Bibliotheque des Sciences Esoteriqes.
Catalogue periodique d'ouvrages anciens et modernes, neufs et d'occasion relatifs a l'etude des phenomenes et des sciences occultes.
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Other titles: Librairie du Merveilleux, Catalogue Periodique (until 1911, 15 numbers)
1909--1913 Irregular
Paris, France. Language: French.
Editor: P. Dujols and A. Thomas; then P. Dujols.
Publisher: Librairie du Merveilleux.
Succeeds: Librairie du Merveilleux Catalogue Periodique
1/1, 1909-1913.

The original issues were called Catalogue Periodique and identified by Roman numerals I-XV. In 1912 a new series was begun with the fourth year, no. 1, April 1912, under the title of this journal. This was the catalogue of the Librairie du Merveilleux, founded by Papus and Lucien Chamuel in 1887, whose shop on Rue de Trevise was the center of interest in the occult in France at the end of the nineteenth century, both as publisher and as gathering place. (Paul Sedir met Gerard Encausse/Papus there in 1889.) The Librairie published a quarterly bulletin of the bookstore's holdings on an irregular basis. Pierre Dujols (1862-1926) bought the Librairie with Alexandre-Alberic Thomas (Marnes). about 1909 and moved the shop to Rue de Rennes. Most of the first issues (1909-1911) were co-edited by Thomas. Thomas was an occultist and alchemist, the secretary of the Memphis-Misraim lodge in Paris and active in most of the occult activities in Paris in the years before World War I. He was one of those, along with Rene Guenon, who were expelled by Papus from the Ordre Martiniste in 1909 because they had formed their own Ordre du Temple Renove. See the note under La Gnose (which was published by the Librarie du Merveilleux and co-edited by Thomas). Dujols was a practicing alchemist, often credited with being the teacher of the alchemist Jean-Julien Champagne who illustrated Fulcanelli's first work and who, according to widespread speculation, is to be identified with the mysterious Fulcanelli. Dujols also let it be known that he was a direct descendant of the last of the Valois kings of France, signing himself as Pierre Dujols de Valois. The catalogue contained extensive lists of the grand literature of the occult revival, often with notes on books and their authors, and also listed very obscure "pieces curieuses et rares." Among these was the pornographic Masonic book unearthed by Dujols, which earned him the praise of Revue Internationale des Societes Secretes: Dujols "le signale ainsi dans l'un des catalogues, toujours si riches en documentation, de sa Bibliotheque des Sciences esoteriques: ‘Manuel de Maçonnerie pornographique et sadique, d'un lubricite inouie, inconnu des tous nos grands bibliographes . . . et des specialistes maçons les plus erudits . . . ."

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