2024 PROGRAM LINK
Since 2014, I have hosted an annual summer Symposium in Lily Dale, NY. Here is a history of past events.
2023
Opening Event @ Lily Dale Fire Hall
WEIRD STUDIES Live! with Phil Ford & JF Martel
Symposium @ Lily Dale Auditorium, Day I: Books
Reclaiming Art, with JF Martel
Touched by The Hand of Ithell: Writing Genius of the Fern Loved Gully, with Amy Hale, Ph.D.
Ted Serios: The Mind's Eye, with Emily Hauver
Publishing the Paranormal, with Charles Emmons, Ph.D. and Penelope Emmons
Grave, with Allison C. Meier
Séance, with Shannon Taggart
Music from Elsewhere, with Doug Skinner
Symposium @ Lily Dale Auditorium, Day II: History
An Introduction to Lily Dale, with Michele Takei, Ph.D.
“You Are to Do What We Say": The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle and his Spirit Guide Pheneas, with Michael W. Homer
Dr. Raymond Buckland’s ‘Wide World of Spirit’, with Steven Intermill, Director of the Buckland Museum
Spiritual Spectacles: Mother’s Work and the Shaker Era of Manifestations, with Maria Molteni
A History of London’s College of Psychic Studies, with Gillian Matini, Principal, College of Psychic Studies, London
The Art of Madge Gill: Myrninerest, Marconi, Mars, and Music, with Vivienne Roberts, Archivist and Curator, College of Psychic Studies, London
The Trash Stratum, with Phil Ford
2022
Opening Event @ Lily Dale Assembly Hall
The Healing Ritual of the Tarantella, with Marjorie Roth, Ph.D.
Symposium @ Lily Dale Assembly Hall
Sparks of Spirit: Lightning and the Divine, with Leonard George, Ph.D.
Spiritualism, Science, and the Woman Doctor: The Case of Anna Kingsford, with Christine Ferguson, Ph.D.
Where was Atlantis? with Joscelyn Godwin, Ph.D.
Spirits and the Material World: Spiritualism, Technology, and the Testing of Physical Mediums 1870–1940, with Emma Merkling, Ph.D.
Modernist Materializations: Photographing Ectoplasm in the 20th Century, with Serena Keshavjee. Ph.D.
Messages from Your Future Self: An Introduction to Precognitive Dreamwork, with Eric Wargo, Ph.D., author of Time Loops
Philosophers, the Paranormal, and Spiritualism, with George P. Hansen, author of The Trickster and the Paranormal
2021
Opening Event @ Lily Dale Assembly Hall
Walking Between Worlds: Kybalion Film Premiere with Emmy-nominated Filmmaker, Ronni Thomas, and Materia Prima Book Release with National Geographic Storytelling Fellow, Erika Larsen
Symposium @ Lily Dale Lyceum
The ‘Delphic Women’ of Claude Bragdon, with Joscelyn Godwin, Ph.D.
Surrealism and Spiritualism, with Susan Aberth, Ph.D.
Spirit - Vibration - Form: The Study of Cymatics, with Steve Bass
Chinese Ghosts, with Charles Emmons, Ph.D.
The Sacred Geometry of the Ephrata Cloister, with Nick Siegert
Metaphysical Michael Jackson, with Shannon Taggart
UFOs, Spiritualism, and the Paranormal, with George P. Hansen
2020
Symposium @ Lily Dale ZOOM
Nature, Enchantment and the Paranormal, with Jack Hunter, Ph.D.
Investigating the Supernatural: Scientific Quests to Colonize Hysterical Women and Psychic Mediums, with Asti Hustvedt, Ph.D.
The Crop Circle Enigma, with Greg Bishop
Do Tables Tilt, Turn, and Float? Table Levitation Phenomena, 1850-2006, with Walter Meyer zu Erpen
2019
Opening Event @ Lily Dale Assembly Hall
The Science of Things Spiritual Presents: Spiritualist History Revealed!
Physical Mediumship: Past, Present and Future, with Susan B. Barnes, Ph.D., CSNU.
Spiritualist History Part I: Hydesville and the Fox Sisters + Part II: The Materializations of Helen Duncan
with Paul Gaunt, Curator of the Britten Museum and Library, Arthur Findlay College, UK.
Symposium @ Lily Dale Assembly Hall
Making the Invisible Real: Shamanism in Northeast Asia, with Richard Noll, Ph.D.
Spiritualism, the Science of Crime and Early Forensics, with Cathy Guiterrez, Ph.D.
Octagon Houses and Ideal Form, with Jesse Bransford
“Transporte!”: Espiritismo, Spiritualism, and Latin America, with Jason Baumann
Inside SORRAT: The True Story of America’s Most Active Physical Mediumship Group, 1961-2015, with James McClenon, Ph.D.
Investigating the Supernatural: Scientific Quests to Colonize Hysterical Women and Psychic Mediums, Asti Hustvedt, Ph.D.
Postmodernism, Spiritualism, and the Paranormal, with George P. Hansen
2018
Symposium @ Lily Dale Assembly Hall
The Moment of Revelation: Cases from Upstate New York's Spiritual History, with Joscelyn Godwin, Ph.D.
Linen Veils and Lightning Masks: Theurgical Mediumship of Late Antiquity, with Leonard George, Ph.D.
A Survey of Spirit Architecture, with Steve Bass
The Ancient Oracles Revived: Sibyls, Spirits, and the Extraordinary Power of a Woman's Voice, with Marjorie Roth, Ph.D.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and The Coming of the Fairies, with Massimo Introvigne, Ph.D.
Transgender, Spiritualism and the Paranormal, with George P. Hansen
2017
Symposium @ Lily Dale Assembly Hall
Ancient Mediumship: Oracles in Antiquity, with Leonard George, Ph.D.
Architectural Spirits in Lily Dale, with Steve Bass
Harmonies Heard & Unheard: An Exploration of Mediumistic Music, with Marjorie Roth, Ph.D.
Spiritualism and Gender in the 19th Century, with Cristina Zaccarini, Ph.D.
Spiritualism and the Mystery of Modern Art, with Massimo Introvigne, Ph.D.
A History of Parapsychology, with George P. Hansen
Music From the Ultraterrestrials, with Doug Skinner
2016
Symposium @ Lily Dale Library
A Survey of Architecture in Lily Dale, with Steve Bass
Morbid Anatomy Museum Night, with Joanna Ebenstein
Anomalist Books: Publishing the Paranormal, with Patrick Huyghe
Symposium @ Lily Dale Octagon Building
Spiritualism, Popular Culture, and the Afterlife of Michael Jackson: Part I with George P. Hansen + Part II with Shannon Taggart
2015
Symposium @ Lily Dale Spirit Art Gallery
The Poltergeist as a Spirit or Thought-Form, with Christopher Laursen, Ph.D.
Electronic Voice Phenomena, with Donna Sinclair Hogan
Exploring Spirit Art, with Susan Barnes, Ph.D., CSNU.
Spirit Photography Workshop, with Shannon Taggart
2014
Symposium @ Lily Dale Spirit Art Gallery
The Magical Female in Western Art with Pam Grossman, author of Waking the Witch
Passers-By Look Above: Spirit Architecture from Romania, 1888-1896, with Ileana Selejean, Ph.D.
Language of the Land, with Erika Larsen
Planets, Magic and Spirits in “The 4th Pyramid”, with Jesse Bransford
Autumn of the Oracles: Visions from Spirit in Late Antiquity, with Leonard George, Ph.D.
Art Tour of the Lily Dale Museum, with Ron Nagy