...spiritualism belongs to a longstanding strain of American freethinking. It caught on during the second half of the 19th century when grieving survivors of the Civil War longed to reunite with their dead relatives. Electricity, the X-ray, expansions on Mesmer's experiments with magnetism, and the telegraph, with its rat-tat-tat, in syncopation with the spiritualists' ghost rappings, reinforced the notion that there were all sorts of invisible forces at play in the world.Though Jewish spiritualism has other origins, the roots are similar. So it is no suprise we're less spiritual nowadays. Few of us die before our time, thank god, and we've grown comfortable with magnetics, radio waves, and so on. As a result we're less interested in the netherworld, and less likely to accept supersitions about strange powers and forces.
In other words, we're less spiritual not because of a moral defect in ourselves, or because of a flaw in our education, but because we're the most blessed generation in history.
