Introduction: You have been educated that magic, as an entire subject, is a lot of nonsense. But that's telling you your postulates don't work. That your intention is not senior to chemical reactions. Thus, you've been carefully educated to invalidate your own willpower and ability to postulate.
So magic is apparently a lost art. But is it?
Stubbornly despite the black propaganda against magic there are still magicians amongst us who wield their wizard rods and refuse to disappear. Anachronisms from a forgotten world.
These are the water or mineral diviners modernly known as dowsers. The term dowser comes from an ancient Anglo-Saxon word meaning to push down. It refers to the tendency of a hand-held implement such as a forked stick to dip when held by a competent dowser over water or some other deposit.
Weird, huh? It's supernatural. A remnant of magic in a scientific age that had nearly brought the world to a new barbaric orgy of destruction and chaos.
Certainly the roots of dowsing reach far back into the dim traditions of magic. The traditional divining rod is a forked hazelstick or twig. Hazelwood is high on the list of woods with magical associations, formerly used as an ingredient in various charms and folk cures. The forked stick is also rich with magical associations. The dowser's "wizard rod" is related magically to the fairy wand, the medieval witch's broomstick and other instruments of magical power.
Besides a forked stick, other instruments have been used for a similar purpose such as a pendulum which begins to swing when over the sought-for site and a long metal rod or wire with a right angle bend at one end.
But the point is these magicians are not just prowling the hills of Wales in Arthur's time but they are here amongst us now. And science has here and there begrudgingly acknowledged that they work. Several eminent geologists have been dowser-magicians. Professor Barrett, a distinguished investigator of the prestigious Society for Psychical Research writes in The Times January 21, 1905, "Making a liberal allowance for failures of which I have not heard, I have no hesitation in saying that where fissure water exists and the discovery of underground water for a domestic supply is a matter of the utmost difficulty, the chances of success with a good dowser far exceed mere lucky hits, or the success obtained by the most skillful observer, even with full knowledge of the local geology."
Yet although the existence of these modern magicians with their wizard rods are acknowledged, no one can figure out how it works, including the dowsers themselves.
Simply saying it's magical doesn't go anywhere either because what is magic? The most learned 20th century encyclopedia admits to a lack of definition of magic. So, until magic is explained it's no explanation.
Many elaborate theories have been originated to explain the power of dowsers. According to Cornish tradition the divining or dowsing rod is guided to lodes by the pixies, the guardians of the treasures of the earth.
Some recent 20th century theories are not much more plausible. For example, one gentleman was so anxious to prove that such phenomena had a physical explanation that he proposed that it was accounted for by "mechanical vibration, set up by the friction of moving water, acting upon the sensitive ventral [stomach] diaphragm of certain exceptionally delicately framed persons." Hmmmm.
Other more honest commentators on this scene admit that the source of the dowser's power is a mystery. In particular, one writer feels it is a form of ESP and that the question of dowsing would be solved when the field of ESP is better researched because that field is a mystery also.
Hey, let's begin to get some insight on this. What is the source of a dowser's success where obtained?
It has been easily shown that there is no physical interrelationship between a piece of wood or a string-held ball (pendulum) and such varying substances as water, coal or even buried treasures. In other words it's the fact of these implements being held by certain masters of the art which apparently make them useful - to the dowser. A fairy wand without a fairy is of course just an inert stick. In fact, some dowsers claim they can see what they are looking for underground and don't need a rod. Does that give you a clue?
Let's look further. Advance! reader and Scientologist, Chuck Lewis, is a master oil dowser. At the request of the Advance! he writes the following:
"In the United States, the ability to find mineral deposits by the method of "dowsing" (using the so-called divining rod or pendulum) has for years been very much downgraded and neglected by the majority of people in the scientific community. While a few persons have begrudgingly admitted that someone down the line could find water with the use of a "witching-stick" (a forked branch freshly cut from either a peach, willow, hazelnut, or some other specie of tree) the idea that other valuable minerals such as gold, silver or oil could be located with a similar method is not an agreed-upon reality to the majority of people in this country. In most European countries, the art of dowsing is accepted as a workable and proven method of mineral exploration, and has the status of a true science.
"According to some writers on this subject, including the authors of the book Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, Shelia Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, the art of radiesthesia, (meaning sensitivity to radiations to find water and minerals) has been in practice for at least seven thousand years. Bas reliefs from early Egypt portray water diviners equipped with dowsing rods and even headgear with antennas. Kings of ancient China, like King Yu (2200 B.C.) are pictured carrying dowsing rods. Early woodcuts depict miners of Medieval Germany using dowsing rods to locate ore bodies. In Vietnam, engineers from the First and Third U.S. Marine Divisions used dowsing rods to successfully locate enemy tunnels, booby-traps, and unexploded mortar shells.
"Using a more sophisticated rod than a peach twig, I am able to locate and define oil and gas structures. This I have done many times, not only in my home state of Texas, renowned for its many prolific oil fields, but in many other areas of the U.S. including California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
"The rod I use for dowsing is a ten and a half inch section of steel coil spring three-quarters of an inch in diameter with a two and a half inch plug of high-carbon steel inserted into the top, and the spring itself fitted into a wooden handle at the base.
"In searching for oil or gas areas this rod is held in the right hand. (It will not work for me if held in the left hand!). In my left hand I hold a small vial of crude oil. I can work on foot or in a car. As I approach a hydro carboniferous zone I sense a slight tug on the dowsing rod, quite similar to a nibble on a fishing line, and the rod commences to bob up and down in the direction of the oil. The rod continues the bobbing motion until I reach the point where I am immediately over the oil structure when the rod starts spinning in a clock wise direction. Conversely, whenever I am over a zone carrying natural gas the rod will rotate counter-clockwise. As long as I am directly over the oil or gas-bearing area, the rod will continue to rotate – sometimes so violently and rapidly that the spring will work itself out of the handle and fly out of my hand.
"By my own agreement and computations, I can determine the approximate depth to the oil formation as well as the thickness of the oil or gas-bearing strata.
"At one time I was a member of the British Society of Dowsers, and I have been exposed to many theories as to what force exactly makes the 'doodlebug', as it is laughingly referred to in the oil patch, work.
"Soviet scientists, including Dr. A. A. Ogilvy, Chairman of the Geology Department of Moscow State University, call dowsing by a new, demystified name. The Biophysical Effects Method' or B.P.E. for short.
"According to Dr. S. Tromp, a Dutch geologist researching for UNESCO, a dowser can chart an artificial magnetic field as tiny as 0.001 gauss units in a room, and that there is a body's reaction to water and minerals in the earth that can be clearly registered with an electrocardiograph. Other European scientists have noted that a dowser's body is actually reacting, recording a higher blood pressure and pulse rate while over a mineralized zone.
"While many theories have been put forth as to what actually makes the rod work, I am convinced that Theta plays the largest role. I can locate distant oil and gas areas working from a map, which puts it squarely in the realm of Theta ability."
Thank you Chuck. So there you have it folks - theta ability, the ability of a thetan as senior to the physical universe cause and effect.
But you say, "what about magic? That's where we came in with this article."
Yeah, what about magic? Can the whole subject be characterized as primitive folly? Well, since the most authoritative encyclopedia won't provide a definition, we will.
First of all let's differentiate magic from stage conjuring or legerdemain which is an entertainment based upon skillful deception and tricks.
The word magic comes from an ancient Persian word with a root meaning might, to be able.
So!
At this point we have the privilege of quoting from the works of L. Ron Hubbard for a full clarification of exactly what magic is.
"A magician postulates what his goal will be before he starts to accomplish what he is doing. The old magician was the great-great-great-grand father of your modern stage magician. But your stage magician doesn't usually know the old magician ever existed. The stage magician has a hat, a wand and bric-a-brac of various sorts. But he usually doesn't know where they came from. These are, in fact, pieces of ritual out of the 8th, 9th, 10th centuries.
"Each one of them means something terribly specific and the most awesome ritual in the world is associated with their use. The magician was very ritualistic and he would very carefully postulate what effect he was trying to achieve before he would be cause for that effect. That's the first thing he'd do. He'd ask, 'What am I trying to do?' Then he would make a statement of what he was trying to do. And having made a statement of what he was trying to do, he would just then initiate the steps necessary to accomplish it.
"If one did not do this, one would inevitably fall into this trap: he would become the effect of his own cause, because what he had eventually accomplished would seem surprising to him and desirable as an effect upon him.
"So he carefully stayed out of that rat race, and he had nothing further to do with it. Any time that he achieved any effect, he would say, 'You see? I achieved that effect.' He was still cause to that effect."
So magic has got to do with ritualistically postulating effects into being. In fact, you may wish to define it as the art or practice of ritualistically postulating effects into being.
Now we know why modern materialists scoff at magic. To them the only force that exists is physical universe force and the only changes that occur are brought about by physical causes. Supernatural in their world system becomes a bad word. You have been educated that magic, as an entire subject, is a lot of nonsense. But that's telling you your postulates don't work. That your intention is not senior to chemical reactions. Thus, you've been carefully educated to invalidate your own willpower and ability to postulate. So you see, with the definition of magic we are right back into the realm of theta ability.
L. Ron Hubbard has revealed the ultimate statement about a thetan's abilities in the first two axioms of Scientology:
"Axiom 1: Life is basically a static. Definition: A Life Static has no mass, no motion, no wave- length, no location in space or in time. It has the ability to postulate and to perceive.
"Axiom 2: The static is capable of considerations, postulates and opinions."
Now, what about ESP? (We mentioned earlier in this article that one authority thought the resolution of the mystery of dowsing would only be solved when ESP was understood.)
Extra Sensory Perception? You guessed it – any actual abilities ever described under the heading of ESP are simply theta abilities which fall under Axiom One and Two.
Through the works of L. Ron Hubbard all the mysteries have been solved!
Man has long searched for an understanding of himself and his own abilities. He has long been interested and involved himself in various fascinating solutions in an attempt to recover his power of postulate and intention. Recently in the last few centuries Western materialism has attempted to squash that interest and put a slave philosophy that all is mud in its place.
Through Scientology the earlier tradition that Man's potential is senior to the physical universe has been revived and clarified. Through Scientology Man can answer for himself the ultimate riddles of existence.
At last through the technology of Dianetics and Scientology each of us can recover his full native power to postulate and perceive. He can create for himself the position of being a triumphant winner in the game of life instead of a slave participant.
Certainly, any on-the-ball, 10th century magician would come up to us today and shake our hands.