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To: alt.magick From: Mark Kampe Subj: Dowsing (0000.dowsing.mk) Date: unknown > Can anyone tell me anything about dowsing? I was taught dowsing by my maternal grandmother, and it is still practiced by much of my mother's family (who have lived much of their lives in very rural places). I have seen and done both willow-wand-water-witching and iron-rod-pipe location. I neither trust nor advocate either technique, but I have on occasion been able to locate springs and pipes. I have observed other people (MUCH more experienced than I) to employ both techniques successfully on many occasions. I have observed inconclusive results, but I do not believe I have ever observed a false-positive (if multiple people, doing multiple independent passes all consistantly find the same spot, water or the pipe has always been found within a few feet of the surface). I have never trusted my own results and have always tried to confirm all suspected finds from different directions and over different courses. If I found something fairly consistantly, I would then ask someone else to go check out that general area. Sometimes they agreed, and sometimes they did not. (I'm not very good) In the mountains where I learned 'water witching', there were one or two old-timers whose judgement was often sought ... and if they pointed at a place, that is where people dug (no second opinions were requested). Willow water witching is done with a Y-shaped section of willow, roughly 1/2 inch in diameter 8-10 inches long (each of the three segments). The rod should be relatively fresh (I have seen it done with rods a day or two old, and with both peeled and un-peeled rods). The tips have occasionally been whittled to a rounded or conical point, but this may have been purely aesthetic. The key is how the wand is held ... I can try to describe it, but it is a kinesthetic thing that must be experienced by your body. Briefly, it is held very gently, just firmly enough that it is not free to pivot in your hands, and with just enough pressure that you would be able to feel it if there were any torque on the wand. Iron rod pipe location is kinesthetically simpler. For this you need two ferrous rods (generally a little heavier than coat hangers, welding rods are often used) 12-18 inches long, bent into a 90 degree angle at or a little above their mid-points. They are held very loosely, on in each hand, around 10 degrees forward of vertical. The upper-arms are generally hanging pretty straight down, with the fore-arms extended parallel to the ground and the hands 6-10 inches apart. If you walk across a pipe line, the tips will swing and cross (whereas they normally hang straight down). I doubt that it has much to do with magick ... other than the fact that it requires training and developed sensitivity. I have little trouble coming up with scientific explainations for iron-rod pipe location to work, and I find nothing particularly disturbing about the fact that willow-rod-water-witching seems to work.
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