Haaretz on Netanyahu’s desperation

Astrology should not be confused with “rhabdomancy,” even though to those unfamiliar with history, the two may seem interchangeable. Astrology is the ancient cosmological study of the constellations of the moving celestial bodies in our solar system in relation to one another and their (perceived or actual) effect on world events, the character of individuals, or the nature of time, whereas rhabdomancy was originally a form of divination but is no longer used today for “fortune-telling”; instead, surprisingly, we learn the following:

Even today, some people consider the divining rod a suitable tool for detecting “water veins.” Diviners are hired by both private individuals and companies. For example, the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) employed diviners to search for water in well-construction projects. ASFINAG, the Austrian Motorway and Expressway Financing Corporation, which operates the network of motorways and expressways in Austria, also employed dowsers and pendulum users until 2007 as part of its efforts to reduce accidents, alongside other measures.

Sometimes modern dowsing rods are manufactured in the form of high-tech-style detection devices, but their mode of operation does not differ from that of traditional dowsing rods. In 2009, The New York Times reported on a device with an antenna that is used in Iraq to detect explosives and drugs. A review of the device revealed that it is unsuitable for detecting explosives and drugs. However, Iraqi Interior Minister Jehad al-Jabiri maintains that the device is fully functional.

AI says:

Very few famous people in world history are explicitly documented as believers in rhabdomancy, but several notable figures across centuries are recorded as having used, endorsed, or defended it—often in the context of finding water, minerals, or even in military or criminal investigations.

### Early modern and Enlightenment-era figures

– Georgius Agricola (1494–1555) – The great mining scientist described dowsing in De Re Metallica (1556), though he was skeptical and attributed the rod’s motion to the operator’s manipulation rather than any supernatural force.
– Sir William Barrett (1844–1925) – Professor of experimental physics and co-founder of the Society for Psychical Research; he investigated dowsers for decades and concluded there was a genuine, if unexplained, “cryptesthetic” faculty in some people.
– Sir William Crookes (1832–1919) – Eminent chemist and physicist who tested dowsers and reported that their powers seemed to fail when they stood on insulating materials like glass, suggesting (to him) an electrical or subtle-energy mechanism.

### Royalty and political leaders

– Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany – Reported in 1909 to have “availed himself of the divining rod on more than one occasion.”
– Adolf Hitler – During World War II, Hitler reportedly deployed thousands of water diviners to the Siegfried Line to locate water and ensure dry gun emplacements; he is cited among the practice’s high-profile defenders.

### Religious and mystical figures

– Abbé Mermet (Swiss priest, early 20th century) – A well-known continental dowser who used a pendulum/divining rod to trace routes of missing persons and crime scenes; his manuals were widely circulated in Europe.
– Moses (biblical tradition) – Some later esoteric and radiesthesia writers retrospectively interpret Moses’ staff (parting the Red Sea, striking the rock for water) as a form of rhabdomancy, though this is not a claim from the biblical text itself.

### Others

– Various miners and rural “water witches” – From 16th-century Saxony to 19th–20th century England, Cornwall, and beyond, countless unnamed dowsers were locally famous and employed by estates, councils, and even water companies.
– Literary references – Characters like Bathsheba Everdene in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd are depicted using rhabdomancy to choose a husband, reflecting its cultural penetration.

## Important caveats

– Many of these figures are cited by dowsing advocates and historical surveys rather than by their own detailed treatises on rhabdomancy.
– Skeptical scientific bodies (e.g., the U.S. Geological Survey in 1917) concluded there was no reliable evidence that rhabdomancy worked beyond chance, observation, and the ideomotor effect.
– Some attributions (e.g., Moses, ancient emperors) come from later occult or radiesthesia literature reinterpreting older stories, not from contemporary testimony.

AI clearly distinguishes such nonsense from astrology and compiles an (incomplete) list regarding astrology and world history:

## Ancient Near East and Egypt

Sargon of Akkad, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, Nabonidus, Nebuchadnezzar II, Cambyses II, Darius I, Xerxes I, Ptolemy III Euergetes, Cleopatra VII, Nectanebo II

## Greek and Hellenistic world

Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Hipparchus, Berossus, Apollonius of Myndus, Hippocrates, Galen, Posidonius, Chrysippus, Panaetius, Thrasyllus, Dorotheus of Sidon, Vettius Valens, Claudius Ptolemy, Firmicus Maternus, Hephaistio of Thebes, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Plotinus, Proclus, Synesius of Cyrene

## Roman rulers and intellectuals

Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Hadrian, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Diocletian, Constantine the Great, Julian the Apostate, Cicero, Varro, Nigidius Figulus, Manilius, Pliny the Elder, Macrobius, Rhetorius of Egypt

## Indian and Persian traditions

Varāhamihira, Āryabhaṭa, Brahmagupta, Bhāskara I, Bhāskara II, Bhoja of Dhar, Vikramāditya, Kaniṣka I, Māshāʾallāh ibn Atharī, Abū Maʿshar al-Balkhī, Al-Kindī, Al-Bīrūnī, Al-Maʾmūn, Al-Manṣūr, Hārūn al-Rashīd, Al-Muʿtaṣim, Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn, Ibn ʿArabī, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Timur, Ulugh Beg, Akbar, Jahāngīr, Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb

## China, Korea, and Japan

King Wen of Zhou, Duke of Zhou, Qin Shi Huang, Emperor Wu of Han, Sima Qian, Zhang Heng, Wang Chong, Ge Hong, Emperor Taizong of Tang, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Emperor Taizu of Song, Emperor Huizong of Song, Kublai Khan, Hongwu Emperor, Yongle Emperor, Kangxi Emperor, Qianlong Emperor, Sejong the Great of Korea, King Yeongjo of Korea, Emperor Kanmu of Japan, Emperor Go-Daigo, Abe no Seimei, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu

## Medieval Europe

Isidore of Seville, Bede, Gerbert of Aurillac – Pope Sylvester II, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Robert Grosseteste, Dante Alighieri, Geoffrey Chaucer, Christine de Pizan, Nicole Oresme, John of Saxony, Guido Bonatti, Cecco d’Ascoli, Arnald of Villanova, Pietro d’Abano, John of Jandun, King Alfonso X of Castile, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, Richard II of England, Edward IV of England, Henry VII of England, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Louis XI of France, Charles VIII of France, Catherine de’ Medici, Francis I of France, Henry II of France, Elizabeth I of England, James I of England, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, Christian IV of Denmark, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Pope Julius II, Pope Leo X, Pope Paul III, Pope Urban VIII

## Renaissance and early modern thinkers

Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Reuchlin, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Girolamo Cardano, Luca Gaurico, Michel Nostradamus, John Dee, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Christopher Clavius, Francis Bacon, William Lilly, Jean-Baptiste Morin, Johannes Schöner, Simon Forman, Robert Fludd, Athanasius Kircher, Jakob Böhme, Thomas Browne, William Harvey, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Isaac Newton

## Modern occultists, writers, and psychologists

William Blake, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Butler Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Aleister Crowley, Éliphas Lévi, Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Rudolf Steiner, Alice Bailey, Dane Rudhyar, Alan Leo, Evangeline Adams, Marc Edmund Jones, Paul Choisnard, André Barbault, C. G. Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz, James Hillman, Erich Bauer, Michel Gauquelin, Carl Gustav Jung, Theodor Adorno

## Political leaders in the twentieth century

Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, Charles de Gaulle, Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Sukarno, Suharto, Pol Pot, Muammar Gaddafi, Mobutu Sese Seko, Hafez al-Assad

## Important borderline cases

Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Maimonides, Copernicus, Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Jung, Pico della Mirandola, Al-Bīrūnī, Rudolf Steiner, Chinese emperors generally

Principal documented categories:

1. Professional astrologers, such as Ptolemy, Valens, Abū Maʿshar, Cardano, Lilly, and Kepler.
2. Rulers who consulted astrologers, such as Augustus, Tiberius, Catherine de’ Medici, Elizabeth I, Akbar, and several Chinese emperors.
3. Philosophers and scientists who accepted celestial influence, such as Aristotle, Aquinas, Ficino, Galileo, Brahe, and Kepler.
4. Qualified or symbolic believers, such as Plotinus, Pico, Jung, and Rudhyar.
5. People often incorrectly described as believers, especially Newton, Maimonides, Cicero, and Adorno.