Psychic, The.
A Monthly Magazine of Psychological Facts and Phenomena, Devoted to the Metaphysical.
Peace be unto all beings. All that we are is the result of what we have thought-- Buddha. Have no half dealings with thine art--Owen Meredith
1909--1910 Monthly (named after signs of zodiac)
Atlantic City, NJ. Publisher: Kenilworth Bureau. Editor: Walter Winston Kenilworth.
1/1, Capricorn 1909-2/12, Sagittarius 1910. 16-48 pp., 4 x 6. $1.00 a year.

This is a beautifully produced, platitudinous, idiosyncratic effort by Kenilworth who is otherwise known mainly through books on The Life of the Soul (1911), Psychic Control through Self-Knowledge (1912) and Practical Occultism (1921). From the pages of the journal, written entirely by Kenilworth, it is apparent he admired Buddhism and the Vedanta, and also was convinced of the decline of the West and the "passing of the Great Race"--both embodied in his opinion on Blacks and "black" music such as ragtime. In a letter to the Paris editor of the New York Herald Tribune before the outbreak of World War I, he wrote: "The American 'rag time' or 'rag time' evolved music is symbolic of the primitive morality and perceptible moral limitations of the negro type. With the latter sexual restraint is almost unknown, and the widest altitude of moral uncertainty is conceded." The same sentiments were expressed in this journal in "Negro Influence in American Life": "History attests that natural degeneracy has followed in the wake of indiscriminate and unchecked racial interbreeding."

Despite his rather aristocratic name and his apparent wealth, however, Kenilworth led a double life. His real name was Walter K. Martin, but he rose to fame--as his former wife alleged in 1920 in claiming he had stolen her soul--as "Zozo," a society seer, "stargazer and reader of wealthy palms," in Manhattan, Newport and Atlantic City. "Wife Who Spent Fortune to Reclaim Spirit Says Seer-Husband Stole Her Soul," Washington Times, August 25, 1920, 2. He did this, the wife alleged, not to steal money from his patrons, since he was already wealthy from his first wife's estate, but to steal their souls to rejuvenate himself. Whatever the outcome of these claims, a year later Kenilworth was advertising in the American newspapers from Courcelles, France: "Know Your Life--Latest scientific method. Develop your powers. Send birthday, 25 cents stamps. Satisfaction guaranteed." LOC and NYPL.

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