Lonnie77 Loc: Kennedale, Texas

It does work. Well diggers would hire my great Aunt to pick the best spot.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Very simple. It's one of the very few forms of magic left over from the time when true magicians and sorcerers ruled the world!

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Your divining rods will find running water, such as tile ditches, water lines, etc. The tree branches (they must be green, not dry--dry won't work, and fruit tree y-shaped branches work best) will also find underground water pockets for well drilling, etc. Lots of folks will laugh at this, but it works. I know because I can do it. When I was teaching at a high school, I located a water main for a backhoe operator after he'd been digging for half an hour according to blueprint measurements. It was about fifteen feet away from the print measurements. Also, when I was a teenager, I found a water source in a field for a fellow farmer to drive a well for water for his cattle. My uncle was better, than me, though. He went back to the field, witched the same spot, and told the friend how deep his well would be. He missed it by five feet. I might add that not everyone can do this. My brother could walk across an open ditch with divining wires, and nothing ever happened. I could follow him across and mine would begin to turn as I approached the water, directly inward as I crossed the water, and begin turning back toward it as I passed on by. As for why these techniques work, I don't know, but they do.

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

What an interesting topic this has been. Non believers and believers.

Thruxton Loc: Indiana / California

As a plumber I was forced to use divining rods a time or two. They worked for me.

SqBear Loc: Kansas, (South Central)

Very interesting indeed!

However, this and other techniques do work!

My father was called on many time to dowse for water with Peach tree branches, yes, they had to be live branches and in the "Y" configuration as quoted by another member here. He would put the ends of the "Y" in his hands palms up, grip the ends and roll and twist his wrists to palms down maintaining the point of the "Y" straight out as possible and begin his walking. He sometime would walk many, many paces before any movement of the branch. When I say walk many, many paces. He was asked to find water on a half acre lot. He walked the entire lot and found nothing. Not just up and down and back and forth but crisscrossed the lot as well

He rarely was off more than 5 feet in any direction but 99% of the time was dead on spot!
I have seen his hands raw from the branch (really twigs) after proving his spot at least 5 if not 10 times before he would stand on the spot and say, "here, about XX feet down".

He also used the welding rods, but preferred the Peach Tree branches. He used Apricot branches one time, found what he thought was water but told the man he needed to go back with the welding rods and hit the same spot again with the rods, but this time he was positive. The man had a well dug at the location and hit water at 55 feet!

He tried and tried to teach me how to, but I never got the "hang of it". Once in a while I would have actions from the welding rods, but when I would go back to prove the spot...could not hit it each time! Never told anyone to "dig here" because of this.

God rest his sole!

Dave

Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast

God rest his fish? God rest the underside of his shoe?

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

Dean ---

Born and raised in Missouri MANY years ago, as a young man my father was skeptical when a dowser said he could find water - with a forked tree branch. In the dowser's hands, the branch turned down. My father said that the dowser was just turning it himself, but when the branch was put in his hands he was unable to keep it from turning down - and the water was there, for a very successful well. I should add that I never knew my father to lie about anything, or even exaggerate in any regard!

Loren

clickalot Loc: Chicago area

I was told to use a forked branch (Y shape) from a fruit tree and that "water witches" tend to run in families every other generation. It was supposed to be my generation. As a child, maybe 14, I tried it out. I started at an unused old well where a house had once stood (long gone) and found the branch did turn down for me. I kept following a trail pointed to by the down turning branch for about a mile and it led me to a spring that flowed into a creek. I had no prior knowledge of this spring or its location, although I did know there was a creek in that direction. However, as I stood at the old well, I had no conscious thought of going to the creek. Some say this indicated tracing an underground stream.

I am trained as an engineer, now over 60. Lots of science studies. Hard to explain the result I personally experienced in terms of science. I merely offer this as one account of one experiment which I know was not a fake/fraud.

John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

If you dig deep enough you will eventually reach a water table, except in deserts and mountains.

R. Bush Loc: Ogden, UT

Early on Joseph Smith tried a devining rod and it didn't work for him either. He however had better luck when he discovered some gold plates. Now the LDS Church with its billions of dollars can afford to dig all of the deep wells it needs for their baptismal fonts.

Needless to say, I don't pay the 10% required to stay in their favor and therefore will not end up residing for all eternity in their best kept country club amongst the clouds. Thats OK. I'd rather spend all eternity with all the dogs I've owned and loved throughout my mortal years.

DeanS Loc: Capital City area of North Carolina

Not worthy of a serious response.

DeanS Loc: Capital City area of North Carolina

For the most part, posters on this topic today have positively affirmed this mystery. The skepticism evinced by wikipedia and adherent "scientist" have pretty much been debunked by real, live humans who have actually experienced success or witnessed it firsthand. Hard to argue with physical evidence.

As an aside, several years ago, I had an inground sprinkler system installed at a former home locally here. Later, after a lawn that just wasn't up to snuff, I decided to have a new lawn installed. Because the landscaper was going to turn all the topsoil after killing all the grass, it was important to know where all the feeder lines to sprinkler heads were locsted. Out comes my rods, and found them all. Only one line was cut and that was operator error on the digger.

With all the successes described today, I rest my case. Thanks to all who participated.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

In all those years drilling wells, lots of people insisted of having this done, but it never worked (not once- we warned them before)!

2Much Loc: WA

Never tried to find water, but I can use the L-shaped coat hangers to find buried pipes of any description. Originally certain it was total BS, there was nothing subtle about their response in my hands the first time I actually tried it.

Decades ago, shortly after my convincing, we did a civil survey for expansion of a large school. The work included identifying the undocumented locations of underground water, sewer and storm pipes of various metal, tile and plastic construction. While the crew was running in baselines, I walked a grid pattern with a pair of bent wires and flagged the dozens of hits. To the entertainment/amazement of all, every indication proved to be accurate (by projecting and sleuthing to find facilities, inlets, outlets, manholes, junction boxes, etc.). Many would have otherwise gone undetected.

Wish the "how it works" was so easily found!