“Road Diary”
Lily Dale, the town that talks to the dead
& New York City: August 2004 

Tara communicates with the dead in Lily Dale and is then bombarded by earthbound entities at Ground Zero 

By Dick Sutphen

AUGUST 19: While in Buffalo, Tara and I attended the Erie County Fair. Here she is on a 21-year old elephant named Karen. Tara projected golden light and psychic energy to the animal. After the ride, we stood at the railing and watched young children take a ride. As Karen came around, Tara’s was standing with her hands on the rail. The elephant caressed Tara’s hand with her trunk. My wife’s favorite book is “Travels With My Elephant” by Mark Shand. She keeps it on her bedstand, but refuses to read the last chapter. After this Karen experience, Tara started talking about going to India on an elephant trek.

Tara is holding a live Barrad Owl at the fair.

FRIDAY -- AUGUST 19: After conducting a weekend “Psychic Sessions” seminar in Cleveland and a two-evening version of the same seminar in Buffalo, Tara and I drove 60 miles to Lily Dale, NY -- the world-famous Spiritualist community that talks to the dead.

Last year Tammy Perry invited Tara and me to present separate programs during the 10-week summer season. Tonight from 7 to 10 PM, I will present a program titled “Love & Destiny.” Tomorrow afternoon from 1 to 4 PM Tara will present “Spiritual Path Meditations.”

Light rain is falling as we leave the main highway and turn onto Dale Drive, a winding road following the edge of Cassadaga Lake. We’re both delighted by the physical beauty of the environment. At the Lily Dale Assembly entrance gate we cross over into a Victorian world where time appears to have stopped.

You have to be a member of the Spiritualist Church to buy one of the turn-of-the-century houses in the 167-acre compound. We drive by a post office and a New Age store, to park at the hotel. Tammy is working behind the desk. She is pretty, friendly and directs us to follow her across the street to a room above the Assembly Hall where guest speakers are housed.

“There are no phones or TV sets in the rooms here,” Tammy explains. The Lily Dale experience is about getting away from the outside world. I notice that my cell phone is beeping “no service.”

Tammy also explains that they have switched my evening presentation to the larger main auditorium, because of the number of people who have registered to attend.

Elaine Thomas, a registered medium and the co-founder and director of the School of Spiritual Healing and Prophecy wants to take us to dinner. We make arrangements to meet at the hotel at 5 PM. This leaves a couple hours to clean up and explore the grounds.

Tara and I walk in the rain to the auditorium. I am nervous about the sound system. As a hypnotist, I need crisp, clean sound I can verbally manipulate, plus a way to play trance-inducing music through the system. It is Mercury Retrograde and we’re already experienced lost luggage, and dozen other retro screw-ups.

Because of the rain, a free program normally conducted outdoors is being held in the auditorium. I enter with Tara and am told the building can hold 1000 people. Several of our Buffalo seminar participants are here, and they warmly welcome us.

There are two large pole-mounted speakers, which is reassuring, but it doesn’t look like the medium who will be speaking is going to use the stage or the sound system. Tara wants to attend the program. I need the hour to go over the notes for my presentation.

Tara and I meet an hour later and visit the New Age store, which if very much like any New Age store, anywhere. My wife purchases several birthday gifts for Leo friends.

We meet Tammy and Elaine for dinner at Monika’s, a tiny restaurant in a house fronting a Cassadaga Lake boat channel. We’re introduced to the chef who was once an opera singer, and his hostess wife, once a ballerina.

AUGUST 20: Tara and Tammy Perry on the deck at Monica’s Restaurant on the boat channel at Cassadaga Lake in Lily Dale, NY.

The meal is exquisite. The conversation enlightening. We learn more about Lily Dale and Elaine’s school. Her husband is running for congress.

Dinner over, it is 40 minutes to show time. In the auditorium I am introduced to a soundman. He turns on the system, I speak into the microphone and am horrified. The sound coming out of the speakers is flat, hollow and totally unacceptable. And when I say unacceptable, that is a huge understatement. I dive for the amp/mixer and get to work. It does not respond to anything I do.

“It always sounds like this,” says the soundman.

People are now coming into the auditorium. Ten minutes to show time.

The sound system we’re carrying for our own seminars is way too small for a venue of this size filled with hundreds of people. But I dash for the car and within minutes set it up and pray for the best. There is no way to test it in advance.

When I take the stage, I push the volume to the limit and am relieved to find the auditorium acoustics to be ideal. The sound is crisp and it fills the room. I tell the audience I am honored to be here. I have heard of Lily Dale all my adult life, and I know the worlds greatest mediums have stood on this stage.

I talk about “Soul Agreements,” the new book Tara and I have written, which will be published by Hampton Roads in the spring. I share some of the case histories and talk in general about fated meetings and destined paths. The audience asks intelligent questions, which allows me to spin off in different directions. After conditioning the group for altered-state work, I conduct a “Pre-Birth Planning Session” regression. More questions. The final process of the three-hour program calls in spirits to assist the participants to obtain answers to questions such as “What do you have yet to accomplish in this life?”

When the evening is over, the organizers tell me, “You had ten of the registered mediums here in the audience and several of the healers. That never happens. They gave up doing their readings tonight to be here with you.”

I feel even more honored.

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