Military use of Dowsing

Ask a dowsing question, tell us your gossip, chat etc. here!
Ian Pegler
Expert
Expert
Posts: 2824
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:04 pm
Location: Borth, Mid Wales

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Ian Pegler »

Grahame Gardner wrote:Just found this article in The Spectator about Nazi Germany's use of pendulum dowsers during WW2 to locate naval convoys and other stuff...

Did Hitler's Obsession with the Occult cost him the War?
But our side used dowsing too - and it didn't cost us the war...

Ian
plazak
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 10:21 am
Location: USA

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by plazak »

To add to the 2006 article in Dowsing Today about Lt. Hawkins dowsing in Gallipoli, it should be noted that the most famous dowser in the Gallipoli campaign was undoubtedly Sapper Stephen Kelley, a water engineer from Melbourne. Kelley was born in Kent, but emigrated as a child. His dowsing, before he was wounded and evacuated, was mentioned in newspaper and magazine articles (for example, the Guardian, 4 July 1916, page 3, and the Spectator, 2 Sept. 1916 p263). He was even mentioned twice in Parliament (19 Nov. 1917 p.202 and 5 Dec. 1917 p.407), when MPs asked why he was not returned to the front for more dowsing.
Ian Pegler
Expert
Expert
Posts: 2824
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:04 pm
Location: Borth, Mid Wales

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Ian Pegler »

plazak wrote:To add to the 2006 article in Dowsing Today about Lt. Hawkins dowsing in Gallipoli, it should be noted that the most famous dowser in the Gallipoli campaign was undoubtedly Sapper Stephen Kelley, a water engineer from Melbourne. Kelley was born in Kent, but emigrated as a child. His dowsing, before he was wounded and evacuated, was mentioned in newspaper and magazine articles (for example, the Guardian, 4 July 1916, page 3, and the Spectator, 2 Sept. 1916 p263). He was even mentioned twice in Parliament (19 Nov. 1917 p.202 and 5 Dec. 1917 p.407), when MPs asked why he was not returned to the front for more dowsing.
Wow, that's fantastic research. Thanks for sharing. :shock:

Ian
User avatar
Helen-Healing
Competent
Competent
Posts: 865
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2007 12:28 pm
Location: Lewisham, SE London
Contact:

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Helen-Healing »

Excellent research indeed! Although I'm surprised that the Spectator had as many as 263 pages!
plazak
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 10:21 am
Location: USA

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by plazak »

I don’t believe it’s been discussed here yet, but British military dowsing goes back at least to 1897, during the Sudan campaign, when Kitchener marked two spots on a map as locations for water wells along his march south through the desert, and sent dowser Edward Cator to confirm that the locations were suitable. Cator reported back that there was water at both locations, which was confirmed by wells. [Dominic Green, Three Empires on the Nile (London: Free Press, 2007) 250.] Kitchener himself had a reputation for being a water-dowser. [A. J. Smithers, The Fighting Nation (London: Cooper, 1994) 17.] During his time at Woolwich, dowsing was routinely taught. [Philip Warner, Kitchener: the Man Behind the Legend (New York: Athenum, 1986) 77-78.]
User avatar
Grahame
Site Admin
Site Admin
Proficient
Proficient
Posts: 1472
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:52 pm
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Grahame »

plazak wrote:To add to the 2006 article in Dowsing Today about Lt. Hawkins dowsing in Gallipoli, it should be noted that the most famous dowser in the Gallipoli campaign was undoubtedly Sapper Stephen Kelley
I just came across this blog post about Sapper Stephen Kelley. Fascinating stuff - over 32 wells producing 100,000 gallons per day in an area where nobody else had managed to find water.

**EDIT** Adding some more links about Sapper Stephen Kelley:

THE WATER WIZARD OF GALLIPOLI, Christchurch Star 11 July 1916

SAVED AN ARMY - AN ASTOUNDING STORY, Christchurch Star 18 January 1918

THE REAL GALLIPOLI WATER DIVINER, ANZAC research forum.

Honours and Awards, Australian War Memorial site.
Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
User avatar
Grahame
Site Admin
Site Admin
Proficient
Proficient
Posts: 1472
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:52 pm
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Grahame »

I found this interesting 25-minute video interview with Paul H Smith, talking about US military remote viewing and dowsing. He mentions Louis Matacia teaching the Marines to dowse in Vietnam, how dowsing and remote viewing complement each other, and how he became head of a chapter of the ASD.

Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
Migrant
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:15 am

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Migrant »

Remote viewing implies that the consciousness travels away from the body.
If the consciousness was derived from the body, how is it able to separate itself from the body?
If the body was derived from the consciousness, it would be reasonable to think that the consciousness could act independently.
Within the illusion of solid matter, which dominates our intellectual landscape, it is difficult to think that insubstantial consciousness can create solid matter.
With that illusion dispelled, or at least understood, the difficulty is diminished.

Often regarded as the father of quantum science, Max Plank once said that he had come to regard matter as derivative of consciousness.

It seems to me that we live our lives either assuming that matter comes from consciousness, or, (more likely), the other way round.
Surely this will have a fundamental effect on the lives we lead?
Migrant
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:15 am

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Migrant »

Sorry Max, that's Planck.
mike
Gold Supporter
Gold Supporter
Professional
Professional
Posts: 4824
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 7:46 pm
Location: Bedworth

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by mike »

Really interesting link Paul H Smith on remote viewing and dowsing, and I think I send my soul when I look at very distant places like stars and anything away from planet Earth,still part of me but not held back by left brain thoughts, and the reply is instant with no restraints at all in my opinion.And the more you try the more normal it seems to me,not really magic just the ability to open your mind to allow it to grow and explore.
User avatar
Grahame
Site Admin
Site Admin
Proficient
Proficient
Posts: 1472
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:52 pm
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Grahame »

I just found some interesting references to dowsing in the 2016 book Lucifer Rising - British Intelligence and the Occult in the Second World War by Nicholas Booth.

(p 59) Booth asserts that Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess,
... slept under magnets to draw out any harmful substances in close proximity, and routinely tested bedrooms with divining rods to ensure no underground waters could cast any lingering malevolence while he slept.
He doesn't provide any reference for this unfortunately. Still, it's more evidence of dowsing being used by the Third Reich.


(p 218) - in a section discussing the appointment of Lt Col Kenneth Strong as head of MI14 (the department of Military Intelligence responsible for interpreting the German military's strategic intentions) in the spring of 1940, Booth writes:
Nothing was beyond the remit of 'The German Section' and that came to include the consultation of a water diviner who Strong christened 'Smoky Joe'.
I'm wondering who this could be? Assuming that 'Joe' is not a code name, the most likely candidate is probably Joseph C Maby, an early BSD member. He co-authored a book called The Physics of the Divining Rod with Bedford Franklin, which was published in 1939 by G Bell and Sons (unfortunately, the main supply of the book in Southampton was destroyed in a bombing raid during the war).

The book's publication led to Maby being asked to give a lecture to the Royal Society of Arts on 13 March 1940, which was chaired by BSD founder Col A H Bell. Conceivably, Strong could have attended this meeting. This fits well with the general time frame.
(This information comes from a transcript of Col Bell's address, Early Days of the BSD, at BSD Congress on December 25, 1954.)


(p 336) - In discussing statements by German astrologer Wilhelm Wulff, made after his release from Fuhlsbuttel Prison in 1943, there is mention of Nazi officials employing dowsers to do map dowsing to locate Allied submarines.
The Germans often did this over a map (which was how the Munich physician predicted the presence of Jews). The astrologer's own expertise extended to a particular Indian pendulum known as the Tattua. 'Day in, day out, the pendulum practitioners squatted with their arms stretched out over nautical charts,' Wulff would write.
I'm not sure who 'the Munich physician' refers to. Or what a 'tattua' pendulum looks like.
Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
User avatar
Grahame
Site Admin
Site Admin
Proficient
Proficient
Posts: 1472
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:52 pm
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Grahame »

Here are a few more extracts from Col. Bell's address to congress in 1954 that deal with wartime dowsing...
I first came in intimate contact with a water diviner when I was in hospital during the Boer War, in Pretoria fifty-four years ago...<snip>... Amongst others in the ward in which I lay was a temporary officer of the Army Service Corps, with the significant name of Welman. He was a dowser of the highly sensitive kind, and when we were convalescent he showed me how his whole body vibrated when he passed over a water main in the garden of the hospital.
... after the Boer War was over, it was my task to build a cantonment at Pietersburg in the Northern Transvaal. Except for a stream about a mile away, which was liable to pollution, there was no obvious source of water for the future garrison, so I eagerly accepted the offer of an amateur dowser by the name of Cowen, who came to see me one morning and offered to locate the site for a well near the cantonment boundary. This he succeeded in doing and, though the cantonment was never finished, I heard some years ago that the water from the well was being used by the town hospital which had taken over some of the buildings I had put up.
Colonel Hugh Rose of Kilravock, Colonel of the Black Watch, who lived in his ancestral castle on the outskirts of Culloden Moor, was a particularly keen water diviner. He is mentioned in the classic called The Divining Rod ... as having located wells in France during the First World War.
Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
User avatar
Grahame
Site Admin
Site Admin
Proficient
Proficient
Posts: 1472
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:52 pm
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Grahame »

I'm adding a few references to old BSD journals here from Nick Haywood's Dowsing Research website; for the moment some of these are not active links as they haven't been scanned yet. If anyone has the relevant journals and would care to scan in these articles, please email them to us and I'll gladly post them on this thread.
(Note: These link to PDF scans of the entire journal so you will have to scroll through to find the relevant item).

Water Divining on the North-West Frontier: JBSD_no15_p306

War-Time Dowsing: JBSD_no_31_p243

Detecting German battleships: JBSD_No65_p324

Siting gun that bombed Paris in WW1: JBSD_No26(?)_p67

Detecting wartime submarines: JBSD_No53_p34

Locating lost submarines: JBSD_No76_p262

Unexploded bombs: JBSD_No38_p139, JBSD_No39_p206, JBSD_No245_p102
Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
User avatar
Grahame
Site Admin
Site Admin
Proficient
Proficient
Posts: 1472
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:52 pm
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Grahame »

Slightly indirect here, but this link is to a series of reports from the Ahnenerbe (the Nazi policy think tank) investigations into dowsing in 1939: https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/dowsing/index.2.html

Probably the most interesting one is this report to the Reichsführer of the SS regarding the Reich Association for Dowsing. In particular this quote:
The Reich Association states that they are satisfied that currently the best brains of geological and
medical science are not opposed to dowsing rods. The Reich Association is thankful for energetic
advocacy in favor of dowsing rods based on positive experiences by the Deputy Führer, Prime Minister
General Field Marshall Göring and State Secretary Dr. Keppler. General Field Marshall Göring had
reportedly assured one of their men that the Führer himself was not hostile to the use of dowsing rods.
The report goes on to assess the lack of scientific evidence for dowsing in ways that will seem very familiar to us today, and then advocates separation of 'professionals' from 'wild dowsers'.
It's an interesting read.

(Thanks to Susan Collins for finding this)
Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
User avatar
Grahame
Site Admin
Site Admin
Proficient
Proficient
Posts: 1472
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:52 pm
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Military use of Dowsing

Post by Grahame »

Ukrainian soldier dowsing for a water well in the trenches - pretty impressive!

Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
Post Reply