Page 8 - Demo

were 150 spirit circles in New York City alone, 60 in Philadelphia, and thousands nationwide. Furthermore, there were nearly 70 Spiritualist newspapers to choose from. By the end of the 1850s, Spiritualists had founded organizations in most states, and in 1906 they had 455 churches operating all across the U.S. Spiritualists also formed camps for meetings, to exchange ideas, and showcase famous mediums. They were an outgrowth of camp meetings held by the Quakers. Before the Civil War, most camps were temporary. They were set up for a few days and drew just a small number of people. Later, they became so popular that permanent camps began to be established, and believers flocked to them. In 1869, a two-day meeting in Abington, Massachusetts drew 12,000, and 8,000 attended a five-day camp meeting in Melrose, Massachusetts. In 1871, a group of Spiritualists began holding meetings on the shores of Cassadaga Lake in New York. At what became known as the Lily Dale Assembly, the group eventually erected 200 cottages, a hotel, auditorium, amphitheater, and a picnic pavilion. In 1875, a group used the New York lake%u2019s name for their new Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp in Florida, which was laid out on 35 acres. Such camps with permanent structures prospered and drew Spiritualists and mediums to settle as year-round residents. By the early 1880s, there were at least 17 Spiritualist camps nationwide, and by 1924, there was one in nearly every state in the union. The earliest proponents of Spiritualism in Indiana included Robert Owen, head of the utopian colony at New Harmony; Julius A. Wayland, editor of the Coming Nation in Greensburg; Dr. Henry Stockinger, an early graduate of Indiana University and one of the fathers of psychometry (a belief that touching an object allowed one to learn personal facts about the object%u2019s owner); Dr. H. V. Sweringen, head of the Medical Association of Ft. Wayne; and A.B. Richmond M.D. of Switzerland Co. The first Spiritualist organization in Indiana was founded in 1862, and 20 of its members traveled to an 1873 National Spiritualist Convention in Chicago. Another group, the Indiana State Association of Spiritualists, was founded in 1904 as an auxiliary of the National Spiritualist Association, which oversaw 34 state organizations. The Progressive Spiritualist Church of Indianapolis, which was formed within this alliance, celebrated its centennial in 2013. In 2021, besides a Pastor/Medium, it also had a seven-person Ministerial Team consisting of Ordained Ministers and Certified Mediums.A Spiritualist library and lyceum (lecture/learning hall) were established in Salem in 1865. The Rev. and Mrs. E. W. Sprague, working throughout Indiana in the late 1800s, organized thirty-nine Spiritualist societies in one six-month