The NYT today reports on how the California drought has meant lots of work for dowsers, also known as "water witches." What do you think about dowsing? I have a little bit of experience with it.
When I was a kid, my dad had some rental properties, and would sometimes be called out to fix broken water lines. He'd need to know where the underground water pipes were. I don't know where he got the idea, but he would dowse to find them. He'd take two thin wires -- straightened coat hangers, usually -- and bend them at a 90 degree angle near one end. He'd put the short end in each hand, make a loose fist, and bring the fists together. The long ends of the wires would be pointing out, parallel to the ground. He would hold them loosely enough so that they could move freely.
And then he'd walk in the direction of where he thought the pipes were. Without fail -- seriously, without fail -- when he'd step over the underground pipe, the wires would cross.
He had me do it too, and it worked. But here's the weird thing: whenever I would cross over a water source, rather than cross each other, the wires would shoot apart, in the opposite direction.
My sister, who is in most ways like my father physically and emotionally, had the same reaction with the wires as my dad. My mother, whom I resemble more than my father, had the same reaction as my dad. I can't imagine why.
Here's the really freaky part.
My father discovered by accident that the dowsing technique works to help find lost graves. Out where they live, there's a cemetery, the oldest part of which predates the Civil War. The gravestones were lost over the decades, and the grass and underbrush grew so uncut for so long there that it was impossible to discern where the older graves were. The cemetery board, on which my dad sat at the time, needed to know this for surveying purposes. But how were they to figure this out?
My dad got out his dowsing wires, and found them. Sure enough, whenever he'd step on a piece of ground that had a grave under it, the wires would cross. He tested this in the known cemetery. The wires behaved the same way. When I came home to visit from Washington (this was in the 1990s), he took me to the cemetery -- both the known one and the hidden one -- to see if it worked for me. Indeed it did -- and, just like with the water business, the wires separated when I stood over graves.
That kind of creeped me out, and I didn't want to mess with it anymore. My dad doesn't think there's anything spiritual or supernatural about this, that it's just some form of magnetism that we don't fully understand. I'm inclined to agree. One thing I do know for sure is that this stuff works. Why it works and how it works, I dunno. But I've seen it and done it.
I have heard that some people use dowsing in an attempt to divine the future. That is certainly forbidden to Jews and Christians, because it does involve communing with dark spiritual forces. But looking for water? I think there must be a materialist explanation. What do you think?
UPDATE: Mark Shea has a reader who points out that the Vatican has been dowser-friendly in the past.
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Dowsing works. Think I have found out that dowsing is all in our minds. I think what I want to find and it works, graves water what ever. Stand on a marked or unmarked grave and think male? no responce then think female(rods turn) same goes for age and orientation. We are accessing the universal knowledge. I dowse water for people so far so good. Be humble is the key. It's our left hemisphere brain that does the work. Cheers
About dowsing:
there is a reasonably logical explanation for dowsing which doesn't invoke any supernatural explanation. A radio engineer in the UK experimented on himself, using the famous wire coat hangars, to test his theory that water radiates, and that the human body can respond. This response causes the muscles in the arms to contract in such a way that outstretched wrists will turn imperceptibly inwards. The natural consequence is that gravity will cause the two wires to dip downwards, and thus cross. This much is easily tested with just wires - no need for water - turn the wrists inward and the wires dip and cross.
He covered his torso with an aluminium "cloak" to shield the supposed radiation, and cut apertures in it to try to identify just where the body reacts, and found a two inch diameter area in the back which appeared to be sensitive.
Next he used his radio engineering knowledge to build a transmitter
in the range of freqencies he thought must be applicable. This device was demonstrated in a BBC television program: the transmitter was planted on one side of the River Thames near London, and from the other side he was able to row directly towards it. He said he just had to keep the boat heading in such a way that he could feel a sensation in his back.
A series of subsequent tests suggested that about one in three of us has this capacity to dowse, and it's not unreasonable to suppose that it was universal at some time in our past, but has largely atrophied from disuse. Finding water in the wild may be a matter of life or death.
Being curious, I tried the wires for myself - it worked remarkably well and, as it happens, allowed me to find a main water cock buried under years of vegetation in a ditch near our country cottage. I walked along one side of the lane and chalked a mark where the wires crossed. I repeated this on the other side of the lane and marked again - this mark was about three yards further on. Stretching string through the two marks and extrapolating into the ditch, located the water cock within inches. Builders had been searching for several days. One of my two daughters, who resembles me in many physical ways, can dowse; my wife and other daughter, who more resembles her mother, cannot.
Having only experimented with water, I have no comment on locating metal objects or graves.
Limey
Being curious, I tried the wires for myself - it worked remarkably well and as it happens allowed me to find a main water cock buried under years of vegetation in a ditch on our country cottage. One of my two daughters, who resembles me in many physical ways, can dowse with this method; my wife
NBC News in Washington, D.C. will be covering "Dowsing" - March 9, 2009, at 11:00 pm, EST, for all you well wishers and yes it does work people interested in dowsing. ginette matacia lucas
The Conspiracy Theory on "dowsing" is laughable...it works, people need to try it, and get the facts. glm
Questions about dowsing paranormaladvisors.com or louismatacia.com or matacia1111@yahoo.com
Yes, dowsing works, just open your mind and... try it! You may not get perfect results at first (if ever), but it's definitely worth trying and it's fun, specially for kids (and kids at heart).
Ask a dowser to attend and organize a weekend of fun dowsing games - you will see kid's faces light up and you may learn a bit in the process.
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