[1] According to Wickland, he emigrated from Sweden to St. Paul, Minnesota, married Anna W. Anderson and moved to Chicago, graduating from Durham Medical College in 1900.

Wing Anderson, an author of material dealing with sleep suggestion therapy for the correction of psychosomatic ills, purchased the copyrights to both of Wickland's books.

Spiritualists considered him an authority on "destructive spirits" and he wrote a book in 1924, Thirty Years Among the Dead, detailing his experiences as a psychical researcher.

Psychologist Robert A. Baker listed Wickland and Arthur Guirdham as early psychiatrists who preferred to "ignore the science and embrace the supernatural".

[3] A letter published in a 1918 issue of the journal Science criticized the institute's promotion of psychic research "under the name of psychology" as an example of "pseudo-psychology", adding that "the use of such a name involves bad taste and delusion.