For me it's more persuasive than some of the latest items in World Futures: The Journal of Global Evolution, a publication that provides hours of wholesome entertainment for grizzled sceptics such as myself who are delighted by the enthusiasm with which some authors claim a scientific status for reincarnation, precognition, remote healing, communication with the dead (or is it undead) and other nonsense that's taken so very very seriously.
Jeffrey Keen in 66(8) World Futures (2010) 557-572 asks 'Is Dowsing a Useful Tool for Serious Scientific Research?'. Apparently, according to Mr Keen, dowsing indeed is ... with said research having "demonstrated that the mind's ability to communicate information from across the solar system is much faster than the speed of light."
As some of the findings produce universal constants such as the inverse of the Fine Structure Constant (137), tetrahedral geometry angles, arcsine 1/4 and 1/5, or measuring to an accuracy of a few seconds that the time light takes to reach the earth from the outer planets, the answer to the question posed in the title must be an emphatic "yes". Dowsing is proving to be a powerful and relevant research tool. This work has identified and developed the connection between consciousness, information, and the structure of space-time.I do love the "emphatic 'yes'", so redolent of something from Madame Blavatsky, Charles Leadbeater, Rudolf Steiner, L Ron Hubbard or other gurus whose claims to scientific authority are - at best - somewhat thin.
Keen goes on to report that -
The findings have demonstrated a strong link between geometry, consciousness, and the creation of subtle energies that not only effect measurements, but also can cross the solar system.Incorrigible grinch that I am, I expect something more substantive than invocation of a ouija board, a bit of willow twig, a telepathic conversation with a black cat or a 'message' from Marie Antoinette before I abandon Australian law's robust scepticism about ESP, ghosts or astrology. There's no need to throw Einstein into the dustbin, along with rationality, meaningful peer-review and common sense.
Einstein was wrong when claiming that nothing can go faster than light. Dowsing can detect that the communication of some fundamental information across the solar system is not only faster than the speed of light, but probably instantaneous. As the subtle energy beam produced by three aligned cosmic bodies can be detected by the mind, it may be the mechanism that caused "sensitive" ancients to believe in astrology.
The results contained in this article are only obtained with the appropriate intent. This research suggests that the act of dowsing obtains information directly in the mind, and is not a physiological or physical effect. The implication is that dowsing involves the mind interacting not only with the local environment, but with space-time. Using possible analogies, intent selects the appropriate "channel", "frequency", or "password" that allows access to a vast data base of information. Consciousness involves the mind interfacing with the structure of the universe.
World Futures remains a hoot, strongly recommended for anyone who's spent a day looking at gene patenting, restrictions on IVF, Anton Piller orders or other challenging areas of law and needs some hilarity.
I look forward to an article in which it is revealed (with of course the usual battery of citations and alphabet soup about mesodomains, singularity, ontology, holotropic memory or quantum holism and babble about Mayan Calendar or 'ancient wisdom') that scrutiny of chicken entrails, coffee grounds or tea leaves allows the reader to be 'as one' with the universe (oops, the "multiverse") and thereby access The Akashic Field of all past, present and future information. A quick squiz at the potato peelings, a crystal ball or navel might be just as scientific.
A nice article on 'The Lost Cubit', too, would be fun ... and as credible. What about one on supervenience in 'kabbalah' red string and a couple on the Ark of The Covenant or Paul The Psychic Octopus as a 'quantum wave transceiver'?
