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The British Society of Dowsers has recently written to thank the W.D.S. for the donation of £65 to the “Water for Life” appeal. This is a charity which helps to support the work done in India by Brother Kimpton, who trains local people in some of the poorest parts of India to dowse for clean supplies of water and helps them to sink boreholes to ensure a decent drinking water source for their villages.
The donation included the proceeds from the October raffle, a couple of donations from members and money from the “Contributions Box” which we had at the tea bar of the Patrick Macmanaway workshop earlier this year. Every little helps.
The editor would like to thank all of you who have made contributions to newsletter over the year. We are always pleased to receive your offerings. They can be submitted either by e mail to wds@wyverndowsing.freeserve.co.uk, type written, hand written, on a disc or written on the back of a £10 note. We also appreciate any comments you might have to improve our humble efforts. Notes fed to a toad and left under a stone should suffice for this.
No field trip for December – they start again in January, more details inside back cover, and more info. next month.
I had appointed Dave as my trusty vice-captain because he had the right attitude and attitude is so important in the modern game of cricket. The modern game is all played in the mind.
We set about sketching possibles for our Dowsers’ XI.
We were taking on a team of Archaeologists in a charity match at Avebury.
Word had reached us that they actually trained, did nets and had only two smokers in the side.
“We'll piss on them,” said Dave.
“Of course we will,” I said, taking a swig of Old Nickometer (5.3% ABV). “You and I to open the batting?”
So that was that settled.
A slight gap then, at number three and four. Dave to contact the British Society of Dowsers and see if they had any promising talent or forgotten men lying dormant among the diviners and scholars of the esoteric.
“I've always seen Guy Underwood as the sort of gritty left-hander who comes to the crease at a moment of crisis and squiggles out a rearguard 50 to save the day,” I said.
“What about T.C. Lethbridge?”
“He’s dead now, Dave.”
“Well, so is Underwood.”
“Derek Underwood isn't.”
“Yeah, but didn't Lethbridge play cricket at Cambridge?”
“Might have. Gentleman player. But I thought he rowed.”
“T.C. Lethbridge. It’s a cricketer's name.”
“So is J.K. Rowling,” I said.
“So is Screamin' Jay Hawkins.”
“No, it isn't. Or is it? Well, have a word with your contacts at the BSD, and see if they can turn anyone up. Earth energies and cricket. There has to be a connection. Meanwhile, I shall contact my old healer chum Liz. She never did PE at school, being dedicated to the Goddess from an early age, but now I hear she wants to be Freddie Flintoff”
“So does my Ermintrude,” said Dave.
“It's been that sort of summer,” I said. “Has Ermintrude played any cricket?”
“Not so's you'd notice.”
“She can bat at number five, then. Plumb Bob as wicket-keeper/batsman at number six. He's good at most things. He'll be all right.”
“Now,” said Dave, “what about old Cyril?”
“He's been telling me that he's got some theories about spin-bowling and the principle of uncertainty. That's as a bowler. Then, as a batsman, he thinks that reading spin is probably the same as dowsing spiral energy fields in a head-wind.”
“He's never held a bat, has he?”
“Nope,” I said.
“He's our number seven, then. First change bowler and last of the recognised batsmen.”
The rest of the side ran like this:-
8. Someone's daughter - wears iPod at the crease - sporting genius.
9. Nature Spirit.
10. Black Dog to patrol the boundary.
11. Crazy mixed-up fast bowler.
“What about young Jeremy who wanted to do the underwater dowsing at the well but got taken up into the UFO?” said Dave.
“Ideal fast bowler,” I said. “Full of strange anger and unresolved hostility.”
“Does he do sport?”
“He's thin,” I said. “Let's see if we can get hold of him. He'll probably freak the opposition out, if nothing else.”
Dave looked at the list.
“That's a good start,” he said.
“It is a good start,” I said.
“Fitness and training.”
“What about it?”
“Shall we do any?”
“I suggest we stub our cigarettes and do one lap of the boundary rope just before the off. Nothing organised. Nothing like a practice session where cricket balls get left lying around.”
“No, indeed,” said Dave.
“We don't want anyone stepping on a stray ball and turning their ankle just before the game. We don't want a Glenn McGrath at Edgbaston situation.”
“How about remote-dowsing the pitch so that we know the outcome in advance?”
“We could do,” I said.
“We could send healing to the ground.”
“Yes.”
“We could get people to pray for us.”
“These are all bona-fide strategies,” I said. “Or we could practise throwing the ball so that it doesn't fly out randomly from the back of the hand. We could work on our hand-to-eye co-ordination, and our running between the wickets, and our upper-body strength.”
“Nah,” said Dave.
“Not worth it for one game, is it?” I said.
“We could get people to pray for rain. It's a late season game, so there's likely to be a few showers. Proper cricketers would be at a disadvantage in the rain and might want to come off the field, and the Brickies would probably want to put up one of their little tents. But we would be in our element.”
“When the going gets dowsed,” I said, “the dowsers get going.”
“We could call ourselves The Old Soaks,” said Dave.
“Why not?” I said.
Grey Wolf
The November speaker was Peter Forty-Gibson, who gave a talk on the set of energy lines that he has been dowsing for several years. Peter first talked to the society about these lines a couple of years ago and on this visit he talked about more research on the lines done since then, and he concentrated on the ones that are most local to us. His research indicates that the energy fields on the lines are at their strongest where they run across the locations of old churches and abbeys where choirs performed perpetual chants, as was the custom in many places.
However, it would seem that prolonged chanting does not have to be of a religious nature to enhance the strength of an energy line – one line ran through a major football stadium, and sure enough, the line’s energetic properties increased! [or maybe football is a religion?]
Lots of slides were shown of the churches and other sites that the lines pass through as they radiate out from their source, giving a few ideas for places to take into on dowsing trips in the future.
Thanks to Peter for such an interesting talk, particularly since he had to cross the Cotswolds to get to the meeting in the worst fog we have had in years. No doubt his dowsing skills came in useful! Thanks also to the members who braved the conditions, surprisingly there was quite a good crowd in spite of the weather, hopefully everybody got home safely. S.C.
No, I’m not going in for political correctness, I just want to tell you that we now have sheela-na-gigs on sale, in addition to the new batch of green men. This new batch has some different designs to the ones we had before, as well as some of the previous designs. The colours on the new ones are slightly different to the previous ones, with some more subtle shades. They are all well made and a very reasonable price.
You’re all probably sat at home thinking that the great days of Myth and Legend have passed you by. No knights in shining armour, damsels in distress or dragons with halitosis. Fear not gentle reader Myths and Legends are alive and kicking and being invented as we speak. No longer with knights and damsels (shame) but still with some nicely gruesome twists. These are of course the Urban Legends. Those tails that we are assured are true because they are told to us by a friend who heard it from a friend. Or, even more trustworthy they appear in the newspapers.
We thought it might be fun to repeat a few through the newsletter. Of course they must be true if they are printing in such an upright journal.
Number one is the first urban legend I am aware of being told. I was at school at the time (around 1960) and told this story by a friend. His sister had told him of it happening to a friend of her boy friend.
The friend was driving his VW Beetle home one night. As he approached a traffic light it turned red so he stopped. Just then a group of youths appeared and started to rock the car from side to side. This of course frightened the occupants some what. Things got a little more fraught as the youths started to bang on the windows and shout obscenities. Just at that moment the lights turned to green and the friend sped off leaving behind shouts and screams with one youth rushing along behind for a short distance.
The following day (being Sunday of course) the friend was washing his car when he caught site of something in one of the grills at the back. On further investigation he found it was a finger that looked as though it had been ripped off.
The second story comes from the newspapers. I have seen variations of this story at least twice over a period of 15 years.
A fashionable older lady is out walking her small dog along a well know part of central New York. Being an inclement time of the year it comes on to rain and the lady and dog both get wet forcing the couple to return home.
In the lady’s apartment they both need to dry off. Oh lucky day the lady has just had a microwave oven installed. Open the door, pop in the pooch, press the timer button and before you can say Velvet Underground there is a loud bang as the unfortunate pooch explodes spreading itself all over the insides of the microwave.
Next month we will have some more, perhaps the one about the carpet layer and the hamster or the scuba diver and the forest fire.
Whenever there is an article featuring dowsing in the mainstream press, it is not unusual for dowsing and dowsers to be portrayed in a less than flattering light, so I was pleased to find such a sensible, unbiased article on garden dowsing in the “Kitchen Garden” magazine’s January 2006 issue. Written by Helen Gazeley, the article was entitled “Communing with Cabbages” and featured several vegetable growers who regularly use their dowsing skills in the garden as a diagnostic tool to detect nutrient deficiencies and pests, to determine the most suitable seed varieties for their soil, local climate and requirements and the best places to grow things.
One couple use traditional crop rotation but routinely dowse to check the health and needs of their plants. A problem with their leeks [showing signs of rust] was found to be a soil deficiency – lacking in potassium – not normally listed by gardening books as a core for rust in leeks. Dowsing a list of the commonest chemicals gave them the answer and a light dusting of potassium cured the problem.
Another couple mentioned in the article run a smallholding pointed out that dowsing answers may not always be practical, so the gardener will still have to make sensible decisions. For example, when dowsing for the best location for plants “…the cabbages can’t always have the best bit.” They also are convinced that dowsing does have a scientific background “…quantum physics is gradually showing how everything is connected. The knowledge is out there – it is just a matter of tuning into it” “…people think only of the five senses, but we sense a lot of other information subconsciously, including electrical, magnetic, and ionic charges, atmospheric pressure, temperature, ultraviolet light and many other influences. What dowsing does is bring the subconscious to the conscious. The response you get when dowsing is what you know subconsciously presented to you in a form you can read.2
I thought this definition of dowsing was an extremely good one. I would be a great thing for dowsing if other magazine aimed at particular interest groups would publish similar articles showing how their readers could use dowsing to aid or enhance their hobbies and interests. S.C.
The “Kitchen Garden” magazine comes out monthly. It is available in most large newsagents and is specifically aimed at the vegetable, herb and fruit grower. The article referred to was in the January 2006 edition which should still be available, or you can get back issues from Tel. 01778 392030.