{"id":5190,"date":"2014-12-11T11:22:52","date_gmt":"2014-12-11T16:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=5190"},"modified":"2014-12-11T11:39:28","modified_gmt":"2014-12-11T16:39:28","slug":"hypnotic-huckster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2014\/12\/11\/hypnotic-huckster\/","title":{"rendered":"Hypnotic huckster"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired\u00a0Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"IMG_0001\"<\/a>In his book Practical lessons in hypnotism & magnetism,\u00a0<\/em>L.W. DeLaurence states\u00a0that “Occult force” is simply personal magnetism\u00a0that if well developed is able to control man, woman, child or beast at will. \u00a0If a person possesses this occult force they can then\u00a0project thoughts, desires, and even habits into the minds of those that have no knowledge of this mental science. \u00a0DeLaurence saw a hypnotist on stage and decided to take it up\u00a0himself, so he took a grand total of one lesson and then began touring around the country doing lectures and exhibitions.<\/p>\n

DeLaurence was a\u00a0pretty shady character even within the \"IMG_0002\" world of spiritualism and occult. \u00a0His publication of\u00a0The Key to the Tarot: Oracles Behind the Veil <\/em>was a blatant almost word for word plagiarism of Arthur Edward Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot : being fragments of a secret tradition under the veil of divination<\/a>. <\/em>\u00a0He was able to do this due to a loophole in the US copyright law at the time. \u00a0He also established DeLaurence, Scott and Company which\u00a0sold spiritual amulets, candles, herbs, and other items. \u00a0Carolyn Morrow Long’s book\u00a0Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and Commerce<\/a> includes a detailed section about DeLaurence.<\/p>\n

According to Long he was\u00a0the subject of a mail order fraud investigation in 1919 where the prosecuting attorney seemed determined to expose him as a fake. \u00a0When DeLaurence was asked about the products he sold he admitted that they lacked any spiritual qualities and that\u00a0the candles came from a nearby church, the amulets from a jewelry manufacturer, and the herbal remedies from a pharmaceutical company. \u00a0Transcripts show that he was given two weeks to remove the “fradulent and objectionable claims” but there is no final outcome noted, nor is there a police record of DeLaurence.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0005\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To brush up on your own personal magnetism take a look at\u00a0Practical lessons in hypnotism & magnetism : giving the only simple and practical course in hypnotism and vital magnetism which starts the student or practitioner out upon a plain, common sense basis–prepared especially for self-instruction<\/em> \/ by L.W. DeLaurence.\u00a0Chicago : De Laurence Co., c1937<\/a>\u00a0which can be found in\u00a0Widener’s collection.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager for contributing this post.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired\u00a0Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection.\u00a0 In his book Practical lessons in hypnotism & magnetism,\u00a0L.W. DeLaurence states\u00a0that “Occult force” is simply personal magnetism\u00a0that if well developed is able to control man, woman, child or beast at will. \u00a0If a person possesses this occult […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4490,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72741],"tags":[131675,13399,131667,131668,3826,131673,131672,72720,131674,131670,119921],"class_list":["post-5190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-widener-library","tag-carolyn-morrow-long","tag-commerce","tag-de-laurence","tag-delaurence","tag-fraud","tag-hypnotism","tag-hypnotist","tag-julio-mario-santo-domingo-collection","tag-magentism","tag-mail-order","tag-occult"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-1lI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4490"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5190"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5370,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions\/5370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}