Spiritualism — the belief that the living can communicate with the dead — and its history in Cayuga County will be the subject of a talk and a new festival in the area over the next week.
First, the Seward House Museum in Auburn will present its next Lunchtime Lecture on “The Scourge of Spiritualism” at noon Thursday, Oct. 19.
Riley Stevers of the Seneca Falls Historical Society will “revisit this wave of faith that even some members of the Seward family entertained,” the museum said in a news release.
The talk is free and open to the public and will take place at the New York State Equal Rights Heritage Center at 25 South St. in Auburn.
Then, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 21, the new Manifestations in Moravia Fall Festival will celebrate the area’s connections to spiritualism in Ethel Fuller Park.
People are also reading…
The festival will feature games, karaoke, a haunted history tour, hayrides, vendors and food. It is presented by the Ethel Fuller Park Committee, Visit MLNY and the Hamilton Salon & Apothecary.
In a news release, festival organizers said Moravia is the birthplace of spiritualism in the 1800s. Medium Mary Sawyer Andrews came to the village from Auburn and began working in the home of the Keeler family, who held gatherings based upon her purported ability to speak to the dead. As word spread, former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln reportedly traveled to Moravia in 1872 in hopes Andrews would help her communicate with her recently departed son Tad. Her visit sparked further interest in spiritualism, leading newsletter The Spiritualist Paper to coin the phrase “Manifestations in Moravia.”
Former Cayuga-Owasco Lakes Historical Society President Dr. Joyce Hackett Smith said Andrews helped make Moravia a successful tourism destination, with eight trains a day arriving at the village. The medium herself is believed to have made $5,000 to $7,000 a year, allowing her and her husband to purchase the Cascade Hotel. Her gatherings, now with a celebrity guest list, continued there.
“We can only imagine the names of those who came, or rather ‘didn’t come,’ to town seeking out Mary Sawyer Andrew’s supernatural talents,” festival organizers said.
For more information about the festival, visit visitmlny.com.
A “Paranormal Expo” is scheduled for the weekend of June 16 and 17 at the Moravia High School and I’ve been asked to be a guest speaker and gi…
Credit: Source link