Monday, October 18, 2010

Did I Just See What I Think I Saw?

I had never seen this done in real life before

A while back, Cindy and I were traveling the back roads of Arkansas.  As we rounded a curve in the road at 50 MPH, I was startled to see a man in the front yard of his country home.  He was holding a dowsing (or "divining") rod in front of him and slowly pacing forward.  As soon as this scene appeared, it was gone, as we rounded another curve. 

I turned to Cindy and all I could say was, "Did I just see what I think I saw?"  She was as startled and amazed as I was.  I had never before seen anyone with a dowsing rod in my life---except in movies.

Dowsing is a type of divination used in attempts to locate ground water, minerals, ores, oil, gravesites, etc.

Using a Y-shaped twig, or "rod" from a tree or bush, the diviner holds the two ends of the Y and supposedly allows the rod to guide him to the spot where the object of his search is hidden.  Most common woods used for rods are hazel, witch hazel, willow and peach.

In the late 1960s, the U.S. military employed dowsing in the Viet Nam war in an attempt to locate undergound enemy tunnels and weapons.

There is no scientific evidence that dowsing is effective.

2 comments:

  1. It was such a unique sight. I do remember the guy looked similar to the guy pictured on the book's cover on your blog. Also, I remember him wearing red, white and blue.

    ReplyDelete

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