Episode Transcript
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0:02
I've finally made it to the Cassadeca
0:05
Library, but as with everything in
0:07
this place, they did not make it easy.
0:10
It's a Tuesday night and the sun is setting.
0:13
For my entire time here, I don't ever feel
0:15
afraid or threatened when
0:17
night falls near the Ghost Church.
0:20
And I mean that. I mean. One of the first things I
0:22
was told by Pastor deb when I was planning
0:24
my trip to Cassadeca was
0:26
that there was this energy vortex
0:29
in the area, a spirit vortex.
0:32
It sounds a little scary, but all it
0:34
means is that this is a place where
0:37
contact with the dead is more possible
0:39
than almost anywhere else in the country.
0:42
Other areas that have vortexes include
0:44
Arizona, New Mexico, the
0:46
Midwest in many places, New
0:49
England, and of course of State,
0:51
New York, basically anywhere spiritualism
0:54
popped off. The b and Game
0:56
in Memorial Library is on Stephens
0:58
Street in Cassadakeh, right by
1:01
where I did my session with the Reverend Doctor
1:03
Louis Gates and the Ferry
1:05
Trail where tourists leave those little
1:07
trinkets and remembrances of themselves
1:10
and they're dead. And Gaiman herself
1:12
was trained as a medium in Cassadega,
1:14
beginning as a teenager and served
1:17
as a medium to lobbyists and congress
1:19
people in the DC area for decades.
1:22
Make of that what you will. The library
1:24
itself doubles as an educational
1:27
building where classes take place and
1:29
as another example of a property in Cassadega
1:32
that could definitely use
1:34
a renovation. Lawn
1:36
is a little bit barren. There's some
1:38
detritus close to one of the exits,
1:41
and there don't seem to be any lights on inside
1:44
on the street where most of the houses have soft
1:47
lights from the interior, telling you
1:49
that at least someone is home, either
1:51
making dinner or possibly helping
1:54
someone connect with the dead mother they never got
1:56
closure with. I crossed the lawn
1:58
and try one of the entry says it's
2:00
a lucky guess, And suddenly I'm standing
2:02
in what appears to just look like someone's
2:05
house with the lights off. There's
2:07
a voice coming from down the hallway.
2:09
It sounds like there's a man talking to himself,
2:12
or actually, the longer I listened,
2:15
I realize he's talking to a dog.
2:17
I call the number I was given for the librarian
2:20
who works here, and feel deeply
2:23
paranoid because if I miscalculated
2:25
this, There's virtually no other
2:28
time to see whatever is going
2:30
on in this building. The library
2:32
is open exactly two hours per
2:34
week Tuesday night, seven pm
2:36
to nine pm, and has run by someone
2:39
who has what I feel is the most
2:41
noble profession in the entire world,
2:43
a volunteer librarian. As
2:46
I'm trying to get my nerve up to follow
2:48
this voice down the hall, a couple
2:50
enters the building behind me. I've
2:52
actually met the woman before at
2:55
a class called Healing one oh one at
2:57
the Andrew Jackson Davis building around
2:59
the corner. She had been excited to
3:01
learn that I was a reporter. Did I
3:03
want to read the children's books she self
3:05
published not too long ago. It's on Amazon.
3:09
The two are also volunteer librarians
3:12
here. I learned she and her husband
3:14
are Rhode Islanders who moved to Cassadega
3:17
sometime in the middle of the pandemic.
3:20
They had retired they were sick
3:22
of mask mandates, yet
3:24
another common feeling here in Cassadega
3:26
that seems to go against the traditional,
3:28
assumed progressivism of the religion.
3:31
She had taken an interest in spiritualism
3:34
and is training as a medium.
3:36
Herself, so at this point
3:38
the couple had been involved at the camp
3:40
intimately for months,
3:42
volunteering, taking classes,
3:45
and attending services for the
3:47
full year that it's necessary to before
3:49
one can qualify to rent land
3:52
from the camp to live on. As
3:54
we've discussed in past episodes, becoming
3:56
a medium at Cassadega takes
3:58
at least four years, and
4:00
she'll have to find a mentor to approve
4:02
and keep track of her training and volunteer
4:04
hours, and seems to have found the person
4:07
she's looking for via the librarian,
4:10
who as we get to the end of the hall,
4:13
is there with a little wheezing dog.
4:15
He asks, am I, Jamie. I
4:17
say yes and apologize for all the calls. I'm
4:20
just worried that I'll miss it when there's so few
4:22
hours available. He's a total sweetheart,
4:24
a man in his seventies with this
4:27
low musical voice named Richard
4:29
Russell. It is recognized
4:31
that everything in the universe's
4:34
energy and vibration. As
4:36
an extension of that knowledge, we
4:39
in accord our energy
4:41
and are affected by the vibrations around
4:44
us. He's been at Cassadega for
4:46
twenty five years and the library
4:48
is sort of his side project. You could say,
4:51
he tells me. It started in seventeen
4:53
with a donation of eighteen hundred books
4:56
from Endgame in herself and
4:58
has since ballooned to a collect
5:00
of over six thousand books and texts.
5:03
Every Tuesday, he and a few volunteers
5:05
continue the work of organizing the
5:07
titles into an infinity
5:10
Google spreadsheet. Six thousand
5:12
volumes is pretty impressive, But
5:14
what I'm most curious about on this night is
5:17
what kind of texts we're talking. For
5:20
the most part, I find the same
5:22
history is reported over and over
5:25
over a century of spiritualists
5:27
working out their ideas, working
5:29
out their inviting some texts
5:31
that reference more Eastern religion,
5:34
self help, idealism, American
5:36
individualism. It's a fascinating
5:39
collection, but it feels like
5:41
there's a lot missing. So
5:43
over the next two weeks, we're going to take
5:45
a look at the corners of spiritualism
5:47
that are even less discussed than the
5:50
religion itself. Will take a look
5:52
at the cultures that spiritualism appropriates
5:54
in order to distance itself from traditional
5:57
Christianity. How a supposedly
6:00
russ of religion managed to lose
6:02
the vast majority of their Black American
6:04
believers in the offshoot of spiritualism
6:07
that enmeshed with the beliefs of enslaved
6:10
people who had been moved to Imperial
6:12
Land and created a religious
6:14
movement that is far more popular
6:17
and practiced than spiritualism
6:19
in America itself. Let's
6:21
create a corner of the library that doesn't
6:23
exist. Meet me at the energy vortex
6:25
down at Seneca Pond. Wait
6:28
o, Seneca Wait. Let's do the
6:30
theme song first?
6:37
Is that Vera
7:27
so Richard shows me into this library
7:30
that's being organized as a volunteer
7:32
project by medium slash librarians.
7:36
Some of the materials are primary sources
7:38
and pamphlets that have been hanging around
7:40
the camp, semi organized for decades,
7:43
and other texts were inherited
7:45
by retired or passed into
7:47
spirit mediums, still to be arranged
7:50
and determined what their use in the camp might
7:52
be. The two rooms that compose the
7:54
library have these low ceilings
7:56
and are lit with fluorescent lights. Most
7:59
of the shelves are full, others are semi
8:01
organized arranged. Categories
8:04
so far include biographies
8:06
of mediums, metaphysical topics,
8:08
women's books, self help books. I
8:10
can't account for this, but there's a pile
8:13
of books on the ground that seemed to have to do
8:15
with the history of Nazis
8:17
between the late nineteen twenties and World
8:19
War Two. It's not pro Nazi
8:22
rhetoric, but I don't understand why
8:24
it's there. Richard is kind of
8:26
talking me through these categories as
8:28
he walks me around. He says,
8:30
we try to be inclusive, but
8:32
he gestures around a little helplessly before
8:35
earnestly begging me to please
8:37
put books back where I found them. They
8:39
don't have the infrastructure to organize them.
8:41
Again, he says, our
8:43
system is not the best
8:46
and if we get books out of whack. He
8:49
trails off, just completely overwhelmed
8:51
by the idea of books out of whack, and
8:53
he leaves me to it. So where to
8:55
start. I'm trying not to trip
8:58
over the random stacks of books and paper
9:00
that have yet to be categorized, and decided
9:02
that I'll try and start by seeking
9:04
out something I've been looking for since
9:06
I got here, any record or
9:09
context for the spiritualists preoccupation
9:12
with generalized indigenous history.
9:15
But for all the books that I can find,
9:18
just a sampling of titles. They've got
9:20
a copy of Women who Love Too Much,
9:22
They've got shelves dedicated to natural
9:24
law and angels and aura color and
9:27
astral projection, and even a copy
9:29
of that book by Dr Phil that everybody's
9:31
auntie has that book called Self Matters?
9:34
Why do they have that? What there's none
9:36
of is anything that concerns
9:38
spiritual practices outside
9:41
of American spiritualism, for
9:43
questions what cultural influences
9:45
they took in order to build their
9:47
own religion. In the several volumes
9:50
that exist on Cassadega's history,
9:53
one story always features prominently,
9:56
the Cassadega Founding story.
9:59
I find it in a number of titles
10:01
throughout the library, and it's been repeated
10:03
pretty often online as well, and
10:05
I think it's high time that we take a closer look
10:08
at it. On Ghost Church, that's
10:10
the show you're listening to. By the way,
10:14
mm, the
10:23
myth goes a little bit like this. The Fox
10:26
Sisters, who had first heard the spirit rappings
10:28
in Hydesville, New York in eighty
10:30
eight as kids, were dead and gone
10:32
by the mid eighteen nineties, after
10:35
decades of prosperity, struggle,
10:37
destitution, and establishing themselves
10:39
as some of the premier female religious
10:42
leaders of their time. While the Sisters
10:44
Maggie and Kate Fox in particular,
10:47
died in relative poverty and
10:49
obscurity. The legacy they
10:51
left behind was enormous.
10:54
Spiritualism had managed to cross
10:56
lines of fashionality, of gender,
10:58
of race, of class. It now belonged
11:01
to the whole world, and communities
11:03
were forming to continue the observance
11:06
and development of this Christian
11:08
influenced religion with no heaven or
11:10
Hell that emphasized spirit
11:13
communication and mediumship
11:16
entered George Colby, born
11:18
just weeks before the Fox sisters
11:20
made a splash in upstate New York.
11:23
Colby grew up in Pike, New York,
11:25
an hour outside of Rochester, before
11:27
the family moved to Minnesota, and Colby
11:30
developed an interest in spiritualism
11:32
as a teenager, beginning to work
11:34
as a medium in the eighteen sixties
11:36
and formally leaving his Baptist upbringing
11:39
in eighteen sixty seven after
11:41
the conclusion of the Civil War. Legend
11:45
has it that one of the main messages
11:47
Colby received during this time
11:50
was that it was his destiny to start
11:52
a spiritualist camp in the
11:54
US. But with all due
11:56
respect, George Colby said a
11:58
lot of things, and so did his
12:01
primary spirit guide, an indigenous
12:03
man named Seneca,
12:06
which we've been beating
12:08
around the bush on Seneca long enough. I've
12:10
mentioned before that Seneca is
12:13
a prominent name here at the Cassadega
12:15
Camp. One of the main parks that
12:17
one I was telling you about with the energy Vortex
12:20
is named for Seneca, and another meditation
12:23
garden, refers to Native American
12:25
spiritual practices in this very
12:28
Anglo centric, vagueified way.
12:31
It's called Medicine Wheel Park, right
12:33
around the corner from the library.
12:35
The camp's relationship to Indigenous
12:37
culture is at best
12:40
dissonant and bizarre. The
12:42
majority white religion is sprinkled
12:45
with references to Indigenous people and
12:47
culture, but without any specificity
12:50
or acknowledgement of these specific
12:52
tribes whose land they are living
12:55
and worshiping on. Instead, you'll
12:57
often find them leaning into popular
12:59
tropes around indigenous people as
13:01
a monoculture with unified
13:04
spiritual practices, characterizing
13:06
more indigenous spirit guides
13:09
acting in the interests of the white religion
13:11
than actual people who had lived and
13:14
died and had their land taken
13:16
from them. So to
13:18
begin, I want to present the story
13:20
of George Colby and his spirit
13:23
guide Seneca's journey to Cassadeca
13:26
with some annotations. Look,
13:29
I'm down to respect a religious legend
13:32
just as much as the next girl is,
13:35
but this one is regularly presented
13:38
as fact in and outside
13:40
of spiritualist circles, while
13:42
failing to acknowledge with all
13:44
due respect, actual facts,
13:47
actual people, and actual human
13:49
atrocities that made it possible
13:51
for Cassadeca to exist in the first
13:53
place. So, okay,
13:56
George and Seneca, let's see what's going
13:58
on. It's
14:01
eighteen seventy five and the twenty
14:03
something George Colby is living
14:06
in Wisconsin making his living
14:08
as a medium, frequently flanked
14:10
by his spirit guide, Seneca.
14:13
Seneca's name is the first reference to
14:15
Native American culture that rings
14:17
a little weird. The Seneca
14:20
were and our an indigenous
14:22
tribe, not one guy who
14:25
live in upstate New York. This
14:27
is very likely something George Colby would have
14:29
known from his childhood. However,
14:31
Seneca, his spirit guide, leaned
14:34
heavily into what is now commonly
14:36
referred to in media as the
14:39
magical Native American trope,
14:41
defined as stating
14:43
that their power comes from innate spirituality
14:45
or closeness to nature that civilized
14:48
races don't have. Usually involves
14:50
influence over nature or animals
14:53
or other spirit powers. Quite
14:55
often the native in question will be dressed very
14:57
traditionally, even in modern setting.
15:00
But the Seneca people have a unique
15:02
and relevant history that took place
15:05
adjacent to George Colby's life.
15:07
Holby likely learned the term in
15:09
his hometown of Pike, New York, where
15:12
the Seneca tribe had lived. Pike
15:14
was a town that was only incorporated by
15:17
colonizers thirty years before
15:19
Colby was born. Most
15:21
significantly, Cassadega
15:23
is a Seneca word one
15:26
that means water beneath the rocks,
15:28
originally named for Cassadega Lake
15:30
in the area now known as the Lily
15:33
Deale Spiritual Association or
15:35
Cassadega's Sister Camp. As of
15:37
the late two thousands, the Seneca language
15:40
was considered to be endangered, with less
15:42
than fifty remaining speakers, a
15:44
clear and direct result of colonizers
15:47
often government enabled methods
15:49
of forced relocation, forced
15:52
cultural assimilation, and ethnic
15:54
cleansing. Here's a clip of what the
15:57
Seneca language does sound like from
15:59
a recent Seneca language audio newsletter
16:02
on how to say grandfather's
16:04
and uncle's on Glass
16:07
Saint Ka
16:13
East. Now today,
16:16
around eight thousand Seneca are enrolled
16:18
in the Seneca nation of Indians,
16:21
who refer to themselves as quote, the
16:23
keepers of the Western Door. A
16:26
link to some resources where you can learn more in
16:28
the description of this episode. Unfortunately,
16:31
for George Colby's credibility promise
16:34
and being sarcastic there, his spirit guide
16:36
Seneca and the Seneca people
16:38
had very little in common. As
16:41
presented in the spiritualist legend,
16:44
the spirit guide Seneca primarily
16:46
served as a conduit by which
16:48
George Colby was able to justify
16:51
moving to Florida from Wisconsin.
16:53
There he would acquire the plot
16:55
of land where the Southern Cassadega Spiritualist
16:58
Association would be low caated beginning
17:01
in the eighteen nineties. After
17:03
meeting another medium in Wisconsin in
17:05
eighteen seventy five, Holby said
17:08
that Seneca guided the two of them
17:10
down to the Jacksonville area by
17:12
railroad. Seneca was
17:14
seeking out a very specific
17:17
plot of land. They arrived
17:19
at the end of the railroad line, but Seneca
17:22
instructed them to continue on foot,
17:24
seeking out land described by the
17:27
most current Cassadega history book
17:29
available called Cassadega
17:31
the South's oldest spiritual community
17:34
as quote, a great spiritual
17:36
center where thousands of believers could
17:39
congregate a promised land of
17:41
lakes and high bluffs. Behold
17:44
the land where Cassadega exists
17:46
now, the legend continues.
17:49
Having satisfied Seneca, Wilby
17:51
filed a homestead grant in eighteen
17:53
eighty, an act that was passed by Abraham
17:56
Lincoln during the Civil War in eighteen
17:58
sixty two. They gave plots
18:00
of land of around one hundred sixty
18:02
acres to applicants, the
18:05
vast, vast majority of
18:07
whom were white people, except
18:10
wait, who did those acres
18:12
belong to Originally? Cassadega
18:15
was made possible with a land grant
18:17
that was intentionally redistributing
18:20
indigenous land to white people. Made
18:23
plausible in Florida after the US
18:25
had acquired heavy
18:27
air quotes used there the land from
18:30
fellow colonizers Spain back
18:32
in eighteen nineteen, soon
18:34
after, in humane policies like
18:37
the eighteen thirty Indian Removal
18:39
Act Forcibly relocated many
18:42
Cherokees, Creeks, and other
18:44
people indigenous to the eastern US.
18:46
They were forced to go to the west of the Mississippi
18:49
River to make room for more white
18:51
colonizers. This led to the trail
18:54
of tears, a brutal government
18:56
sanctioned ethnic cleansing carried
18:59
out between a teen thirty and eighteen
19:01
fifty that demanded that over one
19:04
hundred thousand Indigenous people relocate,
19:07
with some historians estimating as
19:09
many as fifteen thousand people died
19:11
on the way in unlivable conditions.
19:14
Add this to the fallout of the Seminole
19:17
Wars, there is no doubt that Cassadega
19:19
would not have been possible without the exploitation
19:22
of Indigenous people whose religion and culture
19:25
were being criminalized and erased. While
19:27
movements like Spiritualism were given
19:29
the space both culturally and
19:32
literally to evolve and thrive.
19:35
While the abolitionist politics of most
19:37
early spiritualists were emphasized, there's
19:40
not much to indicate that the religion had
19:42
meaningful solidarity with Indigenous
19:45
people during these periods of massive
19:47
violence. Another conflict
19:50
that was very relevant to this area
19:52
was the Seminal Wars, a still
19:55
undertaught series of three wars
19:58
between the Seminal tribe and Florida
20:00
and white colonialists. The
20:03
first war went from eighteen seventeen
20:05
to eighteen, the second from eighteen
20:07
thirty five to forty two, and the
20:10
third and final Seminal War went
20:12
from eighteen fifty five to fifty
20:14
eight, just under a quarter
20:17
century before George Colby
20:19
was said to have shown up with his spirit
20:22
guide Seneca. The latter
20:24
two wars related to Cassadega
20:26
directly. The second Seminal
20:28
War had erupted over the Indian
20:31
Removal Act. Many seminals
20:33
refused to vacate to Oklahoma
20:36
when it was demanded by the U. S. Military,
20:39
and we're effectively using guerrilla
20:41
war tactics before US generals
20:44
began to play extremely dirty,
20:46
doing things like abducting seminal
20:48
leaders under the guise of proposed
20:51
treaties. The Third Seminal War
20:53
was intended by the U. S Military to
20:56
remove or murder the remaining
20:58
seminal from Florida, those
21:00
who had survived the first two conflicts.
21:03
The plan was to burn their plantations
21:05
and starve them until they agreed
21:07
to relocate, although it said that
21:10
between two hundred and five hundred Seminole
21:12
people moved deep into the Everglades
21:15
instead of abandoning their land in
21:19
Colby was granted one hundred acres
21:22
of land central Floridian,
21:25
land that had previously been the home
21:27
of tribes like the Muscogo, a
21:30
group of majority black Seminoles
21:32
who had faced extreme marginalization
21:35
for their skin color and their
21:37
status as indigenous in both
21:39
the US and in Mexico. Their
21:42
history is a fascinating one, a
21:44
result of the Seminole tribe of Florida
21:46
welcoming escaped slaves and
21:49
being open to blending their cultures
21:51
and customs. During the years
21:53
that Florida was under the control of
21:56
Spain, escaped slaves
21:58
could live freely here, and
22:00
this resulted in a strong ally ship
22:02
between the cultures formed prior
22:05
to the colonial musical chairs
22:07
between Spain and the US the
22:09
land that belonged to neither of them
22:11
in the first place, followed by
22:14
the Indian Removal Act of eighteen thirty
22:16
by President Andrew Jackson, who,
22:19
it must be said, is one of history's
22:21
greatest pieces of ship from any country
22:24
at any time. It should be mentioned,
22:26
though the Muskogo were forced out
22:28
of the area during the Trail of Tears
22:31
years, seminal leaders did have
22:33
black slaves, and often black
22:35
seminal slaves. When seminal leaders
22:38
changed their policies to endorse
22:40
chattel slavery during the Second Seminal
22:42
War, the better aligned themselves
22:45
with the practices of the Creek tribe.
22:48
This shift and enslavement led to
22:50
many Muskogo retreating to Mexico,
22:53
where some of their descendants continue to live
22:55
today. The relationships
22:57
between the cultures was certainly not actionless,
23:00
but both were being aggressively
23:03
exploited and abused by the
23:05
colonizers. An interesting factor
23:07
between Seminoles and Black Seminoles
23:10
descendants of this blended culture, was
23:13
an evolving spiritual tradition. Most
23:15
escaped slaves practiced some form
23:18
of Christianity during the nineteenth century,
23:21
leading to Christian elements being blended
23:23
into seminal spiritual traditions.
23:26
Sound familiar. Another
23:29
tribe in central Florida was the Micosuki,
23:32
who had lived in southern Georgia and northern
23:35
Florida before being forcibly relocated
23:37
to the Everglades during the Indian
23:40
Removal Act, at which point most
23:42
allied with the Seminole. I can't
23:44
stress this enough, and we'll be addressing it through
23:46
this episode. There is no Indigenous
23:49
American monoculture. Every
23:52
group has their own spiritual traditions,
23:55
has their own ideas, has their
23:57
own practices, and so this ally
24:00
ship came with a lot of cultural
24:02
adjustment for both groups. Mikosuki
24:05
is the englishization of the
24:07
word Mikosuki, a mixed
24:10
heech Zook word from Mexico that
24:12
means leader of the civilized people.
24:15
Many Mikosuki fought in the Seminole
24:17
Wars, only to be displaced
24:19
and targeted by the US government again
24:22
during the years of the Trail of Tears.
24:25
After refusing to have their culture considered
24:28
as one and the same as the Seminoles
24:30
culture by the US, the ally
24:32
ship between the Seminole and the Mikosuki
24:35
soured, and the Mikosuki tribe
24:37
is currently represented mainly in
24:39
southern Florida, where their tribal
24:42
dialect remains endangered, with
24:44
only about five hundred speakers
24:46
remaining. Here is a Mikosuki
24:48
school teacher and tribe member named
24:51
William Popeye Osceola, talking
24:53
about how he tries to preserve the language
24:56
and culture of the Mikosuki in the classroom
24:59
in an interview the Creative Lab at
25:01
McClatchy. When
25:06
you go to school in America, you learn all about American
25:09
history, but a big part of American
25:11
history, I guess left those Native history, so
25:14
I always look back to what was missing
25:16
in my education. This generation is
25:18
like heads and shoulders above my group.
25:21
The future they have and we're they're going to take this tribe. I
25:23
can't wait to see if we want them to be empowered.
25:26
We want them to come back and want them to help take over
25:28
and they can run this and then we can also all
25:30
under leadership. Their unique religious
25:33
beliefs include the idea that men
25:35
are transformed into angels
25:37
after an attempt to visit the quote
25:40
unquote great Spirit. Finally,
25:43
the Tumukua tribe was represented
25:45
in the Cassadeca region, a tribe
25:47
that was all but wiped out by eighteen
25:49
hundred, with a population that is said
25:51
to have once included as many as two
25:54
hundred thousand people. Their
25:56
spiritual traditions included community
25:59
shamans that were able to contact
26:01
the spirit realm with powers that ranged
26:03
from the belief that they controlled the weather
26:06
to sometimes serving as herbalists
26:08
that used natural remedies to ease
26:11
the pain of childbirth. This
26:13
culture was destroyed by colonial violence
26:16
and illness, with the remainder of
26:18
the Tumukua ingratiating into
26:20
the Seminole and many others taken
26:22
to Cuba. But it's important
26:25
to note the majority of what's known about
26:27
their history, and it's not that much are
26:30
still taken from the records of European
26:32
colonizers, not that the
26:34
legend of Cassadega references
26:37
well virtually any of these
26:39
people or any of the history of
26:41
the land they're using. It is possible
26:44
that I missed references to indigenous
26:46
culture during my time at Cassadega
26:48
that was more specific, particularly
26:51
at a library where I was only entitled
26:53
to two hours of time. But
26:56
any reference to any specific
26:58
native group is ex dreamly hard
27:00
to come by unless you're sharp enough to know
27:02
what Seminole Street is referencing. In the
27:05
unincorporated community where crystal
27:07
shops sell their wares to tourists. If
27:09
you're lucky, maybe you'll find one of those
27:12
tourist dream catchers that are emblematic
27:14
of the ways in which modern Americans
27:17
erased the cultures of what was once
27:19
around six hundred unique tribes
27:21
whose land was stolen and then formed
27:24
into this monocultural image by
27:26
colonizers. If Seneca the Spirit
27:29
Guide had any interest in this history,
27:31
these lost lives and stolen land
27:33
of the tribes in Central Florida, I've
27:36
never seen any reference to it. For
27:38
the legend of Cassadega's founding, Seneca
27:41
only seemed to have a vested interest
27:44
in being George Colby's sidekick,
27:46
not just giving him permission to found Cassadega,
27:49
but as the legend goes, it
27:51
was his idea. The
27:54
fallout of all of these conflicts,
27:56
the Trail of Tears, the Indian Removal
27:58
Act, the Seminole Wars had
28:01
turned Florida into an area that
28:03
was under constant change throughout
28:05
the nineteenth century due to the
28:08
massive loss of life that took place
28:10
during the Seminole War years. By
28:12
eighteen sixty, the census indicated
28:14
that only about twelve hundred people were
28:17
living in Valusia County, where
28:19
Cassadega still is now, and
28:21
that very little activity took place
28:23
there throughout the Civil War years. According
28:26
to Cassadega, the South's oldest
28:28
spiritualist community, Belusia
28:30
County was more popular during these years
28:33
as a place to hide from conscription
28:35
into the Confederate Army. Only
28:37
beginning to be developed by colonizers
28:39
in the eighteen seventies, when You're George
28:42
Colby's began to show up. White
28:44
industrialists began working on areas
28:46
that bear their names to this day. An
28:49
Ohio entrepreneur named Matthias
28:51
Day incorporated Daytona,
28:54
Florida, in eighteen seventy six,
28:57
and Henry Addison the Land founded
28:59
the community that still bears his last
29:01
name. Around this same time, by
29:04
the nine cents is, the population
29:06
of the area had increased to around people,
29:10
bolstered by the end of the Civil War and
29:13
expanding train accessibility in the central
29:15
Florida area. In the
29:18
land that Colby had acquired via
29:20
the Homestead Act stealing indigenous
29:23
land was now accessible and
29:25
was developed to make it accessible to the
29:27
people he wanted to court, majority
29:30
white spiritualists from upstate New York
29:33
looking for a place to worship when it got
29:35
too cold at the camps in the north.
29:37
So this legend is present everywhere
29:40
in the library. I feel a little
29:42
weird poking so many holes in it out
29:44
of respect to the spiritualists, But
29:47
for a religion that constantly references
29:50
indigenous culture and seems to have
29:52
a vested interest in the illusion
29:54
of paying respect, it sounds like
29:56
a bunch of colonial free form jazz
29:59
by a guy who just wanted to set up a religious
30:01
camp in a colonial culture that was
30:04
and should have been grappling with their relation
30:06
to Native American culture. From
30:08
this vantage point, Seneca can be
30:10
seen either as a well
30:13
intentioned attempt to incorporate
30:15
Native culture into spiritualism, or,
30:18
as it's been suggested, this weird
30:21
and offensive caricature that absolved
30:23
a white landowner of the guilt of thinking
30:26
anyone could truly own land that has
30:28
been stolen with violence and cruelty.
30:31
Quite recently, I
30:44
was lucky enough to speak with the amazing
30:46
Olivia Woodward about this legend,
30:49
the precise reasons that it crosses from
30:51
the weird into the harmful, and the
30:53
conversation that surrounds indigenous culture
30:55
in the United States to this day, this
30:58
gelatinous monoculture, and the erasure
31:01
of all these traditions, histories,
31:03
and stories that are unique around
31:05
six hundred tribes that exists or
31:08
existed across the mainland US
31:10
for centuries. Olivia writes
31:12
about movies, media and Native
31:15
issues and has previously appeared
31:17
on My movie podcast with Caitlin Durante,
31:20
the Bechtel Cast. I'm so thrilled
31:22
I got to talk with her, and here's a little
31:24
bit of our conversation. All right,
31:26
Well, Kombuchia, my name is Olivia Woodward.
31:29
I am a citizen of the Catto
31:31
nation Um. I'm also a writer
31:34
for a tribe called Geek and currently
31:37
my day job is working in
31:39
tourism. So I was
31:41
actually first raised pagan.
31:44
I have never followed Christianity. I've
31:46
never never been a part of that. My my parents,
31:48
I'm the youngest of three, and so
31:51
by the time I was born, I think they experimented
31:54
experimented with Christianity with my siblings.
31:57
But by the time I was born, my mom, my
31:59
mom and dad like, now, Paganism makes
32:01
sense to us, We're going to do that. Then,
32:03
when I was about nine years old, my
32:05
mother started reconnecting with her
32:08
native identity and that's how we
32:10
first started with the Cato nation Um.
32:13
And yeah, so since I was nine years old,
32:16
that's when I was introduced to our kind of Cato spirituality
32:19
and as an adult, Unfortunately,
32:23
modern day paganism does appropriate a lot from Data
32:25
spirituality, but they have a lot of the same principles
32:27
and tenants, so I still in my adulthood,
32:29
kind of combined the two of them. In general, though,
32:32
uh Catos do believe in Creator. Creator
32:35
is a genderless being that created
32:38
everything. So before we started discussing
32:40
a story that George Coleby told
32:43
about indigenous people. I was
32:45
curious about the spiritual origins
32:47
of Olivia's people, the Katam. I
32:50
think a fun place to start, if you don't mind,
32:53
is if I kind of share our creation
32:55
story. Um. Every nation has
32:57
a creation story. They're all pretty different from
33:00
each other. There is a through line among
33:02
all of them. There is some commonality, but we all
33:05
are different. So Icado's
33:07
creation story. It is believed that a
33:10
very long time ago, Um humans
33:12
and animals lived under
33:15
the earth, like within the earth, and they
33:17
lived there for forever. Then one day their
33:19
leader, whose name translates to Moon,
33:22
received a message from Creator Um
33:25
and through that message, discovered
33:28
a tunnel that led up
33:31
Uh. So they followed the tunnel and realized
33:34
it led to a cave which led to a different realm
33:37
essentially. So with this message
33:39
from Creator, Moon gathered
33:42
his people and the animals
33:44
and led them out of the cave. However,
33:47
great Or told Moon to
33:49
not look back. You're moving forward, don't
33:51
look back. So they get almost all the way
33:54
out of the cave, and it's also said that
33:56
Moon is carried I believe
33:58
drum and tobacco and his wife
34:01
is carrying corn and pumpkin
34:04
something else you can't remember right now. They're carrying
34:06
these things though, that are essentially the foundation too for
34:08
the Cattos um. And they get almost
34:11
like almost all the way out, and Wolf gets
34:13
too curious and turns around and looks
34:15
back, and that's when the cave collapse
34:18
and half of the people and half the animals
34:20
are left behind, and the other half
34:22
make it to earth, the other realm, and
34:25
they cry and cry and cry, and
34:27
that's what forms the Mississippi River um
34:30
and also that's where the Cattos
34:33
eventually made their land
34:35
and their home. And I think what's
34:37
interesting to know about our creation story and
34:40
a lot of indigenous creation stories, is
34:42
that we are of the earth.
34:44
We come from the earth, which
34:48
to me um indicates
34:51
our that we have a relationship. We're guests
34:53
on the earth, and so we have to maintain a relationship
34:55
with the earth. So with that in mind
34:58
too, that also means we a
35:01
lot of animals as relative as well.
35:03
That's not an exaggeration, that's not like spiritual
35:06
that that is a big belief is that we have
35:08
a relationship with the animals, so
35:11
away we do that way we honor the animals
35:13
is through dance. A
35:15
lot of your spirituality is
35:18
kind of through your everyday things as well, so
35:20
it's a a big part of it is
35:23
being aware of what's around you and
35:25
being appreciative of what's around you, and
35:28
also helping out when it makes sense
35:31
as well. Well. I'd probably give more
35:33
context to this later. A
35:35
lot of our practices
35:37
and our understandings have been lost on
35:40
purpose by outside courses,
35:42
so this might not be like a super
35:45
fun answer. So right now, for my understanding,
35:47
I was not raised in the cabination to believe in
35:49
really an afterlife, because we are of
35:51
the earth. Once we die, we return to
35:53
the earth. Um. And that's kind of where
35:56
it stops now. I have done
35:58
some research and I believe before
36:00
colonization there is a whole different subset
36:02
of believes when it came to that. But because
36:05
so much of vis a bit lost, uh,
36:08
that's kind of where it stands now. So
36:10
a difficulty I had in interacting
36:12
with white mediums around the ideas
36:15
of indigenous culture, as well as looking
36:17
at past writings of Cassadaga
36:19
mediums, was that the way that they
36:21
were presenting indigenous culture was
36:24
too vague and self serving to
36:26
be the kind of show of respect that it
36:28
was said to be. Olivia breaks
36:30
down her frustration on this issue brilliantly
36:33
here. I think in general, a
36:36
question I start pushing on people who who
36:38
believe in things like that is um. Specifically,
36:41
I'll ask like, well, what nation do you think that's from?
36:43
Like, what's what tribe are you referencing? And
36:46
I do that because we tend to get
36:49
like all put in the same group.
36:51
And just to put it out there right now, there is
36:53
no Native American religion. There
36:56
are over five hundred nations
36:58
across the continental United States.
37:00
We can't all it doesn't make sense
37:03
for all of us to have the same religion. Now, there is
37:05
a Native American church in Oklahoma
37:08
that I believe is still functioning, but that
37:10
is a result of laws
37:13
imposed by the US government that criminalized
37:16
our religion. So we had to go
37:18
underground and build these
37:20
churches to continue to as
37:22
a facade to practice some of our Native religion.
37:25
UM. But in general, whenever I come across people
37:27
who think like that, I will just push them and ask what which
37:30
nation are you pulling that from? Which tribe are you're pulling
37:32
that from? And they'll get frustrated,
37:34
double down on whatever. But that's
37:37
the only way I can see to combat it. But
37:39
it's it's frustrating. It's very frustrating because
37:41
they do see this as all one entity. We
37:44
all believe the same things, we all have the same
37:47
practices um like especially
37:50
and also to I will say some Native
37:52
people will follow to this because we
37:55
have been purposely disconnected
37:57
from our religion and our identity for in
38:00
things. I know a lot of Natives who
38:02
have dream catchers, and that's not necessarily a
38:04
bad thing. But dream catchers
38:06
are not from my tribe. They were not created
38:09
out of the southeastern tribes. They were
38:11
created from the northeastern the Canadian
38:13
tribes I want to say Jibre
38:16
or a Nishinabe. They
38:18
created dream catchers as
38:20
a way to help their children
38:24
not be so scared of colonists, which
38:26
I don't think a lot of people understand that. Like whatever
38:28
columnists started invading the nations
38:30
and murdering them. A lot of children
38:32
were having nightmares. So alders created
38:35
these dream catchers to help them capture
38:37
their nightmares. And so that's
38:39
the other frustrating part too, is that
38:42
they will take one thing and
38:45
literally when I say take I do mean literally,
38:47
they take it, they redo
38:50
the definition, give no recognition
38:53
to where they took it from, and then oftentimes
38:55
profit off of it. So that's that's
38:58
the other really frustrating thing is that not only
39:00
do they just see us as one entity,
39:03
um, they don't even want to recognize
39:05
the beautiful differences between all of us.
39:09
It's it's really frustrating when non natives, and
39:11
oftentimes only white people say well,
39:13
we're doing this to honor you, We're doing this to honor you, but
39:17
you don't. You have to let the
39:19
people tell you how they want to be honored. And
39:22
so if if it's out of ignorance,
39:25
understand that's understanding. But whenever
39:27
you're presented the opportunity to learn
39:30
about that nation, so many
39:33
non natives will just double down
39:35
because they're embarrassed or because they don't
39:37
like being wrong. They will double down
39:39
on what they're doing and saying, no, we do this
39:42
because we're honoring you, and we have we come
39:44
back and say, well, this is not honoring us, so
39:47
this is just for you then, And I think
39:49
that's where a lot of disconnect comes from, is that these
39:51
other cultures religions, people
39:54
don't want to accept when they're wrong. This
39:57
all begs the question, what are
39:59
the issues that spiritualists could
40:01
and should be acknowledging to actually
40:04
meaningfully move the needle on how Native
40:06
culture is viewed. Where they currently
40:08
live on Seminole Land in Florida,
40:11
I asked Olivia and she shared
40:13
a few pieces of history in particular
40:16
to be aware of. And that's why I feel it's
40:18
really important to get the context as to why so many
40:20
of us have this quote
40:22
unquote attitude in regards to
40:24
white people, non natives appropriating
40:27
our culture and like where that frustration, that
40:29
deep seated frustration comes from. So UM,
40:32
first, I'd like to talk about the establishments
40:35
of boarding schools. UM Boarding schools
40:38
began in the United States and Canada,
40:40
but the United States around eighteen sixty
40:43
and they were government funded but
40:46
oftentimes run by
40:49
Christian and Catholic churches. The
40:52
motto of the founder of these
40:54
schools, General Richard Henry Pratt,
40:57
he thought he was a righteous man and he
40:59
could quote unquote see the humanity
41:02
and the savages. So
41:04
the goal of these schools was to kill
41:07
the Indian, save the man. That
41:09
was a literal motto of the school. They
41:12
did that by taking children from
41:14
families and forcing them
41:16
to be Christian, uh, taking away
41:19
their native names, punishing them when they spoke
41:21
their language, cutting their hair, and making them
41:23
dress like white people, and essentially
41:26
trying to assimilate them into the
41:29
white culture. So
41:31
that's happening in eighteen sixties. Um,
41:34
there are technically still residential schools
41:36
now, but there they functioned very differently. Now
41:38
there there's not as much like religious trauma
41:41
involved now. But um, as far
41:43
as this this model, I
41:45
think I don't have the exact date on me right
41:47
now, but I think they were eliminated
41:51
the seventies, maybe even the nineties,
41:53
so like nineteen nineties. So
41:56
the bit around for a
41:59
really long line. Then
42:02
in eighteen eighty three, the Code
42:04
of Indian Offenses was passed by
42:06
the Department of Interior, and these
42:09
codes were only applied
42:12
to Native Americans. And these
42:15
codes and summary criminalized
42:17
our religion. Um, if you were
42:19
because also at this point in eighteen eighty three, a lot
42:22
of the Native nations have been forced
42:24
onto reservations. Um, so either you
42:26
were, you were forced on a reservation, uh,
42:29
taken away from your food resources. And
42:31
because our re our religion and relationship
42:34
is tied so closely to the earth. They were being
42:36
forced away from their land
42:38
that was so connected to their
42:40
religion. Um, so there
42:43
are forces of these reservations. The children were
42:45
being taken away from them. And now the government
42:47
has said, if you were caught practicing
42:49
your dances and your ceremony, you
42:51
will either be imprisoned or we will
42:53
withhold food from you for a month.
42:56
And that's important because these nations
42:59
were forced onto servations because
43:01
they were their land essentially stolen from
43:03
them. The government said, well, in return,
43:06
we will provide resources from
43:09
you since we were taking a work, since you're being pushed
43:11
away from the resources. So it was a big deal.
43:13
Aside from imprisonment, you wouldn't get food
43:16
if you were caught practicing your religion. And
43:18
then if any religious
43:20
leaders were caught, they were automatically sent
43:22
to prison for like ten days or longer.
43:26
That's like date my mother, but
43:28
she was born in nineteen sixty four,
43:31
right, so even as a child,
43:33
she legally wasn't allowed to do even
43:35
if she even if she was raised with our native
43:37
religion, which because of everything
43:40
I have listed, she wasn't. But even
43:42
if she was, she wouldn't be allowed to do a
43:44
lot of the practices we wanted to do to
43:46
be. That's also important because it's
43:49
a big reason why my mom raised me
43:51
pagan for the first nine years of my life,
43:53
and then we were able to switch to or
43:56
transition a little bit to our native religion,
43:59
like be as of these laws. My
44:01
grandmother wasn't raised with her religion,
44:04
so how could she raise my mom with her religion.
44:06
So that's why this is important. Everyone likes to act like this
44:08
happened so long ago and that Natives are complaining
44:11
for no reason, but we're not. Like
44:15
laws were still in practice when my grandma
44:17
was alive, Like this wasn't that long ago. So
44:20
Olivia was not aware that the majority
44:22
white religion of American spiritualism
44:25
was appropriating from indigenous
44:27
culture without really any accurate
44:29
information prior to listening
44:32
to Ghost Church to prepare for this interview,
44:35
But she was not
44:37
surprised. You know,
44:39
before I listened to the series,
44:42
I didn't know that they were using Native
44:44
natives as their avatar essentially. Uh.
44:47
Sure, that is a very weird feeling,
44:49
especially because during the time of I
44:52
feel like spiritualism reaching its popularity, Natives
44:54
were fighting for their fucking lives
44:57
to just exist and no
45:00
in that these people were starting to use
45:02
us to give them strength
45:05
but not but not supporting us
45:09
in any material way
45:11
is uh disupporting? So
45:16
what does Olivia make of the story
45:18
of George and Spirit Seneca? Okay,
45:21
this is my genuine like first time hearing the
45:23
story, I purposely didn't look it up so that I
45:25
could have a more genuine reaction. Um.
45:29
So caught a lot of thoughts, Um, why
45:33
would a native spirit
45:35
guide tell you to
45:38
go own land for
45:40
your benefit rather than tell
45:42
you to go help the natives
45:45
get their land back? That makes no
45:48
sense. That makes absolutely good sense.
45:50
I think. The other frustration is,
45:53
Um, a lot of this just
45:56
feels like they are using us
45:59
as a to mask her
46:02
greediness to be frank, so
46:04
that I feel a lot all that I think it's funny is
46:07
that expensed to be does it really aligned
46:09
with any native spirituality? Like at
46:11
all? Um? And really just
46:14
using us as
46:16
a reason to say it's okay that we
46:18
own this land. I hope
46:21
that a big takeaway people will
46:23
have from this is that it's
46:25
okay to be curious and it's
46:27
okay to want to participate, but
46:30
you have to let us lead,
46:33
and you have to let us do it. And
46:36
also for reconnecting natives, It's
46:39
okay that you're not actively
46:41
participating in your nation's religion.
46:44
It's not your fault. Um.
46:47
We've had laws in place for over a century
46:49
to prevent us, and honestly,
46:51
on a darker side, we've had a lot of laws try
46:53
to humanely genocide us. And
46:56
we're still here, and you are still
46:58
valid for being here.
47:00
Like the fact that you're here is a miracle. Um.
47:03
So yeah, I think those are probably my party
47:06
words. Thank you so much to
47:08
Olivia Woodward again, and I'll
47:10
be linking to some of her work in the description.
47:13
And I want to say personally, I mean, look, most
47:15
of this history of the Cassadeca area
47:18
was not known to me prior to working
47:20
on this episode, and most Native
47:22
history remains untaught, unacknowledged,
47:25
and unpreserved in American schools.
47:29
Characters like Seneca the Spirit
47:31
Guide really don't serve to do much
47:33
more than to perpetuate existing
47:36
stereotypes an attempt to fill
47:38
this void of non history.
47:41
So by Seneca
47:43
the Spirit Guide and George Colby
47:45
decide, Hey, it's time
47:48
to get this camp up and running. To
47:50
do so, he enlisted the help of two
47:52
women who had been responsible for a considerable
47:55
amount of success at the lily Dale
47:57
Assembly, the camp that was originally
47:59
called Old Cassadega in upstate
48:02
New York. This is the camp
48:04
where the Central Floridian Spiritualists
48:06
would borrow its name. The
48:09
best information isn't always
48:11
contained in the library. The
48:14
beliefs of the Spiritualists are fascinating
48:17
and widely applicable, but there are
48:19
areas of their own history that are
48:21
completely forgotten or obscured
48:24
among the few left practicing in their
48:26
major hubs. This is done
48:28
in the expected way, by pushing
48:30
already marginalized communities to the
48:33
side and replacing areas of
48:35
their own histories with versions
48:37
that make them less uncomfortable.
48:39
And that's where I'll leave you this week, as
48:42
Cassadega continued to build on its own
48:44
legacy on its House of Cards origin
48:47
story. Next week we're going
48:49
to learn about a spirit tisma which
48:51
uses spiritism as its foundation,
48:54
and how many black spiritualists grew disillusioned
48:57
with spiritualism and flocked instead
48:59
to independently run spiritual
49:01
churches. That's next week on
49:04
Ghost Church. Ghost
49:07
Church is a Cruise On Media production, created,
49:09
written and hosted by me Jamie
49:12
Loftus. The show is produced by Sophie
49:14
Lichtman, edited by Ian Johnson.
49:16
Our theme song is by Speedy Ortiz.
49:19
That's Sadie Dupley, Andy Moholt,
49:22
Audrey C. Whitesides and Joey Dubeck.
49:24
Music is by Zoe Blade.
49:27
Special thanks to Olivia Woodward
49:30
for speaking with me for this episode. Please
49:32
check out her work. It's linked in the description. Special
49:35
shout out to Ian Johnson and Sophie
49:38
Lichterman Ghost Church Cannon
49:41
for lending their voices to this episode.
49:43
And I really tried my best pronunciation
49:46
on this. I in my defense, I did grow up
49:49
in a region where the worst accent
49:51
on the planet exists. Um
49:53
so I am open to corrections. Deep
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