Otto Edler von Graeve (22 July 1872 – 10 January 1948) was a German
divining rod
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations ( radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active dowsers in ...
proponent.
Biography
He was born on 22 July 1872 to Emil Edler von Graeve (1826–1904), lord of Gotteswalde and Neuhof. Otto von Graeve served in the Prussian army, achieving the rank of Major before he settled in the small town of
Gernrode
Gernrode () is a historic town and former municipality in the Harz District, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2014, it has been part of Quedlinburg.Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of
and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...
. In 1913, he published a manuscript on
dowsing
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations ( radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active dowsers in ...
, (''My dowsing activity: Observations in theory and practice along with an appendix acknowledgments, minutes of all excavations to December 31, 1912 and statistics'').
He visited the United States on 27 January 1914 aboard the '' USS George Washington'', passing through
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
on his way to
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...
to divine for
radium
Radium is a chemical element with the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rathe ...
. He also spent time dowsing in the Sinai Peninsula and in Palestine. The ''Deutsche Levante-Zeitung'' reported in November 1915 that von Graeve had dowsed for water at the German temple colony, on the property of the Auguste Viktoria Foundation on the
Mount of Olives
The Mount of Olives or Mount Olivet ( he, הַר הַזֵּיתִים, Har ha-Zeitim; ar, جبل الزيتون, Jabal az-Zaytūn; both lit. 'Mount of Olives'; in Arabic also , , 'the Mountain') is a mountain ridge east of and adjacent to Jeru ...
and on that of a Syrian orphanage.
In 1918, von Graeve is said to have found a mineral spring on the Schwedderberg near
Gernrode
Gernrode () is a historic town and former municipality in the Harz District, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2014, it has been part of Quedlinburg.Thermalbad Wiesenbad between 1919 and 1921 von Graeve was present as a representative of the company Meyer und Co. and, in May 1920 he used his dowsing rod (through a bore hole made by the engineer Röttinger from Halle) to discover a spring that was , erupted initially on tapping and produced per minute.
Because of his reported successes, in 1920 he was commissioned by the city of
Reutlingen
Reutlingen (; Swabian: ''Reitlenga'') is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of June 2018, it has a population of 115,818.
Reutlingen has a university of applied sciences, which ...
to assist with drilling for a water source. After drilling in vain to a depth of 126 meters at the site von Graeve had indicated, he was expelled from the site.
Von Graeve married Elsbeth Schrey on 1 April 1902 in Danzig and they had seven children (four sons and three daughters).
Graeve's explanation of dowsing
In 1914, as part of an interview and demonstration given to '' The Sun'' in New York von Graeve explained dowsing as follows:
He demonstrated his dowsing by detecting a gold 10-
mark
Mark may refer to:
Currency
* Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
* East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic
* Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927
* F ...
coin which he placed first on the carpet and then on a chair. He used a bent iron rod and when he approached the coin the "rod whipped over and struck his safety belt a hard thump." When a visitor attempted the same feat nothing happened. When the visitor held one end of the rod and von Graeve the other the rod bent towards the coin but not as violently as before.
The motion of such dowsing devices is generally attributed to the
ideomotor phenomenon
The ideomotor phenomenon is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously. Also called ideomotor response (or ideomotor reflex) and abbreviated to IMR, it is a concept in hypnosis and psychological research. It is der ...
, a psychological response where a subject makes motions unconsciously. The scientific evidence is that dowsing is no more effective than random chance and it therefore regarded as a pseudoscience.
Von Graeve also detected the presence of what he believed to be water pipes within the second floor of the building in which the interview took place. Whether there was anything there or whether the pipes were electrical conduit was not confirmed.
During the interview von Graeve also claimed to have done 402 dowsings with a 93.12% success rate.