America became a special source of attraction to people who were fleeing the aftereffects of the 30 Years War and the religious persecution that began to sweep through Europe in the period between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. And when people got here, very often they succeeded.

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

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.

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

All the quantum physics experiments have occurred chiefly on the atomic scale and we are taught to believe that nature's laws are consistent.

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

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