Smith-Dalton, a historian and writer, considers the history of spiritualism and the occult in Salem, Massachusetts. She describes occult aspects earlier in the region's history, such as mesmerism, religious sects, and Mormonism, then Salem just before the Civil War through the end of the nineteenth century. She provides the historical and social context for the city, including its link to witchcraft, and tells of key individuals, such as Emanuel Swedenborg, Franz Anton Mesmer, Andrew Jackson Davis, Charles Wentworth Upham, Charles Henry Foster, Allen Putnam, Joseph Gilbert Waters, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and other psychics, healers, and clairvoyants. Annotation 2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
