Lily Dale

Yesterday I went to Lily Dale with Chuck and Jim Bane and his wife Holly Harris. It was a great adventure.

Lily Dale is a spiritualist community about 30 minutes from Chautauqua. I recently saw an HBO documentary on it and thought it would be interesting to go and it was.

We got there at 10:30 just in time for the healing service in the "Temple." It was a service that started with a prayer and then 8 men and women dressed in white offered healing to anyone who was there. We went in rows - we were in the very back. Their healing was essentially reikli and it was very similar to what we do at our church and it was very peaceful for me. Jim and Holly also enjoyed it and Holly said that she experienced a healing in her neck pain. We sat during the healing treatments and we had the option to be touched or not. I liked it!

Then we had lunch and went to "Inspiration Stump" to hear some messages from the mediums. Lily Dale is similar to Chautauqua in that there is a gate fee - $10 per person - (Chautauqua's is about $65 per day!) There are 40 registered mediums in the place and you can go to their house and sign up for a reading. I had hoped to have a reading, but I did not want to spend more than $25 - and the ones I saw were $60 or $70. When we went to inspiration stump (which was very similar to the vespers spot at Camp Christian) the mediums would do readings - if the person wanted - from the audience. We got to see 4 mediums and probably 15 readings during the course of the hour. Most of the readings seemed very hit or miss to us. As open as I am to all things spiritual - I have a very strong streak of suspicion and the readings were -in a word - disappointing.

At the same time, you were aware that there were people in the audience who desperately wanted word from someone who had passed "to the other side." So, it was not funny so much as sad for me.

I sat next to a man who told me HE was a medium (but not registered here) who came for the energy that he received in Lily Dale. He described himself as a "medical intuitive" who had been able to identify blood clots and cancer that brought people to the doctor.

All of this is interesting to me - and we enjoyed our time there. We went to the books store and learned that there was a lot of dismay with the community at Lily Dale about the HBO documentary. But, as I told the proprietor of the store - it did bring us there!

Anyway, as always - something to think about.
Just one more interesting experience during this sabbatical summer.