Cassadaga: America's Oldest Spiritualist Community

By Amy Green
Smithsonian.com
Seated across from the medium, eyes closed, my hands in hers, I listen as she prays for a healing white light to fill me, for the spirits and guardian angels always surrounding me to share their guidance.

I am anxious and skeptical about this encounter. Will my reading consist of sweeping generalities applicable to anyone? Is this for real? The medium releases my hands and sits back in her chair. When she begins to describe the swirl taking place in my brain, I am amazed.

“You go over every word in your mind before you put it down,” says the medium, the Rev. Arlene Sikora, 70. “You just want it just so, and you want your people to feel what you’re feeling, and you want them to see what you’re seeing.” Read more here.

At Virginia Tech, a film asks, 'Can we forgive?'

By Amy Green
Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Blacksburg, Va. — Larissa Mihalisko remembers when she forgave the shooter. It was at a candlelight vigil after Seung-Hui Cho killed four students and a faculty member she knew at Virginia Tech. She felt her heart release its anger, she says, and decided instead to carry out what had been in the hearts of her friends. Building homes in Appalachia. Helping the recovery from hurricane Katrina. This fall she'll do both.

"I realized there's a lot more to life than blaming him and being angry," says Ms. Mihalisko, a senior in international studies who became friends with one student killed in the shootings while doing Katrina volunteer work. "It was a relief." Read more here.