Les Taches d’Encre

Paris: Librairie Niclaus, 1937. FIRST EDITION. 4 photogravure plates, wood engravings throughout. Original printed wrappers. In excellent condition. First edition of this occultist inquiry on the nature of ink stains. Published amidst the popularity of the Rorschach method, this book takes the psychoanalysis aspect a step further and supposes a psychic meaning to what one sees in an inkblot. Rather than hard science, the text is couched in astrology and ancient occult wisdom, insisting that what someone sees in an ink stain reveals his/her predestiny. The author claims that his 20 years of experience have demonstrated the divination power of inkblot analysis.

The first half of the book is comprised of history and methodology for administering and interpreting the test, and the rest of the book is a lengthy alphabetic dictionary of symbols seen ink stains and their meanings. OCLC records just one copy in the U.S. (Getty).