SPIRITUAL DOWSING by Sig Lonegren

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Glastonbury Archive and
Mid-Atlantic Geomancy
present
Spiritual Dowsing
a noteworthy book by
Sig Lonegren

Spiritual Dowsing
by Sig Lonegren

first published by Gothic Image of Glastonbury 1986-1996
dedicated to Terry Ross

About the author

was born in the United States in 1941 and has worked variously as a community organiser and teacher of English, Anthropology, Ancient Sciences and Dowsing. For six years he was Selectman (mayor) for the town of Greensboro in the North-East Kingdom in Vermont. He has an MA in Sacred Space from Goddard College in Vermont, is a past Trustee of the American Society of Dowsers and formerly head of their dowsing school, founding the ASD's first Earth Mysteries Group. He has spent the last twenty-five years studying ancient tools that enhance intuition. He is the author of Spiritual Dowsing, The Pendulum Kit, Labyrinths: Ancient Myths & Modern Uses, and The Dowsing Rod Kit. See Sig's Books. Sig has found that prehistoric sacred spaces can be used as modern tools for spiritual growth and for creative problem solving. He has headed the ASD Dowsing School, is a member of MapleDragon, teaches at outdoor educational camps in Britain for The OakDragon Project and runs occasional workshops and classes both in the US and in Britain, and is a Trustee of The Labyrinth Society. He has lived most of his life in Vermont, New England, and he now lives in Glastonbury, Old England.

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Acknowledgements

As a dyslexic, I have really had to rely on the help of others to spot spimple misteaks. I am grateful for the time and energy Dave Travers, Lee Dabney, Virginia and Sally Lonegren, John Miles Evans, and Tom Graves put into reading the manuscript and giving me their thoughts and corrections. I appreciate the work done by Ginnie Graham, Jan Graves, Cath Milne, Chesca Potter, Diana Griffiths, Martin Brennan, and Ian Thompson. Their illustrations illuminate the book in ways that words cannot express. Also thanks to Jennifer Cobb for proof-reading the final text. Paul Devereux introduced me to the Earth Mysteries in Britain, and I appreciate his taking me to sites and introducing me to so many of the EM folks. I also want to thank my publishers, Jamie George and Frankie Howard-Gordon who have given so many hours of their time helping me to bring this book together. But most of all, I want to thank Glastonbury for being here when I needed Her.

Ways of seeing

It is important to remember that not all Earth Energy dowsers 'see' these energies in the same way. Since Spiritual Dowsing was first published in 1986, dowsers Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst have dowsed the 'Michael Line' a geomantic corridor discussed later in this book, running from St Michael's Mount in Cornwall to the Northeast through many important sites including Glastonbury Tor and Avebury. Instead of the energy being straight as with the energy leys discussed here, they found two curving lines (called the Michael and Mary lines), like the serpents on Hermes' caduceus, crossing at the major points of power along the way. It's OK to 'see' it differently.

Contents

Foreword
The Tools of the Trade
The Pendulum; The Search Position; "Yes"; "No"; Tuning In; Chakras; Map Dowsing; The L Rods; The Y Rod; Animal; Vegetable; Mineral; The Bobber; OK, I've Felt at Least One of These Tools Move, But How Does It Work? Holograms; The Seven Levels of Dowsing; Level One; Level Two; Level Three; Level Four; Level Five; Spiritual House cleaning; Krebs Houses; Muscle Testing; The Aura; Level Six; Level Seven; The Sevens Chart

Dowsing the Earth Energies
Primary Water; An Agreement on Primary Water; Leys and Energy Leys; Sacred Space; His Story and Her Story of Alignments; The First Farmers; The Earliest Alignments; The Boyne Valley; Avebury; the First Signs of Western Man; The Romans; Pope Gregory and the Benedictines; The St. Michael's Geomantic Corridor; Heresies and the Witch Trials; The Medical Profession Lends a Hand; Dowsing and Heresy; Pseudo-geomancy; Gamla Upsala; Versailles; Pseudo-geomancy in Britain; Even as the Light was going out, it was coming on again; Peru; The Medicine Wheel; Feng Shui; Neo-geomancy; The Allied Psycho/Spiritual Counter Attack; Western Man vs. Indigenous Peoples; Dowsing and Archeology; Native Americans and the Anthros; Archeological Rape; Dowsing and the Devil; Overview of Alignments; New Skills for the Ley Hunter; The Light Turns Back On; The First Ley Hunter William Pidgeon; Norman Lockyer; Alfred Watkins; The Early Earth Energy Dowsers; Recent Earth Energy Work; The ASD Earth Mysteries Group; Sacred Space Your First Visit; L Rods and Map Dowsing; Dowsing at a Power Center; Dowsing the Energy Leys; Other Ways to Perceive the Energy; Aquarian Ceremony; The Talking Stick; Ceremony

Dowsing and Healing
Permission; Ego; Gathering Information; Holes in Auras; Dowsing and the Astral Body; The Bach Flower Remedies; Higher Level Dowsing/Healing; Filling Holes in the Aura; Polarity of Fingers; Being a Channel; Balancing the Chakras; The Earth Energies and Healing; Earth Energies Detrimental to a Person's Health; Spiritual House-cleaning; Diverting Veins; Earth Acupuncture; Mental Diversion

Glossary
Bibliography

Foreword

Sig with his colleague Patrick MacManaway

My interest in dowsing began in 1960 when my mother taught me how to dowse with wire coat-hangers using as a target the underground pipe that brought water into our house. I used my dowsing skills sporadically in the Sixties, and it wasn't until the Summer Solstice in 1970, when my Mom took me to see the sunrise over a standing stone in central Vermont, that I found a meaningful way to use dowsing in my life. On the evening before the Summer Solstice, we all gathered at Betty and Bob Sincerbeaux's home to hear dowser Terry Ross talk about things like the ley system, underground water and the ancient power centers. Archeo-astronomer Byron Dix was also there telling us about the Summer Solstice Sunrise at Stonehenge and other examples of megalithic astronomy. I'd never heard any of this before. It was fascinating!

Early the next morning, we went to a nearby sacred site, to go to an astronomical platform, to see the Summer Solstice sun rise on that day over a standing stone in a wall fifty yards to the Northeast. After parking the car, on the way to the platform, I came to a chamber of dry stone construction built into the side of the hill. It was covered with Earth, and had a facade of stone with a door in the center. The stone chamber inside was ten feet by twenty. Seven massive lintel stones served as the ceiling, in the back of which was a shoe-box-sized stone-lined rectangular hole opening to the dawning sky above.

Terry Ross briefly dowsed the chamber for Earth Energies, and then walked on to view the Summer Solstice from the nearby astronomical platform. I followed him and the others, but somehow I was drawn back into the chamber. As I had come for the sunrise, I returned shortly to the others at the platform, but once again, I found myself being drawn back to the chamber! Again I rationalized myself back to the platform. However, I was drawn back to the chamber several more times, until I finally became resigned to the reality that I might not see the sunrise that day.

So I stayed in the chamber and finally sat down at the center of the back wall and looked out of the front door. Suddenly there were twenty-two other people inside the chamber with me. These people had not filed in through the front door. They had simply just materialized. They had white skin, and some had beards; they wore white toga-like garments, and around the interior of the chamber they were sitting cross-legged on the floor in a regular pattern, with their backs to the walls. Three of them were sitting along the back of the wall, and the one in the center and I were sharing the same space! Bi-location. I was he. I felt literally at one with these beings.

Have you ever been meditating and become aware that you are having an especially good meditation? Then, when you say to yourself, "Gosh a rootie Buffalo Bob, isn't this great?" The answer is: "Not any more it isn't." When you become an observer, it's gone. That's what happened to me inside that stone chamber in Vermont. I said to myself something like, "Hey, this is really far out!" ("Far out" was 'in' back then in the early Seventies), and the 'people' in the chamber all disappeared.

I'm not even sure if the sun ever came up that morning, but the essence of that experience at Calendar II has been with me ever since. Spiritual people from the past, using the extra power generated by the Solstice, and assisted by the energies of the place and its geometry, had broken through time to come to tell me in a most impressive manner that these chambers were important for my spiritual path. I had been with these 'people' before, and they would be with me now.

Since that Solstice, spiritual growth has been my goal, and dowsing has proved to be an invaluable tool to point the way. I have learned a great deal about sacred space, and the use of the Earth Energies, astronomy, sacred geometry, chanting, crystals, ceremony, and other things that enhance the possibility of heightened spiritual awareness. I have also found that healing is an integral part of this inquiry.

This is a book for fellow travelers on the spiritual path who would like to see if dowsing can help them along their way. With the resurgence of interest in dowsing, there has been an expanded awareness of its potential. Many new and very old ways of using these ancient tools are being re-discovered. Now there are people dowsing for all kinds of things from tangible targets like water, oil, treasure, lost objects and lost children, to intangible targets like the Earth energies, the human aura and healing. We are now finding that we can dowse for anything the only limitation seems to be the dowser's imagination and level of consciousness.

Upon re-reading Spiritual Dowsing, which I wrote in 1986, I was pleased to note that, in many respects, this book still represents what I find when I dowse today. Many of the topics that were quite innovative when this book first came out in 1986, are today solidly emplaced in most intangible target dowsers' lexicons. Many of the workshop leaders at the 1996 American Society of Dowsers Annual Convention assumed (correctly) that the attendees were already aware of the concept of energies detrimental to a person's health and many other aspects of the Earth energies and healing.

I assume that the major reason why you are going to any sacred space in the first place is to, in some way, enhance your spiritual awareness or to do healing work in those realms. While learning to dowse, feeling the energies of the Earth is very important for someone who is new to this kind of work. But I must say that I now feel that the most important dowsing question a spiritual pilgrim can ask at the sacred space, after getting permission to be there, and creating proper protection (both discussed in this book), is: "Where is the best place for me to put my body within this space to enhance the possibility of achieving my goal of .......?" (fill in the blank.) I would encourage you to then go to that place, shut up (turn off your left brain you can turn it back on full-force later), pay attention, and be open to what comes.

One of my major goals for you as a spiritual dowser is for you to ultimately get rid of the dowsing tools themselves and to go 'deviceless'. If you are a novice in these areas, I would not encourage you to make this shift too quickly. The tools themselves provide an element of safety for the beginner. Dowsing is a tool that works as a bridge that can take you from the physical to the spiritual realms. But, when working in the spiritual, for each question, you must come back across the bridge to the physical world, ask the question, and see or feel the dowsing tool show the response.

Many neophytes get into trouble on that bridge, the zone between these two realms. This lower astral world is where the ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night hang out. Precisely because the dowser is required to make this journey relatively frequently, the novice will quickly gain a great deal of experience in going from the physical to the spiritual and back. This will prove to be a useful skill. Keep focused on what you intend to do and, having to use the physical dowsing tool, will work to protect you.

As far as learning more about dowsing, there is one enormous resource that did not exist for most of humanity in 1986, but which is readily available to most of us today. The Internet. There are all kinds of information about dowsing in cyberspace. Recently, I did a search on one of the World Wide Web search machines using the word 'dowsing'. There were over eight hundred entries, and I am sure there will be many more by the time you read this. See the section Organizations and Internet Connections at the back of this book for further information on this exciting new dowsing resource.

As this book explores the spiritual aspects of dowsing, we will be focusing on the intangible targets. This is a foreign concept for many people: looking for things that we can't touch, taste, see, hear, or smell. Like the three blind men 'looking' at the elephant, different Earth energy dowsers often find different things at the same sacred site especially if they were trained by different dowsing teachers. (I call this Sig's Hypothesis Number One). To the empirical scientific mind that operates in the world of repeatability, this is anathema. But, not to worry. Although there are some basic similarities that all dowsers should find, it is the differences that are so intriguing. These differences tell each of us, as individuals, what we are ready to handle, what we are ready to know.

Dowsing, then, is a way of knowing. (Actually, I'd rather say 'gnowing', but more of that later in the book.) It's no good to just read about dowsing, and not to experience it. This book is divided into two intermingling parts. The text gives you the intellectual food, and the exercises give you the practical experience. (That's gnowing.)

The exercises will be in this kind of type.

This is a visual reminder to please do all of these exercises. Do not try to 'do them in your head'. It is the process of actually experiencing them that is important. In fact, if you are not willing to undertake the dowsing exercises suggested in this book, please read no further. You will just be wasting your time. You will not have the tools at the end of the book to judge whether or not the material presented herein is relevant to you and your life. You won't know whether or not dowsing could be a useful tool for you as a spiritual traveler. Please do the exercises.

As I write this new Foreword, I have just been to the 1996 American Society of Dowsers (ASD) Annual Convention in Lyndonville, Vermont. When I first joined the ASD in the early seventies, the average participant at the Annual Convention was a sixty-five year-old male water-dowser wearing a coat and tie. By the eighties, it was clear at these Conventions that the average age of the participants had dropped fifteen or twenty years, women began to outnumber men, the dress code standards had changed or dropped (depending on one's point of view), and topics like healing and the Earth energies were challenging the water dowsers for the major interest of the Society's membership. Now, at this Convention in the mid-nineties, of the six or seven workshops that I attended, while they all dealt with the topic of dowsing, only one teacher actually brought out and used a dowsing tool! Deviceless dowsing is here. And now, there are a considerable number of participants in their teens, twenties, and thirties. This is very heartening for dowsing. The word is spreading. More and more people of all ages are finding out about dowsing, and many are using this ancient tool on their spiritual path.

May this book assist you in some small way on yours.

Sig Lonegren
Lughnasad
August 1996

Next: The Tools of the Trade

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