DIVINING.

Evening Star, Issue 25617, 18 October 1945, Page 3

DIVINING.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I Tead with interest your recent article on divining. I must confess I, too, am an " unbelieving cynic." However, I have reason to be so. For the past six months I have been testing dividers to see if any consistent results could be obtained. I have tested 20 different diviners between Palmerston South and Invercargill. None, has produced anything other than what would be expected from guesswork. Some of the results have had their funny side—a friend of mine was found by a diviner to be suffering from varicose veins in a wooden leg; most have merely been monotonously inaccurate. Where it has been possible to calculate the chances of the diviner obtaining a correct answer by guesswork, he has usually scored slightly less than the expected number of correct answers. In divining for water, metals, and diseases, the results have all been the same. It would seem that when the Germans christened the diviner's tool the " wishing rod " they were nearer the truth than they thought. I realise fully that diviners are widely held to have very great powers. Result after result is quoted. Several explanations may be given for these " results." First, the diviner's successes are widely publicised; his failures are conveniently ignored. (Incidentally most of the scientific evidence! against divining is not mentioned in your article.) Secondly, many places where water has been divined successfully are in districts like the Taieri Plain, where it would be difficult to miss water. On the available evidence, I think that the action of the rod is due to the influence—usually unconscious—on it of the diviner. I, too, can make*the rod rise or dip whenever and wherever I wish without visible movement of the hands. I note you state the rod turns so violently that it often breaks in the • diviner's hands. If the break is examined, it is found to be due not to torsion—which it Avould if it were due to the turning of the rod—but to bending. As I 6aid previously, I should welcome co-operation from diviners to see if any consistent results may be obtained. I agree with you and, Shakespeare :■ " There are more things in heav'n and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." But if divining is one of them, it is up to the diviners to produce' their results under scientific testing.—T am. etc., October 17. P. A. Ongley.