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Concept
Dowsing
Summary
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia), gravesites, malign "earth vibrations" and many other objects and materials without the use of a scientific apparatus. It is also known as divining (especially in water divining), doodlebugging (particularly in the United States, in searching for petroleum or treasure) or (when searching for water) water finding, or water witching (in the United States).
A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones—individually called a dowsing rod, divining rod (Latin: virgula divina or baculus divinatorius), vining rod, or witching rod—are sometimes used during dowsing, although some dowsers use other equipment or no equipment at all. The motion of such dowsing devices is generally attributed to the ideomotor phenomenon, a psychological response where a subject makes motions unconsciously. Put simply, dowsing rods respond to the user's accidental or involuntary movements.
The scientific evidence shows that dowsing is no more effective than random chance. It is therefore regarded as a pseudoscience.
Dowsing originated in ancient times, when it was treated as a form of divination. The Catholic Church, however, banned the practice completely.
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.
Official source
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