We make it to Cassadaga about once a year. Our last trip there was after a book conference in St. Augustine, which we wrote about here. This time, it was after a book conference in Daytona.
We left in the middle of the afternoon and the drive south was uneventful. No synchros. But we’d had several at the book conference, so we were feeling pretty good about things. This time, we had decided not to stay at the Cassadaga Hotel. Our last stay there in 2009 was, well, awful. The hotel has deteriorated. The rooms are dingy and smell of mold, the beds are hopeless, and for what you get, it’s ridiculously expensive. It’s also an unsettling place to stay – weird noises in the middle of the night, disturbing dreams, restless ghosts. This time, we booked a room at a bed and breakfast in nearby Lake Helen. It was delightful. Trish and Megan had stayed here during a stop while looking at colleges in Megan’s senior year.
Friday evening, we walked around the camp, stopped in the local bookstore to see which mediums were listed on the bulletin boards, bought a couple of books. We decided to return the next morning for readings. The British woman who owns the bed and breakfast, had suggested some good restaurants in nearby Deltona, and we ended up eating at a country club that was part of a vast development of homes on a golf course. It was really kind of ironic. We’re not country club type people. We couldn’t quite wrap our heads around the fact that the place existed just five miles or so up the road from one of the strangest communities in Florida.
On our way back to the bed and breakfast, we noticed a new sign posted in front of the Cassadaga camp: Camp Closed from Dusk to Dawn. Not a single car in the hotel parking lot – i.e., the hotel is empty. There’s undoubtedly a story about that weird sign, but we don’t have a clue what that story is. Cassadaga always seems to be involved in some sort of feud with the “uncertified mediums,” who have set up shop outside of the official grounds of the camp.
The B and B was comfortable, the bed was great, and the breakfast the next morning, included in the price, was fantastic. And it cost less than a night at the Cassadaga Hotel.
So that morning we set off in search of readings. In Cassadaga, this search is a process. You either spend time walking around the camp, waiting to see which house, which sign on a front lawn, leaps out at you, or you walk across the street to where the uncertified mediums ply their trade and pick a name from a hat. Usually, we stop in to see our friend Helen Burly, a fantastic medium, but she wasn’t at home. So Rob selected Ed Conklin, one of the old timers in Cassadaga, one of the “certified” mediums, which means that somewhere along the line he had to pass a test.
Rob recently lost his cousin and wanted to see what, if anything, Ed could pick up. After his reading, we had lunch at the Lost in Time Cafe and Rob went through his notes. “Not so good,” he said. “Really general.”
Disappointment. We’ve done this enough over the years so that we know when a medium starts talking about your Indian guide and that tomahawk, he’s floundering. However, Ed did have a couple of hits about Rob’s grandfather, but was it worth the money for the reading? Where was the info about his cousin, his father, friends who have passed on? Where was the real meat of this thing?
We were going to head home after that, but decided to drive back to Lake Helen, to a new age bookstore the B and B owner had recommended. According to her, the store was started by a couple of women who had broken off from the camp. Ah. Rebels, revolutionaries, great. Let’s try it.
Enchanted Soul of Cassadaga smelled good when we walked in, like a lot of New Age bookstores do.Incense, candles, whatever it is, the atmosphere was pleasant. One woman was behind the counter and two other women hovered nearby. The woman behind the desk asked if we wanted readings. “That depends,” Trish said. “What does it cost and what are the techniques?”
Two choices: a crystal/rock reading or an angel reading, Trish chose the stones. Rob sat down to wait for her and he and the angel lady struck up a conversation.
Trish:
I was amazed at what can be divined from stones. I’ve never had this sort of reading before. Becky (a Leo and a former accountant) must have spread out a hundred stones – tiger’s eyes, lapis, quartz crystals – I don’t know much about stones, so my choices were strictly intuitive, whatever caught my eye. Through my choices, she was able to tell quite a bit about my relationships with people from my childhood (parents, sister), my goals, my family now. She didn’t know I was a writer until I told her, but said that the Esperanza series would be at least 7 books (we’ll see!) and that there would be ore books on synchronicity (that was the weekend we got our offer for the second book). There were some definite hits.
Meanwhile, Rob ended up getting a reading from Starr Morgana, the angel lady, as they sat there talking. Before we left the store, she insisted on doing this interesting interactive thing with us, a healing activity, in which our palms got so red that we could actually see the blood flowing into our fingertips.
This trip didn’t have anything that was earth shattering. We got home to kitties who had peed on the bathmats, to a dog who had eaten our neighbors’ glasses and children’s toys, to calls from our daughter about boyfriend problems. But Cassadaga stays with you. It’s a place that offers you a peek, however obscure, into your own psyche, your own present and future. It confirms what you feel about where you are in your life and really, how much fun is it to have a choice of psychic readings? Mediums, tarot, astrology, past life, angels and stones: it’s all there for the taking.
