if the message isn't resonating or
Speaker 1: appears too vague for their liking. Here are some of
Speaker 1: the spirits that come through at the message service. One says,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing an old woman behind you. She's a little sexy.
Speaker 1: One says, I'm seeing an older woman behind you. She's
Speaker 1: tall and looks all about business. Someone says, I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a man behind you and he's a soldier. He came
Speaker 1: up in the military and was served well by his
Speaker 1: experience in the military. Another says, I'm seeing a medium
Speaker 1: sized dog running around and this makes someone burst into
Speaker 1: tears right away. Someone else says he looks kind of
Speaker 1: like gill Again, does everyone know who Gilligan is? And
Speaker 1: the spirits aren't just described either. When you receive a
Speaker 1: standard message like this, the recipient will first get a
Speaker 1: description of the person in question, and then a mess
Speaker 1: from them directly, stuff like this. One says, he's saying,
Speaker 1: you're all play and no work. Do you have a
Speaker 1: job because you live for pleasure And it's not pleasure
Speaker 1: that's hurting anyone, it's bringing joy, So keep doing it.
Speaker 1: Another message I liked. They're telling me that you're not finished.
Speaker 1: There's a new venture and you need a big open
Speaker 1: sky and space, maybe some sort of trip. Some people
Speaker 1: cry at least one really really wants to understand but
Speaker 1: can't quite get there. How tall was the man standing there?
Speaker 1: She asks? How old was he? Who's a child with him?
Speaker 1: Well it could be this guy, but well, no, that
Speaker 1: doesn't match up with the height you described. And no,
Speaker 1: I don't have any kids and haven't lost any kids
Speaker 1: close to me. There are people who want to connect
Speaker 1: the can't, and the earnestness with which one medium tries
Speaker 1: to meet her in the middle is interesting. When a
Speaker 1: message hits it's exciting, and when it doesn't, it pings
Speaker 1: a little skeptic in my own brain. We were told
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the service to switch our phones
Speaker 1: off so as not to introduce whatever cell phone waves
Speaker 1: into the air and interrupt spirit. But the mediums don't
Speaker 1: turn their phones off at all. They're on their phones
Speaker 1: while their peers are at the podium the whole time,
Speaker 1: like their stand ups waiting to go on stage. Two
Speaker 1: of them show each other memes on their phones and
Speaker 1: giggle softly while a woman who came with her college
Speaker 1: friends receives the spirit message from a dead brother across
Speaker 1: the room. It's interesting there's this contradiction going on right
Speaker 1: in front of us. But at the same time, it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun to watch mediums be friends and show
Speaker 1: each other memes while someone else talks to a ghost
Speaker 1: right next to them. And you know who is one
Speaker 1: of the seven people who does not get a reading
Speaker 1: in the entire room, listener, It was me, And it's
Speaker 1: hard not to feel self conscious. About it. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: right in the front, and I can't tell if I'm
Speaker 1: being overly cautious by feeling that the mediums already know
Speaker 1: who I am, given my status of being under consideration
Speaker 1: by the PR committee, that very well could be in
Speaker 1: the room with me right now. And I learned moments later.
Speaker 1: Absolutely is when the service ends. I approached Pastor Deb
Speaker 1: to introduce myself. As she texts someone, She's got a
Speaker 1: lot on her plate. She's got an elderly parent, she's
Speaker 1: got a day job over an hour outside of Cassadega.
Speaker 1: She's a pastor, she's a girl friend, she's the head
Speaker 1: of PR. She's tired, but she's incredibly nice to me
Speaker 1: and is enthusiastic when I shyly introduced myself. This is
Speaker 1: not my strength in this world. I love people and
Speaker 1: I love learning about them, but the approach is not
Speaker 1: my strength. Dev tells me that everyone is exhausted from
Speaker 1: gala day, and those within earshot agree, but they raised
Speaker 1: over six thousand dollars. It was a success, and it
Speaker 1: ties into what she told me on the phone a
Speaker 1: couple of days before. There is an uptick and interest
Speaker 1: in the Spiritualist camp and in the last year, potentially
Speaker 1: due to the mass loss of life with COVID. I
Speaker 1: want you to keep in mind that six thousand dollars
Speaker 1: is a big deal for this religion, all but an
Speaker 1: endangered species. We're standing in a hall that hasn't been
Speaker 1: updated in nearly fifty years, and there's not enough coffee
Speaker 1: and styrophone cups or snacks to go around scientology. This
Speaker 1: is not a religion that can really afford to court
Speaker 1: new members. This is not I have significant PTSD with
Speaker 1: moms who have pastor Deb's haircut due to my time
Speaker 1: in MENSA. You can reflect on that on your own time,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. But Deb is extraordinarily nice and
Speaker 1: eager to introduce me to other members of the pr
Speaker 1: committee who are present a list that is not publicly available.
Speaker 1: But not everyone here seems to share her enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: meeting me. There's one volunteer who isn't a medium, that
Speaker 1: is extremely kind, kind of an alpha type, who is
Speaker 1: in the middle of sweet talking someone else saying he
Speaker 1: can talk to me when it's approved, And one who
Speaker 1: is so nervous about my intentions that she crosses her
Speaker 1: arm and doesn't shake my hand when I reach out
Speaker 1: to her. The whole flurry is very quick, and Pastor
Speaker 1: Dab is on her phone for most of it, and
Speaker 1: so I try not to let it sink into my
Speaker 1: bones as the rejection by mediums that it feels like.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to feel rejected by someone and it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel good, But it's another thing to be rejected
Speaker 1: by someone who believes that they are connected with a
Speaker 1: higher power and know whether your intentions are good or bad.
Speaker 1: This is an anxiety that will follow me through the
Speaker 1: entire week. If you're anything but completely skeptical. It's not
Speaker 1: just a rejection from a Floridian. It's a rejection from
Speaker 1: a Floridian and the entire fucking ghost realm, ghosts that
Speaker 1: have their own opinions and ties to infinite intelligence. Over
Speaker 1: the course of the week, I see a number of
Speaker 1: mediums donate to Cassadega on their way out of their
Speaker 1: services where they've just been volunteering. This is a clear
Speaker 1: community effort. It's the coffee hours of my youth with
Speaker 1: even less resources, no Dungan, don'tus budget, plus a light
Speaker 1: smattering of talking to the debt. So now you have
Speaker 1: a better feel for what Ghost Church is about there
Speaker 1: are some elements of diet Christianity. Then they hit you
Speaker 1: with the spirit messages and the spirit teams and all
Speaker 1: the elements of the religion that are considered to be unusual.
Speaker 1: But these elements don't come from nowhere. Both the Fox
Speaker 1: Sisters in the mid nineteenth century and people in Cassadega
Speaker 1: and other spiritualist sites right now formed their religious practices
Speaker 1: by pulling from elements of other religions and traditions, and
Speaker 1: especially from the concept of the seance. So next week
Speaker 1: we're going to look at what that history is, how
Speaker 1: the spiritualists interpreted it to make it their own. And yes,
Speaker 1: I am going to have a full on conversation with
Speaker 1: a table in Florida. All that, plus I walk forty
Speaker 1: minutes to a gas station to get some pringles. Next
Speaker 1: week on Ghost Church. Oh wait, and thank you to
Speaker 1: my uncle. Then, as Callahan, we will be hearing from
Speaker 1: him one more time. And I'm not saying that there's
Speaker 1: a heaven or hell. What I'm saying is there is
Speaker 1: something more than we are certainly aware. It just doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense to me that all we have is life.
Speaker 1: And you know, I love atheist because those are the
Speaker 1: people that are really screwed because you don't believe in heaven,
Speaker 1: you don't believe in hell, and when you die, you
Speaker 1: ain't a fucking no place to go. You know, Well, Mormons,
Speaker 1: That's that's my biggest feed My biggest fear is that
Speaker 1: Mormans had it right, because I'll be like standing at
Speaker 1: the gates of Heaven with an extra large coffee, going,
Speaker 1: all right, that's enough, see you next week. Ghost Church
Speaker 1: is a Cool Zone Media production created, written, and hosted
Speaker 1: by me Jamie Loftus. Guest voices in this episode came
Speaker 1: from the wonderful Miles Gray and Daniel Goodman. The show
Speaker 1: is produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Ian Johnson. Our
Speaker 1: theme song is by Speedy Ortiz, That's c DG Clee,
Speaker 1: Andy Moholt, Ardres Whiteside and Joey Dubeck. The music is
Speaker 1: by Zoe Blade h