A. Bovis - Collection on radiesthesia - 1935

Important documentary collection on dowsing – Bovis, Henry de France, Gérard Maury – manuscripts, works and archives – 1930s-1970s

Description for the advertisement

Important old set devoted to dowsing, to the pendulum and to dowsing research, consisting of books, brochures, handwritten documents, boards, correspondence and numerous press archives.

Set evidently originating from a collection assembled and used by an amateur or practitioner of dowsing. Several documents bear handwritten annotations, notes, measurements and references, which gives the fonds a particularly interesting documentary character.

The lot includes in particular:

Henry de France – Le Sourcier Moderne,

Manual of the Operator with the Rod and with the Pendulum, 5th revised and corrected edition, Librairie Agricole et Horticole de la Maison Rustique, Paris, 1935.

Gérard Maury – Pratique de la Radiesthésie, Éditions Victor Attinger.

Various documents and texts devoted to dowsing: research on mineral waters, historical medical applications, colors, metals, foods, pendulum and rod.

Documents and plates related to Bovis, including a piece bearing a handwritten mention/signature attributed to Bovis.
Several old handwritten pages concerning, in particular, radiesthetic procedures applied to foods, metals and colors.

Documents relating to the National Federation of Dowsers.

Correspondence and documents of practitioners, notably a letter from Hector Mellin dated 1952, concerning his work Mont d'Artois – Souvenirs et Techniques Radiesthésiques et Métapsychiques.

Many old press cuttings, preserved as documentation: dowsers, dowsing, Lourdes waters, healings, cancer, so-called “cancer houses,” unexplained phenomena, etc.

Sheets, brochures, testimonies and advertising or professional documents from the period.

Interesting particularity: several books and documents have been extensively annotated by their former owner and some still contain the press cuttings, notes and documents that had been filed with them. The set thus represents more a working historical collection on dowsing than a mere gathering of works.

10 books + 2 brochures
Condition varies according to the age and use of the documents: yellowing, foxing, creases, small tears, covers and bindings sometimes worn, handwritten annotations and signs of handling. The set is sold as presented in the photographs.

Rare and unusual set, difficult to assemble, interesting for a collector of dowsing, the history of the pendulum, dowsers, esotericism and the history of alternative practices in the 20th century.