Home /

Team spirit: Inside the idyllic American town that talks to the dead

By Anna Kodé
New York Times·
12 mins to read

Everybody dies. But not in Lily Dale.

Founded in 1879, the hamlet of about 250 residents in rural western New York is a haven for spiritualism, a religion formed around the conviction that human souls continue living after physical death.

“The underlying belief in spiritualism is that we don’t really die. We pass on, but we carry on in the spirit world, which is exactly like this world, except with less restrictions,” said Mandi Shepp, 38, Lily Dale’s former

Save