Copyright of the Journal.
Contributors
to the Journal are reminded that the copyright of material published in the
Journal becomes the joint property of the contributor and the Society. This means that while the contributor retains
their full rights to reproduce, in other publications or in other forms, the
material they have submitted to the Journal, they at the same time allow the
same right of use of their material to the Society. This has always been a condition of the
Society and the Journal.
Disclaimer
The
Society and the Journal editors do not necessarily associate themselves with
the views expressed by contributors and correspondents.
The next field trip meeting point is at the picnic site just outside Marlborough on the A346 map ref. SU 198680. Meet at 10:15. The date is 3rd October.
I see from Dowsing Today that Frank Moody (of Moody coil fame) has got himself into the Guinness Book of Records. Not for the number of pints consumed, but for being the oldest skydiver at 101 years old. Well done Frank. By the way he puts his longevity down to taking a walk every day and bending his elbow down the club.
August is often a quiet month for the meeting as many people are away on holiday or involved in the myriad of other things that people like to do in the summer. For this reason we try to save a few pounds by running the meeting with one of our own members as the speaker, and it usually is fairly informal with a lot of audience input – shared reminiscences of dowsing successes and failures, etc.
For this year’s August meeting, Shaun Ogbourne decided to run a practical dowsing session with a number of dowsing tests and a prize for the most accurate results. None of the tests was sophisticated and the whole thing was fairly light-hearted. Just as well, really, since most of us had abysmal results! The only one present who didn’t end up having to make embarrassed excuses was Chris Hinton’s son Andrew, he managed a very creditable 9 right answers out of the 16 possible. Just don’t ask what the rest of us got!
Andrew had the choice of any article on the sales table as his prize, [not including the cash-box, of course], and he picked a handmade wooden pendulum. Congratulations, Andrew, keep up the good work.
A good time was had by all, thanks to Shaun for the idea, and to Mary for helping with the tests. S.C.
What we laughingly call the “WDS Road Show” was invented several years ago when WDS were invited to create a labyrinth at Alton Barnes for the Crop Circle conference. We created the labyrinth, gave brief dowsing lessons but had nothing to sell. We must have done something right because we were invited back the following year.
By now we realised that having a stall with things to sell would be a good idea so books, rods and other miscellaneous goods were acquired and we were in business.
An invited to take part in an “Alternative Archaeological” weekend at Chedworth Roman Villa was received later. Well never at a loss for some creative gobbledegook we jumped at the chance. This was run with a stall, doing dowsing lessons, but with no labyrinth. That first year there were other people exhibiting, although the psychic was unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances (honest, would I lie to you).
We have continued to do these events with the Crop Circle conference moving to Devizes, and the WDS being the only stall at Chedworth Alternative Archaeological weekend. A couple of years ago we decided that a labyrinth would be just the thing for Chedworth. I think the curator was rather bemused by it, but after he had seen how people reacted he asked us to repeat it for future years.
By now our labyrinth had evolved from a structure made out of thatching pegs and string to a diagram laid out on the ground using sawdust. A thing of beauty, I think.
We were invited to the Wootton Bassett Canal Festival in 2002. This was interesting, with lots of dowsing lessons. I think we gave a dowsing experience to around 200 people over the weekend. The most interesting part was the number of people coming and talking about their dowsing experiences. Some had used it in their jobs, and plenty whose fathers or grandfathers used to do it.
And so to this year. To add to the Crop Circle conference and Chedworth Roman Villa we were invited to attend an event at Bradford on Avon called “Singing Around the Town”. Fortunately we were not required for our vocal expertise, but set up a labyrinth and our stall of books and odds and ends. Shaun ran a short dowsing workshop and some practical dowsing was done around the town. We seemed to go down well so hopefully we might see some follow ups from this. (We had some showers of course)
The Crop Circle Conference returned to Alton Barnes after several years in Devizes. Again our labyrinth builders were at work and with our stall up and running we had customers even before the Conference had begun. This is pleasant event and it is nice to see our friends both old and new. (And yes it did rain but only showers on Sunday)
At Chedworth we decided that a square labyrinth would be more fitting for a Roman site. It was worth doing for as an experiment but we’re not sure whether we will do it again. The suggestion of energy stagnating in the corners was discussed during the weekend, but with children racing around it any problems should have been blown away. Unusually the Saturday was quite busy but the Sunday was very slow. The rain didn’t help.
And of course throughout the events people were being given brief dowsing lesson. Another couple of hundred people now know the thrill of feeling a dowsing rod react.
If you would like to become involved next year have a word with Shaun at one of the meetings. The funds raised help to hold down the annual membership fee and we get to have had a lot of fun and met some out to lunch people but also meet some very genuine, good hearted people so it is a worthwhile exercise.
Shaun making running repairs to the labyrinth with Sib and Mary sorting out the stall. Chedworth Roman Villa 2004.
This trip is actually to take place not in September itself, as the date would clash with the annual British Society of Dowsers Congress, which some of the members are involved with. Instead, it will be on the following Sunday which is the 3rd. October. Venue and times are inside the back cover of the journal.
The day will be in two parts – we start with a visit to some privately owned farmland which the farmer has given permission for – and the ground is full of bits and pieces from the Bronze-age, up to the Roman occupation and beyond, and should make for some very interesting archaeological dowsing. Also of course, there is underground water, energies, etc.
Secondly, we have been fortunate enough for Nora to have offered an invitation to make a return visit to the Redenham Shrine, which is situated on her property, and is worthy of a visit in it’s own right. The shrine is pre-Roman and has been partially excavated, with a good number of finds being discovered. There is a great atmosphere at the shrine as it is regularly used for ceremonies and meditations.
The sites are not easy to find if you don’t know the way, so it is important to be at the meeting venue so that exact details can be given. S.C.
Again we were lucky with the weather, in spite of lots of rain in the earlier part of the month. The Bratton Long-barrow is rich in underground streams to dowse, although the white horse on the side of the ridge is too steep for dowsing. The view is wonderful and we could see right across to the white horse at Alton Barnes.
After lunch Edington Church and Holy Well were visited, including the enormous ancient Yew tree at the end of the church yard. We did not do any actual dowsing inside the church as it was being prepared for the annual week-long music festival due to begin that evening. They were all extremely busy and we did not wish to get in their way, so we contented ourselves with a good look around. The church was very impressive – large for such a small village – with many interesting features and certainly worth another visit on a less busy occasion. S.C.
The other month in the room above the Dog and Duck we ran an evening called Test Your Skill at Dowsing as a fund-raiser for the IDBF.
If you haven't heard, that's the Injured Dowsers Benevolent Fund, a vital source of alms to the perplexed. You must know that some earth energy specialist or other is always driving a pointed copper rod through his foot while trying to divert a ley-line round his conservatory...
He gets distracted at the vital moment by something like, cockchafers flying dizzily overhead. Are those may-bugs an omen? He thinks, as he hammers the spike into his shoe.
They need looking after, these people. It's not just the hospital bills to get them a private room where they can ponder the meaning of the isosceles; someone has to go to the sick-bed and listen to them explain that the ley-line was making their poinsettias wilt.
So, anyway, this fund-raiser. Awful, really.
Something of a disgrace. The cream of Wiltshire's dowsing talent in the room. An ensemble with a combined experience of about 400 years in the spiritual and paranormal division.
Couldn't dowse their way out of a paper bag.
How, I found myself asking, how do these people get by? We will not be sending the test results to the British Society of Dowsers for publication in the journal. We don't want to be struck off.
Water in the desert? Couldn't find the latrines at the Glastonbury festival, us. Couldn't find the Thames at Canvey Island.
In the old days at least, under the previous chairman, a fighting man if ever there was, there would have been the proper spirit. People would have cheated. When the results were being totted up, the members would have seen the way things were going, and rigged their scores. There would have been some pride in the outcome.
But lately, all trace of guile and wit has departed. There's a New Age quest for truthfulness, and an unprecedented level of general wishy-washiness.
Psychic penetration of the veil? A glimpse into the unknown? Skill with rod and pendulum or device-less with the third eye? We were all over the place, squire.
This absolute humbling of the committee's aims and intentions over the last 10 years was organised along the lines of a pub quiz.
We sat at our tables in threes and fours and fives, 400 years of divining experience in the room, plus bee-keepers, pigeon-fanciers, wild-flower specialists, sensitives, healers, exorcists, Tarot readers, people with fine esoteric libraries and subscriptions to the Fortean Times. The absolute crème de la crème of the county and, out of a possible score of 16, not one person managed more than two points.
At some tables, they scored one point amongst all of them. The table nearest the door got minus three.
Just by being thoroughly pissed and guessing wildly, we would, by the laws of chance and averages, each have scored 6 out of 16.
Some very special skills were at work, for the entire group to go down the way we did.
At the minus-three table were people who have given their lives to the art, even suffering divorce for the sake of their dowsing - the name of Guy Underwood, a man long since dead, being dragged dishonourably through the Courts yet again.
These dowsers, at the end of the day, could not find the Ace of Spades among four sealed envelopes. They couldn't tell which unmarked bottle of water had chlorine in it. They had marked down a lump of dried superglue as good to eat.
And the excuses!
The room was full of thought lines. There was too much stray energy.
There was energy stored in the walls...
The glitterball put me off.
One should never use the word test in connection with dowsing.
I must have accidentally been reading someone's mind across the room.
Someone was interfering with my chakras.
I'd had a heavy day in a crop formation.
Dowsing only works for me out of doors.
And do you know who won? Nine out sixteen, he got.
A ten-year-old boy. Younger, probably. Never handled an L-rod before in his life. Didn't know what the pendulum was. Thought it might be for conkers. Didn't even want to be there. Had only come along because his mother made him.
Well, young feller-me-lad, says I, you've won. You are the champion dowser of Wiltshire. You can take your pick of the books or crystals or labyrinths on the table over there.
Didn't want anything. Wasn't interested! Looked the other way. Couldn't meet my gaze. To give him due credit, he was trying his very best not to laugh.
Go on, I said, speak to the nice lady at the table, she won't bite you, she'll let you have something nice.
"Can I have the three tins of baked beans?" he said.
Test number four had been to dowse for the salt content, in ascending order, of three different brands of baked beans purchased from Asda that very day and cloaked in anonymity in accordance with scientific method.
So I went looking for the baked beans only to find Cyril and Dave up behind the stage, tucking in.
You pigs. You useless gluttons, I said. You're eating the first prize. Haven't you any respect? You've let me down badly tonight.
We've let ourselves down, said Dave. The shame.
Never mind that, I said, there's a young lad over there, this is his first encounter with dowsing, and what sort of impression do you think he's taking away with him?
Children are the future, said Cyril.
We needed a snack, said Dave, we were down.
Where did you get a tin opener from? I said.
Swiss Army knife, said Cyril. Actually, I quite like these salty beans.
Salt's good for you, said Dave, beginning to fart as he is prone to. Beans are good for you. Vegetarian. Full of iron.
I left them. I walked outside into the night air.
Members of the society were going home, strolling across the car park to their ramshackle transportation in threes and fours, talking, pointing upwards to the clarity of the heavens, incorrectly identifying constellations in the night sky.
What a shower, I thought. An absolute shower. I did love them so. Good-night, everybody, see you again.
(Hope you can find where you live.)
Grey Wolf
A number of the members present at the August meeting asked afterwards about the high failure rate achieved [if that’s the right word!] by usually competent and reliable dowsers. There are several possible answers – maybe it was the lack of concentration due to the “social evening” atmosphere, as it is essential for all but the most gifted dowsers to be able to get into the right mental state of engaged disinterest while having a convivial night in the pub. Another reason may be that we were too close together and were getting dowsed information subliminally from those engaged on a different test at the adjacent table, thus confusing the issue. There is a good chance that this was happening since Shaun did not set up the “leaking pipe” test until after the others and it was situated at the top end of the room, away from the rest, resulting in people going up to do the test in ones and twos. I don’t think that it was just coincidence that most of the participants had better results for this one than the other tests.
However, the chances are that the most important reason for the high failure rate was that dowsing works best when there is a “need to know”. O.K., you may say, how do I learn, how can I practise my dowsing when I don’t have a genuine dowsing task at hand? The answer is to treat each practise session as seriously as if you were really doing a dowsing job, and make sure you are in the correct frame of mind, always check your dowsing responses and ask: Can I? May I? Should I? If the answer to any of these is negative, then it will be best to try again later.
Of course, party tricks can be a lot of fun, and don’t forget that a good dowser can learn just as much from his or her mistakes as from the successes. Failures can teach you how to refine your question and answer techniques and how to look at things in a much more searching and analytical way.
The reason that I stressed that it is important to check your dowsing responses is because the responses can sometimes change due to various circumstances. This need not affect the accuracy of your work as long as you take the changed responses into account. Dowsing reactions can change temporarily due to a number of reasons, including the current state of health of the dowser, the tidal flow, the phase of the moon, the type of site being dowsed, vibrations given off by another person nearby, types of earth-energy.
These are just a few of the most common reasons, there are many others. You just have to “go with the flow!” S.C.
This month sees the Autumn Equinox, the time of the year when the hours of light and darkness are equal and the gathering of the crops is complete. A time of celebration if the harvest was good. In pre-christian times it was believed that the Lord died when the last sheaf of corn was cut, thus beginning his journey through the underworld.
Until recent times, the farm workers would elect a Harvest Lord to act as a go-between with their employer, negotiating wages and conditions on behalf of his fellow workers. His symbol of office was a circle of bindweed and poppies around his hat. [I’m glad someone can think of a use for bindweed!]
The corn harvest was always a worrying time, as the weather might ruin the crop and the final capture of the corn spirit was hazardous as he had to be treated carefully to ensure a full rick. The corn had to be cut in ever-decreasing circles, and the corn spirit would retreat into the remaining ears of corn. Since nobody wanted to be the one who cut down the final ears of corn, the harvesters would hurl their sickles at it from a safe distance.
The last of the stalks would be woven into a corn dolly. This was sometimes known as the Ivy Girl and was kept to ensure fertility. Red thread was often used to tie it as a form of protective magic. It would either be kept in the farmhouse until the following harvest, or buried at the next crop sowing.
The reason for the alternative name of Ivy Girl was because ivy remains green throughout the winter and since it grows in a spiral pattern, it is a symbol of re-birth.
Ritual foods for this time of year include apples, which symbolise the sun, acorns, beans, blackberries, hawthorn berries and poppy seeds. The bean was sacred in ancient times as it was thought to resemble the male testicle. Beans were so sacred to the Egyptians that they were forbidden to eat them and Jewish high priests were not to eat them on the Day of Atonement.
In some cultures beans were associated with the dead and spirits were believed to live in the blossoms. The bean represents the soul and its passage to the otherworld after death, and it traditional to eat beans at funeral feasts.
Another traditional food for this time of year is the hazel nut, which have the property of giving wisdom. Hazel nuts were often dropped by the Celts into sacred springs and wells. Hazel nuts were believed by the Celts to be a symbol of concentrated wisdom and they were dropped ceremonially into the springs as the Celts saw water as being one of the entrances to the underworld.
|
1 oz. marge |
1 egg yolk |
|
2oz. cornflour |
10 oz. plain flour |
|
1 level teaspoon baking powder |
6oz. sugar |
|
2egg whites |
poppy seeds to decorate |
Stir all ingredients except the egg yolk and poppy seeds to form a soft dough. Knead lightly and roll out to a quarter inch thick. Cut into shapes of your choice and place on floured baking sheet. Brush with the yolk of egg to glaze sprinkle with the poppy seeds, and bake 10-15 minutes at gas mark 4.
Much of the information for the above was obtained from “Pagan Feasts – Seasonal Food For The Eight Festivals” written by Anna Franklin and Sue Phillips. Published by Capall Bann ISBN 1 86163 009 3
Find your date of birth and read about your attributes. No guarantees of accuracy.
September 3rd to September 12th - Weeping Willow Tree (the Melancholy) - likes to be stress free, loves family life, full of hopes and dreams, attractive, very empathetic, loves anything beautiful, musically inclined, loves to travel to exotic places, restless, capricious, honest, can be influenced but is not easy to live with when pressured, sometimes demanding, good intuition, suffers in love until they find that one loyal, steadfast partner; loves to make others laugh.
September 13th to September 22nd - Lime Tree (the Doubt) - intelligent, hard working, accepts what life dishes out, but not before trying to change bad circumstances into good ones, hates fighting and stress, enjoys getaway vacations, may appear tough, but is actually soft and relenting, always willing to make sacrifices for family and friends, has many talents but not always enough time to use them, can become a complainer, great leadership qualities, is jealous at times but extremely loyal.
September 23rd (only) - Olive Tree (the Wisdom) - loves sun, warmth and kind feelings, reasonable, balanced, avoids aggression and violence, tolerant, cheerful, calm, well-developed sense of justice, sensitive, empathetic, free of jealousy, loves to read and the company of sophisticated people.
September 24th to October 3rd - Hazelnut Tree (the Extraordinary) -- charming, sense of humour, very demanding but can also be very understanding, knows how to make a lasting impression, active fighter for social causes and politics, popular, quite moody, sexually oriented, honest, a perfectionist, has a precise sense of judgment and expects complete fairness.
Above is a drawing of Bratton White Horse as it is now and below is Bratton White Horse as illustrated in Camden’s Britannia in 1772.
