Los Misterios Desvelados, Tratados de Quirognomia, el Arbol del Ocultismo ...

£1,250 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

An inscribed copy of this extremely rare guide to metaphysics and chirology (palm reading) by one of Mexico City’s most controversial clairvoyants in the early-twentieth century. Zulema Moraima Gelo, née Maria Ciriaca Rosaura Reséndis, was born in Huichapan, Hidalgo, in 1885. Not much is known about her early life, but the first advertisement for the fortune teller “Zulema Moraima” (Zulema taken from the 1902 opera of the same name, with Moraima added to sound exotic) appeared in The Mexican Herald on July 21, 1915. She offered to solve clients’ “doubts and difficulties with love”—without a fee unless results were achieved. Unfortunately, Mexico was becoming more hostile to Zulema’s trade as it recovered from the throes of the Revolution. While not formally outlawed, private fortune-telling stores were seen by the authorities as fraudulent at best and as fronts for prostitution at worst. Zulema’s application for a license for 1919-1920 was summarily denied: she was told her profession was “prohibited,” and it became the policy of the city to revoke all existing licenses and deny future applications without appeal. Nonetheless, Zulema continued to offer her services without a license, and became a feature in Mexico City’s artistic circles. She gained some public renown after foretelling the assassination of Venustiano Carranza in 1920, as well as the sudden death by asphyxiation of poet Lopez Velarde, and claimed to have predicted both World War I and the Spanish Flu. She was

• Binding: Hardcover

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