Giving Up the Ghost (11 page)

During Spiritualism’s peak, thousands of people would fill this clearing in the woods to hear the Stump-fueled mediums shout out messages from long-lost relatives and friends to those assembled. Today there are about a dozen wooden benches, capable of holding about 150 people, arranged in a fan shape in front of Inspiration Stump.

For my first service, it’s a packed house. As we’re sitting
around waiting for the service to begin, I notice that at least ten of the people attending are already crying. Outside of a few bored children, most of those assembled are middle-aged and older; all rather pasty, plump, and plain-looking—the type of people you expect to see at a Kiwanis pancake supper or in the cheap seats at a Wayne Newton concert, rather than at a gathering to invoke the dead.

At precisely 5:30
P.M.
, a man walks up and stands in front of the Stump. “Good afternoon. My name is George Kincaid, and I’d like to welcome you all to the five-thirty Stump Service.”

George looks like a standard-issue retiree—unextraordinary in every sense. He stands in the small clearing separating the Stump from the first row of pews.

“How many of you are here for the first time?” he asks.

A few dozen hands shoot up, including mine.

“Good, good,” George continues. “First, I’m gonna tell you how this works. Several of Lily Dale’s registered and visiting mediums will take turns coming up here and tuning to the spirit world. They bring your loved ones from the other side to prove the continuity of life between the physical world and the spiritual world. If the medium receives a message for you, they will ask to come to you. You need to acknowledge this—out loud. They need to hear your voice vibrations—it helps them make a connection. Different mediums work in different ways, but make sure to respond to everything they ask, verbally. Now, because we treat this as a religious service, let’s all stand for the opening prayer.”

“Oh Lord, Father-Mother God, as we come once again to the Stump, to prove the continuity of life, we ask that the loved ones from the other side manifest to show their love and guidance. Amen.”

“Okay, our first person to serve spirit tonight is Brenda Hawkins, a registered medium here in Lily Dale. Brenda?”

Brenda thanks George for letting her serve spirit that evening, says a brief silent prayer, and surveys the assembled crowd.

Then she points right at me. It feels like winning the lottery the first time I buy a ticket.

“Sir, may I approach you, please?”

“Sure,” I say.

“A little louder, please?”

“Sure, yes,” I call out. “Absolutely.”

“I’m sensing a spirit … a maternal spirit, please … perhaps a mother or grandmother. Is your grandmother on your mother’s side in spirit, please?”

Assuming that “in spirit” is a euphemism for “dead,” I guess she is referring to Bobalu. I reply, “Yes.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Brenda says. “Tell me, please, was she a little round in the bottom?”

Now, how am I supposed to answer that? Bobalu wasn’t really overweight, but she wasn’t rail thin, either. Imagine how pissed off Bobalu would be if she traveled back from Grandma Heaven to deliver a message to her oldest grandchild, just to arrive as he says, “Oh yeah, she had a huge ass!”

I just shrug and say nothing.

“That’s okay,” Brenda says. “I feel the spirit that is reaching out to you is definitely Grandma.”

Brenda pauses.

“She wants to surround you with light and love right now and let you know that she watches over you and is proud of you,” she resumes. “She knows that you have a job that is difficult and demanding, and she is proud that you do this work. That … that is mostly it … she just wants you to know that
she misses you and knows how much you loved her. She wants to leave you with blessings … oh. There is one more thing, please.”

I nod, then catch George’s glance and remember to say “Yes” out loud.

“Grandma wasn’t much of a car person, was she, please?” Brenda asks.

“No,” I reply. Outside of smoking in them and driving them to the grocery store, my grandmother had no particular connection with cars.

“Well,” Brenda says with a slight chuckle. “Your grandmother wants you to check your tire pressure over the coming weeks, please.”

“My tire pressure?”

“Yes, she says that it is nothing dangerous; just make sure you are watching it carefully to be safe. That’s it. And I leave you with God’s light and love.”

Brenda then receives a message from some woman’s uncle and is off in another direction.

Tire pressure?

I drove seven and a half hours to have Bobalu tell me to watch my tire pressure? People come to Lily Dale to connect one more time with the recently departed, find out what will happen to themselves and their loved ones, understand the afterlife and how to prepare for it, and finally figure out where Aunt Myra hid her jewelry. All I got is some car advice from a woman who couldn’t tell a tire gauge from a meat thermometer.

Over the rest of the hour-long service, about five other mediums get up to deliver messages, each connecting with three or four spirits. Unlike Brenda, many mediums start off by focusing on the spirit that’s reaching out, then identify who in
the audience the message is meant for. Regardless of tactic, things often start off vague and general and end up slightly less vague and general.

A normal message will start off like this:

The medium says she has someone in spirit with a
J
name, probably a generation or two back, who would have died of something in the chest area.

Now, think about how many people have a deceased relative who has a first, middle, or last name that starts with
J
. Add that they died of something “in the chest area,” and see how likely it is that no one in a crowd of 150 has a connection. Of the two dozen or so mediums I saw deliver messages at public services in Lily Dale, more than half of them started off trying to identify a spirit as being overweight or having died of something in the chest area.

After a large number of people raise their hands at the chest-area description, the medium adds something slightly more specific, like that the
J
relative is wearing a uniform in spirit, meaning that in life that relative was in the military, a delivery person, a policeman, worked in a medical field, et cetera. A few hands go down. Then another level of mild specificity: something like that the spirit loved music, knitted, or clipped items from the newspaper to send to relatives and friends. Sooner or later, the medium has it down to a specific person.

One particularly bold student medium at the service gets up and says he has a spirit with him named Eunice and wants to know if anyone in the audience has an aunt or sister in spirit named Eunice. Nothing.

Then he asks if anyone in the audience is named Eunice or has a living aunt or sister named Eunice.

Crickets.

He looks over at George, shrugs, then attempts to connect
with another spirit. He asks if anyone has a deceased relative, a woman, who was short, round in the bottom, and dyed her hair. Lots of hands go up.

When a medium delivers a message to the living, it is almost always loving, supportive good news. The spirits have come to let the living know that everything is going to be okay, that they love them and are always with them. The spirits want the living to know that while other living people don’t understand them fully, or don’t appreciate all the work they do, or judge them, the spirit is there to let them know that everything will be fine, and if they believe in themselves everything will work out. That son who hasn’t come home in years—the spirit knows he will soon. The uncertainties and difficulties in a career—rest assured that the spirit will help guide them and they will be successful. Every man is acknowledged for his hard work; every woman is counseled to slow down and take care of herself for a change.

Even after all I’ve been through, at this point in my life I am not, by any standard, a pessimist. Yet even I can acknowledge that sometimes bad things can happen and things
don’t
work out very well. Not according to the spirits of Lily Dale. They have traveled back from the great beyond to let us know everything is going to be all right. All we need to do is chill out and follow our heart/head/spirit.

After the service ends and George says another quick prayer and sends everyone on their way, the first thing I notice is more crying.

In my reading about Lily Dale before visiting, there was one curious tidbit that I couldn’t get my head around: Most of the summer visitors aren’t Spiritualists. If people don’t practice this religion or identify with all this dead-people stuff, why do they flock here? After that first service, I figured out why.

People come to Lily Dale because they are grieving.

They’ve lost loved ones and are desperate for a sense of closure or completion. They need answers and are hard up enough to schlep out to the middle of nowhere to listen to people who claim they can talk with the dead. Many of those crying before the service were anticipating a message. Many of those crying afterward are upset that they didn’t get one.

I feel like a bit of an asshole. I came to Lily Dale expecting to encounter a bunch of weirdness—which, frankly, I found. However, I expected the people who came here to be guileless kooks. In truth, their motivations for coming here aren’t that different from my own. I want answers and closure; so do they. Instead of being an outsider, I’m one of them.

The next morning I begin my hunt for a Lily Dale medium to consult with one on one. In order to conduct readings or deliver spirit messages in Lily Dale, especially if you plan to charge—I mean, accept “love offerings”—for doing so, you need to be registered and approved by the church. Lily Dale mediums go through an exhaustive vetting and testing process to demonstrate their gifts before being allowed to practice in town. Visiting or student mediums are allowed to give messages at Inspiration Stump (or at Lily Dale’s other outdoor venue, the Forest Temple), but they’re forbidden to do private readings or accept money—I mean, love offerings.

At the time, there were roughly forty registered mediums hanging shingles in Lily Dale. How do you choose one? Well, if you see a medium you like at a Stump service, you can look her up in town and set up a consultation. Other visitors go by the recommendations of friends or mediums they’ve visited in the past.

For me, it’s all about style. I simply walk the streets of Lily Dale, making harsh choices about the spiritual abilities of Lily
Dale’s mediums based solely on their home décor. A few tattered angel flags on the front of the house? No. A full-sized Buddha statue on the front porch? Awesome, but not someone I want guiding
my
life choices. Poorly hung Christmas lights in the front window? Maybe next time. New Age music playing on a boom box on the front porch? No way.

After perusing the options, my first choice is a medium named Lynne Forget. To be honest, while her house is a little rough around the edges, I just decide the last name Forget is kinda fantastic for a medium. However, when I go to Ms. Forget’s porch to sign up for a session, every slot is filled.

Okay, no problem. I’ll just go with the next passable choice I come across: James Barnum (whose home has a tasteful and well-kept red-and-white exterior with some meticulous and lovely landscaping). A sign is hanging on his porch,
ALL FULL TODAY
. I move on to choices three, four, and five—all full, no appointments available. On a Monday in late August, Lily Dale is hopping.

I run into two women sitting outside a medium’s home (one that I originally passed by due to purple wind catchers and a rain-forest tape playing on the porch). I ask if they have already booked their appointment.

“Oh, yes, we booked our appointment six weeks ago,” one says.

“The good ones fill up quickly. I don’t think there’s much room for walk-ups,” says the other.

In other words: I am screwed.

I spend most of the morning going door-to-door looking for any available medium. Knowing there are forty mediums around town, I scour every driveway and sleepy side street. I even revisit all the tacky houses I passed over earlier. Eventually,
I find one with a name crossed out for four o’clock that afternoon: a cancellation. The medium’s name is Patricia.

I write my name above the scratched-out cancellation. I’m in.

At four, Patricia meets me on her porch and invites me into a back room near her kitchen. After stepping into the kitchen to yell at her grandchildren, she comes out and rubs some essential oils on her hands, holds her newly scented palms to her nose, and takes a deep breath. She never asks me what I’m doing there or what I want; she just dives in.

“I’m sensing someone in spirit who had trouble breathing. A grandfather? Or some other male figure?”

“I’m sorry,” I reply. “That really doesn’t seem like a connection to me.”

“What did your grandfather die of? I assume one or both of them are dead.”

I tell Patricia that I didn’t know either of my grandfathers well, and I’m not sure what they died of, but trouble breathing isn’t ringing a bell.

“I’m still getting a male—and trouble in the chest. Could there be a younger man who passed?”

Sure, there are plenty, I tell her. But she seems to get really hung up on identifying the spirit, for at least another five minutes.

“This male energy says that you are very creative and there are other things you want to do with your life, but that you took a career for stability and money.”

This is so vague, kind of applicable and kind of not, that I really don’t give much of a response. I just nod.

“Something with your hands,” she continues. “Do you do creative things with wood?”

After another few minutes of these misfires, I decide to tell her why I’m here. I lay it all out. Dreams. Little Girl. Laura. Death.

“Of course there was a little girl in the attic!” she exclaims. “She came to you in your dreams to try to communicate with you and couldn’t, so she became increasingly frantic and desperate. You need to start thinking about what she would have wanted to tell you. Why it was so important.”