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I would ask you if you believed in ghosts,

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but every time I do that, there's like a swarm of

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angry redditors that descend on me like wasps.

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So I'll ask you this instead. Have

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you heard of ghost Church?

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My name is Jamie Loftus, the creator behind

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the Lida podcast, my year in Mensa,

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and a bunch of other stuff, and I love

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a freaky niche American experience.

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So what if I told you there are camps across

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the US dedicated to communing

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with the dead. What if I told you the religion

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behind these camps had attracted the

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likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

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Frederick Douglas, Mary Todd Lincoln,

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Queen Victoria dan Ackroyd, and

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the first woman to run for the U S presidency.

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No, but what if I told you I've been there

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and I've seen it myself. American

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Spiritualism is a religion I've been

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tangentially aware of for years. But

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it wasn't until I went to the religion's largest

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surviving camp in Cassadega,

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Florida, that I started to learn out

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the US as bizarre and somewhat

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tortured relationship with the spirit

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communication The assumptions that come along

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with it are expected. Is it a cult?

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Are they witches? No, and relax.

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But the reality of how the religion came together,

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how it was blown apart, and how

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it's managed to mostly survive for

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nearly two centuries undetected

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is fascinating. My new series

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Ghost Church follows this uniquely

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American religion from its origin to

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a week of n sweating in Florida,

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listening to medium's drunk gossiping at

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a karaoke night, trying to make ends

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meet. I went to spiritualist churches

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post churches across the country

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to find out how a religion that was started

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as a prank by two preteen sisters

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in upstate New York snowballed into

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a movement that consumed the final years

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of Harry Houdini's life. It's

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not a cult, They're not witches.

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But the history of American spiritualism

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intersects with the history of the

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industrial era, of the rise

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of science, of the backlash to first

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wave feminism and abolition, and

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today with the billion dollar New

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Age movement that the religion hasn't

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managed to capitalize on. I'll be taking

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a look at this entire Bizarro history

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on our impulse to debunk systems of belief

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at the celebrity psychics that have watered down

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and jacked up prices on access to

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spirit, and take you on my own journey through

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a week communing with the mediums of Cassadega,

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Florida. Taking a class where a table would

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connect you with the dead spirit of your pets,

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to services where reverence tell you about ghosts

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you didn't know we're standing right behind you, to

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rivalries between mediums and psychics

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who are neighbors. I'm not asking

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you to believe or disbelieve anything.

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I'll be interviewing mediums from the camp

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and skeptics alike. I'm just asking you

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to get in the spirit circle with an open

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mind. Let's see what comes through. You

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can listen to Ghost Church by me Jamie

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Loftus starting on April on

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the i Heeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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or wherever you get your podcast Sage