Some say he’s a fraud.
Some call him a witch.
Henry V. Thiessen of Morden, Man., doesn’t know what he is. To him, all that matters is that he believes he has the power to find ground water with a straightened coat hanger.
And that’s good enough.
“As long as it works, I don’t care,” said the cheery 75-year old, as he demonstrated the method in his garage.
“See, it wants me back there,” he said as the wire slowed its wild gyrations above what Thiessen said is a watercourse deep beneath the concrete.
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Thiessen, who operates a home-based business called Compass Global Watersearch, said his coat hanger reveals where the water is and its depth.
Dowsing is an art that is long in lore and short in scientific proof. The practice goes back centuries and continues to this day.
It also continues to be scorned by rationalists who feel it is either fraudulent or unintentionally successful.
A good summary of skeptical views can be found on the Skeptic’s Dictionary website at www.skepdic.com/comments/dowsecom.html.
Skeptics have several arguments:
Dowsing is suspect because water can be found in many places with no supernatural abilities required.
Dowsers may have good instincts for spotting above-ground signs of ground water and then falsely attribute it to the actions of implements they are holding.
Just because it isn’t easy to explain why something seems to work doesn’t mean it does work.
“The absence of a rational explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” says a comment in the Skeptic’s Dictionary.
“On the other hand, there may be some things which we cannot explain rationally. It doesn’t follow from either of these premises that there is always a paranormal explanation, if only we were clever enough to grasp it.”
However, plenty of pro-dowsing views speak back against this widespread skepticism, such as those expressed on the Dowsers Canada website at www.dowsers.ca.
“In dowsing, we train our nervous-muscular system to be like wires that connect the intuitive part of our mind-brain team to a tool that indicates the nature of the message, to a dowsing tool that signals yes or no,” says the dowsing explanation.
Some dowsers use two metal bars, others use a single loop of metal and others use branches and wooden implements.
Thiessen uses a straightened-out coat hanger, mainly because it’s light, cheap and readily available.
Unlike dowsing enthusiasts who are keen to explain how dowsing works and unlike skeptics who are dismissive because of the lack of a rational explanation, Thiessen doesn’t care what makes the wire jig up and down in his hands when he’s over water or why it will jig up and down once for every foot of depth of the water below.
Thiessen’s art is a strange one.
When watching him find an alleged watercourse, it’s hard to tell if he’s purposely swinging the coat hanger up and down, if he’s unconsciously moving the wire and doesn’t realize it or if he’s having trouble holding his hands still because of the power of the dowsing jiggery.
Thiessen said he dowses mostly for fun and to help people, but he does charge $45 for his services and he does have conditions.
“You’ve got to pick me up,” he said.
“I won’t get out of the truck until they pay me.”
Thiessen has practised his water witching for 30 years, at times outraging conservative Christians who see his dowsing as a worthless pagan practice at best and sorcery at worst.
However, he said he is a church-going Christian and doesn’t claim to have magical powers, just an ability that’s hard to explain.
He’s less charitable with the skeptics who say he’s deluded or a charlatan.
“I just think they haven’t got their brain quite straight,” Thiessen said.
Dowsing 101
Dowsing , also known as water witching, is the action performed by a dowser using a device to locate underground water, hidden metal, buried treasure, oil, lost persons or golf balls. Since dowsing is not based upon scientific or empirical laws or forces of nature, it should be considered a type of divination and an example of “magical thinking.”
Dowsing equipment can be called:
– dowsing rod
– dowsing stick
– doodlebug (when used to locate oil)
– divining rod
Map dowsers use a dowsing device, usually a pendulum, over maps to locate oil, minerals, persons or water. However, the prototype of a dowser is the field dowser who walks around an area using a forked stick to locate underground water. When above water, the rod points downward. Some dowsers use two rods that cross when above water.
Theories as to what causes the rods to move:
– electromagnetic or other subtle geological forces
– suggestion from others
– geophysical observations
– ESP and other paranormal explanations
Most skeptics accept the explanation of William Carpenter (1852). The rod moves due to involuntary motor behaviour, which Carpenter dubbed ideomotor action.
In the 16th century, Agricola described mining dowsers using a forked twig to find metals. He didn’t think much of the practice. As a miner, he wrote:
“… should not make use of an enchanted twig, because if he is prudent and skilled in the natural signs, he understands that a forked stick is of no use to him, for … there are natural indications of the veins which he can see for himself without the help of twigs.” (Quoted in Zusne and Jones 1989: 106)
Despite this sage advice, dowsers continue to dowse, claiming that they have a special power and that what they are dowsing for emanates energy, rays, radiations, vibrations and the like.
Source: The Skeptic’s Dictionary
Alternate dowsing definitions
Engineer Raymond C. Willey, one of the founders of the American Society of Dowsers in 1961, in the 1970 book Modern Dowsing gives this definition: “Dowsing is the exercise of a human faculty, which allows one to obtain information in a manner beyond the scope and power of the standard human physical senses of sight, sound, touch, etc.”
Author Chris Bird says that “to dowse” is to search for anything. This is generally done with the aid of a hand-held instrument, such as a forked stick, a pendulum bob on a string, L-shaped metal rods or a wooden or metal wand.
Source. American Society of Dowsers
