About the Trip

Join Melissa Nierman ( DIY educator + occult tour guide), Maria Molteni (queer artist, mystic, educator, Shaker researcher), along with guest researchers/ spiritual practitioners and an intimate caravan of inspiring peers on a road-trip-style pilgrimage. Great Awakenings will travel through potent sites of historic and contemporary Spiritualist, Shaker and 19th century abolitionist communities in Massachusetts and New York State. 

Beginning in “Witch City” (Salem, MA) and ending in “The Town That Talks to the Dead” (Lily Dale, NY) for the annual 2-day symposium *The Science of Things Spiritual, this roving retreat - in the year of the Chariot - will touch down in spaces integral to spiritual and communal paradigm shifts referred to as “Great Awakenings” in (so-called) American history.

With a focus on parts of the Second + Third Great Awakenings (1820s-1850s), we seek to reconnect with historic visionary movements by immersion in the land and structures that hosted them - often labeled as “Utopian”. Through critical dialogue, psychic exploration, and creative engagement, we’ll co-create refreshed notions of Heaven on Earth (Shaker communal ideal). Facilitating reading circles, movement workshops, ceremonial hikes, intuitive development, collective dreaming, guided tours (see below), our adventurous pursuits will lead up to Molteni’s symposium lecture (described below):

Spiritual Spectacles: Mother’s Work and the Shaker Era of Manifestations 

The Shakers arrived from England in 1766, seeking to build organized, egalitarian religious communes. While widely known for their fervent worship styles, strict celibacy and excellent design, a brief period of their history known as “The Era of Manifestations” brought forth exceptionally fruitful spirit communication. From roughly 1837-1857 first-generation Shakers, such as early leader Mother Ann Lee (believed to be the Second Coming of Christ as Holy Mother Wisdom), appeared to young Shaker “instruments” who channeled their messages. Visual recordings of these correspondences are now known as the Gift Drawings or Mother’s Work. This lecture will contextualize the Era of Manifestations, its overlap with Spiritualism, and some of Molteni’s responsive artwork as artist and researcher-in-residence at Hancock, Canterbury, and Harvard Shaker Villages.

*Science of Things Spiritual is organized by contemporary artist and spirit photographer Shannon Taggart

 
 

Highlights

  • Visiting the unique burial grounds of Shakers and Spiritualists

  • Touring historic “utopian” community museums, gardens, and even fairy trails

  • Hiking through the woods to hidden Shaker ceremonial sites

  • Sharing a summer feast + bonfire by a waterfall

  • Waking up with group meditative stretching and breathing

  • Visiting the personal belongings of an early gender nonconforming prophet

  • Swimming in lakes and ponds

  • Staying in unique accommodations, including a 1970s Eco-Village, a converted Shaker Mill, a 19th century mansion, and the former home of Lily’s Dale’s first female president

  • Practicing somatic exercises based on historic communal dancing

  • Experiencing a private gallery reading with a working medium

  • Viewing rare behind-the-scenes archived channeled artworks with a curator

  • Participating in reading + discussion circles w/ playful co-teaching opportunities

  • Attending Spiritualist message services - inside churches + in the great outdoors

  • Watching films outside in the grass

  • Being part of a roving community - driving no more than 3 hours in a day

 

What’s included

  • 8-Nights of Shared Room Accommodations - Saturday, July 22nd-29th

  • Transportation to all sites from MA to NY

  • Eat-in Group Breakfasts + Dinners (some prepared + others with provided groceries)

  • Museum Admissions + Guided Site Tours

  • Morning Meditations + Evening Programming

  • 3-Day Lily Gate Pass, including all daily message services + healings

  • Ticket to Molteni’s Science of Things Spiritual Symposium Lecture

  • Private Group Spirit Message Circle with a registered Lily Dale medium

  • Optional: Aura Photography Party Kick-off @ HausWitch - Friday, July 21st evening - those who choose to participate will provide their own evening accommodations

  • Optional: Drop-off at Buffalo International Airport - Sunday, July 30th morning

  • Optional: Transportation back to Salem at end of trip (8-hour drive)

What’s Not Included

  • Transportation to Salem, MA + from Buffalo, NY (unless driving back with us)

  • Optional: Salem Accommodations on Friday, July 21st

  • Travel Insurance - recommended!

  • Lunches + personal snacks (there will be kitchen access throughout the trip and grocery stops along the way and food restrictions are requested in registration survey)

  • Eat-out meals

  • Any individual mediumship appointments in Lily Dale

  • Additional/ optional symposium lectures or events at Lily Dale

 

Facilitators

Maria Molteni (They/She, b. 1983, Nashville) is a Boston-based interdisciplinary artist, mystic, beekeeper, practicing Spiritualist and Shaker researcher since their first visit to the living Shakers in 2007. They descend from Tennessee square dancers, quilters and beekeepers who farmed near South Union Shaker Village (KY)- Cherokee, Shawnee and Yuchi Lands. Molteni pulls from a well of historical contexts, picturing themself as a Phys-Ed coach for visionary movements like Shakers or the Bauhaus. With backgrounds in painting, publication, dance and athletics, their practice bloomed to incorporate deep research, embodied spirituality and interspecies collaboration. They are an active member of Lake Pleasant Spiritualist Church (the other oldest Spiritualist community in the US) and their intuitive practice spans astrology, tarot, dreamwork, conchomancy and color magic. 

Molteni has been an artist and researcher-in-residence at Hancock, Canterbury and Harvard Shaker Villages and worked closely with the archives of several others. They have exhibited at numerous galleries and museums (as well as basements, basketball courts and seascapes) across the globe.

Sun: Libra / Rising: Libra / Moon: Aries

 

Melissa Nierman (she/they) is the founder of NowAge Travel in Salem, Massachusetts, as well as a trained clairvoyant, queer mystic, and intersectional history nerd with a passion for DIY learning. With a Masters of Education and years as an amateur comedian, Melissa loves working in group settings and has hosted folks from around the world interested in exploring the relationship between magic, history, and the invisible world.

Sun: Leo | Rising: Virgo | Moon: Aries

 
 

Tiffany J. Hopkins (she/her) began studying mediumship after moving into her great-great grandmother's cottage in Lily Dale, the world's largest community of Spiritualists. She combines a university-trained intellect with a universe-connected heart to bring flashes of understanding to the mostly incomprehensible world of mediumship. She is a practicing medium, educator, and futurist. She’d like you to join her over at Normalize Talking to the Dead

Sun: Libra / Rising: Capricorn / Moon: Aries

 
 

Policies

  • This trip is open to anyone (18+) with an interest in exploring their own spiritual/ psychic connection and its relationship to communal histories. It’s meant to be a safe + confidential space for all those who attend. 

  • We reserve the right to ask any participant to leave the trip if their actions create any harm to the group.

  • Please note that there will be no refunds or discounts for non-attendance. If you cancel your participation in the trip for any reason, you're welcome to find someone else to take your spot and we'll do our best to help replace you, but cannot promise this. 

  • If for some unexpected reason, NowAge Travel cancels the retreat, we'll refund you in full for all payment.

  • By putting down payment, you agree to abide by all of the above policies. 

Things to note:

  • There’s varied accessibility at each accommodation and activity site. Please reach out if this is prohibitive.

  • Think of this as a group retreat in motion. We will be passing through many different sites with varied historical, political, and energetic influences over time. We’ll do our best to create a container of safety, but the nature of pilgrimage is unpredictable.

  • We hope to address this content with warmth and criticality. Some of the material covered on the trip may bring up feelings that require self-exploration.