Dowsing the field - what the rods actually do

[DowserDoreen]

Since I am always being teased on here, let me set out what dowsing actually is for me, and you may laugh, I am well used to it. You hold two L-shaped rods loosely, you walk, and over certain things they cross or swing: water mostly, old pipes, the line of a filled ditch, sometimes the foundations of something gone. I make no grand claims. The sceptics say it is the ideomotor effect, my own tiny muscle movements responding to what I unconsciously notice about the ground, and do you know, I think they may be half right, and it does not bother me in the least. Whether it is my hands reading my own mind or my hands reading the ground, the rods find the water. The farmers who call me to find their old land-drains do not care about the theory, and nor in truth do I. Some ground is simply different under your feet, and the body knows it before the mind does. The rods only let the body say so.

[WiltsMuseum_Col]

I am a sceptic, Doreen, and I will still defend you, because here is the thing the scoffers miss: it does not matter whether it is the ground or the ideomotor effect, because either way you are detecting something real, either a real feature underground or a real perception you could not otherwise put into words. Plenty of archaeology has been usefully spot-checked by a dowser and then confirmed by the trowel. I would never put it in a report as evidence. But I have watched you walk a field and cross at a line that the geophysics later showed was a ditch, and I have no tidy account of that, so I keep my mouth respectfully shut.

[Devizes_Mech]

its the ideomotor thing, doreen even says so herself, fair play to her for being honest about it which is more than most of her sort. you notice the grass is greener over a drain or the ground sounds different under your boot and your hands twitch and the rods move. real result, no magic. that said ill admit ive watched doreen find a pipe i couldnt find with the plan in my hand, so whatever shes doing it works, i just dont think theres a ghost in it. credit where its due though, she finds the water.

[DowserDoreen]

That is the kindest any of you have ever been to me and I shall treasure it. Mark calling it real with no magic, and Col keeping a respectful silence, that is all I have ever asked for. I do not need it to be magic. I only need you to stop pretending the ground is the same all over when your own boots tell you it is not. There are lines in the land. Call them what you like. I follow them, and they are there.