Two hundred years after Eric Hoffer’s True Believers found permanent and repetitive “purchase” along the fertile banks of what became the Erie Canal (before, during, & after its construction), the fires of faith (and subsequent “conversion”) simply would not stop re-kindling. Multiple movements that are still pulsing energetically today sprung up there. This presentation explores four contrasting views of why and draws relevant links to today’s polarized US Milieu/Melee.

Russell Osmond, Natalie Shepherd Barkdull