From Hawthorne Hall - An Historical Story, 1885 #266243

In medicine, the schools of Homoeopathy and Allopathy were in violent antipathy. Into the con dition of uncertainty and speculation relative to the present and the future there came the wave of Spiritualism which swept over the land. The growth of this belief had been slow from the time it was brought out by the Fox sisters in 1848 until after the close of the Civil War. It then grew rapidly. The country was ready for it because the thought of being able to communicate with the dead offered more comfort than any religious belief in existence and interest in Spiritualism spread to every city, town and hamlet.