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    Streaming Media
       04/14/2012 by friday
    The Intersection of Joy and Fear
       09/20/2011 by Long Lost Aunt Sandy
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       09/15/2011 by Bob
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    Taking the Bloom Off of Lily Dale


    Created on Thursday, July 8, 2010        Bookmark and Share

    Home -> Blog -> 2010 -> July


    I know that I've said this before but the great thing about not having pre-conceived notions is that you don't have to try to explain away your position. If the evidence leads you in a different direction than where you are currently at, you go in that direction. There is no need to make excuses (especially to yourself) or to ignore the obvious.

    HBO recently did a documentary on Lily Dale. For those of you that are not familiar with Lily Dale, it is a town about an hour south of Buffalo and it is known as one to have one of the larger congregations of mediums, fortune tellers and other honest professionals (tongue nailed into cheek). Full disclosure - I have not seen this film yet although it is on our DVR (my mother-in-law asked us to record it for her).

    The history of Lily Dale is not unlike that of Sedona, Arizon, where the City Council decided that they were going to make itself a tourist / desperate old lady destination by inventing the idea that it was a place of mystical powers (I wrote about this here). The Center for Inquiry did a review of Lily Dale - it is a fascinating (and very short) read - see it here.

    Surprise surprise, Lily Dale became what we know it to be today because two women discovered that they could make money by pretending to be able to speak to the dead. They went along with this for several years and gained some notoriety before admitting that they were faking it. In the meantime several other talkers-to-dead-people unbelievably found that they had the same powers and went into the same business in the area. Amazing how that happened, isn't it?

    The town now regulates much of the talking-to-dead people. Killjoys, aren't they? If you want to go into a trance or move items through the air you will have to take your unbelievable superpowers outside of town. The nerve of them! They treat such holders of amazing powers as common criminals.

    Now I know some of you semi-believe in this stuff. When you step back and look at this stuff from afar, how does it look? You're the holder of amazing superpowers yet you have to go to the hills of southern new york to practice on senior citizens? The Sylvia Browne's of the world will always hide in the shadows. If anyone truly had these powers they would be the most famous person in the world. Can you imagine?

    And I know what some of you are saying at this point - what is the harm in all of this? The harm is that many people do believe in this stuff and that these shysters are now replacing real memories with fake communications from the dead. I'll anticipate your next question - "but what if it makes them feel better?". Who gave these people the right to decide that they are doing these people a service? That really is some nerve.

    Ugh.... I think the desire to feel better artificially is the cause of so many of the evils that plague our society.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Just in case you missed this, Penn and Teller show how the dead-talkers do it.



    Mother Nature Hates me   More in JULY   One of My Shining Moments During Our Courtship

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