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INVESTIGATIVE FILES
I'm not an archaeologist but, as something of a jack of all trades, I have participated in some archaeological investigations and digs, including a forensic one that unearthed hidden skeletal remains and a bullet (Renovation 1981). In short, I know enough to appreciate what a boon psychic power would provide to the field - if such power were actually to exist.
Psychic Archaeology
Certainly, there are many who believe in "psychic archaeology" - the supposed "application of clairvoyance and other psychic skills to the field of archaeology, especially in the location of dig sites and the identification of artifacts." It may involve psychometry (in which an object is used to obtain psychic "impressions"), dowsing (divination with a device such as a rod or pendulum to locate hidden things from a site or map), automatic writing (in which spirits of the dead or other sources supposedly guide the hand to produce messages), or some other alleged psychic mode (Guiley 1991).
What has been termed "perhaps the first, best-known case of deliberate psychic archaeology" was launched in 1907 by Frederick Bligh Bond in excavations at England's Glastonbury Abbey. Unknown to the Church of England officials who appointed him, Bond was an occultist who turned to a friend's automatic writing for help in locating the ruins of two chapels. Soon "Gulielmus Monachus" ("William the Monk") and other spirits, including "watchers from the other side," were tapping the "Universal Memory" to provide the necessary site information. Bond's excavations were successful, but when he eventually revealed his methods in 1917 the Church was embarrassed and he was forced out, ending the work in 1922 (Guiley 1991).
Archaeologist, skeptic, and CSICOP fellow Kenneth L. Feder - in his Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries (1996, 198) - points out the problem of possible prior knowledge in such cases. "Bond was an expert on medieval churches," notes Feder, "and we know that he had access to and had examined many of the documents, maps, plans, and drawings of the abbey before initiating field research." Moreover, Although much of the abbey was a ruin, some walls and foundations were visible at the surface." The locations of the chapels, supposedly identified for Bond by spirits, were already generally identified in old documents, and previous...