Speaker 1: If you're looking to commune with your dad. The website
Speaker 1: for the Southern Cassadega Spiritualist Camp offers a menu of
Speaker 1: forty mediums at any given time, and thirty two of
Speaker 1: them are women. Holy shit right. For the vast majority
Speaker 1: of those mediums, it's a second act in their lives.
Speaker 1: While a few were actually raised in the spiritualist tradition,
Speaker 1: they're more likely to flock to the camp after careers
Speaker 1: as teachers, as I T specialists, as astrologers, yoga instructors, realtors,
Speaker 1: stay at home moms, paralegals, and my favorite Manhattan stockbrokers
Speaker 1: who had crises of faith after nine eleven. For real.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different kinds of mediums here, and
Speaker 1: this has always been a strength of the religion. I
Speaker 1: think on this show, we've been exploring the story of
Speaker 1: the Fox Sisters effectively considered the religions nineteenth century founders
Speaker 1: and a number of the religion's most respected figures who
Speaker 1: are also women. And yet, you know, we still live
Speaker 1: in a society. I hate that phrase, but it's true.
Speaker 1: In spiritualism, history contextualizes the way history often does. Male
Speaker 1: spiritualists tend to be considered more academic, logic driven scientific
Speaker 1: philosophers and scientists who popularize the ideas that became spiritualism
Speaker 1: were men Emmanuel Swedenborg, Anton Mesmer, and Andrew Jackson Davis.
Speaker 1: Women have always been extremely present in American spiritualism, but
Speaker 1: like the Fox Sisters, were more likely to be framed
Speaker 1: as intuitives as opposed to a more masculine academic and well,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with a more traditionally feminine approach to
Speaker 1: the religion. In fact, I really appreciated societally that will
Speaker 1: always nearly translate to a little less influence and somewhat
Speaker 1: less control over your own image basin point the Fox
Speaker 1: Sisters themselves. Fortunately, because spiritualism is a modern religion, women
Speaker 1: can publish and share their own experiences. So for this episode,
Speaker 1: I was curious what the life of a modern medium
Speaker 1: in Cassadega was like, and since the majority of them
Speaker 1: are women, I wanted to speak to women. We've been
Speaker 1: talking a lot about my experiences in Cassadega in this show,
Speaker 1: so this week I wanted to put things on pause
Speaker 1: a little bit and give some focus to four women
Speaker 1: who have been there in Cassadega for years as mediums,
Speaker 1: as healers, as workers, as organizers. I've encountered all four
Speaker 1: of these Cassadegans at some point during my visit, and
Speaker 1: they were the only people in the increasingly press averse
Speaker 1: Cassadega to agree to interview with me on the record.
Speaker 1: Poor little Jamie. So this episode is going to be
Speaker 1: a little bit different. In our next episode and in
Speaker 1: the back half of the show altogether, we're gonna look
Speaker 1: at things like what became of those founding Fox Sisters,
Speaker 1: how they grew to disclaim their own faith. Will take
Speaker 1: a long overdue look at the whiteness of American spiritualism,
Speaker 1: it's adaptations into other cultures, and the indigenous quote unquote
Speaker 1: spirit guides that still play a large role in the
Speaker 1: faith in spite of little Indigenous participation. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: spiritualism's history as a religion based in science. Hell, we'll
Speaker 1: talk to the dead ourselves. But this week I want
Speaker 1: to hand the mic over to people who have radically
Speaker 1: changed the direction of their own lives to move to
Speaker 1: Central Florida and join a community where mediumship and healing
Speaker 1: are the prime directive. And the effect that that community
Speaker 1: and the skepticism surrounding it has had on their lives.
Speaker 1: So here they are, after months of jumping through hoops
Speaker 1: to win the approval of the Cassadega Press Board for
Speaker 1: women willing to talk to me about their experiences in
Speaker 1: Cassadega and American spiritualism. Okay, So, my name is Debbie
Speaker 1: Jordan's and I am a certified spiritualist medium and healer.
Speaker 1: So my name is Jamie Osmond and I am activities coordinator. Alady,
Speaker 1: my name is Lorie Carter, and I'm a certified medium
Speaker 1: here no forermitted teacher in Cassadega Spiritualist Camp. My name
Speaker 1: is Selenie Greene, and I am the Cassadega Camp bookstore manager.
Speaker 1: So let's do it. Let's trace four different journeys to
Speaker 1: Cassadega via the searcher, the writer, the religious, and the
Speaker 1: former skeptic. Are you curious, I'm curious. Let's get some
Speaker 1: music going here. Okay, okay, kay, okay. I want to
Speaker 1: start with deb Jordan's a chair in Cassadega, the organizational
Speaker 1: kind of chair, not the kind you would see levitate
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, allegedly. But before I do that,
Speaker 1: I want to make a quick correction here. I've been
Speaker 1: calling her pastor deb throughout this series, but I should
Speaker 1: clarify that this isn't a formal title that she holds
Speaker 1: at the camp, although she can be found frequently running
Speaker 1: Sunday services at the George Colby Temple, conducting readings, leading meditations,
Speaker 1: then on and on. She functions as a pastor as
Speaker 1: I understand pastors to be yes. But to be clear,
Speaker 1: Cassadega's certified mediums are differentiated between regular certified mediums and
Speaker 1: healers and those who have gone even further into their
Speaker 1: studies and become reverence. Eighteen of the forty mediums working
Speaker 1: in Cassadega are reverence or, in the case of three
Speaker 1: of the very present men I've encountered in Cassadega so
Speaker 1: far on this podcast, reverend doctors. But in my mind
Speaker 1: she's always pastored up. Sorry, that is of the boomer generation.
Speaker 1: She grew up in Kentucky and eventually moved down to Florida.
Speaker 1: Unlike many in the community, she actually didn't grow up
Speaker 1: with a lot of religion and originally became interested in
Speaker 1: church by going by herself as a kid. I grew
Speaker 1: up actually in a family I would say we were
Speaker 1: really non church I had a grandmother that was very spiritual,
Speaker 1: and I would say, you know, she probably was more
Speaker 1: about maybe Southern Baptist. I wasn't a regular participant in
Speaker 1: any kind of church or anything like that until I
Speaker 1: was probably about twelve or thirteen years old, and my
Speaker 1: mother didn't go to church. But I took it upon
Speaker 1: myself to walk to the neighborhood church, presential Um, a
Speaker 1: Baptist church, and so I got very involved in the
Speaker 1: youth choir and was singing with the youth choir. The
Speaker 1: first bill trip that I went on with with the church.
Speaker 1: My mother was like, well, how did you find this place?
Speaker 1: And so it was just something that I think from
Speaker 1: a child up that I had a draw a spiritual connection.
Speaker 1: This interest, any concept of spirit in the afterlife from
Speaker 1: a young age, is a continuous through line, regardless of
Speaker 1: where the person is from or how they were raised,
Speaker 1: and this interest would often be kick started with some
Speaker 1: sort of experience of seeing or experiencing spirit. Here's medium
Speaker 1: Lourie Carter and so I'm from the midwest, Wisconsin who
Speaker 1: lived there for joy for years, and I guess I
Speaker 1: could say that we grew up Methodist. I guess I
Speaker 1: would have to say, have I spent an intuitive and
Speaker 1: really didn't know it? Um. In fact, one of my
Speaker 1: first master teachers that I was the greatest knower she
Speaker 1: ever knew. So. I was born near Pittsburgh and I
Speaker 1: lived there until my parents divorced when I was nine,
Speaker 1: and my mother was from Florida, so she moved me
Speaker 1: and her back to Florida. And um So I've been
Speaker 1: here since and I've seen spirit pretty much all my life.
Speaker 1: The first time I remember seeing I think I was
Speaker 1: two years old. I was is raised in a very
Speaker 1: religious family, very Southern Baptist, very old Florida. I'm from
Speaker 1: Silver Spring, Maryland, which is a suburb of Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And um. Both of my parents are NASA original NASA astronomers.
Speaker 1: They they were one of the few married couples at
Speaker 1: the beginning of NASA. Hold on, yes, you did hear
Speaker 1: that correctly. Selena is of particular interest to me, not
Speaker 1: just because she is the offspring of two famous NASA astronomers,
Speaker 1: not just because she is named after the Moon due
Speaker 1: to being raised by astronomers, but because she was actually
Speaker 1: one of the most resistant to doing this interview, not
Speaker 1: because she wasn't interested but because she thought she wasn't
Speaker 1: interesting enough to warrant a chat. But upon further questioning,
Speaker 1: it became clear that she was an outlier not only
Speaker 1: in Cassadega, but in her generation in the United States,
Speaker 1: because she was actually raised as a staunch atheist. In
Speaker 1: the majority of these stories, we see the example of
Speaker 1: American women being raised in a religious household for a
Speaker 1: traditionally religious area. Deb got deep into the Evangelical Church
Speaker 1: in Kentucky as a young adult, where she stayed deeply
Speaker 1: involved for about fifteen years. Laurie left Methodism as a teenager.
Speaker 1: Jamie remained involved in the Southern Baptist Church until about ten.
Speaker 1: But Selena was raised by atheist scientists. But even in
Speaker 1: this atheist household, there were strong fundamental elements to how
Speaker 1: she grew up. And she had already decided at that point,
Speaker 1: by like twelve, aged twelve, that there was definitely no
Speaker 1: such thing as heaven and there was no such thing
Speaker 1: as hell, because astronomy proved there was no heaven and
Speaker 1: geology proved there was no hell. And that's what she
Speaker 1: ended up I mean, was a lunar geologist. Shot was
Speaker 1: that he became what I call it fundamentalist atheist, and
Speaker 1: my mom had returned to atheist at age twelve. My
Speaker 1: dad um as she was a fairly lass affair atheist,
Speaker 1: like she ended up getting married in the church because
Speaker 1: she didn't want to hurt her parents feelings. And she
Speaker 1: never was someone who went on about it unless she
Speaker 1: was questioned or asked by somebody else first. But my
Speaker 1: dad became a really um gung ho atheist, proselytizing type
Speaker 1: of atheists, and um he and my mom when they
Speaker 1: had my sister and I, he became very afraid that,
Speaker 1: you know, we were going to be tainted by religions.
Speaker 1: This is absolutely fascinating to me because growing up aggressively
Speaker 1: without faith made her kind of naturally curious. And in
Speaker 1: the case of the three others, their interest in communicating
Speaker 1: with spirit was generally dismissed or discouraged by their families,
Speaker 1: even if, as Jamie described, there was some precedent for
Speaker 1: mediumship within their own families. Here are the ladies of
Speaker 1: Cassadega describing some of their early experiences with the other side.
Speaker 1: So what I can remember is it wouldn't be anything
Speaker 1: for my grandmother to walk out of the building and
Speaker 1: say to me, did you see the little girl in
Speaker 1: the corner? Yes, Grandma, Okay, you're not crazy. Or like
Speaker 1: the night my great uncle passed my I I sleep
Speaker 1: with a box fan, and in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: around two o'clock in the morning, the box fan stopped running.
Speaker 1: As I come to know and understand a little bit
Speaker 1: more about myself, I decided that there was something a
Speaker 1: lot more than what I realized, and that there were
Speaker 1: things that you know, would trend, like certain things that
Speaker 1: would happen, you know, throughout my life led me to
Speaker 1: believe that there were maybe gifts and maybe we could
Speaker 1: call that some sense of intuition, right. What's really interesting
Speaker 1: is I realized that I told my mom and dad
Speaker 1: at one point that I saw a spirit in my room,
Speaker 1: and nobody believed me. And then when I got to college,
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I'd really like to learn about
Speaker 1: religion because I just, you know, the only thing I
Speaker 1: really know about religion was the dentist office had a
Speaker 1: series of kids, you know, level books about the first
Speaker 1: books of the Bible. And so these early experiences generally
Speaker 1: fell between the late seventies and the early eighties, a
Speaker 1: time where women of the boomer generation, The majority of
Speaker 1: Cassadaga's mediums were coming of age. I could and have
Speaker 1: gone on about this for quite a long time, but
Speaker 1: the boomer generation was a very tricky time for women.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of push and pull between traditional
Speaker 1: values and an increased push towards individualism and encouragement for
Speaker 1: many to see themselves as someone who created their own
Speaker 1: sense of self and worth and consumption. Unlike many of
Speaker 1: their mothers. The majority of Cassadeca mediums had careers and
Speaker 1: were associated with traditional religions before making the move towards spiritualism.
Speaker 1: Deb had her own career as an I T specialist.
Speaker 1: Lori was a dining room manager and a reporter. Selena
Speaker 1: worked at Borders Bookstore forever, and Jamie owned two sewing
Speaker 1: stores in central Florida. But something happens in their lives.
Speaker 1: There is a crisis of faith or in Selena's case,
Speaker 1: lack of faith, and after these formative experiences with spirit,
Speaker 1: they begin to be drawn to more and more spiritual ideas,
Speaker 1: a road that in this region inevitably leads to Cassadeca.
Speaker 1: I want to turn us down a quick side alley here.
Speaker 1: I do feel compelled to say that these women were
Speaker 1: coming up at a gang buster's time for ghostie media
Speaker 1: in the US, so as I said, most were coming
Speaker 1: of age in the nineteen seventies and eighties, and this
Speaker 1: was a time where communication with spirit was very commonly
Speaker 1: shown in the media, whether as an interesting novelty or
Speaker 1: as a scary demonic event. I think the horror movies
Speaker 1: that were based on quote unquote true stories. The Amityville
Speaker 1: Horror came out in nine seven, the Exorcist had come
Speaker 1: out a few years before, Poltergeist, and The Shining came
Speaker 1: out a few years after, all of which have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with spiritualism the religion, but we're huge American
Speaker 1: pop culture touchstones, ones that alternatively fueled moral panics with
Speaker 1: fundamentalists and fueled interest in the afterlife in the Curious,
Speaker 1: and are all certainly ones that boomers would have been
Speaker 1: well associated with. There's plenty of examples of ghost media
Speaker 1: leaking into the interests of the real world for ahaps,
Speaker 1: most popularly through the paranormal investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren,
Speaker 1: the couple who are fictionalized in the Conjuring movies. They
Speaker 1: spent the majority of the seventies and eighties investigating cases
Speaker 1: in America and England with families who reported possessions of
Speaker 1: evil spirit. The ghosts of this time have unfinished business
Speaker 1: and can often be malevolent. They terrorize, and they are
Speaker 1: generally only brought at bay by something vaguely Christian. A
Speaker 1: little more to the point than these movies, spiritualist adjacent
Speaker 1: ideas were also popularized through a series of well received
Speaker 1: channeled books. That is, a book where a spirit communicates
Speaker 1: through a medium. The medium writes the messages received down,
Speaker 1: and they published the book crediting the spirit. Although I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that the spirit does not receive a percentage. Please
Speaker 1: contact me if that's not correct. These books could be
Speaker 1: so influential that you can in fact directly trace the
Speaker 1: Cassadega bookstore manager is Selena's journey right back to a
Speaker 1: series of channeled books that were popular between the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties and seventies. Selena told me that some of her
Speaker 1: interests in the supernatural originally came up after she'd begun
Speaker 1: taking religious history courses in college and found an old
Speaker 1: copy of a popular book called The Search for Bridie Murphy,
Speaker 1: one of those true stories in which a Colorado housewife
Speaker 1: named Virginia. Tige was put under hypnosis by an amateur
Speaker 1: hypnotist named Maury Bernstein and ended up channeling a nineteenth
Speaker 1: century Irish woman named Bridie Murphy with what was said
Speaker 1: to be extreme precision. Upon some investigation, much of what
Speaker 1: was channeled couldn't be verified as a person who had
Speaker 1: ever existed. The prominent theory today is that Tige experienced
Speaker 1: something called kryptom nies, you a proposed memory bias that
Speaker 1: occurs where a forgotten memory returns without the person realizing
Speaker 1: that that's what it is. The term actually first came
Speaker 1: into play in the late eighteen hundreds as a way
Speaker 1: of understanding the mediumship of a very famous Swedish medium
Speaker 1: named Helena Smith. Regardless of whether you think it's true
Speaker 1: or not, the search for Bridie Murphy caused a huge
Speaker 1: praise in the US in the nineteen fifties, and twenty
Speaker 1: years later put Selena on the road to spiritualism. It's
Speaker 1: not a spiritualist text itself, but it was another hiccup
Speaker 1: in the public's interest in speaking with the dead, and
Speaker 1: Selena told me explicitly that it had a huge influence
Speaker 1: on her. Another book that Peter Interest was something called
Speaker 1: Seth Speaks, another popular channel material book from ninety two.
Speaker 1: This was one of many that science fiction writer Jane
Speaker 1: Roberts dictated to her husband between in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: and her death in the eighties. She was said to
Speaker 1: have channeled a spirit named simply Seth, who advised her
Speaker 1: on concepts like the point of power, you know, that
Speaker 1: billion dollar piece of advice people have been selling for
Speaker 1: thousands of years, the power of the present moment, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Selina was inspired by all of this, partially because she
Speaker 1: was kept away from ideas like this her entire life.
Speaker 1: I just pretty much read every book on reincarnation that
Speaker 1: there was, and in the small, very small what they
Speaker 1: called occult and metaphysical section, and the more I read,
Speaker 1: the more I just got I mean, they were all
Speaker 1: most of them were by people who were science oriented
Speaker 1: or skeptical, and I was raised to be skeptical, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I just kept read. The more I read,
Speaker 1: the more I you know, I got convinced that there was,
Speaker 1: you know, something else out there. So while ghost media
Speaker 1: was very prominent, ghost churchy media wasn't as much. So yes,
Speaker 1: interest in the afterlife, in the positive and the negative
Speaker 1: was everywhere in pop culture as these mediums came of age,
Speaker 1: but it took all four well into adulthood to begin
Speaker 1: meaningfully exploring spiritualism, and they would often do so in secret.
Speaker 1: Deb told me that she would go to meditation circles
Speaker 1: between evangelical church sessions. Jamie read tarot cards and went
Speaker 1: through a wickaphase in her twenties while still singing in
Speaker 1: the Baptist choir. Salnah read her metaphysical books on the clock,
Speaker 1: and Laurie and her young daughter, who now also practices
Speaker 1: in Cassadega alongside her mom, would talk about their experiences
Speaker 1: with spirit when she was very young. In every case,
Speaker 1: these long standing interests eventually turned into a change in
Speaker 1: their faith. At some point the secret life of dabbling
Speaker 1: in the spiritual wasn't cutting it anymore, and so they
Speaker 1: make their first trips to Cassadega. And so after I
Speaker 1: went to several people, they said, well, you know, you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna have to go to Cassadega because that's where
Speaker 1: people you know who are you know, your typical medium,
Speaker 1: sty kicks, healers. You know, that's where you're going to
Speaker 1: find the people that you're going to resonate with when
Speaker 1: you drive by it. It's almost like if you close
Speaker 1: your eyes, you're gonna miss it. And it's so cute too,
Speaker 1: because at first in class, I'm like, oh, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just a psychic and she's like, not sorry, you're a medium.
Speaker 1: And you know, my eyes had to work really hard
Speaker 1: for everything that I got, had to study hard, had
Speaker 1: to work hard all that, And then I heard about Cassadega.
Speaker 1: Um this is city in central Florida, and you know,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I've got to go visit this place.
Speaker 1: It's kind of fun to hear about everyone's first experiences
Speaker 1: in Cassadega as newcomers, because they're so intimidating to me now.
Speaker 1: But there was a time where they didn't know who
Speaker 1: was a certified medium and who was an independent operator.
Speaker 1: They had mixed experiences on their first readings. They weren't
Speaker 1: totally sure how to feel about it all. Hopefully like me,
Speaker 1: they were also baffled by the lack of snacks in
Speaker 1: the area. Quick sweet sidebar about deb Her entry to
Speaker 1: Cassadega could not have been cuter. It just so happens
Speaker 1: that Cassadega wasn't the only place that debb found religious
Speaker 1: peace and self acceptance. It was also where she found love.
Speaker 1: I arrived in town and I said, geez, this, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt like I was at home. I had a
Speaker 1: reading across the street because I knew absolutely nothing about
Speaker 1: the camp or anything that they were actually doing. It
Speaker 1: was kind of ironic because I told him, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, I think I'm gonna have a reading.
Speaker 1: So I went over and I sat down and waited
Speaker 1: for my time. So when my time came out, wentever,
Speaker 1: and you know it's Atlanta, said hey, I'm about five
Speaker 1: minutes past. Isn't time for my reading? And so she
Speaker 1: pulls back the curtain and she says, oh, he has
Speaker 1: somebody in his chair. He's obviously taking somebody else's client.
Speaker 1: So anyway, this guy across the room hollered over and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, if she's okay, I'll do a reading for her.
Speaker 1: So I took him up on it, and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever, you know, it doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 1: And so I went over and I sat down, I
Speaker 1: had a reading. And so that person ended up becoming
Speaker 1: my significant other for the last sixteen years i've met him.
Speaker 1: He's wonderful. So yeah, I knew that you had met him. Um,
Speaker 1: so anyways, that's how we met. I'm sorry. That is
Speaker 1: so nice. I don't care if you believe in ghosts
Speaker 1: or not. That is very cute. Like spoiler alert, I
Speaker 1: do meet her boyfriend later love in a ghost place.
Speaker 1: I'm swooning. That's adorable. That's so nice. It's kind have
Speaker 1: been an interesting journey. But to be honest, you know,
Speaker 1: at that moment, I really didn't truly understand what spiritualism was.
Speaker 1: You know, my journey at that point was more about
Speaker 1: really my own personal gifts, my my own personal healing,
Speaker 1: and my Christianity and my personal emboldment. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: started exploring, you know, what's this thing called spiritualism? You know,
Speaker 1: is it? You know, is this a good thing? Or
Speaker 1: is this a bad thing? And once someone is sold
Speaker 1: on spiritual so really sold. Not the frequently cited examples
Speaker 1: of someone coming to the spiritualist church while going through
Speaker 1: a difficult time, often after a loss, then moving on
Speaker 1: never to be heard from again. I'm talking about getting
Speaker 1: into it, wanting to take classes, volunteer, and it on
Speaker 1: the road to becoming a medium themselves. While Salina was
Speaker 1: never a student, herself. She returned often and eventually interviewed
Speaker 1: with the board when they needed a new bookstore manager.
Speaker 1: Jamie got her job as activities coordinator after being an
Speaker 1: enthusiastic volunteer and taking classes. She tells me that she
Speaker 1: was already used to the service and volunteering aspect that
Speaker 1: she'd spent her whole life as a Baptist perfecting. Dad
Speaker 1: became more interested in mediumship through taking classes and possibly
Speaker 1: her new boyfriend. And Lorie has a really sweet intergenerational
Speaker 1: story about she and her daughter beginning to train together.
Speaker 1: And the training and education is important because, as Cassadega
Speaker 1: mediums are quick to remind you, they are not the
Speaker 1: card readers charging a hundred bucks an hour that work
Speaker 1: around the sanctioned campgrounds that they do a true Cassadega
Speaker 1: medium or healer as it were. But as a tourists,
Speaker 1: it's virtually impossible to know who has taken the multiple
Speaker 1: years of classes required to be recognized by the camp
Speaker 1: association and which is the card reader, dealer or medium
Speaker 1: who isn't a formal member. For your reference, those tarot
Speaker 1: readers at the hotel not Cassadega mediums, those readers across
Speaker 1: the street who do their readings behind curtains in the
Speaker 1: middle of the store, not Cassadega mediums. And while Cassadega
Speaker 1: mediums proper don't shade them directly, they are very careful
Speaker 1: and very proud of their specific training, training that doesn't
Speaker 1: cost a ton of money but does cost a lot
Speaker 1: of time and commitment, not the weekend Reiky certifications or
Speaker 1: Tarot reading certificates that are more easily gotten no matter
Speaker 1: your skill level. I'll let deb explain the difference. They
Speaker 1: have not gone through the ricor or the you know,
Speaker 1: the classes, the workingman's public, you know, going through you
Speaker 1: know the curriculum and all that. Um. Now, that's not
Speaker 1: saying that they're not gifted. It just means that, you
Speaker 1: know that they're independent people that gravitated to the hotel
Speaker 1: to be able to leverage their gifts. Is the people
Speaker 1: you know that are operating out of the shops over
Speaker 1: there basically doing their own thing, so they don't have
Speaker 1: the same governments and rules and regulations and by laws
Speaker 1: and policies and things like that that we do inside
Speaker 1: the camp. We actually run you know, a pretty um
Speaker 1: type ship. UM as it relates to cast the biggest
Speaker 1: spiritualist camp, you know, and the people that do come
Speaker 1: there to to do work and to go through the
Speaker 1: student program, we like to make sure you know that
Speaker 1: they have, you know, participated in in the curriculum and
Speaker 1: you know, had the opportunity to be able to leverage
Speaker 1: and prove their gifts. It takes three to four years
Speaker 1: to become a certified medium or healer, and to to
Speaker 1: four more years to become an ordained minister. Certification and
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this or not, but
Speaker 1: certification includes curriculum and doing hands on demonstration, public demonstrations
Speaker 1: with spirit greetings one to three minutes, fifteen minute readings,
Speaker 1: finding message services. My first message service that I did
Speaker 1: as a certified medium, there were fifty people there. CASS
Speaker 1: today is like a little in university. So for instance,
Speaker 1: you'll start at a level one and go through level
Speaker 1: four to become certified. And so there's curriculum and UH
Speaker 1: and experiential that basically every student has to experience and
Speaker 1: go through. I took classes with Joan, I took classes
Speaker 1: with Dr t Dr Thomas. Dr Thomas was probably the
Speaker 1: one that I centered around most in the beginning. UM
Speaker 1: I would go to their seances. My husband, out in
Speaker 1: front of my face, was very supportive of it us,
Speaker 1: you know, would say go to Cassadega because I know
Speaker 1: it relaxes you, you know. But behind my back he
Speaker 1: was chewing me a part. But yeah, I dove in
Speaker 1: at first. It's a very specific process. Speaking to my
Speaker 1: own experience, I had good experiences with Cassadega mediums and
Speaker 1: with readers of the camp who were not certified by
Speaker 1: the Cassadega Spiritualist Camp. So while I respect what the
Speaker 1: Cassadega mediums did for their education, it's just like the
Speaker 1: real world. It doesn't matter what school you into, it
Speaker 1: matters what your passion and skill level is. But for
Speaker 1: this group of women, by the time they're really in,
Speaker 1: they've already been in the Cassadega community a minimum of
Speaker 1: once or twice a week for about four years or more,
Speaker 1: and many end up moving to the camp and buying
Speaker 1: homes after becoming official members. That is to say, once
Speaker 1: you're a medium, you can't really keep it from the
Speaker 1: people in your life who would disapprove you. Gotta come clean,
Speaker 1: and you can often feel that in the stories of
Speaker 1: people who come to spiritualism in many cases them, discussing
Speaker 1: their faith often comes at the cost of relationships with family,
Speaker 1: with friends, and with members of their former religion. And
Speaker 1: I want to be clear, this is not at the
Speaker 1: insistence of the spiritualist religion. This isn't scientology demanding that
Speaker 1: you disconnect from nonbelievers. This is strictly based on how
Speaker 1: the beliefs of spiritualism, the ideas of continuous life chafe
Speaker 1: with other religions and with the women I spoke with,
Speaker 1: the range of reactions differed. For some it was nothing
Speaker 1: more than a little curiosity and confusion from family and friends. Now,
Speaker 1: one time, my daughter and I we went up for
Speaker 1: a vacation to visit, Oh what do you do now, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a certain find medium or blah blah blah. And
Speaker 1: I think more than anything, people are kind of fascinated
Speaker 1: with that. But other times getting involved in ritualism gets
Speaker 1: much more complicated than that. In a follow up interview,
Speaker 1: Selena told me about her mother, the astronomer Winnifred Cameron,
Speaker 1: who was amazing by the way she was like this
Speaker 1: famous lunar expert at NASA in the nineteen fifties at
Speaker 1: a time where not many women were working at NASA.
Speaker 1: She was an adviser on the Apollo moon landings. She
Speaker 1: was just an incredible person, and she married Selena's fundamentalist,
Speaker 1: atheist astronomer dad, Robert Cameron, who named a whole planet
Speaker 1: after her. Winnifred Cameron passed in and Selena described to
Speaker 1: me a number of difficult conversations she had with her
Speaker 1: mother towards the end of her life. Though they always
Speaker 1: remained close, Selena was unable to convince her pragmatic scientist
Speaker 1: mom that there was any possibility of life after death,
Speaker 1: and that was really difficult for her. Jamie told me
Speaker 1: about how her relation and ship with spiritualism altered her
Speaker 1: relationship with her family. They knew that I read tarot
Speaker 1: in my family, but when I got there, there was
Speaker 1: a concern amongst the family. I was in my elements.
Speaker 1: I was happy. I was this is the greatest crop ever.
Speaker 1: You know. I can embrace this, I can learn it.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I have these gifts I can heal.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? You know? I've always been this way. This,
Speaker 1: there's a name to this, you know, it's just like
Speaker 1: all of this and so um. I remember the first Easter,
Speaker 1: my mom calling me and saying to me, so, how
Speaker 1: are you going to do Easter? How that you're a spiritualist?
Speaker 1: What do you mean how am I gonna do Easter?
Speaker 1: Don't you feel like you will be a hypocrite if
Speaker 1: you come to the family for Easter. So we'll thank
Speaker 1: you for saving me that three hour drive. And I
Speaker 1: haven't been to an Easter since. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: she said to me this past you know, we're having
Speaker 1: the search of brothers and if you would like to
Speaker 1: make an appearance, And I said, need I remind you
Speaker 1: what you said to me when I first entered spiritalism.
Speaker 1: Now you don't need to remind me. Okay, I won't
Speaker 1: be there. I lost really what I thought were best
Speaker 1: friends from the Baptist Church when I told them that
Speaker 1: I was I was a medium and I had been
Speaker 1: all my life and I was going to that And
Speaker 1: you know in Christianity that will shout not judge lest
Speaker 1: you be judged yourself. But the Christians are the first
Speaker 1: freaking ones to hit that judgment, you know, not all
Speaker 1: the majority of them. And that's what happened. I lost
Speaker 1: really good friends, and my family did not understand um
Speaker 1: and so um. They don't resonate with it. Actually they don't.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a certain level of skepticism that, you know,
Speaker 1: their belief system that someone could actually communicate with spirit
Speaker 1: and and and I think that's you know, that was
Speaker 1: something for me that that has been a little bit
Speaker 1: of a challenge because um, and you know, it's a
Speaker 1: little hurtful sometimes, you know that people would you know
Speaker 1: that people are not you know that they don't that
Speaker 1: don't believe you know that, um, that you have the
Speaker 1: ability to be able to work with spirit or communicate
Speaker 1: with spirit, and and so um, I think that was
Speaker 1: something that was probably somewhat somewhat hurtful, But in spite
Speaker 1: of these personal challenges, they stuck with it. And the
Speaker 1: people I spoke with in Cassadega were very proud of
Speaker 1: their religion and no matter what their background was, of
Speaker 1: Spiritualism's ability to be pretty inclusive of many different religions
Speaker 1: and ideas. Underselling as Supervision, the bookstore has included more
Speaker 1: and more New Age and Eastern religious ideas as the
Speaker 1: demand for it increased from the public, and while this
Speaker 1: accessibility hasn't seemed to do much in the way of
Speaker 1: diversifying Cassadega. All of the women who spoke to me
Speaker 1: for these interviews were white, and that has a lot
Speaker 1: to do with the fact that there's only a handful
Speaker 1: of mediums at the camp who aren't white. We're going
Speaker 1: to get into the reasons that this may be in
Speaker 1: the second half of our season, because spiritualist ideas have
Speaker 1: a wide global appeal across race, gender, and age lines.
Speaker 1: At present, American spiritualism appears to be at this midpoint,
Speaker 1: they still primarily work with former Christians who are layering
Speaker 1: spiritualist ideas onto the flavor of Christianity they grew up in.
Speaker 1: But it's not a must. I'll let the ladies explain
Speaker 1: from a spiritualist perspective, we don't necessarily get caught up
Speaker 1: in the dogma. And so, you know, if you come,
Speaker 1: you know, if you were to gravitate to spiritualism as
Speaker 1: a Christian or let's just say, even even as a
Speaker 1: Hindu or um, you know, Islam or whatever the case
Speaker 1: may be, UM, there's going to be a certain level
Speaker 1: of um a acceptance, but also there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: certain level of um understanding that I think every single
Speaker 1: individual is going to resonate with because it is about
Speaker 1: the higher self and uh, the spiritual. You know, your
Speaker 1: own personal spirituality and your own personal connection with with
Speaker 1: God or infinite intelligence or your higher power, So we
Speaker 1: don't necessarily try to control or dictate your personal journey
Speaker 1: or your personal path based on some religious dogma. You
Speaker 1: have your poor beliefs, Like I was raised in the church,
Speaker 1: and I decided in the church what I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep and what I'm going to give away. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep that Jesus was a healer and
Speaker 1: the prophet, and I'm going to give away the people's savior.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to keep that. So it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you have your poor beliefs, and then spiritualism comes along
Speaker 1: as an add on. They're very proud of the spiritualist community,
Speaker 1: but it is a community, and communities have their problems
Speaker 1: and drama and in fighting. And I was very curious
Speaker 1: what it's like working in a community where everyone feels
Speaker 1: connected to spirit and therefore maybe have some strong opinions
Speaker 1: about things that they're divinely correct about, which is my
Speaker 1: way of saying. I love gossip, and I love gossiping,
Speaker 1: and deb was game, so read between the lines here.
Speaker 1: I was curious. Yeah, if you would speak to that
Speaker 1: a little bit of what the community of mediums and
Speaker 1: healers and students is like and what it's like to
Speaker 1: be a part of that community. Will it could be
Speaker 1: good and bad? Um so, but um so, I think
Speaker 1: the probably the maybe the biggest challenge because you know,
Speaker 1: oftentimes those of us who are mediums, mediums were in paths, right,
Speaker 1: and so that means the ultra sensitive. We can sit
Speaker 1: down next to somebody and you know, because it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're so attuned, we can pick up information
Speaker 1: about that individual. So um, it's not like you're reading
Speaker 1: somebody's mind, but you can tell, you know, you can
Speaker 1: see a lot in their vibration and you can pick
Speaker 1: a lot of things up just by being around them
Speaker 1: in their energy right. And so sometimes you know, it
Speaker 1: gets a little bit um, you know, we get a
Speaker 1: little sensitive. Let's put it that away. So um, I
Speaker 1: think that on great days, we we probably can say
Speaker 1: we all love each other, and on some not so
Speaker 1: great days, we probably say, jeez, we've got to get
Speaker 1: the heck out of this place, because we're all going,
Speaker 1: we're we're we're battling with each other you know, so
Speaker 1: it's not any different than any other great family because
Speaker 1: we all live in the same community and we all
Speaker 1: know each other, you know, we all have that you know,
Speaker 1: share similar you know, very similar kinds of experiences and
Speaker 1: go to church together and sometimes each account of her
Speaker 1: so um, I would say, you know, sometimes that's a
Speaker 1: bit of a challenge. But but I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it has to do with the fact that we're
Speaker 1: just ultra sensitive, fable, right. And as for their views
Speaker 1: on what the future of spiritualism is, the mediums at
Speaker 1: Cassadega have wildly different perspectives. While I'm visiting, I hear
Speaker 1: that some members of the camp are in fear of
Speaker 1: the religion not making it due to how time intensive
Speaker 1: their training is. The mediums who are trained not being
Speaker 1: able to meet increased public demand, the anxiety that comes
Speaker 1: with increased gentrification slowly closing in on their area. One
Speaker 1: camp medium who didn't want to be identified by name,
Speaker 1: indicated that a lot of people seem to be moving
Speaker 1: to Central Florida because of their low COVID mask restrictions,
Speaker 1: and if you're familiar with the governor of Florida, that's
Speaker 1: no surprise. And others are much more optimistic, feeling that
Speaker 1: things will work out. Jamie is the activities director and
Speaker 1: along with Selena, works directly with mediums as well as
Speaker 1: with the public. So I was interested in what she thought.
Speaker 1: You know, spiritualist camps are closing at an alarming rate.
Speaker 1: But I think one of our saving races is that
Speaker 1: we're year round. But you know, if you look at
Speaker 1: the history of the camp, and I've done a lot
Speaker 1: of research on it, it's it always has Just like anything,
Speaker 1: there's an ebb and flow. You know, you have your
Speaker 1: bad times, and you have your good times, you have
Speaker 1: your you know, your crap, and then you don't have
Speaker 1: your crap, and it's just histories just keeps rebeating itself.
Speaker 1: So I think that there's a fear among a lot
Speaker 1: of the camp members that the that the camp isn't
Speaker 1: going to survive much longer. I don't understand what they're
Speaker 1: basing that at all. You know, there you can research
Speaker 1: religion after religion after religion that died off because they
Speaker 1: weren't bringing younger people in, you know, and so that's
Speaker 1: been a bit of a struggle because you have the
Speaker 1: two sides of defenses there. I'm trying to bring in
Speaker 1: younger people, and then you've got other people that are
Speaker 1: complaining about them, you know, and and it's just like
Speaker 1: you got to open your eyes and you know, this
Speaker 1: has to be done because the training process is so
Speaker 1: rigorous and take such a long time that they're like, well,
Speaker 1: the people who get through the program can be really
Speaker 1: overworked because it's it's such a road to to get there,
Speaker 1: you know, it is. And then you know, we're we're
Speaker 1: lacking on mediums. We don't have as many parts the
Speaker 1: meanings as we did before COVID, you know, and because
Speaker 1: of that, we don't have you know, we lost a
Speaker 1: lot of members last year the transition the student program.
Speaker 1: I think we have three students, that's say. Selena remains
Speaker 1: pretty positive on this issue. She says that she's noticed
Speaker 1: and increased receptiveness not just in the tourists visiting, but
Speaker 1: in their surrounding community in Florida. Well, the thing that
Speaker 1: has changed over time the most isn't so much what
Speaker 1: they're interested in reading as the the zeitgeist of the
Speaker 1: outside world. When I first got here, there were the
Speaker 1: people that picketed, you know, in front in front of
Speaker 1: the bookstore that we were satan and and they would
Speaker 1: come into the store and and pray for us, um
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And that has really ratcheted down and
Speaker 1: now it is so much more of a mainstream thing
Speaker 1: to be um interested in in in what cassidy has
Speaker 1: to offer. And there are so many people who you know,
Speaker 1: had to deal with isolation for you know, some amount
Speaker 1: of time in some cases years, and they had they
Speaker 1: all of a sudden had enough time to do things
Speaker 1: that they never had time to do before. Read more
Speaker 1: and meditate maybe for you know, I finally felt like
Speaker 1: they had time to meditate and um just investigate things
Speaker 1: that they had wanted, you know, had had interest in
Speaker 1: but never had time. So all of that plus all
Speaker 1: of the people who died of covid um, you know,
Speaker 1: that was a large amount of people dying all at
Speaker 1: the same time. There are plenty of through lines and
Speaker 1: patterns present and why people are drawn to spiritualism, but
Speaker 1: for visitors and mediums alike, the core reasons tend to
Speaker 1: be pretty personal. Deb shared this with me on how
Speaker 1: her mediumship has helped her through. One last thing I
Speaker 1: will share is that in actually UM I lost my
Speaker 1: grandson who had just turned running for in a car accident,
Speaker 1: and and so um I had actually raised him from
Speaker 1: the time he was born until he was about seven
Speaker 1: and until and and so then he went off to
Speaker 1: live with his mother. But so I think that if
Speaker 1: I were not able to use my gifts to be
Speaker 1: able to be open to the possibility of of sensing
Speaker 1: that vibration and and feeling his presence, that it would
Speaker 1: have been very difficult for me, as as I'm going
Speaker 1: to say, as a parent, to be able to get
Speaker 1: through the loss of a child. And um really trying
Speaker 1: to understand. You know, oftentimes when we lose those that
Speaker 1: are closest to us, um and God forbid, you know,
Speaker 1: those of us who lose child, you know, we started
Speaker 1: a question, you know, why would why would it happen?
Speaker 1: Or how could God allow something like that to happen?
Speaker 1: And I mean, I think it's a natural process, you know,
Speaker 1: for people to go through, uh, you know, when they
Speaker 1: lose people that are so close to them. And so
Speaker 1: I think my belief in my understanding and spiritualism and
Speaker 1: my ability to be able to connect with them and
Speaker 1: understand you know, Him in his journey gave me the opportunity,
Speaker 1: the ability, I should say, um to be able to
Speaker 1: look at that tragedy as uh in a little bit
Speaker 1: of a different perspective. Like any religion, at least a
Speaker 1: part of the appeal is its ability to bring peace.
Speaker 1: So sure, the finances are unclear, the nature of mediumship
Speaker 1: itself is changing. Cassadega is struggling to recruit, but interest
Speaker 1: in spiritualism is at an all time high. It's kind
Speaker 1: of all over the place. My favorite reaction is from
Speaker 1: Laurie because it's actually the same one that I get
Speaker 1: from one of these senior pastors at the first Spiritualist
Speaker 1: church in Brockton, Massachusetts. Go Boxers. What she says when
Speaker 1: asked what would happen if the dwindling church didn't bring
Speaker 1: in new members soon, and she just sort of says,
Speaker 1: leave it to spirit I'm gonna say, I just see
Speaker 1: it continuing on as it always says, and of course
Speaker 1: eventually things of all and so how they ate, Bob,
Speaker 1: I really don't know. I mean, it's not like people
Speaker 1: are going to stop dying anytime soon. I think Jamie
Speaker 1: kind of summed it up best here. Yes, Spiritualism is
Speaker 1: founded on the continuity of life and on very particular
Speaker 1: beliefs but it's like I tell people, when you pick
Speaker 1: religions apart of them, we're all trying to attempt the
Speaker 1: same damn thing. We're just a different highways, calling it
Speaker 1: different things, looking at different views, but we're all trying
Speaker 1: to get to that same boy. And that's the first
Speaker 1: half of Ghost Church, and the second part of this
Speaker 1: series we'll see what became of the Fox Sisters and
Speaker 1: how the world took what they innovated and brought it
Speaker 1: into the present, as well as all of the complications
Speaker 1: that come with becoming a religion in America. It's funny
Speaker 1: because throughout this series, I do these gut checks every
Speaker 1: once in a while, sometimes very close together, because when
Speaker 1: you make a show about religion, it's kind of this
Speaker 1: catch twenty two, right, Like you're never going to be
Speaker 1: skeptical enough for the skeptics, You're never going to be
Speaker 1: respectful enough for the devout. And I know that I'm
Speaker 1: never going to speak broadly enough or speak slowly enough
Speaker 1: to make a successful could podcast. Okay, you know, like
Speaker 1: this guy went to college with not that he remembers
Speaker 1: or so that we went to college together. He emailed
Speaker 1: me to say that he listened to the trailer of
Speaker 1: Ghost Church, and did I want to develop a docuseries
Speaker 1: in the quote unquote cult space dark. It's really hot
Speaker 1: right now, and it's like, yeah, sure, while I'm at it,
Speaker 1: I'll make a limited series about a recently disgraced white
Speaker 1: millionaire and cast a movie star in it. Right after
Speaker 1: I develop a god awful Hulu original about a famous
Speaker 1: suburban murder that people say really makes you think about
Speaker 1: the times we live in? But does it actually? And
Speaker 1: why are the scene split so dark? You know? I
Speaker 1: just but that's not why I'm making this show, and
Speaker 1: I hope that's not why you're listening to this show.
Speaker 1: I don't like to make stuff about things I've completely
Speaker 1: made my mind up about. You know, leave that to
Speaker 1: the dorks who like very clear cut heroes and villains.
Speaker 1: And that's fine, But I feel compelled to tell you
Speaker 1: as far as it goes with spiritualism and spiritualist traditions,
Speaker 1: I'm not out at all. Even with a history of
Speaker 1: known fraud in the case of some spiritualists. I don't
Speaker 1: think that that discounts an entire religion or belief system.
Speaker 1: But I do think that that fraud should be recognized
Speaker 1: and dealt with. I think the uglier parts of a
Speaker 1: religion should be acknowledged and dealt with. I don't think
Speaker 1: that I necessarily hold the faith of the spiritualists, but
Speaker 1: I do hold the faith that belief can be a
Speaker 1: tether to reality or a complete severance from it. And
Speaker 1: it's been both for me at different points. It's been both.
Speaker 1: And yes, in case you're wondering, I am still waiting
Speaker 1: for that guide in a cape to show up and
Speaker 1: tell me what their name is. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. Oh wait, Actually, two little bonus interactions.
Speaker 1: Here is a medium trying to remember the word emo.
Speaker 1: And I think what hasn't helped either is with the
Speaker 1: onset of like we on the onset with the popularity
Speaker 1: of WICCA the emoji, not the emoji. That's when I'm talking.
Speaker 1: What is that group of people that it is like
Speaker 1: all about emotions. You have brunched people, and then you
Speaker 1: have another group of people, Oh email, like the email. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do have another one. Here's a medium trying to
Speaker 1: remember who Bernie mac is. Well, I wish I could
Speaker 1: think of who the guy was. Oh look, yeah, let
Speaker 1: me know if you remember. Yeah, And now what was
Speaker 1: he in the movie where um Ashton Pucher was marrying
Speaker 1: his daughter something Bernie Mac oh, yeah, you know, And
Speaker 1: I didn't have to stop it up. It came to me.
Speaker 1: Bernie mac came through. H yeah, yeah, goodbye, see you
Speaker 1: next time. The A one word heres