Radiesthesia

RADIESTHESIA. - Designation of a particular group of phenomena of direct clairvoyance (v.) in which knowledge of the event or entity sought occurs through the relationship established directly between it and the perceiving subject, and with the use of particular revealing instruments: the rod or forked twig and the pendulum.

The designation, used in the presumption that the phenomena are to be attributed to hypothetical radiations or wave movements emitted indiscriminately by every body, could also apply to every phenomenon of clairvoyance; in practice, however, the term is used restrictively to indicate the aforementioned form of revelation of facts or things with the rod (dowsing: βάβδος = rod, μαντεία = divination) or with the pendulum.

The object of the search of dowsing or pendulum activity (the use of the pendulum for radiesthetic searches is replacing that of the rod, because of its greater convenience of use, variety and precision of indications) is quite varied and is represented by any occult entity, to whatever kingdom of nature it may belong, not excluding quality or quantity or location, also with regard to man, for whom it is applied also as a means of diagnosis of site and nature, as a means for determining the most suitable remedies, to investigate even the inner psychic conditions and biological and social circumstances (feelings, blood relationships, responsibilities, etc.).

The subject of r. can be more or less any man; it is admitted by various authors that even lower living beings, animals or plants, are capable of regulating their behavior in relation to the radiesthetic faculties with which they would be endowed.

For a detailed study of the method of radiesthetic search, the reader is referred to specialized works, to be studied with a critical spirit, since they are largely full of empirical precepts, rules and conclusions not justified by rigorous scientific method, facts not sufficiently documented or of ambiguous interpretation. The instruments commonly used are the rod or wand; a twig of hazel, elm, Indian cane (excluding resinous woods or olive wood), whalebone, straight or bent into a V or Y, obtained with two elements joined together by a vegetable tie; or the pendulum, a small mass weighing from 30 to 70 grams, of various material (wood, bone, plastic substances, metal, possibly even a watch, etc.) suspended from a small chain or thread (silk, linen, hemp) 30-80 centimeters long, according to the particular sensitivity of the experimenter and the object of the search. The movements of such instruments: the raising or lowering of the tip of the rod in the operator's hands; pendular or circular oscillations, dextrorse or sinistrorse, or elliptical of the pendulum, would be indicative of the presence, the depth, the nature, the particular characteristics of the object of the search, according to an interpretative code, often devoid of rational justification, empirically established and often quite varied, in the more circumstantial answers, from one experimenter to another. The same multiple modalities and precautions prescribed, indispensable for the success of the experiments, rather than rationally motivated scientific rules, appear as empirical and personal precepts.

Concerning the interpretation of the phenomena, one of the exponents of r., the abbé Mermet (v. bibl.), posits as fundamental postulates that: a) all bodies, without exception, constantly emit waves or radiations; b) the human body, entering these fields of influence, is the seat of nervous reactions, especially of currents that channel through the right hand; c) if one holds in the hand a suitable object, rod or pendulum, the invisible flow manifests itself through the movements that it impresses on this indicating needle. Such postulates, for the practitioners of r., are also meant to have the significance of explanatory hypotheses of the phenomena. The immediate cause of the movement of the revealing instruments during the searches would be represented by the involuntary muscular contractions of the operating subject, provoked by the discharging of the presumed radiations on his nervous system, and not by automatic displacements of the rod or pendulum through a direct solicitation of the forces emanating from the object of the search.

It is not possible to give an absolute judgment on the value of r. in relation to the subjectivity of the methods and the debatable certainty of the results obtained. A practice on the margins of the occult and the magical, often carried out by persons lacking solid doctrinal preparation and incapable of severe objective criticism, it is often tainted by ignorance, fanaticism, frivolity, falsification. Such a judgment holds particularly for the most extraordinary and impressive forms of applications of r., such as the search for persons or their qualities from the radiesthetic investigation of handwriting or of a photograph, of persons or things in relation to the pendulum response on topographical maps, etc.; activities in which, to explain the results, one cannot even invoke the presumed direct radiating action of the object on the operating subject. In such cases, if the facts are really documentable, it would seem more probable to admit the intervention of factors of a preternatural order, particularly where it is a matter of the revelation of free future events (v. METAPSICHICA). A more affirmative attitude seems possible with regard to the lesser and more usual facts, such as the search for water or minerals in the subsoil.

Moreover, it must be agreed that there exists a whole series of practical cases in which the reality of the asserted facts can be documented, and skilled experimenters, whose perfect good faith and scientific correctness cannot absolutely be denied, really succeed in the practical aim of their searches, whether it be a matter of deep veins of water or of mineral deposits or of the recovery of things or persons or even of the diagnosis of morbid conditions of the human organism. Since, however, it is a matter of particular extrasensory qualities not ordinary to all men (extra sensory perception or ESP effect, according to the designation adopted by Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, for the cognitive power to which the phenomena of clairvoyance are generally linked), even if present in all in embryo and capable of being developed with exercise, one understands how the verification and demonstration of the facts cannot assume the course of development of ordinary scientific experiments and leaves wide room for doubts and contradictory interpretations.

The history of r. is lost in the most ancient times, becoming confused with the magical rites of the East and with the divinatory practices of pagan antiquity. An orderly study with seriousness of intent on dowsing probably cannot go back earlier than the 16th century, with the work of the abbé L. di Vallemont: La physique occulte ou traité de la baguette divinatoire, Paris 1693. In 1913 the pendulum officially reappeared on the scene of r. through the work of Mermet at the Radiesthetic Congress of Paris. At present, particularly in Germany, France, Switzerland, there exist thousands of radiesthesists united in national associations and who gather in periodic congresses.

Catholic discipline neither condemns nor forbids the practice of r. unless it, by the particular form in which it is practiced or the specific ends it seeks to attain (e.g., divination of the future or the achievement of results humanly impossible), strays into superstition (v.). For reasons of decency or prestige or to avoid occasion of scandal, the Church forbids clerics and religious to practice those forms of r. that have as their object circumstances and qualities of human persons (diagnosis and treatment of illnesses, investigations into intellectual and moral endowments, duration of life, circumstances and time of death, etc.: decree of the Holy Office, 1 May 1942, AAS, 34 [1942], p. 148, and the commentaries of A. Willwoll and J. Creusen, in Periodica de re morali canonica et liturgica, 31 [1942], p. 280 ff.).

Giuseppe De Niano