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The A.G.M. went off much as expected – quick and painless! All the committee members were willing to stand for re-election so were voted in again en-masse.
Peter McDade, Treasurer, reported on the strong financial position of the society, and that in spite of increased postage costs, we are able to keep the membership fee the same for another year. The fee itself would not cover costs but there is usually additional income from rod and book sales, library loans, raffles, etcetera, which enables the society to keep the fee as low as it is. So please buy lots of books and raffle tickets!
This is the annual weekend trip – most of you will have got details from previous journals but ring Shaun for additional info.
Please note that this is on the Sunday BEFORE the July meeting, as it replaces the Earth Energy trips in previous years, to which we have always been invited. The EEG are off to Carnac this year, so Shaun is running a longer than usual Ancient Sacred Sites day to replace it and it is possible that some EEG members may also come along. Meet at 9.45 in the car-park at the White Horse Public House at Winterbourne Basset for a 10am start. A couple of ancient sites near Avebury will be visited and possibly a crop circle should a convenient one rear its head.
This month’s guest speaker was Peter Taylor, a professional dowser from Wales. He specialises in water finding but also works with earth energies, minerals, etc. Wherever possible he uses a “witness” when working, for example a small piece of gold when looking for gold bearing lodes in mines. If looking for water he carries a small bottle with water in it, or if no suitable bottle is handy he will work with wet hands. Background research is always done as it can reduce the length of time needed at a site and can save a lot of cross-checking and frustration.
If dowsing at historical sites he always tries to “think himself into” the relevant period as he finds that this works as a witness when archaeological dowsing.
He told plenty of amusing anecdotes about mistakes he had made and the difficulties a professional dowser can get into and it made a very interesting talk. Peter kindly gave permission to put notes from the talk into the journal, so here they are:
Notes from Peter Taylor’s Talk
Overcoming some of the problems encountered when dowsing for water, and other dowsing-related subjects
Problems to watch out for
Clay:
Most dowsers find it difficult to work with clay as it tends to throw the depth counts out. I found I could overcome this problem by adding 20% to the depth count when dealing with clay - with one exception, which is 'Marley Clay'. With this type of clay I have found that I must double my depth count. This may be different for other people.
Keeping an 'open mind' when approaching a site:
I have found it is important to clear your mind of everything and just concentrate on the source of water that you seek. You must ignore what other people might say or infer about the site as it could cause confusion and deflect you from the true source of water.
Reaction Lines:
As you may know, there are seven reaction lines to each flow system. Six of these will move and never stay the same. The one you need to look for is the one which remains stationary all the time. It is advisable when learning dowsing that when you approach a source of water you peg out the reaction lines. Once that has been completed, wait 2 to 3 hours then repeat your checks on your markers. You will notice the first three that you approach side on will have moved, whereas the fourth one will remain in exactly the same position. As you cross beyond the flow itself the three reaction lines on the other side again would have moved. With a lot of experience you can eliminate the reaction lines and go straight to the source.
Over-confidence:
I have learnt to treat every site/location with caution. It is important never to get overconfident or complacent. Treat each site as if it was your first.
Moving on from water
I have found that after many years of research I am able to locate copper, silver, lead and gold. I have successfully helped to locate several gold veins. I have also found that I am able to locate oil and gas structures.
Contact information
I specialise in water, minerals, oil and gas.
Dowsing can work in many ways. Dowsing can be used for healing, earth energy, locating missing persons, locating ley lines and energy lines, dowsing the solar system, dating items, predicting the future and establishing the past. Dowsing can also be used for locating lost aircraft and hidden treasures. It can be used to locate buried mines and much more besides.
to locate water to feed two trout lakes. The map dowsing I used saved me an enormous amount of time (and shoe leather!). I have found the key to map dowsing is to obtain either a photograph of the site, or an ordnance survey map, or plan of the site. These enable us to 'connect' subconsciously to the area involved. This method may not suit some dowsers, but I find that it works well for me.
What is map dowsing?
I have found map dowsing very useful to locate water, minerals oil and gas before a site visit. It helps to give you a guide as to whether or not the substance is in that area. I was once asked to search 2,000 acres of land
Joseph Peter Taylor Tel 01352 754052
The following was spotted in the Gazette & Herald, from 3/5/2007. Thanks to the Canning’s for passing the article on.
By Lewis Cowen
Farmers urged to view circles as source of revenue for whole area
As the first circles appear in fields near Devizes, crop circle investigator Michael Glickman has appealed to farmers not to over-react when formations turn up on their land.
Mr Glickman, a retired professor of architecture, was horrified last year when a farmer at Avebury Trusloe destroyed the centre of a particularly impressive circle within hours of its appearance, in front of foreign tourists who had come to see it.
He said crop circles, however they arrive in the fields, are a tourist lure and have the potential to earn the local economy millions of pounds a year.
Mr Glickman said: "Every summer, thousands of tourists visit the Kennet area to see the crop circles.
"They come from all over Britain, but also from America, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Italy, France, Australia and
Japan. For many of these crop circle pilgrims this is the highlight of their year. Some have been coming for over ten years.
"There is not a bed and breakfast, hotel, pub, restaurant, cafe, shop or petrol station in the district that has not benefited from this annual influx and many have specialised in serving it for ,years.
"It has been estimated that the annual revenue brought to the area can be counted in millions of pounds.
"Wheat currently trades at about £70 a tonne and an acre is estimated to produce 3.5 to four tonnes. The largest crop circle recorded, at Alton Barnes in 1998, had an area of laid, or irrecoverable wheat, of 1.6 acres.
"This size has never been approached since. Thus, in this worst of all possible cases, the material loss to the farmer was £448.
"The farmers of Britain have had a difficult time and it is reasonable that some of them will become very angry.
"They feel, understandably, that their fields, their property, their livelihood, has been invaded.
"Uninvited, huge formations land, to be followed by enthusiastic, but equally uninvited, sightseers.
"Very often, unable to contain their wrath, they will cut the formation out. This, by any calculation, costs them money, but they gain a certain amount of comfort from having destroyed the work of vandals.
“The farming community is convinced, almost to a man, that this phenomenon is entirely man-made.
"Whatever your belief about the origin of these works of art in our landscape, the fact is they are here, they continue to appear every year and they show no sign of going away.
"If we are unable to explain them, if we cannot celebrate them, let us at least acknowledge them as a regular source of revenue for Kennet."
Due to the truly horrendous weather the White Horse and Wayland’s Smithy were abandoned for another occasion and by common consent we dowsed three fascinating local churches instead. A big thanks is due to Gill, who knew of several churches nearby all of which were previously unknown to the rest of the party, and all very interesting and different from each other.
Beneath White Horse Hill is the Village of Woolstone. The church, All Saints, is of the Late Norman period [1195], and was originally built for St. Swithun’s Priory at Winchester. As with most other churches there have been alterations over the years but much of the basic structure has not been changed for over 800 years.
The font is unusual, being made of lead, and with a pattern cast into the surface. It is believed to date from the building of the church. There are nine scratch dials and interesting stone grotesques – these are believed to be 13th century.
Sparsholt church [Holy Rood] was next on our list. There has been a church on this site since before the Norman Conquest, probably originally of wood. This was replaced by a stone building towards the end of the 12th century although all that remains of this period is the lower part of the walls around the nave and the two lower stories of the tower.
The south transept contains rare wooden effigies of the Archard family – Lords of the manor, and another rarity is the “Nine Men’s Morris” carved into the wall on the wall of the chancel. This stone was presumably originally in a prone position so that the game could be played on it.
Nine Men’s Morris was very popular with shepherds in earlier times and the pattern was often scratched out on the ground, in similar fashion to hopscotch and its variants. Some of these grid based children’s games have by linked to mazes and labyrinths and many believe them to be remnants of ancient adult ceremonies, now long forgotten, but may be linked to traditional cosmology.
Saint Swithun’s at Compton Beauchamp is 13th century onwards but has a fragment of the old Norman font in the South transept. Much of the interior decoration is modern and brightly coloured, but tastefully done in the style of mediaeval wall paintings. Under the altar is a 6th century relic of St.Placidus. An interesting church to dowse with extremely powerful energy lines, not all pleasant.
Lunch was calling by this time so off we went to the pub, where the energies were so good we stayed for most of the afternoon!
The first of this year’s stalls at public events was at Lodge Park, near Northleach on June 3rd. We’ve not done one here before but it proved to be a pleasant day in lovely surroundings and we made a few pounds for the society’s coffers. Lots of dowsing potential – barrows, pets cemetery and woodland walks, so this may well be a good venue for a field trip next season.
When you get going late in life
The good men make a habit
Of dying around you
With next to nothing written down.
You might inherit a fishing jacket
With two dozen pockets,
A banger up on wooden blocks
Or a treasure map with a curse attached.
In all, try to stay focussed and humble.
The good bore-hole riggers,
You ask me where they are now.
They are all gone into heaven
To furnish God's cloudy golf course
And water his blue blue greens
And share a drop at the nineteenth hole,
Leaving me the cut-throat crews who
Think I'm simple, think I'm touched.
They'd rather be mining for thin Welsh gold.
Their shortcuts bring the water up sour.
Their lack of respect gets the drill snapped off
I have to stay on top of them.
Once when I was young
I climbed the tallest structures in the world,
Nimble as a fly wing-walking.
I took the rickety twisted ladder
Of twisting rope over the rose-coloured
Ravines, waving to my big-city self
Leaning out from observation platforms
In dare-devil poses that mocked the wind.
I’m glad we have those photographs
Cause now I've lost my head for heights.
I've been looking for the clouds underground.
May I? Can I? Should I?
I'm most at home in fields.
They seem to be my prehistoric friends.
May I? Can I? Should I?
Always you must ask this.
Am I ready to receive?
The water may wave.
The angle-rod may up towards my mind
Or jerk violently down, away,
Confirming my ready quiet conceit.
I make water and lie where we must drill,
Feeling blessed, feeling exhausted,
Ogling the underside of heaven
Whence water boundlessly where water returns
Full of odd intelligent fish,
Fish that signal depth to the querent,
F ish with a thousand names for fish,
Crystal fish, cold fish, fish with the map of heaven,
Fish just waiting to happen,
The stalking fish of Mold
Out on terra firma in the moonlight.
You can land there with a rod
As long as words are not your first concern.
The gift is free to creatures made of rain
But most, I find, don't want to know
Especially modern business types
And our wives: don't ask me why though.
I know of a lake of shining Ice Age water
Sealed beneath a furlong of mundane clay.
Infinitely sweet but too much bother.
I shall carry the memory to the grave.
Peter McDade was partly inspired to write this poem by Peter Taylor’s talk last month.