Message #136662

[Bianca]

Dowsing Comes to the New World



It should not be inferred that dowsing was confined to the Old World during these centuries. Without a doubt it travelled to the New World with the first dowser to take passage. One account tells of a nonsectarian band of religious mystics from Germany, self-titled The Chapter of Perfection, who came over here in 1649. They settled not far from Philadelphia and Germantown on the Wissahickon River. They practiced "a variety of mystical and cabalistic rites," and were faith healers, dowsers, and clairvoyants.

Their leader, Johannes Kelpius "was a mystic and thoroughly familiar with the occult practices of the Rosicrucians, who claim him as their first forebear in America." The poet John Greenleaf Whittier referred to him as "the maddest of good men."

The surrounding colonists were "attracted to the Tabernacle by the lure of the occult," and not only made use of the occult powers of the "monks," but received religious teaching at "classes in religious instruction in the morning and evening, well attended by both children and adults."17