American School of Magnetic Healing

American School of Magnetic Healing
Formation	1898
Dissolution	1900
Successor	Weltmer School of Healing
Purpose/focus	Magnetic Healing
Headquarters	Nevada, Missouri
President	S. A. Weltmer
Secretary	J. H. Kelly
Affiliations	Weltmer Institute of Suggestive Therapeutics

The American School of Magnetic Healing was a Nevada, Missouri-based correspondence school offering courses in Suggestotherapy (Weltmerism), active in the late 1890s under the direction of S. A. Weltmer, president, and J. H. Kelly, secretary and treasurer. The school was subject to a fraud order by the U.S. Post office in 1900, and thereafter Weltmer and Kelly ceased their activities as that entity, Weltmer re-establishing his mail-order business under the auspices of the Weltmer School of Healing to avoid the ban from the mails. The school would eventually win out at the Supreme Court level in 1902, which would have resulted in the ban being overturned and the case reconsidered, but Weltmer and Kelly dropped their case against the post office in 1903.

Press Coverage

Post Office Fraud Order (1900)

• "BOND $3,000 EACH. Prof. S. A. Weltmer and Joseph H. Kelly Held. INDICTMENT FOR BOTH.", Sedalia Democrat (Sedalia, MO): 1, 8 May 1900, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/119833090/bond-3000-each-prof-s-a-weltmer/ 
• "BARRED FROM THE MAILS. American School of Magnetic Healing Declared a Fraud. The Postoffice Department Issues an Order Against Transmitting Its Correspondence - It Advertised to Effect the Cure of Illness or Poverty by the Absent Treatment.", Evening Times (Washington, D.C.): 3, 16 May 1900, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/119833574/barred-from-the-mails-american-school/ 
• "MAIL BEING RETURNED.", St. Louis Republic (St. Louis, MO): 4, 29 May 1900, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/119833846/mail-being-returned/ 

Advertising

• "Medicine a Thing of the Past. 80,000 Cures of Every Known Disease Proves Weltmerism the Greatest Scientific Discovery of the age. Disease, the Dark Riddle of Life Solved by Weltmerism. The Absent Treatment, Which Cures at a Distance, Opens a Path of Sunshine and Happiness to those Afflicted and Unable to Go to Nevada. Weltmerism Masters the Domain of Disease, Planting Hope into the Midst of Despair. Weltmerism, the Healing Art, Revealed to Our Readers.", Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, NB): 8, 17 Sep. 1899, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99021999/1899-09-17/ed-1/seq-32/