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 quietly 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.

Press Coverage

 * "[...] Neal had been arraigned before the United States District Court in Buffalo on charges 'contained in three indictments found on or about June 18, 1913, by the Federal grand jury in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, against the New York Institute of Science, a corporation, Charles S. Clark, Thomas F. Adkin and the plaintiff, E. Virgil Neal, alias X. La Motte Sage.' Each of the indictments charged in substance that said defendants did 'knowingly, wrongfully, unlawfully and feloniously devise and intend to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud and to obtain money and property by means of false and fraudulent pretences, representations and premises' in violation of the criminal code of the United States. Each of the indictments in question charged substantially that these schemes to defraud were to be effected by misuse of the United States mails, and that the defendants, Clark, Adkin and Neal, alias X. La Motte Sage, represented in advertisements and in correspondence to the public: 'That the New York Institute of Science was a noted institute of learning, a leading college of the country devoted to the teaching of science for the development of character such as personal magnetism, hypnotism, suggestive therapeutics, vitaopathy and kindred subjects, having a large faculty composed of reputable and widely known scholars; that visitors could not fail to be impressed by the air of learning which permeated the place; that one 'Dr. Sage,' meaning the plaintiff (Neal) in this action, had a study with well-filled book shelves bristling with works on psychology and subjects akin to the higher branches of learning; that said 'Institute of Science' was giving instructions to several hundred; that said 'Institute of Science' had a library, laboratory and clinical department and had offices devoted to the faculty and their assistants; that said 'Institute' would furnish a course of instruction and teaching in personal magnetism, hypnotism and hypnotic influence; that by post-hypnotic suggestion the said 'Institute' would teach its students to cure drunkenness, the morphine habit, restore the affection of those who had been estranged, make a stingy person liberal, would teach magnetic and mental healing, cure diseases, epileptic fits and rheumatism; that said 'Institute' could teach a student to hypnotize a room full of people at once, to abstract a tooth and painlessly perform any surgical operation, and by telephone, telegraph and mail produce the cataleptic state.' The indictments charged that all these representations were false and had fraudulent intent. To carry out their fraud, the indictment asserted that the defendants had mailed in the Rochester postoffice letter addressed to certain persons with the intent to obtain their money and property 'by means of fraudulent pretence.'"