A young American woman had been living in a Southeast Asian country. She developed an earache and sought medical care at a modern hospital in an Asian city. One complaint led to another and an abdominal ultrasound [exam of the abdomen by use of sound waves] was ordered, then an abdominal CAT scan (machine that makes computer generated pictures of inside the abdomen). A diagnosis was made of a cancerous fatty tumor surrounding the right kidney that had spread to other areas of the abdomen. The woman was devastated with this diagnosis. The attending physicians desired to proceed with surgery, but she elected to return to America.
Her American doctor ordered a PET–CT scan, [a $5000+ test which is better able than the CAT scan to determine if cancer is present]. The test showed active tissue in the abdomen that could be cancer. A laparoscopic surgical procedure [looking in the abdomen by optics] was scheduled to be done. A blood test prior to this procedure revealed severe anemia (low number of red blood cells) which made it unsafe to proceed with surgery. Additional blood studies and another ultrasound were ordered in a further attempt to define the disorder. A repeat ultrasound exam of the abdomen did not add any new information. At this point the expenses had reached nearly ten thousand dollars and still the doctors were not able to determine the exact diagnosis.
Study results to this time could not differentiate between a malignancy and endometriosis, a non-malignant disorder. A laparoscopic procedure was done, which revealed tumors spread in various areas inside the abdomen. Biopsy of the tumors revealed cancer. Extensive surgery to remove as much cancer as possible was performed. Following surgery, treatment would be needed for many months in an attempt to control the disease.
So goes the story for many people seeking definite answers to medical problems in an age of very sophisticated diagnostic equipment and highly-trained physicians. Thousands of dollars can be spent and still the question remains as to the exact diagnosis which is so important in order that the proper treatment can be given, in the best sequence, to receive the best results.
Why not seek out some “alternative” style practioner with his Homo Vibra Ray instrument to make the diagnosis and treat at the same time with little expense? This machine is said to be able to read energy wave frequencies or vibrational energy of the cells of the body. (Such energy frequencies and/or vibrations from cells cannot be demonstrated by physical science.) However, this is a belief of some practitioners of alternative medicine. By tuning in to those frequencies, the machine is said to compare them to the assumed normal frequency. Then, by the operator spinning a few dials, frequencies are said to be sent back into the body to correct the body’s cell frequencies, correcting disease and restoring health.
Another choice is to find a holistic medical doctor who can pass his hands over the abdomen, or hold a pendulum above the abdomen in order to localize tumors. Questions can be asked of the pendulum, as it is held above the spot where it has located a tumor, as to whether or not the tumor is a cancer. The pendulum can spin clockwise if a positive answer is given, or counter-clockwise if it is negative. Any question under the sun can be asked and a “yes” or “no” answer can be obtained. The pendulum can be asked what type of therapy would be best. Should the answer be homeopathy, the pendulum can pick out the proper remedy.
This “alternative” method is quick, and non-invasive, and inexpensive compared to the above-described conventional medical tests and treatment. Is the machine and/or the
hands-on technique accurate? Can they be trusted? Why are scientifically trained physicians not using these techniques? Is it because more money can be made doing many tests? Let us proceed in a search for answers to these questions.
The following paragraph tells of incidences involving Christian church members and church institutional workers, as was related in a special report, New Age Movement and Seventh-day Adventists, written by the Biblical Research Institute, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, July 1987, for general reading by Seventh-day Adventist members.
A nurse corrected chronic constipation by application of her hands to her abdomen repeatedly during the day, to correct electrical currents. A mother swings a pendulum over her son afflicted with cancer to determine the herbs he needs for healing. A young person was tied to a tree so his back was against “its window” to effect healing; the window had been located on the tree by use of the pendulum. Women shopping for groceries use a pendulum to select the best products. “Books on iridology, a method for diagnosing disease through the iris of the eye, were on sale in a college-operated supermarket. Another popular volume on the same shelf was Magnetic Therapy: Healing in Your Own Hands, by Abbot George Burke. The author refers with approval to the studies of Dr. Franz Mesmer [from whom the term “mesmerism” derives] and traces his research through pagan thought to Isis, a famous goddess of ancient Egypt.”
The nation of Israel was admonished by God just as they were to enter the promised land:
“When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer–for these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.”
Caution was also given in regard to false prophets and their proclamations. “They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith: and the Lord hath not sent them:” “And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people….”
In studying the history of divination it soon becomes obvious that every civilization used some form of divination in an attempt to obtain knowledge. It is of ancient origin. Reading of omens is recognized as a very early divining practice. A child born with an abnormality might well be looked upon as telling something of the future. Reading the stars, and using the zodiac were common. Tarot cards, palm reading, crystal balls, and séances all contributed to the use of divination in daily life.
Dictionary definitions of divination are: “The art or practice of using omens or magic powers to foretell the future;” “unusual insight or intuitive perception.;” “A general term for various false systems for seeking supernatural aid, either for information regarding the future or for guidance in present affairs;” and from the Catholic Encyclopedia, “Divination is a form of occultism wherein the person uses objects such as tea leaves, a crystal ball, tarot cards, ouija board, or any superstitiously interpreted object as the means of attempting to gain or elicit knowledge or information that is beyond ordinary human intelligence. The attempts to contact the dead through a séance, for example, are spiritistic divinations that have been contested by parapsychological testing and proved false. Likewise astrology, witchcraft, zodiac readings or horoscopes are forms of divination. Although it is natural for human beings to attempt to ‘lift the curtain’ and see beyond the present, the tendency should be controlled lest it distract from the unfolded and true vision of God contained in His revelation to mankind.”
“But Laban said to him, ‘If I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination [some versions use the word “experience”] that the Lord has blessed me because of you.’” (Genesis 30:27). The Bible records the use of divination, but it does not always say what method was used. Does the Bible promote the use of divination by these stories?
Joseph had his cup placed in the sack of grain belonging to his brother Benjamin. He called it his divining cup. Joseph’s servant said to the brothers, “Isn’t this the cup my master drinks from and also uses for divination? This is a wicked thing you have done.” (Gen.: 44:5). When his brothers were brought to Joseph, he said to them. “What is this you have done? Don’t you know that a man like me can find things out by divination?” (Gen. 44:15). E.G.White, in Patriarchs and Prophets, page 229, states that Joseph never claimed the power of divination but he was willing to have them believe that he could read the secrets of their lives.
Over four hundred years later, God told the descendents of Joseph and his brothers that He was going to give them a land that others live in because those people were practicing divination along with other acts of which God did not approve. Their degree of iniquity had come to its full.
Israel did not heed God’s command to abstain from divination for we read that the divining rod was in use in Hosea’s day. “My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.” (Hosea 4:12).
King Ahaziah of Israel sent messengers to Ekron, a city of the Philistines, to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, as to whether the king would recover from his injuries. Elijah was sent of God to intercept those servants of the King and he asked them this question: (II Kings 1:3 NIV) “…Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?” The servants returned to the King who then sent fifty soldiers to bring Elijah to him. God sent fire down from heaven and consumed the fifty soldiers. The king sent another fifty and again fire consumed them. The next fifty asked Elijah for mercy and Elijah went with them to the King with a message from God. Elijah told the King that he would not get up from his bed because he inquired of Baalzebub and did not inquire of the God of Israel. (II Kings, chapter 1).
King Nebuchadnezzar was at a division in the road he was traveling with his army. He could proceed to Egypt or he could travel toward Jerusalem. He did not know which way to go first, so he had an animal killed and “read the liver” as a method of divination.
The use of various methods of divining has been presented such as the rod, cup and the liver. There are scores of other methods. Divination by astrology to establish medical diagnosis was also a common practice.
Is divining used in medical practice today? In the scientific method of medical care, divining is not used. It is used, however, by some of the “alternative” and “holistic” practitioners. This fact is to be found in the writings of those alternative disciplines. John Ankerberg and John Weldon in their book, Can You Trust Your Doctor? pp.100–101, lists the names of the different alternative healing disciplines that in their own literature state that some practitioners may use divining, these are: psychic healing, reflexology, herbal medicine, naturopathy, dowsing, iridology, color therapy, chiropractic, homeopathy, astrologic medicine, and therapeutic touch. The pendulum is the common method of divination.
The practice of divining using a rod, wand, or pendulum is ancient. No exact history is available to pin-point the start, but some drawings found in China show evidence of this practice at least in 1400 B.C. In the Bible (Deuteronomy. 18:9–14) which is dated around 1500 B.C., strong words of warning were given to the people of Israel concerning divining as they were about to enter Canaan. Divination was recorded in the Bible as having been used five hundred years prior to the writing of Deuteronomy 18. This passage does not state the method of divining that was practiced. In the Bible, it is recorded that divining by a staff was practiced in Israel around 750 B.C. (Hosea 4:12).
Divining with a rod can be considered the same act as using a pendulum. When was it first used in medical diagnosis? We do not know, but early in history the rod became connected with health and healing as evidenced by the following.
Greek Mythology shows ties to serpent power and the use of a “rod” when Apollo handed over to Hermes [Mercury] a magic wand. Homer, in his Odyssey, tells how this rod could send men’s souls to Hades or return them; it had power to bring winds and storms. Another name for it was “caduceus” and was shown as entwined with snakes. The rod was passed on to Aesculapius, the god of healing and has become the modern symbol of medicine.
The pendulum is one of the most frequently used methods of divination. It may be used in psychology to assess personality disorders; to make diagnosis in medical conditions; to choose treatments or medicinals; to find oil in the ground; to locate different metals in the earth, and most frequent of all, to find water underground.
Around 1900, a Catholic Priest, Alexis Mermet, who was a dowser for underground water and metals, concluded that dowsing should be able to be used in medical diagnosis for humans and animals as well. He wrote the book, How I Proceed in the Discovery of Near or Distant Water, Metals, Hidden Objects, and Illnesses. He makes the following statement, “I invented the method of ‘pendular diagnosis.’” It is unlikely that Mermet was really the first to use the pendulum in medical diagnosis, but at least he thought so.
A question was asked, why does a pendulum appear to react to a metallic substance or an underground water vein as well as to a simple act of thought–an action of the mind?
In 1806, a bright young German scientist, Johann Wilhelm Ritter, took up this question and while experimenting with a variety of pendulums on various metals, he noticed that the pendulum would swing in a specific pattern for each type of object over which it was suspended. He demonstrated that the swinging or rotating of the pendulum, when held at the top versus the bottom of an object, would give different directions of motion in the pendulum. He did this on the human body and mapped out different anatomical areas showing how the pendulum would spin in one direction and at other places it would reverse its direction of spinning. Because this reaction reminded him of magnetic characteristics he called this “polarity.”
Today, there are healers who teach that illness is a result of the polarity of an organ or of the body becoming disturbed and out of balance. They also teach that in order to bring healing, it is useful to apply magnets about the body. There are “magnetic healers” who apply magnets to the body to balance the polarity. Then there are other healers who do not consider polarity but apply magnets in various places for almost any symptom common to man. They may not have a philosophy as to how it works, but they say it works and that is good enough for them.