Although photographer Shannon Taggart grew up just an hour’s drive from Lily Dale—a lakeside village where people gather to connect with the dead—she did not visit until she was 26 years old.
The Largest Spiritualist Community in the World
She was interested in documenting the quaint little town that became a summer retreat for practitioners of mysticism in the late 19th century, following the spiritualism movement that originated in New York state and spread across the globe. Spiritualists believe that the afterlife surrounds us and can be sensed through mediums.
Today, there are 65 spiritualist churches in 20 states across the United States and over 280 spiritualist churches in the UK. However, the Lily Dale Assembly claims to be the largest community of mediums in the world, with 32 registered practitioners and six others currently in training.
During the summer, thousands of visitors come to Lily Dale to attend spiritual events. Taggart’s family also communicated with the dead through a medium.
Shannon Taggart has spent 20 years photographing mediums and seances. (Source: CNN).
In 1989, during a séance, a medium channeled Taggart’s cousin Rita and told her that their grandfather actually died of choking, not from brain cancer.
When Rita returned home, her father confirmed that it was true. Someone at the hospital had left him alone with food in his mouth, causing him to choke to death.
Curious, Taggart visited Lily Dale in the summer of 2001 to learn more about the practice of mediumship and the activities of mediums.
Taggart said: “People often assume that psychics are frauds looking to take your money and that it’s all just a costume party. But what I found in Lily Dale was actually the opposite.”
There is a one-room schoolhouse converted into a history museum; a temple serving as a healing space; a church; a wooden auditorium; and an old forest where mediums sit facing a toxic tree stump—a site believed to hold spiritual energy.
A portrait of the Fox sisters, who became famous mediums in the mid-19th century and were catalysts for the spiritualism movement in New York. (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
Taggart’s first visit to the town sparked a two-decade project titled “Calling”—a rich visual archive of mediumship activities and the outposts of spiritualists around the world.
She published a book in 2019, with a second edition featuring new images and texts released at the end of last year. A traveling exhibition of “Calling” is currently ongoing at the University of Northern Iowa Art Gallery this month.
Like Taggart, many individuals she met were drawn to Lily Dale due to an encounter they could not explain: a message seemingly relayed from the other side or a vision they believed to be a deceased loved one. Others came seeking healing or a new purpose.
Although Taggart initially sought specific answers about whether spiritualists communicate with the afterlife, she soon realized her mission would be quite challenging.
She traveled to many countries, visiting the Arthur Findlay College in the UK, which attracts international students and is home to the founders of the Scole Experiment in Spain, aimed at proving the existence of the spirit world in the 1990s.
Taggart witnessed public healing sessions, private seances, and training classes for mediums; received spiritual readings; and met notable figures in the spiritual world, including controversial practitioners.
“I’ve had many truly fascinating experiences. I’ve had mysterious experiences. I’ve had experiences that are completely absurd. I can honestly say I have more questions than answers at this point,” Taggart said.
A swan on Cassadaga Lake. As Taggart continued her work, she experimented more with her images, incorporating editing techniques used by early spiritualist photographers. (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
The Influence of Spiritualist Photography
Around 1869, the first spiritualist photographer, William Mumler, captured a portrait of former First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, draped in black, with the distinct ghost of her late husband, President Abraham Lincoln, embracing her from behind for protection.
The portraits Mumler took of clients seemingly accompanied by spirits made him famous but also notorious. He pushed the boundaries of what photography at the time could represent, although today we easily identify his work as double exposure.
After his business prospered, Mumler was put on trial—although he was later acquitted—on charges of fraud.
When Taggart first saw Mumler’s images, she felt moved by the grief and tenderness that the portraits conveyed. Their subjects hoped to obtain tangible evidence of their deceased loved ones.
Gretchen Clark, a fifth-generation medium in Lily Dale, laughs at a joke she says her deceased brother just told her. Moments later, Clark confided to Taggart that she had a message from the photographer’s late aunt. (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
Taggart was also surprised to learn about the close historical ties between photography and spiritualism that she had not studied in her photography classes at the nearby Rochester Institute of Technology.
She stated: “I often use the example that spiritualism with photography is akin to Catholicism with painting, as spiritualists used this new medium to try to prove their beliefs as well as illustrate them.”
Other artists of the era incorporated spiritualism into their work. Swedish abstract painter Hilma af Klint and British artist and medium Georgiana Houghton both believed that their work was guided by spirits but were overlooked by art history until recently.
Through her own research, Taggart has traced the movement across the vast cultural landscapes of the 19th century, from art and literature to politics, including early feminism.
She remarked: “Spiritualism or mediumship is often framed in this anti-intellectual way… but it is deeply tied to the innovation and creativity of the 19th century. Wherever you find 19th-century innovation, you will find spiritualism.”
During the “spirit box” séance, participants ask questions into the device while it flickers amidst live sounds from various channels. Taggart writes in “Calling”: “I heard a spirit box reply directly with a correct answer; I find these moments generally unsettling.” (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
Taggart found herself struggling with traditional documentary photography as she continued her project “Calling.” She explained that while many spiritual rituals can be photographed, much of the experience is internal or beyond the observer’s perception.
“How can I represent the psychological truth of these events—things that people seem to genuinely feel and experience—but that I cannot see?”, Taggart asked. She even paused the project for several years, feeling stuck about how to convey the invisible, before returning with a new perspective.
“I began to accept ambiguity, to embrace confusion, and to experiment with how to play with such unstable themes,” Taggart recounted. She chose images with technical glitches and experimented with longer exposure times to see what would happen in each frame over time, echoing the techniques of early spiritualist photographers.
In one photograph, brilliant orange hangs like a halo around a swan on Cassadaga Lake in Lily Dale. In another, a beam of light rises over Arthur Findlay’s grave.
The images Taggart captured of mediums in trance states are blurred and distorted, enhancing their strangeness. She stated: “Those accidental photos really speak to reality in a way that I couldn’t do with my sober mind. Everything in spiritualism aims to create evidence of the other world, and I have given up any desire to prove… It turns out that was much more effective.”
The portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln by Mumler depicts an image resembling the ghost of former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln behind her. (Photo: William H. Mumler).
Searching for the Invisible
Among all the intriguing aspects of spiritualism, the elusive “ectoplasm” fascinated Taggart the most. It has been described in spiritual photography as a viscous, shimmering white liquid or a cloud of smoke.
In the 1984 film “Ghostbusters”, it appears as a gooey green slime. Dan Aykroyd, the screenwriter and actor from a spiritualist family, penned the foreword for “Calling the Spirits.”
“Ectoplasm is said to be a form of matter that connects this world to the next, linking life and death,” Taggart explains.
While the popular image of a medium has become one who can see or hear the dead—allowing others to witness a one-sided exchange—ectoplasmic seances involve the medium producing or expelling material to create a more tangible manifestation.
An Arthur Findlay University student sits in a medium’s cabinet. Taggart spent a week at the school attending and observing classes. (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
19th-century photographer-mediums often depicted these phenomena. The French medium Eva Carrère used flash photography to create images of herself expelling what was called ectoplasm or holding light between her hands (similar to the photographs Mumler took, which can now be easily explained by simple photographic techniques).
Throughout the project “Calling the Spirits,” Taggart sought evidence of ectoplasm, connecting with practitioners still intent on producing it. Most modern mediums she encountered do not practice with this elusive material, although they claim to believe in it.
Muegge claims to have created ectoplasmic hands and other forms, as well as images of the dead. (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
One such medium is the German Kai Muegge, known for his controversial techniques in the spiritualist community. In Taggart’s ghostly images of Muegge, he expels a white substance resembling spiderwebs and fog, briefly illuminated in the darkness when the lights are turned on and off.
“It was completely surreal, as it felt like seeing those classic photographs come alive right before my eyes,” she said.
Taggart writes: The medium Sylvia Horwath performs “a type of seance based on energy combined with dimensions of time and space.” Horwath has practiced mediumship since the age of 8. (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
Although Taggart remains ambiguous about her experiences with ectoplasm, some of the moments that moved her the most were much subtler, like the spiritual readings she received that came true.
In 2017, a friend, medium Lauren Thibodeaux, who appeared in the project “Mediumship,” sent a message to Taggart shortly after her mother passed away, following a private conversation Taggart had with her siblings about getting tattoos to honor their mother.
At Arthur Findlay University in England, people come from all over the world to learn about mediumship. The country has hundreds of spiritualist churches. (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
“The next morning, Lauren Thibodeaux texted me, saying, ‘Well, your mother came to see me,’ and she sent me a long message about everything my mother had said,” Taggart recounts.
Ultimately, Lauren Thibodeaux relayed Taggart’s mother’s message: “Tell them not to get any tattoos!”
Taggart was bewildered. There was no way Lauren Thibodeaux could know about her conversation with her siblings.
Taggart is fascinated by the mediums’ cabinets, where practitioners conduct seances and connect with the spirit world. (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
Throughout the project “Calling the Spirits,” Taggart’s images, along with extensive interviews with spiritualists, occupy a space between truth and perception. But for Taggart, complexity is the core issue.
“Creating the work has changed me in many ways. I think it has certainly made me appreciate the ambiguity of religious experience,” she said.
Taggart traveled to Germany to meet Kai Muegge, who still conducts ectoplasmic seances. (Photo: Shannon Taggart).
