More than 300 years ago, French dowsers hunted down criminals for hundreds of kilometers. Dowsing - the art of finding water, minerals or other items hidden in the earth - was already known then.
The ancient Greeks and other ancient peoples knew about this practice, but nevertheless, this art did not receive serious development until the 16th century, when it spread widely in France, despite the fierce protests of the hierarchs of the Catholic Church, who believed that it was directly related to witchcraft. Martin Luther included the use of the rod in his list of atrocities that violated the first commandment.
In common French "dowser" is "sourcier" (that is, the discoverer of springs, streams), but if you remove the letter "u", then the word turns into "sorcier", meaning "wizard" or "witcher".
Shortly before the end of the 17th century, a young bricklayer from Saint-Marceline in the French province of Dauphiné caused much discussion. Jacques-Aimard Verneuil is believed to be the first person to hunt down criminals with … a rod. For two decades, he gained a reputation for being able to find, in addition to water and minerals, many other objects and even people. At the age of 18, he found the body of a murdered woman, which had lain in a wine barrel for four months. His rod twitched when it was directed at the husband of the murdered woman, and he quickly confessed to the crime.
On July 25, 1692, a brutal murder took place in Lyon: a wine merchant and his wife were stabbed to death with a sickle in the basement of their house on the Place Neuf-Saint-Jean. An open fireproof closet was found in the apartment of the spouses; all ecu, louis and silver belt disappeared. Then the killers got scared of something and hastily fled. Local residents immediately remembered Emara. The king's attorney brought Verney to Lyon, to the scene of the crime.
According to the stories of contemporaries, Amar walked around the basement and quickly found a place where several things belonging to the criminals were located, including the murder weapon. The spectators were horrified when his rod began to tremble violently in his hands over the place where the two bodies lay. Verney himself, judging by the stories, could hardly restrain himself from fainting.
He then walked through the streets, holding some of the clothing of the murdered couple, accompanied by a curious and excited crowd. They arrived at the city gates at the bridge over the Rhone River, but the gates were closed for the night. The next day, Aimar crossed the river with three officials, and guided by his cane, led them downstream.
The group was unable to enter the military camp due to lack of passes and eventually arrived at the gardener's house. Inside, the twig began to react to an empty wine bottle, some chairs and a table. Aimar announced that they were looking for three fugitives. The gardener reported that some people broke into his house and drank 2 pints (1 liter) of wine. This was confirmed by the gardener's children.
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The persecution continued. The group drove south along the Rhone Valley for 241 kilometers and arrived in Boquer, a small town at the foot of a rocky cliff, and there - at the gate of the local prison.
The prison governor, interested in the progress of the investigation, summoned thirteen recently convicted prisoners. Aimar walked beside each with his own twig. It began to move when the dowser stood in front of a young, lame hunchback who had been imprisoned an hour earlier for petty theft. Aimar was convinced that this man had taken part in the Lyons assassinations, but was not in charge.
The hunchback was brought back to Lyon. At first he denied that he had ever visited the city, but when he was brought to the scene of the crime, he, as they say, "split." He claimed that he himself did not commit atrocities, but confessed that he was hired by two assassins, southerners from Provence, to help them carry off their booty.
The arrested hunchback was found to be a pirate from Toulon. He appeared before the judges and was condemned to the wheel, being, perhaps, the last person in Europe to be subjected to such an execution. The death sentence was read to him in front of the wine cellar and carried out in front of a large crowd. And the search for other criminals was resumed.
This time Aimard, accompanied by a detachment of riflemen, reached Toulon on the Mediterranean coast. With the help of his rod, he found out that the fugitives dined at an inn, and then plunged into a boat and sailed to the Italian port of Genoa.
Since the escort officers were not allowed to cross the French border, and Aymar was worried about how the Italian detectives would react to the dowser (despite the documents he had taken as a precaution to prove that he was a good Catholic), the search was stopped at this stage.
At the time, there was a widespread belief that acts of violence left traces on the environment and that things carry the special imprints of their owners or the people who dealt with them. Reading such traces is known today as psychometry.
But the actions of Emar, who read the trail for a week and for hundreds of kilometers walking at the same time through crowded streets, on water, and later on horseback, cannot be easily explained.
Emar acted in this way repeatedly, which led to the arrests of criminals. He believed that the rod acted selectively, moving to something that the user definitely wanted to find, and nothing else. For example, when looking for water, a rod ignores metal and vice versa.
Experiments showed that the rod worked in the hands of other people as well. But objections soon began to be heard, claiming that relying on this method to resolve the issue of guilt or innocence would lead to possible errors.
Pierre Lebrun, priest and teacher of rhetoric, wrote to Father Nicholas Malebranche, a renowned Cartesian scholar, informing him of "a strange practice that seems to be adopted by almost the entire population of Grenoble and the Dauphin."
Malebranche was generally against this art, no matter whether it is used to find some material objects, or is used to solve some moral problems. A public scandal followed.
On September 3, 1692, Aimard was summoned to Lyon to undergo an examination by the eminent physician Pierre Gamier in front of witnesses. Subsequently, a verdict was published - "Philosophical Treatise", in which Gamier argued that Emard's successes were caused by completely natural reasons. He stated that the tiny particles that killers breathe out during a crime are different from what they normally emit. These particles penetrate the dowser's skin and cause fermentation in the dowser's blood, increasing the heart rate and causing convulsions. In his opinion, these particles did not touch the rod directly, but passed directly into the hands, forcing them to twist the rod.
Gamier was supported by Dr. Pierre Chauvin, who announced in a letter that the particles remain in place, regardless of whether there was wind or some other reason that could move them. Chauvin disagreed that the particles acted directly on the dowser, suggesting instead that they stimulated his “animal instincts,” causing an unconscious contraction of the finger muscles.
Pretty soon, Abbot de Volmont Pierre Lorrain presented objections to these theories in his book Occult Physics, or A Treatise on Dowsing. The work caused a sensation when it was published in Paris in 1693. De Volmont believed that dowsing could be a great boon for humanity.
Emard, on the orders of the Prince of Condé, was brought to Paris to be checked again, this time by members of the Academy of Sciences. Six holes were dug in the garden; four were filled with various metals, the fifth was gravel, and the sixth was left empty and grass was planted on top of all. Aimar found gravel and an empty pit, but no metals. Aimar had also failed a few days earlier to track down the killer of the sentinel marksman, a certain swordsman. It is significant that his rod did not even move when approaching the place where the victim lay.
Emar argued that the rod would not move if the swordsman was very angry or drunk at the time of the attack, or if he had already confessed. The explanation seemed unconvincing, and Father Lebrun was quick to seize the opportunity presented to him. He wrote his own book, Letters on the Delusions of Philosophers about Dowsing, published anonymously in Paris in 1693. He used information that came to him from his immediate superior, Cardinal Grenoble le Camus, who opposed the use of dowsing in solving moral issues.
The Mandamus, or special injunction, was issued against the use of the rod. Several letters, some of them anonymous, appeared in the popular Parisian weekly "Mercure Galan". In April 1693 it was "A Letter on the Occult Philosophy of the Moving Rod", in August, "The Justification of Dowsing as a Natural Action" by Claude Corniers came out. Both prove that Emar, unfortunately, allowed himself too easily to be drawn into situations that compromised him.
Le Camus recalled how people begged dowsers to walk their streets to find out if their wives' honor had been "damaged." He wrote that as a result of this, "sniffing dowsing very soon spread throughout the city, along with all sorts of slander and blasphemy, causing such a fuss in several families that the Devil got a good reason to have fun."
In 1694, another priest, Claude-François Ménstrier, included an essay on the subject in his Philosophy of Mysterious Phenomena, inviting anyone who could provide information on how this or that dowser worked.
He concluded that the rod can answer questions about past and present affairs, but is not reliable for predictions. He also opposed using it in determining innocence or guilt.
To Lebrun's dismay, the first popular self-study guide, Jacob's Rod, written by Jean Nicholas, became a bestseller.
Lebrun sat down for a few years to produce another anti-drought essay, A Critical History of Superstitious Practices, published in 1702, and no doubt rejoiced when de Valmont's book was placed on the forbidden list issued by the Inquisition on October 26, 1701 …
But regardless of this, dowsing in France flourished, and a large number of priests, abbots and vicars, and even the bishop of Grenoble himself, undertook to study and practice this art.
Emar returned home, where he continued to work successfully, although he never managed to fully restore his reputation.
From the pedestal of a national hero, he gradually moved into the shadow of oblivion. But he, however, earned his place in the history of dowsing due to the fact that he greatly expanded its field of application - to the search for people. And also due to the fact that even after 300 years, the methods that he used are still not fully understood.