Ancient Dowsing Alive and Well in Colombia?
Since the Middle Ages dowsing applications have been employed in alternative traditions including ghost hunting, raising spirits, mediumship, divining, fortunetelling and detecting ley-lines - perceived telluric energy lines between distant objects or locations. Dowsers claim that they can find missing and hidden objects and minerals like jewelry, treasure, persons, buried pipes, oil deposits, bones, water and even archaeological ruins. In Colombia, South America, rod dowsers are not uncommon and their services have been employed for several millennia. Historian Ashley Cowie’s skeptical comfort zone was directly challenged with what was “nothing less than a spiritual torpedo”.
A tour in Wales by Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) depicting dowsing (Public Domain)
In November 2017, The Independent, (United Kingdom) printed an alarming news article revealing that highly trained hydro-engineers in “Ten of 12 of the UK’s water companies use dowsing rods to detect leaks or find pipes,” despite there being no scientific evidence for their efficacy. Even having access to modern technology, including leak detecting thermal imaging drones and specialist moisture seeking nano-robots, many British scientists still opt to use ancient magical techniques to find water.
