Divination is a practice of folklore and traditional old-time wisdom to use natural objects like a forked green twig to locate buried material, specifically water. But this method is said to also be used to find metals and ore deposits, minerals/gems, etc, caverns, caves and buried pipes and so forth. In the late 1960s during the Vietnam War, it is known that some U.S. Marines used divining techniques in an effort to locate buried weapons and enemy tunnels. The success or failure of these attempts is not reported. One success meant a minor victory. Just one failure probably meant immediate disillusionment of the effort, especially if casualties and deaths were the result.

Using a “Y”-shaped green twig about the diameter of a pencil, the dowser holds the twin handle under a tortuous load, and ‘scans’ the ground. Questions can be asked of the twig for a purported response in the form of movement, up or down, left or right. Some people can dowse without the use of artificial aids such as twig or wire, but generally an object is used. Not everyone can do this successfully even with the tool and the training. It makes a difference in whether or not you believe the results to be possible and that makes or breaks any success of this divination. I tried it many times on my own unsuccessfully until an adept showed me the proper way to do this. And quite surprisingly, as soon as I used the specific methods he instructed, I felt the immediate, replicable results.

Divination or Dowsing Is An Ancient Art

In the above woodcut image, it appears that divining was being used here to locate metal ore. The number of diviners and the number of holes would suggest widespread acceptance of this practice, or perseverance in the face of repeated failures. The seeming lack of target material in the woodcut seems to suggest less-than-optimal results. Sometimes, these old woodcut images reveal things that aren’t reported in the texts describing them. I recall seeing a similar woodcut image of an alchemist’s shop. Alchemy, -whose main purpose was to turn base-metals into gold. In that particular woodcut image of the Alchemist’s shop, in the back of the room in a glass case was a set of delicate mass scales. This is unusual in Alchemy, the use of scales for determining mass, as changes in mass in Alchemy were deemed unimportant. So, there was a ‘hint of truth’ being sought in that particular image. At least, one of the tools for finding the REAL truth was present, hopefully, being used and appreciated. The use of a pendulum or other such bobber in finding a water well has been around for centuries.

The practice of dowsing has been around since ancient times and is still practiced, although scientifically it is reputed as having no merit or validity whatsoever. Cited are the instances of incorrect results or, -how can a twig find

• a) water
• b) metal/minerals, or
• c) buried caverns/void space

using just the same inert tool? It is like using a wind-vane to correctly determine that yes, the wind is blowing. But using the same wind-vane to determine what temperature the air is? Or what the air is composed of? It won’t work. It is the wrong tool for that purpose. Therefore by extrapolation, the notion of the divining rod’s ability to locate water, or metal, mineral or subterranean cave, must also be incorrect, seems to be the dismissive scientific view.

If I tried to find water using a divining rod and found a vein of gold instead, -that would not prove that water-witching finds underground water. And the converse would also be true. -Search for gold using a forked stick but find a unique and singular source of potable water? Again, fail. Wrap your head around that for it is an interesting paradigm. The results can always be made to fail the test, no mater what the results are. Just and non-believer will tout, using a forked stick under tortuous load, they too can ‘make the stick move up and down’ as well, but consciously. Well yeah, cheating. Well yeah, -anybody can fake it. That does not mean that the adept is incapable of wielding this tool correctly and with mindful goals aforethought.

How to Water-Witch

Using the “Y” shaped twig, usually of hazelwood or willow, green and freshly-cut. I prefer the ‘wrists-up’ method, shown here. I tried ‘wrists-down’ like the woodcut image at the top of the page, but get no results.

The hands are placed upon the handles and an outward torque is applied to the fork. This imparts a slight ’spring-load’ to the device, perhaps energizing it to the purpose. It needs to be ‘fueled’ by human willpower, and potential force. If you lie the stick on the ground, certainly it will not bend and point to ’seek water’ unattended. It needs to be held by an adept, and held properly with a definable purpose.

I learned how to do this back in the 1980s, and to my surprise, there really does seem to be a ‘downward pull’ when passing over certain sections of ground being tested. While admittedly it is entirely possibly to cast a well in some regions and always hit water, it stands as a curious feature that several people testing the same ground can often experience the same results in the same very specific area. That particular ‘tug-tug-tug’ on the pointy-end of the twig is an acquired sense. It is similar to fishing for that coveted lunker of a trophy fish and having little nuisance whitefish (sunfish, bluegill, minnows, etc.) nibbling at the baited hook. You can ‘feel’ this little vibrations in the fishing rod and the adept fisherman knows that it is just pesky mini-fry teasing the hook and not that sought-after lake trout. The sensation in the forked twig is very similar. Once you have felt it, you can scarcely believe that you missed not feeling it before! It is that profound!

Those whom do not believe in divining often cite the diviner’s lack of training in geology and hydrology therefore; they know not how to locate water. It’s the old ‘trust me, -I’m a scientist and you’re not’ mentality.

On the other hand, there are diviners whom claim 100% success rates, claim to predict gallonage, artesian pressure and target depth and are too often proved wrong. They do believers and practitioners more harm than the regular critics and disbelievers of the art. The overly-confidant diviner then retorts that the drilling effort ‘collapsed the rivulet,’ or that ‘the stream diverted’ due to the weight of the drilling platform (having crushed the porous strata,) whatever.

 The most oft claim when finding water has failed is that the water-well driller did not dig deep enough. Who knows? Perhaps the diviner was seeking water and was instead attuned to a natural coal deposit or some other unusual sub-strata mineral? While a 2-inch wide core sample from 400-feet deep would tell a geologist more reliably about the strata ground than a diviner with a quivering wet willow twig, sometimes a water-witching search finds water in places that geologists and well-diggers said that none would found. For me, this is really no more definitive proof in favor of, than a failure for a water-witching to find water is confirmation for the skeptics.

Can Dowsing Find Underground Tunnels?

I have used the bent-wire method myself and have personally not had much success with it. The method is to hold the short ends of a metal rod, preferably made of brass, side by side. By slowly passing these over ground being tested, any ‘underground void’ below your body will cause one or the other rod to swing to the side. As I said, I have not success with this, but my father has and used this method before to locate a misplaced drainpipe in the place where he used to work. The drainpipe had to be extracted from the cement floor, but the blueprints for the build were missing so the engineers were ‘guessing’ at the location. And they missed the pipe entirely.

Upon digging and tearing up the cement floor quite a bit, my dad offered to ‘witch’ the area with two brasing rods. A brasing rod is made of brass, covered with a hard powdered flux. Using a hammer, dad pounded the flux off of the two rods and bent them similar to the image above, and using the side-by-side method, located the pipe. Every time one rod swung sideways over or under the other, it was a ‘hit’ and the position was marked on the floor. Dad traced the direction and length of the pipe with his boot upon the dusty shop floor.

Of course, the engineers laughed at the notion and said that the marked site was way, way off from specs, but they did a test dig on the floor …just to be sure. And you know what? They FOUND the pipe! Exactly where dad indicated it would be, some 12-inches deep and 8 or 10 feet away from where the engineers were mistakenly digging!

While again, not proof-positive, a success like that is better than ‘random chance’ and it really makes one wonder.

Images: Wikimedia commons public domain images

For centuries, rational people have been practicing and believing in something with no rational basis. I wonder why? I am intrigued by its applications in my quest for gold. Is divination a gift of paranormal power or a developed skill? What do you think?

Practiced around the world, the age old skill of dowsing, also known as water-witching, doodle-bugging or divining, is a practice that attempts to locate buried or hidden minerals, metals, gemstones or water by sensing and interpreting currents of earth radiation without using any scientific equipment. 

Established in folklore and cultural traditions, divination has been part of the myths and legend of people from around the globe. As early as 5th Century B.C. Chinese texts describe water witching then much as it is practiced today. As early as 1568 the divining rod was applied in southern Europe in the elusive search for water. 

Traditionally dowsers have employed a Y shaped twig or branch, using fresh cut branches from particular trees. In Europe hazel trees were preferred. In the United States dowsers often choose yew, willow, apple or peach branches. Many modern dowsers may use a simple L-shaped rod, with brass or copper being the metals of choice. Some diviners simply use bent wire or wire coat hangers. 

Map dowsers often employ another type of divination device, usually suspending a crystal or pendulum, over maps to locate oil, minerals, persons or water. However, when we think of water-witching we picture a field dowser that patiently walks about a given area using a forked stick or rods to locate underground water. Where the branch quivers and points downward, water will be found. Many witchers are able to not only locate underground water, but to estimate its depth, describe the sediment and rock layers above it, and accurately predict the number of gallons per minute that a well will yield.

Typically rod dowsers will hold one rod in each hand, with the shorter part of the L held upright and the longer part pointing straight forward. When the rods are above water, the rods will point downward or cross. Unconscious muscular action by the dowser is thought to move the rod. Amazing! I have seen it done. When the well was drilled the water was sweet and plentiful! 

Throughout its long history, dowsing or divining has been steeped in superstition and a complex web of controversy. Some critics call water witching a delusional and deliberate sham based on superstitious pseudoscience; evil and no better than voodoo! Critics claim the results are nothing but random guessing. However, Albert Einstein was convinced that dowsing was authentic. He said, “I know very well that many scientists consider dowsing as they do astrology, as a type of ancient superstition. According to my conviction this is, however, unjustified. The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time”. 

Despite centuries of skepticism, divining or dowsing has been successfully employed to find water, mineral and oil deposits, archaeological relics, buried treasure – even missing persons. 

There really is not a proven scientific reason that dowsing works, but results speak for themselves. Dowers find what they are seeking and they do it over and over again. Numerous theories have been offered to explain why the rods respond and move, indicating water. Subtle geological forces, speculation that dowsers are hypersensitive to subtle electromagnetic gradients, ESP, physic insight or other paranormal explanations are sited, but no one knows for sure. Yet, something is at play here. Something intangible, mysterious, unexplainable and I am fascinated.  

We have literally hundreds of proverbs and superstitions relating to the sky, in particular clouds. From predicting the out come of the weather to provoking vivid pictures of flying saucers, but for millennia specially skilled people have used and even manipulated, some claim, the weather for a form of divining.

In the fifties and sixties before the discovery of chaos theory people everywhere excitedly chattered of a new age, an age where we controlled the weather; where we could seed clouds to make rainfall or even create the opposite effect, no longer being a slave to the elements but rather there master. In those days the potential looked immense. We may have demystified the science of the sky to a small extent, understanding some of the how’s, where’s and why’s, but with the arrival of the newly discovered chaos theory these dreams of weather control vanished back into the realms of superstitious myths and legends. Once again a more holistic view steered, but reinterpreted into the modern philosophical concept of the Gaia hypothesis, viewing earth as a biological organism in its own right, self regulating, self healing, and predominantly chaotic. Within the parameters of the chaos theory no possible or impossible possibility can be ruled out.

Possibilities like reports of cloud dispersing by the control of psychokinesis (PK) maybe taken into consideration. However these reports are inconclusive and as sceptics quite rightly point out, most cloud formations scatter of their own accord within 15 minutes or so, so it rather depends on which side of the fence your sitting on, or which possibility your more drawn to. However shamans and other wise people from around the world claim to have been able to commune with and induce change to the weather “gods” for thousands of years.

Everyone recognises the clichéd image of the shaman clad in a buffalo-hide, rain stick in hand, chanting his rhythmic beat to the “Wankan tanka” the great everything. In a book called “Black elf speaks” the narrator at the end of the book takes Black Elk (a holy man of the Oglala Sioux Indians) back to the planes of his lands(just the two of them with the old mans son) that he had fought for. In an apparent drought through ceremony it began to rain. Only within the last few months there has been a report of rain-makers in Roraima, quenching a drought, extinguishing much of the fires in the rain-forest region. Coincidence?

As well as the control of the clouds, divining systems were used through the interpretations of clouds, probably being one of the earliest of all divining practises, before the astrologers or most other systems we recognise today were structured.

Cloud reading is one of the least effected divining techniques affected by commercialism, being relatively ignored or forgotten by most, and yet it is a pure form of interacting on the different wavelengths of the spirit. You also need relatively little training to begin with as few if any symbols need to be learned. This is the art of “Neladoracht” as the ancient Celts called it, meaning “divination by clouds”. The Celtic tribes had trained interpreters for this job. Although the Celts and many other cultures had specially trained people it is relatively easy to learn, in comparison to many others.

For people interested in trying this out, first you should find a peaceful place, outside if possible, as having the frame of the window is distracting, however it is still possible if no other options are available.

While choosing a place higher than the surrounding ground is ideal, lying on your back garden will still achieve the same effects, and will alleviate any feelings of awkwardness at the beginning. Get in a comfortable position facing the sky. It is best to do this on cloudy days as you don’t tend to focus on any one cloud for to long. Focus generally, no particular clouds, let them come into focus of their own accord. Try using a breathing technique, any repetitive breathing cycle will function the same, drawing your attention away from the other distractions.

Nowadays most people reading these kind of magazines and books have quite a repertoire of relaxation exercises and meditation technique’s, however for those of you who have not here is an easy to use one for beginners. Simply clear your mind, by just watching the clouds roll by. Imagine you’re up there just flouting about man. But it really does work! Imagine your muscles relaxing one by one until you are completely relaxed. When you’re feeling comfortable think about the question on your mind if you’re looking for an answer to one in particular. If not just keep your mind blank but receptive to any images you may see in the clouds. Don’t be afraid of moving your head or body, just watch, some clouds will start to stand out more than the others, expressing familiar images, these will in some way give you clues to answering your question or problem areas. Rely on your first impressions, what feelings etc. the images invoke, what they mean to you. In one sense you could call it a sign from the creator, in another you could call them prompting cards; simply refocusing your attention onto the solution to what you are already aware of. At the end of the day if it helps you live a better life what’s it matter?