Friday, September 10, 2021

"They see dead people (or so they claim)"/ "'Long Island Medium' sparks controversy with 'shameful' 9/11 anniversary special"

Jan. 27, 2017 "They see dead people (or so they claim)": Today I found this article by Debra Bruno in the National Post in the Edmonton Journal:

I can admit now that I went — and dragged my long-suffering husband — to the community of Lily Dale in Western New York because I was secretly hoping for a message from the dead.

Specifically, one from my father, who now is gone six years. The Lily Dale Assembly is the country’s oldest continuously operating spiritualist community, founded in 1879. The village, a leafy place lined with Victorian gingerbread cottages and gardens dotted with angel statues, is packed with registered mediums – people who claim they hear and see dead people.

Spiritualism has a long history in the United States, including a 19th-century trio, the Fox sisters, who convinced hundreds that they heard tapping and messages from the spirit world. Even after their claims were debunked and the sisters admitted that they had cracked their toe joints and created contraptions for sounds coming from other rooms, the movement continued. 

First lady Mary Todd Lincoln famously cherished a photo that purported to show her assassinated husband standing behind her with his hands resting on her shoulder in a ghostly way.

For people who often lost as many children as survived and who lived through the devastating Civil War, there was something comforting in thinking that the dead stay around, guiding us, watching over us, cheering us on like silent chaperons.

Even today, spiritualism has a place in our consciousness. Think of the popularity of TV shows such as “Long Island Medium” and “Hollywood Medium.” Besides the true believers, there probably are even more who would count themselves as spirit-curious, who would like to be persuaded that those who have gone before haven’t gone all that far.

These days, Lily Dale’s summer high season, which starts at the end of June, draws 30,000 visitors a year, says Lily Dale historian Ron Nagy, who also conducts spoon-bending workshops. The community on Cassadaga Lake houses 55 registered mediums – each in his or her own house – a turn-of-the-century hotel, three cafes, a library and quite possibly the world’s most charming pet cemetery. In its heyday, Lily Dale, about 60 miles south of Buffalo, drew as many as 5,000 people a day by train, he says.

Today, the town is far quieter than its nearby cousin, Chautauqua, home of the summer long arts and ideas festival that draws visitors from around the globe.

We visited Lily Dale on the kind of perfect summer day where the sunlight dapples the 100-year-old trees. Cars lined up to pay the gate fee – $15 a person – with many headed for the daily “inspiration meeting” at Inspiration Stump, in the village. The wide, flat stump, surrounded by a cast-iron fence, is the sacred place where mediums are said to best receive messages from the spirit world. In the past, mediums would stand on the stump. Today, they stand near it.

Besides the daily open meetings, visitors can also get an individual reading from the many mediums registered at Lily Dale, with fees running about $60 to $100. On the day we visited, many signs outside the homes of mediums announced that their schedules were full.

No matter. We were headed to the woods for the group service – there are several daily – where we might have a shot at getting picked by a medium to receive a message. Down a path we reached an outdoor theater with rows of wooden benches facing Inspiration Stump. About 80 visitors sat in anticipation.

Leader Joe Shiel, himself a medium and an ordained minister at a New Jersey church affiliated with a British spiritualists union, welcomed the crowd and explained that we were sitting in a “vortex” that amplified everything. In other words, he said, if you come in a bad mood, it will get worse. Since I was annoyed by how long it took me to find a place to park the car, I was already mucking this up.

A series of mediums took turns “reading” the crowd. First up was Jessie Furst. An elfin woman with deep-red hair, Furst announced that she was getting a vision of a wood-framed house and someone named George. Someone in the audience gamely volunteered that George was the name of the family across the street. The announcement landed with a bit of a thud.

Between readings, Shiel announced, “I’d like to bow our heads because I just put two mosquitoes into spirit.” We chuckled. The meeting was starting to feel a little bit like improv night with affirmations.

A mother-and-daughter team, Kathy and Celeste Elliott, took a turn. Kathy Elliott focused on a wooden bench where three overweight women sat. “Your grandmother is with you,” she said. “She is worried about diabetes.” The message from the grandmother to the women, she added, was to eat fewer carbs and more veggies.

As the hour passed, I sensed deeper and deeper sighs coming from the skeptic sitting next to me on the wooden bench. “You’re messing up my aura,” I hissed to Bob. But it’s true that most of the messages from the spirit world seemed to be of the horoscope variety: You are about to make a decision and you should be brave, or be more open to the people in your life. Several mediums mentioned pets alongside loved ones in the spirit world.

I knew the clock was ticking for my spirit-skeptical husband.
But I was eager to get a glimpse inside the 133-year-old auditorium hosting services by the Lily Dale Spiritualist Church, and the lecture there was free, so we ventured inside.

After a few hymns, including “Amazing Grace,” the service gave way to an inspirational talk by Cyndi Pirog with themes that included knowing yourself, the golden rule and the fact that if we worry about money all the time, our thoughts become our reality. (Yes, I thought of the 2006 book “The Secret.”)

Volunteers passed a collection plate. A medium did more readings. Yes, another grandmother is with you. Yes, she thinks you should take that chance with a new job.

A sign on the wall said, “We never die. Spiritualism proves that we can talk with people in the spirit world.” We wandered out again before the close of the meeting, even though we had been warned that leaving in the middle of a reading is disruptive to the medium’s work.

A pamphlet given out by the Lily Dale Assembly listed a dizzying number of workshops and talks: seances, animal communication, how to use pendulums, qi gong and even one on “the afterlife of Michael Jackson.” There were evening ghost walks, drum circles and a sweat lodge.

One summer speaker was artist Marshall Arisman, producer of the film “A Postcard from Lily Dale,” about his medium grandmother Louise Arisman. In the film, Arisman recalls that his grandmother once told a young Lucille Ball – who grew up in Jamestown, N.Y., not far from Lily Dale – that she would meet a Cuban bandleader and become one of the most beloved comedians of all time.

Arisman’s grandmother, whom he called “Muddy,” had a vision for him, he said in an interview from his home in New York City. Three hours after he was born, she picked him out of a nursery and told his parents that she saw from his aura that he would be an artist.

Arisman, 78, spent every weekend in Lily Dale when he was a child. The film, he said, was his way of thanking his grandmother for encouraging him. “Somebody saw something in you that you didn’t see; you owe them a thank you,” he said.

These days, Arisman said, Lily Dale is a mixture of true-believer spiritualists and visitors looking for entertainment.
“Twenty years ago,” he said, “there was no ghost walk.”

For my part, I received no messages. Not from Dad, not from my grandparents, not from friends who died and not from any past pets. Lily Dale was, though, a lovely and meditative place to spend some time. Historian Nagy said that some guests rush from workshop to workshop and miss the experience of just sitting on the porch of the Maplewood Hotel and relaxing. Others come and never get a reading, he said. “They just come to walk around and be quiet.”

That was me. In fact, the experience of wandering around a charming village on a quiet summer day did bring me closer to the spirit world. I had an image of my father, my grandparents and my godmother standing behind me. They were rolling their eyes and glancing at their spectral watches.

“You’re doing fine,” they told me. “Just get on with it.”



Nov. 18, 2019 Colette Baron-Reid: I was watching this video where she read her oracle cards.  Here's a comment from one of my friends:  


Francis: I think wanting those products means a person needs to check on their reasoning abilities.

Aug. 22, 2021: I write a list of the pros and cons of a decision.  That's logic.  There are intuition, like you don't feel that you should do that.

Aug. 13, 2021  "'Long Island Medium' sparks controversy with 'shameful' 9/11 anniversary special": Today I found this article by Ellie Spina on Yahoo News.  I watched an interview of Theresa Caputo on 20/20 like in 2012.  At the time, I thought she seemed like a real medium.


A preview for Theresa Caputo's upcoming 9/11 anniversary special has created a stir online. 

On Thursday, TLC released a three minute video of "Long Isand Medium: In Memory of 9/11" which features Caputo, a renowned psychic medium, providing readings to the families of 9/11 victims. The special will premiere at 10 pm. EST on Sept. 9 on both TLC and Discovery+, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the infamous tragedy. 

While many fans thought the idea for the special was thoughtful and heartwarming, others — who are seemingly more skeptical about the possible validity of Caputo's gifts— called the special a "mockery."

"What a con," one person wrote. "Utterly shameful."

"You're actually surprised that a person that takes advantage of gullible people for a living is trying to profit off a national disaster?," one Twitter user wrote, while another added, "This is low even for TLC."

"It really is a 3-2-1 countdown to see who's the first to exploit the 20th anniversary of 9/11," someone else wrote. "Absolutely disgusting to enable and endorse this grifter."

Others defended the special by pointing out that if it brings people closure and comfort, then it isn't exploitation. 

"It's not exploitation when people are comforted... It's all about love and that's it, people," one Instagram user commented. "Nothing else! And if you listen carefully, you can hear and feel what your loved one is telling you from the next place."

Another person compared spirituality to other religions, urging others to show the same respect to all kinds of faiths. 

"Everyone calling this exploitation is being ignorant...This is for spiritual people who find peace in their beliefs," they wrote. "You don't have to agree with it, you can call it fake, or a scam, or a con, but at the end of the day it's simply another belief. Just because you aren't spiritual, doesn't mean you need to find spirituality offensive — the same way you shouldn't find anyone's faith offensive. If this is what brings people comfort after a tragedy, so be it. Live and let live."

On Thursday, TLC released a statement outlining the intent of the special, noting that Caputo conducted readings near the Pentagon and the World Trade Center .

“Theresa Caputo visits the sites of the horrific attacks and meets with families of the departed to deliver messages of healing and heroism from the spirits of their loved ones,” the statement reads, adding that she will “use her gift to bring peace to those most personally impacted by the attacks by meeting with them in the shadow of the World Trade Center, steps from the Pentagon, and at the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.”

'Long Island Medium' sparks controversy with 9/11 anniversary special (yahoo.com)


Aug. 22, 2021: Here is a really old Nov. 2011 blog post:

names/ Challenge Factory/ "Psychic" gets busted


"Psychic" gets busted: I found this on Youtube after Dateline. It's about: "'Psychic' gets busted." It's Sylvia Brown on Montell Williams. I read years ago on www.jumptheshark.com that she made Montell Williams "jump the shark" (as in make the show go bad.)

Cut to a Woman in the audience talking about her missing boyfriend and how she can't find him.

SB: The reason you can't find him is because he's in water. It's like the girl missing in Aruba.
Me: You mean Natalie Holloway?
Woman: Yeah, well it was Sept. 11. He was a fireman.

I felt so sad after that. SB kept saying water and the woman mentions about still not finding any piece of him. I thought it was going to be a really "Gotcha!" moment where the woman says: "Psych! I don't have a boyfriend!"

SB is so wrong. She seems to be alluding to the boyfriend being in a lake or an ocean, but he died on Sept. 11. Yeah, well at the least the audience didn't say: "Ohhhhhhh" as in "You are so wrong." Well it's very sensitive topics about death and 9/11. You can't really say "Ohhhh" to that.

A person on Youtube said: "The thing with this is - Coming from a sensitive myself - When the towers fell the sprinkler system was going off and pipes were snapping because of impact - sometimes psychics get info that they cant define - like she got hes in water - but he may have passed out from lack of oxygen and landed facedown in a pool of water from the sprinkler systems and drowned... "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRc4LkBRjIc&feature=related

Tracy's blog: names/ Challenge Factory/ "Psychic" gets busted (badcb.blogspot.com)



Aug. 22, 2021 My opinion: The video isn't on Youtube anymore.  However, Silvia Brown was wrong about Amanda Berry being dead.  She was right about describing the man who took Amanda on 1:57 part.


Psychic was dead wrong about Amanda Berryaoribrotha532 years ago
0:57 “Not alive? Then who’s this?!?” That made me laugh so hard.

785
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Hide 7 replieszomgseriosulyzomgseriosuly2 years ago
lmaooooo
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LM JoLM Jo2 years ago
Another psychic got mad at me because I said she was deceiving people and possibly hosting demons. They said it’s a gift.. I say bs!
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WitchettyManWitchettyMan1 year ago
Ikr, the way she says it is hillarious.
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AyArribaAyArriba1 year ago
The sass and anger is hilarious
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Pug FanPug Fan1 year ago
The statement about being more right then wrong & can't right all the time. Then saying that her heart goes out to Amanda. I'm like "it's too late the damage is already done"
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GrayGray7 months ago
The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you speak with authority.
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Tay KatooTay Katoo6 months ago (edited)
 @Gray  Wow... that’s nauseatingly spot on. These people must be antisocial because they certainly don’t have a conscience.


Sept. 5, 2021 Post Secret: 







This week's theme is about New Age articles.  I only have enough for 2 blog posts:

"Home remedies, crystallized"/ "The woo-woo way to beat your hot flashes"



"Creepy clown sightings"/ "Please don't send in the clowns"






My week:

Sept. 4, 2021 The Republic of Sarah: This show is getting cancelled.  I'm not really surprised because this is an American scripted show that aired during the summer.  The most you can get is 2 seasons like Wayward Pines on Fox.  Grand Hotel was on ABC for 1 season.

I didn't really like this show and found this to be average.  This wasn't an action drama.  I mainly watched this show for Luke Mitchell (Roman from Blindspot.)    




Manifest gets season 4: I was reading comments on the above TV show and found out about this:

"'Manifest' Is No Longer Canceled: Season 4 Is Coming to Netflix":  by Kayla Keegan in Good Housekeeping: 


Thanks to fan support, the popular sci-fi show has been revived.



Update, August 28, 2021 at 3:48 p.m. ET:

It's official: Manifest is coming back to life on Netflix. According to Deadline, the popular sci-fi show is being revived on Netflix for a fourth and final season after a fan-led campaign to #SaveManifest. Stars Josh Dallas and Melissa Roxburgh are expected to return for the 20-episode run, which will stream exclusively on Netflix. As a nod to Flight 828, the news was announced on August 28th, at 8:28 a.m.

Is 'Manifest" Canceled Ahead of Season 4? - Why Was 'Manifest' Canceled by NBC? (goodhousekeeping.com)

My opinion: I was surprised this got renewed now.  I thought it was funny they put the news on at 8:28 am like the Flight 828 that the characters were on.

Prodigal Son: If Manifest got renewed, then what about this show?  There isn't any news of a season 3.

Sept. 9, 2021 Fantasy Island: I only saw the first 2 eps of this show and recorded and saved them.  I'm predicting that this show will get cancelled after 1 season because it's an American TV show that came out during the summer:



Screenwriter's Meetup: I went to this Meetup at Unity Square.  When I got there, I noticed that they changed the name.  I was like: "When?  Why?"  Then I found this article:


Aug. 1, 2021 "Edmonton’s Oliver Square changes name to Unity Square": This is by Chris Chacon on Global News:

A well-known retail area in Edmonton has undergone a significant name change to distance itself from a controversial historical figure.

“The property managers here at Oliver Square and Oliver Village have made the decision to change their name away from their original namesake of Oliver to a new name called Unity Square for both areas,” Oliver Community League president Robyn Paches said.

Paches said he’s been in constant communication with property owners BentallGreenOak about this change that has been in the works for a while.

“They’re changing the name away from Oliver because of the feedback they’ve heard from the community and because of what they’ve heard from Indigenous people as well as marginalized communities in Edmonton,” Paches said.

Frank Oliver founded Edmonton’s first newspaper and is a namesake for schools, parks and an entire neighbourhood.

In addition to establishing the city’s first newspaper, Oliver created the Northwest Territories’ first public school system and then went on to a career in politics.

Oliver was an MLA and also an MP. It was during that time that he implemented an immigration policy banning Black people and another that chased the Papaschase First Nation off its land.


Sept. 6, 2021 Edmonton Gardening Vegetarian and Vegan Meetup Group:  This was a Conscious Conversation about fear.  It was online with 4 of us.  I met 2 new people.

J- a 50 something yr old man in NYC.
A- a Columbian woman.
B- the organizer.

What is fear?  How can it be used in a good way?  This can get you out of real and present danger.

B mentions someone who had this intuition as she goes into a bank ATM machine to get money.  This was at 8am.  A man was smoking a cigarette outside.  She thought: "What if he mugs me?"

She got her cash, and he pulls out a knife at her and she gives him the money.  


The lesson: Listen to your intuition.

Sept. 9, 2021 "Canada election debate 2021: Trudeau reveals why he called election, O'Toole gets most votes as 'winner' of showdown": Today I found this article by Elisabetta Bianchini on Yahoo News:

Trudeau defended his decision, maintaining that Canadians deserve a choose how the country should move forward out of the pandemic.

"You deserve a choice, because the government you elect will make those decisions in the fall, not a year or two from now. You have important choices to make."Justin Trudeau, Liberal Party leader of CanadaCanada election debate 2021: Trudeau reveals why he called election, O'Toole gets most votes as 'winner' of showdown (yahoo.com)

20 Million Acts of Kindness in honour of the 20th anniversary of 9/11:


On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Meetup is promoting 20 million good deeds. In an act of healing and kindness, millions of people will be mobilized to rekindle the spirit of unity that arose in the aftermath of that fateful day. By volunteering to do good deeds throughout local communities, you can take part in a selfless and inspiring demonstration of worldwide solidarity.

This is a NO HOST EVENT
You are simply encouraged to go out and be kind. Random acts of kindness are the focus of your outing!
-- Buy a stranger a coffee
-- Buy a homeless person a meal
-- Pick up garbage in your neighbourhood
-- Help a neighbour with his gardening
-- Offer to babysit for a single mom
-- Don't just tip 15 or 20%... tip the value of the bill
-- Take an elderly neighbour out for coffee
-- Take your nieces or nephews to the park
-- Tell people you love them
-- Spread joy and laughter on social media
-- Hug
-- and whatever else you can think of!

DID YOU KNOW THAT Meetup STARTED BECAUSE OF 9/11

On September 11, 2001, Meetup Founder Scott Heiferman was living in New York. In the wake of those devastating attacks, he became closer with his neighbors through a shared experience of grief and support. In his own words, Scott says, “9/11 was a terrifying day, intended to scare us into hiding inside in fear. Instead, I saw New Yorkers get outside and get together as neighbors.”

The fellowship, camaraderie, and random acts of kindness seen throughout the following weeks inspired Scott to create a platform that would help people connect and experience life together. The idea was to “use the internet to get people off the internet.” When new friends and neighbors come together through Meetup, they’re less lonely, more powerful, and capable of making great things happen.
20 Million Acts of Kindness in honour of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 | Meetup
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