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Everyday there seems to be a new scare story in the media, usually driven by some government agenda. We need to be careful about some of them and not get too carried away. The bird flu problem is a serious issue but there is no need to stop feeding the wild birds in our gardens, which I am told some people doing. Don’t forget to wash your hands properly after touching anything the birds have touched, which you should have been doing already.
On a more cheerful note all the plants are so early this year. The snow drops at Lydiard Park during the field trip were a delight and as I write this (beginning of Feb) I can see a blackthorn in flower.
All the places on the Dowsing Workshop have now been taken. We enjoy organising and running the workshops but sometimes struggle to come up with good ideas. If you have any ideas for future workshops have a chat with Shaun
This month’s trip is another where we have the potential to stay under cover should the weather be bad. There are two separate meeting points and times, as some may only want to do the afternoon part. The Botanical gardens are beautiful and have the added bonus of several heated glasshouses containing unusual plants. One glasshouse had, last time we went there, a beautiful floor design laid out like an ammonite, according to the Fibonacci system. There is also a good selection of trees including a lovely Yew. It is at Rose Lane beside the River Cherwell near Magdalen College. Meet by the main entrance at 10:45.
The Pitt Rivers is situated in part of the Natural History Museum and is in Parks Road, Oxford. Meet outside just before 2pm. The Museum consists of an anthropological collection of artefacts from all over the world, largely from peoples that have now disappeared or have radically changed their life-styles. Underneath many of the display cabinets are drawers containing similar specimens to those in the cabinets above. These may be taken out and handled.
It occurred to me that this would be an ideal opportunity to practise Peter Stewart’s remote viewing methods. Try viewing the article before reading the museum’s information label, the see how you scored.
Another technique that could be employed is Psychometry, where the dowser touches an object or photograph and concentrates on it, hoping to access information stored within it. I have read that this technique is more difficult with drawings than photographs, as if you are not careful you pick up info. about the artist rather than the subject. Presumably this also applies to any man-made item.
The museum has very low light levels in order to preserve the often fragile exhibits, but torches and magnifying glasses are usually available to borrow at the reception desk.
Last time we had a trip to the museum part of it was shut off so that expansion and renovation of the building could take place. I understand that it is all available again, and more of their treasure trove should be on view.
You need to walk through the Natural History Museum to get to the Pitt-Rivers, but the Natural History Museum is also fascinating in its own right.
In olden times Shrovetide was the biggest festival of early spring. Beginning on Shrove Sunday and ending with Shrove Tuesday. This was the last opportunity for fun before all the restrictions of Lent. Football was a popular pastime and by the 16th and 17th centuries several official bodies sponsored the game on Shrove Tuesday.
The sponsor in Chester was the Shoemaker’s Company, who paid for the ball, but they had to stop this in 1540 as the corporation complained about the great inconvenience caused by “evil disposed persons among the players.” In 1531 Sir Thomas Elyot described the game as “nothing but beastly fury and extreme violence, whereof procedeth hurt, and consequently rancour and extreme malice do remain. In 1583, Philip Stubbs called it a “devilish pastime, a bloody and murdering practise”.
Another popular diversion at Shrovetide was rioting, mainly although not exclusively by apprentices.
When viewed against their historical counterparts, the youth of today does not seem so very different! S.C.
Shaun Ogbourne
Earthlight, Willo the Wisp, St Elmo’s Fire and Corpse Candles, the modern and the traditional as far as descriptions of unexplained light phenomena go. But are there any other members of the Spirit Realm that may be one and the same? Do we, as Paul Devereux suggests see these energies (because that’s what he and I think they are) in a form that makes at least some sense to us, maybe as Angels, Fairies, UFOs or Ghosts to name but a few.
This is where things can become complicated. As an example if we were able to give three people exactly the same experience, something that say challenged their beliefs or frightened them, what are the chances of all three describing something similar? All this leads on nicely to a lovely example as described by Viktor Schauberger in the 1930s.
As a young forester, Viktor was given the right to shoot game in the forest and the old forest warden told him of a legendary old game cock that lived in an almost inaccessible valley. Having made the dangerous journey in the afternoon Viktor had to wait till dawn for the cock to return to his roosting tree. Viktor recalls “From time to time I dozed off and lost all sense of time and place; it could well have been towards midnight that it all began. A small reddish flame flared up from the floor of the forest in front of me, at first I thought I had been careless when lighting my pipe and had set fire to the forest. However I had been no-where near the place the fire started. It must be a Willo the Wisp I thought and continued to watch it. But when a fiery egg arose from the ground, I thought my eyes were playing tricks. With its narrower end pointing downwards, it stood quite immobile on a mound-like rise and gave off a pale yellow glow. I was already on my feet and stared at this uncanny spectacle, shaking with fright and cold. It grew larger and larger and eventually was about 2 metres high and a metre wide; it was a magnificent but unearthly sight.”
Viktor’s curiosity finally overcame his fear and with knees shaking violently, he held first his staff and then his hand in the glowing egg, but he felt nor smelt anything and saw no shadows. After the egg finally faded away he investigated the mound beneath it and found it contained the remains of many generations of chamois (a goat like antelope).
Viktor realised the importance of this place, it had shown him energy in a form he was very familiar with. For the old game cock this was his courtship display ground and for the chamois, quite the opposite, all in one spot!
Viktor Schauberger’s life’s work revolved around moving mankind away from mechanical and scientific ways of energy, food and wood production and most importantly the treatment of water towards much more natural and harmonious methods. The egg form features regularly in his work, such as containers to store water and keep it fresh and alive (amphorae), to transform substances like his form of homeopathic fertilizer plus egg shaped pipe work to deliver fresh healthy and living water to everyone, thus removing the need to chlorinate it (kill it!!). The generation of energetic vortex was in his view the way forward, implosion rather than explosion; the egg form played a vital role in this process.
Returning to our anomalous light forms - if you wish to experience something you will need to expose yourself to the possibility i.e. be outdoor at dusk or dawn! No not all night but the area around both being potentially a good starting point. Be in a place where you con observe without distraction and feel safe. That place could be near a prehistoric site, an old pond, an old tree or a fairy ring, any of which may improve your chances. Although being dowsers we could ask to be told a suitable day, time, place etc. my personal experience of this means I go with expectations and nothing happens, but maybe that’s just me!!
One last thing worth mentioning is these lights can be different colours, be very small or large, can last only seconds to minutes or even hours plus some may be static whilst others move around. So keep your eyes open and you may be rewarded.
References
Schauberger, Viktor – Nature as Teacher, Bath, Gateway Books 1998 ISBN 1-85860-049-9
Devereux, Paul – Earth Lights, Wellingborough, Turnstone Press, 1982 ISBN 0-85500-123-2
Devereux, Paul – Earth Lights Revelation, London, Blandford Press, ISBN 0-7137-2209-6
Professor Peter Stewart of Bristol University was the speaker for January. The talk was entitled “Dowsing and remote viewing in time and space. This was the second time Peter has given a talk; the previous one was about the technique of remote viewing in general. This time he took the subject to a more advanced stage, demonstrating how an experienced remote-viewer could “step into” a previous age.
Peter is a physicist by profession and involved in the Dowsing Research Group – a section of the British Society of Dowsers. He started the talk with a brief explanation of the quantum-physics theory, explaining how events that had already happened could never be completely eradicated as they were encapsulated in their own timescale. Although we may live in a different era, dowsers trained in the art of remote viewing can access different levels of time to see what was happening in a particular place at a given time.
To demonstrate this, Peter, after some instructions on “how to do it”, asked us to concentrate on Avebury at midsummer on a particular date back in Neolithic times, and to describe the things we saw, on a questionnaire that he had handed out.
This proved to be interesting. Several members had seen very similar things, while a few had no success at all – I was one of them. My feeling was that I was being deliberately being “blocked”.
One member, well known for an affinity with animals, saw the area as though through the eyes of a horse. What she viewed closely matched others descriptions.
At the end of the fascinating talk, Peter collected the completed questionnaires to collate the findings and has promised to let us know his conclusions, which we will write up in the journal. S.C.
“The Times”, 18th November, 2006, page 21, reported that the Trading Standard officers of Powys County Council had ordered a local sausage-making firm to re-name their Welsh Dragon sausages, threatening the firm with prosecution if they did not comply with the order.
Their complaint was that the product did not in fact contain any dragon meat, only pork, leek and chilli. Therefore the information was not sufficient to inform a purchaser of the true nature of the food!
The new season got off to a good start, weather-wise, with a bitterly cold but bright and sunny day. The venue was Lydiard Tregoze, near Swindon. Now a country park with the old house open to the public in the afternoons, the park has had a recent lottery grant enabling some much needed work to be done.
The temperature meant that most dowsing was done inside, after a quick look round the park at the newly restored lake and one or two of the recent archaeological finds. Part of the area that was the old deserted mediaeval village has been tarmac-covered for a new car-park.
After a brief wait for the service being held in the church to finish, we went in and had a good look around. As the service had only just finished all the lights were still on, and this along with the brilliant sunlight gave the church a completely different “feel” to the previous times I have been there.
The church, St. Mary’s, is of 13th century origin but a church was known to have been on the same site in 1100. From 1280 up until 1944 the right of patronage was held by the owners of the Lydiard estate, for the last 500 years these were the Bolingbrook’s.
When dowsing in the church most people find it is very “energetic”, particularly in the small south chapel which is the site of the family burial vault. I have a theory that many of the less pleasant energies found by dowsers in old churches are to do with underground voids. The bigger the void, the stronger the energy. This family vault in the south chapel is known to be very large, even equipped with a proper staircase, so if my theory is correct there should be strong dowsable reactions near it. Did anyone else notice this?
After lunch we had another dowsing session, this time in the church at Purton. The present church, also called St. Mary’s, was probably re-built in the 13th century and some say they can detect Saxon stonework on the chancel arch. This is not certain, though. The building is very rare as it has a tower and a steeple.
The old wall paintings are of interest, and the old font, but for me the most interesting feature was the area where old bones, possibly of an anchoress, were found bricked up in a sealed up chapel, during some restoration work in 1872. The head of the skeleton was in a cavity cut into the chancel wall, while the rest of the body was in the wall of the chapel.
No-one currently knows the truth about the skeleton, but in Victorian times there was a tale of “dark doings” by one of the previous vicars, and the topic was declared unfit for discussion by the current vicar at that time.
Although most people nowadays are glad to see early blooms on the flowers and trees, this was not always the case. One old superstition claimed that early bloom just on one small part of a plant or tree meant that the devil was responsible for it. It was deemed to be unlucky to take any of the early blooms into the house as you would also be taking in the devil’s influence... By the same token, it was considered unlucky to pick blackberries after St. Michael’s Day, [September 29th, or 11th October according to the old calendar. This was the day that Satan was banished from Heaven by St. Michael, and he contaminated the fruit in revenge.
Another old superstition was that any nuts that had not been gathered by Holy Cross Day, the fourteenth of September, were to be left alone, as the Devil would prey on any young people who collected nuts on that day.
At one time it was believed that apples were not edible before St. Swithin’s Day, which is July 15th.
One instance in which unseasonable blooming of a tree is regarded as a good omen is at Glastonbury, when the Holy Thorn blossoms in midwinter.
Some of these old beliefs may have arisen because unusually early or late flowering or fruiting of trees and other plants could well have been triggered by abnormal weather patterns – possibly having more catastrophic effects than they would do today. S.C.
Our northern correspondents have been at it again and found the following article in the “Sutton Coldfield Observer” from Friday 2nd February, 2007.
An Ancient tradition dating back over 7,000 years, dowsing was most commonly used to find water. Over time the method has evolved and people have dowsed for everything from minerals and precious stones to lost objects and even missing people. But with no concrete evidence to prove its accuracy, many remain sceptical of a technique which claims to expand your abilities beyond three-dimensional limitations. Observer reporter HANNAH GREAVES spoke to West Midlands Dowsers Association founder, Michael Guest and Sutton Coldfield water diviner, Gordon Wright to find out more¬
Mention dowsing and the image that may spring to mind is of someone holding a couple of hazel twigs to detect water or minerals underneath the earth's surface.
But after meeting with members of the West Midlands Dowsers Association, I learnt there is a lot more to it than meets the eye.
Michael Guest, from Walsall, has been dowsing since 1977 and co-founded the West Midlands Dowsers Association in 1980. Fellow dowser and professional water diviner, Gordon Wright lives in Sutton.
"It is a unique skill that Gordon has," said Michael. "People may be sceptical about dowsing but when you rely on it for your income, as Gordon does, you have to have confidence that it works because a mistake can be very expensive."
The chosen site for my first attempt at dowsing was the car park at Wyndley Leisure Centre.
Gordon dowses using plastic rods which are joined at one end with coiled metal wire to form a `Y' shape.
"It doesn't matter what the rods are made of," he explained, "they can be wood, but I find if I use wooden ones. I can only use them once because for me, they retain the memory of the previous use."
So we went with plastic and I admit I was sceptical.
I watched Gordon hold the Y shape aloft so the joined end balanced upright, then paced the car park slowly until the end tipped forward and he stopped. "There's a pipe here," he confirmed, after walking over the spot a couple of times, using the rods to find the start and end of the pipe.
Then it was time to put my dowsing skills to the test. I walked over the same spot, holding the dowsing rods in exactly the same way but nothing happened, it wasn't the reaction I'd hoped for.
"It does take practice," Michael reassured me, "people improve with experience."
So I tried again, this time using a different technique. Michael uses thin wire dowsing rods, bent at a ninety degree angle which you hold out in front of you, parallel to the ground and each other, as you walk. If they move left or right, or cross over, it signals, a discovery.
The difficulty though is keeping the rods steady - blustery weather conditions can easily blow them off course.
But as I moved over a particular spot I could definitely feel a slight `drag', and this, Michael told me, was successful dowsing.
There have been many theories behind the technique but as yet nothing concrete to fully explain how it works.
Some argue it is a science, others may say an art, but perhaps the only way to understand it is to experience it for yourself.
"There is a scientific theory which says dowsing is the human body's reaction to the earth's background magnetic field," said Michael.
"The earth is a dynamo, a magnet which generates a field. By dowsing you are reacting to variations or disturbances in that field.
"The rods are useful in showing the slight change in the tension of your muscles which happens when you experience a change."
How we do it though, he says, is a different matter and there have been a number of theories about it in the last few years including American research which has discovered what appears to be magnetic sensitivity in the human brain.
The other instrument commonly used for dowsing is a pendulum, which answers a dowser's question, `yes' or `no' by oscillating in different directions. And this, Michael admits, is where the scientific theory falls down.
"A pendulum will give you information out of your own intuition or subconscious and it can be used to answer all sorts of things, for example it could be used to test compatibility to food.
"Dowsers can use it to dowse for water over a map of an area rather than the land itself, or to find out the depth of water underground," he explained.
But, Michael says, the ability to dowse isn't necessarily a gift - about 80 per cent of people can learn to do it.
And on the other side of the dowsing coin is its healing ability.
Michael's wife, Juliet has been using her dowsing skills in a healing capacity for over 20 years. She uses her pendulum to enable her to send healing to people for many different problems.
"There is no set way to perform the healing," she said. "It is a very individual thing and my method has evolved over a number of years."
The person in question needn't be present and Juliet begins by posing three questions -'May I? Can I? and Should I?' to give her the protection she feels she needs to go ahead with the healing.
"It is important to address the questions to something or someone outside of yourself to prevent you from taking up the ailment you are trying to heal," she explained.
If the pendulum gives a positive response to these questions she then sends healing to the person in question.
Juliet believes it works through an extension of her intuition.
"The mind is extremely powerful," she says.
"You wonder where this `cosmic knowledge' comes from, but when you have in your mind the person, their need and a possible remedy, by using the pendulum you can draw it all together."
Juliet admits, while she can't prove anything scientifically, she feels by using her skills she can at least try to help.
"You have to trust the pendulum and for me it works," she said.
Thanks to Mike and Barb for the article. Some of you may remember Gordon gave us a talk in March 2003.
Political correctness gone mad.
The awarding of the Dunmow Flitch is an old tradition that includes the gift of a side, or flitch of bacon to married couples who fulfil certain conditions. The bacon is presented to the most happily married couple living in the Essex town of Little Dunmow, in Essex.
The custom seems to have started in the 12th century and still carries on today.
To be awarded the flitch the winning couple has to be able to swear that they have not had a quarrel or regretted their marriage at any time during the past year and a day.
The applicants are questioned by a Flitch Trial Committee who decide who the winning couple is to be.
One of the Flitch Trial committee, along with one of the town councillors, has suggested that Jewish, Muslim or Sikh couples might also be interested in applying for the bacon! S.C.
Shaun has listed several books that he used as reference material for the interesting article he wrote earlier in the journal. I have read these and they are definitely worth reading for more detailed information on the subject and many other related topics.
If you have a particular interest in “earth-light” phenomena another good book to read is the Tom Graves book “Needles of Stone Revisited”, [pub. Gothic Image ISBN 0 906.362-07], where several chapters go into this subject in some detail. Look in the index under “place memories”, Ghosts and psychic phenomena. S.C.