Vol 4 Page 104

PSYCHÊ

[The Theosophist, Vol. III, No. 8, May, 1882, p. 211]

Our old friend, The Spiritualist, died of inanition, but has resurrected under the Hellenic alias of Psychê. In short, it might be said that, out of the inanimate corpse of Mr. Harrison’s first love, has sprung a new soul to woo the fickle public back to its allegiance. The Spiritualist, on the whole, treated us harshly, too often laying the truncheon over our editorial head. We wanted to please it, but could not; and, just when things were seemingly at the worst, our

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censor died the journalistic death, and cut off forever our chance for a good place in its books. We may now start afresh and, warned by experience, must deport ourselves so as to command the amity, if not the alliance, of Psychê. The new journal is handsomely printed on good paper, and, with its vermilion column-rules and initials, makes a gay, not to say jaunty, appearance for an organ of transcendental science. The contents of the first number are interesting, a paper on the Sphygmographic (pulse-measuring) Experiments of Dr. Purdon on “spiritual mediums” leading us decidedly in the right direction. Mediumship, in truth, lacks nothing so much as thorough scientific investigation; for, until the pathological and psychical conditions of the medium are perfectly known, Spiritualists will not be in a way to know what may or may not be ascribed to intracorporeal agency, in the phenomena of the séance room. Psychê starts with our good wishes for its prosperity.

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