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

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

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 mother or your father and people would go into these trance states and you could introduction autosuggestions tot hem or as some people saw it, you could cure them of illnesses.

Once the social and spiritual opening was created for women in the form of spiritualism, suddenly ambitious women who wanted to participate in the culture had a kind of a voice.

People need doorways to explore universal religious and ethical ideas.

Everybody has different stories about where I came from. Nobody really knows.

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