Title: Lily Dale : the true story of the town that talks to the dead /
Authors: Wicker, Christine.
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco,
Year: 2003
Subjects: Spiritualism New York (State) Lily Dale.; Lily Dale (N.Y.) History.
Abstract: According to Spiritualists, in Lily Dale, New York, spirits flit among the elms and stroll along the streets, sometimes dressed in garb more common 120 years ago, when Lily Dale was founded and suffragette Susan B. Anthony was a frequent guest. Every summer twenty thousand guests come to consult the town's mediums. In this book, the author follows three visitors: a newly bereaved widow; a mother whose son killed himself; and a beautiful, happily married wife whose first visit to Lily Dale brings an ominous warning. In her pursuit, she examines two major questions. Are the mediums cold-hearted charlatans, as Sinclair Lewis wrote of them? Or are they conduits for a hidden world that longs to bring peace and healing to the living, as psychologist William James and muckraker Upton Sinclair once hoped to prove?