Dowsing - The Rods and the Pendulum

This Psychic Skill Locates Underground Objects and Answers Questions

© Jill Stefko

Mar 5, 2009

When the Pennsylvania Deutsch think of dowsing, they envision a man walking in a field, holding a forked twig in his hands. When there is water beneath the earth, the twig wiggles. They call it “water witching.”

The modern term for dowsing is radiesthesia. Dowsing is applied psi, the use of psychic abilities in mainstream fields.

Tools and Techniques of Dowsing

The three most common devices are:

• The pendulum is a weighted object hung from thread, string or yarn. The weight is tied to a piece of thread long enough so it can swing freely. Necklaces with pendants can also be used. The pendulum is held over the ground if one wants to locate something hidden by the earth. Walk slowly over the ground. When the pendulum swings, the object is in that location. To answer questions, the pendulum is held in the air and the question is asked. If it swings clockwise, the answer’s “Yes;” counterclockwise, “No.” If uncertain, the pendulum will swing back and forth.
• The L rod is stiff wire or a thin tree branched shaped like the letter L. Generally, tubing is placed on its short leg so it will rotate freely. The long leg is held in a horizontal position in front of the dowser so it can swing to the left or right in response to answers. The method is the same for locating underground objects.
• The Y rod is a thin tree branch shaped in a Y form. The dowser places both hands on either end of the branch and silently asks it to respond when what is sought is found underground. When the tool points up, down or vibrates, it indicates the desired object is found.

History of Dowsing

Dowsing dates back thousands of years. It's an art that has been practiced in a vast array of cultures over the centuries.

• Ancient Egyptian temple walls have etchings dating from 2000 BCE. They show pharaohs with devices that look like dowsing tools. The Cairo Museum has ceramic pendulums that are over 1,000 years old.
• Ancient Jews used dowsing. Moses and his son, Aaron, used a rod to find water.
• Historical records of Ancient Greece refer to dowsing. Homer referred to dowsing as Rhabdomancy, which means "Divining Rod."
• The art was widely practiced on the Island of Crete, dating back to 400 BCE.
• In the 1400s, Germans used dowsing rods to locate ore and other minerals.
• In 1650 English Philosopher John Locke wrote an essay about divining rods stating that one could use it for divination or to discover water and precious minerals underground.
• In the 1700s and 1800s in England, Germany and France various books about mining and engineering made significant references to dowsing.
• London’s 1912 edition of Mining Magazine published the first translation of a Latin work that praised dowsing into English. The translators were a professional American mining engineer and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Clark Hoover.
• In 1949, a party of French explorers was searching for evidence of ancient civilizations, in North Africa’s Atlas Mountains. They discovered the Tassili Caves. Walls were covered with pre-historic paintings. There was a gigantic painting of a dowser, holding a forked branch in his hand searching for water, amid a group of tribesmen. Carbon dating of the murals found then to be a least 8000-years=old.
• During the Vietnam War, Marines were taught to use dowsing as a method to locate underground land mines, mortar shells and traps.
• Today, major petroleum and mining companies use dowsing, a fact they prefer not to be publicized.

Related Reading

Readers may also enjoy Glastonbury Abbey and Applied Psi and Psychic Criminology.

Sources:

• Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, (HarperSanFransico, 1991).
• New Psychic Frontiers, Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff, (Colin Smythe Limited and New Frontiers, 1980).

"Y" Shaped Tree Branches Are Used for Dowsing

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