DOWSING: FACT OR FANCY?

Enlarge Image Image Gallery [1] A potpourri of dowsing tools (clockwise, beginning with the lower left-hand corner): L-rods with handles . . . a Y-rod . . . a pendulum . . . a bobber . . . and plain L-rods. [2] The ASD headquarters in Danville, Vermont. [3] A common sight during the week-long dowsing workshop: An experienced water diviner (foreground) shows students how to use Y-rods. [4] Novices practice with L-rods. [5] The author (finally) finds water!

Last fall, carrying a sparsely packed knapsack and all manner of misconceptions about dowsing, MOTHER's staffer Fran Adams trekked off to the lovely Green Mountains of upstate Vermont to visit the Dowsing Center of America in order to seek out the truth behind the legendary forked willow branch. She made two startling discoveries: [1] that modern-day dowsers think there's a whole lot more to their art than just snooping out water, and [2] that—son of a gun!—as far as she could tell, it really and truly . . . well, read Fran's report to see for yourself what happened.

In mid-September, equipped with what I considered to be enough skepticism to ward off any potentially mind-boggling phenomena, I headed off to Danville, Vermont to attend the 23rd Annual Convention and the school of The American Society of Dowsers, Inc. Since I'd read in the brochure that the implausible-sounding theme for this year's week-long event was "Dowsing: Steps to Higher Consciousness", I figured I was in for little more than a few pleasant days of enjoying the fall colors and watching a bunch of spacey old codgers in overalls wander about in search of the Zen of water.

This mind-set (or more accurately, ignorance) left me totally unprepared for what I actually observed and absorbed during my brief but intensely thought-provoking sojourn in New England. For, as it turned out, I soon found myself far too busy trying to learn how to dowse (and then attempting to figure out what the heck it was that I'd just learned how to do) even to remember to enjoy the autumn landscape . . . until I was flying over it on my way home.

Now I realize that this may sound a bit confusing and—let's face it— hokey to you unless, of course, you're already a dowser. I mean, first I claim that I'm an avowed skeptic, and then I claim that I learned to dowse? What's going on here . . . where did all that good, honest disbelief go? Well, the only thing I can tell you is that—when I found myself in the company of some of this country's (and Canada's) finest and most respected practitioners of the art—my reservations, like the fall flora, just didn't seem as important as what these folks had to teach me.

SO MUCH FOR STEREOTYPES!

The first thing I learned was that dowsers aren't the aloof, overall-clad social drop-outs I'd imagined them to be. (In fact, the only overalls I saw all week were the ones I'd brought with me, thinking they'd help me blend in!) Rather, most of the folks I saw and spoke with were extremely friendly and down-to-earth. Maybe there used to be a stereotypical water diviner, but today's dowsers come from all walks of life (they range from professionals to homesteaders), and most of them are well educated. At the convention I met a nurse from New York City . . . a businessman from Atlanta . . . an airline pilot (with his wife and two sons) from Montpelier, Vermont . . . a therapist from Danville . . . a young film-maker from Boston . . . a carpenter/farmer from upstate New York . . . and a handful of students (on ASD scholarships) from Washington, D.C. The only thing they all had in common was dowsing.

If I had to characterize them as a group, I'd say that dowsers are a warm, generous, concerned "family" of people who trust wholeheartedly in their divining abilities and who are always ready to use their special talents to help someone else out. Moreover, ASD folk adhere to a strict code of ethics, believing that their activities should be used only to serve—as they say—"the good of the higher self". In other words, whether searching for water, oil, minerals, health, earth energies, or whatever, a dowser should never give in to greed or seek anything that he or she has no business exploring.

Indeed, most of them take very little payment for their services . . . and what money they do take, many donate to good causes. An example of a contemporary water diviner is Paul Sevigny, a practicing judge in Danville and the current president of ASD, who has located water for more than 650 wells with his dowsing skill. All the money he made from that work has gone to local charities.

Water's hardly the only thing that modern dowsers are after. For instance, some of the other speakers (besides Paul) at the convention were Bob Brewer, a Canadian who not only helps people find water, but also claims a special prowess for dowsing racehorses' legs to detect injuries before the animals are sold off the track . . . Dave Bagley, a researcher in parapsychology at the University of Oklahoma, who's been divining for oil for the past 12 years and has more than 450 successful wells to his credit . . . and Danville resident and the ASD school's cochairman Ed Jastram, a retired Texas Instruments engineer and a current pioneer in the realm of health dowsing, using the pendulum.

School cochairman Sig Lonegren, who has an M.A. in "Sacred Space" from Goddard College and is a researcher in the British Isles, uses his talent to explore the mysteries of the earth's energies beneath ancient ruins and holy places. There was also a mime artist from New York City (a former student of Marcel Marceau), who travels all over Scandinavia with his performing dog Rufus, incorporating dowsing thought-forms in his act. (I'm not going to tell you what he did: You'd have to see it to believe it . . . and even then you might not be able to!) The list of dowsers-extraordinary—and ordinary—went on and on. By the end of the week, well over 500 diviners had descended upon the tiny town of Danville.

Although I soon came to the conclusion that most dowsers are quite normal and/or fascinating folk—and that some of them must be very good at what they do—I was still stuck wondering what the heck it is that they do. Fortunately, the two-day training school that preceded the actual convention was designed to answer this and the other questions I had up my sleeve. How? By offering basic instruction on how to perform the oldest form of dowsing known to man, water divining . . . for the ASD theory is that only through the doing can a novice truly understand the art.

"ANYONE CAN WHISTLE . . ."

During the lectures and fieldwork of the intensive school program, I heard repeatedly that, with practice, patience, concentration, and—above all—confidence, anyone could learn to dowse. ("Even me?" I wondered.) I was also told that every diviner should be adept at using the basic tools: [1] the Y-rod, fashioned in the form of the "classic" forked branch, [2] L-rods, two right-angled metal rods, [3] the pendulum, a weight hung like a plumb from the end of a string or a chain, and [4] the bobber, a long, flexible shaft that's weighted at one end with a coil. These tools didn't have to be elaborate: A number of students made their own, using wire coat hangers as L-rods, a nail or a pendant on a string as a pendulum, or a radio antenna as a bobber. (I bought my tools from ASD.)

According to most of the teachers at the school, it's a good idea to begin by learning the simplest form of dowsing, water divining, using all the tools. Then later—when you've got the basic technique down—you can go on to other areas of divining (oil, plants, health, earth energies, and so on) and discover where your interests and natural skills lie, as well as which tools work best for you.