I've known too many rational people with firsthand experience with dowsing to poo-poo it.
My take: It's probably some phenomena of physics that science hasn't understood yet.
In our world of computers, space flight, and atomic energy, we sometimes tend to forget that science has only scratched the surface of figuring out how the universe works. And we dismiss the ancient's wisdom at our own peril.
You can also use it to find underground utility lines! Kind of like a metal detector without batteries. True--in my experience 9 out of 10 people can successfully use dowsing rods. I taught a Technical Report Writing class for several years and that was one of the "fun" exercises we did in class.
An engineer from Boeing refused to believe it even when I presented the statistics we arrived at.
No student has ever been able to physically explain how it works. I don't even know how it works (If could write a paper explaining it they'd get an "A"---that was the challenge)
It is "creepy" only that it is so far unexplainable--- but there are plenty of things that refute explaination. Is that bad?
Dousing is bad to the extent to which it approaches divination. If we're just relying on some pre-rational instict within us to locate water underground, then that wouldn't be divination. But if we're trying to access some spiritual intelligence to gain access to knowledge we wouldn't otherwise have, that's divination.
Ghosts, though, are really real. I'm just not sure what they really are.
Dowsing either does not work, or competent dowsers command such high fees that the million dollars offered by the James Randi Education Foundation is not worth the trouble of an afternoon, or two, of their time.
Lots of dowsers show up to claim the prize. They agree that the pass/fail design of the test of their abilities is fair (claimants help design the nature of the test). The test is run and they do no better than random chance. Then they leave in a slightly confused state of mind.
Dowsers make up the largest category of applicants.
Most places that are not hilltops will yield a water filled hole, as a reward for digging (depths do very, as does rate of replenishment).
Maybe Randi has a supernatural gift for damping down paraphenomena.
Here's my question: does ghost hunting qualify as divination?
Here's my question: does ghost hunting qualify as divination?
If you're using solely technological means, scientific instruments (EMF detectors, thermometers, digital audio recorders) to hunt ghosts, I'd say no to the divination question: you're just studying (super-?)natural phenomena using normal scientific instruments.
If you hold a seance or use a Ouija board to call on spirits from the other world to manifest themselves, I think you've pretty clearly crossed the line into the occult.
Victor is right. Dowsing borders on the occult. Christians should not dabble in it.
My uncle, father and I all could dowse using a Y shaped twig. My brother and mother could not. The pull on the twig was so strong it scraped my thumbs. I was a teenager at the time and figured we had all just inherited some kind of sensitivity (we all shared the same blood type and had a great affinity for each other, coincidentally.) It wasn't until years later and I was reading about inner healing that I learned that dowsing was considered an occult activity. I immediately repented of it, but as time has gone on, I'm not sure why it's considered occult, unless of course someone asks spirits of the earth or some other such nonsense to help them find water. I am also very sensitive to what others are feeling and can sense what is going on between people. Is this occult as well? I don't think so, so why can't we be sensitive in the emotional and spiritual realm as well as for more material/physical ways?
How does dowsing border on the occult? So far as I can tell it does not involve attempting to contact spirits or summon the dead. So what's occult about it? I'm not aware of the Church ever addressing the question. Is anybody else?
A friend of mine used a dowser years ago to find water in a very difficult terrain where many other drillers had failed. The dowser didn't use a rod, just his instincts or whatever it is. He located a spot down a ravine on the edge of it that required special equipment and predicted certain gallons per minute at various stages of the drilling. And that is exactly what they found.
This whole conversation reminds me vaguely of the Harry Potter debate-- are the protagonists engaging in occultic practices or are they simply tapping into natural abilities possessed by part of the population, and as yet unexplained by science?
I have a friend whose business is largely tied to water rights in central Washington. (That's a very fertile desert area, for you non-northwesterners.) He always hires a dowser before he drills, and it's always paid off. I don't have any clue how it works, but that it does is pretty self-evident. When you have literally millions tied up in drilling in the right spot, superstition kind of goes out the window.
This Rock magazine in 1993:
Q: My priest, who is normally orthodox, recently returned from Ireland and was excited about using something called a divining rod. He had two sticks, one in each hand, and when he would pray they would twist in his hands and cross over each other. Does the Church permit this?
A: No. This practice is known as dowsing, water-witching, and using a divining rod. It is commonly used to find water, gold, oil, or lost objects. There are three principal ways in which it is done. One way involves using a forked stick which is grasped by the two forks, usually with the hands facing inward and downward. Another way is by using two separate sticks or rods (sometimes made out of coat-hangars). A third way is by using a pendulum.
Dowsing is a form of divination, as is obvious from the fact one is using a divining rod. Since divination is an occult practice forbidden by the Church, extreme caution must be used when dealing with any practice that resembles it.
The idea of saying a prayer over the divining rods before or while they are being used might or might not render the practice innocuous, depending on what else was being done, such as whether one was trying to gain information by using the divining rods. If one is trying to get supernatural information by the use of the rods, then it is definitely an occult practice that is forbidden by the Church.
Even if one is not using the rods to conduct divination, the practice of associating them with anything supernatural (such as prayers to God) makes the practice too similar to divination to be safely presented to the faithful. It has the appearance of superstition and of the superstitious use of occult practices (much as the religion of Santeria takes African god-spirits and gives them the names of Christian saints, overlaying a pagan practice with a Christian veneer). Dowsing therefore should not be taught to the faithful.
This Rock magazine in 2005:
Q: Is water dowsing an acceptable means of locating water on one’s property?
A: Water dowsing (also known as water divination and water witching) is a method in which the practitioner uses a Y-shaped stick called a divining rod to hunt for underground water or minerals. If there is reason to believe that such a method could be explained naturally, then the method would be acceptable. The National Ground Water Association, though, dismisses the idea of water dowsing as "totally without scientific merit" and recommends instead "the use of proven hydrogeological and geophysical techniques for groundwater reconnaissance when its presence is not easily recognizable by drilling contractors" (www.ngwa.org/ngwainwashington/isswitch.html).
But if one still believed that there is a natural reason that the method works and wished to pursue the method, despite no scientific proof thus far, then true superstition would not be involved. For more on superstition see the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2111.
The author Kenneth Roberts (wrote "Nortwest Passage" and many other wonderful historical novels) penned a book about a dowser he knew in Maine. Can't remember the title, but it was a very good book. As for considering dowsing "occult", I feel it is about as occult as people who have a weather sense or an uncanny sense of direction/location in unfamiliar terrain: the Lord has given us many gifts and abilities to live in this world which he created, not all of which are accessible to reason.
This is a huge issue for the True Catholic Church (tm). Then-Cardinal Bateman denounced Pope Pius XIII (Pulvermacher) when he found out that Pius practices dowsing!
My friend does this and was given a hard time by members of his local parish, so he did some research and the found a document from the Vatican specifically allowing this to be used to find water, and also saying that it was not allowed to be used to find things like gold. So I have no idea where Catholic Answers, found their answer, to the 1993 response, but perhaps after more research or someone pointing them in a better direction, they revised their answer.
From this website:
http://www.canadiandowsers.org/A...le_Susan2.html:
From the 17th century on, many priests wrote about the use of dowsing for healing and helping purposes. These include: Jesuit Father Kircher, Jacques Le Royer and Abbé de Vallemont. Abbé Alexis Mermet, a country priest, wrote the Principles and Practice of Radiesthesia in 1935. In Quebec in the 1960's, a catholic bishop, Edouard Jetté, was a well-known dowser and wrote a book titled Au Seuil du Subconscient.
The Vatican endorsed dowsing in a letter written in May 1935 by Mgr Eugene Tisserand, Prefect of the Vatican Library, to Monsieur Delattre, Secretary General of the Society 'Amis de la Radiesthesie'. [In 1929, priest Alexis Bouly gave the name of "Radiesthesia" to describe dowsing phenomena, from the Latin "radius" (rays) and the Greek "aisthęsis" (feeling).] He wrote: "I was required to attend an audience of the Sovereign Pontiff for the purpose of explaining to Him personally the nature of the researches to which the members of your Association are dedicated, and to tell His Holiness of your wish to have for the officers of your Association, and for its activities, the Apostolic Blessing. The Holy Father was touched by the sentiments expressed in your letter, and has charged me to communicate to you His Paternal Blessing." 2
The Vatican also used dowsing when the engineer Czepl, a leading Austrian dowser, was invited to assist, as a dowser, in planning a restoration of the Cathedral of St. Peter. 3
Did anyone else notice that my two comments have disappeared or am I losing my mind?!
Strike that now they are back. I really feel I have lost my mind now!
Bash Rod blah blah blah blah. Rod is naughty blah blah blah.
There I'm done. Till the next Rod Post.
... a document from the Vatican specifically allowing this to be used to find water, and also saying that it was not allowed to be used to find things like gold.....
Why water but not gold?
Ah, here it is. From Don Jim's blog from some time back [http://donjim.blogspot.com/2003/02/occult.html], quoting Fr Henry Davis, SJ. Moral and Pastoral Theology, 1936:
"The use of the divining rod to discover flowing water or the presence of metals underground cannot be condemned as necessarily superstitious; the bending of the twig in the hands of the dowser appears to be due to natural causes, and there are many instances of the successful finding of water by such experts, though probably there are more unrecorded failures..."
This is, of course, not a ringing approval of the practice, nor a denunciation of it, but a skeptical view of it from the sidelines. It certainly appears there are a number of opinions on the subject within the Church. It is interesting.
Now, of course, if you're sacrificing chickens before you go out with your dowsing stick, well, that's another matter entirely...
I once used a rod to find water. I got out my rod and followed a bunch of other people with rods. Then we went fishing.
Funny. "Rod Dreher" means "rod" (English) and "spinner" (German).
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