“[Charles] Poyen’s [1836] tour prompted an American fascination with animal magnetism and mesmerism. Soon dozens of visiting and home-grown mesmerists were traveling with their somnambules and giving demonstrations and offering cures in theaters, rented halls, and the homes of the wealthy. By 1843, according to one estimate, as many as two hundred storefront magnetizers worked in Boston. Robert C. Fuller argued that by demonstrating hidden powers of the mind and suggesting a scientific basis for quasi-mystical experiences, including conversion experiences, this movement appealed to the revivalist climate in the United States and dovetailed with popular beliefs in the perfectibility of man and society. Mesmerism also legitimized the beliefs of the followers of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg and the beliefs of the Spiritualists — by offering an apparently scientific explanation for how humans could contact ‘higher’ realms of spirit.”