A medical and Spiritualist partnership
Carl August Wickland was born in Sweden in 1861 and emigrated to the United States as a young man, settling first in St Paul, Minnesota. He married Anna Wilhelmina Anderson in 1896. A later biographical account describes his early training in cabinetmaking and watchmaking before his move into medicine. After the couple moved to Chicago, he studied at Dunham Medical College, graduating in 1900. His subsequent work combined medical practice with an increasingly sustained interest in mediumship and mental disturbance.
Anna’s role was essential. Wickland believed that spirits affecting a patient could be induced to speak through her, allowing him to question them and explain their supposed condition. Nelle M. Watts helped care for patients and record sessions; Celia L. and Orlando D. Goerz also assisted with the preparation of his book. The Chicago undertaking was known as the National Psychopathic Institute. In 1918 the couple moved to Los Angeles, where their work continued under the name National Psychological Institute.
The institute’s language drew criticism during Wickland’s lifetime. In a 1918 letter to Science, University of Illinois psychologist Christian A. Ruckmich objected to presenting this programme of psychic research as psychology. He distinguished that objection from an accusation of deliberate financial fraud. Spiritualist accounts, meanwhile, celebrated the Wicklands and their reported cures. Their work ended after Anna’s death in 1937, when Carl retired from active practice. He died on 13 November 1945. The differing responses remain part of the history of his attempt to join medical authority to Spiritualist belief.
