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Reading through you learn of the history of how the founders of Cassadaga met up and decided where to set up base, guided by the spirit guide of one of the founders, George Colby, it then goes on to talk about different significant parts about the town.

The red flag that becomes apparent later on is Mystical Energy as while the town may have a peaceful energy(www.cassadaga.org) there apparently spiritual vortexes about. These swirling vortexes is apparently where the veil between worlds are thinner, another example of this energy would be of the ghosts that haunt the area.

A flaw to the tale would be how George suddenly had these abilities after being baptized in a frozen lake, declaring he spoke with the dead. The man was dedicated though as despite his parents beating him for it he held on to his opinions.

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While sitting on the long porch that runs the length of the Cassadaga Hotel, I have a good view of Stevens Street and Harmony Hall in the community of Cassadaga, Florida. Rows of rusty tin roof homes and ancient trees draped with Spanish moss line the street. It's the kind of old Florida snapshot that is quickly fading with each new Dollar General or RaceTrac.

Progress hasn't managed to trample through these old streets yet, but then again Cassadaga is no ordinary place. You wouldn't know it from its quiet streets this morning, but this small community attracts thousands of visitors a year and has been dubbed, "The Psychic Capital of the World."

The story of Cassadaga is strange and shrouded in mystery. Its unusual beginnings all started with a small boy, baptized in the frigid waters of Minnesota, and a rather pushy Indian spirit guide named Seneca.

The Peculiar Life of George P. Colby

George P. Colby was born in Pike, New York in 1848 to James L. Colby and his wife Elminia A. (Lewis) Colby. When George was little, the Colby's settled on 160 acres of land in Forestville Township, Minnesota. The area would later become known as Cherry Grove in honor of George's father and his orchard of cherry trees.

George lived on the farm with his two brothers and two sisters. Unfortunately, both sisters died at a young age.

During the winter of 1860, when George was twelve years old, he was baptized in a nearby lake so frozen over that a hole needed to be cut in the ice. Although no substantial connection can be drawn between the two events, shortly after George claimed to be visited by the spirit of his uncle who told him he was a great psychic and would later found a great spiritual center in the south.

During his teens George's mediumship further developed and included clairvoyance, spiritual readings, and healing. He was said to be frequently drawn into trances by personal spirit guides. As many could imagine, this did not please George's devout Baptist parents, and George was regularly punished and beaten.

In 1867 George broke from the church and began his life as a medium, traveling from state to state performing private readings and parlor séances. During his travels George would accept whatever payment his clients thought was fair, and at times he was forced to take on side jobs in order to survive.

Eventually word traveled of George's talent and he began to gain some fame as a test medium. It was reported that George would often speak with the deceased relatives of his clients and recall facts with amazing accuracy.

George is said to have communed with several spirit guides: his most prominent was a Native American named Seneca, who he claimed spoke to him during a seance in Lake Mills, Iowa. Seneca told him he was to go on a great journey, but first he must visit the home of T. D. Giddings in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin George met a Spiritualist named Theodore Giddings and received further instructions. Seneca instructed him to travel again, this time to Florida with the Giddings Family to obtain land selected by the "Congress of Spirits" as a spiritualist center.

So George and the Giddings family went to Jacksonville and later to Blue Springs Landing. From there George left on foot into the piney woods of Volusia County. Just north of modern day Deltona he found the place that would later become the home of the Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association.

Colby was instrumental in acquiring the land for the camp and built a house there, but he did not live there full time. By that time George suffered from very poor health, but the Florida climate renewed him enough that he began touring the country again as a test medium, lecturer and spiritualist leader.

It wasn't until December 18, 1894 that a charter was formed for the Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp. Two people were vital in forming the association: E.W Bond and Marion Skidmore. Bond supplied materials to build many of the original structures in the camp. Meanwhile, Skidmore was known as "Mother of the Camp."

Both came from the Lily Dale Assembly, a spiritual camp in New York whom many original Cassadaga Camp members hailed from. In fact, it was Skidmore's idea to name the camp after the Cassadaga Lakes near the Lily Dale camp. The word Cassadaga comes from the Seneca Indians, meaning: "rocks beneath the water."

George visited the camp on and off for the rest of his life. He served as the camp's spiritual leader and lecturer. He put on plays, grew citrus in the area, and he adopted and educated several children during his lifetime.

Colby returned to Cassadaga for the last time in 1933 when his health began to fail. He was provided with a place to live, and the camp members saw to his needs. He died on July, 27, 1933.

Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association

Today, the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp is the largest spiritualist community in the southern United States and registered as a non-profit organization governed by a board of trustees. Their web site explains that although the term "camp" is used there are no camping facilities on the property.

The association describes itself as community consisting of "approximately 57 acres with 55 residences." Those who live in the town have chosen "to share in a community of like-minded people where they can live, worship and work in harmony with their beliefs."

The camp's mediums, healers and members are all required to follow the association's by-laws, rules and regulations. Although people can purchase homes within the camp, the association maintains ownership of the land and homeowners are generally camp members. The camp was designated a historic district on the National Register Of Historic Places in 1991.

The community offers a number of activities including church services, classes on meditation and instruction on spiritualism, spiritual counseling, historic tours, and psychic readings.

The camp's main building is the Andrew Jackson Davis Building, which at one time served as the camp's recreation hall and now the camp's bookstore and information center. Other buildings of the association include Harmony Hall, Brigham Hall, the Caesar Forman Healing Center, the Colby Memorial Temple, and the Summerland House (which houses the camp's offices).

The Cassadaga Hotel

It is important to note that the Cassadaga hotel is no longer associated with the Spiritualist Camp. The hotel we see today - although historic in its own right - is also not the original hotel.

The first hotel, owned by an Emma J. Huff, burned to the ground on Christmas Night 1926. The camp began reconstruction of the hotel the following year, and it was completed in 1928.

However, during the Great Depression the camp lost ownership of the hotel, and it was sold to private owners. During the 1990s it was sold again and renovated. The hotel now includes Sinatra's Restaurant and a coffee bar. Psychic readings, seances and meditation areas are provided in house. The hotel also claims to be haunted by "friendly spirits," and advertises a "truly unique experience."

One of the most popular ghost stories is the hotel's resident ghost, Arthur. The cheery ghost of Irish descent is said to have resided in the hotel during his life. He was known to drag a chair to the end of the hall to look out the window. Hotel guests have claimed to have seen brief glimpses of Arthur at the end of the hall or caught a lingering smell of gin and cigars, of which they say he was fond.
The Ann Stevens House
The Ann Stevens House is a historical home, located just down the street from the Cassadaga Hotel. It has a long history of housing camp visitors. The house was built in 1895 by Ann Stevens, a wealthy winter camp visitor. She acquired the property directly from George Colby and helped fund his lecture tours.

Stevens also served as director of the camp association for several years and ran a boarding house for visitors. Today the house is a popular 10-room bed and breakfast. Stevens Street, one of the main roads passing through the heart of the Cassadaga, is named after Ann.

Spirits of Cassadaga

Some believe that Cassadaga exists within a kind of "spiritual vortex," where the veil between our world and spirit world is thin and ragged. With a neighborhood that boasts so many psychics, seers and ghosts, you may be inclined to cast off this supernatural Mayberry as another cheap Florida attraction. But I urge you to take another look before you go as you may catch a glimpse of something much more significant.

This timeless place is home to many serious spiritualists, who welcome visitors, but at the same time demand their religious beliefs be respected. It's a community that refuses to allow their home to fade away as so many others have before it. And it's that perseverance that makes Cassadaga a truly remarkable place.

If you are looking for a unique Florida experience, rich with mystery and historic wealth, stop by! You will find the true spirits of Cassadaga are not the dead but a thriving community of people, fiercely dedicated to each other, their religion and historical identity.

For information on local Cassadaga events or about the Spiritualist Camp, please visit the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Official Website: http://www.cassadaga.org/

For information or to book a room at the Cassadaga Hotel visit their website at: http://www.cassadagahotel.net/ both include calendars of local events.

For information or to book a room at the Ann Stevens House please visit their website at: http://annstevenshouse.com/

Sources:

Cassadaga, Florida: Yesterday and Today (5th Edition, Revised) By Elizabeth Owens, 2015

The Ann Stevens House Official Website: http://annstevenshouse.com/

Haunted Places - The Cassadaga Hotel Cassadaga, Florida: http://joelmandre.com/haunted-places-the-cassadaga-hotel-cassadaga-florida/

Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Official Website: http://www.cassadaga.org/

Cassadaga Hotel Official Website: http://www.cassadagahotel.net/

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The True Spirit of Cassadaga - Florida History - Medium

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While sitting on the long porch that runs the length of the Cassadaga Hotel, I have a good view of Stevens Street and Harmony Hall in the community of Cassadaga, Florida. Rows of rusty tin roof homes and ancient trees draped with Spanish moss line the street.

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VIDEOS

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WEBSITES

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This image is of signage in Cassadaga promoting the some of the psychics that they have available.

To me this feels like more proof by verbosity as there are a multitude of sign on this porch front proclaiming what Spiritualist Cassadaga has to offer, throwing a ton of information at you. It also has a bit of repetition word slightly differently so it doesn't seem like the same thing is being repeated all over again.

A flaw I find with this though is that it's extremely distracting and can make someone feel a bit overwhelmed especially if they were to walk up or into the house.

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This image is of the 'Devils Chair' in Cassadaga, Florida.
I believe this connects to the reason for belief, Agenticity, as the myth surrounding the chair is that if you sit on it the 🤬 will come talk to you at midnight, other parts of the urban legend say that if you leave a can of beer there it'll be empty in the morning, sometimes without ever being opened.
Since the 🤬 is involved people are assigning the power and knowledge of whatever happens with that chair to it to make things interesting as well as knowing someone else is in charge.

The flaws with this tale around the chair is just an urban legend created by tourist/outsiders to the town created the legend not knowing that wealthier families added these stone seats for a place to sit.(https://www.cassadaga.org/who-we-are.html) Even the spiritualist in the town don't support the legend of the chair , which has got to mean that if those who believe in spirits think it's fake then you know it is.

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In the short clip Pastor Peter explains a bit of the history of Cassadaga, its spiritual presence and to help make it seem like a less of a scary place to those who are fearful of it.

Right off the the bat the red flag that is extremely apparent is Appeal to Authority, as the man starts listing of his multiple position of power in religion. After his initial introduction he proceeds to list off his position and powers again, stating that he is a; healer, pastor, psychic, medicine man, and a past life regression-nist.

Listening to the video a couple times over I found flaws with how the a third of the video seemed to be focused mainly on Pastor Peter instead of Cassadaga, another flaw would be that the link Pastor Peter provides in the video does not work and instead only gives you some code at the top, not a site.

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Cassadaga Florida - Psychic Town Information & History - Native American Psychic Healing Center

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Welcome to Cassadaga Florida and the Native American Psychic Healing Center. Learn about the history of Cassadaga and plan a visit. Appointments and sessions by phone or in person by Peter Kennell Professional Psychic Medium, Medicine Man and Healer.

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This image is mainly about the sunflower in it as they are a symbol to spiritualism  about turning to face the light.

In Cassadaga there is a temple where instead of crosses they have sunflowers strewn about instead of crosses making me think that they are trying the red flag of Appeal to Authority as quite a number of people trust you if you have a faith or are in a position of faith.

“As the sunflower turns its face to the light of the sun, so Spiritualism turns to the face of humanity in the light of the truth,” Rev. Cooper said.(https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/nn4g87/inside-cassadaga) A message that sounds so uplifting and yet seems flawed as sunflowers follow the sun, and what are you to do when your sun is blocked? Even more so what makes them believe that their light is the truth when they are multiple diffrent lights of truth around the world.

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Post #1: Cassadaga, a Spiritualist Community

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Post #1: Cassadaga, a Spiritualist Community

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By: Rebekka Sparrow

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The video is about how a foundier's home in Cassadaga is haunted, with friendly spirits though, that the people who are sensitive to those forces can sense when visiting the home.

Listening to the video I feel like the reason for belief, Perception and Observation, fits best with it due to the amount of people who have caught things on videos, proclaimed to hear and see something. This connects as what people are seeing and hearing has their minds jumping to conclusions that are the simplest to form and accept.

The flaws that can be found is how around the 50min mark of the video one of the ladies starts over explaining how the device she has works, and that it isn't always precise leaving it up for interpretation. This is after already having other equipment out, making it feel as if it's meant to convince the others around her that what she's doing works.

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From the start of the video the woman being interviewed talks about how long the community has been here, how its a community of psychics, clients around the world and how in her opinion it is a spiritual retreat.

Listening to the woman speak, I'm unsure if it's because it's an interview but she seems to putting an excess amount of information that doesn't really sound necessary, making me think of the red flag Proof by Verbosity. Some of the information, like detailing exactly what kinds of ghost they have, or who can come to a psychic seemed like you was trying to explain way to much to get her point across.

Some limitations that there seemed to be in this video was how the woman focused exclusively on the spiritual aspect instead of going more into depth about the services and workshops. It made it seem as if those were less important compared to the spirit mingling about.

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Take a look inside the haunted Florida town of Cassadaga | Daily Mail Online

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Take a look inside the haunted Florida town of Cassadaga with it's community of mediums.

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This is the home webpage for Cassadaga, letting you know about them, inviting you to come visit and join, how to contact them, their calendar events and more.
The red flags that are quick to be identified is Ideological Support. This red flags can be identified by how on their homepage they are inviting you to church, to see one of their Healers and make mention of the workshops they have. Looking closer at it their words about faith, church, and services play upon the ideology that is religion, enticing you to come see what their faith is like, as you go further into the site you see that they list their ideologies on their 'Who We Are' page.

Another thing to notice on their 'Who We Are' page is that they briefly explain about how their founder was told during a seance that he would be instrumental in founding a Spiritualist town(https://www.cassadaga.org/who-we-are.html); the thing with that though is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. This way of thinking is quite flawed in my opinion as anyone can make a prediction like that and have it come true; especially when at that time there was aproximate only about 38 states out of 50 during that time period.(https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/fast_facts/1880_fast_facts.html)

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Experience the Beauty and Spirituality of Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp

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Bring a friend to one of our church services, workshops, or classes. Our certified mediums and healers are sages of a peaceful existence.

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A journalist from Vice decided to visit Cassadaga while they were in the area to see what the little town was about and discovered that the town has a street that splits it in two for dividing factions and that the psychic they meet portrays their grandmother quite wrong.

The reason for belief that ties mainly to this article is Emotional Connection; which is a easy conclusion to make when the psychic starts depicting the grandmother as a happy hopeful spirit. For most people, hearing that their grandmother says that they're "just dandy" and twirling in a sundress would mean such things. The thing is though that the journalist grandmother was anything but, thus the psychic either connected to the wrong spirit or is a fraud that plays upon peoples emotion and just says what they think their patrons want to hear.
Some of the flaws in this article in my opinion is how the psychic behaves, she gains a far away look even when holding regular conversation looking as if she's giving a read((https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/nn4g87/inside-cassadaga)  ) and how the pastor of the church was unimpressed that the journalist didn't call ahead to make sure it was okay to come. This to me gives off the vibe that she has something to hide or need to collaborate with others to set up proof of psychic activity.

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On the surface, Cassadaga resembles a Florida Mayberry. Set back in the backwoods between Daytona and Orlando, the little "Psychic Capital of the World," has long been a sanctuary for mediums, healers, psychics, and just plain freaks.

The Spiritualist Camp in Cassadaga was founded in the late 1800s by one George P. Colby. Colby, a New York native and medium had been instructed by his spirit guide-a Native American named Seneca-to go to Florida and start a spiritual center. He trekked into the Central Florida wilderness in 1875 and homesteaded the land, in accordance with Seneca's prophecy. A charter to form the Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association was granted in 1894, and Colby acquired 35 acres. This spirit guide apparently had quite the knowledge of property rights. Over the decades, the Spiritualist Camp has grown to 57 acres. Cassadaga started as a place for snowbirds to practice their Spiritualism-a secular-minded, turn-of-the-century mish-mash of science, philosophy and religion.

Fast forward to 2013 - things have changed.

Two distinct tendencies have emerged within the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp-the New Agers and the religious, non-profit organization charged with running the camp. Like the Jews and the Muslims in certain parts of the world, a single street separates them from each other.

The New Agers use tarot cards and stick to the Cassadaga Hotel. A stone's throw away is the religious organization maintains the traditional belief system that Colby established in the 1800s. That's not to say the Cassadaga Hotel and its hired psychics don't stay true to Spiritualism as religion, but they're a bit more relaxed about it. Its like Episcopalians and Catholics.

The Cassadaga Hotel-the only hotel in Cassadaga-is allegedly haunted. The perimeter porch with its rocking chairs and hunchbacked palm trees resemble a more Mediterranean incarnation of the Bates Motel. The hotel's website states that the hotel has "friendly spirits"-I'm guessing this means Ghost Dad-like apparitions. The original hotel burned down on Christmas Day of 1926 and was rebuilt a year later. The inside of the hotel evokes the Roaring Twenties with its Tuscan-style furniture and speakeasy-style lobby. To the side of the lobby is Sinatra's Ristorante, which features a piano player, full liquor bar, and Italian food. Saturday night is karaoke, but we'll get to that later.

Let's get one thing straight. I don't believe in ghosts. If it can't feel a cattle prod, then it's just plain bullshit. But, I do believe in the bizarre. And the weird. And Cassadaga is chock full of both.

I scheduled a reading as soon as I arrived. The upper floors of the hotel are reserved for the psychics to work. In the corner of the hotel, I found my reading room. A woman at a roundtable covered with psychic-accouterment leaned backwards to open the door without getting up. She looked like she was pulled straight out of those late night commercials for toll-free psychics.

The small room was decked out with pagan idols and animal-hides. The incense was strong enough to choke a maggot.

This is Torre. Torre's presence was about what you'd expect if Sam Kinison was reincarnated as a woman. She was both a psychic and a medium, so in my mind it was a bogo purchase. She began my reading by pressing a stopwatch on her iPhone and started with a prayer, mentioning something about fish and feathers. I bought the $55, half-hour reading, so I was ready to get the show on the road.

Here is a list of things she told me in my reading:

· I have two spirit guides. One is a woman, later found out it was my Grandmother (on mother's side). The other an old man that was a barber in the 17th century.

· I have an animal spirit of a lion. But, the lion is a mix between the Cowardly Lion and the king of the safari.

· I will be going to Barbados in the near future.

· I will be also going to the Far East, Beijing specifically.

· Torre saw my Grandmother writing the words "wisdom" and "humility" on a blackboard.

While Torre was giving the reading, her eyes fluttered and she looked beyond me, as if I wasn't even in the room. She said things like, "I'm getting a tingle in my crown" or "I'm getting a real shocker." She had a coughing fit throughout the reading, which she had warned me about beforehand. She was just getting over a crazy flu.

"How is my grandmother doing?" I asked.

She started to go into a trance, and got a look on her face like a small turd was being held beneath her nose.

"She says, 'I'm doing dandy'."

My grandmother would never say the word "dandy." She was a hard boiled, Sicilian woman. Things were never "dandy."

She then told me that my grandmother "is in a garden, twirling in a sundress." Yeah, don't think so. The only garden my grandmother has ever been to was the Olive Garden. Sundress, no way.

"She just erased the word humility on the blackboard and replaced it with the word..."

Torre searched as if she were there in the garden with my grandma, which apparently has a blackboard in it.

"...hope," Torre ended her sentence as if unloading a whopper.

The alarm went off. My reading was done. I felt a bit gypped by the dramatic finish, but then Torre started to tell me her life-story.

She was originally from Canada and moved to Ohio when she was kid. She told me her desire to be a psychic stemmed from her own grandmother.

"My grandmother had this gift too. She was an awesome bingo player," Torre said. "She would play thirty numbers at once and placed all of her icons around her bingo card."

Kind of cheating in my book.

In her early 20s, Torre moved to Orlando and began to play in rock bands like Intense and an all-girl band called Miss Conduct.

"We opened for Flock of Seagulls once, during our MTV basement video days," Torre said.

She then became a hair stylist. But, her true awakening as a practicing psychic came to her at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights.

"They had a bunch of psychics lined up in booths with different styles, one was a sultan," she said, "and he asked me: 'why aren't you here doing this?'"

Bam. Torre started working as a psychic and got the hookup from fellow clairvoyants to get hired at the Cassadaga Hotel. She isn't just a hired mind, she also puts on psychic kids summer camps in Orlando.

"I teach kids with these powers to not be showboats and how to respect their gifts," she said. "I also teach them about how to deal with the other kids that just don't understand."

She spoke of these kids like they belonged in Professor Xavier's school for gifted youngsters.

Torre began to play with a mini crystal skull in her hand.

"What is that?" I asked.

"You mean, 'who is that?'"

Oh boy.

"This is iMax. He is a crystal skull that was given to me by JoAnn Parks," she said.

JoAnn Parks is a Texas woman that is the keeper of "Max"- a famous clear quartz crystal skull, discovered 100 years ago in Mayan tomb in Guatemala.

"How did he get that name?" I asked.

"He told me."

Torre said that iMax also asked her, "what do you want to know?"

"I asked him, 'when will the world end?'"

"What did he say?" I replied.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I would."

Torre said that iMax told her that in the future, seven tribes and nations will unite on having no more war. But, in the 3000s, the world will end.

"I came up with phrase, I've been 'Maxed Out'-I certainly was at the time," she said.

When Torre even spoke to me in plain conversation, her eyes wandered as if she were still giving me a reading.

"When you speak to any person, can you see spirit guides or anything when talking to them?" I asked. "Like say you were at a 7-11, do you see things when you go in there?"

"Yes, but I have to shut it off-put the blinders up," she said, "especially in places like 7-11, those places are filled with bad vibes."

I walked back downstairs to go on the historical tour. The tour is affiliated with the Camp, across the street. A small group was waiting for it to begin. Our tour guide was a seemingly jolly woman, whose badge just said: YOUR TOUR GUIDE. Times are rough, can't be making badges for all the tour guides.

My tour was made up of an expectant gang of tourists with high tube socks and tropical shirts. Our tour guide, seeming caught of guard, announced we had a special guest with us.

"Reverend Judy Cooper will be with us on tour today, what a treat," the guide said.

Reverend Cooper is the VP of the Board of Trustees of Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association, resident medium, and was most likely only on the tour because I was. The bookstore that I bought the tickets from must have tipped her off.

As we began walking down the hill from our starting point, Rev. Cooper started to wade towards me.

"You were supposed to wait for our board meeting to approve you being here," Rev. Cooper said to me in a low voice.

I told her that this was the only time I could come to Cassadaga, and couldn't wait any longer.

"I just don't want you getting into trouble," she said.

Trouble? I didn't even want to ask.

We continued our tour, stopping at Victorian-era homes on the main drag. The tour guide said that one of the resident-mediums spoke to Abraham Lincoln. Along the tour, the guide told the history of Colby and showed photographs from her leather album.

Most historical tours tend to be boring. Not this one. The guide spoke about spirits coming in the night in certain rooms of the houses, peeking out of windows, Xerox machines going haywire, the whole gamut of spirit-happenings.

We approached a church called the Colby Memorial Temple. The first thing I noticed was a boatload of sunflowers. No crucifixes here, just sunflowers.

Someone in our group asked about it.

"As the sunflower turns its face to the light of the sun, so Spiritualism turns to the face of humanity in the light of the truth," Rev. Cooper said.

The visitor nodded.

The stage in the church looked like a scene out of the movie, Nothing But Trouble. I thought Dan Akroyd was going to pop up from the floorboard.

The question "do you believe in Jesus?" was posed by one of my fellow tourists.

"We believe in the Infinite Intelligence as our God," the tour guide said.

We exited the church and were shown Spirit Pond, which sits to the back of the Temple.

"As you may notice there is no water in our pond, but if you'd like to volunteer - coming up in January-we will be cutting down that brush," Rev. Cooper said.

After the tour was finished, Rev. Cooper told me about herself. She was raised in Titusville because her father worked on the Space Coast. She has lived in Cassadaga for the past 20 years, starting off as a student.

"We certify our students, they can stay in the halls or in the homes, but we give them four to six years of training," Rev. Cooper said. "That's why we are different from..."

She creaked her neck in the direction across the street to the Cassadaga Hotel.

"We just don't like when reporters or T.V. shows come here and incorrectly report on us," she said.

"What don't you like about it?"

"When they group us in together with them," Rev. Cooper said. "It goes on and off with them."

Rev. Cooper then told me at dusk to stay off the streets within the Camp.

"We do this to not have hotel guests or any others vandalizing properties," she said. "It happens a lot during Halloween."

"How do you patrol?" I asked.

She said something like, "we have our ways." I pictured a psychic Neighborhood Watch.

I made my way to the restaurant, mainly for the bar. There was a 2-for-1 special on Kentucky Deluxe. The place was packed. A piano player sung hits by Elton John and Billy Joel. The customers are mostly women, middle age or older. That was the most apparent thing about the community: The Women. Looking for something, looking for an answer from the spirit guides or to be told everything will be okay.

One table was rowdy all night long, drinking and singing like pirates. They were all bartenders from a nearby city of Debary. Their raspy laughs of cigarette-laden throats reverberated through the restaurant.

The leader of the group came up to the owner of the Cassadaga Hotel's owner to show her something on her phone.

"We wanted to show you, my friend was just in her room and took this photo."

Dinah Morn, the owner, told me to feast my eyes on the photo.

It was damn convincing. It had white, wispy features in the corner of their room, basically looked like they had caught ghosts on camera. Morn was proud.

I found out later through one of the woman's friends that they used a camera phone app to trick everybody. Morn was bummed.

"That really pisses me off," Morn said as she sipped a white wine.

Karaoke began.

Morn and her departed husband had bought the hotel in 1979 on a whim, while on a layover in the Orlando airport.

"We were visiting friends in Deltona and headed back to Milwaukee. My husband picked up a real estate pamphlet and saw it for sale," Morn said. "As soon as we knew it, we were the owners of the Cassadaga Hotel."

Morn is the operator/owner of the hotel, but also a mother figure to employees and psychics, as well as the building itself.

"I call the hotel a 'she'," Morn said, "because she's mine. I've watched over her."

She admired the restaurant, peering outwards to the windows. She brought me over to her restored grand piano, claiming it was from the 1880s. Morn restored the hotel, putting in over $2 million in renovations.

She was raised a Catholic and wasn't aware of Spiritualism before coming to Cassadaga. For better or for worse, she embraced it after purchasing the hotel.

"We have had our ups and downs with the Camp," Morn said. "We just want to get along and do the best for community."

The guests, residents, and psychics arrived for karaoke. They sang the songs of Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock, and Dixie Chicks. After some liquid courage, I sang "I'm Just a Gigolo" by David Lee Roth. I got a decent applause.

In the back of the restaurant, Morn and some others were sitting at a table placing their palms up, while a woman read them. They just wouldn't quit. After karaoke, the place emptied out. The Shining hallways and dimly-lit porch lights were the only things that appeared to be alive.

I woke up the next morning, still in my clothes from the night before. I didn't want to sleep under the sheets, fear of ghosts or something. I packed up. It occurred to me at breakfast that the people of Cassadaga are just people, people trying to get on with their daily lives. They have a post office.

But, when all said and done, Cassadaga is a weird place.

Imagine if your hometown was taken over by pod people who all believed one thing. Say that one thing was teaching. Everyone was a teacher. It would get tiring. I wanted was to get back to what we all call "normal." I wanted to escape the constant preaching of non-stop readings, psychics, spirit guides, astrology, the handwriting analysis, as I drove away from the village. I just wanted to sit down in my own home and realize there are other places besides Cassadaga.

@iamchrisbalogh

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Inside Cassadaga, the Psychic Capital of the World

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"How is my grandmother doing?" I asked. She started to go into a trance, and got a look on her face like a small turd was being held beneath her nose. "She says, 'I'm doing dandy'." My grandmother would never say the word "dandy." She was a hard...