DOWSING
What is Dowsing?
It is the ability to use the Natural Sensitivity, which we all possess, that enables us to know things, to seek for and locate things which we cannot know or do by using the day to day brain, or by learning, or by experience, or by using the five physical senses which we are born with.
Dowsing enables us to work at any distance around the world from the
comfort of our own home. Distance, depth, height, date, location seem
to make no difference and there are very few (if any) things that cannot be found by dowsing.
Dowsing is one of those aspects of the so called 'fringe sciences' that has direct and practical uses in everyday problems - despite its being somewhat temperamental and unreliable. Water-divining is perhaps its best known form but the range of the applications of dowsing is enormous: it's mostly used to tackle problems that are beyond the scope of more conventional physically-based tools.
To give an example, a common problem in building and rebuilding is to
locate the old cables, drains and other services. Metal-detectors are often
used for this, but they're a lot more difficult to use than one is led to believe and they're limited both in range and in what they can find. A cheap magnetic metal- detector will have trouble finding anything other than ferromagnetic materials a few inches below the surface; an expensive sonar- or radar-type detector can detect any metal and some other types of 'discontinuity', down to (at best) about five feet below the surface. Neither type is capable of discriminating easily between one substance and another. And beyond these limitations, if you have to use conventional tools, instruments get expensive - thousands of pounds, or more.
History of dowsing
Dowsing has existed in various forms for thousands of years.
The original may have been for divination purposes to divine the will of the gods, to foretell the future and divine guilt in trials. During the Middle Ages dowsing was associated with the Devil.
In 1659 dowsing was declared Satanic by the Jesuit Gaspar Schott.
In 1701 the Inquisition stopped using the dowsing rod in trials.
Dowsing as practiced today probably originated in Germany during the 15th century, when it was used to find metals. The technique spread to England with German miners who came to England to work in the coal mines. An extensive book on the history of dowsing was published by Christopher Bird in 1979 under the title of The Divining Hand.
Anyone can do it
With a little practice - no more than is needed to learn how to use a metal-detector accurately - you can use a pair of bent coat hangers or welding rods (costing pennies) to locate the services of any practical depth, with precise discrimination between the services, and regardless of what materials they're made of. Which sounds ridiculous, but the point is that it works - and also that, despite the traditional assumptions about dowsing, almost anyone can learn to do it. In practice, getting reliable results from dowsing is about as difficult as learning to ride a pushbike - and in fact many of the learning problems are the same in both skills.
The approaches that allow us to move away from the old assumption that only gifted people can do it are multi-level - a mixture of physical, mental and other factors - rather than the old physicalistic or pseudo-physical approaches. While these new approaches make our ideas about how dowsing works even more vague than they were before, they also make it simpler and easier to use for they tell us in some considerable detail about how it can be worked, the conditions under which it will work. And that, from a practical point of view, is a great deal more useful than some inadequate 'explanation'.
The range of applications
Using a range of techniques you can, for instance, measure the depth of a pipe, its course and junctions, the material of which it is made, the location of any leaks or breaks, the quality and amount of water flowing through it, and so on - all before digging down.
The dowser's-instrument - coat-hangers, hazel fork, pendulum or whatever - is used as a 'Yes/No device', a qualitative and quantitative Yes/No device somewhat analogous to a conventional moving-coil meter.
The instrument is a simple mechanical amplifier, amplifying small
hand movements in much the same way that a meter needle visually
amplifies a small current and, just as a meter can measure many different qualities by placing suitable electrical or electronic conditions 'in front of' it, so too the dowser can select what his instrument will react to or measure by placing suitable conditions 'in front of' the instrument's reaction.
Dowsing is partly physical, partly mental, partly something else - it's a multi-level tool. The instrument moves because your hands move; your hands move because a nerve drives a muscle; and the nervous impulse is triggered by the response of some reflex to some stimulus.
That much can be proved but the reflexes involved can be either the simple type like the knee and blink reflexes, or else the very simple mental reflexes (conditioned reflexes and the like) and it's almost impossible to state, with any degree of certainty, which reflex is operating at any one time. So the mind can place conditions 'in front of' the reaction, selecting what the instrument will react to like the selector knob on an AVO-meter. It can also intrude, through prejudice and preconceptions, doubt and self-questioning - the attitude of mind is critical (in both senses) in dowsing, so ardent materialists please note! It's also possible to use directed imagination - a dowser can mentally 'go to' a place, or a time, at will and collect information from there - hence the rather bizarre techniques of map-dowsing and the like, where a map is used to symbolise the required place for the imagination to 'go to'.
Symbolism of this kind -'symbolic equivalence' - is used in many dowsing techniques. The most common form of this is the use of 'samples', a sample of the same material as the object you're looking for, as a qualitative condition 'in front of the reaction. (Traditionally, this is closely related to 'sympathetic magic'). There may also be some kind of physical or semi-physical 'resonance' involved in the use of these 'samples', but it may be explained it in terms of a 'mental world', in which, by definition, the physically 'real', the symbolic, the archetypal arid the imaginary are all equally 'real'. Dowsing thus becomes both a mixture of analysis and intuition and a bridge between them; dowsing is a way of using intuition analytically in practice.
Using L-rods
Many dowsers use a pair of L-shaped rods. These can be made from wire coat-hangers. You can make L-rods from lengths of brass rod obtainable from a modelling shop (the type of shop that will sell aeroplane kits, model cars etc.) by wrapping one end of a rod in electrical insulation tape, place it vertically in a vice and hammer it into a near right-angle with a rubber mallet. As the longer length nears horizontal, raise the rod slightly before hammering it into a perfect right angle. Remove the rod from the vice and take the tape off. The tape helps protect the rod from marks and hammer blows, so use plenty. Raising the rod slightly before you complete the task is to help prevent the underside of the rod from being marked by the vice.
You can now repeat the process with the other rod. Use some brass-cleaner to add the finishing touch. As with any manual work take great care and wear protective gear and clothing.
The British Society of Dowsers sells L-rods which are of very good quality.
The tips are protected by rubber caps to help prevent injury. If you make
your own L-rods it is a good idea to do something to protect the tips,
such as wrapping some tape around them.
Hold your L-rods as illustrated below. Note how the thumb is well
clear of the rod. It is very important to keep the rod level - never tilt your
forearms. Don't grip the rods too firmly. It should be possible for the rod
to sway slightly from side to side by moving your hands left and right.
As you stand holding your L-rods, your forearms and the rods should
be horizontal and pointing forwards. Keep your arms still, and once again
you should avoid tension in your shoulders and arms.
With the L-rods, search-mode always has the rods pointing straight ahead. For the "yes" and "no" responses the rods will either turn inwards and cross, or they will both turn outwards. You need to find what your "yes" and "no" responses are by suggesting "Show me a yes", "Show me a no".
Below is an example of system to use when dowsing with L-rods in the field:
Stage 1 - Quality
Decide upon the nature of the target.
Stage 2 - Quantity
Are you looking for one thing or many? You can also ask the rods if the target exists within a given distance or space. No point searching for something that isn't there!
Stage 3 - Direction
You need to find the direction of your target. Stand with you arms by your
sides, L-rods pointing towards the ground. Now raise the L-rod in your left
hand up so that it is horizontal with the ground. Visualise the target strongly and ask for the direction. The L-rod in your left hand should move towards the direction of the target. This is a very tricky thing to get right, so you should take the direction as being approximate. If the rod turns more than 90 degrees to the left or right you should turn slightly and do stage 3 again. When you are happy, turn and face the direction indicated by the rod.
Stage 4 - Location
First you need to decide upon a marker. The idea is that when you walk towards a target the rods will cross completely when a specified part of your body (the marker) is over the target. You might designate the big toe of your left foot as your marker.
You may also decide upon the distance at which the rods begin to cross as you approach the target, e.g. three feet. Raise both rods to the horizontal plane and ask your rods to lock on to the target, and visualise it strongly. If you're doing it right both rods will move in the direction of the target. Walk forward slowly, keeping the rods horizontal and stay relaxed. Keep visualising the target. If you're going in exactly the right direction the rods will begin to cross as you approach the target. Slow right down. When your rods have crossed completely you should be over the target. If you find that both of your rods veer to the left or right as you are walking, stop and go back to stage 3.
Without being over-pedantic, this is only one system and its not necessary to adhere to it absolutely rigidly. A lot depends on the circumstances. However, it is a good idea to have a system, so in time you'll need to figure out a system that works for you.
Dowsing is a tool
But beware - dowsing is not some kind of mystical or magical panacea, it's just a tool. The further away from the 'objective' physical reality, the more subjective the techniques necessarily become - and thus the greater
subjective control needed to obtain reliable results. It's all too easy to get 'results' from the wrong imaginary world!
The main advantages of dowsing (especially the modern 'multi-level' systems) are cheapness, flexibility and simplicity of the techniques and tools almost all types of dowsing tools can be 'knocked up' in a matter of minutes from things lying around in the home or workshop. Its main disadvantage is its somewhat erratic reliability but note that the reliability, as has already implied, depends far more on the operator than the instrument. It is a skill and like all other skills it requires a little practice, some awareness and a working knowledge of its basic principles and mechanics in order to get useful results. The following diagrams give directions and suggestions on using dowsing to find a water pipe or drain.
Reliability and control
One of the most important things to realise about dowsing is that it is highly subjective: so the reliability of any dowsing work will depend more on the operator than anyone or anything else. The instrument only tells the dowser what his hands are doing - all the actual work is done subconsciously, somewhere inside him or her. The whole process is a mixture of analysis and intuition; in using it you're playing with coincidences, trying to get the reaction of the instrument to coincide with the place of whatever it is you're looking for, or trying to get the imaginary world of your 'sample' to coincide with the real one. Subjective conditions have to be taken into account as much as 'objective' ones before reliable and repeatable results can be obtained. So there are quite a range of things to watch out for if you don't seem to be having any success. There are few physical problems, but most of these are fairly obvious: by far the most common mistake is holding the rod in such a way that it can't move freely, or even move at all. Check that one first! Then for some people there's a problem of weather - for some reason certain weather conditions don't 'agree' with them. If you can, always repeat any dowsing work at different times of day, and avoid difficult work in weather conditions in which you feel uncomfortable. This is because you may find it difficult then to relax, which, as will be explained shortly, is important that you are able to do. Incidentally, it should still be possible for you to find an underground water-pipe or stream even when it's pouring with rain: you should, with practice, be able to discriminate precisely between objects, and to find only that which you're looking for.
By far the most difficult problem for most people to understand is that the mind has a critical effect (in both senses of the word) on the reliability of the results. The catch is that a negative approach - 'it can't work, of course', or 'I suppose it'll never work for me' - or equally an overly positive approach - 'it must work for me', or 'trying' or 'concentrating' - will usually interfere with or neatly jam up the whole process. Dowsing seems to operate through a receptive state of mind, while conventional 'scientific' thinking operates through an active state: so don't try to analyse what is happening (or not happening), don't be pessimistic, and don't try too hard. Just let it work itself. The key word here is 'rest': rest your mind on what you're doing. Just be a little patient; if you adopt a quiet confidence and just allow the instrument to work itself 'through you', the whole thing becomes much easier, and more reliable. The more you interfere in the process, the less reliable it becomes.
Developing the skill
Dowsing is a skill, and as with any skill you have to practice until the movements and actions of the manual part of the skill (in this case, holding and using the rod or whatever) become automatic, become a sequence of reflex actions and reactions. Once it knows what to do, the body can get on with the job quickly and efficiently - but only as long as the mind doesn't confuse it with contradictory orders. It's rather like riding a pushbike: in order to ride it you must balance a number of opposing forces without really knowing how you do it - and as soon as you start to think or worry about it, you fall off!
The same applies in dowsing. And the same kind of direction of action as on a pushbike is used to select how the dowsing instrument will react: on a pushbike you think about where you want to go rather than deliberately steering the thing, in dowsing you redirect your conscious attention on to the effect (or intended effect) of a given reflex movement, so as to let the body produce, unconsciously, the right 'cause', the right reflex or sequence of reflexes. The simplest way of doing this, if you won't feel too embarrassed, is to 'talk to' the instrument, as if it were a slightly cantankerous child - for that's effectively the relationship between the two aspects of yourself.
Note also that any conscious, semiconscious or unconscious prejudices
and assumptions can, and often will, interfere with the results in the
same way as above. The first level of this is jumping to conclusions - this
will tend to give you the result (or non result) that you expect to get - and
control of this is just a matter of self-observation. It needs practice, but
it's not particularly difficult. What is difficult is the control of unconscious prejudices - they're difficult to control simply because they are unconscious. These are so deep-seated even those who honestly trying to be open-minded (let alone those who think they can be 'objective' about the whole business) that reliable results - especially in the more controversial areas such as map- and time-dowsing - can be hard to come by. In theory the only way of handling this problem is to isolate the self entirely from the process, with the sole exception of that part of the self that is applying whatever conscious directions and controls are needed. Only when you are truly 'at one with the object' can you truly be 'objective'. This is a theoretical ideal of course, but with practice and with experience you should be able to come pretty close to it. The most practical way of doing this is some form of meditation (in the open sense of the word) some form of reflection on yourself and the work being done. Try resting your mind on three points: on the balance of the instrument; on where you are; and on the problem-at-hand, the particular part of the technique that you're using at that time. Set up that 'tripod' in your mind; meditate on it, and its changes; and set it so that the instrument reacts at the point required by the problem-at-hand. That's one way - there are plenty of course, so try out various ways in practice, and use whatever seems to suit you. Use whatever works, whatever gives you the results you need. Try it and test it in practice: for it only makes sense in practice.
Don't try to be 'scientific' about dowsing - it will only make it impossible for you to do it. So don't stay sitting on your backside, pontificating on whether it can work, or how it can work - get up and do it for yourself!