In 1892, Professor W. F. Barrett, yielding to the earnest request of the
Council of the Society for Psychical Research, began an investigation of
the matter. It was with considerable reluctance that Professor Barrett
undertook the work, since, as he has told us, his own prejudice against
the subject was not less than that of others. He hoped, however, that a
few weeks' work would enable him to relegate it
"Into a limbo large and broad, since called
The Paradise of fools."
Six years later Professor Barrett presented to the Society a voluminous
report, which occupies a considerable part of two volumes of the
"Proceedings." Embodied in this Report, which is a veritable masterpiece
of patient and indefatigable research, is a mass of evidence so vast
that it is only possible to pick out a case here and there at random.
The following case was sent by Miss Grantham:--
"100 Eaton Square, London, S.W.,
"February 1st, 1893.
"My father (Judge Grantham) was going to dig a well on one of
his farms. The Rev. J. Blunt was then residing in our parish,
and as he had previously told us he was able to discover the
presence of water underground by means of a twig, we asked him
to go with us one day to see if he could find water. Mr B.
began by cutting a twig out of the hedge, of hazel or
blackthorn, V-shaped, each side about eight inches long, then
taking hold of one end in each hand between the thumb and first
finger, and pointing the angle to the ground, he walked about
the field in which my father proposed digging a well, and at
two spots the point of the twig turned right up, exactly
reversing its previous position; in fact so strong was its
impulse to point upwards, that we found that unless Mr B.
relaxed his hold the twig broke off near his fingers. We put
small sticks in these spots, and then took a boy about twelve
years old who was in Mr B.'s employment, and who had since
quite a child shown that he possessed this power, over the same
ground; he had not seen the spots at which Mr B.'s twig found
water, neither did we point them out to him, but at these
places his twig behaved in the same way as Mr B.'s. My father,
mother, and four or five others, then cut similar twigs out of
the hedge, but with none of us would they divine water. My
father then took Mr B. over some ground where he knew of the
existence of an underground stream; he did not tell Mr B. this,
but directly Mr B. passed over the places the twig again turned
upwards as it had done before. A well has since been dug at one
of the spots in the first field where the twig indicated water,
and it was found at the depth of fifteen feet. Mr B. and the
boy both said that they did not feel any abnormal influence
whatever when the twig divined water.
"EMMA L. GRANTHAM."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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