| Summary:
|
From Pat Deveney's database:
Phalanx, The.
A Journal of Philosophy and Friendship / The Inspirations and Outbursts of One Delmar DeForest Bryant Assisted by the Muse Herself / Indited for the Edification of the Elect by Delmar DeForest Bryant Being an attempt to find the way in, the trail through and the path out / A Journal of Philosophy and Friendship / The Phoenix of Adiramled.
The Ideas in this Journal are presumed to be mostly original. Any recognized plagiarisms are ascribable to unconscious cerebral kleptomania. At least, give us credit for the clothes
1908—1909 Monthly
Los Angeles, CA. Editor: Delmar DeForest Bryant ("Adiramled").
Succeeds: Adiramled
Succeeded by: The Little Brown Book
1/1, January 1908-2/11-12, November-December 1909. $1.00 a year. 22-28 pp., 5 x 7 1/8. The title of the journal reflects Bryant’s continuing belief in Fourierist "cooperative" ventures, specifically in this instance in the Phalanx Company and Adiramled Association that, as Kevin Smith and Marc Demarest have discovered, he formed with Ida Earl(e)y Bryant and George W. Carey near San Bernardino, California, to grow and market crimson winter rhubarb to eastern markets. Bryant (1858-1939 ) was the cranky, idiosyncratic alchemist, astrologer, and reformer "Adiramled." He used the journal, as he stated, as a "safety valve" to "let off steam" and to ruminate on friendship and life. In addition to long reminiscences about other old reformers and freelovers, like Moses Harman and Ida Craddock, Bryant advertised his books on alchemy, wrote on "The Alchemy of the Aztecs" ("there existed before the creation simply a Heaven inhabited by two divinities of opposite sex. In time these procreated four sons. The skin of the first was Red, of the second Black, of the third White, and of the fourth Yellow. This, it will be seen, is the exact; succession of the alchemic colors") and "The Power of Thought," and touted the advantages of the local California climate for growing rhubarb, complete with photographs. The journal carried the credo of Bryant’s Order of the Phoenix: "We believe in Freedom—free Thought, free Speech, free Action, free Love, free Life—Everything Free. . . . We believe that the highest, the noblest, the purest and the sweetest realizations possible in life come through counterparted companionship of a man and a woman mentally and physically mated and related. To find this is to find the answer to the rest." The purpose of the journal was set out by Bryant as follows: "While considerable attention will be given to the discussion of occult science, as relates to the hidden laws of natural production and eternal renewal of life-forces, its chief aim and object is to awaken interest in the establishment of a New Social Order. Its ideals will be supplemented and exemplified by practical methods for attainment and realization." These practical methods undoubtedly included alchemy and other ways to achieve the "higher regenerate sex potency," including the use of drugs (See "Datura: A Michigan Musing, 1908" which records in poetic form what must have been Bryant’s experiment with datura). The journal was largely written by Bryant but had occasional contributions by the unknown "Aline" (probably his granddaughter Alice/Aline) and the unknown "Beth" (including a wonderful vision of the "Fire-Mist"), and by George W. Carey, a notable "scientific" proponent of the dominant New Thought preoccupation with preservation of the vital forces. He had earlier published the journal Love from San Diego. NYPL.
|
