Explicit

4: Four Roads to Cassadaga

Published May 16, 2022, 4:01 AM

This week, Jamie passes the mic to four women of Cassadaga to tell their stories about how they came to American spiritualism -- from being raised by NASA scientists to a tragic loss.

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

Ghost Church by Jamie Loftus

In this limited series, Jamie Loftus investigates and interrogates American spiritualism, a century- 
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