Herding Cats, Bounding Spirit Spiritualism, Public Ritual and Spectral Science in Cassadaga, Florida
Date of Award
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Social Sciences
First Advisor
Vesperi, Maria
Keywords
Spiritualism, Cassadaga, Florida, Ethnography, Ritual
Area of Concentration
Anthropology
Abstract
This ethnography is the culmination of fieldwork conducted at Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp in Volusia County, FL - a historic intentional religious community centered around mediumship services, Spiritualism, and tourism. Alongside informal interviews, this project follows the experience of the ethnographer in attending religious services, tours, and classes. The camp is explored as shifting, polyvocal and heterogeneous - reflecting Spiritualism’s emphasis on the individual seeker, but problematizing group cohesion. Arrival narratives and public rituals are examined as attempts to address various threats, anomalies and disruptions - they (re)marry entangled constructions of individual, place and Spirit and resolve contested discourses of community, cosmology and religious practice
Recommended Citation
Robitaille, Dylan, "Herding Cats, Bounding Spirit Spiritualism, Public Ritual and Spectral Science in Cassadaga, Florida" (2014). Theses & ETDs. 4932.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4932