Lily Dale Assembly

Lily Dale was incorporated in 1879 as a camp meeting on the shore of Cassadaga Lake in western New York, part of the nineteenth-century wave of lakeside assembly grounds where the new religion of Spiritualism took summer residence. What makes it unusual is continuity: the camp has kept the same working format for well over a century, a hamlet of cottages, an auditorium, a Forest Temple, and a Healing Temple, with registered mediums offering readings and twice-daily message services at the Inspiration Stump, a tree stump in the woods where demonstrations have been held since 1898.

The Fox Cottage, the childhood home of the sisters whose 1848 raps launched Spiritualism, was relocated to Lily Dale as a memorial; it burned in 1955 and the site behind the Forest Temple is now a meditation garden. The camp runs June through August with a gate pass, and the season schedule is dense: meditation in the Healing Temple, message services, workshops, and a museum in an 1890 schoolhouse. Off season the grounds are quieter and many venues close.

Visiting

Current season dates, gate passes, and the registered-medium directory are at lilydaleassembly.org. Gate passes can be bought at the gate or online in advance.

Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:InspirationStumpLilyDale.jpg), CC BY-SA 3.0.