Local Dowsing Group News:  No. 65
No 66 to be published on April 17th, subsequent editions every 3 weeks.

Geoff Mitchell writes
Hmm…. What exactly are we, in our Dowsing World, all aiming at? Is our aim to put a finger on how dowsing works? Then let’s propose that we have already done so, from all these efforts being made to find out. I can only presume that once we do know how it all works then 'everyone' will be very much more 'accurate' and get a perfect result every time… otherwise why bother (leaving the fun aspect out) ?
 
I will ignore the fact that 'creating the question' is fraught with difficulty, and it will be this 'Achilles Heel' that saves the day.  My point is that if we actually use this 'discovered' knowledge, then how do we then pass it on to achieve practical Human-centric results?   'Where did you get this information from?' will be the first question asked…  despite all the good intentions we have made to put this information to a practical use.
 
OK… we find a missing person/ body/ dog, etc; can we do this for anything? Well, yes we can. I can tell you what the next lottery numbers will be, I can say that a crime is being planned, I can find out your darkest secrets as well as cure illness, become invisible, find hidden treasure, prolong and/ or correct life problems, let you know the outcomes of the latest Government Act.  Are we sure that this is not going to shorten our lives in some way?
 
We earnestly propose that dowsing works, yet we cannot be allowed to prove it?  You can see why these 'dark arts' got a bad press in the past; as a threat to 'power' you might have got burnt at the stake just for mentioning it?  Today, the non-dowsers just smile and pass it off; even though many dowsers are successful beyond statistical reproach.  My search is not 'how to dowse', but more about how to implement any results and in doing so slowly turn the ship about without us going down with it.
 
I’m afraid that our time has not come, but we are the 'giants' that will have the 'shoulders' for others to stand upon.  I’m 'getting' that Dowsing and Quantum Physics are not that connected, but the important thing is that QP is creating a weirdness, in common thought, that paves the way for dowsing to become acceptable one day. Sorry… another 500 years-odd yet…. no problem our Souls can wait!   By the way, go back 500 years and show the Tudors your mobile phone and what it can do….  Then go forward 500 years and guess what that Society can show you….  The answer I got was 'us'… now work that one out!
 
Have a look at this description of Quantum Mechanics: Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHTL-yWR6Zw 
Part 2 follows on... if you haven’t run away!
 
It’s great to see how Dowser Tim Walter reacts to this 'pounding'.  'Physicist and engineer Ian Jamieson takes us through the history of developments in science that lead to modern theories of quantum consciousness and within that how dowsing may work'.
 
Here is a scientist type trying to explain Quantum effects without a language - that is known to us - to explain it in.  Sometimes, if you consider trying to explain dowsing, then you are somewhat in the same boat as he is. As a dowser, having done some dowsing, I would attempt to do the same in teaching what I know… with the same result perhaps!?
 
I once tried to explain electronics to some 13-14 year old Scouts, who were keen, but had only a rudimentary feel for the subject. Trying to make it interesting I started somewhere along the learning curve where we could create a circuit that operated and demonstrated that electronics could do something practical, say flash a lamp or two. Something that would be interesting to them, i.e. wet their appetites for an engineering subject; just in case it might get them excited enough to pick up that particular ball, so to speak?.
 
I started off explaining each part of the circuit and how, if put together in a certain way, we ended up with what we wanted it to achieve upon applying a battery.  Well the fun bit was that each part needed some historical reference as to why it got to be what it is now, and when I had described this context I found I needed to describe a further sub-context to these theories and so on back into my own learning curve.
 
The upshot was that for these lads to clearly understand what I was on about, they had to have gone through the same learning 'head bang' that I had done (embarking on the same timescale). There really was no short cut to becoming proficient! As you can probably surmise, from your own experiences, 'starting in the middle' is not a waste of time, because we all have to start somewhere and work forwards and backwards i.e. we actually teach ourselves in the end.
 
All good fun,
 
Geoff Mitchell
geoff@geoffcmitchell.co.uk

Earth Energies

James Thurgill’s talk to Malvern Dowsers on 28th April at 11.00am is open to guests.
 
This talk arranged by Malvern Dowsers is now open to guests for a donation. James is lecturing in Japan currently therefore this is a daytime meeting to accommodate the time difference. For details please contact secretary@malverndowsers.org.uk We look forward to welcoming you to this unique perspective on deep mapping in the landscape.

A Watkinsian Geography: Memory, mapping & place in the work of Alfred Watkins. James Thurgill,
The University of Tokyo

I will use this short talk to introduce my research into Alfred Watkins and the relationship between people, place(s), and time that can be seen to emerge from his writings on alignments in the British landscape.

As a cultural geographer, I’m interested in uncovering the ways in which places are made, represented, and, moreover, experienced. For me, Watkins’ writings offer a rich source of practical and theoretical information for mapping our landscapes and, as such, correspond to a geographic method commonly referred to as “deep mapping”.

I will discuss the ways in which the practice of “deep mapping” initiated in Watkins’ studies of alignments can be used more broadly to understand how our surrounding geographies are formed through a layering of time, memory, and experience, and, furthermore, how Watkins’ work has come to influence the geographical imagination.

I will also show how my research attempts to align Watkins’ theory with the interests of academic geography and will describe the ways in which my own work has been influenced by Watkins’ ideas. 
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'The whole thing came to me in a flash'.

The Ley Hunters Society is celebrating the centenary of Alfred Watkins' ley revelation, on Wednesday 30th June 2021, at Blackwardine Crossroads (SO 352 563 on OS Explorer 202). They write...

Please don't try to selfishly park a car there ! TLHS are running a coach service (Yeoman's Travel) departing from Hereford Railway Station at 12 noon and returning there by 2.30pm (fitting in with the Cathedrals Express train from London Paddington - via Reading, Oxford and Worcester - trains also run from Birmingham, Swansea, Holyhead and Manchester). Short speeches and hopefully TV cameras. See old Alfred's house and the Wergin's Stone. Book your seat on our coach for £10 return (cheques made payable to Network of Ley Hunters, c/o Lawrence Main, 9 Mawddwy Cottages, Dinas Mawddwy, Machynlleth SY20 9LW ).
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Malvern Dowsers offers Zoom tuition to new members
Like most dowsing groups before the pandemic Malvern Dowsers ran events to help new members learn how to dowse. These events were great fun, often outside and always developed a crowd of intrigued people! Over the last few months Malvern Dowsers have been offering Zoom tuition to new and novice dowsers with some success. These sessions are typically for 6 – 8 people and explore pendulum dowsing. We cover simple ways to prepare and the protocols before commencing the training initially. There’s time during the session to apply the basic techniques and practice using ten questions and at the end new dowsers have an opportunity for feedback and questions (and of course to get to know each other a little). Typically the first class takes about 40 minutes. Our last class for beginners involved several houseplants in pots, a potato and an apple and a great deal of mirth!
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Dfest : This has been postponed to June 2022

Research

An Introduction to the work of Paul Stamets
Peter Wren Howard

The ground breaking work of the American mycologist Paul Stamets is rapidly establishing itself as some of the most important scientific work done anywhere.

It has implications for everyone and brings a message of hope that many of the challenges we are confronted with at this juncture in history are soluble. In his most recent book ‘Fantastic Fungi’ he has assembled a team of authors, many of whom are professors engaged in expanding the frontiers of this hitherto obscure corner of science. Reading this book makes it clear that we are living at a time when we as a species urgently need to learn about the extraordinary things that fungi can do, and there really is a possibility that we can enlist the support of fungi to help us push back against the looming ecological castastrophe, which we are currently headed for.

Amongst currently living life forms on this planet fungi are by far the oldest, they go back at least a billion years whereas homo sapiens has been around for about one third of a million years. This means that fungi have been around for about three thousand times longer than we have. The fruiting bodies that we know as mushrooms are only a tiny fraction of the totality of fungal livings systems on this planet, as most of the fungal life forms live underground. Plant life did not establish itself on land until a third of a billion years ago and accomplished the colonisation of dry land when waterborne algae formed a symbiotic relationship with fungi. What the algae brought to the fungi were the nutrients formed by photosynthesis, in return the fungal root systems would provide minerals from the soil like phosphorous and nitrogen.

This pattern of mutually beneficial relationships between fungi and plants continues to this day, but now on vastly more sophisticated set of relationships which includes the complex interactions with insects, birds and animals. This complex network has only recently been demonstrated to include the ability of plants of different species to communicate with each other via the vast mycelial network of root systems which they are all connected to, and which they can use for communication using some very sophisticated chemistry. So this mycelial network which is underfoot almost everywhere we go is an intelligence network that warns of advancing predators so that plants can activate their chemical defences.

In the last few decades modern agriculture has developed techniques which demonstrate a near total lack of awareness of how the biosphere actually works. For example, vast tracts of land put over to monoculture, coupled with the widespread use of inorganic fertilisers and all kinds of poisons to kill insects and other organisms that live in the soil results in the natural process of soil creation having ceased altogether in many places. World-wide the soil is being depleted at an alarming rate.

The push back has started and the US government’s policies have changed significantly. The FDA is now recommending the use of a ‘no till’ method of farming as they now realise that breaking up the mycelial network by ploughing the soil every year is very destructive.
Perhaps the most surprising development that has arisen is that the US government is funding all the research into the medicinal uses of psychedelic mushrooms. They have been demonstrated to be very effective treatments for a host of conditions such as depression, PTSD, addictions, OCD, and existential anxiety after a cancer diagnosis. The evidence for these benefits was so strong it could not be ignored, especially in view of the fact that there was nothing effective for these conditions offered by the pharmaceutical industry. This work is being carried on at several universities especially John Hopkins University, New York University, Washington State University and the University of Wisconsin Madison. Here in the UK similar work is being carried out at Imperial College London, Kings College London, and NHS Manchester Mental Health.
We are clearly on the cusp of some great changes and despite the gloom which we seem to be surrounded by at the moment there is great hope that things may look a lot better sooner than most of us would have dared hope. We have a lot to thank Paul Stamets for. 
Peter Wren Howard

Peter has written an excellent summary of Fantastic Fungi which sadly has not been possible to include in this newsletter. If you would like a copy please contact Info@CedJackson.org


Spirituality

Our last meeting of the Spirituality Special Interest Group was an open forum that turned out to be a really wide-ranging discussion, and thank you to everyone that took part and shared their thoughts. We covered lots of subjects including our connection with spirit, each other and nature. We saw the ego at work in recent political struggles ‘across the pond’ and at home. We also touched on some deep issues regarding the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ things in our lives and mental health. Thank you all for participating and offering your own wisdom.

On Wednesday April 7th we will be hearing from Sue Watts-Cutler. Her talk is entitled "What Mithraism was REALLY all about………
 
The Romano-Persian worship of the god Mithras was practised from one end of the ancient Roman empire to the other. Huge numbers of repeated allegorical images have left us with an extensive pictorial guide to what the Mithraists believed and practised, yet have defied interpretation by archaeologists and researchers.
 
Sue will be using her own knowledge of the subject matter, of astrology, of classical myth and esoteric symbolism to talk us through the allegory of the Bull Sacrifice scene (once displayed in every Mithraic temple) and the yogic allegory of the Redemption of the imprisoned god, Saturn. 
 
There will also be a guided meditation for participants to free their own inner Saturn. If you’d like to join the group please get in touch with me at kate.tudorhall@gmail.com
 
Tools
Update from Malvern U3A Dowsing Group

Our most recent meeting has been about deviceless dowsing which is a fascinating subject as there are a multitude of methods.  These techniques are often known as ‘body dowsing’ and the dowser ascertains the answers to questions using a trained, recognisable response in the body. Most dowsers find that their hands, once sensitised, become their dowsing ‘tools’ particularly if they are used to using a pendulum or rods to dowse for things normally. 

Kate demonstrated five different methods of deviceless dowsing after each participant had prepared themselves using Ced’s hand sensitising exercise. Each participant discovered one method which suited them best whether it was using the ‘blinking’ or ‘linking’ technique. At the end of the session participants were ready to explore their own preferred deviceless dowsing method in the supermarket when making food choices, particularly relating to chocolate! If you’d like to take part in these Zoom classes get in touch with Kate at kate.tudorhall@gmail.com for further details.


Water

Dowsing for Water in Africa

A small but enthusiastic group of dowsers is excited to announce that we are currently planning to send British water dowsers to Africa to help provide better access to good clean water!
 
As I am sure most of us from the dowsing community and beyond, recognise that by employing the gift of dowsing gives a much improved accuracy for finding clean, plentiful, reliable and non seasonal water supplies in comparison with geological methods alone.
 
In collaboration with Village Water - who already do great work installing wells, boreholes and associated sanitation in Zambia - we intend to train local people in how to dowse for often scarce water sources and how to improve their chances of finding good, clean and plentiful water.
 
Currently 1 in 3 people in the world live without safe local water. This has huge impacts on people’s lives affecting their health, education, ability to grow food and chances of leading a sustainable, self sufficient lifestyle.
 
Village Water - see villagewater.org - was founded by a group from the British Society of Dowsers following a fact-finding visit to the Western Province in Zambia in 2004. Through our current actions we hope that the historic link between Village Water and the BSD can be re established. David Dixon, Rowan Thompson and Guy Hudson and later John Irwin were all key BSD members and founding trustees of Village Water.
 
For the initial trip we are hoping to send Guy Hudson to Zambia this September - if Covid allows! Guy was instrumental in setting up Village Water, he was a trustee from 2004 to 2012 and has been to the area many times.
 
Our ‘divining’ team also includes Linda Fentum, another strong supporter of Village Water, who will probably go next year to continue with the training programme. If funding allows we may then be able to send more diviners in following years to maintain, extend and further improve water dowsing capabilities in Africa.
 
The monies raised in this campaign will be used to cover Guy’s and Linda’s travel and associated costs and make a donation to Village Water to help facilitate the dowsing training. Both Guy and Linda are giving their time for free.
 
The full details of the collaboration between ourselves, Village Water and the BSD will be agreed soon at which time we will fully launch our appeal and provide details of how you can securely make a donation.
 
In the meantime we wanted to give you advance notice of our plans in the hope that once we commence fundraising you may be ready and willing to support what we are trying to achieve.
 
We hope, albeit in a small way, to use dowsing to help people less fortunate than ourselves. Thank you in advance for your support! 
Guy Hudson
Linda Fentum
Alan Murray   

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Have a go !
Unlike the Masaru Emoto experiments, we can do this at home with a clear glass dish, freezer, camera and a bit of water and an image...
 <lindafentum@gmail.com>