"Calling on an impressive range of sources including weekly journals, essays, letters, and various organizational reports, Lause clearly demonstrates the wealth of evidence supporting the influence of spiritualists… Recommended."
Choice   "Opens a door between works that consider spiritualism as a purely religious phenomenon and works that deal with the history of the reform movements of the time in purely ... Read morepolitical or economic terms. By developing this thesis, Lause shows how limited previous treatments of progressive reform have been."
John B. Buescher, author of The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear: Agitator for the Spirit Land "Historians of religion, culture, and politics will all learn something new. . . . Free Spirits is filled with fascinating material."
The Journal of Southern History   "There is virtually no scholarship on the influence and counter-influence of spiritualism and politics. The fresh insights on Lincoln, who is generally protected from any real alliance with spiritualism by virtue of his 'difficult' wife, is a great contribution, as are the messages from the southern dead."
Cathy Gutierrez, author of Plato's Ghost: Spiritualism in the American Renaissance "Opens a door between works that consider spiritualism as a purely religious phenomenon and works that deal with the history of the reform movements of the time in purely political or economic terms. By developing this thesis, Lause shows how limited previous treatments of progressive reform have been."
John B. Buescher, author of The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear: Agitator for the Spirit Land Show Less