The in-betweens The spiritualists, mediums, and legends of Camp Etna

With mediums, rocking healing, tables, divining, ghost hunting, and faith healing in the mix, Ptacin's history of the Spiritualist religion in America will entertain practitioners and naysayers alike. Ptacin shares the history of Camp Etna, the physical home of the Spiritualist faith in America, and sets it against the background of the historical intersection of the religion and the Civil War, the women's rights movement, and a history of followers that includes everyone from Mary Todd Lincoln to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and doubters including Harry Houdini. Within 30 years of its inception, Spiritualism had more than a million practitioners in the U.S. and abroad. Ptacin's writing is educational, entertaining, and well-researched. Readers interested in Spiritualism as a contemporary religion as well as the people who are currently involved with programs, services and educational opportunities at Camp Etna will find this of particular interest. A unique addition for public library shelves.--Joyce McIntosh Copyright 2019 Booklist

Journalist Ptacin (Poor Your Soul) delivers a fascinating look at the history and cultural influence of Camp Etna, the 143-year-old Spiritualist community in Maine. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the community experienced "Burning Man--sized popularity," as visitors from across the U.S. flocked to Etna to witness a unique group of clairvoyants, mediums, and psychics who were united by a common belief in "life after death, as well as living life with purpose." Ptacin describes her experiences of spending a summer at Camp Etna when it opens its gates for a few months to visitors who can meet with a range of Spiritualists. Along the way, she explores the history of "a strong, independent faith-based subculture of women (and a few men)." Rooted in two major beliefs--"that it is our duty to practice the Golden Rule and also that we humans can talk to the dead if we want to"--Spiritualism's teachings, Ptacin argues, "challenged the established American institutions of patriarchal authority" and influenced abolitionists and suffragettes alike. Ptacin offers a sympathetic account of how Etna's mediums throughout history have helped people grieving the death of loved ones "have peace knowing that energetically, they are still around and still accessible." Ptacin, who is receptive to the spiritual experiences and stories of the community, delivers her narrative evenhandedly and with genuine curiosity. This is an eye-opening and informative peek into a little-known but influential community. (Oct.)

A memoirist explores modern spiritualism through its centuries-old legacy and a hallowed summer camp.Ptacin (Poor Your Soul, 2016) examines Maine's Camp Etna, a summer colony established in 1876 dedicated to communal gatherings where spiritualists assemble for mental and physical mediumship and to engage in paranormal fellowship. The Maine-based author immersed herself in the community, and her reportage reflects equal amounts of diligent journalism and wide-eyed fascination. As Ptacin writes, spiritualists staunchly believe in the afterlife and that each human embodies the capacity and wields the tools to channel and communicate with a host of otherworldly entities. Her tour of the camp activities, which is both thrilling and unsettling, began with a startling "table tipping" session with a medium. In appropriately affable and accessible prose, the author describes what separates spiritualists from more common American religious traditions: They are "willing to offer and provide scientific evidence to prove what many people may otherwise believe to be a bunch of bullshit." Running alongside her probing examination of Camp Etna is an astute history of the rise and fall of American spiritualism, which began in 1888 with Kate and Margaret Fox, who exhibited supernatural abilities. During her months at Camp Etna as initially "just a journalist eager to see a ghost," Ptacin's neophyte education on spiritualism and her interactions with its practicing population blossomed from spiked curiosity to rapt participation in ghost hunts and dowsing sessions. As the author notes, the spiritualists she met form an extraordinarily convictive community "grasping for meaning in humanity beyond the basic biological facts," yet the enigmatic profilespast and presentcollectively display a much more dynamic tapestry. Ptacin also brings aspects of faith and individual ability into view, as when she probed the difficulty of uncovering one's own spirit guide and an Etna spiritualist confidently spoke: "We all can do it."An eye-opening, consistently fascinating, and engrossing profile of the modern spiritualist movement. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.