This is an account of another application of dowsing. Historically psi has been thought of as a group of faculties – telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis. More recent thinking sees these as simply different expressions of psi. And I think the practice of dowsing bears out this assertion. The mind over matter element we have already encountered in healing, but I believe that dowsing offers many more examples. Some have been applied to agriculture and here is an example, which is particularly interesting because of the amount of effort that has been expended into exploring its use.
The account relates to the farming of a particular variety of narcissus flower – the Soleil d’or – on the Isles of Scilly. It is based on the work of a horticultural researcher named A.P. Tabraham, whose published his research in a short booklet: “Solar Energy and Dowsing”. http://www.dowsing-research.net/dowsing/articles/Tabraham-solar_energy_and_dowsing.pdf
An addendum publication came after his death:
http://www.dowsing-research.net/dowsing/articles/Tabraham-solar_energy_and_dowsing_an_ddendum.pdf
and a talk about his work by Chris Burgess in 1989 and recorded in the BSD Journal:
http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No229_1990_p117.pdf
The links above give a more than full account, but here is a very brief over view.
The research information has been extracted from the very informative private publication entitled “Solar Energy and Dowsing” by A.P. Tabraham, Isles of Scilly 1982. Tabraham was an enthusiastic horticultural researcher who was intrigued by the early flowering of the narcissus,
The Scillonian farmers who raised these narcissi, needed them to flower before Christmas in order to receive higher premiums during the Christmas market period. This required special treatment of the planted bulbs. The chosen method was to loosely spread straw over the planted ground at mid-summer and set it alight. This brought the bulbs through the ground 2-3 weeks sooner than bulbs which had not been treated in this way, the latter finally flowered in the early new year. The origin of the practice was unknown, as was the mechanism. It was applied for maybe 50 years until it became uneconomic.
While investigating other approaches, it seems that quite fortuitously, dowsing might provide at least some answers, if not a solution. A series of trials were performed in which propane fires were used to heat the ground, in place of the straw and ground thermometers used to compare the temp of the treated ground with the untreated ground. This proved effective and more economic. Treatments were applied at fortnightly intervals, the more treatments applied, the greater the temperature difference, with a change of approx. 2°F per treatment (up to 3 treatments), which persisted over the following year. The bulbs in the warmer ground duly flowered earlier. Now it was discovered that a dowser could clearly identify the burnt regions, even 6 months after the burning had been applied and furthermore, the bulbs showed a dowsing reaction.
Later, it seems that quite by accident, the temperature rise could actually be caused by dowsing. But they discovered that ferrous objects could remove the effect, the greater the mass of metal involved, the faster the effect was removed. There was also the observation that despite different farmers using the same novel burning technique, it tended to fail for the “tidiest” farmers, where-as less tidy farmers got excellent results. This effect they put down to the fact that tidier farmers would tend to plough the ground after burning to re-ridge the fields. The steel plough had removed the effect.
They searched the dowsing literature to find a novel way of applying the dowsing effect without using any burning effect. They concluded with the following simple technique. Simply trace out a pentagon (regular or irregular did not matter). This could be done by tracing with a stick on the ground, or by marking five points on the ground to form the outline of a pentagon, while walking around the field. It was not necessary to have any real physical line marking out the whole pentagon. The essential thing was that the first point must be touched again after walking around the perimeter, to compete the pentagon, absolutely no gap at all was allowed, otherwise the dowsing effect was lost. If done correctly, the dowsing effect was created immediately, over the entire area within the pentagon and created a temperature rise of 2°F, (the same as, or slightly better than, the burning over process). If two additional pentagons were added, at fortnightly intervals, the temperature rise was 3-4°F, and for three, 5-6°F, depending on the ambient heat (see later), but adding additional pentagons made no significant difference.
They had devised a dowsing solution, which was more economic and effective than the burning over method and one which could be adapted to any area. It could also be used on other crops. For example, the increase in ground temperature using three pentagons had decreased the germination of Freesia seed from four weeks to two. Winter broccoli, sweet corn and early potatoes were also found to benefit.
There were some additional intriguing observations. They discovered that the effect within the pentagoned areas tended to move south by approximately 6-9 feet per year. This movement mainly took place with the ground was full of water in December and January. Another effect was that anything that had been exposed to the “dowsing effect” within the pentagon (or by burning over) appeared to “connect” with any available heat source (above ambient). The connection could be identified by dowsing and along this “flowed” heat to the object. So plants outside appeared to connect with the atmosphere directly above them. Or if indoors, they might connect to an electric file. Glass or plastic did not stop this connection, but thin paper did. The temp rise per days was also found to be linked to the number of hours of sunshine that day, but rises were still observed in the absence of direct sunlight.
Tabraham published his data in the first publication. This is best reviewed as graphs.
Above is data from 1979. It compares the average maximum daily temperature, averaged over each month, for ground which had been burnt over three times (red line), compared with ground which had no treatment (blue line). A consistent elevation of temperature is observed, with the difference increasing towards mid-summer.
Above is the data taken in1980, after the pentagon treatment had been introduced. It compares the average maximum daily temperature, averaged over each month, for ground which had been burnt over three times (red line), ground which had been treated with three pentagons (black line) and ground which had no treatment (blue line). The pentagon treatment produced a slightly elevated warming effect.
Since the publication of the work, other members of the BSD have taken interest.
In this article the author adds some additional information obtain directly from communication with Tabraham. The latter asserts: that it is in fact not necessary to “walk” the perimeter of the pentagon, the creator can simply rotate themselves making five points as they do; the pentagon can be as grossly irregular as necessary; the effect can be applied to the warming of buildings.
See the correspondence section, a letter from a Philip. Sheaf : http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No282_2003_p23.pdf
In these two letters, a London dowsing group attempt a replication of the experient. In the first they describe how the pentagon was created. See the letters section, a letter from John Baker :
http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No278_2002_p23.pdf
In their follow up letter from John Baker:
http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No284_2004_p16.pdf
They succeeded in creating a persistent pentagon, but there was no significant warming effect within this, however the area did move south as observed by Tabraham. Despite noting an intention to repeat the experiment, no other report was printed.
Finally, some dowsers used the pentagon method to add modest warmth to their own homes. They claim it is possible to do this by simply drawing pentagon on a plan of the property.
See “Using the dowsing effect to cut your eating bill”:
http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No302_2008_p10.pdf
Although the published information is not sufficient to evaluate the results in any rigorous manner, they do seem to suggest the presence of a definite effect. No attempt was made in the original repots to explain why the effects occurred, but it seems to demonstrate a mind over matter (PK) effect. The intention to treat the ground to bring forward the flowering process appears to be the fundamental action. The intention seemed to be expressed in three ways – the two types of burning over the ground (one with straw the other with propane), and the simple delineation of an area (mentally or physically).
We are not told how many farmers adopted the two later treatments (propane and pentagon), but it is interesting that the methods did not work for them all, and often it was the tidy farmers, who saw no effect. This was attributed to post-treatment ploughing the ground by the tidy farmers, the treatment failed to work if ferrous objects were introduced into the treated area. This might of course be true, however, when one studies the dowsing literature, ferrous metals seem to hold a special interest with dowsers (sometimes for their links with magnetism, another subject of interest). It is not inconceivable that confounding problem was created mentally. Therefore, it could be something to do with the differing mentalities of the tidy versus the non-tidy farmers, that influenced the success or otherwise. Interestingly, no such comment was made about the straw burning method, which apparently seemed to work for all.
The use of a pentagon shape was allegedly derived from dowsing texts. It is interesting to speculate whether a pentagon was effective because it had some mystic significance for many? It may well be the case that any shape could be used, as long as the one who applied it believes in its significance. The tracing out of the pentagon also involved some ritualistic behaviour, emphasising its importance.
Finally, another interesting observation was that the warming effect appeared to be drawing heat from the closest available heat sources, there seemed to be some invisible channel down which the heat was transferred. Although this could only be demonstrated by dowsing.