This means the ability to detect sources, rocks, earth rays with the help of a rod or a pendulum. Rod and pendulum belong to the same discipline. Since the dowser also works with the pendulum and the diviner can also work with the rod, these two disciplines are treated together. Since 1930 this discipline has been subsumed under the term Radiesthesia.
Dowsers usually use a forked rod made of twigs or steel. Diviners use a metal weight suspended from a thread. Traces of dowsing rods and pendulums can be found in ancient times. Nowadays, dowsers and diviners will investigate almost anything, from physical soil conditions to a photograph of a deceased person.
Dowsers and diviners explain that the reaction of the dowsing rod and the pendulum is caused by so-called earth rays. Science does not know earth rays in the sense of dowsers. There are other physical conditions that can be used as an explanation without using a dowsing rod or pendulum. Our Earth has a geomagnetic field, and the compass needle points to the magnetic South Pole. This geomagnetic field is not equally strong everywhere, but has interfering fields due to the nature of the ground, fault lines, caves, groundwater flows, minerals, etc. These interfering fields can be measured with scientific instruments.
Dowsing and the use of pendulums is a very controversial subject, because on the one hand dowsers and diviners give accurate information, and on the other hand the practice can have negative consequences.
An example: A doctor asked Kurt Koch for pastoral counselling. He reported that he had been working with the pendulum for two years and was able to see many hidden things. Using a photograph and his pendulum, he was able to give the exact name, address, occupation and other details of the person’s life. He could also accurately predict future events. These abilities became uncanny to the doctor. He noticed a negative change in his character. He became addicted to alcohol, a chain smoker, went off the rails in other areas and became completely wild. With these problems he went to counselling. There he made a full and complete confession. He was shown the way to Jesus. It was very difficult for him to get rid of his obvious mediumistic gift. It took several sessions of counselling and the use of a prayer circle until, after a few months, the doctor was completely free of his pendulum ability.
This example shows that the idea that dowsing is a gift of God is fatal. The study of many family histories has shown that dowsing, pendulum reaction, healing magnetism, clairvoyance, clairsentience and prophetic dreams occur in those people whose ancestors were active magicians or spiritists.
These unusual abilities are not neutral gifts of nature, but mediumistic gifts. The most striking proof of this is the fact that the practice of dowsing or divining can be disturbed by earnest prayer. When a dowser or a diviner finds Jesus Christ, the mediumistic gift disappears.
On 6 January 1976, the San Francisco Chronicle published a report by a Christian named John Price. In this article, he reports the following:
“I was a dowser. This gift runs in families according to the rules of genetics. It is also very easily transmitted. An old dowser guiding the hand of a young medium can pass on this gift. The result is immediate and a new magician is born. This is how I came into the field. My own father passed this ability on to me. Since then I have travelled a great deal, successfully searching for water and passing on my ability to many others.
Rod divination is also mentioned in the Bible in Hosea 4:12. The Hebrew word for rod in the King James translation means a “walking stick” cut from a forked branch. The prophet Hosea warned the people of Israel against this magic practice.
It was five years ago that I started reading the Bible with my believing wife. As a result, I was converted and found Christ. From that day on, my various dowsing rods fell silent. They no longer worked.”
