The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna [Hardcover]

A young writer travels to Maine to tell the unusual story of Americas longest-running camp devoted to mysticism and the world beyond. Engaging.... [Ptacin] is on a quest to understand the peculiar nature of belief, the power of faith  pure, unquestioning and even unreasoning  to shape the way we see the world around us.... This is a place and a story rooted in the very human hope that life is more than a handful of years on a lonely planet. And that if we believe hard enough we may find proof of that, shining in the shadows, just beyond our reach. Who doesnt like a good ghost story? And in Camp Etna, the 143-year-old Spiritualist summer retreat located in the Maine hinterland just west of Bangor, author Mira Ptacin has found a whopping good one.... Ms. Ptacins depiction of Camp Etnas residentsa quirky underworld of fringe characters and their truthis both nonjudgmental and, pardon the pun, dead-on. A deft account.... Ptacin nimbly traces the movement from the early days  when Spiritualism offered women (often via mediumship) a public voice and sense of authority  to its heyday as a ghostly carnival, into the public backlash at the hands of skeptics like Harry Houdini, to the New Age of crystal healing and the even newer age of high-tech ghost hunting. Best to go into this book open-minded. Leave a crack open for wonder  or belief  to slip through. Enchanting.... Ptacin locates the roots of Spiritualism and traces the rise and decline of this female-dominated world that challenged institutions of the 19th-century patriarchy, offered comforting connection with the dead, and supported both abolition and suffrage. Blending history and her firsthand experience, Ptacin summons the spirits of this rich past and conveys the emotional needs it has satisfied over the years. A fascinating look at the history and cultural influence of Camp Etna, the 143-year-old Spiritualist community in Maine.... Ptacin, who is receptive to the spiritual experiences and stl3.