Americans were in love with mesmerism because it was something that you could do in your own home. You could mesmerize or hypnotize your aunt or your…

- Mitch Horowitz

I think spiritualism, mesmerism, the mental healing movement, provided some people with the most meaningful experiences of their lives.

- Mitch Horowitz

People need doorways to explore universal religious and ethical ideas.

- Mitch Horowitz

I think therapeutic spirituality has largely been a help in the modern world. So the fact that people can approach religion with practical needs.

- Mitch Horowitz

Even back in its colonial days, America developed a reputation as a safe harbor for people with unusual or radical religious beliefs.

- Mitch Horowitz

Science, as it reaches the public mind, has both served to discredit and unintentionally reaffirmed mystical ideas.

- Mitch Horowitz

Once the social and spiritual opening was created for women in the form of spiritualism, suddenly ambitious women who wanted to participate in the cu…

- Mitch Horowitz

When spiritualism dawned, suddenly women who wanted to engage in the civic and religious and political culture were becoming transmediums.

- Mitch Horowitz

Women had no clerical role anywhere in the Western world, period.

- Mitch Horowitz