Is Dowsing Science?

By Paul Bennett

Longtime British dowser and geomancer Sig Lonegren, in the Earth Energies part of his website (geomancy.org), says that “when dowsing for intangible targets like the Earth Energies…no two dowsers will ever find exactly the same thing”, and “Dowsing is not a tool of science”, and goes to great length to drive home this concept. I understand his point: dowsing is a way to access the unseen, and in the process of making the intangible tangible, different dowsers will end up with different pictures. But the idea that there is no commonality in those pictures is equally incorrect.

I’ve always been a scientist at heart (among other things). My brand of science now allows for possiblities that are unseen and undetectable with the usual scientific tools. But I’m still going to apply the principles of science to them before I believe in them: are they systematic rather than arbitrary with no rhyme or reason, and are they simple yet powerful. An example of such a possibility is the Hartmann/Curry grid system of straight lines of energy.

I would have nothing to do with dowsing if the results didn’t show some consistency, at least regarding questions or issues that are factual in nature. But in those cases they do show consistency. I have seen several dowsers all locate the same underground water flow, or the same grid line, or the same “aura” around a person, or the same location of a lost or hidden object. Details of a well site such as depth and quantity of water available are often confirmed independently by more than one dowser, without knowledge of the findings of others, and are verified after the well is drilled. This does not happen all the time, but much more often than would happen if it were completely random.

In my earth energy research, some of which I have written about in past newsletters, I see a highly systematic pattern of energy flows. It involves grid lines; cone-shaped vortexes at grid intersections and around trees, people and other living things; and large stones acting as energy lenses. Stone circles attract and amplify energy. All these energy flows follow systematic patterns, such as the double spiral geometry of vortexes. Some of these energies show unexpected behavior: witness the precession or wobble of many, if not all, of the conical vortexes. This is scientific investigation in the best classical sense, except for the means of detection.

Even when the questions become more personal and less factual, we still need to hang onto our left brain long enough to frame the issue clearly and word the question carefully, if we are to receive a meaningful answer. Dowsing is a bridge between the rational and the intuitive, and works only if we keep one foot planted in left-brain logicalness and the other in the realm of right-brain intuition.

Dowsing loses credibility when it deliberately tries to be scientific but forgets the principles of science. We see so much pseudo-science in dowsing, it boggles the mind. People are so ready to accept as truth anything that sounds like science. Please be especially skeptical of anything that uses scientific or mathematical terms loosely and doesn’t define them for you. And take with a grain of sand statements like “quantum physics tells us that…..” made by someone who wouldn’t recognize the Schroedinger equation if they tripped over it. The principles of quantum mechanics are routinely distorted to validate just about every “new age” concept that comes along. It’s not that those concepts are false, it’s just that we’re on shaky ground sometimes when we try to use science loosely to verify them.

The fascination of dowsing is that it delves into the world of the unknown and unseen while retaining a modicum of respect for logical verification. This is why dowsing in its largest scope is becoming increasingly attractive to many different kinds of people now. It's telling that the theme of the 50th anniversary national ASD convention next summer is "Dowsing - Technology for the 21st Century".