Mary's Charlatans by Memoirs of Henry Villard

[Laurie Verge]

I can easily see where many people of that era would be inclined to follow Spiritualism. Death was an everyday occurence in one's normal pattern; but with the horrors of the Civil War, the yearning to believe that your loved one was fine in the afterlife and could communicate back with you could turn into a source of comfort under the belief in Spiritualism.

To me, it just became another form of faith in the teachings of the New Testament - that there was life after death. To me, the only difference is the issue of actual "communication" with the deceased.

If I can add a personal note here: We almost lost my daughter when she was four years old. She had a rare form of croup and stopped breathing, her eyes rolled back in her head, and her bowels let loose. Luckily, she was revived, but spent a week in the hospital while she was tested for brain damage (none - straight A student - graduated from college with honors - now working on her second Master's - pardon my bragging). If she had died, I suspect I could have converted to Spiritualism in order to "talk" with her also.

P.S. We actually have a staff member who has researched the Spiritualism movement of the 19th-century and gives PowerPoint presentations on it as part of our speakers' bureau. It is very popular. You would be amazed at how many famous people of the 19th-century were involved in the movement.