WEBVTT - E. Virgil Neal: Hypnotist, Fraudster, Tycoon - Part 1 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:13.880 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:19.240 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We mentioned today's subject 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.439 in our recent episode on Emil Kua, and at the 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:24.759 time I said he was on my shortlist because he 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:30.000 was fascinating and who That's the truth. Evrgil Neil's life 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.440 was such a wild ride that it sounds fictional. I 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.440 was trying to describe it to a friend of mine 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:37.200 last night while we were talking, and he was like, wait, 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:41.160 is this all the same guy? And I was like, yeah. 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:45.720 His career had this seemingly bright start as a writer 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.440 of accounting and banking textbooks that were very well regarded 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.960 and used for decades because of how good they were, 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:56.240 and then his life took some very wild turns into hypnotism, 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:02.640 patent medicine, and fraud as well as an odd success. 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:07.160 He is not a rags to riches story. He is 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.600 a swindler and flim flamman to riches story. Although he 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.959 was plagued with the accusations of all kinds of crimes 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:19.560 throughout his life, including collaborating with an enemy during wartime. 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.680 So we're going to tackle e. Virgil Neil today and 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:26.040 next episode because there's a lot to get through. It 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.800 is a lot. We'll start with how youing. Virgil Neil 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:34.400 was born in Georgetown, Missouri, to Armistead Arthur and Ellen Neil. 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.959 That was in September of eighteen sixty eight. His birthplace 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:44.640 is frequently listed as Sedalia, Missouri. Georgetown is a smaller 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:49.000 municipality that's just a few miles north of Sedalia. While 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.160 Neil would later in his life claim that he had 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.800 been born into a poor farming family, his father was 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.040 actually a school teacher. They did own farmland, but that 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.520 was not really the source of their income. Yeah, his 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:08.000 dad was a really well respected teacher. While Neil's earliest 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.120 years aren't particularly well documented, which isn't that odd for 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.400 somebody in his place in life, he did, we know, 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.079 enter a two year business school program at Central Business 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.560 College in Sidelia at the age of twenty. He went 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:26.079 this route instead of attending a traditional university. Even before 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.280 he graduated from the school, which happened in eighteen eighty nine, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:33.360 he was already working there, teaching courses like penmanship and 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.720 mental arithmetic. Basically how to do sums and ledgers in 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:41.480 your head. Biographer Mary Schaeffer Conroy theorized in her biography 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.880 about Neil that this arrangement may have been a deal 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:47.120 that the school made with him to make paying for 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:51.760 his courses more viable. After he graduated, he continued to 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.280 work at the business school. Neil would later claim that 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.200 he devised an arithmetic program that was taught to students 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.160 so that they could quit we make calculations in their heads. 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.040 The school did taut a program like that in their 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.120 marketing materials over the years, but whether or not he 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.720 was the originator of it is not substantiated one way 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.680 or the other. From Sedalia, Neil moved on to Philadelphia. 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.720 He claimed to have worked at the Pierce College of 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:27.600 Business in Pennsylvania Briefly. There's not substantiation for that either. Next, 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.280 he moved on to Rochester, New York, and he worked 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.000 at a textbook company there, and as part of his assignments, 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:38.680 he wrote the book Modern Banking and Bank Accounting. His 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.360 company sold the rights to the book to the American 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.160 Book Company, and Neil is said to have made a 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.000 significant amount of money in that deal. American Book Company 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.760 published the material as two separate books, Modern Illustrative Banking 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:57.520 and Modern Illustrative Bookkeeping. He earned royalties on those two 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.480 titles for the rest of his life. The books are 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.400 really quite practical. They represent a shift in the way 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.840 that such concepts were taught to offer students a model 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.960 of real business practices to work through so that they 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.800 could understand the real world applications of their business education. 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.799 Modern Illustrative Banking walks readers through the process of running 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.080 a bank. Per its opening pages, the book quote is 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.120 designed to reproduce as nearly as possible the practical workings 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.919 of a national bank. This came with sample documents and 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.719 transactions quote to cover, in abbreviated form two days business 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.160 of the First National Bank, Rochester, New York. During the 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.480 first day, all of the business forms of the bank 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.479 are handled by the student, but during the second day 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.880 the business forms are dispensed with, and only the entries 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.560 to the various transactions are recorded. Historical data for them 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:57.240 being furnished in the text just for the purposes of 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.760 explaining my understanding. This isn't a course that you would 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:02.960 take in two days. It just is broken out as 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:07.600 though it is covering two days worth of business FYI. 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:12.279 It breaks down what duties are done by various positions 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:14.400 at the bank, and then at the end of these 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.240 two days worth of sample business quote, dividends are declared, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:24.520 statements made, and the books closed. Modern Illustrative Bookkeeping opens 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.680 with the promise that it offers readers a new practical 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.320 approach to the topic instead of the ways the bookkeeping 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.480 has been taught up to that point. Quote. This book 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.640 is designed to teach bookkeeping as it is practiced by 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:41.480 the best business houses. We have no apology to offer 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.200 for the innovations in methods or the deviation from the 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.719 school forms of balance sheets, statements, loss and gain accounts, 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:53.719 et cetera. We believe the time has arrived when all 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:58.480 progressive teachers will welcome practical business methods, even though they 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:03.640 supplant long cherished school forms and practices. The book is 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:07.320 pretty solid in its information. It basically lays out a 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.520 two book system, one the journal day book to record 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.080 transactions as they take place, and then the other the 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:17.920 ledger into which those transactions are recorded as sorted into 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:22.360 the accounts. The whole thing emphasizes checking and rechecking your 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.960 arithmetic to make sure your books are accurate. Next, after 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.279 his success in these books, Neil decided that he would 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.919 actually like to have his own publishing house, and he 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.240 set one up in Rochester, New York. This was a 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.240 case where he didn't look for writers to create new works, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.520 nor did he write anything himself during this time, but 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.880 he sure did publish a lot. He looked for material 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:49.640 that was out of copyright, and particularly poetry, and he 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:54.120 just republished that with no author to pay. His publishing company, 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:56.920 which was pretty much just him, kept all of the 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:02.640 money from sales. On June fifteenth, eighteen ninety three, as 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.480 publishing success was making him a nice amount of money, 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.240 Neil married a young woman named Molly Hurd. He was 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:13.080 also developing a growing interest in hypnotism during this time, 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.760 and he started studying it in earnest by the mid 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:20.640 eighteen nineties. Some accounts say that he became interested in 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.640 this after seeing a stage hypnotist. That's not really something 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.280 that can be verified, but there really would have been 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.360 plenty of opportunities for him to have been exposed to 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.600 this concept at the end of the nineteenth century in 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.960 the US. We've talked about this recently on the show. 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.000 This was a period when mysticism of any kind was 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:43.720 becoming very popular, and it turned out that after learning 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.200 the tricks of the trade, he was pretty good at 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.200 hypnotizing people. Was also during this time that a name 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.840 we mentioned in our Emil Kua episode emerged, and that 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:58.840 was Exlamotte Sage. Sage was a stage name that Neil 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:03.640 assumed to advertise himself as an expert hypnotist toward the 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:08.480 United States on bookings as Xenophon Lamont Sage, assisted by 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.800 Olga Helen Sage, who was of course his wife Molly. 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.080 The two of them were frequently booked in various vaudeville theaters, 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:19.280 and it turned out that Exlamant Sage was pretty good 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.960 at bringing in the ticket sales. Hypnotism paid better than 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.920 any position that business school had ever prepared Neil for, 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.040 and seeing that the demand for hypnotism material was high, 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.319 Neil leaned back into his publishing experience and wrote a 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:40.679 correspondence course under that name called The Philosophy of Personal Influence. 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.079 He also wrote a book called Hypnotism As It Is 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.800 a Book for Everybody, which we talked about quite a 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:51.000 bit in the Koua episode. These works were published at 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.000 Neil's latest company, he started so many. The New York 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.800 Institute of Science and the works of Exlamant Sage were 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.520 wildly popular. An account of Neil's life that was written 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.600 in the nineteen thirties estimated that the New York Institute 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.200 of Science made one point five million dollars from sales 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.360 of books and hypnotism courses, all of which were shipped 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:19.240 directly to customers' homes. That business model of direct sales 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.600 eventually got the company and Neil into a lot of trouble. 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.439 The US Postal Service went after them for mail fraud because, 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.439 among other things, he was teaching palmistry, and the company 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.920 had to shudder. Coming up, we'll talk about a strange 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.560 business arrangement that E. Virgil Neil established in the early 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:40.880 nineteen hundreds, But first will pause or a sponsor break. 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.599 Starting in nineteen oh three, the E. Virgil Neil and 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:58.520 Company banking firm and the Columbia Scientific Academy, where Neil 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.800 was a board member, kind of up the whole thing. 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.760 We're both operating out of the same offices at nineteen 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.400 thirty one Broadway that was in the area west of 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.520 Central Park where the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts now sits. 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:16.520 And that combination of businesses seemed like an odd arrangement 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.280 to members of the press. The New York Sun on 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.520 March third, nineteen o three ran a piece titled Here's 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:28.319 a hypnotic Bank, psychotelepathy, and a loan shop in one office. 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:33.120 That article describes how a British journalist had been investigating 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.520 the Columbia Scientific Academy and had come away declaring it 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.880 to be part of quote, the American Magnetic and Psychic 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:45.640 Force swindle. When this journalist had tried to cancel an 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.000 order from the Academy and have his name removed from 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:54.000 all future distribution lists, he got a letter signed by R. F. 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.800 Robertson psych DCD, which read, in part quote, when I 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.800 got your letter, I was attracted by your handwriting, like 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.560 the educated eye of an artist who sees in a 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.320 rough piece of marble an angel. My I caught in 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.960 your handwriting at a glance, a whole life pictured vividly 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:18.520 before me. There was so much history in your handwriting, 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:23.000 so much undeveloped power and latent energy and talent, that 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.360 I could not destroy the letter without writing and extending 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.880 my previous offer. The letter continues to talk about the 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.600 journalist's handwriting, calling it quote one of the strongest I 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.240 have ever seen, and accusing the journalist of having quote 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:44.160 neglected the development of those God given faculties. However, that 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:48.480 lied dormant in every individual until brought to light and cultivated. 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.560 The letter even claims that a special meeting of the 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:56.320 board of the Columbia Scientific Academy was called to discuss 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:01.680 this promising handwriting and make its writer a special offer 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.720 on one of their courses. So when a reporter from 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:08.439 the New York Sun read about all of this in 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.040 the British periodical Truth, he decided to go to the 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:16.360 academy offices and see exactly what was going on. When 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:20.640 he got there, he asked for mister Robertson and was 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.720 presented with someone by that name, And when he started 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.720 asking questions about that letter that had been republished in Truth, 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:32.360 he suddenly got passed off to Evirgil Neil, and Neil 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.120 was surprisingly frank in some of his answers to the 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:40.840 questions this journalist posed, which he later almost certainly probably 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.760 wished he had not been. He was asked about the 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.160 claim that the board of directors had met to discuss 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.680 this amazing handwriting on a canceled order. Neil told the 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:54.400 reporter that was actually, quote, a form of advertising, you know. 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.920 When he was questioned about who Robertson was and what 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.480 the credential site dc D ment, he was told that 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.240 Robertson was a banker who got a Doctor of Psychology 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.800 from Iowa College, which accounted for the first D, and 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.520 that the CD that followed stood for character delineator, a 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.680 degree that Neil claimed Robertson got from the American College 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:21.360 of Sciences in Philadelphia. Neil did not elaborate on what 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.040 that degree would actually involve. My research of that phrase 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.720 only connects it to data set sequences and computer science 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.480 should not have existed in nineteen oh three, so it 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:34.560 seems to have been, you know, kind of one of 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:36.720 those it will sound good and no one will know 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:38.840 how to even question me about it kind of phrases. 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:44.719 The Columbia Scientific Academy, which former banker Robertson was president of, 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.760 offered correspondence courses in the art of what it called 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.680 chi magie or chi magi I don't know, which encompassed 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:56.600 a variety of skills, including character reading. When the reporter 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:01.240 asked about the bank located at the same age. Neil's 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:07.000 initial response was, quote, how did you know about the bank? 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.760 Maybe not media savvy yet at that stage of his cow. 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.080 Then he told the reporter that it was a private bank, 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.160 not a public bank, and that as such it did 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:23.000 not have to adhere to national laws, only to state laws, 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.360 and that those were quote a little more lax. He 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.960 also explained that because the bank's customers were mostly people 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.880 and institutions who wanted short term loans, that only made 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:39.080 about five thousand dollars a year. The masterful part of 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.040 the way this article was written is the way that 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.720 the reporter kind of connects the dots between these two 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.640 seemingly oddly paired businesses operating out of the same offices 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:54.920 without ever like saying, hey, this is obviously wacky and fraudulent. 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:58.960 It states at one point, quote to show how nicely 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:03.479 the chi magic end of the Columbia Scientific Academy dovetails 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.080 with the banking end, and how harmoniously finance and the 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.920 occult might be blended, the literature of the institution has 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.080 just let himself loose. In one of the pamphlets, here's 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.040 what it says. If you have not the money it 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:20.400 will pay you to borrow the money if you invest 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.240 in our course of instruction and master our course and 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.960 follow its teachings. It is probably the last dollar you 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.400 will ever find it necessary to borrow as long as 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.440 you live. So the article doesn't state whether there is 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.360 any kind of direction or suggestion for the reader of 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.320 such advertisement to borrow from the E. Virgil Neil and 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.400 Company Bank. But even if it didn't, a bank that 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:48.480 specialized in short term loans also housing a business with 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.760 dubious claims that encourages people to take out such loans 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.640 pretty dicey at best. But though the copy definitely leads 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.200 the reader to consider that problem. As I said before, 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.080 the write up in the Sun is very careful not 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.920 to explicitly state that these two businesses are connected. The 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.520 next day, The New York Sun ran an article with 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:15.040 the headline Worried about Neil and Company depositors You see 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:19.520 don't like hypnotism in banking. And in this article, the 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.600 paper shared a phone call that Neil had made to 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.280 the paper in which he blamed the paper for causing 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:30.080 him problems. He stated on the phone quote that article 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.840 printed in This Morning Sun about the bank has caused 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.240 the bank some annoyance. Some of our depositors have been 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.600 around this morning to find out what it all meant. 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.840 They were uneasy, you see, about the money they had 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.360 on deposit with us, and were inclined at first to 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.560 withdraw their accounts. I told them it was all a 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.160 mistake about the bank, and that I'd like to have 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.880 the Sun do something about it. When contacted for more 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.280 information on what he wanted the paper to do, Neil 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:01.880 said that quote, it was wrong to mix up the 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.400 bank with the academy. There's no connection between the two. 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.800 He was adamant that Robertson wasn't involved in the bank 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.119 at all, and that the academy didn't teach hypnotism, but 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:17.680 only included literature about hypnotism as an extra with its 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.360 regular courses. He went on to say that he had 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.560 a report made by commercial credit reporting agency RG Dunn 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.520 in Company that indicated that the banking concern was sound 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:34.840 and above board. When The Sun contacted the State Superintendent 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:38.960 of Banks, Frederick D. Kilburn, he said that the State 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.760 Bank Department had quote no jurisdiction over such concerns as 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.080 the banking house of E. Virgil Neil and Company, so 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.480 far as an illegal supervision of such concerns goes, there 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.760 is none. They can run their business like a grocery store. 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.399 So even though Neil admitted to the reporter that the 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.520 company lied to people as a form of bad advertising, 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.399 and even though there was an obvious shady connection between 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.440 these two business entities, there were just never any real 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:11.560 repercussions for this, aside from some of the banks customers 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:17.160 getting worried and maybe closing their accounts. Columbia Scientific Academy 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.400 and many other shady businesses continued for Neil, and we'll 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.040 talk more about that after we hear from the sponsors. 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:36.480 To keep stuff you missed in history class going, following 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:40.639 newspaper mentions of Neil and the Columbia Scientific Academy in 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.520 the first years of the twentieth century offers a wild 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:49.280 breadcrumb trail of shady dealings. Just four days after Neil's 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:53.359 interaction with The Sun, advertisements for the Columbia Scientific Academy 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.120 seemed to explode in number in papers across the country. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:02.160 And the copy is so obviously dis one that appeared 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.720 in the San Francisco Examiner is designed to look like 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:09.960 a regular article, and its titled personal magnetism. It's subheaders 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:12.679 taut how this is something that prominent men used to 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.920 gain influence, and how a reporter stumbled across secret methods 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.840 to quote, charm and fascinate the human mind. And it 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.600 also notes that this information came from high priests of 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:29.240 the occult who had kept the secrets for years. That ad, 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.720 which again was disguised as an article, says that quote, 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.280 one of the leading colleges of the city of New 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:41.040 York had spent five thousand dollars having ten thousand copies 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.679 of a book titled The Secret of Power, printed in 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.119 accordance with the author's wishes to be given away for free. 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.359 If you sent your name an address to the Columbia 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.439 Scientific Academy. The write up said, you could get your 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.280 free copy in the mail, and in it you could 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.320 quote develop a wonderfully magnetic person personality and learn how 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.040 to read the character's secrets and loves of others in 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:08.040 a few days study. That study would be done at home, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.160 and then you could use your new knowledge to get quote, 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.320 lucrative employment or an advance on your salary, or you 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:20.399 could just gain friendship and influence, all without anybody being 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.560 any The wiser about you being in control of their behavior. 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:30.480 There are several testimonials from alleged satisfied customers included in 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:34.280 this ad. They included all the hallmarks of like modern 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:39.760 infomercial sales. One from a man named Fred Perkins reads quote, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:41.919 I have been in great demand since I read the 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:46.159 work of the Columbia Scientific Academy. People are amazed and 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.400 mystified at the things I do. I believe I could 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.520 make twenty five dollars per day reading character alone if 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.920 I were to charge for my services. If anyone would 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.159 have told me I would receive so much wonderful information, 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:03.600 I would have thought him crazy. The ad then closes 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:08.040 by asking that only people who are really interested in 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.280 this information request a copy, since there is a limited 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.560 supply of them. This free giveaway, of course, was a 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:16.960 way for the Academy to build up its mailing list 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:21.120 and then start sending these interested people literature about their 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:24.720 courses to lure them into spending their money, just the 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.680 way that British journalist was told his handwriting was fascinating 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:34.120 and evidence to person with incredible untapped power. We can 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:36.879 help you unleash that power if you just send us 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:41.920 some cash. There is another interesting exchange in that initial 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:45.560 write up in The Sun from March fourth. The report 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.399 that Neil produced to show that the banking firm was 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:53.600 above board also mentioned his involvement in another business, National 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:58.400 Protective Association of the United States. When questioned about that one, 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.600 Neil said that it was an insurance company and that 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.240 he was no longer connected with it. It was still 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.760 operating at the time the reporter spoke with E. Virgil Neil, 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.280 and it was headquartered in the very same building as 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:13.919 the banking house of E. Virgil Neil and Company and 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.760 the Columbia Scientific Academy. Though Neil acted nonchalant in this 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:21.359 exchange between him and the reporter and kind of like 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.280 he had forgotten that company was under the same roof. 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.880 It's a weird detail. This isn't necessarily like a breadcrumb 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:32.040 to connect the dots, but it offers up another piece 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:34.520 of evidence that he seemed to be constantly on the 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.040 move from career to career, starting up sort of a 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.440 shell game of businesses, always looking for the next way 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.119 to make a buck, often by trading on the hopes 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:48.760 of naivete or of his potential customers. He had been 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:52.480 dodging negative attention just enough to stay out of trouble. 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.399 But his next venture found itself in the spotlight, and 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.919 a huge scandal broke that implicated a lot of people, 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.919 many of them very well respected. While Neil faced a 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:08.520 number of legal problems all through his life because of 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.640 his business dealings, he was also sued for more personal reasons. 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:15.400 In nineteen oh four, he was sued by a man 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:20.280 named John Showerman for using his influence to cause Missus 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:26.000 Showerman to abandon her husband. It's unclear how or if 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:29.879 that legal action was resolved, but it is evidence that E. 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:34.400 Virgil Neil was kind of perpetually in hot water. Yeah, 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:37.760 and reading sort of the longish biography that exists about him, 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:40.080 I couldn't even include all the ones there's like. Oh, 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:42.360 and then he got sued for swindling a widow out 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:44.320 of her money, like on a kind of more one 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:47.400 to one swindle basis, rather than setting up a whole company. 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:50.679 And there were a lot of instances like that. Apparently 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:53.639 also a bit of a womanizer, so that caused him 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:58.120 some problems. But undaunted by all of the legal attention 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:03.560 he frequently got, Neil started other questionable businesses, but one, 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:07.200 the New York Institute of Physicians and Surgeons, was one 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:10.560 that he eventually tried to distance himself from when it 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:14.600 got in trouble with authorities. The man who was really 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:18.960 the driver of that business was Neil's colleague, Thomas F. Adkin. 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:21.600 They had worked on a lot of these kind of 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:27.080 bizarre business schemes together. The main product of this entity 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:33.240 that it sold was something called videopathy. Ads for viteopathy 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:35.880 are wild, and they were laid out again to look 0:24:35.960 --> 0:24:38.920 like articles with titles like a Message to the Sick. 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:43.000 The claim was that Adkin could cure people of all 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:46.359 manner of infirmities and even bring them back from the 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.720 brink of death. It was free to get a consultation 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:53.360 and then, according to their ads quote, charges for treatment 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:57.520 are moderate. There was even a mail order option if 0:24:57.560 --> 0:25:01.080 you couldn't get to Adkin in person. There were some 0:25:01.160 --> 0:25:05.959 basic pieces of medical advice involved in the information they 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:10.959 would give out. Some medications were issued, There were dietary 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:15.119 guidelines that they gave to people to follow, but that 0:25:15.200 --> 0:25:18.359 all seems pretty benign. There were, however, a lot of 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:23.280 really dubious elements to videopathy. One write up claimed that 0:25:23.359 --> 0:25:26.480 the in home treatment involved taking some sort of tonic 0:25:27.040 --> 0:25:29.959 and then staring into the eyes of a photograph of 0:25:29.960 --> 0:25:33.520 one of the company's doctors who was scheduled to concentrate 0:25:33.600 --> 0:25:37.320 on you at the exact same time. There was a 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:39.840 letter that the company sent out to patients that offers 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:43.440 instructions and what sounds a lot like auto suggestion, which 0:25:43.440 --> 0:25:46.119 we talked about in the KOA episode. It told patients 0:25:46.160 --> 0:25:49.399