1/1, January 1849-6/4, 1856; resumed n.s. 1/1, February 1887-3/12, January 1890. $2.00 a year; single copies, 25 cents.

Buchanan (1814-1899) was a convinced spiritualist and began to include spiritualist topics in his journal as early as 1850, but was outside the mainstream of spiritualism - as is clear in the backhanded compliments paid in his obituaries in the Banner of Light. He was a physician of an equally eccentric sort, holding medical chairs in Kentucky and Ohio and then in California, but his great love was phrenology and psychometry (a term coined by him to characterize the ability to read impressions from people - their "nerve aura" - or inanimate things). His high view of himself and his work is found in his last interview: "My work is for the next century; only angels and women appreciate it now." "Dr. J. Rodes Buchanan. In Memoriam," Banner of Light, March 17, 1900, 2. Buchanan opted for the progressive, evolutionary view of cultures, and had little interest in or patience for the barbarous "oriental" views that began to creep into spiritualism in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In his later years, through the mediumship of Mary Hollis-Billing, Madam Blavatsky's friend, he obtained from St. John himself the unadulterated truth about primitive Christianity. Buchanan also was among the legion of reformers who flocked to spiritualism and as such has his place in D.M. Bennett's The World's Sages, Infidels, and Thinkers, Being Biographical Sketches of Leading Philosophers, Teachers, Reformers, Innovators, Founders of New Schools of Thought, Eminent Scientists, etc., 2d ed. revd. and enlarged (New York: Truth Seeker Company, [c. 1880]), 879-82. His book on Moral Education was printed by John A. Lant (on whom, see the note under The Toledo Sun). In his last re-creation of himself, Buchanan had integrated his work into the world of mental healing, starting a Pantological College of Therapeutics in Boston and then California.