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issuing from the rocks below them. When directly over a forma- tion's edges, the positive needle on his machine climbs to a much higher reading than for the normal background, due to an anom- alous condition in the interface between the oil and the surround- ing material. “While the instrument is carried by car or on foot squarely across an oil formation of a kind known to geologists as a closed dome,” reports Bickel, "the graph continuously traced on paper looks like a cross-section of a volcanic crater. The raised rim cor- responds to the halo” of the circle- or ellipse-shaped dome. The central depression, the lowest level of the negative reading on the graph, marks the most likely spot to drill an oi) well. Bickel's device may not entirely replace existing oil prospecting methods known to trained geologists and field engineers, but he has been told by petroleum experts that when they first saw the device in action they felt as if they had been looking for oil blind- folded in the past. According to Bickel, important sources of underground water are also detectable by this new device. Thirty- six producing water wells were located with it during the first three years of experimentation. Bickel's inventions would have charmed Dr Armand Viré who, over 50 years ago, prophetically wrote: "We are not yet endowed with a means of mechanically controlling the dowsing signal, though this has been the dream of so many good-natured souls. But the idea is in the air and it is to be hoped that it will soon be realised. Contrary to what one might think, there are grounds to believe that many dowsers fear such a development. For among dowsers there are two categories: 'professionals' and 'theoreticians'. The latter work and experiment in the laboratory or on the ground with the sole ambition of widening our scientific knowledge and developing our industrial potentials. They thus view the advent of such an apparatus with anticipation. “Among the 'professionals', on the contrary, there are those who cannot see beyond an egotistical goal, and a perfectly legitimate one at that, of increasing their own per- sonal resources. These fear that any automatic dowsing apparatus will destroy the dowsing profession and cause its disappearance. In this they are completely wrong, for such Dr Armin Bickel and his instrument, photographed at Lompoc, California, in 1977. (Photo reprinted from The Divining Hand, by Christopher Bird.) Two shots of a large lemon grown by Dr Armin Bickel, compared with normal lemons. Bickel achieved this growth by treating the lemon tree's roots with a specific frequency of ultrasound. The tree then produces three to four lemon blos- soms where only one would normally bloom. When all but one of the group of flowers are plucked, the remaining flower then produces an outsized lemon, the stalk of which is also apparently strengthened such that the lemon will not fall from the tree. Bickel has also [apes | sunflowers up to 18 inches in diameter. A palmetto palm he treated ultrasonically grew more than twice the height of similar trees planted at the same time. (Photographs reprinted from The Divining Hand.) 40 « NEXUS JUNE-JULY 1996