Chicago School of Psychology

Chicago School of Psychology

The first school of suggestive therapeutics in America
Type	Private proprietary school, specializing in Suggestive Therapeutics and Hypnosis
Active	June 1896 (1896-06)–November 1906 (1906-11)
Founder	Herbert A. Parkyn
President	James Parkyn
Students	More than 1,000
Address	4020 Drexel Boulevard , Chicago , Illinois , United States of America
Campus	Urban

The Chicago School of Psychology was founded by Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn in June 1896, and was the first institution in the United States to teach the scientific and clinical application of Suggestive Therapeutics and Hypnotism. Emerging at a time when hypnosis was still regarded by many as a curiosity or stage performance, the school established a disciplined, medical approach to the subject and became the principal American center for experimentation in hypnotic suggestion. Its methods were rooted in the system of the Nancy School in France but expanded far beyond it through extensive clinical testing and practical application.

A central feature of the Chicago School was the free public clinic where students and physicians treated patients solely through verbal suggestion, without the use of drugs. These sessions demonstrated the practical results of suggestive therapeutics and provided the experimental basis for the school's teaching. The school was recognized as the parent institution of suggestive therapeutics in America and oversaw dozens of affiliated schools across the United States and Canada. More than a thousand students were trained and conferred the degree of Doctor of Psychology by the school, about one-third of them women, as well as several African American graduates.

Many of its graduates went on to found their own affiliated schools or became influential teachers, writers, and practitioners in the emerging New Thought and New Psychology movements. Among some of the most notable were, William Walker Atkinson, Sydney Blanshard Flower, Stanley Lefevre Krebs, and E. Virgil Neal. Through their writings, lectures, and founding of new learning and clinical centers, the many graduates of the Chicago School of Psychology carried its methods and philosophy across the United States, making it a central source from which modern suggestive therapeutics and early applied psychology in America developed.

The Chicago School of Psychology was established by Dr. Herbert Arthur Parkyn, a highly trained Canadian physician who united his formal medical study with a deep interest in the power of the mind. After earning his medical degree from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1892, he completed postgraduate studies at McGill University and the University of Toronto, where he began exploring hypnotism and the developing science of suggestion.^[1][2] A distinguished college athlete in both football and hockey, Parkyn carried the same focus and discipline into his medical and psychological work.^[3][4] In 1894, he moved to Minneapolis to collaborate with Dr. W. Xavier Sudduth, the Dean of the Dental School at the University of Minnesota,^[5] on pioneering experiments in hypnosis and suggestive therapeutics. Together they secured permission from the university's president to begin conducting hypnosis experiments within the medical department's daily clinics. This would be the first public clinic in the country to use hypnosis in its treatments. This partnership and research led directly to the founding of the Chicago School of Psychology.^{[2][1][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]}

• James Parkyn, financier and president of the school
• Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn, founder and principal of the school

The school was financed by his father James Parkyn, who had relocated from Toronto to Chicago in early 1896 with his wife and two daughters to support Herbert's enterprise. The family resided in the upper floors of the school building, and James Parkyn served as president of the school. The school was later incorporated in March, 1897.^{[18][19][20][21]}

Sydney Blanshard Flower, a close associate of Parkyn and his co-author on Hypnotism Up to Date in 1895,^[22][23] served as secretary, publicist, and business manager of the Chicago School while also editing its affiliated journal, The Hypnotic Magazine. Flower would later become one of the leading publishers in the New Thought movement. The magazine functioned as the unofficial organ of the school and was the earliest American periodical devoted to scientific hypnotism and suggestive therapeutics. Each issue included detailed reports from Parkyn on his most recent clinical cases, documenting the application of suggestion in treating physical and nervous disorders. These regular case records became an important resource for physicians and students throughout the world by providing systematic evidence of the practical results achievable through psychological treatment based on suggestion.^[14][24][25]

• Sydney B. Flower, secretary and publicist of the school
• The Hypnotic Magazine, edited by Sydney Flower

The Chicago School of Psychology quickly earned recognition for its professionalism and scientific integrity, setting itself apart from the more sensational portrayals of hypnotism common at the time. Instruction emphasized the practical application of suggestive therapeutics as a legitimate branch of medical science. The school taught that the mind could influence every bodily function and that health depended on maintaining harmony between mental focus and physical processes. Through careful use of suggestion, recovery could be achieved by directing thought to restore the body's natural equilibrium.^[26]

The core principles of the Chicago School of Psychology, as outlined by Parkyn in 1896, centered on the idea that the effectiveness of all healing systems rests on a single foundation: "the power of the mind to help itself, and so to help the body." This power was identified as an inherent human faculty, "a part of the divine nature which is every man’s birthright," and notes that it operates independently of religious belief, being "as perfect in the atheist as in the religious fanatic."^[27]

The Chicago School taught that suggestion was effective only when the patient's mind was in harmony with the treatment, explaining that failures occur when mental receptivity or confidence is lacking or when a disorder is genuinely physical and requires direct medical or material intervention. This point was emphasized to make clear that the Chicago School was not opposed to pharmaceuticals or conventional medical treatment when such measures were genuinely needed.^[27]

Suggestive Therapeutics was described as "the Aaron’s rod of medical science," asserting that psychology is present in every effective system of healing and that no method of treatment is complete without an understanding of mental law. Parkyn criticizes both traditional physicians for neglecting the body's natural recuperative force and metaphysical healers for rejecting the legitimate use of medicine, stating that "the wise man is he who bends all things to his service in the evolution of good."^[27]

The purpose of the Chicago School of Psychology is outlined as teaching patients the practical use of their own mental forces, stating that the school instructs individuals on "how to heal themselves" by placing the body in the right mental condition for nature to complete recovery. The school emphasized that mental power alone is not relied upon in every case, giving the example that if "a man’s hand were dirty, all the faith in the world would not cleanse it" and that physical means remain necessary. Similarly, the body is compared to an electric railway in which the brain is the dynamo and the organs the streetcars; if the trouble lies in the dynamo, psychological treatment is required, but if the obstruction is mechanical, then local physical treatment must be used, stating that "psychology and medicine together are well nigh invincible, and the one acts as a support and a stay to the other."^[27]

The school offered structured courses in suggestion-based therapeutic methods, attracting students from across the country. Each month's course consisted of twelve lectures and six clinic sessions, with additional clinical instruction provided during patient treatment. Students at the school consisted mostly of practicing physicians, dentists, and educators, who wished to study psychological treatment methods that did not rely on pharmaceuticals.^[28]

A central feature of the institution was its free public clinic, which operated three mornings a week. Patients attended from Chicago and distant cities, as well as visiting physicians who often observed or brought their own chronic cases. The clinic averaged twenty-five patients per session. All cases were treated exclusively through verbal suggestion, with no concurrent use of medicine or electricity. Clinic records showed high success rates. Treatments were conducted using verbal suggestion, with the patient seated or reclined, and usually without the use of deep hypnosis. Emphasis was placed on the use of "normal" or waking suggestion.^{[29][26][30][31][32]}

Instruction at the clinic was hands-on, with students observing live treatments and participating in discussions of diagnoses and suggested interventions. The operating room was designed to create a quiet, chapel-like atmosphere with dim lighting that was most conducive in achieving a highly suggestible state. The treatments were typically delivered in a tone described as steady and prayer-like, aiming to evoke physical and mental relaxation. The methodology differed markedly from the more dramatic techniques of stage hypnotists or earlier schools of mesmerism. Instead of focusing on trance like somnambulistic displays, the Chicago School emphasized a clinical, rational process to induce a suggestible state.^[26][30][31]

Unlike older methods of hypnosis involving eye-fixation or physical manipulations, the school's approach was subtle and respectful, inducing immediate suggestibility with minimal overt effort. The Chicago School was one of the first to promote auto-suggestion as a scientific method for influencing health and behavior through repeated, self-directed affirmations. Parkyn taught that focused mental repetition could shape physical and emotional conditions by acting directly on the subconscious. Parkyn distinguished auto-suggestion from hypnotism by emphasizing voluntary, internal influence rather than external control. The method required concentration, emotional conviction, and consistency.^[26][30][31]

• Dr. Parkyn using suggestion as an anesthetic
• Demonstration of the cataleptic state

The Chicago School of Psychology conferred the degree of Doctor of Psychology to students who completed the full course of instruction in Suggestive Therapeutics and passed an examination prepared and approved by the school's management before receiving their credential.^[33][34]

In an era when the organized medical profession, often referred to as the "medical monopoly," was actively lobbying to limit or eliminate drugless healing practices, the Chicago School's credential became especially significant. Conventional physicians viewed practitioners of suggestive therapeutics as a direct threat, since it was producing notable results in functional and nervous disorders that traditional medicine struggled to treat and that made up a substantial part of their clinical work. As a result, graduates required a credential able to withstand scrutiny from medical boards and licensing examiners.^[35][14]

To meet this regulatory pressure, the school issued a diploma designed to project both authority and academic legitimacy. Each graduate was awarded an engraved diploma printed on sheepskin, measuring 14 by 18 in (360 by 460 mm). It bore an elaborate steel-engraved heading, formal language certifying the successful completion of examination, the signature of Parkyn as the medical superintendent, and sealed with a prominent embossed rosette ribbon. It served as the official credential used by graduates when applying for state licenses or legal recognition of their practice. Its reputation grew quickly, and across the country it became known as one of the strongest documents available to legitimize practitioners of Suggestive Therapeutics and hypnotism during a period of intense regulatory pressure.^{[35][14][36][37]}

From its earliest years, the Chicago School of Psychology drew widespread attention in both the medical and popular press, with major feature articles appearing in newspapers throughout the United States. Contemporary journals noted its contribution to establishing a scientific basis for hypnotic and suggestive treatment, distinguishing it from both stage exhibitions and religious healing systems.^{[32][39][40][41][42][43][38]}

In an August 1896 feature article in the Chicago Chronicle, Parkyn laid out his theory of hypnotism, emphasizing its practical, non-mystical foundation. "The first thing we explain to patients is that there is nothing strange or mysterious about hypnotism or the cures it can support," he said. "We tell them the healing comes from within, they must do the work, and we simply assist. Most people can be hypnotized, regardless of mental strength. In fact, susceptibility is not a sign of weakness, as once believed. Sometimes it can take a few sessions to fully hypnotize someone, especially if their objective mind is highly active."^[29]

Parkyn described the central goal of treatment as quieting the objective or voluntary mind, the part that processes sensory input, so the subjective or involuntary mind becomes more impressionable. "When properly guided, the mind can influence the body in powerful ways. For example, with insomnia, patients often associate their bed with sleeplessness. We work to break that association and replace it with one of rest." He noted that most of the conditions treated at his institution were nervous disorders, but that functional and other diseases had also been addressed with success. "Some respond after just a few sessions, while others require more time."^[29]

• Dr. Parkyn using hypnosis as an anesthesia at the Chicago School of Psychology
• Scenes in Dr. Parkyn's Chicago School of Psychology. Chicago Tribune , July 19, 1896. pg. 33^[29]

At the Chicago School of Psychology, Parkyn taught that auto-suggestion was the key principle underlying both mental and physical transformation. He defined it as the process by which an individual consciously or unconsciously directs influence upon the involuntary mind. Students learned that every change in thought, emotion, or bodily function begins with suggestion, and that auto-suggestion is the means by which this universal law operates within oneself.^[44][45]

Students were taught the dual-mind theory of the objective and subjective minds first outlined by Thomson Jay Hudson, though Parkyn described the two aspects as the voluntary and involuntary parts of a single mind. The involuntary mind, he explained, governs every function of the body, serves as the seat of the emotions, and holds the complete record of experience. It operates automatically and cannot reason independently, yet remains open to the influence of the voluntary mind, which is the conscious and reasoning faculty. Through repetition and focused attention, the voluntary mind can stimulate, restrain, or completely alter the operations of the involuntary mind. In this way, the thoughts held most persistently become the dominant forces shaping both mental and physical states.^[44][45]

According to Parkyn, auto-suggestion operated through three distinct forms: voluntary, involuntary, and involuntary-voluntary. Voluntary auto-suggestion referred to the conscious and deliberate repetition of constructive thoughts or affirmations intended to reshape habits, behavior, or bodily function. Involuntary auto-suggestion occurred automatically, through impressions absorbed from one's surroundings, experiences, and emotions, without any deliberate effort. The third form, which Parkyn called "involuntary-voluntary auto-suggestion," combined both processes. It arose when a person consciously performed an action or followed instructions that unconsciously reinforced a mental impression. Parkyn illustrated this with the example of a patient who takes medicine prescribed for sleeplessness. Each time the dose is taken, the thought arises, "This medicine will quiet my nerves and help me sleep," regardless of whether the patient is aware of using suggestion. Similarly, individuals receiving "absent treatment" or "magnetic healing" engage in the same process by expecting beneficial results, thereby producing the therapeutic effect through their own suggestive belief.^[44]

Parkyn explained that this hybrid form of suggestion could be deliberately employed to achieve results even with skeptical patients. By assigning simple daily tasks, such as sipping water slowly or performing physical exercises, while emphasizing that these actions would bring improvement, the practitioner caused the patient to generate involuntary-voluntary auto-suggestions each time the task was performed. In this way, Parkyn showed that suggestion could operate at multiple levels of awareness and that much of what appeared to be external healing was, in fact, the individual's own mind responding to inner conviction.^[45][44]

Parkyn’s teaching marked one of the earliest systematic methods for consciously using auto-suggestion as a scientific tool. He taught that "anything that suggests is a suggestion," meaning that every sensory perception, spoken word, or environmental influence affects the subconscious mind. Because of this, he cautioned against the use of negative suggestions, explaining that repeating what one wishes to avoid, such as "I will not fail" or "I cannot be nervous," tends to reinforce the very condition one intends to overcome. Instead, he urged his students to affirm what they desired directly, using positive, rhythmic statements such as "I can and I will."^[47]: 51

The methods taught at the Chicago School emphasized the disciplined use of repetition, emotional conviction, and concentrated attention to implant affirmative thoughts in the involuntary mind. Once impressed upon it, these ideas manifested naturally in behavior and bodily function. This systematic approach to auto-suggestion, developed more than two decades before Émile Coué popularized the term, became one of the most influential elements of Parkyn's teaching and laid the conceptual foundation for much of the later New Thought and self-mastery literature produced by his students and affiliated schools.^[44]

In addition to its clinical instruction, the Chicago School of Psychology conducted a variety of controlled experiments exploring the boundaries of mental influence, hypnosis, and suggestion. These trials reflected the school's effort to apply empirical methods to phenomena often treated as speculative or unscientific.

One of the best-documented sessions was a privately arranged telepathy experiment conducted at the school by Parkyn and Flower. The event was attended by students, several visiting physicians, and invited guests, including psychologist Henry H. Goddard of Clark University. The tests involved both hypnotized and conscious participants attempting to guess numbers and letters, locate hidden objects, and reproduce drawings transmitted mentally from one room to another. In several cases, participants appeared to respond correctly, such as one hypnotized woman who identified a number after a period of silent concentration, and another subject who correctly named the letter "S" that was being visualized by a second participant. Parkyn also experimented by touching the heads of hypnotized subjects while mentally transmitting numbers, correctly matching three out of six figures. Later trials attempted to transmit actions and simple images, with two of four producing recognizable similarities.^[49] While the results were mixed, Parkyn concluded that some outcomes pointed to genuine thought transference beyond chance, suggesting a need for continued, systematic investigation of telepathic phenomena within a scientific setting.^[50]

In 1897, Parkyn conducted an experimental demonstration to test the effects of hashish on hypnotized subjects. Assisted by Dr. L. Hamilton McCormick, he placed five men into deep hypnosis and administered measured doses of hasheesh to each. The goal was to determine whether the drug could compel confessions or reveal hidden thoughts when combined with hypnotic suggestion. The responses varied. One subject experienced terror and believed he was falling. Another reported seeing devils. A third appeared to confess to theft. One shifted between laughter and weeping without coherence, while another remained largely unaffected.^[51]

Parkyn reported that hasheesh intensified emotional and hallucinatory reactions, destabilizing the hypnotic state. He concluded that while the drug could heighten suggestibility, it rendered subjects unreliable and unpredictable. As he summarized, "the experiment proves not that truth may be extorted under such influence, but that the mind becomes more unstable, more fantastic, and far less reliable." Parkyn ultimately affirmed that pure suggestion, without narcotics, was the safer and more effective approach for both therapeutic and investigative purposes.^[52]

Parkyn's experiments at his school also focused on the scientific investigation of ideas associated with occult and esoteric teachings, based on his belief that emerging scientific methods were approaching the ability to provide tangible explanations for these traditions. According to Parkyn, psychology was expected to "furnish the guides to lead us toward the truth" in the study of the occult sciences. His stated objective was "to find a basis of fact on which to govern all theories regarding metaphysical and psychical processes and to account for all occult phenomena on purely scientific lines." His research included observations on the parallels between religious and ceremonial practices and therapeutic suggestion. He studied elements of Catholic, Evangelist, and ceremonial rituals, such as repetition, posture, music, incense, and sacramental rites, as structured techniques that induced a suggestible mental state, functioning in ways comparable to methods used in psychological therapy.^{[53][14][54][55]}

After observing and documenting how readers reacted to sensational news reports, Parkyn argued that newspapers exerted a direct and harmful psychological influence on the public through negative suggestion. He maintained that repeated exposure to vivid descriptions of murder, suicide, assault, and other violent acts implanted mental images in readers, especially those he regarded as highly suggestible. Parkyn claimed that such individuals often imitated what they encountered in print, producing measurable increases in similar crimes. He cited cases in which multiple razor blade murders and wire strangulations occurred shortly after newspapers printed detailed accounts of similar crimes, noting that the use of such devices in those days had become infrequent. He further observed that clusters of murders and suicides appeared in direct proportion to the influence of recent newspaper suggestions.^[56]

Parkyn argued that newspaper reporting shaped public attitudes as well as behavior. He maintained that prolonged exposure to war coverage and accounts of revolutionary violence reduced the perceived value of human life and created a demand for sensational material. When newspapers stopped reporting on war events, he stated, public interest dropped immediately, and editors responded by supplying domestic violence, scandal, and criminal trials to satisfy the appetite they had helped create.^[56]

Parkyn further claimed that newspapers harmed health through suggestive advertising. Patent medicine advertisements persuaded readers that common sensations were signs of a serious disease, inducing symptoms through auto-suggestion and fostering long-term debility or drug habits. He cited a kidney-cure promotion titled "A Silent, Unseen Foe," which presented ordinary changes in urine or back pain as certain signs of kidney disease, and the laxative advertisement "TOO LATE?," which used the image of a mother at a dying child's bedside and claimed that many childhood illnesses were caused by constipation and was marketed as a "fragrant little candy tablet," that was aimed at encouraging habitual laxative use in both mothers and their children.^[56]

Parkyn also identified "Lost Manhood" advertisements as a source of severe psychological distress, arguing that fear-based sexual-health ads caused many young men to suffer silently for years under the belief that they were irreparably damaged.^[56]

• "A Silent, Unseen Foe," ad by Doan's Kidney Pills
• "TOO LATE?," ad by Cascarets laxative pills
• Ads for patent medicine cures for "Lost Manhood"

As a remedy, Parkyn urged the removal of detailed crime reporting and deceptive medical and sexual-health advertisements. He proposed public education on the effects of suggestion and recommended postal or legal restrictions, such as denying second-class mailing privileges, to curb what he saw as widespread social harm created by the press.^[56]

Beyond its clinical instruction, the Chicago School developed numerous practical innovations and methods that contributed to the growing scientific understanding of mental influence. Parkyn experimented with new instruments, tested emerging technologies, and refined therapeutic procedures in ways that broadened the applications of suggestion in medicine and psychology.^[26][30]

Parkyn was the first physician to use the phonograph as a tool for delivering therapeutic suggestions. He would record repeated affirmations and curative phrases onto wax cylinders, allowing patients to listen to them regularly and even use them at home as part of their treatment. This method was designed to reinforce mental conditioning through consistent exposure to spoken suggestions. Parkyn also found that the vibrations of the recorded voice attuned directly to the vibrational frequency of the patient carried strong psychological influences that acted directly on the involuntary mind.^[57][58][55]

With the constant exposure to the recording and repetition of suggestions at the school, the students themselves would be influenced by them, many of whom reported unintended physical and sensory effects, that reinforced the institution's teaching of the mind's direct impact on bodily processes.^{[26][30][59][60][61]}

Parkyn conducted extensive experiments on the relationship between sound, vibration, light, and mental states at the school. Building on ancient Greek ideas that harmony was the fundamental principle of nature, he sought to demonstrate that both mind and matter operated according to universal vibratory laws. Using a phonautograph to record musical tones onto prepared plates, he observed that each note produced a distinct geometric pattern, often resembling flowers or shells. These forms appeared to grow more complex with each rise in pitch, which demonstrated visual evidence of nature's underlying harmony and order. This led to the development of a therapeutic system based on the theory that every individual possesses a unique vibrational frequency, or "keynote," to which the mind and body naturally respond. Through controlled breathing, rhythmic movement, and vocal exercises, patients were guided to restore balance by harmonizing their personal vibration. Parkyn would then use the phonautograph to measure the frequency of the human voice and adjust it toward equilibrium, asserting in 1898 that he had conclusively demonstrated that each person was attuned to a specific note.^{[62][57][58][63][64]}

Color and light were also incorporated into treatment. Parkyn used McIntosh electro-thermal cabinets equipped with colored incandescent bulbs, applying different hues according to their psychological effects. Red was used to stimulate, blue to calm, and green to reduce activity.^{[62][57][58][63]} The McIntosh Battery and Optical Company, located in Chicago, made the latest equipment for Electro-Therapeutics, X-Rays, and other experimental work. Parkyn used these devices in his research and they were heavily advertised in his magazines.^[65]

• Ad for the McIntosh Battery and Optical Company in Parkyn's magazine
• Ad for the McIntosh Battery and Optical Company in Parkyn's magazine

Parkyn's clinical work at the Chicago School of Psychology was closely associated with the use of the Allison physician's table and chair, manufactured by the W. D. Allison Company of Indianapolis. Parkyn used the adjustable Allison table in his daily practice, reclining patients during suggestive treatment sessions to improve circulation and induce relaxation. His methods combined gentle physical positioning with verbal suggestion, emphasizing increased blood flow to affected areas.^[66][14]

Parkyn praised the Allison, describing it as the best available and "an absolute necessity" for undertaking suggestive therapeutics. Recognizing its value in the emerging fields of psychological medicine, the W. D. Allison Company collaborated with Parkyn to design a new model specifically suited to his methods. The company introduced this specialized version as "The Parkyn Table", intended for use in suggestive therapeutics and osteopathic treatment. The first table produced was placed in the Chicago School of Psychology as a demonstration model for students and visiting physicians. The table soon became recommended equipment for practitioners of suggestive therapeutics and osteopathy throughout the United States.^[66]

In 1898, Parkyn released a mail course in Suggestive Therapeutics and Hypnotism, a comprehensive correspondence program designed for students who could not attend the Chicago School of Psychology in person. Presented as the first complete system of instruction in suggestive therapeutics, the course represented more than a year of preparation and was based on Parkyn's treatment of over 5,000 clinical cases. It provided a means for physicians, teachers, and lay students across the United States and abroad to study the school's teachings through mail-order lessons.^[47][67][45]

The course consisted of forty-one detailed lessons totaling nearly four hundred pages and was described at the time as unlike anything previously published on suggestive therapeutics. Parkyn's instruction emphasized precision and practicality. Students were trained not only in what to say during treatment but in how and when to say it. He stressed the importance of simplicity, directness, and confidence in delivering suggestions, warning against exaggerated or mystical phrasing. Tone, rhythm, repetition, and the mental attitude of the operator were presented as key elements in producing successful results. Throughout the lessons, Parkyn insisted that suggestion was a scientific process, not a mystical art, and that it could be practiced without trance states or altered consciousness.^[47][67]

The Mail Course quickly gained recognition among medical and psychological circles for its clarity and thoroughness. Doctors and students praised its practical approach, many claiming it surpassed the earlier works of Hippolyte Bernheim and Charles Lloyd Tuckey in explaining the theory and method of suggestion in plain, systematic language.^[67]

In the course, Parkyn taught that all physical conditions originate in mental states and that thought itself is vibratory in nature. Suggestions, tones, and even colors could be used to restore the body's vital harmony, which he summed up in his central maxim, "Thought takes form in action." He explained that the mind operates through two corresponding faculties, the active, voluntary mind and the passive, involuntary mind, and that true healing occurs when these two are brought into proper polarity.^[47][45]

He further taught that mental change requires repetition and rhythm, mirroring nature's own cyclical order. Habit, illness, and recovery all followed rhythmic patterns, and suggestion worked by reestablishing those rhythms in a healthy direction. Parkyn rejected fatalism and hereditary determinism, teaching instead that disease and failure arise from mental causes that can be identified and reversed through right thought and directed suggestion.^[47][45]

The Mail Course extended the reach of the Chicago School of Psychology far beyond its physical classrooms, allowing thousands of students to study Parkyn's system from home. It became one of the most influential correspondence courses of its kind and helped establish suggestive therapeutics as both a legitimate science and a practical method for mental and physical healing.^[47][45]

One of Parkyn's most widely repeated maxims was the phrase "Thought takes form in action." It became a defining statement of his system of Suggestive Therapeutics and appeared throughout his teachings, including extensive use in his A Mail Course in Suggestive Therapeutics and Hypnotism. Parkyn employed the phrase to express the principle that mental states, once impressed upon the involuntary mind, inevitably manifest outwardly in behavior, bodily function, and everyday life. Through its repeated use across a wide network of New Thought authors, suggestion-based journals, and affiliated schools, the phrase became one of the most widely recognized statements in early American mental science.^[45]

As advertising schools, business colleges, and salesmanship institutes began to formalize psychological training in the early twentieth century, many drew directly from Parkyn's teachings and from graduates who had studied under him at the Chicago School of Psychology. Parkyn himself was affiliated with the Sheldon School of Scientific Salesmanship in Chicago, which incorporated his methods into its instruction on influence, buyer psychology, and persuasive presentation. Across these programs, the principles of suggestion were treated as the foundation of effective salesmanship, emphasizing that the same mental laws governing therapeutic change also shaped attention, persuasion, and consumer behavior. Parkyn's maxim, "Thought takes form in action" became one of their most frequently cited examples, used to illustrate how repeated ideas structure behavior.^[69][68][70] Building on this momentum, Parkyn's phrase was adapted into a national marketing campaign for banks that promoted what was called the "savings habit" or "cash habit," which encouraged the public to open and maintain savings accounts, framing it as a trainable habit shaped through repetition. The campaign became the earliest large-scale applications of suggestive therapeutics in American advertising, demonstrating how Parkyn's psychological system could be translated directly into commercial behavior-shaping strategies. Other phrases that Parkyn popularized within the New Thought movement, that became widely used in commercial campaigns, included, "I can and I will," "Do it Now," "Are you a Thinker," and "Health, Happiness, and Success."^[71][72][73]

• Various ads with "Thought takes form in Action, repeated actions become habits"
• Various ads using Dr. Parkyn's campaign of "Do it now"
• Various ads using the campaign of "Are you a thinker"

Parkyn acknowledged that among all related fields, none had drawn more interest than Magnetism and Telepathic distant healing. He chose to address both by devoting a chapter to each in his course. While noting that these fields were still in their infancy, he allowed that future technological developments might one day detect how magnetic energy could influence the mind and aid healing. However, he emphasized that, at present, the observable results attributed to these practices were entirely due to suggestion.^{[47][74]: 270–286}

On Personal Magnetism, Parkyn said it was a matter of pleasing the five senses and satisfying the caprices of those with whom one comes in contact. That "personal magnetism is a delicate consideration for others, a kind of cultivated sympathy to the feelings, likes and dislikes of those with which we come in contact, a subjugating of the self in every direction that would be distasteful to the feelings of another." But ultimately it is created by suggestion, stating "Thoughts take form in action. The converse of this is true also, for our actions take form in the thoughts of others...Think the right thoughts and desirable actions will follow."^{[74]: 270–273}

Regarding Magnetic Healing and distant treatments, Parkyn demonstrated that these methods were essentially forms of Suggestive Therapeutics. He cited the common practice among such healers of instructing patients to "lie down several times a day, relax all over, and rivet their attention upon any part of the body which is in trouble, claiming that by so doing the circulation flows freely to that part and heals it." To this, Parkyn responded, "What is this but a very sensible and potent suggestion?"^[74]: 278 He also included a letter from a former student who had become a Magnetic Healer. In it, the student acknowledged that his healing technique was fundamentally Suggestive Therapeutics, but noted that framing it as magnetic force made the curative idea more persuasive to patients, thereby enhancing the suggestion's effect on the involuntary mind.^[74]: 277

Parkyn endorsed this dynamic and explored it more directly in 1899 with his patented invention of "The Magnetic Healing Cup," a device which he promoted as both a scientific instrument and a controlled experiment in applied psychic research. The cup was developed as a tool to test whether a physical object could enhance the therapeutic effects of suggestion by providing patients with a tangible medium through which belief and expectation could be concentrated. Parkyn distributed the cups free of charge from offices at 4000 Cottage Grove Avenue, as part of a structured effort to collect feedback on their use.^{[75][76][77][78]}

The Magnetic Healing Cup, marketed as "The last and greatest discovery of the nineteenth century."^[79]

• Patent for The Magnetic Healing Cup^[80]
• Ad by Partlow Designs of Chicago^[81]
• "Drink Liquid Life"

Parkyn developed several original and effective methods for inducing the suggestive state that were taught at the Chicago School of Psychology and in his mail course book. One involved striking a match and having the subject stare at the flame until it nearly burned out, repeating this three times. On the third match, the subject was told their eyes would become stuck shut after closing them and in most cases they could not reopen them, soon entering a deep suggestive state. Another method required the subject to hold both hands in front of their face and slowly count each fingernail from one little finger to the other, inducing drowsiness or sleep by the tenth finger. A third technique had the subject hold a pencil in their teeth and run their gaze slowly up and down its polished surface. Combining these techniques with simple verbal suggestions such as "your eyelids are very heavy, you are very drowsy, you are going to sleep. Sleep-sleep-sleep," it would swiftly complete the induction.^[82][47][45]

The many methods for inducing hypnotism taught at the Chicago School of Psychology.^[74]

• Staring at the end of a pencil
• Gazing at Svengali's picture
• "You can't open your eyes"
• Gazing into the eyes
• Smelling imaginary fumes
• Counting time
• Gazing at a flame
• Crystal gazing

Central to Parkyn's system of suggestive therapeutics, as taught at the Chicago School of Psychology, was his principle of the "life essentials." He defined these as five natural requirements necessary for health, namely fresh air, sunshine, water, food, and exercise. He taught that while thought could influence bodily functions, this power depended on the proper supply of these essentials, stating that "thought tends to take form in action, and, with the life essentials properly supplied, thought action becomes a power."^[83][45]

At the time, this framing of "life essentials" was novel and Parkyn was the first in the West to promote the drinking of water as a fundamental necessity for health. He emphasized it as one of the most vital of the "life essentials" and asserted that well-being depended largely on its proper use. Parkyn specified that the proper amount of water to drink daily was two quarts. To reinforce this practice, he developed a series of auto-suggestions designed to instill what he called the "Two Quart a Day Habit.".^{[84][85][86][45]}

Parkyn connected his "life essentials" teaching to the ancient Hermetic doctrine of the five elements, which taught that all matter and processes in nature arise from Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Aether or Spirit. He regarded these elements as both physical and spiritual forces within the human being. Each life essential was presented as corresponding to one of these principles, with air linked to breathing, fire to sunlight, water to purification, earth to nourishment, and spirit to movement and mental exercise. When these forces fell out of balance, disease and disorder were believed to result.^[14][87] He also related these ideas to the concept of the five geometric Platonic solids, which symbolized the pure forms of the elements. For Parkyn, this ancient framework demonstrated that true health depended on harmony between the visible and invisible forces of life.^[88]

Parkyn was the first to identify and classify what he called the "suggestible somnambule," a term he introduced to describe individuals who live in a state of partial consciousness, neither fully awake nor fully asleep, yet unusually open to suggestion. The word somnambule, taken from the French for "sleepwalker," referred not to literal sleepwalking but to a psychological condition in which the mind remains active while reason and judgment are subdued. Parkyn observed that suggestible somnambules reacted to suggestion abnormally. Ordinary people weigh new impressions against reason, but the somnambule accepts them impulsively and acts upon them without careful thought.

He found that such individuals could be identified in nearly every sphere of life. They appeared as the first converts at revival meetings, the eager joiners of political movements, and the excitable participants in mobs. They were the people who might confess to crimes they did not commit or believe any claim that appealed to their emotions. When Parkyn first opened his clinic at the Chicago School of Psychology, many of the initial visitors were suggestible somnambules who expected dramatic cures or mystical experiences. Parkyn explained that once these highly suggestible somnambules realized his treatments were scientific rather than theatrical, they stopped attending his clinic. He regarded their departure as essential for establishing professional credibility, and taught his students that any serious practitioner would need to distance their work from such individuals in order to be taken seriously by the public and the medical profession.^{[89]: 25–27}

The Suggestible Somnambule was mostly responsible for social upheavals

Parkyn warned that the suggestible somnambule was largely responsible for much of the social upheaval found in religious, political, and even criminal movements. Salesmen, detectives, and physicians, he noted, often recognized them instinctively. A salesman could close a deal with ease, a revivalist could count on them to fill the front pews, and a stage hypnotist could rely on them to provide the most dramatic demonstrations. Quack doctors and patent medicine promoters also built their success on their testimony. These individuals could be intelligent or even educated, yet their emotional nature and lack of inner resistance made them unusually easy to sway.^{[90]: 2–5}

Suggestible Somnambule was the foundation of the marvels of mesmerism

He taught that suggestible somnambules were the very foundation of the supposed marvels of mesmerism. Because they yielded so completely, earlier experimenters like Franz Mesmer, mistook their responsiveness for evidence of a mysterious forces. Parkyn recognized that hypnosis was not a supernatural power but the action of suggestion on a highly receptive personality. From this understanding, he moved away from inducing deep trance states and developed his method of conscious suggestion, in which the patient remained awake and alert while benefiting from positive, directed mental influence.^{[91]: 29–32 [92]: 15, 34}

The Chicago School of Psychology was first established at 255 Bowen Street, just off Cottage Grove Avenue, but as enrollment increased the school required larger quarters. In 1897 it relocated a short distance away to a large estate building at 4020 Drexel Boulevard, one of the city's most prominent residential avenues. Later that same year, the First Church of Christ Scientist began construction of its new midwestern headquarters directly across the street from the school. The physical proximity of the two institutions, combined with the fact that each rejected drug-based medicine, led many members of the public to conflate the Chicago School's scientific system of suggestive therapeutics with the spiritual healing doctrines of Christian Science.^[93][14][94]

Parkyn became increasingly concerned about this confusion. He found that both the public and members of the medical profession often failed to distinguish between his experimentally grounded system of Suggestion and the religious metaphysics taught by Mary Baker Eddy. To correct this misunderstanding, he wrote numerous articles and gave public lectures explaining that his system rested on psychology and physiology, not on theology or revelation.^[95][96]

While Christian Science claimed to cure illness through spiritual means, Parkyn argued that any therapeutic results observed in Christian Science healing were not the result of spiritual realization or divine intervention, but rather what he termed, "masked suggestion," a subconscious mental process that unintentionally improved bodily conditions.

Parkyn directed much of his criticism of Christian Science toward Mary Baker Eddy's, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. He noted that the book lacked logical coherence, was filled with contradictions, and departed from both science and theology. He objected to its denial of matter, disease, and death, and that physical conditions arise solely from false belief and are corrected through spiritual understanding rather than through any material process. He questioned how Christian Science accounted for illnesses in those incapable of belief, such as infants, animals, or the mentally ill. He pointed out that if suffering and sickness were mere illusions, there should be documented cases of Christian Science curing amputations or restoring lost limbs, yet no such evidence existed.^[97]

Parkyn also criticized Christian Science's theological implications, finding it contradictory that the book denied the existence of sin and evil, while simultaneously warning its followers that they would be persecuted and suffer for their beliefs. He also took issue with Eddy's control over the movement, noting that she discouraged independent writings and declined to treat patients herself, yet insisted her books were the exclusive source of curative knowledge. Parkyn viewed Christian Science not as a coherent medical or theological system but as a superstition built upon an unacknowledged psychological foundation, stating "that while Christian Science may have produced results, it did so through unrecognized mental influence, not through the metaphysical doctrines it professed."^[97]

From its earliest years, the Chicago School of Psychology made the investigation of alleged psychic phenomena a central part of its scientific program. Parkyn conducted several controlled examinations of mediums and performers who claimed abilities including spirit communication, automatic writing, clairvoyance, and telepathy. The goal was to determine whether any of these effects reflected genuine psychological processes or were simply the result of deception.^[98]

While Parkyn exposed these demonstrations as not being supernatural, he held a deep admiration for the psychological abilities many psychic performers displayed. He emphasized that the strongest performers possessed an extraordinary command of suggestion, acute sensitivity to subtle muscular cues, and a refined capacity for reading character, attention, and emotional states. To Parkyn, these abilities illustrated how far suggestion, perception, and unconscious influence could be developed when practiced with intensity and focus.^[100]

Elizabeth and May Bangs, known as the Bangs Sisters, were Chicago spiritualist mediums celebrated for producing supposed "spirit messages" during slate-writing séances. In their performances, the sitter wrote questions on paper, sealed them in an envelope, and watched the medium bind the envelope between two slates held together with string. The bound slates were covered with a larger slate but kept in view while the medium would announce received mental impressions from a spirit or claim to see clairvoyantly initials floating in the air. After twenty to thirty minutes, taps signaled that the spirits had replied. When the slates were opened, the sitter's sealed letter appeared to have been answered in a different handwriting, giving the illusion of automatic writing by a spirit.^{[101][102][100]}

Between the summer of 1899 and the spring of 1900, Parkyn, Flower, and Stanley L. Krebs conducted controlled investigations showing the results were produced through deception. Flower first attended fifteen sittings using slates he tightly sealed himself with screws, string, or wax. Whenever the slates were truly secured, no spirit writing ever appeared. Upon conferring with Flower, Parkyn conducted a more controlled test and observed the actual method, in which a concealed wedge created a small gap between the slates that allowed the sealed letter to slide into the medium's lap before being pushed under a door to her sister in the next room. The sister opened the envelope by steaming or moistening the flap, copied the questions, prepared replies, resealed the letter, and returned it to be slipped back between the slates without detection.^[102][100]

• A letter is placed between two bound slates^[100]
• The bound slates are then covered by a single larger slate^[100]
• A hidden wedge is then used to pry the letter out^[100]

To formally document the method, Parkyn asked Stanley L. Krebs to attend a séance and advised him to come equipped with a concealed mirror that he could discreetly place on his lap to watch everything happening under the table. Krebs confirmed each stage of the trick for the International Society for Psychical Research, describing it as a coordinated system of misdirection, mechanical manipulation, and assistance from an accomplice.^[100]

• Krebs using a mirror in his lap to see the trick
• The Bang Sisters exposed

On April 11, 1900, Parkyn publicly reproduced the entire process before fifteen students at the Chicago School of Psychology. While his students watched, he sat at a table with slates and an envelope containing a question. His father, James Parkyn, was hidden in a back room to play the role of the accomplice. During the demonstration, Parkyn used a black linen thread with a loop in the middle rather than a wedge to remove and return the letter more smoothly. This improvement allowed him to avoid turning sideways in the chair or performing any obvious motions. The letter was passed to the adjoining room, opened, answered, and replaced in the slates in about half an hour. None of the observers detected how it was done. Parkyn noted that by simplifying the mechanism, he could perform the trick faster and with less chance of discovery.^[100]

In one of the most widely publicized examinations of psychic claims in America, Parkyn entered into a public telepathy duel with Miss Maud Lancaster of London, known in the press as the "Lady Sherlock Holmes." Lancaster claimed she had assisted Scotland Yard with her psychic abilities and was touring the United States demonstrating what she called genuine telepathy.^{[103][104][105]}

After Parkyn and William Walker Atkinson attended her exhibition at the Chicago Press Club on January 24, 1901, where she performed a series of blindfolded feats including identifying people who had touched objects, locating an imaginary murder weapon, and reading the serial number on a banknote, Parkyn publicly stated that the results could be explained by natural means such as refined sensory awareness, involuntary cues, and crowd reactions. Miss Lancaster and her manager quickly took offense and issued a formal challenge for a second test under strict scientific conditions.^{[106][107][108]}

The duel was held on February 12, 1901, at the Palmer House Hotel before seventy invited doctors, scientists, journalists, and officials. Parkyn personally blindfolded Miss Lancaster with multiple layers of surgical cotton and cloth and required complete silence to eliminate any sensory cues or suggestive signals. Under these conditions, Lancaster failed to reproduce any of her earlier feats, misidentified participants, and could not determine the banknote number. She blamed her failure on the audience and later claimed that Parkyn had "hypnotized" her.^[14][106]

The event received extensive press coverage and became a landmark example of a public psychic claim tested under controlled observation. Although Lancaster continued her tour, the Chicago duel marked a turning point in how her abilities were regarded. Parkyn was praised for demanding proper test procedures and showing that dramatic stage results were not evidence of telepathy. He and Atkinson nonetheless acknowledged Lancaster's remarkable skill as a performer, noting that her techniques offered insight into suggestion, sensory discrimination, and audience influence.^[14][106]

In 1900, Parkyn anonymously authored the Mind Reading course for the Psychic Research Company. Writing anonymously allowed him to present material that would have been inappropriate to publish under his own name within a formal medical or scientific context. The Psychic Research Company had been founded by Sydney B. Flower and financed by Jay Van Tuyl Daniels and his cousin Van Ness Daniels Smith of Minneapolis. The Daniels family had been associated with Parkyn since back when he was at the University of Minnesota.^{[109][110][111][112]}

The course drew directly from Parkyn's systematic investigations into the techniques used by traveling clairvoyants and stage mentalists. Parkyn demonstrated that the mentalists were not using telepathy, clairvoyance, or supernatural powers in their stage displays but it was the art of muscle reading. Parkyn framed muscle reading as an expression of "thought taking form in action." Just as emotions such as fear, anger, or excitement naturally manifest through facial expressions and bodily reactions, focused attention produces imperceptible but reliable muscular responses. A skilled mentalist does not read minds, but interprets these involuntary indicators with precision, by training themselves to detect subtle unconscious cues from the guide's hand, body posture, and direction of attention^[114]

The course also disclosed the mechanics behind more dramatic exhibitions like the blindfold carriage drive act. Parkyn explained that the performer typically used a specially folded black silk handkerchief that appeared to obstruct the eyes completely but left one thin layer positioned to permit limited vision. When folded from opposite corners short of the center, the cloth created the illusion of a secure blindfold while providing a narrow but effective line of sight. Parkyn supplied detailed folding instructions so students could reproduce and experiment with the method themselves.^[109]

Although Parkyn showed that these performances relied on practiced technique rather than clairvoyance, he also emphasized that the skills involved required significant mental discipline. Years of practice had given stage hypnotism performers heightened concentration, refined sensory awareness, and strong personal influence over audiences. Parkyn regarded these developments as genuine psychological accomplishments. He maintained that students who practiced muscle reading, blindfold work, and similar techniques were not merely learning stage tricks but training the mind to focus, interpret subtle cues, and direct attention with accuracy. For Parkyn, this practical training cultivated mental faculties that had value in self control, perception, and the study of suggestion.^[115][109]

Graduates that used stage hypnotism acts to educate the public about the Law of Suggestion

Since the mid 1800s, stage performers had used the art of muscle reading and simple acts of mesmerism to present shows billed as amazing displays of supernatural powers and mystical forces. With the advent of scientific investigation and a clearer understanding of hypnotic suggestion, these charlatan performers were seen as detrimental to the public’s acceptance of the therapeutic properties of suggestion, because they continued to perpetuate a mysterious and dark image of hypnotism. To counter this, and to make use of the extreme popularity of such performances as a platform for education, several of Parkyn’s students became involved in stage hypnotism in order to explain the true nature of the law of suggestion.^[116][117]

Parkyn’s fellow Canadian, Thomas F. Adkin, played an important role in shaping these efforts. Born the same year as Parkyn in Bothwell, Ontario, Adkin helped to develop the stage acts and instructed performers in the art of muscle reading. He had already been involved for several years in stage hypnotism shows. He began in 1892 as a subject and performer for the famous stage hypnotist Dr. Herbert L. Flint, singing at his shows and for being hypnotized to see the devil and hell. He later became Flint’s business manager and assistant. In 1893, Adkin would then serve as manager for another famous stage hypnotist, Sylvain A. Lee.^{[118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125]}

Unlike earlier mentalists who concealed their methods, these later shows openly explained and demonstrated the techniques used in each effect as part of the performance. The programs were designed to be family friendly, and the combination of disclosing the techniques while still fooling the audience produced a wildly funny show that became hugely successful, while at the same time illustrating the practical operation of suggestion.^{[126][127][128]}

These graduates included:

• E. Virgil Neal, who created the stage persona of X. Lamotte Sage and would tour with his wife as the wildly successful, "The Sages." Thomas Adkin would serve as their manager.^{[129][130][131][132][133]} Neal would declare as X. Lamotte Sage, that the good Dr. Parkyn has accomplished by his scientific application of Suggestive Therapeutics is incalculable.^[129]
• Dr. Sanders Lee Butler, who first served as business manager and assistant to the established stage hypnotist Sevengala and later to Dr. Herbert L. Flint. Butler introduced the modern theories of the Law of Suggestion taught at the Chicago School into these performances and was called upon to explain these concepts to audiences. He subsequently developed his own successful stage hypnotism program, performing with his wife as "The Butlers."^{[124][134][135][136][137][138]}
• C. A. George Newmann, would become known professionally as "Newmann the Great," and would tour the country performing all the same feats popularized by stage mentalists but built entirely around exposing the tricks, creating a highly successful and comical performance that continued for more than forty years. ^{[139][140][141][142]} Newmann declared in 1949 that there was no better work on hypnotism and suggestion than that done by Herbert Parkyn.^[143]: 10
• Sylvain A. Lee in his wonderful hypnotic performances
• Hypnotist Herbert L. Flint performed with his wife as "The Flints"
• Newmann, the great American hypnotist and mind-reader

• Dr. S. L. Butler performed with his wife as "The Butlers"
• Sevengala the hypnotist was Dr. Walter C. Mack
• X. Lamotte Sage performed with his wife as "The Sages"

Another figure who incorporated the teachings of the Chicago School was the stage hypnotist Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall, who toured widely across Canada, the Midwest, and the West Coast. McIvor-Tyndall had adopted the performance style of Washington Irving Bishop, showcasing feats such as locating hidden objects, opening locked safes, and conducting the celebrated blindfolded carriage drive. Parkyn had intersected with him several times and had observed his show. They had both been involved in a few widely reported criminal cases where hypnotism was claimed to play a role, including the infamous Minneapolis Hayward murder case.^{[144][145][146][147]}

• The blindfolded carriage drive and opening safe tricks from Parkyn's "A Complete Course in the Art of Mind Reading,"^[113]
• Newmann the Great, doing the blindfolded drive demonstration
• An ad for Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall doing the famous blindfolded carriage drive in 1895.

The magazines associated with the Chicago School of Psychology documented its research, publicized its clinical successes, and helped define Suggestive Therapeutics as a legitimate scientific field. They provided an outlet for serious medical and psychological discussion at a time when much of the public's exposure to natural healing came through what critics termed "magazine medicine," the wave of popular periodicals promoting sensational cures and unverified therapeutic systems. To distance itself from this growing trend, Parkyn avoided advertising his school in popular media, choosing instead to publish through his own professionally edited journals and recognized medical outlets. In doing so, he established the Chicago School's reputation as a disciplined, scientific institution rather than part of the popular movement of magazine-based healers. The journals not only disseminated the school's teachings to a national audience but also served as the main channel through which Parkyn's influence spread across the expanding network of New Thought and mental science practitioners.^[14]

In August 1896, Parkyn and Flower founded The Hypnotic Magazine as the unofficial organ of the Chicago School of Psychology. Parkyn directed its philosophical and scientific focus, while Flower served as editor. It was published through their joint enterprise, the Psychic Publishing Company.^{[148][149][14]}

Aimed primarily at medical professionals, the magazine sought to bridge the gap between physical and psychical methods of treatment at a time when mainstream medicine largely ignored the role of mental states in health and disease. It was the first journal dedicated to hypnotic suggestion and its stated purpose was "an investigation of the science of hypnotism, its uses and abuses, and its therapeutic possibilities."^[24][14]

The Hypnotic Magazine quickly gained a strong reputation and came to be recognized within the liberal medical community and the New Thought movement as the leading voice for serious, scientific investigation of the mental sciences. Parkyn and Flower also used the publication to defend hypnotism against both scientific skepticism and popular misunderstanding. They described themselves as being at war with professors, physicians, and scientists who attempted to discredit hypnotism by associating it with mesmerism, clairvoyance, mind reading, fortune telling, and fakirism. They argued that such critics either misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented hypnotism, preventing its recognition as a legitimate scientific practice.^[150]

Each issue of the magazine featured contributions from physicians, correspondences, and case studies drawn directly from Parkyn's daily clinic at the Chicago School. Regular contributors included some of the most prominent names in the field at the time, including Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson, Dr. W. Xavier Sudduth, Dr. George Wyld, Clark Bell (President of the Medico-Legal Society), Henry H. Goddard, William Lee Howard, Xenophon LaMotte Sage, and Edward B. Warman.^[24]

In January 1898, The Hypnotic Magazine was officially renamed The Journal of Medical Hypnotism. Parkyn and Flower made the change to distinguish their publication from the growing number of untrained practitioners and stage performers who were portraying hypnotism as a mysterious or dangerous power. They emphasized that their work represented a clinical, scientifically grounded approach to hypnotic suggestion, not popular entertainment or occult speculation. The new title was intended to signal that the journal was an authoritative "medical" periodical devoted to legitimate therapeutic practice rather than a sensational publication trading in curiosity or superstition.^{[152][153][154][155]}

The name change also marked an important shift in the magazine's function. Because The Hypnotic Magazine had been so widely recognized as the publication of the Chicago School of Psychology, its identity was closely tied to the original institution. Renaming it allowed the periodical to broaden its scope and become the unofficial organ for all the expanding schools of Suggestive Therapeutics being opened by Parkyn and his graduates across the country.^[156][14]

To support rapid expansion and counter the spread of sectarian systems such as Christian Science, both Sydney B. Flower and W. J. Chatterton were sent to selected cities to organize local institutions and put trained graduates in place as instructors. Chatterton, worked at the Chicago School and had previously conducted extensive experimental work with Thomson Jay Hudson and Prof. William James of Harvard, played a key role in this effort. As these affiliated schools multiplied, the Journal of Medical Hypnotism became the central publication reporting on their activities, progress, and development, serving as the unified voice for Parkyn's national system of suggestive therapeutics.^{[157][158][159]}

In June 1898, only six months after its previous rebranding, The Journal of Medical Hypnotism was renamed Suggestive Therapeutics. The instruction at the Chicago School and the affiliated schools was centered on treatments carried out through verbal suggestion rather than through deep hypnotic states. The emphasis was placed on “normal” or waking suggestion, and the new title identified this approach as the primary focus of the system. With this change, the magazine aligned itself directly with the affiliated schools and marked its role as the unofficial organ of the many institutions teaching the Chicago School's methods.^[161][160]

The new name also represented a further distancing from the word hypnotism and the confused and often negative associations it carried. Parkyn explained the shift as follows: "We use the term hypnotism only with considerable hesitation as it's important for students to understand both the word and the state it describes. That said, based on hard-earned experience, we strongly encourage students of suggestion to avoid using the term hypnotism in both public and private settings. At the Chicago School of Psychology, the word has been deliberately abandoned and is used only during lectures for educational purposes. We have had many patients who would have avoided us entirely had they known we used hypnotism. Just as the word love evokes a web of associations, the word hypnotism triggers, for most people, ideas of the strange, sinister, or even evil. For that reason, most individuals instinctively avoid anyone labeled a hypnotist. You should never allow yourself to be described that way."^[47]

In June 1900, Suggestive Therapeutics would be investigated by postal authorities after a complaint from a competing Chicago magazine The Star of the Magi. Although the inquiry did not result in fraud charges, the detailed probe into the magazine lead investigators to conclude that the publication operated chiefly as a promotional outlet for the Chicago School of Psychology and Parkyn's related enterprises. As a result, in July 1900, the postal authorities revoked the journal's second-class mailing privilege. Without access to the discounted mailing rate, the journal was effectively forced to cease operations at the end of 1900 after fulfilling its existing subscriptions.^{[162][14][163][164][165]}

With Suggestive Therapeutics serving as the unofficial organ for the affiliated Schools of Suggestive Therapeutics, Parkyn launched a second publication in August 1898 titled Suggestions, later shortened to Suggestion. This new journal functioned as the organ of the Chicago School of Psychology and was presented as the official continuation of The Hypnotic Magazine. Together, Suggestive Therapeutics and Suggestion allowed for the authoritative control over the public's impression of the terms "suggestive therapeutics" and "suggestion." This was a deliberate strategy to stay ahead of the many untrained practitioners and opportunistic publishers entering the field and to ensure that the true "Law of Suggestion" was always at its core.^{[167][168][169][166]}

Parkyn served as editor, publishing what he called "choice literary gems by the world's best known Mystics." Parkyn stated that while most journals on similar topics failed to distinguish between natural and supernatural causes, Suggestion aimed to investigate mental phenomena scientifically, excluding spiritism and mediumship while maintaining openness to unexplained forces.^{[167][168][169][166]}

The magazine quickly became a leading forum for serious study of the mental sciences. Its contributors included many of the most influential researchers and teachers in the field, including Stanley LeFevre Krebs, Thomson Jay Hudson, Prof. William James, Dr. W. Xavier Sudduth, William Walker Atkinson, George W. Carey, Edwin Hartley Pratt, and Prof. Elmer R. Gates.^[166]

In 1900, Parkyn established the University of Psychic Science as an unofficial extension of the Chicago School of Psychology. The new institution was located at 3975 and 3977 Cottage Grove Avenue, just around the corner from the main school, and occupied offices above the Oakland Music Hall, where lectures and instructional sessions were held. It was created to serve as the primary center for demonstrations in the fields of personal magnetism, mental influence, will power, concentration, hypnotism, and the practical applications of the mental sciences in everyday life. It would also delve into the esoteric and metaphysical branches of mental science, including Yogic and occult teachings. Parkyn envisioned it as the nucleus of a broader network of affiliated Colleges of Psychic Science that would eventually operate throughout the United States and abroad. His long-term goal was to establish a unified district of institutions where research in every branch of the mental sciences could be pursued side by side.^{[170][171][172]}

The University of Psychic Science was incorporated in September 1900 with the standard minimum capital stock of $2,500. The filing listed the three attorneys of the Chicago firm Church, McMurdy and Sherman as the incorporators, a routine practice when founders wished to keep their identities off official documents. Because the new institution proposed to teach the emerging field of psychic science, the filing immediately drew press attention. When questioned, attorney Roger Sherman stated that the organizer was not yet ready to make his name public. Sherman, a longtime friend and supporter of Parkyn,^[173] had played college football with him and had contributed an article titled “The Attitude of Courts Toward Hypnotism” to Parkyn's Suggestion magazine in 1899.^[174] He later became Assistant State's Attorney for Chicago and president of the Illinois State Bar Association, remaining one of Parkyn's most active legal allies in defending suggestive therapeutics and other natural healing practices against the medical monopoly and restrictive legislation.^{[175][176][177]}

Parkyn deliberately kept his name off the formal records of the University of Psychic Science to protect the medical and scientific reputation of the Chicago School of Psychology, which was widely regarded as a professional scientific institution. At the time, teaching the metaphysical and personal power aspects of mental science was dismissed by mainstream medicine as quackery, and Parkyn feared that open association with such work could damage the credibility of his diploma programs and professional affiliations. The University of Psychic Science therefore functioned as a semi-independent platform where Parkyn and his colleagues could investigate the more experimental and speculative sides of psychology and suggestion without compromising the authority of the parent school.^[178]

William Walker Atkinson, one of Parkyn's most accomplished students and collaborators, was appointed the first instructor at the University of Psychic Science. Atkinson was charged with teaching Parkyn's system of the Law of Suggestion and extending its application beyond therapeutic use into the domains of self culture, thought-force, and psychic phenomena. Under Parkyn's direction, Atkinson offered series of lessons at the university that blended practical psychology with the emerging theories of vibration, thought-transference, and mental polarity. The material that Parkyn and Atkinson developed for these lectures was compiled into the book A Series of Lessons in Personal Magnetism, published through Parkyn's University of Psychic Science with Atkinson listed as the author. This was the first book issued by William Walker Atkinson and marked the beginning of his long literary career and collaboration with Parkyn in psychological and metaphysical studies. The book was soon retitled Thought=Force in Business and Everyday Life to reach a broader readership.^{[179][163][180][181][182][183][184]}

• Lecture series of lessons in Personal Magnetism by Atkinson at the University of Psychic Science
• A series of Lessons in Personal Magnetism by William Walker Atkinson, 1901 University of Psychic Science^[183]
• The lecture series book was rebranded to Thought = Force in Business and Everyday Life.

In 1900 Parkyn expanded his training network by adding electro-therapeutics and osteopathy to the Chicago School of Psychology curriculum. He created two closely linked schools and integrated their work with his courses in suggestive therapeutics so that students could follow a combined program and earn credentials in all three fields. The aim was to meet strong public demand for drugless therapies while ensuring that the Law of Suggestion remained the central teaching across all instruction.^[81][185]

The Edison College of Electro-Therapeutics operated from the same offices as the University of Psychic Science, just around the corner from the Chicago School on Cottage Grove Avenue. It was directed by Frank Hamlin Blackmarr, M.D., formerly professor of Electro-Therapeutics at Hahnemann Medical College in Chicago, with Charles H. Treadwell, B.S., a former physics instructor at Syracuse University.^[81][185]

Ads for The Edison College of Electro-Therapeutics in Dr. Parkyn's Suggestion magazine

• The Edison College of Electro-Therapeutics
• The Edison College of Electro-Therapeutics

Directly across the street at 4000 Cottage Grove Avenue, Parkyn organized The National School of Osteopathy. It began as a correspondence branch affiliated with the National Schools of Osteopathy based in Missouri, and then was converted into a full resident teaching center once additional space was secured. Lectures and clinical instruction were conducted by E. A. Russ, D.O.^[81][185]

Ads for The National College of Osteopathy in Dr. Parkyn's Suggestion magazine

• The National School of Osteopathy
• Ad by Partlow Designs of Chicago
• The National School of Osteopathy

Parkyn promoted combined classes that brought students from all three programs together for concentrated instruction and clinic work at the Chicago School. This arrangement allowed graduates in psychology, electro-therapeutics, and osteopathy to share a unified approach grounded in suggestion while gaining practical skills that were in high demand among the public.^[81][185]

Ads for combined courses of Suggestive Therapeutics, Eltro-Therapeutics, and Osteopathy at the Chicago School of Psychology in Dr. Parkyn's Suggestion magazine

• Combined courses at the Chicago School of Psychology
• Combined courses at the Chicago School of Psychology

In April 1900, Parkyn organized the Natural Healers Protective League from offices at 3985 Cottage Grove Avenue. He recognized that the rapid expansion of drugless healing systems had created a volatile situation. On one hand, new state medical laws were being used to prosecute mental healers, magnetic healers, Christian Scientists, vitapaths, osteopaths, and other non-drug practitioners for treating the sick without pharmaceuticals. On the other hand, the complete absence of internal regulation threatened to allow untrained or fraudulent operators to overrun the movement. Parkyn repeatedly warned that too much regulation would crush legitimate practitioners, while no regulation at all would allow charlatans to flourish, undermining public trust in all natural healing.^{[186]: 32–40 [187]}

The League's published platform stated three main goals: uniting natural healers in the United States for mutual protection, working for the removal of restrictive state laws, and assisting persecuted healers in court so they could practice without fear of prosecution for treating the sick without drugs. In a series of editorials in Suggestion, he stressed that the real causes behind most drugless cures were rooted in the law of suggestion. Unless healers understood and consciously applied this principle, he warned, the field would remain vulnerable to superstition, exaggerated claims, and opportunists who did not understand the forces they were using.^{[186]: 32–40 [187]}

Past efforts to organize natural healers had failed because the movement was divided by rivalry, jealousy, and the refusal of different schools to work together. By this time, however, practitioners were facing coordinated legislative attacks in states including Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Florida, and Texas. The League emphasized that no healer could stand alone, and that without unified action, individuals would continue to be arrested and prosecuted under medical laws intended to restrict non-drug healing. All schools were urged to join a single national and eventually international organization capable of defending practitioners, overturning unjust laws, and pressing for a federal investigation into the various systems of healing.^[188]

In July 1900 to support the effort in unifying natural healers across the country, Parkyn launched The Natural Healer magazine as the League's official organ. Printed from the same Cottage Grove offices, the magazine presented drugless healing as a unified field, explained the psychological basis behind its successes, and published statements by physicians and professors in support of non-drug therapeutics.^{[186]: 32–40}

With each state facing its own form of legal pressure against natural healers, separate local leagues were required, which created significant management challenges. To coordinate these efforts on a national level, the United States Confederation of Medical Rights Leagues was established in January 1901. Its official organ, launched in May 1901, was a new publication titled Our Home Rights. Founded and edited by Dr. Immanuel Pfeiffer of Boston, the magazine would continue the same mission as Parkyn's League but on a larger scale.^[189][190]

Pfeiffer had served for several years as president of the American College of Psychical Science, an affiliate of the broader network of Colleges of Psychical Science established by J. C. F. Grumbine. The first of these colleges was created in Chicago, whereParkyn held the chair of Suggestive Therapeutics in 1899.^[191] Pfeiffer was already fully engaged in the medical rights struggle, having organized the Medical Rights League of Massachusetts in April 1900 with figures such as Henry Wood, working in parallel with Parkyn's Chicago initiative. Because of this background, he was regarded as the ideal figure to lead the expanded national effort.^[189] Pfeiffer maintained the central emphasis on the Law of Suggestion by naming Parkyn's graduates E. Hood Corson as editor of the Therapeutic Suggestion department and R. Swinburne Clymer as editor of the Medical Freedom department.^{[192][190][193][194][195][196]}

The Natural Healer magazine was discontinued, and its subscription list was absorbed into Our Home Rights. After the headquarters of the movement shifted east, an Illinois League was established and overseen by A. Diefenbach from offices at 4012 Cottage Grove Avenue.^[188] Through the League and its publications, the Natural Healers Protective League became the first truly organized national effort to defend the legal rights of natural healers.. The goal was not only to resist unfair medical legislation but to stabilize and legitimize the entire drugless healing movement before it fractured or was overtaken by charlatan practitioners.

The school maintained close ties with leading figures in contemporary psychological and mental science research. Thomson Jay Hudson, author of The Law of Psychic Phenomena (1893), was a close associate of the school, giving lectures and regularly contributing to The Hypnotic Magazine and Suggestion. Hudson's theories of the objective and subjective mind strongly influenced Parkyn's system, and his regular essays in the Chicago School's magazines brought the school into the center of the scientific discussions on the nature of consciousness and suggestion.^[197][198]

• Thomson Jay Hudson
• Dr. W. Xavier Sudduth

Another influential figure associated with the institution was Dr. W. Xavier Sudduth, an internationally respected physician and professor who had been one of Parkyn's early teachers and partners at the University of Minnesota. He lectured regularly at the Chicago School of Psychology, wrote many articles for The Hypnotic Magazine and Suggestion, and conducted joint experiments with Parkyn on hypnotic and suggestive phenomena. During the same period he chaired the Psychological Section of the Medico-Legal Society of New York, was the extension lecturer for the University of Chicago, and served as professor of morbid psychology at the Chicago Post-Graduate College of Medicine. His involvement linked the school's work to current medical and medico-legal research and helped secure its reputation as a serious scientific institution.^{[199][16][200][17][201]}

• William Walker Atkinson
• Stanley LeFevre Krebs
• E. Virgil Neal (X. Lamotte Sage)

Among some the school's most prominent graduates involved in the New Thought movement were Stanley Lefevre Krebs, William Walker Atkinson, Sydney B. Flower, and E. Virgil Neal. Krebs, who served as both a student and instructor at the Chicago School and headed the Department of Psychic Research and Practical Psychology in Suggestion magazine, would also gain national recognition for his scientific investigations of mental phenomena and his exposure of fraudulent spiritualist practices.^{[202][203][204]} Atkinson, who served as associate editor of Parkyn's Suggestion magazine and studied and lectured at his school, would go on to become one of the most prolific writers in the New Thought movement.^{[170][171][205][183]} Sydney B. Flower who served as the first secretary of the school and editor of The Hypnotic Magazine, became a major New Thought publisher, issuing influential mental science books through the Psychic Research Company and founding New Thought magazine which quickly became one of the largest and most widely read journals in the movement.^[206] E. Virgil Neal, who also performed on stage under the name Xenophon LaMotte Sage, would later be involved with many New Thought institution, including the infamous New York Institute of Science, before becoming a massively successful manufacturer of cosmetics based in France, where he would build the Château d’Azur in the hills above Nice.^{[207][208][209]}

• A picture from E. Virgil Neal's Hypnotism As It Is, when he was a student at Dr.Parkyn's school in 1897.^[209]
• A picture of William Walker Atkinson as a student at Parkyn's school in the summer of 1900.^[210]

Several prominent African American figures in medicine and civil rights were graduates of The Chicago School of Psychology, including Dr. Charles Edwin Bentley and Dr. J. B. Oliver. Bentley was recognized nationally as one of the country's leading authorities in specialized dentistry and authored several technical works in the field. He was also a major civil rights advocate, serving as a founder of the Niagara Movement and as leader of the Chicago branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).^{[211][17][212][213][214]}

Dr. J. B. Oliver, born into slavery, graduated from the Howard University Medical school in 1899 and became a prominent physician and representative of the American Missionary Association promoting racial equality and civil rights throughout the South. He would later be appointed as United States minister to Liberia and Haiti.^{[215][216][217][218]}

• Charles E. Bentley, recognized nationally as one of the leading authorities in dentistry and a leading civil rights activist.
• Dr. J. B. Oliver, a prominent physician and civil rights leader in the early 1900s

More than a thousand students studied under Parkyn at his Chicago School of Psychology, including prominent physicians, hypnotists, educators, spiritual teachers, and business leaders of both sexes. The school's reputation was known throughout the world, and its graduates emphasized their training at the school in professional advertisements.^{[219][220][221][222][223][224][225][226][227][228][229][230][231][232]}

Graduates promoted their affiliation with The Chicago School of Psychology in their advertisements

Together, these teachers, contributors, and graduates made the Chicago School of Psychology not only a major center for instruction but also a hub of early psychological publishing, experimentation, and exchange. The network of scholars and practitioners that emerged from the school carried its influence into medicine, education, and the New Thought movement, making it one of the foundational institutions in the early development of American psychological science.

The Chicago School of Psychology was widely recognized as the "parent school" of suggestive therapeutics in America. Under Parkyn's supervision, many of its graduates went on to establish affiliated schools throughout the United States and Canada that operated under the Chicago School's curriculum. These institutions formed a network of cooperative schools.^{[233][234][235]}

• Ads for C. O. Sahler's Kingston School of Suggestive Therapeutics and George C. Pitzer's St. Louis School of Suggestive Therapeutics
• Ads for Albert H. Burr's Illinois College of Psychology and Suggestive Therapeutics and the Thomas Bassett Keyes sanitarium.

Among the affiliated schools were:

• Cleveland School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1897) Dr. Robert Sheerin^[236][237]
• St. Louis School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1897) Dr. George C. Pitzer^[238]
• Stevens Point School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1897) Dr. F. A Walter^[239][240]
• Weltmer Institute of Suggestive Therapeutics (1897) Sidney A. Weltmer
• Illinois College of Psychology and Suggestive Therapeutics (1897) Dr. Arthur H. Burr and Dr. E. Perry Rice^[241]
• Kingston School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1897) Dr. C. O. Sahler^[241]
• Astoria School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1897) Dr. William Lee Howard^[242]
• Northwestern School of Psychology and Suggestive Therapeutics (1897) Dr. T.H. Storey^[243]
• California Institute of Mental Sciences (1897) Dr Smyth^[244]
• Butte School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1898)^[245]
• Minneapolis School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1898) Dr. Jay A. Porter^[238][246]
• New York Post Graduate School of Psychology (1898) Dr. H. B. Soltan and Dr. Anna E. Park^[238][246]
• Brooklyn School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1898) W. J. Colville^[247][248]
• Kansas School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1898) H. Henson^[241]
• Des Moines School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1898)^[246]
• Chicago School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1898) Sydney B. Flower^[249]
• Parsons School of Suggestive Therapeutics (1899) Dr. J. W. Tinder and Rev. W. E. Harlow^[250]
• Ozark School of Psychology (1899) Dr. Joseph Kyle^[251]
• Dr. W. R. Price's School of Psychology (1899) Dr. W. R. Price^[252]
• Sedalia School of Suggestion (1900) Mrs. Jennie Greer^[253]
• California School of Psychology and Suggestive Therapeutics (1900) Dr. S. L. Butler ^[254]
• Twentieth Century Physio Medical College (1900) Rev. H. Warner Newby and R. Swinburne Clymer^{[255][256][257]}
• Portland Institute of Medical Psychology (1901) Dr. Edward H. Cowles^[258][224]
• Vancouver Institute of Psychology and Suggestive Therapeutics (1901) Dr. J.E. Collinge^[259]
• Illinois School of Natural Healing (1901) Dr. J. Alvin Horne^[260][261]
• Atlantic School of Practical Psychology (1901) Dr. Henry M. Fancher^[262]

These schools followed Parkyn's standardized methods of instruction and maintained correspondence with the Chicago School of Psychology. All of them were operated by graduates who had received a Doctor of Psychology degree from either the Chicago School or one of its affiliated schools and were authorized to teach under its principles.^[14]

In November 1906 Parkyn closed the Chicago School of Psychology. He had previously founded the Motzorongo Plantation Company in 1903, the largest American-controlled agricultural property in Mexico, and had agreed earlier in 1906 to organize The Black Sand and Gold Recovery Company as a promise to a longtime friend. Managing these expanding ventures alongside the school and its publication was no longer sustainable.^{[263][264][265][266]}

• The Motzorongo Plantation Company
• The Black Sand and Gold Recovery Co.

Parkyn also sold Suggestion magazine in November 1906 to Henry Clay Hodges, a wealthy Detroit industrialist who was devoting his later years to supporting and expanding the true principles of the New Thought movement. Hodges had long advertised his book series Science and the Key to Life in the magazine and was an enthusiastic supporter of the "Suggestion family." Hodges stated he would continue the publication under the same focus and philosophy, changing only its name to The Stellar Ray.^{[267][268][269][270][271][263][272][273]: 165} Although the Chicago School of Psychology closed, Parkyn and the school's influence persisted and continued to expand. By 1907, more than a hundred affiliated schools, clinics, and magazines in the United States and abroad were teaching the Chicago School system of suggestive therapeutics and auto-suggestion, forming what was referred to as the "Suggestion family." Parkyn had long worked behind the scenes and continued to provide financial and legal support to the movement. Much of his involvement in large-scale business ventures was motivated by his desire to secure the resources necessary to protect and advance the Law of Suggestion.^[14][274]

• Suggestion becomes The Stellar Ray
• Flower's 1923 magazine The Thinker, featuring a series by Dr. Parkyn.

Dr, Parkyn and the school's influence continued into the 1920s, when the rise of Émile Coué in the United States renewed national interest in auto-suggestion. During this period Parkyn rejoined Sydney B. Flower and contributed a series of articles on auto-suggestion to Flower's new magazine The Thinker, clarifying the method he had taught decades earlier. Parkyn also delivered one of the earliest radio broadcasts devoted to instruction in auto-suggestion, bringing his system to a large listening audience and ensuring that the principles first developed at the Chicago School remained active in American psychological and therapeutic thought.^[275][276]

The Chicago School of Psychology operating through the first decade of the twentieth century, became one of the most influential institutions in the early development of psychological medicine. Its structured scientific curriculum and clinical work bridged the transition from nineteenth-century hypnotism to the emerging study of the subconscious, creating a systematic and medically grounded framework for the use of suggestion in healing.^[14]

• The Chicago School of Psychology statement of principles pamphlet, by Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn (1896)
• The Hypnotic Magazine 1896–1897 Monthly, Chicago, IL. Publisher: Psychic Publishing Co. Editor: Sydney B. Flower
• Suggestion Magazine 1898–1906 Monthly, Chicago, IL. Publisher: Suggestion Publishing Co. Editor: Herbert A. Parkyn
• A Mail Course in Suggestive Therapeutics and Hypnotism by Herbert A. Parkyn, 1898 and 1900,
• Auto-Suggestion; What it is and How to Use it for Health, Happiness and Success" by Herbert A. Parkyn (1905)
• Hypnotism Up to Date by Sydney Blanshard Flower and Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn, (1896) Charles H. Kerr & Co., Chicago.
• A Study in Hypnotism by Sydney Blanshard Flower (1896) Psychic Publishing Co.
• The Law of Suggestion: A Compendium for the People. by Stanley Lefevre Krebs (1916).
• Thought-force in Business and Everyday Life. by William Walker Atkinson (1901) University of Psychic Science
• A Complete Course in the Art of Mind-Reading anonymous, Psychic Research Co. (1900)
• The Law of Psychic Phenomena by Thomson Jay Hudson, (1893)
• Hypnotism as it is: A Book for Everybody by Xenophon LaMotte Sage, aka E. Virgil Neal (1897)
• The Chicago School of Psychology and Hypnotic Magazine, by John M. Andrick