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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dowsing | 1/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:18:56.970197+00:00 | kb-cron |
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate many types of object and material without the use of a technical equipment or scientific apparatus. It can be applied to seek for ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia), gravesites, or malign "earth vibrations". It is also known as divining (especially in water divining), doodlebugging (particularly in the United States, in searching for petroleum or treasure) or water finding, or water witching (in the United States). A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones, called dowsing rods or divining rods are normally used, and the motion of these are said to reveal the location of the target material. The motion of such dowsing devices is generally attributed to random movement, or to the ideomotor phenomenon, a psychological response where a subject makes motions unconsciously. The scientific evidence shows that dowsing is no more effective than random chance. It is therefore regarded as a pseudoscience.
== History ==
=== Early divination and religion ===
Dowsing originated in ancient times, when it was treated as a form of divination. The Catholic Church banned the practice completely. Protestant Reformer Martin Luther perpetuated the Catholic ban, in 1518 listing divining for metals as an act that broke the first commandment (i.e., as occultism). Old texts about searching for water do not mention using the divining twig, and the first account of this practice was in 1568. Sir William F. Barrett wrote in his 1911 book Psychical Research that:
...in a recent admirable Life of St. Teresa of Spain, the following incident is narrated: Teresa in 1568 was offered the site for a convent to which there was only one objection, there was no water supply; happily, a Friar Antonio came up with a twig in his hand, stopped at a certain spot and appeared to be making the sign of the cross; but Teresa says, "Really I cannot be sure if it were the sign he made, at any rate he made some movement with the twig and then he said, ' Dig just here '; they dug, and lo ! a plentiful fount of water gushed forth, excellent for 'drinking, copious for washing, and it never ran dry.' " As the writer of this Life remarks: "Teresa, not having heard of dowsing, has no explanation for this event", and regarded it as a miracle. This, I believe, is the first historical reference to dowsing for water. In 1662, divining with rods was declared to be "superstitious, or rather satanic" by a Jesuit, Gaspar Schott, though he later noted that he was not sure that the devil was always responsible for the movement of the rod. In southern France in the 17th century, it was used to track criminals and heretics. Its abuse led to a decree of the inquisition in 1701, forbidding its employment for purposes of justice. An epigram by Samuel Sheppard, from Epigrams theological, philosophical, and romantick (1651) runs thus:
=== Modern dowsing === Dowsing practices used in an attempt to locate metals are still performed much like they were during the 16th century. The 1550 edition of Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia contains a woodcut of a dowser with forked rod in hand walking over a cutaway image of a mining operation. The rod is labeled in Latin and German; "Virgula Divina – Glück-Rüt" ('Rod Divine, Luck-Rod'), but there is no text accompanying the woodcut. By 1556, Georgius Agricola's treatment of mining and smelting of ore, De Re Metallica, included a detailed description of dowsing for metal ore.