Many people make fun of dowsers and outright ridicule them, and granted, there are many instances of phonies trying to make a buck off of gullible people. However, it would be a big mistake to dismiss all dowsing as a myth. There have simply been far too many documented cases where a dowser was able to find water, minerals, or other substances, when there has been no other explanation for how they couldn’t have known where those substances would be.
An example was a family in the high country of eastern Oregon. They had purchased a nice plot of land, however this area is part of the Oregon High Desert, so it gets very parched every year. They knew that they would need a well, so they first called in some professionals who used seismic soundings, thermal photography, and other similar “high tech” means to find water. The bad news was that none was found. There recommendation was to sink several test holes. This was done; 5 holes were put in, in various places on the property, but even at a depth of 100 feet, no water was found. The owner didn’t want to spend more thousands of dollars on yet more holes, but he saw no alternative…until he heard about a dowser living in the area.
He spoke at length with the dowser, who was for all experiences a weathered old guy that looked more like a prospector out of the old west than anything else. The man was very upfront and frank, which was refreshing after dealing with the professional types, and he told the property owner that he would dowse the property. If water was found, the cost would be $500, which was far less than all the testing that had cost, and the clencher was that the man said that if water was not found, it would cost nothing.
The dowsing was done two days later, on a bright and hot Saturday. The dowser had the traditional tools, namely a forked willow switch, and holding it lightly, the slowly walked back and forth across the property. After a couple hours, he stopped, right in front of a flat outcropping of volcanic rock, the tip of the dowsing rod bent way down. He told the owner that water would be found below, and that it was shallow. In a leap of faith, the owner had a test well drilled in that spot, despite the skeptical laughter of the drilling crew. Their laughter died when water was found, 45 feet below, and actually gushed under pressure to the point that the well had to be temporarily capped.
To this day, you can travel in that area and see mile after mile of sage brush and rocks, then suddenly you will see what appears to be a green oasis. The well is still producing a lot of water that the experts said wasn’t even there.
This is only one of many examples. Is dowsing fact or fiction? Just ask the people who have used it to great advantage, and see what they think!
