Dowsing, Divining, Weather Witching Technology Explored.
2Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),[1] gravesites,[2] malign "earth vibrations"[3] and many other objects and materials without the use of a scientific apparatus. It is also known as divining (especially in water divining),[4] doodlebugging[5] (particularly in the United States, in searching for petroleum or treasure)[6] or (when searching for water) water finding, or water witching (in the United States).
A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones—individually called a dowsing rod, divining rod (Latin: virgula divina or baculus divinatorius), vining rod, or witching rod—are sometimes used during dowsing, although some dowsers use other equipment or no equipment at all. The motion of such dowsing devices is generally attributed to the ideomotor phenomenon,[7][8][9] a psychological response where a subject makes motions unconsciously. Put simply, dowsing rods respond to the user's accidental or involuntary movements.
The scientific evidence shows that dowsing is no more effective than random chance.[10][11] It is therefore regarded as a pseudoscience.
Dowsing originated in ancient times, when it was treated as a form of divination. The Catholic Church, however, banned the practice completely.[12]
Reformer Martin Luther perpetuated the Catholic ban, in 1518 listing divining for metals as an act that broke the first commandment (i.e., as occultism).[12][13]
Old texts about searching for water do not mention using the divining twig, and the first account of this practice was in 1568.[14][15] Sir William F. Barrett wrote in his 1911 book Psychical Research that:
...in a recent admirable Life of St. Teresa of Spain, the following incident is narrated: Teresa in 1568 was offered the site for a convent to which there was only one objection, there was no water supply; happily, a Friar Antonio came up with a twig in his hand, stopped at a certain spot and appeared to be making the sign of the cross; but Teresa says, "Really I cannot be sure if it were the sign he made, at any rate he made some movement with the twig and then he said, ' Dig just here '; they dug, and lo ! a plentiful fount of water gushed forth, excellent for 'drinking, copious for washing, and it never ran dry.' " As the writer of this Life remarks: "Teresa, not having heard of dowsing, has no explanation for this event", and regarded it as a miracle. This, I believe, is the first historical reference to dowsing for water.[16][17]
In 1662, divining with rods was declared to be "superstitious, or rather satanic" by a Jesuit, Gaspar Schott, though he later noted that he was not sure that the devil was always responsible for the movement of the rod.[18] In southern France in the 17th century, it was used to track criminals and heretics. Its abuse led to a decree of the inquisition in 1701, forbidding its employment for purposes of justice.[19]
An epigram by Samuel Sheppard, from Epigrams theological, philosophical, and romantick (1651) runs thus:
Some Sorcerers do boast they have a Rod,
Gather'd with Vowes and Sacrifice,
And (borne about) will strangely nod
To hidden Treasure where it lies;
Mankind is (sure) that Rod divine,
For to the Wealthiest (ever) they incline.
— Virgula divina
Modern dowsing
Despite religious disapproval, dowsing was practiced in Germany during the 16th century much as it is practiced today, when it was used in attempts to find metals.[20] The 1550 edition of Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia contains a woodcut of a dowser with forked rod in hand walking over a cutaway image of a mining operation. The rod is labeled in Latin and German; "Virgula Divina – Glück-Rüt" ('Rod Divine, Luck-Rod'), but there is no text accompanying the woodcut. By 1556, Georgius Agricola's treatment of mining and smelting of ore, De Re Metallica, included a detailed description of dowsing for metal ore.[21]
...There are many great contentions between miners concerning the forked twig, for some say that it is of the greatest use in discovering veins, and others deny it. ... All alike grasp the forks of the twig with their hands, clenching their fists, it being necessary that the clenched fingers should be held toward the sky in order that the twig should be raised at that end where the two branches meet. Then 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. ...[22]