Home town Nevada Role Author | Name Sidney Weltmer Religion Baptist | |
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Full Name Sidney Abram Weltmer Spouse(s) Mary Genoa (Adair) Stone, m. October 8, 1879 Children 5 : Cyrus Ernest (1880-1963), Silas Woodson (1882-1956), Stella Truman, Tracy Carleton and Beulah Ethel Died December 6, 1930, Nevada, Missouri, United States Books Self Reliance: The Key t, The Healing Hand, The Mystery Revealed, Telepathy and Thought‑transference, Regeneration | ||
Sidney Abram Weltmer (July 7, 1858 – December 6, 1930) was an author best known for the "Weltmer Method" (also known as "Weltmerism") and as founder of the Weltmer Institute of Suggestive Therapeutics. Weltmer claimed his method could cure disease through suggestions and hypnosis, a practice he referred to as "magnetic healing".
Contents
Early life
Weltmer was a native of Wooster, Ohio. At the age of seven, his parents moved to Morgan County, Missouri, where he attended the public schools. He studied borrowed medical books in hopes of becoming a physician, and later devoted himself to the study of the Bible.
Career
Weltmer was ordained and licensed to preach as a Baptist minister at 19 years old. He founded in 1885 a private educational institution at Akinsville, in Morgan County, Akiusville Normal School which he presided and conducted from 1885 to 1889. The school disbanded in 1889. In Sedalia, Missouri, he established and organized a public library and was librarian from 1893 until 1895, and also for two years was a professor in Robbins Business College in that city.
Personal life
On October 8, 1879, Weltmer married Mary Genoa (Adair) Stone. They had five children. Weltmer was a Knights Templar (Freemasonry) and Thirty-second Degree Mason, an Elk, an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias and an unoath-bound initiate in the fourth degree of Atlantian Mystics. Weltmer died in Nevada, Vernon County, Missouri on December 6, 1930 and was buried there.
Weltmer Institute
Weltmer founded the Institute of Suggestive Therapeutics on February 19, 1897. The institute provided rooms for patients and offered instructional classes in thought transference and "magnetic healing" that Weltmer promoted as a combination of clairvoyance and hypnotic suggestion that could allegedly cure diseases such as asthma and tobacco addiction. A ten-day course cost $100.
The institute was dissolved in 1933 shortly after his death and the building was sold to a funeral institute. In 2005, the building was demolished to make place for new buildings. His son, Ernest continued the Weltmer Magazine up till his own death.
Controversy
Some preachers and doctors were not convinced of the validity of his methods, condemning and denouncing the institute of fraud. Dr. Preston W. Pope wrote in "The Expose of Weltmerism: Magnetic Healing De-magnetized" how he viewed the whole idea. Dr. E. L. Priest from the Missouri Medical Association denounced the Weltmer Institute. Pastor Dr. Charles M. Bishop from the Centenary Methodist Church, published his bad reviews in magazines on the charlatanism of Weltmer.
In 1900, the US Postmaster General declared Weltmer's "healing by mail" scheme a fraud and stopped mail delivery to the institute. Mail was restored after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Weltmer's favor.
A libel case against the Rev. M. Bishop for calling Weltmer and his assistants "miserable charlatans" brought before the Supreme Court of Missouri found a verdict for Mr. Bishop, and refused a motion for rehearing the case.
Books
Articles, pamphlets
From 1901 to 1909 Weltmer published a magazine, Weltmer's Magazine of Suggestive Therapeutics