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Definition: A form of divination, dowsing involves using some stick, rod or other device to locate things underground - usually water, oil, or buried treasure. Dowsing for water is also called water witching.
One of the earliest references to what we know today as dowsing can be found in the 1556 text De re Metallica, written in Bohemia by Georgius Agricola. In it he describes the ability of some people to discover veins of ore by means of a forked twig:
They ...wander hither and thither at random through mountainous regions. It is said that the moment they place their feet on a vein the twig immediately turns and twists, and so by its action discloses the vein; when they move their feet again and go away from that spot the twig becomes once more immobile.
Dowsers have been known to use forked twigs, bent metal rods, and even their bare hands. Various terms for their tools include: medicine sticks, doodlebugs, wizard rods, motorscopes, gudgeons, leaping rods, rotating rods, dipping rods, and of course dowsing rods.
Dowsing for various substances probably first came to the United States during the 18th century with early German immigrants, although it could be found just about everywhere by the end of the 18th century. It was used not simply to find water but also any other object of value, like mineral ore, buried treasure, and lost personal items. It is important to note the fact that most dowsers came from the lower socio-economic classes. This was typical of all such occult practices, behaviors which "higher-born" people refused to engage in.
The most common uses for dowsing have been to find water, oil, and buried treasure (both mineral and human). But dowsing has been used for a wide variety of other purposes, including: medical diagnoses, narcotics detection, determining mechanical problems, compass direction, locating archaeological sites, finding animals, finding various lost objects (jewelry, wallets, photographs, etc.), find property lines, track the paths of storms, astrology, track criminals, determining whether certain plants are edible or poisonous, determine a spouse's fidelity, hiring employees, locate termites, etc. The basic uses appear to be endless - just as are the "tools" which dowsers employ.
Dowsers have offered all sorts of paranormal explanations and even scientific explanations (like some form of magnetism) for what happens (and some insist on paranormal explanations, like ESP), but that presumes that dowsing actually works. In reality, no controlled, scientific experiments have ever provided evidence that a dowser can find hidden water, oil, gold or anything else. Experiments performed by the American Society for Physical Research in 1949 tested 27 alleged diviners against a water engineer and a geologist. The two scientists were quite successful in finding water while the dowsers failed completely.
The actual explanation is more likely unconscious movement on the part of the dowser - someone who can identify likely locations of water through geographic and environmental cue will unconsciously move the twig themselves. That this happens has been proven by attaching measuring instruments to both the rod and the wrist of the person in question. The results demonstrate that the rod moves after the muscles move.
Also Known As: rhabdomancy, water witching, motorscopy, psychoscopy, radionics, radiaesthesia, geomancy, psychometry, psychogenic water location, biophysical method, teleradiaesthesia, superpendulism
Alternate Spellings: none
Common Misspellings: none
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