A dowser’s personal journey

“A country dowser and self-aid” by M. Wilson.

http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_no77_1952_p289.pdf

This author was self-taught and for 20 years worked alone without influence from other dowsers, hence the title refers to his own experimentation and self-learning. He recounts his experiences over time. After a series of tests, he became convinced that dowsing was a mental faculty. Then as he gains confidence, he applies his dowsing on request, be it responding to requests to find lost objects or even missing people. He suggests applying dowsing to a wide a range of subjects to keep up one’s interests.

Using a dowsing instrument made from wire, he is clearly able to demonstrate voluntary PK effects, something he seems particular skilled at compared, in contrast to others whom he as tested. 

The observes a phenomenon that has been observed by others. If a non-dowser holds one end of the same rod that he is holding, then they feel the pull of the rod, but for half an hour afterwards, they are also able to dowse.

He concludes with a number of illustrations of his abilities. One included deducing a person’s relative ability in a subject, using an arbitrary chart, just from a knowledge of their first and second names, upon which he concentrates.

Then there was locating a lost rationing book (this was 1952 and post-war rationing was still enforced in the UK), in a town of 8000 people, with the same number of seemingly identical ration books. Finding it one mile from the owner’s residence.

Truly remarkable.  

The tragic search for HMS Affray

In BSD journal No76 of 1952, there is a brief review of the March 1952 edition of “La Radiesthesie Pour Tous”, that mentions a dowser’s successful attempt to locate the Affray, the last Royal Navy submarine to be lost at sea.

http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No76_1952_p262.pdf

The story is both remarkable but ultimately tragic. In the following post, I have also drawn on the following Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Affray_(P421)

The submarine was on manoeuvres off the south coast of the UK, with 75 sailors on board. It was last seen on the 16th April 1951 and dived at 9pm that night. The vessel was reported missing at 8am the next morning. Apparently, this immediately became sensational news in the UK. It was estimated that there was only 48 hours to locate the sub.

The French dowser, a Mr Terroir, stepped up to the plate, though only an amateur dowser of four years. He used a photograph together with a road map of France, to locate the vessel. He traced its last movements from the Isle of Wight and on April 20th, three days after being reported missing, he located her position as being NW of the Isle of Alderney, at a depth of 75m.  And furthermore, at that time, he found that three men on board had died.

He informed the British consulate, who agreed to contact the Admiralty. In the event, this never happened and it was not until June 14 of that year, when the Affray was finally located; a feat made particularly difficult because of the many shipwrecks littering the English Channel. It was initially believed to have sunk off the Nab Tower, at the entrance to the Solent, but was found in 86m on the edge of Hurd’s Deep, a valley in the floor of the English Channel. The consulate later informed Mr Terroir that the information that he had provided had been factually correct.

According to Wikipedia, the cause of the sinking appears to be unclear, but interestingly, the Royal Navy conducted a scan of the interior of the vessel which indicated  “ that at least one compartment flooded and some of the crew had drowned when she first hit the bottom”. This is presumably consistent with the dowser’s findings.

As a postscript, I include the following strange tale from the Wiki article: “Another strange event was that the wife of a skipper of one of Affray’s sister submarines claimed to have seen a ghost in a dripping wet submarine officer’s uniform telling her the location of the sunken sub (this position later turned out to be correct)— she recognised him as an officer who had died during the Second World War, not a crew member of Affray.”

An exceptional healer

“Healing by magnetic radiation”, by Mrs Kingsley Tarpey.

http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No33_1941_p306.pdf

This article, published during the second World war, has little to do with dowsing per se, but rather details her activities as a healer. Members of the BSD often use dowsing in healing work. Mrs Kingsley Tarpey was obviously an exceptionally gifted healer, and it is likely that she felt accepted by the society, whose members would have been receptive to her talents. She seems to have approached her work in a methodical way, with the hope, I assume, of giving it some credibility to those in the more conventional medical fraternity. The article is therefore particularly interesting, because she invited medically trained observers to monitor her clients while she worked, and there is a statement from these observers appended to her article. Unfortunately, being war time, this monitored healing was hard to continue, and so she had to fall back on including instead feedback from several clients.

The article refers to an earlier one she submitted in 1938 and I have also included this here, since it includes more testaments to the efficacy of her treatment.

“Human Radiations” By Mrs Kingsley Tarpey

http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No23_1939_p327.pdf

From these two articles, we see her treating a host of conditions, including:

Pleurisy, facial disfigurement due to infantile paralysis, depressive illness, sprains, pernicious anaemia, allergic reactions, dyspepsia, relieving symptoms of phantom limbs, writer’s cramp, rheumatoid arthritis and blood pressure.

According to one of the observers, who seems to have been a psychiatrist, the treatment outcomes did not appear to be the classic placebo effect. This view is further justified by the fact that she treated animals (even bringing a piglet back from the edge of death), and had the remarkable ability to make seeds germinate earlier than might be expected, and significantly improve the health of plants. Also, rather curiously, she was able to desiccate meat through intention alone, thereby preserving it.

The effect of her treatments seem to felt almost immediately (within minutes), often with the client feeling physical sensations. Interestingly, even if she focussed on a single issue, this could sometimes be sufficient to correct other problems, which she had not concentrated on. An interesting comment was made by Dudley, one of the observers, who after making by physiological measurements on her clients, suggested “.. that the curative results of Mrs. Kingsley Tarpey’s treatment may be based on the restoration of equilibrium.”

She believed, as was currently held belief amongst dowsers at that time, that her ability was due to some radiative effect, linked somehow to magnetism (dowsing was then often referred to then using the French term ‘Radiesthesia’).  She even thought it possible that this radiation might have an external source and that she was simply a conduit. But it seems that she was the active agent here, some sensitive dowsers  “… could perceive my  radiations three or four yards away.”

 However, she mentions the use of healing oil. This is oil (derived from sheep) that as she “magnetized”, which appears to mean that she has imparted her healing intention to the oil. Some of her clients then used the oil, while remote to her and found it beneficial, as if it was a proxy for the healer. She does not mention homeopathy in her work, though this was a subject that had discussed in the journal. But it appears there are similarities between homeopathic remedies and her healing oil. Perhaps homeopathic remedies work through the same channel of intent.

Overall these articles offer some of the best documented accounts of healing practice that I have found in the BSD journals.