Nestled in the ancient forests surrounding Cassadaga Lake in eastern New York, the Lily Dale community sits as a force to be reckoned with for world spiritualists. Sometimes nicknamed “The City That Talks to the Dead”, Lily Dale is considered by many to be the central location of the spiritualist movement. Although this fascinating place attracts thousands of visitors and loyal fans every year, it remains a mystery to most people. There are many questions about the history of the place and what it meant to the people who founded it. What is this place exactly? What did the Fox sisters have to do with it? How was a prominent political leader like Susan B. Anthony involved? Read on to find the answers and make the connection between this spiritual community and an unlikely group of three young mediums and an outspoken advocate for women’s rights.

What is Lily Dale? Lily Dale is not a town or a city; rather, it is a small community that serves as a meeting place and educational center for those interested in the spiritualist movement. For the past 130 years, it has been a place of spiritual growth for followers from around the world who come together to learn more about their religion, discuss new ideas and concepts, and further their own spiritual progress as they continue on the path of life. Founded in 1879 by local spiritualists (although the grounds had been used for the same purpose for many years), Lily Dale served as a place where people could openly discuss their beliefs about the spirit world and the afterlife. During a time when non-Christians were often social pariahs, followers of spiritualism needed a place where they could practice their religion without being judged. Their belief system was (and still is) based on the ideas that death is only the end of the physical body and that the spirit continues on other planes of existence. The spirits of the dead can and do communicate with living people and are capable of providing valuable information about God and the spirit world.

How did the Fox sisters influence? The Fox sisters are commonly known as the founders of spiritualism. These women were just girls in 1848 when they claimed to be receiving messages from the spirit world. After hearing strange knocking coming from inside their house, they realized that something, or someone, was trying to communicate with them. They worked out a code where they would ask questions and the “thing” would respond with a series of thumps. With this they knew they were communicating with a murder victim who had been buried in the basement of her home. News of the mysterious contact spread quickly, with believers and skeptics alike flocking to see for themselves. The girls quickly rose to fame, eventually traveling to New York and other parts of the country, where they served as mediums between the living and the dead. All this attention gave rise to a new popular movement, spiritualism, which focused on spiritual communication and understanding. The Fox girls played a vital role in establishing this new belief system, and to this day are credited with their involvement in its founding.

And what about Susan B. Anthony? Susan B. Anthony is best known as an active participant in the women’s rights movement, particularly in regards to women’s suffrage. Born into a Quaker family in 1820, Anthony had a somewhat restricted childhood, although his family was part of a “liberal” group of Quakers. She became aware of the inequalities between men and women at a young age and fought for equal pay when she was a young teacher in New York. As her interest in women’s rights grew, she spent much time traveling the country and lecturing on equality for women, often with her fellow advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton. After meeting Stanton in 1831, Anthony spent much of her time in East New York, near Rochester. Her neighbors and acquaintances consisted of political reformers like herself and other “social outcasts,” including Frederick Douglass, radical abolitionists, women’s rights convention organizers, and, yes, spiritualists who were beginning to congregate in and around what was called would become Lily Dale. During this period, she also separated further from her childhood religion and from Christianity in general. She found the Christian belief system at the time to be oppressive to women, and she searched for something that would respect women as equals to men. Anthony discovered spiritualism and, although she was never a formal member, she recognized it as one of the rare religious organizations that did not subjugate women. She gave several lectures on Lily Dale, and later in a book on which she collaborated with Stanton she wrote: “The only religious sect in the world … that has recognized the equality of women are the Spiritualists.”