Upstate New York was the Northern California of its time. It birthed waves of cultural and social utopian innovation. The movement was linked to the 1830’s popularization of Swedenborg, a ‘Metaphysical Science Fiction’ author who created a writing style in the 1770’s which blended religion, magic and science.

The travelling Mesmerizers blended Swedenborg and Mesmer together and turned Spirit Channeling into a Performance event. This line birthed the Spiritualist Sensation of the latter 1800’s, and has direct connections with modern New Age seers.   

Swedenborg ushered in a way of writing and speaking about science that morphed into the Christian Science, New Thought, Mormon and Religious Science movements

pages 23-29 give a great overview of Swedenborg’s very strange ideas and there integration into the American Psyche. This is the first overview that I kind of understand.

Spiritual, but not religious: understanding unchurched America

 By Robert C. Fuller