On March 30th I headed to Danville, Vermont to learn dowsing. Danville, of course, is dowser central — not only for Vermont, but for the whole United States. Its American Society of Dowsers has some 83 chapters nationwide.
It was a rainy day when I left Burlington, so I expected to encounter a crowd of dowsers with forked sticks pointing straight up.
Instead, I quickly learned modern dowsing is not just about locating water. In the old days wells were the primary targets. Then dowsers resorted to willow sticks, faith, and conviction. But today’s dowsers don’t need the willow stick — only the will.
As one man explained, “Dowsing reveals information that’s not readily available to the five senses.” Exactly how this happens is still a mystery. The so-called “dowsing rod” is merely an indicator; its movement allows the operator to see and interpret subtle nervous reactions. More experienced dowsers don’t require any sort of tool since the “knowledge” gained apparently comes from within.
Beyond that, no one I met would name the source of that knowledge. Dowsing, it seems is spiritual for sure, and scientific, maybe.
The guest speaker was John Wayne Blasingame, a dowser for 38 years. He teaches Dowsing at the Danville Middle School, but today was giving adult beginners a chance to try our hands at the mysterious art.
Here’s what I observed: When the instructor walked over a certain spot, his L-shaped dowsing rods would spread and point and he’d say, “There’s a vein of water under here.” As each student walked across the same spot their rods responded, too.
I must admit a certain disappointment when I crossed the spot and my rods didn’t even twitch. As one experienced dowser put it, “They aren’t gonna spark for ya.”
Despite my failure, I’m not prepared to scoff at dowsing. I think the anecdotal if not the scientific evidence — and the sheer longevity of the phenomenon — is enough to demonstrate there really is something to this puzzling process. I met accomplished dowsers who claim to be able to find water 80% of the time. But dowsers find a lot more than water; they locate lost objects, missing people, even imperfections in the human aura.
Others dowse for their guardian angels and spirit guides, while a few search for solid scientific explanations of the whole peculiar business.
For anyone curious to explore some facet of the unknown — maybe even the supernatural — dowsing seems like a safe place to start.
Begin by locating the American Society of Dowsers website: at www.dowsers.org.
I found it with no trouble, but I’m far more adept with a mouse than a dowsing rod.
This is Joe Citro.
— Joe Citro is a novelist and native Vermonter who lives in Burlington; you can reach him at ghoststories@vpr.net. His most recent novel is Lake Monsters, about a search for the Lake Champlain monster.
If you want to learn more about dowsing, go to www.dowsers.org .