Islam and 19th-century U.S. spiritualists, Theosophists, and Freemasons

In the nineteenth-century, many of the early U.S. sympathizers of and converts to Islam were followers of what I term "Scientific Religion": a matrix of religious practices and beliefs that supported the questioning of both traditional religious doctrines as well as "materialistic" science.  I explore this connection in my article "Islam and 'Scientific Religion' in the United States before 1935," Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, v. 22, n. 3 (2011): 311-328 (available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09596410.2011.586511 ).