A Teacher
A. Victor Segno
Law of Mentalism — focus and project thought-force to influence and heal at a distance
The transmission
A. Victor Segno (born 1870; death date not established) was an American mental-science teacher and entrepreneur who founded the American Institute of Mentalism in Los Angeles around the turn of the twentieth century.
Through the Institute he taught and sold instruction in what he called “Mentalism” — a system holding that thought is a real force that can be concentrated, projected, and directed to influence people, conditions, and health, including at a distance.
His central text, The Law of Mentalism (American Institute of Mentalism, Los Angeles, 1902), was subtitled a “practical, scientific explanation of thought or mind force” and presented itself as describing “the law which governs all mental and physical action and phenomena.” Segno ran his teaching as a commercial mail-order enterprise typical of the period’s mind-science boom, promoting his methods for success, personal magnetism, and healing.
He is a representative figure of the more frankly “powers”-oriented wing of New Thought, where the emphasis fell on the disciplined focusing and transmission of thought-vibration rather than on devotional metaphysics.
What they gave
Law of Mentalism: Codified a system treating thought as a transmissible force that can be concentrated and projected.
- Thought-vibration focusing: Taught practical exercises in tuning and directing the mind to a single aim.
- Distant-influence claim: Advanced the (unproven) idea that focused thought can act on others and on health across distance.
- Mail-order mind science: Popularised mind-power training through the American Institute of Mentalism’s commercial courses.
In their words
Noble thoughts make the foundation for noble manhood.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: The New Thought and mental-science movement; period “thought-vibration” and personal-magnetism teaching. Influenced: Later mail-order mind-power courses; distant-influence and thought-projection literature within the popular metaphysical stream.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- The Law of Mentalism1902