DOWSING: FACT OR FANCY?

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LEVELS OF PROFICIENCY

Many diviners believe that there are seven different degrees of competency in their art, as first defined by the world-renowned dowser and past president of ASD Terry Ross. He listed the following levels of dowsing:

[1] On site: tromping around a field, tool in hand, looking for water.

[2] Edge of the field: standing at the border of a site and "asking" where to go before actively stalking water.

[3] Over the horizon: map dowsing or any other form of divining that's done away from the actual locale or person being investigated.

[4] Deviceless: divining without tools.

[5] Affecting a change through dowsing: as an example, in health dowsing, stopping an illness.

[6] Causing something new to happen: for instance, not only stopping an illness but promoting healing.

[7] "Thy will be done": achieving a oneness with God.

Of course, few people claim to have reached the seventh state, and most practitioners would be happy to get to the fourth level, but these definitions provide a dowser with goals to strive for. According to Dave Bagley, who's a knowledgeable geologist as well as a successful oil diviner, attaining each of these steps requires hard (and at times very frustrating) work . . . but with each new level comes fresh insight and renewed growth that will bring a dowser closer to a deeper, more spiritual awareness of the universe.

Dave also said, "Dowsing is a science, and its accuracy can be tested over and over again, once you know the formulas. But one reason the practice has been so misunderstood and scoffed at in the scientific world is that heretofore scientists have refused to believe in anything beyond the physical . . . and dowsing is predominantly mental." He went on to say that there's hope for scientific recognition of dowsing, however, since some physicists now claim that the next quantum leap in science will be in the direction of the nonmaterial realm.

STEPPING UP

Intrigued by what Mr. Bagley had to say and inspired by my tiny triumph with the L-rods on the Danville green, I decided to experiment with some Level 3 ("over the horizon") dowsing in my hotel room one night. Taking out my pendulum, I asked it whether or not a high school soccer team (coached by a friend of mine) had won its game that afternoon. The pendulum swung in a counterclockwise circle, which—for me—was supposed to indicate no. Then I asked it by how many points they'd lost, beginning with one and counting upward. When I got to five and the pendulum still said no, I quit. Surely those poor kids couldn't have lost by five whole goals.

Two days later, when my friend met me at the airport, I asked him what the score of the game had been. "We lost, eight to nothing," he groaned. Eight to nothing! Why, those kids hadn't lost by five whole goals . . . they'd lost by eight of them!

Musing about it now, I realize that I'll never know what would have happened if I'd trusted my dowsing and kept the pendulum going up to eight . . . but it sure is fun to consider the outcome if I had!

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