The founder of the Institute of Mentalphysics, Edwin John Dingle (1881-1972), was a journalist, author and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain. Born in Cornwall, Dingle was orphaned at the age of 9, and from childhood (according to the Institute’s own published history), was drawn to the idea of “mystical” Asia. As a 19-year-old journalist he traveled to Singapore where he was assigned to report on “Far Eastern affairs” for the Straits Times newspaper. The constricting colonial life of Singapore soon lost its attraction, and he began to travel extensively through Burma, China, India and Central Asia, partly in an effort to produce new accurate maps of the region (writing travelogues and commercial and economic guides) and partly out of what was later described as a personal quest for spiritual enlightenment. He entered Tibet in 1910, becoming one of the first Europeans to visit and reside at a Tibetan Monastery. There he later claimed to have intensively studied Buddhist practices, teachings and philosophy with the resident lamas for nine months.

In 1911 he wrote the first of several accounts of his travels, Across China on Foot, and in 1917 published The New Atlas and Commercial Gazetteer of China. Upon his return to Britain in 1920, he began to present himself as a spiritual teacher, guide and sort of revealer of mystical truths from the East to the pragmatic, capitalist West. In 1921, he relocated to Oakland, California and by 1927 (having adopted the Chinese name “Ding Le Mei”), began preaching the tenets of what he called the “Science of Mentalphysics” — a “universalist spiritual development” based on, among other things, vegetarianism, pranayama and the practice of extrasensory perception.”

He wrote prolifically, producing in the 1930s numerous self-published treatises with titles like Man, The Monarch Of The Universe (1930), Your Mind And Its Mysteries: A Scientific Treatise on the Method of Discovery and Direction of the Great Subconscious (1930), Life's Elixir Discovered: Scientifically Proven Regime for Radiant Health, Beauty, Youth And Personal Charm, The Only Easy Way (1932), The Art of True Living (1937), Science at Last Finds God (1939), and Mysticism—-Lost Key To The Kingdom: Inner Chamber Communication (1940). This conflation of disparate religious disciplines and practices, ancient and modern, scientific and spiritual, East and West formed the core of Dingle's Institute of Mentalphysics, formed in 1928 and fully incorporated in 1934 in Los Angeles. (Dingle also founded a center at the International Church of the Holy Trinity in Los Angeles, where he taught classes and also conducted correspondence courses). The Institute of Mentalphysics moved from Los Angeles to the current 420-acre Yucca Valley site in 1941. It boasts the largest collection of structures designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, architect Lloyd Wright. Begun in 1946, the mid-century desert futurist campus includes buildings, dormitories, halls and sacral spaces with such names as the Preceptory of Light, the First Sanctuary of Mystic Christianity, and the Caravansary of Joy.

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