What is this? The psychic equivalent of getting your friend soaking wet? Well, to dowse or douse (as you can see, the spelling is interchangeable) does mean to dunk something in water or to put out a candle flame. However, in the psychic world, Dowsing is a means to finding what you’re focused on finding. According to Tom Graves who wrote “The Dowser’s Workbook” now called “Discover Dowsing: Understanding and Using the Power of Divining”, dowsing is a way of using your body’s own reflexes to help you interpret the world around you”.
Remote viewing and Dowsing are close siblings of one another but utilize different methods toward the same goal. Remote Viewers might be given a set of coordinates or told to find a person and determine their location. They claim that their conscious awareness travels to the place in question to take a look around. They are able to describe the target location where they sent their awareness once they’ve finished traveling there. Dowsers use special tools but keep their consciousnesses firmly in their heads. They are not able to describe a location but can find whatever they’re looking for such as metal, water or lost objects. They believe the mind is so aware of its environment, that it can subconsciously perform the task that the conscious mind is requesting it to do. The subconscious mind sends messages to a set of muscles, usually in the wrists. The movement in the wrists is too small to see so a special instrument or mechanical amplifier is often used such as a pendulum, Dowsing rod or bobber. Remote Viewing is more like visiting the surface of the moon and taking a look around whereas Dowsing is like successfully finding a needle in a haystack.
Dowsing appears in ancient history, in the Bible, and is used in a lot of cultures. The Oracle of Delphi was said to have used a pendulum to answer questions. John Locke coined the term “Dowsing rod” back in 1650 to describe the forked tool used to find water. It’s probably one of the only widely accepted uses of psychic ability in the world because it has more monetary value compared to Remote Viewing, Clairvoyance or Mediumship. There are several organizations throughout the world where dowsers gather to learn. One such organization helped a UC Berkeley professor find a dowser who was able to locate her daughter’s stolen harp from 2500 miles away! The U.S. government employed many techniques to spy on the former U.S.S.R. during the Cold War era which included psychic spy techniques such as Dowsing and Remote Viewing. Police have also employed dowsers to find missing persons though they may not admit that openly. Geologists may use Dowsers to pinpoint mineral ores or oil underground which is far cheaper than drilling to find the material. However, the most commonly known reason to employ a Dowser is where to dig a well.
In my second book “Calliope O’Callahan and the Dowsers”, Callie learns more about her friend Siobhan’s family who also Dowse. In the first book, Siobhan learns to use a pendulum over a street map to find missing people. Dowsing is not just used to find objects, water or minerals, it was and still is used to answer questions psychically either with a yes/no answer or using an alphabet in a semi-circular pattern to spell out the answer similar to that of a Ouija board.
Siobhan’s uncle is successful as a forensic accountant by using his Dowsing skills to find irregular expenditures in accounting documents that may be from money laundering schemes. When he doesn’t arrive at the Southern California Dowsing Convention, his family become worried and employ Callie’s aid to help. If you’re interested in learning more about how to Dowse, please look up your local Dowser’s Association.