New York Institute of Science

The New York Institute of Science of Rochester, N.Y. was a mail-order company offering courses and degrees in the studies of personal magnetism, hypnosis, and occult science. It operated from 1899 until 1912, when the U.S. Post Office banned the mailing of its literature, effectively shuttering the organisation. The institute was initially founded by E. Virgil Neal (under his alias X. La Motte Sage), Thomas F. Adkin, and others in 1899, but was transferred to Charles S. Clark and his partners some few years later, though Clark continued to represent the institute in advertising as if "Dr. X. LaMotte Sage" were the active president.