Sidney Abram Weltmer

Weltmer was a native of Wooster, Ohio. At the age of seven, his parents moved to Morgan County, Missouri, where he attended the public schools. He studied borrowed medical books in hopes of becoming a physician, and studied as an apprentice with a doctor. Later he devoted himself to the study of the Bible, seeking its wisdom on spiritual healing.[1]

Weltmer was ordained and licensed to preach as a Baptist minister at 19 years old. He served as a preacher in several places.

In 1885 he founded a private educational institution at Aikinsville, Missouri, an unincorporated community in Morgan County. He presided over and directed the Akinsville Normal School from 1885 to 1889, to train teachers for elementary schools. The school disbanded in 1889. In Sedalia, Missouri, he established and organized a public library and was librarian from 1893 until 1895. For two years he also served as a professor in Robbins Business College in that city.[1]

S. A. Weltmer home, 1903

On October 8, 1879, Weltmer married Mary Genoa (Adair) Stone. They had five children together: Ernest, Silas W., Stella, Tracy, and Beulah.[1]

Weltmer was involved in Nevada in several of the fraternal and civic associations that developed in the late 19th century: he was a Knights Templar (Freemasonry) and Thirty-second Degree Mason, an Elk, an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias, and an initiate in the fourth degree of Atlantian Mystics, although he was not yet bound by oath.

Weltmer died in Nevada, Vernon County, Missouri on December 6, 1930 and was buried there.

Sidney A. Weltmer in the 1920s

Weltmer took a partner, Joseph H. Kelly from Sedalia, teaching him the principles of what he called his "science". Together they founded the firm of Weltmer & Kelly in Nevada, Missouri on February 19, 1897, and began to give sessions. As the number of attendees increased, they bought a building to suit them, providing rooms for patients and also space for their classes in the thought transference and "magnetic healing" that Weltmer promoted. They opened this facility, known as the American School of Magnetic Healing, on July 1, 1898. Weltmer served as president and Kelly as secretary and treasurer.[1] Within a few years so many patients were attracted from a wide area that the railroad added trains to its schedules to support this business.[2]

Weltmer asserted that a combination of clairvoyance and hypnotic suggestion could cure diseases such as asthma, tobacco addiction and insanity. A ten-day course cost $100.[3] In addition to holding lectures in an auditorium that could seat several hundred people, he published numerous tracts about his system and attracted an increasing number of patients, up to hundreds per day. He and Kelly trained more assistants and numerous stenographers were hired for the mail order business of classes by mail. By 1903 the Institute had claimed to reach 75,000 patients, curing most.[1]

Members of the medical community widely condemned Weltmer, charging him with being a fraudster. Dr. Prenton W. Pope wrote "The Expose of Weltmerism: Magnetic Healing De-magnetized," a 1900 review in The Sanitarian, published by the Medico-Legal Society of New York. He described Weltmerism as an "anti-Christian method" devoted to "chicanery and money-getting."[4] Dr. E. L. Priest from the Missouri Medical Association denounced the Weltmer Institute. Pastor Dr. Charles M. Bishop, from the Centenary Methodist Church, published his negative reviews in the Christian Advocate, published in St. Louis, Missouri.[2]

In 1900, the US Postmaster General declared Weltmer's "healing by mail" scheme a fraud and stopped mail delivery to the institute. Weltmer filed suit to challenge this action, and the case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. It ruled on November 17, 1902 that Weltmer had the right as a citizen to receive mail at his business, regardless of whether people agreed with it. According to a 2004 newspaper article about the building and institute, Weltmer's Institute generated so much mail that the government built a new post office to accommodate the volume going into and out of the town.[2] Weltmer traveled to Washington, DC during the course of this case, to track its progress at the Court and to attend to his clients among members of the US Senate and their wives.[3]

Also in the early 20th century, Weltmer filed a libel case against Rev. M. Bishop for calling Weltmer and his assistants "miserable charlatans" in print; it eventually reached the Supreme Court of Missouri. That court ruled in favor of Bishop and refused a motion to rehear the case. It based its ruling on the facts of one of Weltmer's clients, a woman who claimed to have been cured of breast cancer by letters from Weltmer. She said he instructed her that each of them was to focus on healing thoughts at a time and dates which he established by letter. In fact, during this period of claimed treatment, Weltmer was vacationing in Colorado, and his purported letters were prepared and sent by clerks of the institute.[5]

Weltmer's Institute contributed to Nevada becoming the center of a wellness industry. His system was often compared to Christian Science, a type of spiritual healing which medical practitioners also criticized. Psychotherapists, clairvoyants and persons promising various miracle cures of contemporary illnesses, such as tuberculosis, which then had no cure, also came to work in Nevada.[3] At one time the Institute was staffed with "17 healers, several assistant healers, a physician, and more than 110 stenographers and female typists to handle the correspondence."[6]

After Weltmer's death in 1930, his eldest son Ernest tried to keep the Institute going. He was unsuccessful and closed it in 1933 during the Great Depression. The building was sold and used as a funeral home into 2004. Some residents felt it should have been designated as a historic property, considering Weltmer's influence on the town.[2] Despite some local objections, the city council was preparing to allow the property to be redeveloped and a video store to be built on the site.[6]

• Weltmer Institute of Suggestive Therapeutics

• Missouri the center state, 1821-1915, by Walter B. Stevens. v. 4. Stevens, Walter B. (Walter Barlow), 1848-1939.
• One thousand American men of mark of to-day. Twentieth century edition de luxe. A national perpetual record of progressive men of America who have attained some prominence in the various social, commercial and industrial affairs. Compiled from standard biographical publications and original sources. The founders, makers and builders of our great republic..
• American elite and sociologist bluebook 1922, Herringshaw, Thomas William, 1858
• Ohio authors and their books : biographical data and selective bibliographies for Ohio authors, native and resident, 1796-1950, edited by William Coyle; preliminary research by Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Wessen; sponsored by the Martha Kinney Cooper Ohioana Library Association.
• Who's Who in America, v.11, 1920-1921
• Pearson's magazine, v.3 no.6 (June 1900)
• The Coming Age, v.2 1899
• The Healing Hand [Weltmer institute of Suggestive Therapeutics Company, 1922 - 225 pages]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sidney Abram Weltmer.

• Article on S. A. Wetlmer
• Weltmer Institute images
• The State Historical Society of Missouri
• Tri-Country Genealogy Society (PDF)
• Nevada Daily Mail, 26 November 2004
• Nevada Daily Mail, S. A. Weltmer and Edgar Cayce
• Early American Manual Therapy
• Old print ad for the Weltmer Institute, posted in Afflictor
• - Link