New Era, The. Or Heaven Opened to Man.
Devoted to the New Dispensation / Devoted to Spiritual Facts, Philosophy, and Life.
Behold I Make All Things New; Hereafter Ye Shall See Heaven Opened
Other titles: Heaven Opened to Man
1852--1855 Weekly
Boston (actually Hopedale), MA.
Editor: S. Crosby Hewitt, editor and proprietor; Alonzo E. Newton.
Succeeded by: New England Spiritualist (bought subscription list)
1/1, October 1, 1852-March 1855.
Folio (16x23). 4 pp. $1.50 a year.

A contemporary noted that the journal, while nominally published in Boston, was printed and issued from Hopedale, MA. The journal was to be "devoted to the dissemination and elucidation of the facts as they transpire in Circles of Spiritual Investigation, so far as authentic information of them may be obtained." Advertisement, "The New Era," Spiritual Telegraph 2/56 (May 28, 1853): 16. As the masthead proclaimed, the journal was centered on the arrival of the new era for man, the "New Age." It proclaimed itself "a free paper, in the best sense of the word: free for the utterance of all worthy and useful thought--free as Life and Love and Wisdom are free!" The journal was avowedly Christian, though of a decidedly odd sort. Its masthead shows an open Bible, and men turning toward spirits coming down from the light of the cross through clouds. Hewitt, the editor, was a disciple of John Murray Spear, whose discourses permeate the journal and caused an early split in the spiritualist community as more rational believers rejected Spear's enthusiasms. A detailed and incomprehensible description of The New Motive Power machine was presented, beginning in May 1854. The density of the discourses and spirit messages in the journal prompted the New York Tribune to comment that "the proverb that a living dog is better than a dead lion was never more tediously illustrated than in its pages; to hear the braying of an ass would be agreeable pastime after their perusal, for the higher the spirits mount, the bigger fools they seem to become, if The New Era does them justice." Contributions by Adin Ballou, Mrs. H.F.M. Brown, W.S. Haywood, Herman Snow, Warren Chase, Milo A. Townshend, La Roy Sunderland, et al. In November 1854 the journal carried an article, "On the Ministration of Departed Spirits in This World," by Harried Beecher Stowe, revealing her belief in spiritualism. J.M. Spear has finally found a worthy biographer in John Buescher.

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