WATER-DIVINING [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sun.—In the article on " Country Life," by Sir W. Beach Thomas, for September 26th; he appears to regard the
architect who employed a water-diviner as bordering on the category of the sufferer who treated his warts by the vicarious suffering of a snail, or of the mother who hung a spider in a nut-shell round her child's neck to cure scarlet fever.
• The opinion still seems to hold that water-divining contains in it something of the occult ; but, as one who has practised it for amusement, may I try to offer an explanation which places it upon a practical and scientific basis?
The explanation I believe to lie in the way in which the twig is held. The arms are flexed at the elbows, the wrists are flexed with the palms facing the performer, and the twig is held horizontally, with the ends held between the tips of the fingers, opposed by the thumb. The rationale of this position is that the muscles are all kept slightly tense, and in the best state to respond quickly to any stimulus. Whether this stimulus is magnetic, or electric, or electro- magnetic, I cannot say, but its result upon the muscles is to. produce an involuntary contraction. Such a contraction of the strong small muscles of the thumb, acting against the fingers, with a smooth round twig held between, will cause the ends of the twig to revolve, and the junction of the fork will inevitably dip. This is what happens when the diviner passes over water.
The electro-magnetic virtue " does not reside in the diviner, who, with the twig as indicator, is but the uncon- scious recorder of a stimulus from without. Some diviners, I understand, are so sensitive that they are able themselves to sense the contraction of their muscles and do without a twig altogether.
The whole subject is one that would, I believe, repay investigation and should be brought out of the regions of the occult and the mysterious where it has languished so
Previous page
