Joseph Rodes Buchanan
Joseph Rodes Buchanan (December 11, 1814 – December 26, 1899) was an American physician and professor of physiology at the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. Buchanan proposed the terms Psychometry (soul measurement) and Sarcognomy for psychic abilities he claimed humans had. His promotion of paranormal powers in humans caught the public imagination of the period. Early life Joseph Rodes Buchanan was born on December 11, 1814, in Frankfort, Kentucky to Dr. Joseph Buchanan. He attended Transylvania University and while studying medicine, he became interested in the structure and function of the brain. Career Buchanan came to prominence in the 1840s when mesmerism and spiritualism were popularized. He is given credit for coining the term "Psychometry" (soul-measuring) as the name of his own "science" whereby knowledge is acquired directly by the "psychometer" (the instrument of the soul). Having promoted his science from the 1840s onward in 1893 he released a comprehensive treatise entitled Manual of Psychometry: the Dawn of a New Civilization in which he predicted that Psychometry would eventually supersede and revolutionize every other field of science. Though himself a physician in lectures he denounced contemporary schools of medicine as "educated ignorance" while promoting Psychometry and appealing to Spiritualists.