Restless Souls

Yoga classes and Zen meditation, New-Age retreats and nature mysticism—all are part of an ongoing religious experimentation that has surprisingly deep roots in American history. Tracing out the country’s Transcendentalist and cosmopolitan religious impulses over the last two centuries, Restless Souls explores America’s abiding romance with spirituality as religion’s better half. Now in its second edition, including a new preface, Leigh Eric Schmidt's fascinating book provides a rich account of how this open-road spirituality developed in American culture in the first place as well as a sweeping survey of the liberal religious movements that touted it and ensured its continued vitality.

Leigh Eric Schmidt is Edward C. Mallinckrodt University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of numerous books,
including Heaven’s Bride: The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr, and Madwoman, Hearing
Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment, and Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays.

Preface to the Second Edition

INTRODUCTION
Spirituality in the Making
CHAPTER ONE
Mystic Club
CHAPTER TWO
Solitude
CHAPTER THREE
The Piety of the World
CHAPTER FOUR
Meditation for Americans
CHAPTER FIVE
Freedom and Self-Surrender
CHAPTER SIX
Seekers
EPILOGUE
Be Gentle with Yourself

Notes
Index