Spiritualist camps

1. Introduction

Version followed: the three best-known US Spiritualist camps as they are currently run and publicly described: Lily Dale Assembly (New York), the Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association (Florida) and Camp Chesterfield (Indiana Association of Spiritualists). Camp self-descriptions are taken from the World Religions and Spirituality Project (WRSP) profile, which quotes the Cassadaga camp's own pages, and from recent reporting that quotes camp officers; details on the camps' own websites are marked [uncertain: not verified]. The therapist's procedures in sections 2 to 5 are [synthesis] unless a source is given. For Spiritualism as a religion and the séance itself, cross-refer 094 (Spiritualism and the séance).

What these are. A Spiritualist camp is a lakeside or woodland community, usually founded in the late nineteenth century as a summer camp meeting, owned by a Spiritualist association that leases lots to residents and admits only mediums and healers it has registered or certified. Visitors come for public "message services" (short spirit messages given to members of an audience), healing services (laying on of hands), Spiritualist church services, workshops, and paid private readings with a medium [source: Smithsonian 2025; Religion News Service 2012; WRSP Cassadaga profile]. They are religious organisations, not therapy services; this guide is written for the psychotherapist whose client visits, lives in, works at, or has left one of these camps.

• Lily Dale (NY). Spiritualists gathered on the site from 1873; in 1879 they formed the Cassadaga Lake Free Association to run it as a religious camp; it took the name Lily Dale in the early twentieth century. About 300 residents; 15,000 to 20,000 summer visitors. Run by the Lily Dale Assembly, whose board has the final say on which mediums are accepted; the Lily Dale Mediums League (registered mediums) handles mediums' schedules and helped write the testing standards. Around 40 mediums live and work there [source: Smithsonian 2025]. Residency requires being a medium or being recognised by Spiritualism [source: Religion News Service 2012].
• Cassadaga (FL). Founded by the medium and healer George P. Colby, who homesteaded in Volusia County from 1875; the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association was chartered in 1894 and its first season opened in February 1895. The association owns all land in the 57-acre camp and grants 99-year leases. The privately owned Cassadaga Hotel and nearby metaphysical shops are not part of the camp [source: WRSP Cassadaga profile].
• Camp Chesterfield (IN). Founded in 1890 under J. W. Westerfield, first president of the Indiana Association of Spiritualists; began as a tent city [source: Indiana Historical Bureau 2016]. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 [source: Discover Indiana]. It is not chartered by the National Spiritualist Association of Churches [source: Nickell 2002]. A nonprofit, the Friends of Camp Chesterfield Foundation, works on restoration; Indiana Landmarks listed the camp among the state's ten most endangered historic sites in 2015 and 2016 [source: Indiana Historical Bureau 2016].

Core idea of how change happens (as Spiritualists state it). Personal identity continues after death and the dead can communicate through mediums; mediumship gives "evidence" of that continuity, and healing is channelled from a divine source. Cassadaga's published principles stress Infinite Intelligence, continuity of life, communication with the dead, the Golden Rule and personal moral responsibility [source: WRSP Cassadaga profile]. A Lily Dale officer describes Jesus as a master teacher and healer but rejects substitutionary atonement in favour of self-responsibility [source: Religion News Service 2012]. Mediums say their purpose is to show the continuity of life, and that sensing a deceased loved one's presence can itself be healing [source: Smithsonian 2025; Religion News Service 2012].

Evidence status in one line: survival of the person after death and spirit communication through mediums are religious claims not established by mainstream science; some proponent researchers report positive laboratory results and possible grief benefits, which remain contested [uncertain: independent reviews not verified; source for proponent work: Psi Encyclopedia, Beischel].

Fraud history, which clients may raise. Spiritualism's founding story (the Fox sisters' rappings, 1848) was followed by the sisters' 1888 confession that the rappings were a hoax (Spiritualists commonly dismissed the confession) [source: Smithsonian 2025; Indiana Historical Bureau 2016]. Between 1884 and 1887 the University of Pennsylvania's Seybert Commission reported suspected fraud among several mediums, some of whom had worked temporarily at Lily Dale; it did not investigate Assembly members or residents [source: Smithsonian 2025]. Lily Dale mediums have since dropped materialisation and object manipulation from formal readings and focus on verbal evidence [source: Smithsonian 2025]. Cassadaga tightened certification after an 1896 fraud accusation against a visiting medium [source: WRSP Cassadaga profile]. Camp Chesterfield has the most documented exposures:

• Its early programmes (1901 to 1908) advertised trumpet mediumship, slate writing, spirit photography, materialisation and "precipitated" spirit portraits [source: Indiana Historical Bureau 2016].
• In 1925, 14 mediums were arrested at once in Indiana on false-pretence charges that were later thrown out [source: Indiana Historical Bureau 2016].
• In 1960 two investigators who were sympathetic to Spiritualism filmed a materialisation séance at Chesterfield with infrared equipment; the film showed the "spirit" figures were people in luminous gauze, some recognisable as camp residents, entering through a concealed door [source: Nickell 2002, citing Keene 1976 and Christopher 1970].
• A former Chesterfield medium, M. Lamar Keene, published a confessional account, The Psychic Mafia (1976; Prometheus reprint 1997 with Allen Spraggett), describing purchased "apports" (gifts said to be materialised by spirits), chiffon passed off as ectoplasm, secretly read "billets" (sitters' written questions), and files on sitters kept and shared among mediums for later readings [source: Nickell 2002; WorldCat record].
• In 2001 a skeptic investigator attended Chesterfield undercover and reported billet-reading, a direct-voice séance with apports, and practices he judged little changed from those Keene described [source: Nickell 2002]. These are one investigator's observations, not findings of a court or regulator.

2. Framework

This is an organisational and community setting, not a therapy with phases. The framework has two parts: how the camps structure participation, and how the therapist structures work with a client involved with them [synthesis].

2a. How the camps structure participation (as published)

• Season and access. Lily Dale runs a summer season of about ten weeks with lectures, workshops (spirit communication, tarot, astrology) and daily services; a summer community access fee of $15 per day applies, and private readings cost extra (prices not stated) [source: Smithsonian 2025]. Cassadaga runs year-round activities with three Sunday morning services: an instructional service on Spiritualism, a healing service, and a church service with hymns, a guided healing meditation and a lecture [source: WRSP Cassadaga profile]. Chesterfield's current schedule and fees: [uncertain: not verified].
• Public message services. At Lily Dale, daily outdoor services at Inspiration Stump and the Forest Temple, opened and closed with prayer; registered, visiting and student mediums give brief messages to audience members; free to attend once inside the gate [source: Smithsonian 2025; Religion News Service 2012].
• Healing services. Healers lay hands on or just above participants (Lily Dale's Healing Temple, Cassadaga's Sunday healing service) [source: Religion News Service 2012; WRSP Cassadaga profile]. Cassadaga states that spiritual healing complements and does not replace physicians [source: WRSP Cassadaga profile].
• Private readings. Booked online or through sign-up sheets on mediums' porches; popular mediums are booked well ahead; one Lily Dale medium limits herself to four clients a day [source: Religion News Service 2012; Smithsonian 2025].
• Séances and circles. Lily Dale's Monday Night Circles give small groups mini-readings and serve as a testing ground for candidate mediums [source: Smithsonian 2025]; Cassadaga has a séance room [source: WRSP Cassadaga profile]; Chesterfield has offered billet-reading and dark-room séances [source: Nickell 2002].
• Becoming a camp medium or healer. Lily Dale: interview with the board and Mediums League, then a two-year vetting period of supervised public messages, circles and evaluated private readings, with annual renewal; visiting and student mediums may take part in public services [source: Smithsonian 2025]. Cassadaga: a certification process of at least four years for mediums and healers; all mediums working in the camp must be certified and describe themselves as "SCSCMA Certified" [source: WRSP Cassadaga profile]. Chesterfield training and ordination: [uncertain: not verified].
• Leadership. Elected boards of the owning associations; named officers change over time (for example, an executive director and a board vice-president quoted in reporting) [source: Religion News Service 2012; Smithsonian 2025].

2b. The therapist's work with a client involved with a camp [synthesis]

No source gives a session count or format for this work; fit it inside the client's ongoing therapy.

1. Engagement and meaning. Goal: understand what the camp, reading or community means to the client in their own words. Move on when you can state the client's view back to their satisfaction.
2. Cultural and spiritual formulation. Goal: place the experience in the client's religious and cultural frame using the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview and its spirituality, religion and moral traditions supplementary module [uncertain: DSM-5-TR text not verified]. Move on when you know whether Spiritualism is the client's religion, an exploration, a grief-driven visit, or a family tradition.
3. Grief and differential assessment. Goal: distinguish ordinary grief with continuing bonds from prolonged grief disorder, depression, PTSD, psychosis or mania, without treating belief in spirit contact as a symptom. Move on when the diagnostic picture is clear enough to plan.
4. Working with readings and community life. Goal: help the client integrate readings and messages, protect money and autonomy, and keep decisions in their own hands. Continue as long as the client brings this material.
5. Transitions. Goal: support leaving, disillusionment, becoming a medium, or family conflict, as relevant; refer for grief-specific treatment, pastoral support or other care when indicated.

3. Guiding principles

• Describe, do not adjudicate. Spirit communication is the client's religious claim, neither confirmed nor refuted by you; your job is its meaning and effects [synthesis].
• Respect religious difference. Psychologists stay aware of religious differences and keep their own biases out of their work (APA Principle E) [source: APA Ethics Code]. In practice: no eye-rolling, no "have you considered it's a trick" unless the client asks for your view.
• Competence or referral. Where religious factors are essential to effective services, get training, consultation or supervision, or refer [source: APA Ethics Code; synthesis]. In practice: read about Spiritualism before the second session if it is central for the client.
• The therapist is never the medium. No readings, messages, healing hands or "sensing" the deceased in session, even if you practise these elsewhere; avoid multiple relationships that could impair objectivity or risk exploitation (APA Ethics Code 3.05) [source: APA Ethics Code]. In practice: decline invitations to attend a camp service with the client or to book with a medium you know.
• Continuing bonds are not pathology. Many bereaved people keep an inner relationship with the dead; proponent researchers frame mediumship readings within the continuing-bonds literature [source: Psi Encyclopedia, Beischel]. In practice: assess function (comfort, guilt, avoidance, dependency), not belief.
• Grief disorder is about impairment, not belief. DSM-5-TR prolonged grief disorder centres on intense yearning for, or preoccupation with, the deceased [source: APA DSM-5-TR PGD fact sheet]; duration and impairment thresholds [uncertain: not verified]. In practice: frequent readings are a signal to assess, not a diagnosis.
• Spiritual distress can be named without pathologising. ICD-10-CM Z65.8 includes "religious or spiritual problem" [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM]; DSM-5-TR wording for the corresponding code [uncertain: not verified]. In practice: use it when a crisis of faith after disillusionment is the focus.
• Autonomy over money and decisions. Readings are paid services; help the client set limits and keep major decisions their own [synthesis].
• History is information, not a weapon. Documented fraud at one camp in one era does not establish that a client's medium is fraudulent; offer it only when the client asks or when exploitation is current [synthesis].
• Safeguarding comes first. Children's welfare, medical care that is being refused or delayed, and suicidal wishes to rejoin the dead override neutrality [synthesis].
• Informed consent includes the spiritual frame. Explain early how you will work with spiritual material, fees and confidentiality [source: APA Ethics Code; synthesis].

4. Intervention inventory

The camps' own practices (message services, private readings, healing, circles, séances, certification) are described in section 2a; the therapist does not perform or teach any of them. The interventions below are the therapist's own work with clients involved with the camps. All are [synthesis] built on the sources cited, unless marked otherwise.

4.1 Client-led exploration of the camp experience

• Purpose / when: First time a client mentions a camp visit, a reading, residence, or Spiritualist faith. Establishes what it means before any assessment.
• Steps: (1) Ask what drew them there and what they hoped for. (2) Ask what happened, in sequence (services, readings, healing). (3) Ask what it meant and how they felt afterwards, over days, not just in the moment. (4) Use their terms ("spirit", "message", "evidence", "Spirit loved ones") and check you have them right. (5) Ask whether they want this to be part of therapy and how.
• Example language (illustrative): "You mentioned Lily Dale. Tell me about it in your own words: what took you there, and what you came away with." / "When you say the medium brought 'evidence', what was it that convinced you, or didn't?"
• Watch for: Hesitancy that suggests the client expects ridicule; relief at being asked. Working when the client volunteers detail and links the experience to their life story.

4.2 Cultural formulation with the spirituality module

• Purpose / when: Spiritualism is the client's religion, family tradition or a significant part of coping.
• Steps: (1) Use the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview, adding its supplementary module on spirituality, religion and moral traditions [uncertain: module wording not verified; do not reproduce items]. (2) Map affiliation: camp resident, church member, occasional visitor, online follower. (3) Ask how their community understands their current problem, and what help it offers (healing services, minister, fellow mediums). (4) Ask about conflicts between their faith and family, previous religion or treatment. (5) Write a short formulation in the client's terms and check it with them.
• Example language (illustrative): "How would people at your church understand what you're going through? What would they suggest?" / "Is there anything about therapy that sits uneasily with your beliefs?"
• Watch for: Spiritualism as an identity versus a single grief-driven visit; conflicts with Christian family members (camp officers report hostility from some local Christian groups [source: Religion News Service 2012]).

4.3 Grief and continuing-bonds assessment

• Purpose / when: The client visits mediums after a death; distinguishes adaptive continuing bonds from prolonged grief disorder or other conditions.
• Steps: (1) Take a bereavement history: who died, when, how, relationship quality, unfinished business. (2) Ask what the client sought from readings (proof of survival, apology, permission, reassurance the person is at peace). (3) Assess core prolonged-grief features: intense yearning and preoccupation with the deceased [source: APA DSM-5-TR PGD fact sheet]; check duration and impairment against the full DSM-5-TR criteria [uncertain: thresholds not verified]. (4) Screen for depression, PTSD after traumatic deaths, and substance use. (5) Assess the function of readings: does the contact help them carry the relationship forward and re-engage with life, or keep them waiting for the next message? (6) Share your understanding and agree on goals.
• Example language (illustrative): "After the reading, did you feel more able to get on with your days, or more pulled back toward the loss?" / "Some people feel a continuing relationship with someone who has died. How does that work for you?"
• Watch for: Readings that reduce guilt and allow re-engagement (adaptive); readings booked compulsively, with distress between them, or life organised around anniversaries and messages (assess further). Proponent researchers argue for readings as a continuing-bonds resource [source: Psi Encyclopedia, Beischel]; this is not established clinical evidence.

4.4 Differential assessment of unusual experiences without pathologising

• Purpose / when: The client reports sensing the deceased, hearing messages, or developing mediumistic abilities.
• Steps: (1) Normalise inquiry: ask about the experience neutrally. (2) Establish context: in grief, in a camp circle, in development classes, spontaneously. (3) Assess control, distress and function: can they start and stop it, is it shared with their community's practice, does it impair sleep, work or relationships? (4) Screen for features outside the religious frame: thought disorder, grandiosity, reduced need for sleep, persecutory ideas, dissociative gaps, command content. (5) If concerns remain, seek psychiatric assessment while telling the client you are not judging their faith.
• Example language (illustrative): "Can you tell me how this experience compares with what other mediums in your circle describe?" / "Has anything about these experiences frightened you or felt out of your control?"
• Watch for: Experiences congruent with the community's practice and under the client's control (usually no disorder); new onset with sleep loss, grandiosity or fear (urgent assessment). Use Z65.8 "religious or spiritual problem" when the issue is spiritual distress rather than disorder [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM].

4.5 Reading debrief

• Purpose / when: The client brings the content of a reading or public message.
• Steps: (1) Ask what was said, as close to the words as they recall; if they recorded or wrote it down, they may share it. (2) Ask which parts felt meaningful, which did not fit, and what they felt in the body. (3) Ask what they are taking from it: comfort, an instruction, a prediction, a judgement. (4) Separate meaning from directive: what would they decide if the message had not been given? (5) Link meaningful parts to their own values and relationship with the deceased.
• Example language (illustrative): "Of everything she said, what stayed with you?" / "If you set the reading aside, what does your own sense of your mother tell you she'd want?"
• Watch for: Messages used as permission to grieve or forgive (often helpful); messages taken as commands about health, money, relationships or medical care (address directly, 4.8, 4.14).

4.6 Managing a distressing message

• Purpose / when: A message described the death, assigned blame, predicted misfortune, or conflicted with the client's memory. Reporting notes that some messages open with how the person died, which can be emotionally heavy [source: Religion News Service 2012].
• Steps: (1) Ground and stabilise if the client is activated. (2) Validate the distress without disputing the source. (3) Explore the specific fear (for example, the person suffered; the client is blamed). (4) Use ordinary grief work: what the client knows of the death, what they did, what they could not control. (5) For traumatic deaths, assess for PTSD and use trauma-focused treatment where indicated. (6) Plan how they will respond if a similar message comes again.
• Example language (illustrative): "That message landed hard. Let's slow down and look at what it stirred up." / "What do you know, from what you saw and were told at the time, about how he died?"
• Watch for: Intrusive images and avoidance after a vivid message (trauma); renewed self-blame; booking more readings to "correct" the message.

4.7 Cost, frequency and dependency map

• Purpose / when: Readings, workshops, development classes or travel to camps are frequent or costly. Camps charge gate fees in season and private readings cost extra [source: Smithsonian 2025].
• Steps: (1) With permission, list readings, classes, donations and travel over the last few months, with approximate costs. (2) Ask what happens emotionally before and after each. (3) Compare with the client's budget and priorities. (4) If the client wishes, agree a personal limit (number, interval, budget) and a pause rule (for example, waiting before booking after a bad day). (5) Review at intervals.
• Example language (illustrative): "Would it help to look together at how often you've been booking readings and what they've cost, just so you can see the picture?" / "What does the urge to book feel like, and what usually sets it off?"
• Watch for: Escalating frequency, borrowing, hiding spending, readings replacing other support. Working when spending is within the client's chosen limit and the client feels in charge.

4.8 Decision-autonomy check

• Purpose / when: Readings are guiding major decisions (moving, money, relationships, children, health).
• Steps: (1) Name the decision and the guidance received. (2) Ask what information besides the reading bears on it. (3) Use ordinary decision tools (pros and cons, values, consequences over time). (4) Encourage the client to consult relevant professionals (financial, legal, medical) before acting. (5) Confirm the decision is theirs.
• Example language (illustrative): "The message said to sell the house. Apart from that, what do you yourself think about selling?"
• Watch for: Pressure for urgent payment or action from any practitioner; requests to keep advice secret from family (exploitation signals) [synthesis].

4.9 Pre-visit planning conversation

• Purpose / when: The client says they intend to visit a camp. The therapist neither recommends nor discourages; this is planning for wellbeing.
• Steps: (1) Ask what they hope for and what they fear. (2) Explore how they would feel if no contact came; visitors interviewed at Lily Dale say contact does not always come [source: Religion News Service 2012]. (3) Agree a spending limit. (4) Plan support for the days after (a person to call, rest). (5) Offer to talk it through at the next session.
• Example language (illustrative): "If you go and nothing comes through for you, how might that feel? What would help?"
• Watch for: Expectations that a reading will "fix" the grief; very recent or traumatic loss with high distress (consider waiting or extra support).

4.10 Working with disillusionment or a sense of having been deceived

• Purpose / when: The client comes to believe a reading or medium was fraudulent, learns of documented exposures (for example, the 1960 Chesterfield film or Keene's account), or loses faith.
• Steps: (1) Let the client tell you what happened and what they now believe; do not lead toward or away from fraud. (2) If they ask for facts, give them accurately and proportionately: documented exposures concern specific practices and periods, and the camps describe stricter vetting since (section 1) [source: Nickell 2002; Smithsonian 2025; WRSP Cassadaga profile]. (3) Address shame ("how could I fall for it") and anger. (4) Separate what the experience gave them (comfort, community) from what it cost. (5) Explore the spiritual loss: what remains of their beliefs about death and connection; use Z65.8 framing where appropriate [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM]. (6) If they want to pursue a complaint or refund, signpost to consumer-protection bodies or legal advice; do not investigate yourself.
• Example language (illustrative): "You trusted her with something precious. Feeling foolish now is common, and it isn't the whole story of what you did or why." / "What part of what you believed about your father still feels true to you?"
• Watch for: Grief reactivating as a "second loss" of the deceased; rigid swing to contempt for all faith; withdrawal from a community that was their main support.

4.11 Supporting clients who are mediums, healers or trainees

• Purpose / when: The client is a camp medium or healer, a student medium, or in certification (two-year vetting at Lily Dale, at least four years at Cassadaga) [source: Smithsonian 2025; WRSP Cassadaga profile].
• Steps: (1) Treat the work as their vocation and religion. (2) Ask about workload, emotional load of sitters' grief, and boundaries (one Lily Dale medium limits herself to four clients a day [source: Religion News Service 2012]). (3) Explore evaluation stress during testing, rivalry, and income insecurity. (4) Screen for burnout, sleep loss, and physical health neglect; one proponent study reported poorer physical health among a small sample of mediums [source: Psi Encyclopedia, Beischel]. (5) Distinguish voluntary, bounded mediumship from intrusive or uncontrolled experiences (4.4).
• Example language (illustrative): "You hold a lot of other people's grief in a season. Where does yours go?" / "What happens for you between readings when the day has been heavy?"
• Watch for: Vicarious grief, exhaustion, guilt about failed readings, ethical distress about sitters' dependency.

4.12 Residents, community life and leaving

• Purpose / when: The client lives in a camp community or is considering leaving one. Residency is tied to the association: land is owned by the association with long leases, and residence may require being a medium or recognised Spiritualist [source: WRSP Cassadaga profile; Religion News Service 2012].
• Steps: (1) Map what is tied to membership: housing, income, friendships, church. (2) Explore the client's reasons and their pace. (3) If leaving affects their lease or home, signpost to independent legal or housing advice. (4) Build supports outside the community. (5) Grieve losses of belonging even if the decision is right.
• Example language (illustrative): "If you stepped back from the camp, what would you lose, and what would you keep?"
• Watch for: Isolation, fear of judgement from neighbours, loss of income from readings. Independent reports of high-control dynamics at these camps: none found in the sources consulted; assess the individual situation.

4.13 Family members' concerns

• Purpose / when: A family member is worried about a relative's spending, beliefs or decisions related to a camp or medium.
• Steps: (1) Hear the specific concern (money, health, isolation, grief). (2) Separate disagreement with beliefs from evidence of harm. (3) Coach curiosity rather than confrontation: ask the relative what readings mean to them. (4) Where harm is concrete (large sums, refusal of medical care, an adult at risk), discuss proper routes: the relative's own clinicians, adult protective services, financial advisers. (5) Support the family member's own grief, which may be the shared loss.
• Example language (illustrative): "What worries you most: the beliefs themselves, or something specific that's happening?"
• Watch for: Family conflict between Spiritualist and other religious members; arguments that drive the relative further from support.

4.14 Healing services and medical care check

• Purpose / when: The client attends healing services or receives laying on of hands for illness.
• Steps: (1) Ask what conditions they are seeking healing for. (2) Confirm they are under medical care; Cassadaga itself states spiritual healing complements and does not replace physicians [source: WRSP Cassadaga profile]. (3) Never advise starting, stopping or changing a medicine; route medical questions to their doctor. (4) If a client is delaying necessary treatment, discuss it directly and, with consent, involve their doctor.
• Example language (illustrative): "The camp itself says healing works alongside your doctors. Is your doctor up to date on what's going on?"
• Watch for: Hope placed solely in healing; children's medical care at risk (4.17). Evidence status: spiritual healing claims are attributed to the practitioners and are not established as treatment for any physical disease [synthesis].

4.15 Assessing risk when the wish to reunite is strong

• Purpose / when: A bereaved client speaks of wanting to be with the deceased, or a message seems to invite reunion.
• Steps: (1) Ask directly and calmly about thoughts of death and suicide, using your service's standard risk assessment. (2) Distinguish longing for the person from intent to die. (3) If risk is present, make a safety plan, involve supports, and follow your local emergency pathway; lethal-means counselling focuses on safe storage and removal. (4) Continue grief work once safe.
• Example language (illustrative): "When you say you want to be with her, does that ever include thoughts of ending your life?"
• Watch for: Anniversaries, belief that death would bring certain reunion, settling affairs, withdrawal. Discuss without detail about methods, in line with safe messaging practice.

4.16 Collaboration with the client's Spiritualist minister or community

• Purpose / when: The client wishes their community to support them (for example, a minister or healer at their church).
• Steps: (1) Ask whether they want this and who. (2) Obtain written consent specifying what is shared. (3) Clarify roles: the minister supports faith; you provide therapy. (4) Keep contact brief and focused on the client's goals.
• Example language (illustrative): "Would it help if I spoke with your minister, so you have support both here and at church? You decide what I share."
• Watch for: Pressure from either side to adopt the other's frame; confidentiality slips in a small community.

4.17 Children and safeguarding

• Purpose / when: Children are taken to readings or séances, given messages about deceased parents or siblings, raised in a camp community, or are subject to faith-based delay of medical care.
• Steps: (1) Ask how the child experiences readings and messages, at their developmental level, with the parent's consent and the child's assent. (2) Watch for fear, sleep problems, or confusion about death. (3) Ensure ordinary assessment (developmental, ADHD, autism, mood) is not replaced by spiritual explanations. (4) Follow local safeguarding procedures where medical neglect or harm is suspected.
• Example language (illustrative, to a parent): "How does your daughter seem after the services? Has she said anything about what she heard?"
• Watch for: Children carrying adult grief through messages; frightening content. Camps also hold family events (Lily Dale has a children's Fairy Festival in autumn) [source: Smithsonian 2025]; participation alone is not a concern.

4.18 Therapist boundaries and self-disclosure

• Purpose / when: Throughout, and especially if the therapist is personally Spiritualist, sceptical, or practises mediumship or healing.
• Steps: (1) Do not give readings, messages or healing to clients, or refer them to yourself in another role (APA 3.05) [source: APA Ethics Code]. (2) Keep any personal practice wholly separate from your clinical identity (no shared premises, websites or referral loops) [synthesis]. (3) Self-disclose beliefs only if it serves the client, briefly, and return to their experience. (4) Seek consultation when your own views (belief or scepticism) are pulling the work [synthesis]. (5) Build spiritual and religious competence; Vieten et al. (2013) proposed a set of spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists [uncertain: not verified].
• Example language (illustrative): "My own beliefs matter less here than yours. I'm interested in what this means to you."
• Watch for: Clients asking whether you "see" their loved one; the urge to debunk or to endorse.

5. Handling problems

The sources describe the camps, not psychotherapy with their visitors; all guidance in this section is [synthesis] unless a source is given.

• Client expects you to share or reject their belief. Say plainly that your role is to understand what it means to them and how it is affecting their life, not to rule on spirit contact. If they press, a brief honest statement of your stance followed by a return to their experience usually settles it.
• Client wants you to attend a service, book a medium, or hear a recorded reading as "proof". Decline attendance and booking (multiple-relationship risk, APA 3.05) [source: APA Ethics Code]. You can listen to or read material the client brings if it serves the work, focusing on its meaning, not its accuracy.
• Stuck grief: readings repeated, little change. Revisit 4.3 and 4.7. Name the pattern gently, link it to yearning and avoidance, and offer grief-focused treatment for prolonged grief where criteria are met [source for disorder concept: APA DSM-5-TR PGD fact sheet; treatment choice: synthesis].
• Resistance when you raise cost or frequency. Step back to curiosity; ask permission before any review; frame limits as the client's own choice in service of their goals, never as a verdict on mediums.
• Overwhelm after a public message or private reading. Use grounding first, then 4.6. If symptoms of trauma persist, assess and treat accordingly.
• Non-adherence to agreed spending limits. Treat it as information about the urge, not failure; map triggers (anniversaries, loneliness, bad news) and add alternative supports for those moments.
• Rupture: client feels judged after you mention fraud history. Acknowledge it directly, take responsibility for how it landed, and reaffirm that the history concerns specific practices and periods, not their experience or their medium. Do not raise it again unless the client does.
• Rupture: client feels you are "too accepting" when they are disillusioned. Validate their anger and sense of deception; move into 4.10.
• Messages contradict therapy ("Spirit says you don't need counselling"). Explore the message's meaning and what the client wants; respect their decision while making a plan for re-contact if things worsen.
• Unusual experiences escalate. Follow 4.4 promptly; involve psychiatric assessment when sleep loss, grandiosity, paranoia or loss of control appear, explaining that this is about their wellbeing, not their faith.
• Pressure for large payments or secrecy from a practitioner. Discuss exploitation signals openly; signpost to consumer protection, police, or adult protective services where an adult at risk is involved. Do not name or accuse a practitioner yourself.
• Medical care delayed in favour of healing. Apply 4.14; for children, follow safeguarding procedures (4.17).
• Suicidal wish to reunite. Apply 4.15 at once; this takes precedence over all other work.
• The therapist's own reactions. Fascination, scepticism or personal belief can distort the work; seek consultation [synthesis].

Sources

Web sources:

• World Religions and Spirituality Project: Cassadaga Spiritual Camp timeline and profile (profile page: https://wrldrels.org/2021/01/19/cassadaga-spiritual-camp/)
• Smithsonian Magazine: The tiny New York town where mediums give voice to the dead (Erin Donaghue, 5 September 2025; cited above as "Smithsonian 2025")
• Religion News Service (2012): Lily Dale, N.Y., a gated community for Spiritualists
• Nickell, J. (2002). Undercover among the spirits: Investigating Camp Chesterfield. Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2002
• Beckley, L. (2016). Mesmerism, rappings, and trance speaking: Spiritualism in Indiana. Indiana History Blog, Indiana Historical Bureau
• Discover Indiana: Chesterfield Spiritualist Camp (Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology)
• WorldCat record: Keene, M. L., & Spraggett, A. The Psychic Mafia (Prometheus Books, 1997)
• Psi Encyclopedia (Society for Psychical Research): Julie Beischel
• American Psychiatric Association: DSM-5-TR Prolonged Grief Disorder fact sheet
• ICD-10-CM Z65.8, Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances (includes 'Religious or spiritual problem'), https://www.unboundmedicine.com/icd/view/ICD-10-CM/945432/all/Z65_8___Other_specified_problems_related_to_psychosocial_circumstances
• American Psychological Association: Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct

Books and articles (bibliographic details as given in the web sources above):

• Keene, M. L. (1976). The Psychic Mafia [original publisher uncertain; reprint Prometheus Books, 1997].
• Christopher, M. (1970), cited by Nickell (2002) for the 1960 Chesterfield exposure [title uncertain].
• Beischel, J., Mosher, C., & Boccuzzi, M. (2014–15). The possible effects on bereavement of assisted after-death communication during readings with psychic mediums: A continuing bonds perspective. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 70(2), 169–194.
• Vieten, C., et al. (2013). Spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists [uncertain: not verified].
• American Psychiatric Association (2022). DSM-5-TR, Cultural Formulation Interview and supplementary modules [uncertain: not verified].