Immortality.
An Exponent of Universal Religion.
1898-1901 Quarterly
Chicago, IL, then Syracuse, NY. Publisher: Pyramid Publishing Company. Editor: J.C.F. Grumbine. Succeeded by: Universal Religion (name change, with issue of June 1901)
Corporate author: College of Psychic Sciences / Order of the White Rose / "Endorsed" by the Psychical Club of Chicago
1/1, June 1898-May 1901. 48-82 pp., $1.00 a year.

This production by Grumbine announced itself as "devoted to the a priori philosophy and emphasizes the metaphysics of Divine Science, Mental Science, Psychopathy, Theosophy, Occultism, Mysticism and Spiritualism. It is also the exponent of the Rosicrucians or the Order of the White Rose." It promised a "homogenous" list of articles and included contributions by Swami Abhayananda (a French woman who was converted to Hinduism by Vivekananda), Swami Saradananda, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, W.J. Colville, Annie Besant, Franz Hartmann, and Cora L.V. Richmond. Excerpts on yoga by T.J. Betiero. The emphasis of the journal was on the consequences of the immortality ("eternality") of the soul, including its pre-existence. The journal also published "study work" for the Order of the White Rose, whose objects were ‘to inaugurate the Christian Occult Society for all those who recognize the ‘Christ' as their master, and to form within the Society ‘The Order of the White Rose,' for occult investigation." Grumbine (1861-1938) was a voluminous writer on auras, Melchizedek, spiritualism, telepathy, psychometry and clairvoyance. Horatio Dresser classed him among the popularizers of New Thought, but he was more than that and taught a coherent, practical, universal system of occultism-of becoming an adept during this incarnation. Grumbine started as a Universalist and then became a Unitarian minister and always saw his mission as the propagation of the universal religion. His move away from more orthodox Christianity began in the early 1890s when, while still a Unitarian minister, he began to communicate with Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Originally the spirit signed itself only "E.B.B." but Grumbine soon penetrated that guise clairvoyantly and began to receive regular teachings from her. It was she whom Grumbine credited as the founder of his Order of the White Rose. This and the associated College of Divine Sciences, which functioned as a "pool" from which members of the order were taken, were begun in Geneseo, Illinois, in 1894. On the Order, see the notice in S.C. Gould's "Arcane Societies," Notes and Queries, 1905, 91. Mime Innese, an advocate of more traditional spiritualism, described Grumbine and his books as pompous, half-learned and showing all the traits of pretense and show "in vogue among charlatans." "Grumbine-ology," Banner of Light 97/3 (March 11, 1905): 3. Despite Grumbine's resolve to publish a "homogeneous" journal-i.e., one removed from sectarian debate-the last issue carried a biting editorial on "The Decline and Decay of Sectarian and Organized Spiritualism"-an attack on what Grumbine saw as the too cozy relationship between organized spiritualism (the NSA, spiritualist camps and spiritualist journals) and the mediums, too many of whom were fraudulent. The journal changed its name to Universal Religion (Tacoma, Washington), beginning with the issue of June 1901. The announced reason for the change was "Divinity as set forth in Universal religion is the ideal and end of the college and the Order of the White Rose." More pedestrianly, the change probably reflects Grumbine's judgment that his work would prosper better as a religion and his transfer to the Northwest. The Guide to the Current Periodicals and Serials of the United States 1909 (Ann Arbor, MI: George Wahr, 1908), 109, credits Grumbine with yet another journal called Divinity from Brookline, Massachusetts in 1908, but no trace of it has survived. LOC.

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