Christian Banker, The.
The Love of Money is the root of all Evil
1853--1853 Weekly
Chicago, IL. Editor: Seth Paine and John W. Holmes.
1/1 January 5-February 23, 1853. 11 1/2 x 9, 4 pp. 50 cents a year.

The journal lasted only for eight issues and came crashing down when one of its principals was confined for insanity and the other only narrowly escaped the same fate--fates widely attributed to spiritualism. Spiritualism arrived in Chicago as early as 1849 in the person of the rapping medium Julia Lusk. Among the earliest converts was the wealthy Ira B. Eddy who rented Paine a building for his novel bank and supplied part of the money for the venture. As a critic noted at the time, "the affairs of the bank [were] carried on by the use of mediums. A female was in the habit of retiring to a back room with Mr. Paine or Mr. Eddy, and there professed to hold conversation with the spirit of such men as General Washington, General Jackson, and many others, who directed how the affairs of the bank should be carried on . . ." Henry Fowler, "The Christian Banker," Chicago Daily Tribune, February 5, 1853, reprinted in http://www.spirithistory.com/chtrib.html. The third floor of the same building was devoted to Harmony Hall, the first spiritualist meeting place in Chicago, where Paine was an enthusiastic speaker. In February 1853, the bank and the Christian Banker came to an abrupt end when Paine refused to honor a bank note issued by the bank and the conservator of the bank's assets started a lunacy proceeding against Eddy and had several of the mediums charged with carrying off the bank's money. Eddy was committed and Paine escaped a similar fate only after several trials. The debacle formed a standard subject for debunkers of spiritualism at the time, though Emma Hardinge [Britten] gave Eddy a sympathetic notice as a pioneer in her Modern American Spiritualism (1870), 378-389. The journal was devoted to woman's rights, financial advice, and libels on competing brokerages and banks ("unclean," "scoundrel," hog," "coward," and "rascal"). It attracted The Christian Shoemaker as a parody. Newberry Library and Chicago Public Library.

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