Jul
24
to Jul 28

LILY DALE 2024

10TH ANNIVERSARY SYMPOSIUM @ LILY DALE
July 25-27, 2024
Programmed by Shannon Taggart

$225 FULL 3-DAY EVENT PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Full Ticket Includes After Party Co-sponsored by Illuminated Brew Works
*Single day tickets are also available

*Please note, Lily Dale has a $15 Gate Entrance Fee

Need a Room in Lily Dale?
LILY DALE’S HISTORIC MAPLEWOOD HOTEL
LILY DALE GUEST HOUSES
LILY DALE CAMPGROUND

There’s much to explore in Lily Dale, including free healing and message services. You may want to allow extra time for this when planning your trip. Free events related to the Symposium at Sacred Grounds Coffee House begin on Wednesday, July 24th.

Travel Questions? EMAIL ME

OPENING EVENT
Thursday, July 25th @ 8PM

WEIRD STUDIES Live!

Professor Phil Ford and writer J.F. Martel record a live episode of Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast exploring ideas that are hard to think and art that opens up rifts in what we are pleased to call "reality."

SYMPOSIUM DAY I
Friday, July 26th, 9am - 6pm

The Making of Magical Cornwall, with Amy Hale, Ph.D.

In the first decades of the twenty-first century, Cornwall has been center stage for a resurgent interest in myth and magic. Current tourism frames the region in the southwest of Britain as a site with stunning landscapes and enchanted folkways that have withstood the ravages of modernity. However, since the Middle Ages, Cornwall has been shorthand for “the place where legends happen” throughout much of Europe. It was the setting for some of the earliest Arthurian tales, the sunken lands of Lyonesse and Tristan and Iseult, and legends of Druids and witches, all of which shaped ideas of Cornwall as a site conducive to magical happenings. In this presentation, Amy Hale explores Cornwall’s enduring reputation as the perfect Celtic Otherworld.

Eusapia Palladino: Epistemological Troublemaker, with Asti Hustvedt, Ph.D.

The extraordinary physical medium, Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918), known as “the diva of the savants,” was investigated over a period of more than twenty years by leading scientists and scholars, including Nobel laureates. Variously called a fraud, a marvel, a human oddity, a hysterical trickster, and an authentic conduit to the spirit world—sometimes all at once—Palladino’s seances troubled existing taxonomies and baffled some of the most brilliant minds of her generation. In this talk, Asti Hustvedt will examine how Palladino disrupted gender and class hierarchies, and blurred the boundaries that separate fact from fiction, mind from matter, life from death, and the natural from the supernatural.

Acid Queen: Rosemary Woodruff Leary's Life Underground, with Susannah Cahalan

Poet Allen Ginsberg once named Rosemary Woodruff Leary "the Acid Queen," but her legacy remains unacknowledged following her break with husband Timothy Leary in 1976. Using archives and an unfinished memoir, Susannah Cahalan will explore Rosemary’s role as a key hidden figure of the acid movement of the 1960s. Rosemary's story will be traced from her childhood in St. Louis, to peyote ceremonies with Beat artists, to Timothy Leary's infamous acid commune in Millbrook, NY, and to her eventual status as an international fugitive after aiding her husband's prison break. Rosemary, however, is not merely a Zelig of the counterculture. She offers a rare glimpse into a woman's exploration of altered states and a life lived in pursuit of the ineffable.

Lily Dale, Canada, and the Spiritual Journey of Mackenzie King, with Anton Wagner, Ph.D.

For Canadian Spiritualists, Lily Dale was like the Greek Temple at Delphi, connecting seekers with the spirit world through oracle-like mediums. Anton Wagner’s illustrated presentation highlights how Lily Dale’s mediums influenced prominent Canadians, including Mackenzie King, the country’s longest-serving prime minister (1922-1930, 1935-1948). Materials drawn from Anton’s groundbreaking two-volume biography of Mackenzie King, The Spiritualist Prime Minister, will spark the discussion. Topics include direct-voice trumpet medium Etta Wriedt’s séances linking Lily Dale with King, Lily Dale’s connection to Canadian actor Dan Aykroyd’s family history, and Mackenzie King’s belief in Spiritualism, which has often been censored. The dream visions and séances that led Mackenzie King to attempt telepathic communication with Adolf Hitler during World War II will also be addressed.

Ghosts in the Machines: A History of Spirit Communication Tools, with Brandon Hodge

Author, collector, and séance historian Brandon Hodge reveals the fascinating history of spirit communication devices, from the earliest origins of spirit rapping and table-tipping mediumship to automatic writing planchettes, talking boards, spirit trumpets, and more. Spiritualism’s history is deeply tied to the psychic apparatus that enabled its adherents to communicate with the dead, and this presentation explores that history and its enormous impact on popular culture through the decades. Participants will have the opportunity to handle historical séance apparatus from Brandon’s extensive collection and experience artifacts not found in any other collection in the world, getting up close and personal with the means our ancestors used to commune with the dead.         

SORRAT: The True Story of America’s Most Active Séance Group, 1961 - 2015, with Shannon Taggart

In 1961, the American Poet John G. Neihardt began directing students from the University of Missouri in experiments meant to increase scientific understanding of the paranormal. The Society for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis (SORRAT), would endure for over half a century, becoming one of the strangest cases within the history of psychical research. The group’s extraordinary claims shocked onlookers, baffled investigators, and incited scandal. SORRAT’s saga was painstakingly documented by a founding member, an aspiring science fiction writer named John Thomas Richards. The Richards archive represents a singular collection of psychic media, including the first purported example of spirit cinema. This presentation will use the Richards materials, recently rescued and largely unseen, to tell SORRAT’s story.

Echomaking: Sounds of Nothing from Nowhere, with Kristen Gallerneaux

In this multimedia performance-lecture, Kristen Gallerneaux will share stories and objects centering on the theme of “dematerialized voices” and the histories of fragmented, speech-and-sound-based hauntings. Drawing on their background as a folklorist, media and sound culture historian, field recordist, and artist, Gallerneaux will weave together archival and field-based research to examine voices out of phase with time, direct manifestations in vocal cords, “talking objects,” and sounds that “emerge from nowhere.”

SYMPOSIUM DAY II
Saturday, July 27th, 9am - 6pm

Finding Dawn: A Remote Viewer's Search for a Missing Woman with Suzanne Clores

Remote Viewing is a scientifically validated but anomalous method of gathering data across space and time. Born in the 1970s, Remote Viewing is the result of a collaboration between government agencies, psychics, and scientists. This controversial method is still used in law enforcement and the private sector to gather intelligence from thousands of miles away. In this multimedia presentation, author and podcaster Suzanne Clores will introduce the practice and explain how Remote Viewing differs from typical psychic or mediumistic methods. Her presentation will then look at the role of Remote Viewing as recently used in the cold case of Dawn Mozino, a 24-year-old woman who disappeared on May 22, 1989, near Bryn Mawr, PA.

Margery the Medium Revisited, with Anna Thurlow

Mina Crandon, known internationally as "Margery," discovered her mediumship abilities in 1923 and continues to be a topic of interest and debate today, over 100 years later. As Margery, Mina was unique in terms of the range of phenomena she produced and the scientific discussion she provoked on an international scale. In this presentation, her great-granddaughter, Anna Thurlow, will remember Mina's life in the context of her as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, and artist, exploring how these myriad roles influenced her mediumship. Rare images and artifacts will be shared from the private family archive held in the Libbet Crandon de Malamud Collection. A new perspective on the famous July-August 1924 séances with the magician Harry Houdini will also be shared.

Lillian Schwartz: Films from the Bell Laboratories Acoustic & Perceptual Division, with Kristen Gallerneaux

At the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, Kristen Gallerneaux’s curatorial work focuses on the intersections of technology, creativity, and activism. In 2021, she acquired the archive of the groundbreaking experimental filmmaker and digital artist Lillian Schwartz (b. 1927). In this presentation, Gallerneaux will introduce Schwartz and screen a series of her short films created in the 1970s-1980s during her tenure as a “resident visitor” in the arts at Bell Laboratories. The program is thematically aligned towards producing alternative states of awareness and perceptual effects among viewers.  

The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion, with Larry Arnold

Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC) is the sudden, sometimes thorough burning of a person that occurs without a known external ignition source amid surroundings that show little, if any, heat or flame damage. For centuries, these rare events have mystified doctors and scientists, with many denouncing SHC as superstition, pseudoscience, crackpottery, or “Impossible!” Recognized internationally as the leading researcher of anomalous fires worldwide, Larry Arnold has spent a lifetime tracking down the unexpected evidence that supports a different conclusion about this phenomenon. Arnold will discuss this eerie enigma that has haunted humankind for millennia in a presentation especially tailored for Lily Dale, exploring SHC from an esoteric and spiritual perspective.

Fifty Years' Wandering in the Spiritual Realm: Piety, Practice, and Perseverance, with J. Gordon Melton, Ph.D.

American religious scholar J. Gordon Melton— foremost expert on Scientology, author of over fifty books, and creator of a sui generis collection on the vampire—reflects on a life spent exploring the thousands of different religious groups now found in the United States. Since the late 1960s, Melton has studied the diversity of America’s free religious landscape, wandering the country to experience its extremes —from cannabis-using communes to serpent-handling congregations, to Spiritualist séances, meditations with Hindu gurus, and meals with vegetarian hippies. Beginning his career as a representative with Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship and, in a long career teaching at the University of California and Baylor University, Melton has remained dedicated to searching out America’s ways of finding God, exploring spiritual realms, and laying claims to enlightenment.

Space Brothers Among Us: The Extraterrestrial, Inter-dimensional Folk Healing Films of Unarius, with Jodi Wille

In 1954, traveling medium Ernest L. Norman and Science of Mind practitioner Ruth Norman met at a Los Angeles spiritualists convention. They soon married and cofounded The Unarius Educational Foundation. The still active organization promotes self-mastery and healing through an "inter-dimensional understanding of energy,” past life therapy, and channeled guidance from advanced extraterrestrials as well as former Earth luminaries from Pythagoras to Tesla to Will Rogers. In the 1970s, under the direction of the colorful septuagenarian Ruth Norman, Unarius students built their own DIY film and video studio, producing four 16mm and Super8mm feature films and 80 television shows, including elaborately produced past-life psychodramas. These shows aired regularly via public access airways for decades.

Part I: Jodi Wille, director of the new feature documentary Welcome Space Brothers, will take us on a deep dive into the Unarius archive and present an overview of the group within the context of metaphysical groups and popular culture trends of the 20th Century.

Part II: A rare screening of the self-produced Unarius magnum opus / origin story, The Arrival (Dir. The Unariun Brotherhood and Prince Uriel, 1980, 50 minutes, new digital xfer from 16mm).

INTERSTIAL PROGRAM

PSI Documentaries: The Golden Age

Filmmaker and paranormal enthusiast Ronni Thomas (Kybalion, The Midnight Archive) presents his favorite clips from paranormal documentaries from the 70s and 80s, what he considers the ‘Golden Age’ of the genre.

 

Artists-in-Residence 2024

Sponsored by Sacred Grounds Coffee House @ Lily Dale, with thanks to the Southern Comfort Guest House.

Gabi Abrão

Los Angeles based writer, spiritual theorist, internet artist, and author of Notes on Shapeshifting Gabi Abrão joins us for a live event and to share work focused on developing a language with the invisible.

Live Event: Wednesday, July 24th, 4pm - 6pm, Gabi Abrão in conversation with Stacy Schuerman Kopchinski 

Tim Kerr

 

“Self-expressionist” DIY polymath, American punk legend, musician, producer, photographer, skateboarder, artist, and Texas Music Hall of Famer Tim Kerr joins us from Austin for an exhibition of paintings of Spiritualist heroes created especially for Lily Dale.

Live Event: Thursday, July 25th, 4pm - 6pm, Exhibition Opening and Musical Performance

AFTER PARTY

Saturday, July 27 @ 7pm

Spoon bending and more! Free entry for 3-day event ticket holders! Secret venue outside of the Lily Dale gates. Co-sponsored by Illuminated Brew Works.

 

WITH GRATITUDE

Thank you to everyone listed above for making this event possible, and also to Ed & Lauren Thibodeau of The Bird House at Lily Dale, Charles & Penelope Emmons, and Ralph Smith for their support.

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Jul
27
to Jul 29

Symposium at LILY DALE, 2023

OPENING EVENT
Thursday, July 27th 8pm - 10pm

WEIRD STUDIES Live!

Professor Phil Ford and writer J.F. Martel record a live episode of Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast exploring ideas that are hard to think and art that opens up rifts in what we are pleased to call "reality."

SYMPOSIUM DAY I
Friday, July 28th, 9am - 6pm
Lily Dale Auditorium

Reclaiming Art, with JF Martel

Drawing on examples ranging from Paleolithic cave paintings to contemporary pop music, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice argues that art is an inborn human phenomenon that precedes the formation of culture and even society. The book places art alongside languages and the biosphere as something endangered by the onslaught of predatory capitalism, spectacle culture, and myopic technological innovation, while also reminding us of its unique power to awaken us to the fundamental mysteries.

Touched by the Hand of Ithell: Writing Genius of the Fern Loved Gully, with Amy Hale

Amy Hale first learned of Ithell Colquhoun while having lunch with a friend in Cornwall twenty-two years ago. At the time, Colquhoun was a little-known surrealist with a relatively obscure reputation in Britain’s occult underground. Since then, her reputation has exploded, not only as a unique force in the wider story of women’s surrealism as an innovator in automatic methods, but also as a significant esoteric theorist, essayist, and novelist. In this illustrated talk, Amy Hale will tell the story of her two decades of research and discovery into the life and work of Ithell Colquhoun that led to the 2020 biography Genius of the Fern Loved Gully (Strange Attractor Press) and explore the convergence of cultural moments currently illuminating her work..

Ted Serios: The Mind's Eye, with Emily Hauver

In the 1960s, Ted Serios was purportedly able to document his inner thoughts on Polaroid film in a process called 'thoughtography.' Contemporaneous investigations into Serios's claims produced a vast body of evidence, now held in the University of Maryland Baltimore County's Special Collections. Ted Serios: The Mind's Eye (Atelier Éditions 2023) explores multiple dimensions of the Serios phenomenon through essays by several contributors. Rather than focusing on the validity of Serios's claims, the book encourages readers to arrive at their own conclusions. Curator Emily Hauver will speak about how the publication was actualized following ten years of research and two exhibitions drawn from the Serios/Eisenbud archive. Emily will also share compelling documents uncovered while researching the exhibitions and book, discussing how these records contribute to the ambiguity surrounding the Serios phenomenon rather than its resolution.

Publishing the Paranormal, with Charles and Penelope Emmons

After writing about apparitions (Chinese Ghosts, 1982, 2017) and UFO researchers (At the Threshold, 1997), sociologist Charles F. Emmons joined his wife Penelope Emmons, a counselor and intuitive, in research on spirit mediums (Guided by Spirit, 2003) and on the connections between “objective” scientific studies of anomalies and “subjective” ways of knowing (Science and Spirit, 2012). In this presentation, Lily Dale residents Charles and Penelope will discuss how their personal journeys inspired them to pursue new strategies for studying and publishing on things “paranormal” or “spiritual.”

Grave, with Allison C. Meier

Allison C. Meier has been leading cemetery tours in the New York City area since 2011, including to graves of Spiritualists and mediums such as Mollie Fancher and the Fox Sisters whose memorials have endured as places of pilgrimage. Her 2023 book Grave, published by Bloomsbury as part of the Object Lessons book series about the hidden lives of ordinary things, is based on her on-the-ground research on the American cemetery. From the 19th-century movement to transform burial grounds into park-like spaces to the rise of cremation and green burial, the grave has radically changed over time. Now there are new opportunities to make cemeteries places where the dead are honored as part of a living community.          

Séance, with Shannon Taggart

Shannon Taggart first learned of Spiritualism as a teenager after a medium revealed details about her grandfather’s death that proved to be true. In 2001, she began photographing in the town where that message was received: Lily Dale, New York. Her project soon expanded to include séance rooms around the world in a quest to find and photograph ectoplasm – the elusive substance that is said to be both spiritual and material. In this illustrated presentation, Shannon will share stories and pictures from twenty years of photographing mediumship, explaining how two decades of investigation developed into the book Séance (Fulgur Press 2019, Atelier Éditions 2022). Spiritualism’s influence on art, technology, and politics, its relationship with celebrity spirits, and the religion’s intrinsic bond with photography will be part of the discussion.

Music from Elsewhere, with Doug Skinner

Music from Elsewhere (Strange Attractor Press 2023) collects music attributed to non-human inspiration—tunes from fairies, trolls, trows, angels, spirits, and aliens—as well as examples of musical ciphers, imaginary music, and speculative music: categories that often combine and overlap in unpredictable ways. In this presentation, composer/performer Doug Skinner plays some of the pieces from his archive and tells the stories behind them, including channeled music by the Shaker community, the Fox sisters, and the “musical medium” Rosemary Brown.

SYMPOSIUM DAY II
Saturday, July 29th, 9am - 6pm
Lily Dale Auditorium

An Introduction to Lily Dale, with Michele Takei

In this presentation, Lily Dale resident, feminist scholar, and founder of Women’s Day Michele (Shelley) Takei, explores what makes Lily Dale both historically important and metaphysically unique. Part one will discuss the town’s past and its essential role in the 19th-century women’s rights movement. Part two will address why defining Spiritualism is difficult, unpacking the slippery definitions embraced at one time or another. Part three will examine the religion’s deep, original, and continuing relationship with science. Shelley will also share a personal story concerning synchronicity and past lives that speaks to Lily Dale’s magic and its ‘site-specific consciousness.’

“You Are to Do What We Say": The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle and his Spirit Guide Pheneas, with Michael W. Homer

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle encountered a spirit named Pheneas through the mediumship of his wife from 1922-1930. Doyle published approximately one-third of these revelations in Pheneas Speaks (1927) and contemplated supplementing them with another book after Pheneas’ prophecies led to the establishment of a worldwide Spiritualist church. But when Doyle died in 1930, several letters were published in which he wondered if spirits from the other side had misled him. Michael W. Homer’s presentation will use previously unpublished materials to explore the séances in which Pheneas appeared to Doyle’s home circle.

Dr. Raymond Buckland’s ‘Wide World of Spirit’, with Steven Intermill, Director of the Buckland Museum, Cleveland

Raymond Buckland first came to prominence in the 1960s as a spokesperson for the modern Witchcraft movement, but he had other metaphysical influences as well. Inspired by his uncle George, Buckland was a student of Spiritualism, acquiring his first spirit board at a young age and continuing his fascination throughout his life. The director of Cleveland's Buckland Museum, Steven Intermill, will explore Buckland's interest in Spiritualism and his summers spent in Lily Dale during his last years. This presentation will also introduce prominent occultists whose interest in Spiritualism overlapped with Buckland, including Austin Osman Spare, Gerald Gardner, and Leo Martello. 

Spiritual Spectacles: Mother’s Work and the Shaker Era of Manifestations, with Maria Molteni

The Shakers are often called America’s longest lasting “Utopia.” Since their arrival from England in 1766, they’ve sought to build Heaven on Earth within organized, egalitarian communes. While widely known for their fervent worship styles, strict celibacy and excellent design, a brief period of their history known as “The Era of Manifestations” brought forth exceptionally fruitful spirit communication. From roughly 1837-1857 first-generation Shakers, such as early leader Mother Ann Lee (believed to be the Second Coming of Christ as “Holy Mother Wisdom”), appeared to young Shaker “instruments” who channeled their messages. Visual recordings of these correspondences are now known as the Gift Drawings or “Mother’s Work”. This lecture will contextualize the Era of Manifestations, its overlap with Spiritualism, and some of Molteni’s responsive artwork as artist and researcher-in-residence at Hancock, Canterbury, and Harvard Shaker Villages.

A History of London’s College of Psychic Studies, with Gillian Matini, Principal, College of Psychic Studies, London

Founded in 1884, The College of Psychic Studies occupies six floors of a Victorian townhouse in London. It has hosted many of the world’s greatest mediums, including Helen Duncan and Eileen Garrett. Eminent Presidents include Rev William Stainton Moses and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Psychic investigator Harry Price tested mediums at the college for his ‘National Laboratory of Psychical Research.’ Generations of scholars have used its fine collection of esoteric books, including Nandor Fodor and Frank Podmore,. The college also houses an astonishing archive, including spirit-inspired art by Georgiana Houghton, Anna Howitt Watts, and Ethel Le Rossignol, along with artifacts such as Helen Duncan’s scrying mirror and Stainton Moses’ crystal ball. Today, the college continues with talks, classes, workshops, and consultations on psychic studies, personal growth, and healing, complimented by exhibitions showcasing spirit-inspired art. In this illustrated presentation, College principal Gillian Matini guides us through the history of this phenomenal institution.

The Art of Madge Gill: Myrninerest, Marconi, Mars, and Music, with Vivienne Roberts, Archivist & Curator, College of Psychic Studies, London

Madge Gill’s mesmerizing artworks have fascinated audiences for a century. Her impulsive ink drawings of female faces floating within patterned backgrounds of calico are instantly identifiable, as are the thousands of smaller works on postcards, pieces of cardboard, and rare hand-woven textiles. Madge Gill, although popular, remains an enigma. Was she a true advocate of spirit-inspired art, or was this a convenient mask to hide her compulsive urge to create? Was Myrninerest her spirit guide or just Madge’s ‘inner rest’ constructed to make sense of her artistic achievements? Vivienne Roberts will discuss the journey of Madge from Barnardos child to internationally acclaimed mediumistic artist and doyenne of the outsider art world.

The Trash Stratum, with Phil Ford

Philip K. Dick wrote that "the symbols of the divine show up in our world initially at the trash stratum." Among other things, this means that divine messages will appear in the humblest forms and where you least expect to find them. Even outright trickery and deceit might hold the key to whatever it is you need to hear; as Ramsey Dukes has argued, the charlatan and the magus are not so different and might even end up being the same person. This talk considers the surprisingly complex relationship between truth and trickery in spiritual life and explores the notion of "kayfabe," a kind of play-acting that sometimes can manifest the reality it simulates. 

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