Abstract
THE April number of Discovery contains an article on the divining rod by E. Christie which gives a detailed account of methods adopted by the author hi searching for water and certain metals. It claims to show that there is nothing mysterious about the power of divining, and that it is subject to definite natural laws. The great difficulty which impedes the progress of scientific investigation is that the statements of dowsers regarding their methods in the field and manner of inference vary considerably, and the article mentioned only adds yet another to the many already published. That there is a basic similarity cannot be denied by anyone who has taken the trouble to study them, but the elucidation of the fundamental facts from what are necessarily very subjective accounts has so far not been achieved. The author, however, is right in stressing the point that without examining the details, in such accounts as he has written, no man of science is likely to arrange a reliable test for dowsers. Experiments in which the underlying physical process is unknown are always difficult to interpret, and it is very doubtful whether a conclusive proof of the claims of dowsers will be obtained unless much more attention is given to their writings, vitiated as they nearly always are, by the incorrect use of the terminology of physics.
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Physics of the Divining Rod. Nature 137, 773 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137773d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137773d0