Southern California is known for its fabled addiction to cults and cultists. One reason given is that in the process of moving westward, the customs, practices, and religious habits of people underwent important changes.  Emma Harding, in her history of spiritualism, believes that cults thrive on the Pacific coast because of the wonderful transparency of the atmosphere, the heavy charges of mineral magnetism from the gold mines which set up favorable vibrations, and the strong passions of those who moved here created “unusual magnetic emanations.”

In 1905 every church in Long Beach was debating the teachings of Dr. William R. Price, a former Baptist preacher, who had founded a new system of psychic research in Long Beach the previous year.  The aim of his association, the Society of the New or Practical Psychology, was to teach and live “practical” Christianity.   In little more than a year his society grew to number into the hundreds, composed of “thinking, practical Christian men and women,” who believed that Jesus taught a salvation that was practical in nature, and which was to be practiced in daily life.  By “tuning in” to these principles, an intuitive psychic power could be developed which would show the proper way in which to live life.  This eventually became known as “New Thought” philosophy, which Dr. Price set forth in his book The New or Practical Psychology.

On October 1, 1905, the corner stone was laid for the future home of the group, the Psychological Temple at 228 E. Second Street.

Many were attracted to this “New Thought” philosophy and gathered in Long Beach at the new Psychological Temple.   Some, however, weren’t quite all sane to begin with, such as Mrs. Mary Crandall, who insisted on being called Mrs. Henry E. Huntington.  Since joining Dr. Price’s group, she had become more and more peculiar.

In March 1904, Mrs. Crandall’s friends began receiving letters written by her signed with her new name: Mrs. H. E. Huntington.   When asked about her new name, Mrs. Crandall explained she could project her “soul body” across the River Styx, while her mortal body rested. It was here she met her soul mate – Henry E. Huntington, the man who in a previous incarnation had been her husband.  On this psychic plane, with the eyes of the universe as witness, they were again united in matrimony, according to a Los Angeles Times article dated April 30, 1905.

In late November 1905, Mary Crandall visited the Huntington Railroad building and forced her way in saying that her husband, Henry Huntington, had given her the presidency of the corporation and that from now on orders must be taken from her.  When it was revealed that Mrs. Crandall, dressed in heavy mourning, with a crepe veil thrown back over her bonnet, had a gun, police were called.  She was lucid enough when the officers arrived to explain that she carried a loaded revolver in her handbag because she lived in a part of Long Beach where she had to pass through a lonely neighborhood, and she felt more secure with a firearm.

Following this incident Mrs. Crandall was taken before a judge for a sanity hearing.  In checking her state of affairs, they found she was a very wealthy woman, with over $200,000 ($6.83 million in 2023), mostly invested in real estate.  When the judge asked her if she was Mrs. Crandall, she replied in all honesty (according to newspaper reports) that she was Mrs. Huntington.  Following this admittance, her attorney made arrangements for the private care of his client in a sanitarium.

Mary, who lived for some years at 2^nd and Crescent in Long Beach and signed her checks as “Mary Crandall Huntington”, died in October 1908.

What of Price and his “New Thought” doctrines? It seemed that Dr. Price also was involved in selling worthless stock in the National Gold Dredging Company.  He made it look like such a deal, only allowing members of his Psychological Temple to buy shares. The company, Price avowed, owned eleven miles of the American River, a river that panned up to $60 ($2160 in 2023) a day from a cubic yard of river rock. The stock, Price told his flock, was worth $3 ($108) a share, but was not on the market.  He, however, with his connections, could obtain shares for his fortunate followers for only $1 ($36 in 2023) a share.

Many leaped at the opportunity only to find out later that the company didn’t own a foot of the river and what was being found was nowhere near the $60 return a day they had been led to believe. A big rubber and development scheme on lands in Mexico was also touted, but after a time when dividends failed to come in and extra assessments were made, some of the investors began to suspect something was amiss.  Since they were also members of Price’s flock, a rift appeared in the psychic society.

Dr. Price found himself involved in lawsuits, both civil and criminal. Judgment after judgment was secured and Price eventually lost everything, except his holdings in the Temple.  Finally, the stockholders in the Temple held a meeting, declaring the doctor’s control illegal. They voted him out of office and forcibly took possession of the building, chiseling his name from the cornerstone.  Price left Long Beach in 1919 and started the New School for Applied Christian Psychology in Los Angeles.  Here things also got out of hand.  In 1923 he was arrested for fraud and divorced because of adultery.  He died in 1925.

On September 25, 1911, the beautiful Psychological Temple on west Second Street, planned and erected by Price and his flock as the home of a new religious society, was sold at auction for $2,910.09 ($96,300), although the site and the building was valued at $25,000 ($825,000). It’s still there, if you’d like to visit.