Tromp, S(olco) W(alie) (1909-1983)

Geophysicist, director of the Bioclimatological Research Center, Leiden, Netherlands, and writer on parapsychological subjects. Tromp was born on March 9, 1909, at Djarkarta, Indonesia. He moved to Europe for his education and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Leiden in geology in 1932.

After military service (1932-33), Tromp was a field geologist for oil companies in Indonesia and Egypt from 1933 to 1940. During World War II, he worked as an advisor on oil explorations for the Turkish Government (1940-43) and then joined his country's war effort as the director of economic warfare, Netherlands Army (1943-45). After the war he held a variety of positions as an economic geologist. Related to his geological interests, Tromp specialized in the study of phenomena connected with dowsing (water divining) about which he wrote several articles and books. He died March 17, 1983, in the Netherlands.

Sources:

Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.

Tromp, S. W. Dowsing and Science. N.p., 1950.

——. "First Report on Experiments Concerning the Influence of Variations in the Strength of the Magnetic Field on Muscular Contraction." Dutch Journal of Parapsychology (January 1947).

——. Fundamental Principles of Psychical Physics. N.p., 1952.

——. "The Problem of the Possible Influence of Dowsing Zones on the Health of Men." Dutch Journal of Parapsychology (November 1948).

——. Psychical Physics. N.p., 1949.