THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD
No serious inquirer into the mysteries of occultism should neglect to
study the peculiar human faculty locally known as Dowsing. Science has
hitherto turned a cold shoulder to the skilled wielders of the divining
rod, and at first sight perhaps few subjects appear to be so little
worthy of investigation. To begin with it is a matter of common
geological knowledge that the mode of distribution of underground water
is very different from that imagined by the professional dowser. The
latter will locate a spring in a certain spot and give you scrupulous
details as to its depth and the amount of water it will yield. He may go
on to tell you that a few feet distant is another spring, of a totally
different depth, and that between the two no water will be found. The
assertions are ridiculed by the practical geologist, whose point of
view is admirably expressed in the following letter. The writer is the
Rev. Osmond Fisher, M.A. (author of "Physics of the Earth's Crust").
"Harlton Rectory, Cambridge,
"February 4th, 1896.
"It appears to me that the assumption which underlies the
belief in the divining rod is erroneous. It is only under
exceptional circumstances, as among crystalline rocks, or where
the strata are much disturbed, that underground water runs in
channels like water in a pipe, so that a person can say, 'I am
now standing over a spring,' whereas a few paces off he was not
over one. What is called a spring, such as is reached in a
well, is _usually_ a widely extended water-saturated stratum.
Ordinarily where water can be reached by a well, there are few
spots [in the neighbourhood] where a well would not find it.
"The question which is really worthy of investigation in this
and similar cases seems to be how such an idea ever originated
and to what it owes its vitality."
From the geologist's point of view, then, the so-called "diviner" is the
merest charlatan, who, so far as the finding of water or mineral veins
is concerned, would be equally successful were he to substitute the
dice-box or the coin for his more usual implement the hazel wand. It is,
he argues, a matter of guessing--and nothing more. The question becomes
complicated when we remember that among the ardent devotees of the "rod"
are to be numbered country squires, M.P.'s, doctors, clergymen, and
farmers, who would have nothing to gain by pretending to a power which
they did not possess.
The Society for Psychical Research has devoted a considerable amount of
attention to the subject. So far back as 1884 a paper on "The Divining
Rod," prepared by Mr E. R. Pease, was read at a general meeting of the
Society. The following is an abstract:--
"The Divining Rod is a V-shaped twig, commonly of hazelwood,
but sometimes of steel watchspring, whalebone and other
substances. It first came into use about three centuries ago,
and during the seventeenth century it was the subject of much
controversy and of numerous experiments by the learned men of
the time. Many theories were proposed to explain its action,
but none of them would now be regarded as plausible, and
various test experiments which were made uniformly failed. In
1701, the Inquisition condemned the use of the rod, and after
this date the popularity of divining greatly diminished. In the
seventeenth century it was used to discover murderers and
thieves, buried treasures, lost boundaries, and other hidden
objects, as well as metals and water springs. At present it
appears to be chiefly used in the West of England for the
discovery of water springs, and in America for oil wells and
mines. Mr E. Vaughan Jenkins, of Cheltenham, has made and
presented to the Society for Psychical Research a very valuable
collection of evidence of its use in England for locating
wells. He has communicated with various well-known 'diviners,'
and has received direct from landowners, architects, builders,
commercial firms and others, careful records of the successful
choosing of well sites by diviners in places where professional
geologists or local experts were hopeless of success. It seems
also that diviners travel about the country and 'dowse' in
localities new and strange to them.... The divining rod is
always held in a position of extreme tension, and at the same
time of unstable equilibrium. Slight muscular contractions
produce violent and startling effects. It would seem therefore
that the action of the rod may be caused by unconscious
movements of the diviner's hands, due possibly to a sensation
of chill on reaching water-bearing spots, or perhaps merely to
an unwritten practical science of the surface signs of hidden
water."
Mr Pease eventually came to the conclusion that "the evidence for the
success of dowsing as a practical art is very strong--and there seems to
be an unexplained residuum when all possible deductions have been made."
Fifty years ago Dr Mayo, F.R.S., came to a similar conclusion after
exhaustive experiments with the divining rod, both in England and
abroad, and in 1883, Dr R. Raymond, the distinguished secretary of the
American Institute of Mining Engineers, summed up the result of his
investigations in the following opinion:--"That there is a residuum of
scientific value, after making all necessary deductions for
exaggeration, self-deception and fraud" in the use of the divining rod
for finding springs and deposits of ore.
In 1892, Professor W. F. Barrett, yielding to the earnest request of the
Council of the Society for Psychical Research, began an investigation of
the matter. It was with considerable reluctance that Professor Barrett
undertook the work, since, as he has told us, his own prejudice against
the subject was not less than that of others. He hoped, however, that a
few weeks' work would enable him to relegate it
"Into a limbo large and broad, since called
The Paradise of fools."
Six years later Professor Barrett presented to the Society a voluminous
report, which occupies a considerable part of two volumes of the
"Proceedings." Embodied in this Report, which is a veritable masterpiece
of patient and indefatigable research, is a mass of evidence so vast
that it is only possible to pick out a case here and there at random.
The following case was sent by Miss Grantham:--
"100 Eaton Square, London, S.W.,
"February 1st, 1893.
"My father (Judge Grantham) was going to dig a well on one of
his farms. The Rev. J. Blunt was then residing in our parish,
and as he had previously told us he was able to discover the
presence of water underground by means of a twig, we asked him
to go with us one day to see if he could find water. Mr B.
began by cutting a twig out of the hedge, of hazel or
blackthorn, V-shaped, each side about eight inches long, then
taking hold of one end in each hand between the thumb and first
finger, and pointing the angle to the ground, he walked about
the field in which my father proposed digging a well, and at
two spots the point of the twig turned right up, exactly
reversing its previous position; in fact so strong was its
impulse to point upwards, that we found that unless Mr B.
relaxed his hold the twig broke off near his fingers. We put
small sticks in these spots, and then took a boy about twelve
years old who was in Mr B.'s employment, and who had since
quite a child shown that he possessed this power, over the same
ground; he had not seen the spots at which Mr B.'s twig found
water, neither did we point them out to him, but at these
places his twig behaved in the same way as Mr B.'s. My father,
mother, and four or five others, then cut similar twigs out of
the hedge, but with none of us would they divine water. My
father then took Mr B. over some ground where he knew of the
existence of an underground stream; he did not tell Mr B. this,
but directly Mr B. passed over the places the twig again turned
upwards as it had done before. A well has since been dug at one
of the spots in the first field where the twig indicated water,
and it was found at the depth of fifteen feet. Mr B. and the
boy both said that they did not feel any abnormal influence
whatever when the twig divined water.
"EMMA L. GRANTHAM."
Another case (from Somersetshire) is quoted from in _The Western
Gazette_ of 10th February 1893. Evercreech is at the foot of the
Mendips.
"A well has recently been sunk on the premises of Messrs W.
Roles & Son, of Evercreech Junction, on the site of the
proposed milk factory. Mr Henry Smart, head gardener at Pennard
House, was successful with the divining twig (or rod), and a
well was sunk to a depth of 60 feet, when a spring was found
which yielded no less than 15,000 gallons of water in ten
hours. Water came at such a rate that a powerful pump had to be
erected temporarily by Messrs Hill & Son, of Bruton, and was
kept working day and night in order to keep the water down for
the purpose of walling (the well). At the present time there is
50 feet of water in the well, the supply increasing daily."
Professor Barrett wrote to Messrs Roles to know if a well had been sunk
previously, and if the above statement was correct. They reply that the
account is quite correct, and add: "We had previously sunk a well
without the use of the rod, to nearly the same depth, but it was
_unsuccessful_. Six yards from this useless well the diviner found the
spring which now yields enough to supply a small village if required."
The Rev. Martin R. Knapp, M.A., vicar of Holy Trinity, Dalston, writes
to Professor Barrett as follows:--
"72 Forest Road, Dalston, N.E.,
"November 14th, 1896.
"In the summer of 1892, I entered on the vicarage of North
Wootton in North Somerset, and had reason at once to look for
water. I was advised to try a 'water-finder,' and did so. The
dowser was a retired miller, and came provided with a number of
forked twigs. Holding one he traversed the place, and at
certain points the twig oscillated violently in his hands, and
there, he professed, he should find water.
"There was an interesting sidelight in the matter that I will
tell you of. My builder, who came from Bath, was very sceptical
about the whole thing. Three or four of us who were on the spot
tried to see if the twigs would 'play up' with us.
"We were unsuccessful till this man tried his hand, scoffing
the while. But directly that he came to the spots the dowser
had found the twig showed vigorous signs of animation. When his
hand was being twisted in his efforts to keep the twig steady,
I cried to him to hold fast, with the result that the twig
twisted itself into two pieces.
"At Wells, close by, lived a coachman, who was reported to have
the power to find, not only water but minerals. He carries
neither rod nor twig, and told me when I inquired, that his
sensations are undoubted and extraordinary whenever he is
directly above either water or minerals.
"MARTIN R. KNAPP."
In answer to inquiries Mr Knapp informed Professor Barrett the builder
was a stranger to the locality, and the spots where the rod moved were
unlikely to suggest water below. The twig in the builder's hand, Mr
Knapp says, in every case corroborated the dowser's indications, and
hence he (the builder) was unmercifully chaffed, as he had treated the
whole thing with such contempt. Mr Knapp says it is possible that the
places indicated by the dowser might have been perceived by the builder,
but it was the spontaneous and vigorous movement of the twig, evidently
contrary to the holder's intention and against his will, that excited
their astonishment.
Dr Hutton, F.R.S., the distinguished mathematician--to whom the Royal
Society entrusted the gigantic labour of making an abridgment of the
whole of the Transactions of the Royal Society from its foundation in
1666 to the beginning of this century--gives the following account of
his experiments with the divining rod as used by Lady Milbanke:--
"At the time appointed (eleven A.M., 30th May 1806) the lady,
with all her family, arrived at my house on Woolwich Common,
where, after preparing the rods, etc., they walked to the
grounds, accompanied by the individuals of my own family and
some friends, when Lady Milbanke showed the experiment several
times in different places, holding the rod in the manner
described elsewhere. In the places where I had good reason to
know that no water was to be found the rod was always
quiescent, but in other places, where I knew there was water
below the surface, the rods turned slowly and regularly in the
manner above described, till the twigs twisted themselves off
below the fingers, which are considerably indented by so
forcibly holding the rod between them.[3]
"All the company stood close to Lady M. with all eyes intensely
fixed on her hands and the rods to watch if any particular
motion might be made by the fingers, but in vain; nothing of
the kind was perceived, and all the company could observe no
cause or reason why the rods should move in the manner they
were seen to do.
"After the experiments were ended, everyone of the company
tried the rods in the same manner as they saw Lady M. had done,
but without the least motion from any of them. And in my
family, among ourselves, we have since then, several times,
tried if we could possibly cause the rod to turn by means of
any trick or twisting of the fingers, held in the manner Lady
Milbanke did, but in vain; we had no power to accomplish it."
[Footnote 3: Dr Hutton does not say _how_ he knew that water was, or was
not, below the surface. He was not, however, one likely to make loose
and random statements. According to a footnote in _The Quarterly
Review_, vol. xxii. p. 374, it appears that the ground chosen for the
experiment was a field Dr Hutton had bought, adjoining the new College
at Woolwich, then building.]
The following is a remarkable case, and an important one from an
evidential point of view. It is not known whether the "diviner" in this
case was an amateur or not; he is now dead.
_The Bristol Times and Mirror_ of 16th June 1891 states:
"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery at Shepton Mallet needed a large
water supply; accordingly excavations had been made to find
water, but without success. About two years since, during an
exceptionally dry season, it became absolutely necessary to
obtain a further supply of brewing water; hence several boring
experiments were made on the property. At the suggestion of a
gentleman in the locality, the services of a 'diviner' were
obtained, and although the principal members of the firm
professed to have no faith in his 'art,' yet he was allowed to
try the fields on the company's property, and those on the
neighbouring estate, and discovered the well now used by the
brewery.... The soothsayer who carried the divining rod, a
hazel branch, was Mr Charles Sims, a local farmer, and a
notable discoverer of wells in the district. Operations were
immediately commenced, and, after excavating and dynamiting
through the rock, to the depth of fifty feet, a magnificent
spring was discovered in a fault of the rock, which proved to
be of exceptionally fine water, and of even a finer quality
than the town's supply."
Professor Barrett wrote to the Secretary of the brewery to make
inquiries and he replied as follows:--
"Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,
"September 12th, 1896.
"Replying to your letter in regard to a local diviner, we had
one of the name of Sims, from Pilton, who successfully denoted
a spot on our ground where we have had an abundant supply of
water since. This was some eight years ago.
"The writer of this letter also has had some considerable
experience with Mr Lawrence of Bristol, who was one of the most
noted divining rod men in the West of England. He also was
successful in denoting a supply for a Bristol brewery with
which the writer was connected; and in numerous other instances
in the neighbourhood. Mr Lawrence bore a very high reputation.
We believe he died a few months ago at a ripe old age.
"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,
"J. CLIFFORD,
"_Manager_."
Having written to ask if a previous boring had been made, and if so,
what depth, and with what result, the following reply was received:--
"Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,
"September 18th, 1896.
"Replying to yours of the 14th, a boring was carried out to the
extent of some 140 feet _without success_ on another portion of
our premises, before it was successfully done at the spot
indicated by the water finder; here, a well was sunk and
abundant water obtained at a depth of 40 feet.
"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,
"J. CLIFFORD,
"_Manager_."
In the following case, the best advice was obtained and some L1000 spent
fruitlessly searching for an underground spring prior to the dowser's
visit. The first notice of it appeared in a local newspaper, _The West
Sussex Times and Sussex Standard_, from which the following letter is
reprinted:--
"Warnham Lodge, Horsham,
"January 3rd, 1893.
"Having had very great difficulty in the supply of water to
this house, I sent for John Mullins, of Colerne, near
Chippenham, who, by the aid of a twig of hazel, pointed out
several places where water could be found. I have sunk wells in
four of the places and it each case have been most successful.
"It may be said that water can be found anywhere--this is not
my experience. I have had the best engineering advice and have
spent many hundreds of pounds, and hitherto have not obtained
sufficient water for my requirements, but now I have an
abundant supply.
"I certainly should not think of sinking another well without
previously consulting John Mullins.
"HENRY HARDEN."
It is sometimes urged that only springs yielding a limited supply of
water are found by dowsers, who fix on spots where more or less surface
water can be got from shallow wells rather than run the risk of sinking
a deep well. Many of the cases already cited refute this notion, and the
following bears on the same point. It is from Messrs Beamish & Crawford,
the well-known brewers, of Cork.
"Cork Porter Brewery, Cork,
"December 30th, 1896.
"In reply to your letter of 26th inst., we beg to state:
"1. We had an old well yielding a small supply of water. It was
about 30 feet deep.
"2. No new well was fixed on by Mullins. He bored down to a
depth of about 60 feet below the bottom of the old well, and
therefore about 90 feet below the surface of the ground.
"3. The supply of water now obtained from the new pipes sunk by
Mullins is, as nearly as we can estimate, about 10,000 gallons
per hour.
"BEAMISH & CRAWFORD LTD."
It goes without saying that professional dowsers are not always
successful in their quests. "I am inclined," states Professor Barrett,
"to think we may take from ten to fifteen per cent. as the average
percentage of failures which occur with most English dowsers of to-day,
allowing a larger percentage for partial failures, meaning by this that
the quantity of water estimated and the depth at which it is found have
not realised the estimate formed by the dowser."
What then is the secret of the dowser's often remarkable success? The
question is whether, after making every allowance for shrewdness of eye,
chance, coincidence, and local geological knowledge, the dowser has any
instinctive or supernormal power of discovering the presence of
underground water. Professor Barrett, who has perhaps devoted more time
to the subject than any other man living, is inclined to answer in the
affirmative.
"There appears to be evidence," he writes, "that a more profound stratum
of our personality, glimpses of which we get elsewhere in our
'Proceedings,' is associated with the dowser's art; and the latter seems
to afford a further striking instance of information obtained through
automatic means being more remarkable than, and beyond the reach of,
that derived from conscious observation and inference."
In another passage he adds:
"For my own part, I have been driven to believe that some dowsers--
"Whose exterior semblance doth belie
The soul's immensity"
nevertheless give us a glimpse of
"The eternal deep
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind."