Probably the key idea there is a systematic methodoology for subjective investigation – mapping feelings, sensing and so on. Most of the illustrations we’ve used for this have been either in dowsing – as in Disciplines of Dowsing, which, like the Time & Mind article, I co-authored with Liz Poraj-Wilczynska – or ‘perceptual mapping’ for archaeography, which we described in Time & Mind. But it’s actually generic: with a few tweaks to customise to each context, it could be used for any type of subjective investigation.

In essence, we split the context across two axes – inner/subjective <-> outer/objective, and ‘value’ <-> ‘truth’ – to give four distinct modes or dimensions, which we label ‘Artist’ (inner value), ‘Mystic’ (inner truth), ‘Scientist’ (outer truth) and ‘Magician’ (outer value). The point is that the rules and tactics we need to use in each dimension can be inherently incompatible with those of the others; but we need all of them to make sense of the whole. The methodology describes how to handle this conceptual juggling-act.

There’s a two-page summary (somewhat dowsing-oriented) at http://tetradianbooks.com/2008/09/disciplines-ref/ , and a lot more detail (but even more dowsing-oriented) in Disciplines of Dowsing, at http://tetradianbooks.com/2008/09/disciplines/ .

But I’d be very keen to adapt this to other fields of subjective research, such as we’ve already done for archaeology and archaeography. Could apply it in futures, for example, or marketing, or knowledge-management, or any part of the sciences in general wherever feelings or sensings or subjective impressions play any active part.  If that’s likely to be of interest to you, perhaps get in touch?

The catch is that although the journal pushes the envelope a lot – with articles, for example, on sensory archaeology, Timothy Darvill’s Landscape & Perception studies at Preseli, and an excellent argument by Robert Henshaw on the need to think in terms of ritual ‘imprecision’ as well as astronomical precision when assessing archaeoastronomy – it’s still a much more mainstream, academic readership than that for which I usually write. Hence the need to do things the academic way. Hence, this morning, drowning in data…

• excavation reports from Belas Knap over the past hundred and fifty years (for example, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for 1929-1938 – the main restoration of Belas was in 1929-1930, after being thoroughly wrecked in ‘excavations’ in the 1860s)
• all manner of assorted formal references
• rock art, archaeoacoustics, archaeography and deep mapping
• museum searches
• and, of course, all manner of ‘amateur’ sites – all of them interesting if sometimes a bit too much towards the ‘newage’ end of the scale

And that’s all in addition to my own stuff on methodology, and a couple of years’ work at Belas by Liz. And somehow I have to pull all of that together within the next two days, ’cause I’s already well overshot the nominal deadline, and that’s all the time I have left…

Wish me luck!

We describe it as being about dowsing, but in fact it applies right across the board to pretty much every type of subjective discipline – anything from dowsing to healing to archaeology to art and a heck of a lot more besides.

Main aim is to challenge the current frequently-abysmal standard of quality in dowsing and the various related disciplines. For example, my old field of earth-energies research is still not far off crippled by mangled misinterpretations of the supposed ‘Michael & Mary’ lines (Miller and Broadhurst – the original researchers – can’t be very pleased about that mangling, either), and perhaps even more by the dire influence of newage-laden nonsense such as ‘spiritual dowsing’ and the like.

P’raps more to the point, not so much to challenge the abysmal quality, but to make some concrete suggestions as to what to do about it, by providing a consistent framework within which something resembling disciplined quality might be possible to achieve… (Yeah, I admit I’m being a bit cynical, but I’m feeling more than a bit jaded about the whole field, to be frank… :wrygrin: )

In the meantime, Liz and I have been coming up with some new ideas and radically new techniques to link between dowsing, archaeography and archaeology. More details on that when the book’s out and done, though.

Quick summary of contents, if you’re interested:

• Introduction: Background; Dowsing in ten minutes; A question of quality
• Disciplines: The disciplined dowser; The dowser as artist; The dowser as mystic; The dowser as scientist; The dowser as magician; The integrated dowser
• Seven ‘sins’ of dubious discipline: The hype hubris; The Golden-Age game; The newage nuisance; The meaning mistake; The possession problem; The reality risk; Lost in the learning labyrinth; Cleansing the sins
• Practice: Fieldworker’s senses; Setup and fieldwork; Some worked examples

More later when we’re closer to publication, anyways.