After Lily Dale, incidents of synchronicity happened to me so often that I stopped thinking of them as surprising and began to greet them as evidence of how the world works. I began to realize that there were types of magic around me all the time. What varied was my ability to notice.
People told me so many stories of their own ghostly experiences and spirit messages that I no longer even tried to doubt them. Who knows how many people have experiences that aren’t considered possible in our culture? They deny them or forget them or save them for the few occasions when it seems all right to mention them. Millions of people just don’t say anything. Maybe every human being has touched into some kind of sixth sense.
I learned long ago that spiritual growth is about walking into mystery. It’s about confronting the paradox at the heart of every answer. Are the mediums right? Yes. Are the mediums wrong? Yes. After Chapman didn’t show up in the psychomanteum, Shelley recommitted herself to living with doubt. She began to say that everything was explainable except 2 percent, and even that fraction wasn’t necessarily transcendent. It just held out the possibility. Living between belief and disbelief was a comfortable place to her. Maybe that tension gives us the best place for understanding the true nature of reality, the best place for new surprises and discoveries, even the best place for spiritual growth.
I visited Lily Dale the next summer, and when the mediums talked I understood more of what they meant. I felt pretty much at home until Tom Cratsley told me that he and a class had visited the Stump late one night and seen some amazing transfigurations. I asked for details.
They’d seen people morphing into animals. Fairies had appeared with wings beating.
“Did everyone see this?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I think so. It was the most amazing thing.”
There it was. That old Lily Dale bounce. One minute I could believe, and then someone would push me too far. I would hit the eye-rolling threshold and stop. As far as Lily Dale was concerned, I was in for a penny but not in for a pound. Then I met Karen.
Karen believes angels are available to help humans. Like millions of other Americans, she concentrates much of the angel power available to her on parking places and other matters of traffic control. Driving toward the mall, she tells the Archangel Michael that she’s about to need a spot, and he supplies one. She always gets a place right by the door, she said.
Once, when Karen was to meet her friends for lunch, she lingered too long over her computer and was only roused when her husband mentioned that she had twenty minutes to make the date. Still in her nightclothes, Karen considered going unwashed and scruffy. Instead, she asked the Archangel to stretch time. She showered, washed her hair, dried it, put on makeup, and drove to the restaurant without meeting a single car. Her parking place was ready. She left the car in no particular hurry, pulled open the restaurant door, and looked at her watch. It was noon on the dot. She was the first one there.
Time stretching was a new miracle for me. I’d never heard of that, but I had heard of parking place magic. It may be the most common miracle in America, which is most likely the reason it makes me grimace.
It doesn’t bother me that the highest angel in heaven had been turned into a parking lot attendant—Park-angel Michael, to steal a quip from medium Martie Hughes. I’ve had plenty of born-agains tell me that Jesus himself finds them parking spots. Why should a mere archangel balk? But Karen was more sure of herself than anyone I’d ever talked to. She invited me to test celestial traffic control by asking for angel help as I drove back to Lily Dale. The Archangel would clear the street for me. Just ask, she said, and you’re likely to see people turning off in front of your car, right and left.
I didn’t do it. I couldn’t stop thinking about those hapless souls who would be peacefully driving toward their destinations and then, just after I said my prayer, would find themselves wrenching the wheel toward the nearest exit with absolutely no intention of going there and no reason to want to. Is that how it works?
Perhaps I have too much leftover Baptist guilt. I think spirits ought to do only grand things—a supposition that Lily Dale and now Karen were challenging mightily.
When I told Karen’s story to Lynn, she seemed delighted, but I shook my head.
“Do you believe all that? Do you think angels really do find people parking places?” I asked.
“I don’t see why not,” she said. “They don’t do it for me, but I don’t drive.”
As Patricia Price is fond of saying, “All is in divine order.”
But I couldn’t accept it. “Lynn, why would the spirits do such trivial things when so many serious problems need fixing? Don’t they have better sense than that?”
“Spirit does want to do things for us,” Lynn said. “Parking places are simple, everyday things that convince people there’s an alternate reality. Once they know that they can grow. And they will.”
With that, the last part of the Lily Dale puzzle fell into place. This was what the mediums had tried to tell me, but I couldn’t understand. Most people come to the Dale to ask about love or money. They summon the forces of heaven to find them parking places, bend spoons, or make a table dance. What’s spiritual about that? I’d asked again and again.
Now Lynn had explained. This is the everyday stuff of life. If the mediums deal well with earthly, mundane questions, they may connect people with a force beyond them, or at least help them know there is such a force. Once Spirit reaches people it can move them, maybe slowly, maybe only a little way, but it can move them.
Did I believe it? Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. But I’d like to.
On my last summer day in Lily Dale, Shelley’s husband, Frank, carried my suitcase down the porch stairs and stood waiting to shut the car door. He told me to be careful and made sure the door was securely closed, as though without his care I might somehow fall out of the car before reaching my destination.
Shelley and Lynn went for a somewhat more elaborate send-off. They stood watching, high above me on the wide white porch behind the spindle railing. At first they waved. Then Shelley shouted, “Angel wings. We have to do angel wings.”
Both women began lifting and lowering their arms as though they were big feathered wings slowly, lazily lifting into the air.
“Angels have charge over you,” they chorused. “Angels, angels, angels go with you.”
A Partial Cast of Characters
SPIRIT SEEKERS
PAT NAULTY—a Virginia Beach English professor whose teenage son killed himself playing Russian roulette. She came to Lily Dale hoping for nothing more than rest and a little entertainment, but the mediums had more to give her—much more.
CAROL LUCAS—a retired English teacher and recent widow who tried desperately to save her husband, Noel, from an early death. Her grief was raw on the summer weekend she came to Lily Dale, hoping to make contact with the only love of her life.
MARIAN BOSWELL—a happy woman, beautiful and content, married to Jack, the perfect husband. On her first visit to Lily Dale, a stranger gave Marian an ominous warning, but she took it as a compliment.
SHELLEY TAKEI—a psychologist who summers at Lily Dale and who founded the Lower Archy of the Pink Sisterhood of the Metafuzzies and the Blissninnies. The group’s motto is, “We don’t know jack shit, but we care.” For more than twenty years, Shelley had failed to unravel the secrets of Lily Dale’s mediums. “Either they’re crazy or I’m stupid,” she often said. Her husband, Frank, is a retired philosophy professor.
LYNN MAHAFFEY—a Catholic mother of five who reads runes, heals a backache with prayer, and spiritually mentors many of the women who make Shelley’s house a summer retreat. Every day, Lynn rides her bicycle five miles as she says intercessory prayers for the world.
NEW CHOICES WOMEN
When they first came to Lily Dale, these welfare mothers couldn’t afford restaurant dining, so they brought supplies purchased with food stamps. Ten years later they were living spirit-filled lives—a
nd I don’t mean the kind of spirit usually encountered in a Christian church.
DARCY KIEHL—she suffered through forty-eight car accidents and an industrial accident that cost her her job, her marriage, and her house. Lily Dale taught her that she was a winner all the way.
DAWN GANSS—all she asked of Lily Dale was that it not make her cry. This was not a request the universe honored.
JOYCE PARKER—a former meatpacker and single mother. Joyce was desperate to bust out of all the small-town conventions holding her back. Lily Dale helped.
DORIS GOODMAN—a former Kmart deli cook who had won honors in graduate school. Nobody in Lily Dale told Doris how she was expected to act, and that scared her half to death.
MEDIUMS
MARTIE HUGHES—has never seen a spirit with her physical eyes and hopes she never does, but what she told Carol Lucas changed the widow’s life.
SHERRY LEE CALKINS—self-reported astral traveler and eldest sister in a family that has lived in Lily Dale for five generations. Sherry Lee resides in the Divine Wisdom Retreat Center and teaches classes on how to spot angels in our midst.
GRETCHEN CLARK LAZARONY—Sherry Lee’s younger sister. She gave me a message that was eerily true. With Sherry Lee, she helped Shelley try to summon their late brother, Chapman, from the Beyond.
PATRICIA PRICE—nobody in Lily Dale has a better reputation for being spiritually minded and mediumistically adept. Past-life readings are just part of her repertoire.
ANNE GEHMAN—a Washington, D.C., medium and summertime resident of Lily Dale who says she helped catch serial murderer Ted Bundy. Anne is said to counsel some of the capital’s most powerful people. She can also bend spoons and make tables dance.
GREG KEHN—a medium rumored to be so good that he can tell you which spark plug is misfiring in your car’s engine.
LAUREN THIBODEAU—a Ph.D. in counseling helps Lauren, who began receiving spirit messages while a teenager.
JAQUELINE LUNGER—who owns a t-shirt that proclaims: “Small medium at large.”
Suggested Reading on Spiritualism and Psychic Phenomena
Braude, Ann. Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America.
Christopher, Milbourne. ESP, Seers & Psychics: What the Occult Really Is.
Eisenbud, Jule. Parapyschology and the Unconscious.
Eysenck, Hans J., and Sargent, Carl. Explaining the Unexplained Mysteries of the Paranormal.
Gardner, Martin. The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher
Hansel, C.E.M. ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Re-evaluation.
Hardinge, Emma. Modern American Spiritualism, Vols. 1 and 2.
Houdini, Harry. Miracle Mongers and Their Methods: A Complete Expose.
Jahn, Robert G., and Dunne, Brenda J. Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World.
Koestler, Arthur. The Roots of Coincidence: An Excursion into Parapsychology.
Kurtz, Paul. A Skeptic’s Handbook of Parapsychology.
Lawton, George. The Drama of Life after Death: A Study of the Spiritualist Religion.
McDermott, John J. The Writings of William James: A Comprehensive Edition.
Mishlove, Jeffrey. The Roots of Consciousness: Psychic Liberation Through History, Science, and Experience.
Moody, Raymond, M.D. Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones.
Moore, R. Laurence. In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology, and American Culture.
Murphy, Gardner. Challenge of Psychical Research: A Primer of Parapsychology.
Sinclair, Upton. Mental Radio: Does It Work and How?
BIOGRAPHIES
Baldwin, Neil. Edison: Inventing the Century.
Barzun, Jacques. A Stroll with William James.
Britten, Emma Hardinge. Autobiography of Emma Hardinge Britten.
Goldsmith, Barbara. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull.
Houdini, Harry. Houdini: A Magician Among the Spirits.
Lewis, R.W.B. The Jameses: A Family Narrative.
Lurie, Alison. Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson.
Pike, James A., with Diane Kennedy. The Other Side: An Account of My Experiences with Psychic Phenomena.
Silverman, Kenneth. Houdini: The Career of Erich Weiss.
Sinclair, Upton. The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair.
Singer, June. Boundaries of the Soul: The Practice of Jung’s Psychology.
Spraggett, Allen. Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead.
LILY DALE AND ITS MEDIUMS
Carrington, Hereward. “Experiences at Lily Dale,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. II, no. 7 (July 1908).
Hayward, Ernest S., O.B.E., and Hayward, Cecelia F. Psychic Experiences Throughout the World.
Lewis, Sinclair. “Spiritualist Vaudeville,” Metropolitan Magazine, February 1918.
Nickell, Joe. “Spirit Painting: Part I—The Campbell Brothers and Part II—The Bangs Sisters,” Skeptical Inquirer, Investigative Files, March 2000.
Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. II, 1908.
Richard, Michel P., and Albert Adato. “The Medium and Her Message: A Study of Spiritualism at Lily Dale,” Review of Religious Research, vol. 22, no. 2 (December 1980).
Sherman, Harold. You Can Communicate with the Unseen World.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to all the residents, mediums, and visitors of Lily Dale, who are identified by their actual names except in a few sensitive cases. You were generous with your time and your stories. Special thanks to Joyce LaJudice, who answered many questions and shared many resources and photos with me. Also, Donna Riegel and Jack Ericson for their invaluable assistance. Hilda Wilkinson fortified me with hot tea, many sandwiches, and much wisdom. Thanks to her also for sharing photographs.
To Shelley and Frank Takei, who took me in when I was cold and felt friendless, you made everything come together. Martie Hughes, thanks for using your talent so many times to reassure me.
Thank you to my family and friends, who listened to years of Lily Dale stories. Special thanks to my father-in-law, Charles Seib, for kindness and expertise, for honesty, and for having the bravery to say, “This is not good enough.” To my sister, Jamie Langston, who also knew when to say, “This is good,” and when to say, “You can do better,” thank you.
I am also in debt to many friends who discussed this book for many hours. Sharon Grigsby and Dee Lyons are among them. Sophia Dembling, Donna Johnson, Kirk Wilson, Diane Reischel, and Darla Walker read the manuscript and helped spot places it needed help. They encouraged me with much lavish praise and laughter at the right places.
Thanks to my wonderful editors, Liz Perle, who knew what this book needed from our first conversation to the last, and Gideon Weil, who helped bring it all home. Thanks also to their assistant, Anne Connolly, who kept me afloat with good counsel and fine humor.
To my agent Janet Wilkins Manus, thank you for knowing that of all my ideas this was the one to go for. Your enthusiasm never flagged. To my agent Jandy Nelson, thank you for everything, just everything. You are joyful and brilliant.
And to my husband, Philip, gratitude can’t ever be enough. Your faith, your support, your money. I needed them all. And thank you for never once wincing at all the dinner parties when someone asked, “What are you working on?” and the answer generated yet another long night of tales from the beyond.
About the Author
CHRISTINE WICKER, a religion reporter for the Dallas Morning News for seventeen years, has won numerous awards for her journalism. She now lives in Wisconsin with her husband and is the first reporter to write a book on Lily Dale, a town that refused to cooperate with journalists until a few years ago. She is also the author of Not In Kansas Anymore: Dark Arts, Sex Spells, Money Magic, and Other Things Your Neighbors Aren’t Telling You.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com fo
r exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Copyright
LILY DALE: The Town That Talks to the Dead. Copyright © 2003 Christine Wicker. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Mobipocket Reader August 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-177143-9
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Lily Dale (Plus) Page 26
