Camp Chesterfield
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Chesterfield Spiritualist Camp District
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Historic Camp Chesterfield
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| Location | 50 Lincoln Drive, Chesterfield, Indiana |
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| Coordinates | 40°6′57.276″N 85°35′48.732″W / 40.11591000°N 85.59687000°WCoordinates: 40°6′57.276″N 85°35′48.732″W / 40.11591000°N 85.59687000°W |
| Area | 34.9 acres (14.1 ha) |
| Built | 1886 |
| Architectural style | Late 19th And Early 20th Century American Movements, Art Deco |
| NRHP reference # | 02000192 |
| Added to NRHP | July 17, 2002 |
Camp Chesterfield was founded in 1891 and is the home of the Indiana Association of Spiritualists, located in Chesterfield, Indiana. Camp Chesterfield offers Spiritualist Church services, seminary, and mediumship, faith healing, and spiritual development classes, as well as psychic readings for patrons.
In 2002, the camp was designated a historic district, the "Chesterfield Spiritualist Camp District", and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In August 1925, 14 Camp Chesterfield mediums were arrested on charges of obtaining money under false pretences. The charges were filed by a news service reporter who had spent time investigating the camp.
In the 1950s, Don Kemp, later to become one of Indiana's most popular mediums and Spiritualism teachers, began visiting Camp Chesterfield in his quest to learn more about the philosophy of Spiritualism and experience the various forms of spirit communication. He reported having had several experiences of spirit visitation in his younger life and continued his search to understand the phenomenon. Camp Chesterfield had become a hot topic of discussion among the citizens of Indianapolis, both positively supported by those who had attended the camp and criticized by doubters. Kemp's great-aunt, Bertha Jessup of West Virginia, made seasonal pilgrimages to the camp throughout her adult life and invited Don to the camp to come to his own conclusions. They attended a seance where Kemp received five materializations: "I felt the first three visitations weren't authentic but then my brother materialized followed by my Grandma. I knew they were authentic." Kemp's convincing detail was his brother's reference to Don's actual birth date which had always been in dispute with the date printed on his birth certificate.
In 1960, psychic investigator Andrija Puharich and Tom O'Neill, publisher of the Spiritualist magazine Psychic Observer, arranged to film two seances at Camp Chesterfield using infrared film, intending to procure scientific proof of spirit materializations. The medium was shown the camera beforehand, and was aware that she was being filmed. However, the film revealed obvious fraud on the part of the medium and her cabinet assistant. The expose was published in the 10 July 1960 issue of the Psychic Observer.
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