STRANGE POWERS OF AN ABBE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 49, 20 November 1937, Page 15

STRANGE POWERS OF AN ABBE

Lost Persons Found

*THE recent death of Abbe Mermefc removes . yet another of those C&tholic priests who, like Mondel, will be xemembered rather for their sorTioes to science !than for their eminence in the Church. The Abbe Mermet practised and do▼eloped more than fifty years a systeiu 0i radio-aesthetics concerning which there ii still some doubt whether it ahonld be classed as pure science or as •cience with an admixture of art and perponality. The Abbe himself always •trenuously denied that his own perfonality had anything to do with his remarkable achievements in radioaesthetics, and maintained to the last that hie was as much a scientist as any atudent oi chemical reactions. Like many oi those whose life-work has lain in French Switzerland, the Abbe Mermet was a Frenchman, having been born near Annecy seventy- , ene years ago. But the whole of his working life was spent in Switzerland, "and thronghout all his experience in the strange science which he did so much to develop he remained a simple, hardworking parish priest. The Abbe's radio-aesthetics sprang ir om his interest in the age-old practiee of water-divining. In 1883 there was a terrible drought in Western Switzerland, and the Abbe did great serviee to his parishioners of the rnoment in discovering hidden streams for them by means of a "pendulum" which he had ,invented, and which he apent a large part of the rest of life In perfecting. The remarkable feature of Abbe Mermet 's early ' 1 divinations ' ' was ' their accuracy, Time and again the iepth at which ha announced .that

water would be found was correct within a few inches, and so were his predictions about the flow per minute of the water. Some of his successes in the sphere of water-divining have passed into legend in Switzerland. They are, nevertheless, historical facts. In later years the Abbe extended the use of his pendulum" to the discovery of diseases in the human body. Indeed, he may be said to have been the forerunner of a new and successful method of diagnosis. The Abbe's "pendulum" method has also been applied with success to the discoVery of petrol, and even in the search for objects or persons who have disappeared. There is one wellattested story of his having found the body of a child who had been carried off by an eagle in the Valais mountains. In the matter of disappearances, however, as the Abbe himself would have been the flrst to admit, his method was not always suceessful. Thus he failed when called in over the "Prince" affair. There can be little doubt that the personality of the Abbe himself counted for much in the proper employment of his "pendulum." . Those who saw him at work said. that the instrument seemed to come. alive in his hands, and there must remain some doubt whether anyone but the Abbe himself could have divined water merely by using his "pendulum" over a large-scale map. But the Abbe's own successes remain incontestable. Furthermore, he had disciples who have obtained good. results from following his methods. It is to be presumed that the science (or art) of radio-aesthetics will not die with this simple and devout old priest.