b"Divination: A geophysicist's viewFeatureloss to early science that he could not devote more time tothe problems of believing in the efficacy of divining with any the problem. Boyle was a busy person involved in numerousarbitrarily chosen forked twig. Superstition was rife e.g. the projects. credulous thought that Satan was involved. Various tests with rings suspended by a cord indicated that finger/hand tremor, The theories of mineral formation were many and variedthe twist of the thread, or muscular action could make the ring in Renaissance times. The views of a supreme alchemistrotate and result in rings pointing in particular directions e.g. of the time, Johann Joachim Becker (1635-1682), typifiedan iron ring would indicate north. The argument here is that the emergence of modern theories. He did not believe thehand spasms could also move a divining rod. He ridiculed the astrological claims of the planetary procreation of a mineral,idea that any old twig could find anything, beyond chance. He with each metallic having an astrologically decipherablethen proceeded to outline his ideas and some experiments, signature configured on its planets surface. He called thembecause, as he stated, no credible explanation had yet been out, saying that they did not see a metals symbol reflectedgiven for the divining rods movement in the hands of a dowser in the features of a planet, rather they saw donkeys, because(beyond muscular spasm). He believed, it seems, in emanations such quadrupeds were their own (i.e. astrologers) reflections.of the Becker type, and also in the vague ancient Greek theory He believed in an immense fire vault at the earths centre.of sympathy between materials e.g. ink and water Conveniently, this doubled as the Hell of pious theologianscombining readily, magnetic attraction, the sun absorbing who contemplated with relish the tortures of those damnedwater. Magnetic attraction, the magnetismo quality, furnished therein. This intense heat was deemed to vaporise water andhim with a suitable analogy for his belief in a like-to-like metallic seeds which, when exhaled on or near the surface,attractive mechanism.would condense in basins, voids, and cracks forming oceans, springs, and metal deposits too such as gold veins distilled fromIn his laboratory Kircher fashioned a composite rod of wood auriferous vapours. Such underground sweated deposits wereand NaCl (rock salt) and suspended it over a pot of boiling brine believed to continue to emit their essence as finely textured(Figure 9) with one half of the rod over the exhaled vapour. corpuscles to the surface. He thought the salt in the brine was sympathetically attracted Theories of this type were influential in the time of theto the salt on the rod and was extracted from the vapour to extraordinary Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1601/2-1680). Basedbe absorbed by the rod end, thus causing it to incline. In this in Rome, he wrote a pre-modern geology and mineralogyway divining could work because, he thought, by analogy, textbook, which included sections on mineral exploration. Inkindred subsurface metal sources and rods should interact e.g. goldgold. Unfortunately, this reasoning was flawed. his Mundus Subterraneus [10, 17], in sometimes opaque Latin,The vapours are not some type of salty plasma but steam i.e. Kircher wrote about divining. I translated this as no one elsewater (why else do we have evaporation pans for residual salt appears to have done so, but I will spare the reader the slabs ofproduction), and NaCl, even as rock salt, is quite hygroscopic, his Latin text and provide a summary instead. Kircher discussedabsorbing water condensing on it. This was the reason for the inclination for the rod, not sympathetic attraction. Kircher rejected ordinary divining but believed tailor-made rods should work for specific targets. Kircher never published any field test results for his apparatus.So we see that: Agricola refuted the divining rod and the dowser, empirically; Boyle was sceptical; and Kircher, while seeming to reject the practice if it used arbitrary forked twigs, actually believed in sympathetic coupling between a rod and a kindred subsurface substance, but never field tested his ideas with his tailored rods. So the debate continued.Dowsing down the centuriesAny divining procedure that bypasses the tedious constraints and complexities of geology, physics, and hydrology, and offers simple subsurface enlightenment, is bound to attract attention and controversy, and indeed it has, from around Agricolas time to the present.Water search, or water witching, also succumbed to the diviners embrace in the 16th century. Doubtless inspired by Figure 9.Kirchers idea of how a divining rod could work is depicted in one ofMoses and the rod, St Teresa of Spain in 1568 sought thehis experiments. A composite woodrock salt rod is suspended as shown aboveservices of a friar for a convent water supply. Twig in hand, the a pot of boiling brine. Kircher thought that sympathetic interaction between thegood friar moved, stopped, seemed to make the sign of the rod salt and the pot salt had made the rod end absorb salt from the vapour andcross, and indicated by movement of the twig where to dig. An thus cause it to incline. He regarded this result from a special, material specific,abundant supply of good water was found. Such an exercise in type of rod as verifying the divination method, but only for a sympathetic coupleapplied holiness led to some to doubt the Devils involvement e.g. a gilded rod for location of a gold deposit. Unfortunately, the vapour herein the dowsers art. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that is water, not a salty steam, and the rods rock salt, being hygroscopic, simply absorbs water vapour condensed on it. This and a couple of other experimentswater witching, or hydroscopy, remains to this day an accepted run by Kircher appear to be the only published laboratory attempts to justifymethod by many in rural areas around the world. It gets popular divination. Kircher did not seem to have field tested his ideas. attention and publicity, whereas scientific methods do not.53 PREVIEW DECEMBER 2020"