When I was a kid, my grandfather taught me how to water witch, more commonly called dowsing. He lived in Star Valley Wyoming, and when he was younger was often sought out by others in the community to help then locate a good location to drill a well. My Grandfather used a tree limb (sprout?) that formed a “y” shape, much like the picture above. He told me how to hold it, and then walked around with me on his back property, looking for water. I remember the stick pointing down at some places, and him telling me I had found water. As a city kid, I didn’t give much thought to it, as I was probably a few month shy of my 13th birthday. I thought it was funny, or weird, but didn’t say anything.
For my father, and his father, and probably back many generations, using this piece of tree branch to find water was nothing out of the ordinary. It was just part of everyday life. Yet for a new generation of baby boomers that watched the moon landing, this was something that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Eric Eliason, in his BYU studies article entitled “Seer Stones, Salamanders, and Early “Folk Magic” in light of Folklore Studies and Biblical Scholarship” found the same split between his students.
The presumption that the difference between magic and proper belief is something intrinsic rather than relational to the definer is still very much alive. But on close analysis, complex definitions distinguishing “magical” from “modern” thinking rarely amount to more than “What you do is superstition, while what I do is science or true religion.” One of the biggest surprises rural students have in American university folklore courses, including at BYU, is discovering their suburban peers need to be taught what divining rods are and how to use them. Today, regardless of class, race, education, wealth, region, or religion, rural students tend to know of holding a forked stick gently in one’s hand to feel for the downward tug that points to underground water and a good spot for a well. Dowsing seems not only understandable, but essential, in rural areas where families are on their own to secure water, and where hired well drillers make no guarantees and charge by the foot. City kids are shocked that their country classmates could be such shameless occult dabblers in a modern age where you don’t have to think about where water comes from. You just turn on the tap and out it comes—like magic. My rural LDS students don’t understand why their suburban counterparts have so little respect for or belief in a common spiritual gift often displayed by their educated and reasonable bishops and stake presidents.
BYU Studies Quarterly 55:1
Apparently, both Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdrey had the same gift as my grandfather, and it all comes from the same belief in seer stones, divining rods, and looking for lost treasure (or water). From the church’s web site.
Many Christians in Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery’s day similarly believed in divining rods as instruments for revelation. Oliver was among those who believed in and used a divining rod.
The Lord recognized Oliver’s ability to use a rod: “Thou hast another gift which is the gift of working with the sprout [or rod].”
Oliver Cowdery’s Gift Gift, LDS.org
Science does not seem to back up water dowsing. From the U. S. Geological Survey web page on dowsing:
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 a region of adequate rainfall and favorable geology, it is difficult not to drill and find water!
USGS Water Dowsing
What are your thoughts on water witching? Did my grandfather have a spiritual gift that would explain his success, or does the USGS web site explain why he found water? Is it just as valid as Joseph Smith translating ancient text using a seer stone in a hat? Is finding water using a stick any more weird than using a seer stone?
Wheat & Tares 
Thirty plus years ago, I was working as a water resource planner. One day, I was out talking to farmers and ranchers. An irrigator told me that before he drilled for water, he was hiring a water witch. I looked at the terrain and location of his land and it was fairly obvious that any location for a well was almost guaranteed to be successful. The farmer seem very sincere so I didn’t argue or voice by skepticism.
Going into the town of Sigurd, Utah, there used to be a sign advertising the services of a dowser. Dowsing fits well into the folk magic arena. The thing I find most eye rolling is god acknowledging Oliver Cowdery’s gift.
Bill has missed the entire point here. The question is not whether a diving rod can be used to find water, the question is whether God cares about the details of our lives.
God does care about the details of our lives. If someone is a farmer, God would of course care about whether the farmer had enough water for his crops. If someone is a carpenter, God cares about whether he has materials for his work. The same goes for every person who works hard at an honorable profession.
God of course will not just hand things to people with no effort or work on their own part. Indeed, self-reliance and self-sufficiency are important values.
The use of the divining rod was a way for people to get used to putting effort into improving their situation by doing something themselves while seeking spiritual inspiration. It was training for what would come later.
The irrefutable truth is that we want people to work hard to prepare for themselves and their families, while seeking the inspiration of the Spirit. This is far better for society than having people whose greatest effort is too put on their sweats and crocs and head off to the honky-tonk to spend their government handout money.
There was a nice study done at the Utah State University where they used a sensitive magnetometer and found that where the dowsing rod indicated a change was also where there was a change in the magnetic field.
I have a copy of the Utah State study somewhere, but the author never tried to get it published.
@cachemagic. A quick Google search provides a copy of the write-up at the digitalcommons@usu as a research lab report.
As you note, the manuscript appears never to have been peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal. Since the authors state the study was funded by a grant from dept of interior that seems problematic, since most agency strongly encourage peer-reviewed publication of results, which makes me think it may have failed peer-review. Whether humans can sense tiny changes in electromagnetic fields that may correlate to places where water exists seems like a fun episode for a reboot of mythbusters.
I wonder if the urban equivalents of rural dowsing are:
Hiring a financial advisor to pick stocks / manage portfolio.
Using Yelp reviews to find a good restaurant.
Using Google Maps to pick a driving route to beat rush hour traffic jams.
I found my earlier comments about the dowsing study:
Dowsing has been ridiculed and generally ignored by the scientific community; however Duane Chadwick at Utah State did an interesting study concerning it. He postulated that maybe dowsers were responding to the changes in the magnetic field introduced by water below the surface. So he compared the results of various individuals with high precision measurements using a magnetometer. There was a slight correlation, but his test didn’t make any attempts to actually find people who professed ability for dowsing. Unfortunately he never published his data in a refereed journal, which he later regretted.
My take: I’ve never condemned Joseph Smith for his magical habits that go way beyond using a divining rod. Why? Because he was simply a product of his time and place and folks back then in upstate NY were into that stuff.
Everything about his work product points to him being a reflection of his place and time: the BOM, the BOA, the evolving theology, etc.
I’m no longer interested in making organized religion a part of my life. I’m a lot more interested in authentic spirituality or looking out for the truly marginalized like our LGBQ friends. I guess I’m a product of my place and time too.
Wow @Josh H that’s healing to hear put that way. We beat ourselves up so much for trying to make something work for us because it worked for other people when maybe it just doesn’t work for us like it worked for them not because we are bad or lazy but because they were products of their times and we are products of ours. I think the church tries to get us to think that it exists outside of Time and Space and we aren’t supposed to be influenced by those flimsy concepts unless we are weak, but that’s really just not true is it?
Thought provoking post Bishop Bill! I would tend to say our religion’s history of using objects and related superstitions/beliefs are, given our modern science and understanding, all kinda weird. As far as things we still have, consecrated oil and temple garments come to mind.
Parenthetically, I have been thinking a lot recently about the temple garment and its origins, trying to determine if my best-intended spiritual symbolism can overcome the messy connection to polygamy and original temple practices. Once I fully understood the history of temple practices/original purposes, the garment wasn’t the lifelong, warm hug from God it was supposed to be. As the BoM teaches, “going beyond the mark” (pun intended).
My answer to the OP direct question is that maybe some weirdness can serve a purpose? Point people to higher level ideals, values, aspirations? It gets weird when the thing becomes the object of worship itself. Or the existence of a supernatural power is the point instead of the effect it has on our lives.
Interesting….I was using rods yesterday to teach my grandson about energy and his energy field or “his space”….came to a field of about six feet out from his body. He was fascinated. We are really rural and use our “magic ” rods to find power and water lines on our property before digging…works every time. Maybe we really do “have the power”! And maybe the old “wise ones” are wise😄
Interesting article.
https://www.denverpost.com/2009/06/05/divining-intervention-the-growing-popularity-of-dowsing/
Albert Einstein, shown below, in a 1946 letter wrote: “The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time.”
Dowsing on one’s own property seems a bit silly by modern standards of critical thinking, but is basically harmless and is of no concern to me. But when someone publicly claims to have a spiritual gift for divining and charges other people money to do it, that crosses an ethical line into the territory of fraud and con-artistry. And that is exactly what Joseph Smith did with his treasure digging enterprises; his fraud goes beyond the “product of his time” defense. He took advantage of widespread superstitious beliefs and fanciful stories of buried pirate treasure in order to execute his con.
But I agree with the general point of Bishop Bill’s OP. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. I wonder if any working farmers/ranchers take the practice seriously today, especially in an era of increasing Western droughts and depleted aquifers.
A few years ago my dad was digging a well in rural Arizona and used a stick to water witch. I was pretty rude and laughed when he showed it to me but yes, his well did reach water, so he had the last laugh.
There’s no way that water dowsing works but yes it’s as real as seer stones in a hat – because I just don’t believe that’s how God would reveal to a prophet either. God reveals things to mankind through the scientific method, which is still tainted by human hands and biases but it’s infinitely superior to superstition.
None of the honky tonks I frequent will let you in if you’re wearing sweats & crocs, especially on Sunday – which, by the way, is a great day to honky tonk because the troublemakers are still hungover drunk passed out from Saturday. In my little Midwest town there’s a lovely little honky tonk literally right next door to the Jesus UFO church, which is a hopskipjump from the RLDS church, which is only a quarter mile from the one true church. In between are Catholics Lutherans Seventh Day Adventists various Baptist flavors and a synagogue. Rumor has it there’s a Zen temple back in the hills west. One can really feel the spirit here, even in the honky tonk.
Anytime in hear someone talk about the scriptures falling open to a certain passage I’m reminded of Water witching or dowsing.
It doesn’t sound like BBs grandfather saw any spiritual signicance to his gift. I had an uncle with this ability, he did not see it as spiritual, just a skill.
Some people a good at math, some have people skills, some can devine water.
The time (and culture) dependency of the ways people understand God is at the heart of so much of what we are struggling with in this LDS moment, as Josh so nicely expressed above. Our biggest failures as a church are when we do not keep up with time, and right now appears to be another critical such moment. Do we really expect young missionaries, the people they try to proselytize, aging Gen Xers, everyone really, to be enthusiastic in 2021 about our current messsage: long meetings, talks about what our name should be, requirements of tithing and abstention from tea, and take seriously our scriptures whose source we have no coherent explanation of? We are fulfilling Heschel’s prophesy, becoming “irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid.” Relevance! This should be the problem keeping our leaders up at night.
I can recall a Discovery Channel Special over twenty years ago that also concluded there may very well be something to it related to the Earth’s magnetic field. Granted, this is a network that’s likely more concerned with garnering viewers than it is promoting genuine science, but it was extremely interesting.
A few months ago, I was surprised to learn that some friends of ours and their extended family had actually hired a dowser to survey some property they were looking at. They said he was one of the most humble and genuine people they’d ever met (and these are people who generally have their heads on pretty straight). If I remember correctly, he was also frequently hired by city and private corporations, and had a track record to rival modern technology. So whether you think it’s divine, magic, scientific, pseudoscience, superstition, or outright fraud, there’s still apparently a sizeable number of individuals and groups from all walks of life who still think there’s something to it (whether or not they’d care to admit it).
I personally have no problem with it being a divine gift, but given technological advancements the past century, coupled with the growing need for other spiritual gifts, I think it’s probably so low on the Lord’s priority list that it’s largely irrelevant at this time.
Here are the issues with any magical practice, be it divining rods, seer stones or ouija boards: Is it a way to connect to supernatural knowledge? Is it a way to focus the mind to be able to go into a trance or other way of accessing subconscious knowledge as the participant believes it is working? Does the participant know it doesn’t work and is using it to con people?
I think with a dousing rod the participants believe it works and are able to focus and may be sensitive to some energy. But, I don’t believe the stick connects to some hidden knowledge. With JS, I don’t believe he was able to use the stone to find things because we don’t have any record of him being very successful. I think he believed it worked and was able to use it to focus his mind and that’s why he used it in translating the BOM. I also think sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t and he felt guilty for taking money and going on treasure hunts when he was acting.
Scoff and laugh. Water Dowsing works.
Water dowsing or water witching absolutely works. I used to laugh about it and disregard it. When we moved back to a rural area to take care of my in-laws, we bought a small property in the county, set up a mobile home, put in everything we needed. When it came to the water well, the well driller told us he would have to dig in several places to determine the best area to put in the well.
My father-in-law hired an acquaintance of his, a professional Water Dowser. He used two metal wires, He held the wires straight out in front of him. He marked the spots where he got a response. The spot where he got the most aggressive or strongest response is where we drilled the well. Still going strong 20 years now.
Depending on how much water is present determines how strongly the wires respond, or cross, If there is little water, the tips of the wires will come together and touch, or barely cross at the ends, or move a little bit.. When a lot of water is present the wires will cross and point in the opposite directions. For example….the Dowser held the wires straight out in front of him. When he came to the area where we drilled the well, the wires crossed fast and aggressively…….the wire in the left hand went all the way to his right, and the wire in his right hand went all the way to his left, crossing one another…..almost making a straight line.
The building where my husband works had water line issues, years ago. The people hired to do the work could not find the specific water line that was leaking. . The building schematics were wrong. They said they would have to tear up the entire floor to find the leaking water lines. My husband offered to Water Douse to find the leak. Everyone laughed at him, gave him a hard time. He asked his manager to humor him. As my husband was Water Dousing the office floor, everyone in the office watched, snickering, and giving him a hard time. He marked the spot where he got the most aggressive response, and where the hired workers needed to dig. So they dug in that spot……that is exactly where the leak was. Everyone in the office never said another word to my husband about it.
Yes, even today, people who are smart, use experienced Water Dowsers. The city and county where I live use a Water Dowser when needed. And where my husband works, they occasionally hire an experienced Water Dowser for field work due to my husband Dowsing and finding the water leak. It saves time and money. Because it works.
What used to thought of as science fiction, or magic, unfathomable, or could never be achieved…….is now being done.
We don’t know what we don’t know. And just because it is the 21st Century, there is still so much we do not know, so much we do not understand, and new things are still being discovered.
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Tulan, James Randi offered $1 Million to “to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.” He had several dowsers try (see video) and failed. Maybe your father-in-law’s friend could win the $1,000,000 !
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/debunking-dowsing-5028261/
That water has an energy field (Dr. Gerald Pollack, “The Fourth Phase of Water”) suggests that it can be traced and measured. The process of dowsing is an effort to “trace” water, not to “measure” it.