WCP5748

[1] [p. 206]

To Prof. BARRETT¹

Parkstone, Dorset. December 24, 1900.

My dear Barrett, — … I have read your very interesting paper on the divining rod, and the additional evidence you now send. Of course, I think it absolutely conclusive, but there are many points on which I differ from your conclusions and remarks, which I think are often unfair to the dowsers.

[2] [p. 207]

I will just refer to one or two. At p. 176 (note) you call the idea of there being a "spring-head" at a particular point "absurd." But instead of being absurd it is a fact, proved not only by numerous cases you have given of strong springs being found quite near to weak springs a few yards off, but by all the phenomena of mineral and hot springs. Near together, as at Bath, hot springs and cold springs rise to the surface, and springs of different quality at Harrogate, yet each keeps its distinct character, showing that each rises from a great depth without any lateral diffusion or intermixture. This is a common phenomenon all over the world, the dowsers’ facts support it, geologists know all about it, yet I presume they have told you that when a dowser states this fact it ceases to be a fact and becomes an absurdity!

The only other point I have time to notice is your Sect. II. (p. 285). You head this, "Evidence that the Motion of the Body is due to Unconscious Muscular Action." Naturally I read this with the greatest interest, but found to my astonishment that you adduce no evidence at all, but only opinions of various people, and positive assertions that such is the case! Now as I know that motions of various objects occur without any muscular action, or even any contact whatever, while Crookes has proved this by careful experiments which have never been refuted, what improbability is there that this should be such a case, and what is the value of these positive assertions which you quote as "evidence"? And at p. 286 you quote the person who says the more he tried to prevent the stick’s turning the more it turned, as evidence in favour of muscular action, without a word of explanation. Another man (p. 287) says he "could not restrain it." None of the "trained anatomists" you quote give a particle of proof, only positive opinion, that it must be muscular action — simply because they do not believe any [3] other action possible. Their evidence is just as valueless as that of the people who say that all thought-transference is collusion or imposture!

I do not say that it is not "muscular action," though I believe it is not always so, but I do say that you have as yet given not a particle of proof that it is so, while scattered through your paper is plenty of evidence which points to its being something quite different. Such are the cases when people hold the rod for the first time and have never seen a dowser work, yet the rod turns, over water, to their great astonishment, etc. etc.

Your conclusion that it is "clairvoyance" is a good provisional conclusion, but till we know what clairvoyance really is it explains nothing, and is merely another way of stating the fact.

I believe all true clairvoyance to be spirit impression, and that all true dowsing is the same — that is, when in either case it cannot be thought-transference, but even this I believe to be also, for the most part, if not wholly, spirit impression. — Believe me yours very truly, ALFRED R. WALLACE.