Florida’s Haunted Psychic Town Where the Dead Still Talk

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to Cassadaga, where everyone knows your aura.

0:05 Speaker 2: Thanks Dan, hope you're having a good day. Let's dive

0:08 Speaker 2: right into it, shall we. Cassadaga, Florida, is not your

0:12 Speaker 2: average sleepy Southern town. Founded in eighteen seventy five, it's

0:17 Speaker 2: a place where talking to the dead is a local pastime.

0:20 Speaker 2: Psychics outnumber Starbucks, and the neighbors might ask for your

0:24 Speaker 2: star sign before your name. Located just off I four

0:29 Speaker 2: between Daytona and Orlando, this spiritualist camp is a strange

0:33 Speaker 2: bubble of Victorian houses, healing crystals, ghost tours, and at

0:37 Speaker 2: least one haunted hotel. While the rest of Florida is

0:41 Speaker 2: busy dealing with sinkholes and meth gators, Cassadaga's biggest problem

0:45 Speaker 2: is ghostly HouseGuests who won't pay rent.

0:49 Speaker 1: The origins a spirit told me to do it.

0:53 Speaker 2: The town was founded by a man named George P. Colby,

0:57 Speaker 2: a spiritualist from New York, who claimed that a name

1:00 Speaker 2: of American spirit guide named Seneca told him to go

1:03 Speaker 2: south and establish a spiritualist colony, because when an ancient

1:07 Speaker 2: spirit tells you to head to a Florida swamp, you go.

1:11 Speaker 2: In eighteen seventy five, Colby arrived in what was then

1:14 Speaker 2: dense forest and built a camp where fellow spiritualists, those

1:19 Speaker 2: who believed the dead could communicate with the living, could gather, meditate,

1:23 Speaker 2: and casually chat with their deceased aunt, Mildred. Why do

1:27 Speaker 2: I always think everyone's elderly aunt is named Mildred? I

1:31 Speaker 2: have no idea, honestly. By eighteen ninety four, the Southern

1:37 Speaker 2: Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association was formally established. To this day,

1:43 Speaker 2: it's a private, non profit community of psychics, mediums, healers

1:47 Speaker 2: and believers who live and work in the area, many

1:50 Speaker 2: in gorgeous and supposedly haunted late Victorian homes.

1:55 Speaker 1: Ghosts, oh honey, they're practically on the payroll.

2:00 Speaker 2: Cassadaga isn't just known for its psychics and mediums. It's

2:03 Speaker 2: crawling with ghost stories. Let's dive into a few of them.

2:08 Speaker 1: The Cassadaga Hotel.

2:10 Speaker 2: This nineteen twenties hotel is the spiritual and literal heart

2:14 Speaker 2: of the town. Legend has it that Room twenty two

2:17 Speaker 2: is haunted, with guests reporting everything from moving furniture to

2:22 Speaker 2: shadowy figures and cold spots. Some visitors claim to have

2:26 Speaker 2: seen a woman in Victorian dress gliding down the hall

2:29 Speaker 2: or staring at them in the mirror. A Victorian ghost

2:32 Speaker 2: in Florida. That's a bold fashioned choice for the humidity.

2:37 Speaker 2: Other hotel spirits include a cigar smoking man whose phantom

2:41 Speaker 2: stogy scent wafts through the air, and a ghost who's

2:45 Speaker 2: fond of turning on water faucets. Apparently, even in the

2:48 Speaker 2: afterlife people forget to turn off the tap. Side note,

2:53 Speaker 2: the first home my husband and I purchased was built

2:55 Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty three. It was a Victorian colonial paps

3:00 Speaker 2: did indeed turn on by themselves regularly, amongst other things

3:04 Speaker 2: that went bump in the day and night. But that

3:06 Speaker 2: is a whole other story and we do not live

3:08 Speaker 2: there anymore. Needless to say, we did not like sharing

3:11 Speaker 2: our space with the.

3:12 Speaker 1: Afterlife spirit Pond.

3:15 Speaker 2: Behind the hotel lies a quiet little area called Spirit Pond,

3:19 Speaker 2: where seances and rituals have been performed for over a century.

3:24 Speaker 2: Locals claim to see orbs, mists, and ghostly figures rising

3:28 Speaker 2: from the water, although skeptics argue it might just be

3:31 Speaker 2: the Florida fog and overactive imagination.

3:35 Speaker 1: Devil's chair in Lake Helen's Cemetery.

3:38 Speaker 2: Just a short walk from Cassadaga proper is the infamous

3:41 Speaker 2: Devil's Chair, a brick chair in the cemetery said to

3:44 Speaker 2: be cursed. Legend has it, if you sit in the

3:48 Speaker 2: chair at midnight, the devil himself will whisper secrets to you,

3:52 Speaker 2: probably something like get more cats or pineapple does belong

3:56 Speaker 2: on pizza. People leave unopened beers on the chair overnight,

4:01 Speaker 2: and in the morning the can is mysteriously empty. Either

4:05 Speaker 2: the devil is a thirsty frat bro or Florida raccoons

4:09 Speaker 2: have developed a drinking problem. Cassadaga is steeped in its

4:12 Speaker 2: own peculiar mythology, the first being the spirit line. It's

4:17 Speaker 2: said there's a lay line running directly under Cassadaga, an

4:21 Speaker 2: energetic hotbed that enhances psychic abilities and spiritual communication. It's

4:27 Speaker 2: like being on psychic Wi Fi Full bars.

4:32 Speaker 1: The Haunted Forest, because no ghost story is complete without it.

4:37 Speaker 2: Near Cassadaga is a patch of woods where multiple people

4:40 Speaker 2: claim to have seen shadow people, ghostly figures, and even UFOs.

4:45 Speaker 2: It's either an inner dimensional portal or someone smoking something very.

4:49 Speaker 1: Strong seances with side effects.

4:52 Speaker 2: Historically, some of Cassadaga's early mediums were famous for dramatic

4:56 Speaker 2: seances featuring spirit trumpets, glowing and ectoplasm. Skeptics claimed they

5:03 Speaker 2: were hoaxes, but believers said the ectoplasm, often cheesecloth or

5:08 Speaker 2: egg whites, was the real deal. Honestly, if ghosts are

5:13 Speaker 2: sneezing cheese cloth at me, I'm charging extra. Let's get

5:17 Speaker 2: into some real stories from real weirdos, and we say

5:21 Speaker 2: that lovingly.

5:23 Speaker 1: The psychic who solved a cold case.

5:26 Speaker 2: A long time Cassadaga medium reportedly helped police locate a

5:30 Speaker 2: missing person's body in the nineteen eighties by drawing a

5:32 Speaker 2: map during a reading. While there's little documentation, locals treat

5:37 Speaker 2: the story like gospel, and the medium is still remembered

5:40 Speaker 2: as a spiritual detective.

5:43 Speaker 1: The poltergeist plumber.

5:45 Speaker 2: A plumber once refused to finish a job in one

5:48 Speaker 2: of the historic homes, claiming that tools were flying off

5:51 Speaker 2: shelves and faucets turned on and off by themselves. He

5:54 Speaker 2: fled mid job and refused to return. To be fair, haunted,

5:59 Speaker 2: plumbing is above any one's pay grade.

6:02 Speaker 1: The psychic cat. When we speak of spooky things, we

6:05 Speaker 1: must mention our four legged friends.

6:08 Speaker 2: One local healer swore her cat could sense spirits and

6:12 Speaker 2: would hiss at corners of the room before a reading.

6:15 Speaker 2: Taurists loved it, and the cat became a minor celebrity.

6:19 Speaker 2: Sadly she passed on, but believers say her spirit still

6:23 Speaker 2: patrols the bookstore, shelves.

6:25 Speaker 1: Crystals, chakras, and capitalism.

6:30 Speaker 2: Cassadaga today is both a sacred place and a very

6:33 Speaker 2: quirky tourist trap. It has a bookstore where you can

6:38 Speaker 2: buy books on astral projection and incense to mask the

6:41 Speaker 2: smell of your third eye opening. A temple where weekly

6:44 Speaker 2: services include guided meditations, healing ceremonies, and sometimes impromptu messages

6:50 Speaker 2: from the beyond. Dozens of resident mediums, many of whom

6:54 Speaker 2: have been practicing for decades, and often book appointments months

6:57 Speaker 2: in advance. Getting a reading here is like trying to

7:01 Speaker 2: get into a tailor swift concert, but with more sage smoke.

7:04 Speaker 2: Cassadaga is weird, it's wonderful. It's like twin peaks with

7:09 Speaker 2: palm trees, And whether you believe in ghosts or not,

7:13 Speaker 2: there's something undeniably magical about a town where the dead

7:16 Speaker 2: get better cell reception than the living, and everyone waves

7:20 Speaker 2: like you've known them in a past life. It's a

7:23 Speaker 2: reminder that history doesn't have to be dry and dusty.

7:26 Speaker 2: It can be spooky, sassy, and slightly spectral. Thanks for

7:31 Speaker 2: tuning into the Strange History Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode,

7:35 Speaker 2: like review, subscribe and tell all your friends. If you

7:39 Speaker 2: have no friends, head down to Cassadaga. It's quite clear

7:43 Speaker 2: you will never be alone.