radiesthesia (clairvoyant healing, medical dowsing, medical radiesthesia)

Method of ostensible diagnosis and treatment selection. The word "radiesthesia" is the anglicized form of radiesthesie, an apparent euphemism for "dowsing" coined by the Abbe Alex Bouly in 1927. It literally means "perception of radiation." Dowsing (see above; also called "biolocation") is a clairvoyant "art" centered on finding water, minerals, animals, missing persons, lost objects, or hidden treasure, usually with an instrument such as a pendulum or divining rod (a forked rod or tree branch, or a bent wire). "Radiesthesia" may refer to: (a) all forms of dowsing; (b) medical dowsing specifically; (c) dowsing and radionics; or (d) the ability to detect "biological radiations." Bouly and two other French priests--the Abbe Alexis Mermet and Father Jean Jurion--pioneered medical dowsing. Mermet's hypothesis was threefold: (1) everything emits radiation, (2) "some kind of current" flows through human hands, and (3) holding appropriate objects renders them revelatory tools. There are two basic "diagnostic" modes of radiesthesia: In one, practitioners supposedly detect and diagnose illness simply by passing their hands over the patient. In the other, they hold an "instrument" (see "pendular diagnosis") over the patient or over a sample of tissue or body fluids, a photograph of the patient, or one of the patient's belongings (e.g., an article of clothing). In the latter form of radiesthesia, practitioners base "diagnosis" on the movements of the "instrument."