Carnelian Dowser

Dowsing is the process of using a tool such as a pendulum to discover things that cannot be discovered using our everyday senses. You can search for anything by projecting an intent of what is desired and receiving confirmation or non-confirmation feedback through the body, usually by the movements of a dowsing instrument.

Dowsing, in general terms, is the art of finding hidden things. Usually, this is accomplished with the aid of a dowsing stick, rods, or a pendulum. Also known as divining, water witching, doodle bugging, and other names, dowsing is an ancient practice whose origins are lost in long-forgotten history. However, it is thought to date back at least 8,000 years. Wall murals, estimated to be about 8,000 years old, discovered in the Tassili Caves of North Africa depict tribesmen surrounding a man with a forked stick, possibly dowsing for water. Artwork from ancient China and Egypt seems to show people using forked tools in what might have been dowsing activities. Dowsing may have been mentioned in the Bible, although not by name when Moses and Aaron used a “rod” to locate water. The first unambiguous written accounts of dowsing come from the Middle Ages when dowsers in Europe used it to help find coal deposits.

All things, living and inanimate, the theory suggests, possess an energy force. The dowser, by concentrating on the hidden object, is somehow able to tune in to the energy force or “vibration” of the object which, in turn, forces the dowsing rod, pendulum, or stick to move. The dowsing tool may act as a kind of amplifier or antenna for tuning into the energy. Skeptics, of course, say that dowsing doesn’t work at all. Dowsers who seem to have a track record for success, they contend, are either lucky or have good instincts or trained knowledge of where water, minerals, and the like can be found. For believers or skeptics, there’s no definitive proof either way. Albert Einstein, however, was convinced of the authenticity of dowsing. He said, “I know very well that many scientists consider dowsing as they do astrology, as a type of ancient superstition.