An Excerpt from “Parsimonious Dowsers: Towards an Understanding of the Properties of Luck,” L. L. Sebald

(The Contemporary Review of Tychology, vol. 5)

…Which is not to contend that the enterprise is completely otiose, or irredeemable. Strides have been made, both by solitary researchers and – alas, less frequently – through a public model of scholarship. Setting aside the era of Greenwood and Caron-Dumas, most of the scholars have worked in isolation, without the bolstering of peers – or even the encouragement of rivals. Furthermore, doubtless to the dismay of Oldenburgistes, almost none of the research has undergone peer review. This journal, and publications like it, strive to remedy these matters. Yet it must also be said: in spite of the field’s decentralization, its near-geological pace of advancement, our community has enjoyed considerable cumulative progress.

In recent years, a growing debate has centred on methodology: whether tychologists should focus their energies on empirical data collection or on the advancement of theoretical work (see: Pagnucco, CRT v.1; Letters page, CRT v.2). It is my view that the challenges particular to Luck – primarily its scarcity – nullify such arguments. Pending a breakthrough with respect to origin, production or preservation of Luck’s raw material, our sphere is ill-suited to the qualitative/quantitative clashes that characterize similar domains.

Correspondingly, while the scarcity, utility and exchange values of Luck encourage theoretical or historical methodologies, it is important that real-world incentives not overwhelm the advancement of empirical inquiry. Man cannot live by fish alone. With so many questions unanswered, the past is not the only oracle available to us. Mysteries can be illuminated here, in the present, by what sits in mirrored boxes before us.

For example, a clear-headed application of the scientific method has been able to substantiate speculation: Luck and common sand are indeed essentially indistinguishable. Each is a heterogeneous granular material composed of particles of as many as hundreds of different rocks and minerals, predominantly silica (quartz), but also commonly limestone, feldspar, gypsum, mica, man-made substances like sea-glass and plastic, and vegetal material such as cork and wood fragments. Researchers have not isolated any substance that is necessarily present in Luck but absent in beach sand, or vice versa, nor have they identified any significant difference in the constituent proportions thereof. Moreover, years of experimentation have demonstrated the impotence of conventional diagnostic tools: X-ray technology, nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, electrical impedance, chromatography, Raman spectroscopy, and more, are all thus far unable to differentiate between Luck and the stuff of seasides and deserts. Luck is sand; except it isn’t.

Interestingly, Luck’s unique properties do not appear to survive major temperature, pressure or state changes. Although the material reacts to these physical forces in the same way as sand (cementation, vitrification), the resultant stuff is inert, lacking the original material’s distinguishing attribute.

That notorious, astonishing and slippery attribute is naturally at the heart of any tychological enquiry. Empirical approaches have proven particularly effective at understanding – or even occasionally manipulating – it. Take our most commonly used evaluative tool, the so-called Dice (or Chang) Test. The utility of this technique rests not only upon its simplicity, but on its obvious mathematical sturdiness. Together, these qualities are (usually) felt to compensate for the test’s failure rate (1 false positive in 46,656). The same principles have also allowed for the development of even more accurate tests: see our review of G. Smith’s ClockDrifter app in CRT v.4.

We have also been able to measure, at least in relative terms, the degree to which Luck makes one lucky. Loïc’s monumental discovery of a tychological constant transformed the field; his successors’ successive modifications have brought us to where we are today. Our historical forerunners in the Order of St.-Tropez, or among the Janissaries of the Silver Minaret, would have been staggered by the existence of an equation like the following, which allows us to describe the interaction of a quantity of Luck on a given probability (where K represents Loïc’s Modified Constant, p is the natural probability of a given event, and p’ is the probability after the application of m grams of Luck):

They would also have been grateful for our empirical certainty on a number of issues that they were unable to advance beyond a rhetorical frame:

1) that the more unlikely an event you hope to influence, the more Luck is required;

2) that although Luck can act across long distances, its results improve with proximity; and

3) that certain categories¹ of events require more Luck than others.

Experiments have also established that Luck’s probabilistic influence deteriorates with use. This dwindling – or “winnowing away” – of power can only be slowed by limiting the Luck’s exposure to other objects, people and probabilistic events. This is most often accomplished through the use of mirrored surfaces and containers.

Unfortunately there are other areas where scientific rigour has been unable to improve upon knowledge passed down through generations, its origins long lost. While it is unclear how Luck “chooses” which events it acts upon, we do know this “choice” can be influenced by human will. We do not know how, why, or whether Healey’s famous analogy – comparing the bond between Luck and humans to the one between ferrous metals and magnetic fields – correctly applies. But even here, persistent inquiry has reaped unexpected dividends: not only is Luck’s influence verifiably modulated by variables like physical proximity and mental concentration, but also, we know now, by its current ownership (see Khan, this volume).

Findings like these, sudden and bewildering, underline the potential before us. In a field where the most fundamental principles seem like acts of magic, much of this magic has yet to be uncovered. Furthermore – and crucially – much of this work can now be pursued at home or in an ordinary laboratory. No need to wait for antediluvian eye-witness accounts or unfurled papyrus scrolls. All that science requires is its method – hypotheses tested and re-tested. Alongside the delectable conjectures of Molleson’s Camelot theory, or Gélinas’s newly ascendant ideas concerning Luck and ambergris, there is room for patient, humble experimentation.

Whether Luck was ever grown or forged, whether there was one great mine or one thousand, or whether this substance still feels like something brought from another world (Narnia or Tlön, Philip Pullman’s dreams of Dust), what matters most is that it is here before us still. Everything we know about it is a testament to our predecessors’ collective curiosity – but also, I hope, a motivation for the work that’s yet to come.

1. Outcomes involving plants, for instance, are more “expensive” than outcomes involving only inanimate things. As Riudsepp showed in her monograph, the hierarchy continues: plants; most non-human animals; dolphins; large primates; a single human being; two human beings; three human beings; et cetera.