Spiritual Universe.
Radical Advocate, and Journal of Reform.
Great and Manifold Are Thy Works O Lord. Absolute Truth, Essential Righteousness, Immaculate Purity; Holy Aspiration, Constant Progression, Ultimate Perfection. Brethren, Fear Not; for Error is Mortal and Can Not Live, and truth is Immortal and Can Not Die / We Live in Deeds, not Years; In Thoughts, Not Breaths
Other titles: Cleveland Spiritual Universe / The Spiritualist
1853--1858? Weekly
Cleveland, OH.
Editor: S. Ward Smith, then L.S. Everett, editor and proprietor; R.P. Wilson, associate and corresponding editor; A.V. Valentine, editor, assisted by Kindred Spirits.
Publisher: S.W. & W.W. Smith.
Succeeded by: The Spiritualist (Cleveland)?; The Spiritual Telegraph
1/1, 1853-1858. $2.00 a year.
4 pp., 13 x 20, 16 x 21.

In its last two years, this seems to have been called the Spiritualist. The advertisements for the journal that ran in the New Era in 1853, signed by A.V. Valentine, said that the journal was to be "designed to be a medium for the Dissemination of the spirit of Divine Humanity, which amidst the changes and revolutions of society, inspires the hope of a better day, when the ideal of Christianity may become actual, and Mankind be one united in a Universal Brotherhood." It was to have articles on the Spiritual Philosophy and on communications from the spirit world, progressivism, clairvoyance, psychometry, and featuring original music and poetry. U. Clark's Spiritualist Register for 1858, lists it as existing at that time and says the journal "wields heavy blows in favor of the Harmonial Philosophy."

The journal gave some attention to the phenomenal side of spiritualism (it offered as a premium J. Everett's Book of Skeptics which set out the wonders of Jonathan Koons' Spirit Rooms), but the journal was more fundamentally an exponent of the man-is-a-spirit side of the movement, exemplified by A.J. Davis, A.-L. Cahagnet, Catherine Crowe, Justinus Kerner, et al., all of whose works were featured. Contributions by Isaac Post, S.J. Finney, J.B. Ferguson. The reform side of the journal was exemplified in its prospectus: "This paper will seek as its end, the transformation of the selfish desires, and isolated interests of mankind, to holy aspirations and Harmonious Unity." At the end of 1857 the mortgagees of the journal, who had taken it over, announced in the pages of the Spiritual Telegraph that they had made arrangements with the Telegraph to supply it in lieu of unfulfilled subscriptions to the Universe. Everett went on to become involved in the in the Spiritualist, which began publication in Cleveland in 1857. He may have been in the process of becoming disillusioned with spiritualism in general and certainly was disillusioned with the phenomena produced by John Koons in his Spirit Room in Athens County, Ohio. As Everett reported in the journal, which was then widely republished in the newspapers, during a seance at his house with Koons and his daughter at which the spirit John King played music, flashed lights, and touched the participants, one of those attending struck a match and caught Koons and his daughter in flagrante delicto, as it were. A.V. (Antoine V.) Valentine, who was an original promoter of this journal and later its editor was at the time apparently also publishing another journal in Cleveland, presumably Illuminati, which he may have later moved to Detroit. He advertised in the New Era in 1854 from Lake Mills, Wisconsin, as an "Independent Clairvoyant"who would "give directions for the development of character, and for the unfolding of those higher faculties of the mind, which, by their transcendency over the physical powers, give man a power of perceiving Spiritual forms and substances, and of comprehending Spiritual Truths." Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Rochester, Indiana University, State Library of Pennsylvania.

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