The huge number of untimely deaths in the Great War is said to have been a major driver behind spiritualism and other occult beliefs, Arthur Conan Doyle being a prime example of one such adherent trying to contact his lost son. This also ties in with the other poster who mentioned a similiar growth after the American civil war, presumbably for similiar reasons.

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Mike
London City Presbyterian Church
London
England

"Surely, we wish to be orthodox, but we must first learn what real orthodoxy is. Surely, we wish to be progressive, but we must first have a basis to progress from."