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New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 380, 4 October 1946, Page 5

Sir,-It is not generally known that there is an organisation in Great Britain known as the British Society of Dowsers. This organisation, with its headquarters in London, publishes a quarterly journal under the heading of "Radio Perception," and a few of these find their way to this Dominion. In the March number, 1946, there"is a most interesting account of an address delivered to the above Society by a lady diviner, who had just- returned after spending five years in Ceylon in the employ of the British Government, and if my memory serves me right, apart from other activities she located water supplies for at least 200 military camps during the war. In the. same journal there is an account of an address (which covers 12 pages) to the same Society by a gentleman who had a lifetime experience as a well-borer in Great Britain. This gentleman started out with the usual against the diviners, but after ‘many years in which he was in close contact with the latter (to use his own expression) "arrived at the conclusion that water divining was a great art," According to this journal, when the drive for increased production took place in Great Britain, one thing that was insisted upon was good supplies of water on the farms, and in consequence, the geologists and the diviners got together with the object of locating suitable sites for boring operations. In connection with Mineral Divining, the following is an extract copied from an article that appeared in the South African Mining and Engineering Journal, May 13, 1944:There is thus a definite link between .dowsing and modern methods of prospecting. Mineralogy, in fact, has added the dowser’s modest pendulum to scientific instruments now in use, The dowser, with the obvious limitations of his art, cannot compete with geophysical electric magnet, gravimetric, seismic and other scientific methods of prospecting. Yet it might perhaps be said that long before any expensive instruments were introduced, dowsers were unconsciously making use of

much the same principles as those on which the latest systems of geophysical prospecting are based. Dowsers have been among the world’s pioneer prospectors, and at an earlier period, played no insignificant part in mining hisIt is not impossible that scielitific investigation may evolve amplifiers capable of extending the dowser’s scope and transferring the art of. divining into an exact science. Despite the very precise tools with which the modern prospector is equipped, the dowser, with his special talents, will always find scope for his services wherever an underground stream is required or the existence of a payable mineral deposit is suspected. : Thus it will be seen that those having experience of this art need have no fear of adverse criticism. There is a great unexplored field in this country, waiting to be tackled by experienced water and mineral diviners, The methods adopted: by the Geophysical Branch of Scientific Research may be all right in their place, but for general survey work they are not in it

with the experienced diviner, and for this reason, for the benefit of this country, surely it would be better if this Department were to sink their prejudices and fall in with the diviner in a similar manner to that adopted by the geologists in Great Britain.

R.

LIVINGSTON

(Takanini).