Paranormal Chaos Investigations

Dowsing Rods - History and More

 

Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites, and many other objects and materials without the use of scientific apparatus. Dowsing is considered a pseudoscience, and there is no scientific evidence that it is any more effective than random chance.

 

Dowsing as practiced today may have originated in Germany during the 15th century, when it was used in attempts to find metals. As early as 1518 Martin Luther listed dowsing for metals as an act that broke the first commandment (i.e., as occultism). The 1550 edition of Sebastian Monster's Cosmographia contains a woodcut of a dowser with forked rod in hand walking over a cutaway image of a mining operation.  By 1556 Georgius Agricola's treatment of mining and smelting of ore, De Re Metallica, included a detailed description of dowsing for metal ore.

 

In 1662 dowsing was declared to be "superstitious, or rather satanic" by a Jesuit, Gaspar Schott, though he later noted that he wasn't sure that the devil was always responsible for the movement of the rod. In the South of France in the 17th century it was used in tracking criminals and heretics. Its abuse led to a decree of the inquisition in 1701, forbidding its employment for purposes of justice. 

 

Dowsing was conducted in South Dakota in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to help homesteaders, farmers, and ranchers locate water wells on their property. In the late 1960s during the Vietnam War, some United States Marines used dowsing to attempt to locate weapons and tunnels. As late as in 1986, when 31 soldiers were taken by an avalanche during an operation in the NATO drill Anchor Express in Vassdalen, Norway, the Norwegian army attempted to locate soldiers buried in the avalanche using dowsing as search method. 16 soldiers died. Regardless of the scientific experiments, dowsing is still used by some farmers.

 

The act of dowsing is rather simple. The rods are held firmly in each hand and do not themselves move. Instead, the rods are embedded into the handles on a pivot allowing the rods to swivel. The handles are held closely to the chest or abdomen of the dowser to prevent accidental manipulation of the rods, the dowser's legs are spread shoulder width to ensure a stable stance void of swaying.

 

Instructions are announced to any spirit present on how the rods are to be used. Ground rules are established in how the questions are to be answered. Typically, crossed rods indicate an answer in the positive. After each question the spirit should be asked to uncross the rods. A negative response is typically indicated by the lack of manipulation. Because of this you will want to periodically ask the spirit if they are still there to gauge whether the lack of response is a negative response to a question or because the spirit has departed the scene.

 

The downside to using the rods is that the information you glean is often limited and unless you have prior knowledge of events surrounding the spirit or the alleged haunting, it could be an effort in futility determining just with whom you are in contact.

 

Some questions you can ask to determine the nature of the presence:

1) Are you male?

2) Are you female?

3) Are you a child?

4) Are you an adult?

5) Where you born in the year....?

6) Did you die here?

7) Were you murdered?

8) Did you die of natural causes?

Obviously if you know details about the case you are investigating you can ask more targeted questions and perhaps receive better results.

 

 

Additionally, some investigators ask the spirit to manipulate the rods to point the group to important areas within an investigation scene, using the rods as a sort of lead.

 

Dowsers will often caution those just starting out that the act of carrying on a session with a spirit can cause fatigue and nausea/disorientation as the spirit is supposedly using the energy of the dowser to manipulate the rods.

The Spirit Seekers have used the rods during investigations to varying degrees. More times than not though the results are inconclusive and make no sense in relation to the investigation.

 

So just who is moving the rods? Many believe that the movement is caused by subconscious muscle movement of the person holding the rods, similar to the belief that the moving planchette of a Ouija board is nothing more than subconscious movement of the participants. Others believe that the rods move on their own but that the movements have a more earthly explanation; that the rods are conductors for magnetic fields, water, and other elements and the interference�is causing the rods to cross and uncross.

 

Whatever the reason, the rods have been in use for centuries and many people believe in their power. Be it finding underground wells or communicating with the dead, the rods are destined to be a part of paranormal history well into the future, and something with that kind of staying power is nothing to shake a stick at.