The Arena, Volume 4, Issue 1 (June 1891), edited by B. O. Flower. Boston: Arena Publishing Co.
This issue includes:
- The New Columbus
- The Unknown (Part I)
- The Chivalry of the Press
- Society’s Exiles
- Evolution and Christianity
- The Irrigation Problem in the Northwest
- Revolutionary Measures and Neglected Crimes
- Spencer’s Doctrine of Inconceivability
- The Better Part
- The Heiress of the Ridge
- The Brook
- Editorial: Optimism, Real and False
- Editorial: The Pessimistic Cast of Modern Thought
“The Unknown,” by Camille Flammarion, is a overview of the study of psychic phenomena, including a comparison between methods of spiritual communication:
It is table movements which are here spoken of, dictations by tipping or rapping; that is to say, by the third method heretofore referred to. This method has always appeared to be the most independent. In placing our fingers on a planchette, armed with a pencil, and in aiding its motions, we are brought into direct personal association with the results. We may be under the illusion that an outside spirit is guiding the hand, when we are unintentionally controlling it ourselves. We put questions relating to subjects which specially interest us. Passively we write things which we already know more or less about, and unconsciously inspire ourselves with the name of the personage invoked. Far more reliable are the answers given by a table.
The article “Society’s Exiles” is a photo-journalistic report on tenements in the New York garment district.