Buchanan, Joseph Rhodes (1814-1899)

American professor of psychology and medical science born in Frankfort, Kentucky, on December 11, 1814. He became dean of the faculty and professor in the Eclectic Medical Institute (which practiced natural medicine) in Covington, Kentucky, and a pioneer researcher in the field of psychometry.

The discoverer of "phrenomesmerism," Buchanan published in 1843 a neurological map, a new distribution of the phrenological organs. He anticipated Prof. Ferrier's "center of feeling" by localizing as early as 1838 the "region of sensibility" in which, in a state of high development, he found traces of an unknown psychic faculty for which in 1842 he coined the word "psychometry," the measuring of the soul.

Episcopal Bishop Leonidas Polk (General Polk during the Civil War) told him of his curious sensitivity to atmospheric, electric, and other physical conditions. If he touched brass in the dark, he immediately knew it by its influence and the offensive metallic taste in his mouth. Buchanan began to experiment and soon found out that these sensations were not restricted to the sense of taste alone. Students of a Cincinnati medical school registered distinct impressions from medicines held in their hands. To eliminate thought transference, the substances were wrapped up in paper parcels and mixed.

Slowly the conviction forced itself on Buchanan that emanations might be thrown off by all substances, even by the human body, which certain sensitives might feel and interpret in their normal state. He was staggered by the implication of such a possibility and asserted:

"The past is entombed in the present, the world is its own enduring monument; and that which is true of its physical is likewise true of its mental career. The discoveries of Psychometry will enable us to explore the history of man, as those of geology enable us to explore the history of the earth. There are mental fossils for psychologists as well as mineral fossils for the geologists; and I believe that hereafter the psychologist and the geologist will go hand in hand, the one portraying the earth, its animals and its vegetation, while the other portrays the human beings who have roamed over its surface in the shadows, and the darkness of primeval barbarism. Aye, the mental telescope is now discovered which may pierce the depths of the past and bring us in full view of the grand and tragic passages of ancient history."

To the subtle emanation given off by the human body he gave the name "nerve aura." In the Journal of Man, which succeeded S. B. Brittan's Shekinah, one of the first Spiritualist monthlies, he published a complete exposition of his system of neurology, or anthropology. The paper was mainly devoted to his psychometric experiments, in the course of which he came to believe that an actual clue, something belonging to the person of whom reading is given, is not always necessary and that an index, which leads the mind of the psychometer to the subject, may suffice. He observed:

"Acting upon this view I wrote the name of a friend and placed it in the hands of a good psychometer, who had no difficulty, notwithstanding her doubts of so novel a proceeding, in giving as good a description of the character of Dr. N. as if she had made the description from an autograph. After that experiment I was accustomed to extend my inquiries to ancient and modern historical characters, public men and any person in whose character I was interested, as well as localities I wished to have described."

Buchanan regarded psychometry as a human faculty that did not involve the intervention of spirits. L. A. Coffin, however, in her preface to Buchanan's Manual of Psychometry (Boston, 1889) admitted that she was often impressed by spirits. This was not incongruous, as Buchanan himself was an avowed Spiritualist. He published an astounding narrative of his own experiences in the Light of Truth, Columbus, Ohio, in 1899.

He stated that from 1849 to 1855 he was the only medical scientist to defend the Fox Sisters and repel their assailants. He told his friends that he was "as well acquainted with the spirit world as they were with Europe." This knowledge was derived from instructions given by direct voices through Mrs. Hollis-Billing (Mary J. Hollis ) and from direct scripts. He was further helped by psychometric explorations that he began in 1879-80 through Cornelia H. Buchanan. "The past was to her as open a book as the present, and during the years in which she portrayed historic characters of whom I knew nothing, I never found her deviating from the truth as far as I could discover."

In the course of these investigations, Buchanan received a direct penciled message signed by "St. John." This was followed by startling communications which, after having been held in reserve for 17 years, were published in 1897 under the title Primitive Christianity: Containing the Lost Lives of Jesus Christ and the Apostles and the Authentic Gospel of St. John. Buchanan stated that he tested the St. John script, properly concealed, through three psychometrists: Cornelia H. Buchanan, Mrs. W. R. Hayden, and Dr. James M. Peebles, and that all three agreed as to its source, giving similar descriptions of a great spirit devoted personally to Jesus Christ. The book was also adorned by an engraving of the spirit form of St. John, which Buchanan received between his own pair of slates held in his hand.

On other occasions but in a similar manner, he claimed to obtain between his slates a portrait of Moses and the Tables of Law, pictures of Aaron, Helen of Troy, and John the Baptist, and communications from Confucius. He asserted that subsequent psychometric reading bore out, in each instance, the genuineness of the manifestation. Buchanan died December 26, 1899, in San Jose, California.