THE DIVINING HAND: The 500-Year-Old Mystery of Dowsing

by Christopher Bird ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 1979

The man who brought us The Secret Life of Plants has compiled a 350-page epic of dowsing: the search--""with the aid of a hand-held instrument such as a forked stick or a perpendicular bob on the end of a string""--for virtually anything hidden. The search for water and minerals by dowsing has a history thousands of years old. In the fifth century B.C., Herodotus wrote about the use of divining rods; a 17th-century French baron is said to have discovered countless mines by dowsing, many of them still being worked a hundred years later; the beliefs of a Spanish sect revolved around seeing ""things hidden in the inward bowels of the earth."" More recently, dowsing has been turned to other uses: an auto mechanic spots engine problems by dowsing, physicians dowse for ailments in their patients, rescuers search for downed aircraft and lost people. Despite the longevity of the practice, no one has discovered how it works, a mystery which has put dowsing at odds with the more rational world of science. Bird quotes one dowser as saying: ""Geologists and geophysicists in the major oil companies are my worst enemies. All their professionalism and book-learning is threatened by my approach."" Dowsers also have been suspected, through time, of cooperating with ""infernal forces."" Along with the anecdotes, the book abounds with theories of dowsing's logic, from ""invisible corpuscular bodies"" to electromagnetism to celestial bodies--all of which are given due consideration. It's an unselective, and sooner-or-later monotonous omnium gatherum--best dipped into, maybe, by dowsing.

Pub Date: Aug. 28, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION