Nancy I have done this for years and taught a class in how to do it. The secret is not guessing because it will show you where you guessed. I was in a trailer park and a new owned did not know where the tiles where I helped him find all of them. Later he came back and thanked me and told me it works so well that he found the property marker which was a 1 inch square steel post driven almost flat to the earth and it was in a woods with leaves covering the ground. I have no idea how it works except I think we know more than we are aware of.
I have seen it done, and some folks seem to be better at it than others, but I have no idea how it works.
Given that the idea has been around for so long, I wouldn't be willing to simply dismiss it as nonsense but, that said, it doesn't make any sense to me.
It is indeed nonsense, as numerous compilations of attempts resulting in success vs. failure place the failure rate way, way up there. Chances are, the nature of the geographical area accounts for much of the positive claims. After all, in areas receiving 50" of precip annually, the "dowser" is 100% accurate: dig a hole anywhere and at a few feet of depth, groundwater will be found. Here where we live, there is NO groundwater. Wells may be hundreds of feet deep; outside of Phoenix, on the Gila River Indian Reservation, irrigation wells are 1000 feet deep, the water not potable, too high in nitrates. Grows great cotton and vegetables, though! Frank
Ooooooh .. Dowsing .. I thought the title said Drowsing I've seen people with dowsing rods and it's always surprised me how well it seems to work.
I have tried doing this, and it IS amazing how it can work ! When I lived in Idaho, I had several experiences with dowsing, or “water-witching”, as it is sometimes called. The property was located where a large underground current came through, with several smaller tributaries. The first time we had someone do this was in the mid-1970’s, and the person was well known in the area for finding water. He was able to follow the tributaries from the underground current, which actually went right underneath where our little cabin was at. They should have put the well down in the cellar ! Anyway, the actual well was on one of the tributaries, and it was known never to go dry. My family lived in the cabin and the old farmhouse across the street, and my mom always said that in dry years, people would come with barrels and backboards to get water from those two wells if someon’s well went dry. A friend who bought land from us put in his well right where the downer said that the current was the strongest, and he also has a great well. It is an interesting thing to try, but apparently not everyone is able to do it, maybe due to their personal magnetic resonance. Traditionally, a forked stick from a peach tree is used, but I think that we used either an apple branch or maybe willow or aspen. You hold the stick by the forks and the end sticking straight out in front of you, and walk around where you want to find water. When you are close to a water source, the stick will actually bend down , right in your hands ! It is hard to imagine until you have actually tried it for yourself and felt the wooden branch bend when you are close to water. As to how it actually works, I don’t know, but I know that plants have a sensitivity to send roots towards water in the ground, and maybe the dowsing is somehow related to that ? I can see why it might not work out where @Frank Sanoica lives, and water is 1,000 feet underground. that is far deeper than plant roots would ever grow. In Idaho, where I lived, wells could be operational as shallow as 30-50 feet deep, so a much different proposition. From things I have read, water dowsers can also find underground water mains, so it is not just natural water currents that they can detect . If you can get a live and flexible tree branch, cut off a piece with a fork in it, about 2-3’ long, and walk outside and try it..... you might surprise yourself !
I would think so. If you are using the metal like the guy in your video, then it is not a problem, because they turn freely. However, if you are using actual wood, then it needs to be flexible; so you would probably want a fresh piece of forked wood when the old one dried out. A dowser that was doing more than one place in the day should be able to use the same dowsing rod for that whole day, maybe longer. It feels like magic when that forked wood starts moving in your hands !
Pruning shears should do it, @Nancy Hart . If not the rose sized ones, the long ones will certainly lop off a branch of soft wood for you.
I just checked. No particular wood required, not so thick as I thought would be needed, and I have lopping shears, so I'll try it sometime. If it moves I promise to post back.
My brother found our well site by dowsing. I'm not sure what wood he used but I think it was a willow branch. Would we have gotten water anywhere we dug? I don't know. But he located well sites for a lot of people.
My family has witched for generations. That's what we always called it. Way we found where to dig our wells.