May 12, 2021
Grab your sticks and join Jeb and Blake as they go looking for
water flowing underground. Same as it ever was? Not hardly.
Special content in this episode courtesy
Sharon Hill. Be sure and check out her article on dowsing for water at Spooky
Geology.
The "earth, air, fire, and water" idea comes from Empedocles.
Early in the episode Francis Hitching holds up a stack of
paperbacks. I looked them all up (affiliate link to Amazon).
The stack of books he puts down includes:
Dowsing: One Man's Way by
J. Scott Elliot
Dowsing, Water Witches, and Divining
Rods for the Millions by Howard V. Chambers
Modern Dowsing: The Dowser's
Handbook by Raymond Willey
Practical Dowsing by A. H.
Bell
Pendulum Power (1977
edition shown) by Greg Nielsen and Joseph Polansky
And finally:
Dowsing: The PSI Connection
by Christopher Hitching
- Tom Graves
Author of "The Diviner's Handbook: A guide to the timeless art of Dowsing" (1986)- Book online https://leanpub.com/needlesofstone/read
- He's still alive, still writing, and has a Twitter account.
When he's not writing fiction and new age - he's an IT and Business consultant of 30 years.
- Inner London Educational Authority
The dry well belongs to John Mitchell.
He calls in Dr. Arthur Bailey.
Former president of British Society of Dowsers
An article by Dr.
Bailey
Dr Arthur Bailey was a senior lecturer in
Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of
Bradford. At some point he got very interested in botanical healing
and founded Bailey Flower
Essences - which sold plant essences and was
closely affiliated with homeopathy.
This episode really inspired me to some show-notes silliness.
The episode had some stunning visuals in it. This looked like an album cover to me.
We don't know who THIS guy is, but he probably was trying to hide from all the Muggles.
Pat Lucas was the only professional British female dowser.
The "biofeedback" device from the episode:
And then there's THIS machine - the one used by Harry Lovegrove.
New Scientist (New Scientist Feb 16, 1978) article discussing Lovegrove using child's dowsing kit for "amazing results" at "laying down dowsing lines." Whatever that means.
The SPR has a lengthy article about dowsing that includes believer and skeptical content.
Stan Shepherd - the dowser and well driller. We're of mixed opinions. I think it looks like he's having a heart attack, Jeb prefers the idea that he's having a fart attack. And Stan was just going with the flow.
We also mentioned Martin Gardner and his book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.