Miller's Psychometric Circular.
A Monthly Journal Devoted to the Young Science of Psychometry /"Progression, Spiritually, Mentally, and Psychometrically.
Other titles: Psychometric Circular
1881--1885? Monthly
Brooklyn, NY. Publisher: Charles R. Miller & Co.. Editor: Charles R. Miller.
Corporate author: Brooklyn Spiritual Association1/1, May 15, 1881-1883(?). 8 pp.; $1.00/year.

This is called a new series, which implies an earlier, perhaps less formal publication put out by Miller. The journal functioned as the organ of the Brooklyn Spiritual Association, of which Miller was president, and placed itself editorially on the more credulous side of the spiritualist spectrum. It featured contributions by and notes on James A. Bliss, Anna Kimball, J.R. Buchanan, Alfred James, The Ancient Band, J.W. Van Namee, James Cooper (on projection of the double), the Eddy Brothers, Anna Stewart of Terre Haute, et al. It was started at the behest of the famous, omnipresent materialized spirit Carrie Miller (Miller's daughter) mediated by James A. Bliss. It quoted with approval Buchanan's considered opinion of the foibles of mediums: "But it is not my policy, and it is not in accordance with religious principle, to resist fraud by lashing the mediums, whose very mediumistic constitution renders them liable to error. Mediums should be treated as our children, and protected from misleading influences--shielded from temptation and obsession." The Psychological Review in reviewing the new journal noted (probably dryly) that it was "wedded to an elastic theory of spirit-identity," citing the presence of the spirits of Scipio Africanus, Appius Claudius, Livy, et al. Miller deviated from spiritualist consensus by having the temerity to say that "Psychometry leads Spiritualism out of its first stages--its adolescence--or period of sentimentalism (mere intellectual assent) to a self-asserting and self-supporting condition--manhood-Life," J.M. Roberts of Mind and Matter of course took umbrage ("What is Going to Happen?" Mind and Matter 3/36 (July 20, 1881): 4) and later claimed that Miller had been deceived by "spirit enemies" and the lying medium George Cole. "The Enemies of Spiritual, Physical and Spiritual," Mind and Matter 3/50 (November 5, 1881): 6. Noted in Banner of Light 47/21 (August 14, 1880): 4 , and in Reformirende Blätter, February 1883 (as "Psychological Circular"). Charles C. Ford's, Newspaper Manual for 1885 attributes to the journal a "sworn circulation" of 2,400. New York State Library (n.s. 1/11, May 15, 1881).

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