Introduction

Page VII

There are areas of human experience that, to one degree or another, are outside the normal understanding of what we call the explainable. Yet they are real in the sense we are aware of them and sometimes use them. In time some of these are researched and found to be what we call scientific. The magic of electricity is one of these.

However, there remain today, even in this scientific age, many of these anomalies we have not examined, and maybe we have not even considered. We react to them in different ways and for various reasons. The scientific man labels them 'erratics' (consciously or subconsciously) and lays them aside. The unscientific man often refuses to think about them at all. The superstitious man categorizes them within his understanding and accepts them.

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Once in a while one of these anomalies turns out to be so useful it cannot be cast aside or labelled untouchable, and then the reasonable man tries to justify it, the religious man either embraces it or condemns it, and we go on using it. As generations pass, old theories are discredited and new ones appear. Those who report on it are seldom objective for they see it only in the light of their generation's understanding.

Today's reporting is no more objective, because everything must be explained in terms of the present popular understanding of reality. Therefore, anything that smacks of the 'supernatural' must be totally ignored or twisted to fit in our frame of reality, and all past reporting appears ridiculous.

This then, in a nutshell, is the story of dowsing. There is a very vocal minority of dowsing enthusiasts who demand that establishment science be restructured to include the reality of the supernatural—at least in the case of dowsing. More often they are reduced to muttering and hoping. It must be added that the preoccupation of the communications media with this is certainly preparing the public for its eventual acceptance.

Finally, there is another miniscule minority, timid and non-vocal, who see dowsing as a combination of physical and psychic and have a rather unpopular explanation for it all. But then, who pays any attention to a voice crying in the wilderness?

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