When one mentions dowsing to the uninitiated, there might be blank looks, until you explain that water divining is one application of the art. Most folk seem to be aware of this mysterious ability to locate underground water, often with little more than a forked twig. This is what dowsing is to many people. However ironically, I would suggest, not to the majority of modern-day dowsers. In the UK, although there are many folk who practice dowsing, very few indeed are professional water diviners.
But what most people do not realise is the process a dowser goes through to perform the search. Here I wanted to post a description of a method used by a successful water diviner, named George Applegate, who during his life, was very well-known within the dowsing fraternity. He explained his methodology in his book:
The Complete Guide to Dowsing. The Definitive Guide to Finding Underground Water. Published in 2002 by Vega, London. ISBN 1-84333-115-2.
Here I have taken an extract from the book, simply to illustrate some of the fundamentals of water divining. I have also added some additional notes here.
When dowsing for water, in addition to locating where a subterranean “stream” might reside, such that a borehole might be successfully sunk, there are several pieces of information that need to be established. These include the depth of the water, the flow rate of water, ie the volume that one might expect to obtain in a given amount of time, the direction of flow and the purity of the water, ie is it OK to drink? So quite a lot of information to extract.
The article here deals with actually locating the stream. Remember that this is one dowser’s personal overview, and that another dowser may have another technique, but the I think that it describes some of the salient points.
Applegate seemed to be a dowser who worked mainly with the “rod”, ie the traditional forked stick. (There is a picture of him holding one such at the article). Therefore, the article refers to use of the Y rod when locating water. However, as he points out, other dowsing devices can be used, each producing a reaction based on its design. Perhaps a more common one now-days are angle rods. With these, the dipping action of a Y rod, would be replaced by a rotation of the rods, either inwards so that they cross, or even outwards, so that the rods point in opposite directions.
He starts with what he terms “distant dowsing”. Here he asks in what direction a suitable source of water lies. His basic method is to turn through 360 degrees, rather like a “radar”, as he puts it, hoping to get a reaction in the rod during this circuit. He then walks in the direction of the reaction. Note he could also have done this on a map of the site, but he seemed to prefer being onsite.
The very interesting fact about subterranean water is that it not only creates a reaction in the dowser, when they stand immediately above it, but also at several other points, on each side of the underground stream. These are the “reaction bands” which he talks about. Unless a dowser is aware of their existence, they will most likely be misled and think they have found water, but in totally the wrong place!
So as the dowser walks towards the stream, they will feel a number of reactions in their dowsing device, with the strongest of these being over the stream itself. They might mark each of these reactions. It is then important to repeat the process from the other side of the stream, as a confirmation of the first pass.
When above the stream, he uses the rotation method again, this time though only through 180 degrees, searching for “two fan-wise reactions”, ie two reactions which are separated by approximately 180, indicating the line of the stream.
There is the interesting phenomenon of “trios”. So, the reaction over the stream band itself is made up of three reactions, with the central one indicating the centre of the stream. Then as one moves away from the stream, another trio of reactions occurs, which are sometimes referred to as the “depthing” or “flow” bands. The central reaction of these three is particularly helpful, since it may be used to estimate the depth of the flow, using a method known as the Bishop’s rule. (Incidentally, the origin of this rule and its name remain unknown, but it was known of in the late 18th century. However even in the mid-20th century, many water diviners did not use this method, but instead used methods of their own devising. I will cover some of these methods in later posts).
It is important that the dowser identifies the centre of the stream very accurately, so that when a bore hole is sunk, it does not miss the flow. And of course, a good estimate of the depth is necessary to understand how deep to drill and whether this is actually cost effective. Estimating the depth can be a very tricky business, and what is not stressed in the extract, is that a successful water diviner will also often draw on their knowledge of local geology. Also, the scenario described is a simplified one. In practice there may be many confounding issues, for example when more than one steam close together, and for many dowsers, if clay is present between the water and the surface, this can prove a big problem for depth estimation.
Finally, how dowsers discover the remaining information, such as quantity and quality of the underground water, I will deal with in later posts.
The article is found here:
http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/complete_guide_to_dowsing_p142.pdf
To further illustrate the work of a water diviner in action, I have also included another extract from the 1937 Journal of the British Society of Dowsers (BSD). This is the account of a lecture given by a Major K.W. Merrylees, a water diviner working in India.
There are some differences between his and George Applegate’s accounts. He also uses the three sets of “trios” to locate the underground stream and to estimate its depth, but he has developed his own method of distinguishing which trio overlies the stream itself. Merrylees notes that the reaction of his rod is different from that of his dowser colleague. Finally, He doesn’t trust wholly the Bishop’s rule, based on the outer trios, and allows some margin for his depth estimation.
The article is found here, it is entitled “Water divining on the north west frontier”
http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No15_1937_p306.pdf