WATER DIVINING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 383, 25 October 1946, Page 5

WATER DIVINING

Sir-In your water-divining correspondence so far publighed several points need rebuttal. First, Mr. Sutcliffe’s letter: (1) I fail to see how I am biased. I merely described the results of experiments done ‘with any and every diviner who was willing. The diviners themselves produced the damning evidence quoted in my article. (2) The chance of striking water depends on the type of country. In many districts (e.g., Waikato and Canterbury Plains) water would be hard to miss. So much for Mr. Sutcliffe’s one chance in 100. It is significant that, while diviners are thick as blowfliesand objects of veneration-on the plains, in hill country, where skill or shrewdness is needed for success, the rare diviner is an object of derision. (3) Mr, Sutcliffe’s stories count for nothing, I might tell of the successful well on a site rejected by five diviners, or of the Education Board which, on its diviner’s advice, drilled through rock to 50ft. below sea-level without success. I could also list the many successful borers who have. disproved divining. What would be useful is a comparison of diviners’ and ‘non-diviners’ successes. Australian records of this: type kept over a period of ten years were not exactly creditable to water-witching. (4) Two wells 10ft. apart! Two possible explanations: (a) In drilling it is possible to pass unknowingly through a water layer. The second bore, after the first failure, would be sunk much more carefully. (b) If the slope of the water-table is not that of the surface, one hole would need to be deeper than'the other. (5) This running water: while some diviners claim to find only running water, others can allegedly find any water. (Incidentally if the object to be divined must be running, how are minerals divined?) I tested all diviners on what they allegedly could.do. If a member of the British Society of Dowsers says he can divine any water, who am I, without testing him, to doubt it? May I ask Mr. Sutcliffe carefully to re-read paragraph 1, column 4 of my offending article.

Now. Mr. Livingston’s letter:. (1) I am fully aware of the existence of the British Society of Dowsers, half . of whose New Zealand members lave been tested (the others would not co-operate). If he would explain some of the articles in "Radio Perception," I should be very grateful. We could start with this extract from the March number he quotes (p. 316):"The complete set of Tativa currents, their names and colours are:-Akash Black Void; Vayu Blue-Green Intellect; Tejas Red Physical Health; Prithvi Yellow Religious devotion; Akas White Intuition ecstasy." (2) As for the South African mining journal quotation, in science it is not authority, but facts that count. My facts are indisputable. (3) Geophysical testing is different from divination in that it uses known physical phenomena-a use proved by the successful results. The alleged physical interpretation of divination as given. in Franklin and Maby’s Physics of the Divining Rod has been disproved. (4) Because an .odd. geologist. has agreed with diviners is no justification for Mr,

Livingston’s bland assertion "the geologists in Great Britain" have "fallen: in with the diviners." They have not! I.shall make Mr. Livingston an offer. I am willing to try him out at Takanini on condition that tests are agreed on beforehand, and that should he be unable to substantiate his claims, he pay my travelling expenses. Should any South Island diviner able to be visited from Dunedin within a week-end wish to accept, this offer is open to him also.

P. A.

ONGLEY

(Dunedin).