Joseph Cecil Maby | |
|---|---|
 Maby dowsing at River Leven, Fife | |
| Born | 1902 |
| Died | 1971 |
| Occupation(s) | Physicist, dowser |
Joseph Cecil Maby, B.Sc., ARCS, FRAS, [1] (1902-1971) was a British biophysicist, dowser and psychical researcher.
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Maby was born in the Colony of Natal and his family returned to England in 1903, shortly after he was born. His father, Joseph Maby (1865-1927) had been a railway contractor, building various railways in Natal and the Transvaal. His mother, Annie Leila (née Yates), was from Abergavenny. His father was of mostly English heritage but had also been born in Wales. They settled in Marle Hill, Cheltenham, where Joseph Maby had a small farm where he kept a herd of pedigree Jersey cows. [2] Maby believed that he had experienced paranormal events at his family's home. He developed a lifelong interest in psychical research. [3]
Maby was educated at Cheltenham College, [4] Imperial College London, and the University of London. [5] After leaving university, he found employment as a research assistant at the Forest Products Research Laboratory, Buckinghamshire, and subsequently became a teacher at the Imperial Forestry Institute, Oxford. [6]
With physicist T. Bedford Franklin, Maby wrote the book The Physics of the Dowsing Rod (1939). [7] They postulated that dowsing occurred due to some form of radiation. A review in Nature noted that there is "no direct evidence for such waves and the author's discussion of their polarization cannot be justified on our present physical knowledge." [8] Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe wrote that claims in the book have no scientific validity. [9]
Maby was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. [10] He was a member of the British Society of Dowsers and Society for Psychical Research.
