Copper Dowsing Rods & Water Witching

So, when I bought my little cottage earlier this summer, I knew one of the first things I needed to do was get a fence put in, so my dog could derp freely around the yard off-leash. Even though it’s a rural area, and not a super busy road, keeping him safe was crucial, so I found a couple of local guys to do the installation. Before they could do that, however, we had to determine where things like the gas line and the water main were (call before you dig!). After these were marked — I wasn’t even home when they did it — I got a call from a gentleman at the village water department, offering to come show me where the storm sewer line ran from my house to the road — he wasn’t allowed to mark it himself, he told me, but he could show me where it was, and I could certainly use spray paint on my own yard.

When he showed up, he pointed to where he thought it should be, and then said, Hold on, we can double check. Y’all. The dude dug around in the back of his old pickup truck, pulled out an old wire, stripped the coating off it, and dowsed in my yard for water. I was literally jumping up and down (I’m sure he thought I was bonkers) because although I’ve read about it, and seen people do it on tv and YouTube, I’d never seen anyone dowse for water in person. He let me try, using his old bedraggled wire, and sure enough, it spun perpendicular as soon as I approached the spot where the storm sewer line was.

Well, as you can imagine, I had to do more of this. The next time I was in Ye Olde Home Improvement Store to buy stuff (it’s a weekly trip for me), I picked up a couple of lengths of copper. I bent about 4″ on each to form a handle, and commenced to wandering my own yard. I walked along the path to the rear of my house, and when I got to the section just below the old cistern on the hillside, the rods immediately crossed over each other; likewise, when I went around the corner to where Water Department Guy had pointed out the storm sewer, the rods quivered and crossed. Now I’m in the habit of taking them with me when I hike, just to see what I can discover out in the wild.

How does dowsing actually work? Depends who you ask! The word basically means “searching for stuff that’s hidden,” so whether that’s water, lost items, buried treasure, or something else, dowsing is considered by some people to be a learned skill, while others insist that not everyone has the “gift” of being able to dowse. I’ll tell you, I’ve had no formal training, other than watching the water department dude with an old wire, and until now, I’ve never dowsed for water, but it clearly worked for me.

One thing I have done is used a pendulum for divination, and to find stuff that went missing, and I’ve done it successfully, but the copper rods are new for me. That said, you don’t have to use copper — I’ve heard of people dowsing with sticks, pieces of jewelry (certainly pendulums work) and any other kind of thing you can name. It’s found in a lot of European folk magic, and in 16th-century Germany, miners used rods to dowse for mineral deposits.

The USGS refers to dowsing as a “pseudoscience,” and says, Case histories and demonstrations of dowsers may seem convincing, but when dowsing is exposed to scientific examination, it presents a very different picture. The natural explanation of “successful” water dowsing is that in many areas underground water is so prevalent close to the land surface that it would be hard to drill a well and not find water. In other words, it’s a bit like me handing you a box with a whole bunch of pebbles in it, and saying “reach in and see if you can find a pebble.”

On the flip side, plenty of people in the metaphysical community see dowsing for water as a legit method of locating it — or any other object. Whether you call it dowsing, doodlebugging, water witching, or something else, it’s a practice that’s been around for a long time — long before the USGS was formed. Maybe it’s the universe sending us messages, maybe it’s our spirit guides trying to show us the way — I don’t know, and it’s certainly not quantifiable… just like so many other metaphysical disciplines.

All of that said, is it possible dowsing really does work? Sure it is — I know I didn’t direct the rods I was holding at all, and they crossed at places that I already knew had water. Is it also possible they responded to some sort of unstable equilibrium as I walked? Obviously, that’s an option as well. What I do know is that it’s a pretty cool party trick, and if I’m ever out hiking and need to dig for water, I’ve got a pair of copper rods in my pack.