Dowsing Or Witching

Having written a story sometime ago on this same subject and having received many comments about it, we attempted to do some deeper research to find out how it originated, if possible, and if it was just confined to certain areas of this country. We found references indicating that interpretations of wall carvings back to the time of the Pharaohs of Egypt refer to dowsing, and in one case a reference was made to Moses locating water in the desert. There have been many references to the ability of the African bushman locating water in arid areas.

Some individuals insist that dowsing is a psychic power that persons acquire, however, it is believed the individual must center upon himself to be in a receptive state of mind.

We found that there are certain places where one can attend classes in the various forms of dowsing as well as receive instructions in healing techniques, mind reading, etc.

We also found one reference where a dowser would go down to the sea shore with his dowsing rod, point to the open water to locate a ship and then estimate the hour the ship would dock, and, even predict the country's flag on the ship. Some individuals insist they can cause themselves to reach such a state of tension that they must 'ground' themselves to a metal pipe, inserted in the ground, to relieve this condition.

Some dowsers claim the ability to use a wooden rod in the heel of their hand to locate water pipes in buildings. There are others who claim to use their magic rods to avoid sleeping over underground streams of water because they believe this is injurious to their health. This belief has caused many to relocate their beds, chairs or tables in their homes influence of underground streams, has relieved arthritic victims of their pain.

The act of Dowsing seems to follow an old Chinese custom of Feng Shui. Experts in this art have been asked to give their advice on where to locate a new house so that the owner would be free of certain evil influences. .

Sometime ago an article appeared in a magazine in which a Yaqui Indian had the power to detect certain spots where he felt calm while other places he was quite disturbed. It has been said there are instances where a dog refused to enter a house because it was found to be located over a water vein.

We read of another amusing incident in which a dowser diagnosed and located the trouble of an automobile motor. It seems the motor was not operating properly. The dowser, with the help of a pendulum, found the cause and when the motorist took his car to a garage the mechanic found this was the cause, and upon replacing the defective parts it operated perfectly. (We might add, this incident was reported to have taken place in France. If our mechanics in the garages around the country could be trained in this method of detecting our car's ills, many thousands of dollars would not have to be invested in the latest electronic equipment by- the garages and our repair bills would be held to a very modest fee.