A look at dowsing

Anthony North: One supposition of paranormality often ignored is its relationship to the environment. The paranormal is thought of as a human practice, involving interactions with humans, sometimes alive and sometimes dead.Yet there is a wealth of evidence that paranormal talents extend beyond the mere human and also have a close relationship with the environment. And nowhere is this better expressed than in Dowsing.Old or new ?Dowsing - the supposed ability to find water or minerals by mind power – can be an eccentric pastime. Using a forked twig, pendulum, in one case even a German sausage, the dowser walks an area of land and when successful the twig twitches or the pendulum spins.Dowsing is often thought of as a recent paranormal innovation, but this is not the case. In the 17th century the French Baroness de Beausoleil first adapted the dowsing rod. But in the Bible, Moses is portrayed finding water with his staff.In Medieval times the practice was used for finding coal, and Agricola’s treatise on mining, ’De re metallica’ of 1556, discusses dowsing. Hence, it has been practiced way back in history.

Sceptics and believers: As usual, James Randi was successful in showing up a group of dowsers in Australia in 1980. Hiding boxes and pipes in a field, some containing objects, others not, he tested a group of dowsers, and predictably they failed to perform adequately. Whether this disproves the ability to dowse, or simply proves those dowsers were not very good on that particular day is open to question.To 19th century dowser John Mullins such arguments were an irrelevance. He set up a dowsing company to find water and thrived. In 1938, dowser L L Latham adapted dowsing to archaeology, successfully mapping out some dig sites.During the Vietnam War, US Marines adapted dowsing to finding mines with a high degree of success. But if proof were needed of its ability, oil companies provide it. They employ dowsers to find oil.The fact that they continue to do so, and pay huge amounts for skilled dowsers, shows there is something to it. If something doesn’t work, big business soon drops it.