{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_The_Diving_Rod/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_The_Diving_Rod","id":"wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_The_Diving_Rod","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Custom_and_Myth/The_Diving_Rod","summary":null,"tags":["Headers_applying_DefaultSort_key","Subpages"],"text":"THE DIVINING ROD.\n\nThere is something remarkable, and not flattering to human sagacity, in\nthe periodical resurrection of superstitions. Houses, for example, go on\nbeing 'haunted' in country districts, and no educated man notices the\ncircumstance. Then comes a case like that of the Drummer of Tedworth, or\nthe Cock Lane Ghost, and society is deeply moved, philosophers plunge\ninto controversy, and he who grubs among the dusty tracts of the past\nfinds a world of fugitive literature on forgotten bogies. Chairs move\nuntouched by human hands, and tables walk about in lonely castles of\nSavoy, and no one marks them, till a day comes when the furniture of some\nAmerican cottage is similarly afflicted, and then a shoddy new religion\nis based on the phenomenon. The latest revival among old beliefs is\nfaith in the divining rod. 'Our liberal shepherds give it a shorter\nname,' and so do our conservative peasants, calling the 'rod of Jacob'\nthe 'twig.' To 'work the twig' is rural English for the craft of\nDousterswivel in the 'Antiquary,' and perhaps from this comes our slang\nexpression to 'twig,' or divine, the hidden meaning of another. Recent\ncorrespondence in the newspapers has proved that, whatever may be the\ntruth about the 'twig,' belief in its powers is still very prevalent.\nRespectable people are not ashamed to bear signed witness of its\nmiraculous powers of detecting springs of water and secret mines. It is\nhabitually used by the miners in the Mendips, as Mr. Woodward found ten\nyears ago; and forked hazel divining rods from the Mendips are a\nrecognised part of ethnological collections. There are two ways of\ninvestigating the facts or fancies about the rod. One is to examine it\nin its actual operation\u2014a task of considerable labour, which will\ndoubtless be undertaken by the Society for Psychical Research; the other,\nand easier, way is to study the appearances of the divining wand in\nhistory, and that is what we propose to do in this article.\n\nWhen a superstition or belief is widely spread in Europe, as the\nfaith in the divining rod certainly is (in Germany rods are hidden under\nbabies' clothes when they are baptized), we naturally expect to\nfind traces of it in ancient times and among savages all over the modern\nworld. We have already examined, in 'The Bull-Roarer,'\na very similar example. We saw that there is a magical instrument\u2014a\nsmall fish-shaped piece of thin flat wood tied to a thong\u2014which,\nwhen whirled in the air, produces a strange noise, a compound of roar\nand buzz. This instrument is sacred among the natives of Australia,\nwhere it is used to call together the men, and to frighten away the\nwomen from the religious mysteries of the males. The same instrument\nis employed for similar purposes in New Mexico, and in South Africa\nand New Zealand\u2014parts of the world very widely distant from each\nother, and inhabited by very diverse races. It has also been lately\ndiscovered that the Greeks used this toy, which they called \u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b2\u03bf\u03c2,\nin the Mysteries of Dionysus, and possibly it may be identical with\nthe mystica vannus Iacchi (Virgil, 'Georgics,' i.\n166). The conclusion drawn by the ethnologist is that this object,\ncalled turndun by the Australians, is a very early savage invention,\nprobably discovered and applied to religious purposes in various separate\ncentres, and retained from the age of savagery in the mystic rites of\nGreeks and perhaps of Romans. Well, do we find anything analogous\nin the case of the divining rod?\n\nFuture researches may increase our knowledge, but at present little\nor nothing is known of the divining rod in classical ages, and not very\nmuch (though that little is significant) among uncivilised races.\nIt is true that in all countries rods or wands, the Latin virga,\nhave a magical power. Virgil obtained his medi\u00e6val repute\nas a wizard because his name was erroneously connected with virgula,\nthe magic wand. But we do not actually know that the ancient wand\nof the enchantress Circe, in Homer, or the wand of Hermes, was used,\nlike the divining rod, to indicate the whereabouts of hidden wealth\nor water. In the Homeric hymn to Hermes (line 529), Apollo thus\ndescribes the caduceus, or wand of Hermes: 'Thereafter\nwill I give thee a lovely wand of wealth and riches, a golden wand with\nthree leaves, which shall keep thee ever unharmed.' In later\nart this wand, or caduceus, is usually entwined with serpents;\nbut on one vase, at least, the wand of Hermes is simply the forked twig\nof our rustic miners and water-finders. The same form is found\non an engraved Etruscan mirror.\n\nNow, was a wand of this form used in classical times to discover\nhidden objects of value? That wands were used by Scythians and\nGermans in various methods of casting lots is certain; but that is not\nthe same thing as the working of the twig. Cicero speaks of a\nfabled wand by which wealth can be procured; but he says nothing of\nthe method of its use, and possibly was only thinking of the rod of\nHermes, as described in the Homeric hymn already quoted. There\nwas a Roman play, by Varro, called 'Virgula Divina'; but\nit is lost, and throws no light on the subject. A passage usually\nquoted from Seneca has no more to do with the divining rod than with\nthe telephone. Pliny is a writer extremely fond of marvels; yet\nwhen he describes the various modes of finding wells of water, he says\nnothing about the divining wand. The isolated texts from Scripture\nwhich are usually referred to clearly indicate wands of a different\nsort, if we except Hosea iv. 12, the passage used as motto by the author\nof 'Lettres qui d\u00e9couvrent l'illusion des Philosophes\nsur la Baguette' (1696). This text is translated in our\nBible, 'My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them! Now, we have here no reference to the\nsearch for wells and minerals, but to a form of divination for which\nthe modern twig has ceased to be applied. In rural England people\nuse the wand to find water, but not to give advice, or to detect thieves\nor murderers; but, as we shall see, the rod has been very much used\nfor these purposes within the last three centuries.\n\nThis brings us to the moral powers of the twig; and here we find some\nassistance in our inquiry from the practices of uncivilised races. In\n1719 John Bell was travelling across Asia; he fell in with a Russian\nmerchant, who told him of a custom common among the Mongols. The Russian\nhad lost certain pieces of cloth, which were stolen out of his tent. The\nKutuchtu Lama ordered the proper steps to be taken to find out the thief.\n'One of the Lamas took a bench with four feet, and after turning it in\nseveral directions, at last it pointed directly to the tent where the\nstolen goods were concealed. The Lama now mounted across the bench, and\nsoon carried it, or, as was commonly believed, it carried him, to the\nvery tent, where he ordered the damask to be produced. The demand was\ndirectly complied with; for it is vain in such cases to offer any\nexcuse.' Here we have not a wand, indeed, but a wooden object\nwhich turned in the direction, not of water or minerals, but of human\nguilt. A better instance is given by the Rev. H. Rowley, in his account\nof the Mauganja. A thief had stolen some corn. The medicine-man,\nor sorcerer, produced two sticks, which he gave to four young men, two\nholding each stick. The medicine-man danced and sang a magical\nincantation, while a zebra-tail and a rattle were shaken over the holders\nof the sticks. 'After a while, the men with the sticks had spasmodic\ntwitchings of the arms and legs; these increased nearly to convulsions. .\n. . According to the native idea, it was the sticks which were possessed primarily,\nand through them the men, who could hardly hold them.\nThe sticks whirled and dragged the men round and round like mad,\nthrough bush and thorny shrub, and over every obstacle; nothing stopped\nthem; their bodies were torn and bleeding. At last they came back to the\nassembly, whirled round again, and rushed down the path to fall panting\nand exhausted in the hut of one of a chief's wives. The sticks, rolling\nto her very feet, denounced her as a thief. She denied it; but the\nmedicine-man answered, \"The spirit has declared her guilty; the spirit\nnever lies.\"' The woman, however, was acquitted, after a proxy trial by\nordeal: a cock, used as her proxy, threw up the muavi, or ordeal-poison.\n\nHere the points to be noted are, first, the violent movement of the\nsticks, which the men could hardly hold; next, the physical agitation of\nthe men. The former point is illustrated by the confession of a civil\nengineer writing in the 'Times.' This gentleman had seen the rod\nsuccessfully used for water; he was asked to try it himself, and he\ndetermined that it should not twist in his hands 'if an ocean rolled\nunder his feet.' Twist it did, however, in spite of all his efforts to\nhold it, when he came above a concealed spring. Another example is\nquoted in the 'Quarterly Review,' vol. xxii. p. 374. A narrator, in whom\nthe editor had 'implicit confidence,' mentions how, when a lady held the\ntwig just over a hidden well, 'the twig turned so quick as to snap,\nbreaking near her fingers.' There seems to be no indiscretion in saying,\nas the statement has often been printed before, that the lady spoken of\nin the 'Quarterly Review' was Lady Milbanke, mother of the wife of Byron.\nDr. Hutton, the geologist, is quoted as a witness of her success in the\nsearch for water with the divining rod. He says that, in an experiment\nat Woolwich, 'the twigs twisted themselves off below her fingers, which\nwere considerably indented by so forcibly holding the rods between\nthem.'\nNext, the violent excitement of the four young men of the Mauganja is\nparalleled by the physical experience of the lady quoted in the 'Quarterly\nReview.' 'A degree of agitation was visible in her\nface when she first made the experiment; she says this agitation was\ngreat' when she began to practise the art, or whatever we are\nto call it. Again, in 'Lettres qui d\u00e9couvrent l'illusion'\n(p. 93), we read that Jacques Aymar (who discovered the Lyons murderer\nin 1692) se sent tout \u00e9mu\u2014feels greatly agitated\u2014when\nhe comes on that of which he is in search. On page 97 of the same\nvolume, the body of the man who holds the divining rod is described\nas 'violently agitated.' When Aymar entered the room\nwhere the murder, to be described later, was committed, 'his pulse\nrose as if he were in a burning fever, and the wand turned rapidly in\nhis hands' ('Lettres,' p. 107). But the most\nsingular parallel to the performance of the African wizard must be quoted\nfrom a curious pamphlet already referred to, a translation of the old\nFrench 'Verge de Jacob,' written, annotated, and published\nby a Mr. Thomas Welton. Mr. Welton seems to have been a believer\nin mesmerism, animal magnetism, and similar doctrines, but the coincidence\nof his story with that of the African sorcerer is none the less remarkable.\nIt is a coincidence which must almost certainly be 'undesigned.'\nMr. Welton's wife was what modern occult philosophers call a 'Sensitive.'\nIn 1851, he wished her to try an experiment with the rod in a garden,\nand sent a maid-servant to bring 'a certain stick that stood behind\nthe parlour door. In great terror she brought it to the garden,\nher hand firmly clutched on the stick, nor could she let it go . . .\n' The stick was given to Mrs. Welton, 'and it drew\nher with very considerable force to nearly the centre of the garden,\nto a bed of poppies, where she stopped.' Here water was\nfound, and the gardener, who had given up his lease as there was no\nwell in the garden, had the lease renewed.\n\nWe have thus evidence to show (and much more might be adduced) that\nthe belief in the divining rod, or in analogous instruments, is not\nconfined to the European races. The superstition, or whatever\nwe are to call it, produces the same effects of physical agitation,\nand the use of the rod is accompanied with similar phenomena among Mongols,\nEnglish people, Frenchmen, and the natives of Central Africa.\nThe same coincidences are found in almost all superstitious practices,\nand in the effects of these practices on believers. The Chinese\nuse a form of planchette, which is half a divining rod\u2014a\nbranch of the peach tree; and 'spiritualism' is more than\nthree-quarters of the religion of most savage tribes, a Maori s\u00e9ance\nbeing more impressive than anything the civilised Sludge can offer his\ncredulous patrons. From these facts different people draw different\ninferences. Believers say that the wide distribution of their\nfavourite mysteries is a proof that 'there is something in them.'\nThe incredulous look on our modern 'twigs' and turning-tables\nand ghost stories as mere 'survivals' from the stage of\nsavage culture, or want of culture, when the fancy of half-starved man\nwas active and his reason uncritical.\n\nThe great authority for the modern history of the divining rod is\na work published by M. Chevreuil, in Paris, in 1854. M. Chevreuil,\nprobably with truth, regarded the wand as much on a par with the turning-tables,\nwhich, in 1854, attracted a good deal of attention. He studied\nthe topic historically, and his book, with a few accessible French tracts\nand letters of the seventeenth century, must here be our guide.\nA good deal of M. Chevreuil's learning, it should be said, is\nreproduced in Mr. Baring Gould's 'Curious Myths of the Middle\nAges,' but the French author is much more exhaustive in his treatment\nof the topic. M. Chevreuil could find no earlier book on the twig\nthan the 'Testament du Fr\u00e8re Basil Valentin,' a holy\nman who flourished (the twig) about 1413; but whose treatise is possibly\napocryphal. According to Basil Valentin, the twig was regarded\nwith awe by ignorant labouring men, which is still true. Paracelsus,\nthough he has a reputation for magical daring, thought the use of the\ntwig 'uncertain and unlawful'; and Agricola, in his 'De\nRe Metallica' (1546) expresses a good deal of scepticism about\nthe use of the rod in mining. A traveller of 1554 found that the\nwand was not used\u2014and this seems to have surprised him\u2014in\nthe mines of Macedonia. Most of the writers of the sixteenth century\naccounted for the turning of the rod by 'sympathy,' which\nwas then as favourite an explanation of everything as evolution is to-day.\nIn 1630 the Baron de Beau Soleil of Bohemia (his name sounds rather\nBohemian) came to France with his wife, and made much use of the rod\nin the search for water and minerals. The Baroness wrote a little\nvolume on the subject, afterwards reprinted in a great storehouse of\nthis lore, 'La Physique Occulte,' of Vallemont. Kircher,\na Jesuit, made experiments which came to nothing; but Gaspard Schott,\na learned writer, cautiously declined to say that the Devil was always\n'at the bottom of it' when the rod turned successfully.\nThe problem of the rod was placed before our own Royal Society by Boyle,\nin 1666, but the Society was not more successful here than in dealing\nwith the philosophical difficulty proposed by Charles II. In 1679\nDe Saint Remain, deserting the old hypothesis of secret 'sympathies,'\nexplained the motion of the rod (supposing it to move) by the action\nof corpuscules. From this time the question became the\nplaying ground of the Cartesian and other philosophers. The struggle\nwas between theories of 'atoms,' magnetism, 'corpuscules,'\nelectric effluvia, and so forth, on one side, and the immediate action\nof devils or of conscious imposture, on the other. The controversy,\ncomparatively simple as long as the rod only indicated hidden water\nor minerals, was complicated by the revival of the savage belief that\nthe wand could 'smell out' moral offences. As long\nas the twig turned over material objects, you could imagine sympathies\nand 'effluvia' at pleasure. But when the wand twirled\nover the scene of a murder, or dragged the expert after the traces of\nthe culprit, fresh explanations were wanted. Le Brun wrote to\nMalebranche on July 8, 1689, to tell him that the wand only turned over\nwhat the holder had the intention of discovering.\nIf he were following a murderer, the wand good-naturedly refused to\ndistract him by turning over hidden water. On the other hand,\nVallemont says that when a peasant was using the wand to find water,\nit turned over a spot in a wood where a murdered woman was buried, and\nit conducted the peasant to the murderer's house. These\nevents seem inconsistent with Le Brun's theory of intention.\nMalebranche replied, in effect, that he had only heard of the turning\nof the wand over water and minerals; that it then turned (if turn it\ndid) by virtue of some such force as electricity; that, if such force\nexisted, the wand would turn over open water. But it does not\nso turn; and, as physical causes are constant, it follows that the turning\nof the rod cannot be the result of a physical cause. The only\nother explanation is an intelligent cause\u2014either the will of an\nimpostor, or the action of a spirit. Good spirits would not meddle\nwith such matters; therefore either the Devil or an impostor causes\nthe motion of the rod, if it does move at all. This logic\nof Malebranche's is not agreeable to believers in the twig; but\nthere the controversy stood, till, in 1692, Jacques Aymar, a peasant\nof Dauphine, by the use of the twig discovered one of the Lyons murderers.\n\nThough the story of this singular event is pretty well known, it\nmust here be briefly repeated. No affair can be better authenticated,\nand our version is abridged from the 'Relations' of 'Monsieur\nle Procureur du Roi, Monsieur l'Abb\u00e9 de la Garde, Monsieur\nPanthot, Doyen des M\u00e9decins de Lyon, et Monsieur Aubert, Avocat\nc\u00e9l\u00e8bre.'\n\nOn July 5, 1692, a vintner and his wife were found dead in the cellar\nof their shop at Lyons. They had been killed by blows from a hedging-knife,\nand their money had been stolen. The culprits could not be discovered,\nand a neighbour took upon him to bring to Lyons a peasant out of Dauphin\u00e9,\nnamed Jacques Aymar, a man noted for his skill with the divining rod.\nThe Lieutenant-Criminel and the Procureur du Roi took Aymar into the\ncellar, furnishing him with a rod of the first wood that came to hand.\nAccording to the Procureur du Roi, the rod did not move till Aymar reached\nthe very spot where the crime had been committed. His pulse then\nrose, and the wand twisted rapidly. 'Guided by the wand\nor by some internal sensation,' Aymar now pursued the track of\nthe assassins, entered the court of the Archbishop's palace, left\nthe town by the bridge over the Rhone, and followed the right bank of\nthe river. He reached a gardener's house, which he declared\nthe men had entered, and some children confessed that three men (whom they described) had come into the house one Sunday morning.\nAymar followed the track up the river, pointed out all the places where\nthe men had landed, and, to make a long story short, stopped at last\nat the door of the prison of Beaucaire. He was admitted, looked\nat the prisoners, and picked out as the murderer a little hunchback\n(had the children described a hunchback?) who had just been brought\nin for a small theft. The hunchback was taken to Lyons, and he\nwas recognised, on the way, by the people at all the stages where he\nhad stopped. At Lyons he was examined in the usual manner, and\nconfessed that he had been an accomplice in the crime, and had guarded\nthe door. Aymar pursued the other culprits to the coast, followed\nthem by sea, landed where they had landed, and only desisted from his\nsearch when they crossed the frontier. As for the hunchback, he\nwas broken on the wheel, being condemned on his own confession.\nIt does not appear that he was put to the torture to make him confess.\nIf this had been done his admissions would, of course, have been as\nvalueless as those of the victims in trials for witchcraft.\n\nThis is, in brief, the history of the famous Lyons murders.\nIt must be added that many experiments were made with Aymar in Paris,\nand that they were all failures. He fell into every trap that\nwas set for him; detected thieves who were innocent, failed to detect\nthe guilty, and invented absurd excuses; alleging, for example, that\nthe rod would not indicate a murderer who had confessed, or who was\ndrunk when he committed his crime. These excuses seem to annihilate\nthe wild contemporary theory of Chauvin and others, that the body of\na murderer naturally exhales an invisible mati\u00e8re meurtri\u00e8re\u2014peculiar\nindestructible atoms, which may be detected by the expert with the rod.\nSomething like the same theory, we believe, has been used to explain\nthe pretended phenomena of haunted houses. But the wildest philosophical\ncredulity is staggered by a mati\u00e8re meurtri\u00e8re\nwhich is disengaged by the body of a sober, but not by that of an intoxicated,\nmurderer, which survives tempests in the air, and endures for many years,\nbut is dissipated the moment the murderer confesses. Believers\nin Aymar have conjectured that his real powers were destroyed by the\nexcitements of Paris, and that he took to imposture; but this is an\neffort of too easy good-nature. When Vallemont defended Aymar\n(1693) in the book called 'La Physique Occulte,' he declared\nthat Aymar was physically affected to an unpleasant extent by mati\u00e8re meurtri\u00e8re, but was not thus agitated when he used the rod\nto discover minerals. We have seen that, if modern evidence can\nbe trusted, holders of the rod are occasionally much agitated even when\nthey are only in search of wells. The story gave rise to a prolonged\ncontroversy, and the case remains a judicial puzzle, but little elucidated\nby the confession of the hunchback, who may have been insane, or morbid,\nor vexed by constant questioning till he was weary of his life.\nHe was only nineteen years of age.\n\nThe next use of the rod was very much like that of 'tipping'\nand turning tables. Experts held it (as did Le P\u00e8re M\u00e9nestrier,\n1694), questions were asked, and the wand answered by turning in various\ndirections. By way of showing the inconsistency of all philosophies\nof the wand, it may be said that one girl found that it turned over\nconcealed gold if she held gold in her hand, while another found that\nit indicated the metal so long as she did not carry gold with\nher in the quest. In the search for water, ecclesiastics were\nparticularly fond of using the rod. The Mar\u00e9chal de Boufflers\ndug many wells, and found no water, on the indications of a rod in the\nhands of the Prieur de Dorenic, near Guise. In 1700 a cur\u00e9,\nnear Toulouse, used the wand to answer questions, which, like planchette,\nit often answered wrong. The great sourcier, or water-finder,\nof the eighteenth century was one Bleton. He declared that the\nrod was a mere index, and that physical sensations of the searcher communicated\nthemselves to the wand. This is the reverse of the African theory,\nthat the stick is inspired, while the men who hold it are only influenced\nby the stick. On the whole, Bleton's idea seems the less\nabsurd, but Bleton himself often failed when watched with scientific\ncare by the incredulous. Paramelle, who wrote on methods of discovering\nwells, in 1856, came to the conclusion that the wand turns in the hands\nof certain individuals of peculiar temperament, and that it is very\nmuch a matter of chance whether there are, or are not, wells in the\nplaces where it turns.\n\nOn the whole, the evidence for the turning of the wand is a shade better\nthan that for the magical turning of tables. If there are no phenomena\nof this sort at all, it is remarkable that the belief in them is so\nwidely diffused. But if the phenomena are purely subjective, owing to\nthe conscious or unconscious action of nervous patients, then they are\nprecisely of the sort which the cunning medicine-man observes, and makes\nhis profit out of, even in the earliest stages of society. Once\nintroduced, these practices never die out among the conservative and\nunprogressive class of peasants; and, every now and then, they attract\nthe curiosity of philosophers, or win the belief of the credulous among\nthe educated classes. Then comes, as we have lately seen, a revival of\nancient superstition. For it were as easy to pluck the comet out of the\nsky by the tail, as to eradicate superstition from the mind of man.\n\nPerhaps one good word may be said for the divining rod. Considering the\nchances it has enjoyed, the rod has done less mischief than might have\nbeen expected. It might very well have become, in Europe, as in Asia and\nAfrica, a kind of ordeal, or method of searching for and trying\nmalefactors. Men like Jacques Aymar might have played, on a larger\nscale, the part of Hopkins, the witch-finder. Aymar was, indeed,\nemployed by some young men to point out, by help of the wand, the houses\nof ladies who had been more frail than faithful. But at the end of the\nseventeenth century in France, this research was not regarded with\nfavour, and put the final touch on the discomfiture of Aymar. So far as\nwe know, the hunchback of Lyons was the only victim of the 'twig' who\never suffered in civilised society. It is true that, in rural England,\nthe movements of a Bible, suspended like a pendulum, have been thought to\npoint out the guilty. But even that evidence is not held good enough to\ngo to a jury.\n\nFootnotes","title":"Custom and Myth/The Diving Rod","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":4428}