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Bookings for our Intro to Dowsing Workshop are coming in fast. If you want to be sure of a place, you will need to hurry with your application.
The October field trip is usually our last one of the year. It would be nice to see as many of the regular field trippers as possible to round the series off nicely.
The Angel, where we hold our meetings has a new landlord and landlady – Lisa and Simon, both very friendly and helpful. The kitchen is up and running and our food-tester in chief [aka Shaun] has given it the seal of approval. Please support the pub by buying drinks [they do tea and coffee as well as alcohol], or food, as they are kind enough not to charge the society for the use of the room.
In response to your article about press feedback about dowsing, I saw an item about dowsing recently on channel Four’s programme Richard and Judy (yes, I know I’m sad!) It consisted of a usually rather irritating presenter interviewing Uri Geller at his home, which was near a river.
I expected dowsing to be rubbished, as per usual, but was pleasantly surprised when aforesaid presenter gave a childlike cry of delight when his L-rods crossed. He had been looking for water, and could hardly contain his enthusiasm that it had worked, which was great PR. He even had a go at pendulum dowsing, searching for a ring (I think) hidden in several identical matchboxes, which he found each time using the pendulum.
Uri Geller was given time to briefly explain how dowsing worked, including programming crystals etc to ‘find’ different things. Back at the studio, I expected either R & J to mock this method of finding water, lost objects etc, but Judy held a crystal pendulum that Uri Geller had programmed’ to find gold over her numerous rings, and sure enough it didn’t start swinging until it passed over her rings. She appeared truly baffled, and said, "I just can’t explain this, but it happens every time I do it!"
Nice to see dowsing treated seriously for a change.
Barbara Withers
What many people don’t know is that Uri Geller only became a spoon and key bender later in his career. He started off as a dowser, working for gem companies - finding diamonds, in South Africa, and was extremely good at it.
29th October 2006 at 16:30
This year’s October field trip is once again what we loosely call a fire-festival.
Once again Adrian and Barbara Crocker have kindly invited us to despoil their beautiful home for our annual fire festival. The format will be similar to previous years. There will be a fire to stand around and talk and you are invited to bring sparklers to satisfy any phyromanicatical tendencies. A bring and share supper will also be on the agenda. Bring waterproof clothing and footwear for outside and something to slip on to your feet for indoors. A torch might be useful.
Plan to arrive at about 16:30 which should give us enough light to do some dowsing around and about the grounds. There are several underground streams and energy flows running under and around the house, which used to be a barn and outbuildings. The recent building work has had a dowsable effect on some of these energies and in places the underground water is salty.
Adrian is almost ready to construct his stone circle in the grounds. The sarcens he has acquired for the circle are large specimens which need a fair amount of effort to move, so dowsing indications as to the most suitable site and correct astronomical orientation would be of interest to him.
I have been collecting the dowsed findings of a number of members who came to the long-weekend field trip in June of this year, in order to give some feedback to Roger, one of the custodians of the castle, who was so kind and helpful when we invaded the [usually] tranquil spot.
Barb Withers is rather more literate than I am, so I’ve included part of her and Mick’s letter to Roger, detailing their findings:
Oystermouth Castle
There is an odd atmosphere upon entering through the gate, and my eyes were drawn up to the ‘murder hole’ in the roof, but that might just be due to its grisly purpose. (I noticed that some of my companions seemed uneasy here as they hurried past me into the courtyard.)
Going up the spiral staircase leading to the left side of the curtain wall (above the tented area) made me feel decidedly nervous, which I initially put down to my dislike of these staircases because they always make me feel quite giddy. Nearing the top, I felt a strong male presence. He seemed more bullying than threatening, but still wasn’t very nice.
I must admit I was admiring the view as I walked along the ramparts, but my husband went very quite at one spot. When I asked him why, he said he’d sensed a man had fallen to his death from the wall. I felt the ‘bullying’ male presence as we retraced our steps, and sensed that he had caused the man to fall from the wall, albeit unintentionally.
Walking along the right side of the curtain wall, (overlooking the lawns where we had parked). I felt as if someone was watching me from one of the tower rooms. (I don’t have a plan of the castle, so I hope this makes sense.) This presence seem rather put out that we were wandering around ‘its’ castle, but I couldn’t get a sense of whether ‘it’ was male or female, just that ‘it’ had been quite powerful during ‘its’ lifetime. Hence, literally looking down upon the rest of us.
From memory, we returned to the courtyard, and I felt rather odd as I walked up the grassy slope, as if there was a void underneath that area. (Perhaps a tunnel or cellar)
There were two lower rooms I couldn’t even enter, (due to their oppressively unhappy atmospheres. (These were the rooms where the men and women had been kept, being treated worse than animals. I did enter the room with the hole in the roof during your explanation about how the captives had been fed, but had to leave because it felt so unpleasant inside.)
In contrast to these rooms I felt drawn to the room with the pillar at its centre sensing a female presence, which began to manifest in the opposite corner to the doorway, like a semi-opaque mist. I was a little freaked by this, but could sense she meant me no harm, just wanting me to acknowledge her rather sad presence, which I gladly did.
One of the upper rooms was filled with roosting pigeons, but they were totally silent almost as if someone had hit the mute button. They were cooing away contentedly throughout the rest of the castle, which puzzle me until I realised the whole room seemed muffled, or cloistered from the outside world in some way. (Not sure which room this was now, but it was one of the first rooms on the upper floor. Perhaps the chapel?)
From Mick and Barbara Withers.
Another member, who gets embarrassed by seeing her name in print, was not able to go on the weekend trip this year, but decided to try ‘remote dowsing’ the castle from the ground plans that Roger provided. Her strike rate was better than fifty per cent when checked against other member’s findings. As she had only tried this method a couple of times before, she was quite pleased when I told her.
Pat and Rob Cannings [who put us in touch with Roger, the custodian], and their daughter, also sent a marked-up plan detailing their findings at the site.
I added my own findings to the map, along with a few observances from other members who were present, and now all the information has been sent to Roger so that he can compare it with the findings of a team of Psychic Investigators who are known to him, who have checked out the castle extensively on a number of occasions. He has sent a copy of some of their findings, so if anyone would like to read them, let me know. S.C.
To map the magic of the Rollright Ring
To feel the lines of force pulse through the air
To lay its megalithic secrets bare
In the stillness of a summer evening
To walk in wonder through the Avebury Stones
And track earth’s whispering patterns there
Then dowse the rings about the Devil’s Chair
And know the nature of their undertones
To stand in awe within the Stonehenge zone
And check the powers that charge the winter’s air
To probe its dazzling patterns, then dare
To sound the secrets of the Slaughter Stone
To view the world from Silbury’s soaring crest
And sense the power throbbing in its core
In tune with Gaia’s geodetic law
These earthly enigmas I treasure best.
These monuments were raised by men who knew
The patterned secrets in the planet’s crust
Who harnessed Gala’s power with sacred trust
In circle, barrow, hill and avenue.
Their sacred circles now stand vandalised
The sarcens grey and shattered lie around
Razed by religious zealots to the ground
Who saw Satan in the circles they despised.
Yet Silbury Hill still thrusts towards the sun
Like the breast of a giant Amazon
Immune to all, this cryptic paragon
Preceded Mycenae, Crete and Babylon
And like the pyramids win also be
As enduring as Everest, or the sea
Denis Wheatley August 1993
Jason Viner, from Bristol, was the speaker for the September meeting. He is an innovative complimentary health practitioner who also has a “day job” running a conventional department at a Bristol NHS hospital as a physiologist.
The talk, entitled “Intuitive Health – the Individual Remedy”, was based on Jason’s system of treating each patient as an individual, and tailoring or finding remedies specific to that individual. In some cases a remedy was prepared for a particular condition of one patient and might not be used again. Patients are dowsed to find the seat of their problems and also for which would be the most suitable remedy. Kinesiology is also used to help with diagnosis.
The remedies might be made of almost any material, for example leaves, seeds, roots, minerals, or even in one instance, a fish. Jason has had a long-standing back problem which he has managed to treat successfully with a remedy from a tree he found in Wales, whilst conventional medicine and other forms of complimentary medicine did not relieve the problem. The sources of the remedies are found by dowsing, as are the dosages and method of administering the remedy.
Sometimes the remedies are taken on a tablet base, but not necessarily, as it is sometimes enough just to be near the remedy or have it next to the skin. The remedies are prepared in similar fashion to homoeopathic remedies where a substance is steeped in an alcohol base, diluted, succussed and either applied to the tablet bases or used in the other methods Jason detailed. Some of the more difficult remedies to gather are such things as Essence of Full Moon, Summer Solstice, Rainbow, Thunderstorm, for example. Jason’s description of how to do this were entertaining as well as interesting.
At least one member was so impressed that she got up in the early hours of the autumn equinox to make her own “essence of autumn equinox”- hopefully she will keep us informed as to the outcome.
Jason trained with the late Jack Temple at the healing courses he used to run, and spoke at some length about Jack’s methods, which form the basis of the method that Jason has developed. [A short piece about Jack Temple is elsewhere in the journal,]
A fascinating and instructive talk from an entertaining speaker – a big thank-you, Jason.
A number of members commented after the talk that it was such a comfort to know that the NHS had practitioners who were not only sympathetic to complimentary therapies but who actively promoted them.
JACK TEMPLE, was a “homeopathic dowser healer" of West Byfleet in Surrey.
He was a former market gardener with no medical qualifications, although he had a great belief in the health-giving properties of organically grown fresh fruit and vegetables, long before this view became accepted. During the second World War he got into market gardening as his bit towards the war-effort, since medical problems prevented his joining the armed services. His own health improved enormously with the diet of organic food and he later became a journalist writing for one of the health magazines of the day.
In the 1970s he was at a Mind Body Spirit fair where he was introduced to Bruce Macmanaway, father of the current BSD chairman. Bruce got Jack dowsing with a pendulum and the rest, as they say, is history.
At his headquarters in West Byfleet Jack offered a combination of crystal dowsing, energy enhancing stone circles, oriental medicine, Hebrew teaching, homeopathy and herbalism.
His methods of healing were based on the idea that each of us has a given energy level at conception which gets eroded over time by illness, stress, unnatural foodstuffs, vaccinations and bottle feeding (a practice which disconnects the baby from its birth sign). Eventually the point is reached at which we can no longer absorb minerals, vitamins and other nutrients, causing gaps in our energy levels.
An important part of his treatment was dowsing, using a pendulum to detect weak spots in the body’s electromagnetic field. "Every part of the body has its own resonating frequency," he explained, "and if there’s any aberration in the availability of nutrients, then the resonance of that part of the body is changed."
Using his crystal dowsing pendulum Jack claimed he could home in on the weak areas, harness power from heavenly bodies and supply a remedy from a vast collection with names such as Volcanic Memory, Rancid Butter, Monkey Sticks, Banana Stem and Sphincter. These were not ingested, but strapped to the body along meridian energy lines.
Patients could boost their self-restorative powers by sitting in a special vibrating chair, or capture the healing power of the sun and moon in Jack Temple’s stone circles. Patients were often treated by strawberry leaves grown within the electromagnetic field of his stone circles.
In the early days as an organic market gardener, he followed the Hay diet as part of a cure for his recurrent health problems, and claimed to have lived for a whole year on swede, nettles and cheese.
His first patient was his wife, who had lost the use of her limbs after being struck by lightning in a field near Bath. He dowsed and treated her with plant-based remedies to "pull out" the lightning and she recovered.
Eventually he went into practice as an alternative therapist, opening his clinic, the Temple Healing Centre, near West Byfleet. By the 1990s, he was seeing about 50 patients a week, although regular visits were not a necessity. Patients were asked to hand over a lock of hair and fingernail clippings, which Temple kept on his shelves in jars of alcohol preservative. By swinging his pendulum over the relevant jar, Jack claimed to be able to connect to the individual’s electromagnetic fields to tell if they were healthy or ill without seeing them.
Away from the clinic, Jack Temple used his dowsing pendulum to help him to choose the right foods when visiting his local supermarket. The pendulum also took him as far a field as Nepal, Goa, Malaysia and Israel in search of plant and fossil specimens for his remedies.
If you would like to learn more about Jack Temple and his healing methods can I suggest you read “The Healer” by Jack Temple, published by Findhorn Press, ISBN 1-899171-44-4.
The source of some of the above piece was Jack Temple’s obituary published by the “Daily Telegraph”.
The venue for the morning session was Camden Farm, whose owners kindly allowed the society to dowse on their land. The first site on the list proved to be so interesting to dowse that we only managed this one before lunch. A return visit next season has been suggested by farmers Paul and Jill to do some more investigating.
The field we dowsed was the site for the borehole and pump that is the current water supply to the farm. Several underground streams lead to and from the site of the pumping house, all providing good dowsing practise. Most of us tried checking the depth of the borehole, but in most cases got it wrong.
Paul said that this was probably due to some geological peculiarities of the site, which had been explained to him by a water engineer. Oddly enough, the old most popular method of assessing depth, known as the “Bishop’s Rule” was, on this occasion, less accurate than asking for a reaction of the rods while asking questions about the depth.
The field has been used for a very long time and there have been archaeological finds from as far back as the bronze age, in fact one member picked up a large piece of Roman pot-base while just strolling across the field.
Another field nearby has the remains of a deserted medieval village, and a third has an underground tunnel leading from a previous well, but those will have to wait for the next visit.
We had a table booked for lunch at the nearby village of Alvescot, and afterwards we visited the local church for another dowsing session. The church turned out, unusually, to be locked. However, this did not matter as what we wanted to dowse was outside it – the coffin road leading out of the rear of the churchyard, down a short path to another deserted medieval village.
Several members found it unpleasant to dowse while standing directly on the actual coffin road, but were able to pick up strong dowsing signals with no problems from a few feet to either side of it.
Several members took the opportunity to dowse some of the deserted village but most spent the time investigating energies they were finding that were associated with the coffin road. My own experience was that the energies were at there strongest either side of the gate giving access to and from the churchyard, These energies were so strong that I knew immediately were the gate was located, even without dowsing, although I had not been there before and knew nothing about the site.
Since these coffin ways, or corpse roads were rarely used for anything other than taking the dead for burial, it is not surprising that many legends and tales of supernatural happenings have sprung up about them. The columns of mourners following the coffins were, after all, performing a ritual walk, probably accompanied by sing or chanting.
Sightings of “Black Dogs”, ghostly riders or carriages and mysterious lights were often reported by locals in the vicinity of the paths, as well as by travellers, although thankfully we did not encounter any on this occasion!
Along the longer corpse ways there were crosses or marker stones where it was usual for funeral processions to stop so that the coffin-bearers could put down the coffin in order to rest. More prayers were probably said at these points, adding to the energetic effect of the ritual activity.
When dowsing these markers and stopping places it is usual to find increased energy levels, particularly at the special corpse-way entrances to church-yards. The term “Lych-gate” comes from “Liches” which is Old English for corpse, and the stone “benches” often found in lych-gates are not seats, but coffin-stones for the bearers to rest their burden on, before the last part of the walk up the usually steep path to the church.
Paul Devereux has written a very readable book dealing with the subject. It is entitled “Fairy Paths and Spirit Roads” and is published by Vega in 2003.
Next on the field trip agenda was the interesting and attractive small church at nearby Black Bourton. Several medieval wall paintings here to admire along with an interesting ancient font.
We ended up the afternoon at the large and impressive Minster church at Bampton. Most of the building is 13th century, but there are some Norman bits and pieces, lots of attractive stonework inside and out and plenty of ancient monuments.
While we were there the churchwarden turned up to lock up the church. She asked what we were doing and after Shaun explained, she was quite happy for us to spend a bit longer there. However, we didn’t like to keep her hanging about too long so as everyone was getting tired, we packed up and went in search of tea! S.C.
Halloween has always been an important time of the year for divination. Cabbages are not usually thought of in any romantic way, but in fact were believed by many to be a useful tool for love divination.
In parts of Scotland a girl would go into the vegetable garden the day before Halloween, and with closed eyes she would pull up a cabbage, while chanting a little rhyme:
Hally on a cabbage, Hally on a bean, Hally on a cabbage stalk, tomarrow’s Halloween.
The physique of her future husband would be indicated by the shape of the cabbage stalk.
Apples are well known as a divinatory tool, the most common being the custom of peeling an apple in one long strip and throwing it over one’s shoulder, when the peel should fall in the shape of the initial of the peeler’s future husband.
IN Cornwall, Halloween was known as Allantide. Each member of the family was given a large pippin, or Allan apple to bring them lick. Allan apples under a girl’s pillow would ensure that she would dream of her future husband.
In Wales girls would walk backwards into the garden at Halloween and place a knife among the leeks, in order to obtain a vision of her lover.
Solitary thorn bushes were treated with the greatest respect at Halloween, in case they were a fairy trysting place. In parts of Somerset, at Halloween, riders travelling along lonely tracks would carry rowan sticks and place pieces of rowan in their ponies’ harness.