Episode 120: Oil Psychics

CW: Societal Racism (nothing too bad)

Once upon a time, when oil was beginning to become a commodity, people crawled upon the earth to sniff-snort the essence of petrol up. It wasn’t until Abram James came along and revolutionized the practice by introducing a new method: being PSYCHIC.

Here is a really quick read from Jstor Daily about how the oil history got into using psychics and their various weird devices.

Now for this one, you need access through a library or school. I still have access through the school I did my graduate work at, but if you don’t have access to it, it is at least here for the posterity so you can see I used it. This one is just a deep dive into the history of spiritualism during this time in the US, James’ place in it inside the oil industry, and how he’s been relegated to a place of embarrassing footnote over time.

This one gives a really good look at Abram’s younger life and his exploits in the oil industry with quotes!

This article also talks about this history of the doodlebug and other oil finding devices by taking personal looks at some people who peddled them. This one also brings in the UFO craze we had early/mid 1900s.

Finally, if you’re looking for a deep dive into this subject, there’s this book you can pick up wherever you get your books from. It’s going to have all the same information we talked about on the podcast but in much deeper detail. Just click on the image to take you to where you can buy it.

From the description of the book: “What lies beneath the ground? Our poor eyesight cannot penetrate even an inch into the soil, so for centuries, fortune-seekers have tried every way imaginable to see below the surface. Whether searching for mineral veins, groundwater, or buried treasure, people have looked for ways to avoid the plodding and backbreaking process of digging. They have followed dreams, seers, dowsing rods, and advice from the spirit world. When petroleum became an item of commerce, oil-hunters took to all these methods. Many built homemade inventions called doodlebugs, which they said could detect underground oil.

It took a while, but science finally came up with its own toolbox of oil-finding methods in the early twentieth century. Finding oil is still expensive and risky, however. The old ways? They are mostly gone, but a few oil-dowsers still stride across fields with rod or pendulum, and no doubt people still consult dreams and psychics. And don’t pretend that you yourself haven’t wondered if that dowser might be onto something, or if that famous psychic can really tell where there is oil, or if that inventor stumbled onto a better way to detect underground oil.”