Where to stay

Maplewood Hotel: 5 Melrose Dr., Lily Dale. The 19th-century wooden hotel lacks televisions, phones and air conditioning in most rooms, but if you're looking for spiritual authenticity, this is the way to stay on the grounds of Lily Dale. In addition to room fees, a daily or weekly gate pass must be purchased. Rooms from $36 to $97. Details: 716-595-8721 ext. 2005 or bit.ly/lilydaleassembly

Athenaeum Hotel: 3 South Lake Dr., Chautauqua. Established in 1881, the grande dame of Chautauqua overlooks the lake and offers a wraparound porch. Most guests — who must also purchase a gate pass to get on the institution grounds in summer months — are there more for culture than for luxury. A pet-friendly hotel, breakfast included. Rooms from $195 to $445. Details: 800-821-1881 or ciweb.org/athenaeum-hotel

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Updated 31 minutes ago

I can admit now that I went — and dragged my long-suffering husband — to the community of Lily Dale in Western New York because I was secretly hoping for a message from the dead.

Specifically, one from my father, who now is gone six years. The Lily Dale Assembly is the country's oldest continuously operating spiritualist community, founded in 1879. The village, a leafy place lined with Victorian gingerbread cottages and gardens dotted with angel statues, is packed with registered mediums — people who claim they hear and see dead people.

Spiritualism has a long history in the United States, including a 19th-century trio, the Fox sisters, who convinced hundreds that they heard tapping and messages from the spirit world. Even after their claims were debunked and the sisters admitted that they had cracked their toe joints and created contraptions for sounds coming from other rooms, the movement continued. First lady Mary Todd Lincoln famously cherished a photo that purported to show her assassinated husband standing behind her with his hands resting on her shoulder in a ghostly way.

For people who often lost as many children as survived and who lived through the devastating Civil War, there was something comforting in thinking that the dead stay around, guiding us, watching over us, cheering us on like silent chaperons.

Even today, spiritualism has a place in our consciousness. Think of the popularity of TV shows such as “Long Island Medium” and “Hollywood Medium.” Besides the true believers, there probably are even more who would count themselves as spirit-curious, who would like to be persuaded that those who have gone before haven't gone all that far.

These days, Lily Dale's summer high season, which starts at the end of June, draws 30,000 visitors a year, says Lily Dale historian Ron Nagy, who also conducts spoon-bending workshops. The community on Cassadaga Lake houses 55 registered mediums — each in his or her own house — a turn-of-the-century hotel, three cafes, a library and quite possibly the world's most charming pet cemetery. In its heyday, Lily Dale, about 60 miles south of Buffalo, drew as many as 5,000 people a day by train, he says.

Today, the town is far quieter than its nearby cousin, Chautauqua, home of the summerlong arts and ideas festival that draws visitors from around the globe.

Cars line up to pay the gate fee — $15 a person — with many headed for the daily “inspiration meeting” at Inspiration Stump, in the village. The wide, flat stump, surrounded by a cast-iron fence, is the sacred place where mediums are said to best receive messages from the spirit world. In the past, mediums would stand on the stump. Today, they stand near it.

Besides the daily open meetings, visitors also can get an individual reading from the many mediums registered at Lily Dale, with fees running about $60 to $100. On the day we visited, many signs outside the homes of mediums announced that their schedules were full.

No matter. We were headed to the woods for the group service — there are several daily — where we might have a shot at getting picked by a medium to receive a message.

About 80 visitors sat in anticipation at an outdoor theater with rows of wooden benches facing Inspiration Stump.

A pamphlet given out by the Lily Dale Assembly listed a dizzying number of workshops and talks: seances, animal communication, how to use pendulums, qi gong and even one on “the afterlife of Michael Jackson.” There were evening ghost walks, drum circles and a sweat lodge.

One summer speaker was artist Marshall Arisman, producer of the film “A Postcard from Lily Dale,” about his medium grandmother Louise Arisman. In the film, Arisman recalls that his grandmother once told a young Lucille Ball — who grew up in nearby Jamestown, N.Y. — that she would meet a Cuban bandleader and become one of the most beloved comedians of all time.

Arisman's grandmother, whom he called “Muddy,” had a vision for him, he said in an interview from his home in New York City. Three hours after he was born, she picked him out of a nursery and told his parents that she saw from his aura that he would be an artist.

Arisman, 78, spent every weekend in Lily Dale when he was a child. The film, he said, was his way of thanking his grandmother for encouraging him. “Somebody saw something in you that you didn't see; you owe them a thank you,” he said.

These days, Arisman said, Lily Dale is a mixture of true-believer spiritualists and visitors looking for entertainment.

“Twenty years ago,” he said, “there was no ghost walk.”

Lily Dale was, though, a lovely and meditative place to spend some time. Historian Nagy said that some guests rush from workshop to workshop and miss the experience of just sitting on the porch of the Maplewood Hotel and relaxing. Others come and never get a reading, he said. “They just come to walk around and be quiet.”

Debra Bruno is a freelance writer for the Washington Post.

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