Dowsing rods — forked sticks or metal rods that are used to find underground water — have been around for at least five centuries. When it comes to dowsing, there are two distinct possibilities. One, dowsers are either really good at pulling a fast one on desperate landowners looking for groundwater, or two, the process actually works. You may have seen people with a dowsing rod, wandering arid land until the wand moves toward a spot in the dirt where life-giving water, at some depth underground, waits to be liberated. It may sound like some kind of hocus-pocus, but it’s estimated that some 60,000 water dowsers are practicing in America today. That's almost 10 times the number of hydrologists, who provide many of the same services as dowsers, substituting science for dowsing rods. All this pointing and feeling has led to real tension between scientists and dowsers. Some of it, undoubtedly, comes from the fact that the dowsing rods indeed have a measure of success in locating underground water, which has led many landowners in search of water to call on dowsers instead of scientists. The scientists push back, saying that hydrologic, geologic, and geophysical knowledge is needed to determine the depths and extent of water. They suggest that the added expense of calling in a dowser is simply not worth it. If dowsing is such a waste of money, why does it remain so popular? The main reason is because farmers and landowners trust dowsers. Despite the head-butting between the dowsers and the scientists, the accuracy of dowsing remains a mystery. Still, the fact that the American Society of Dowsers has over 2,000 active members can’t be ignored.
