The Divining Rod and the Art of Rhabdomancy: a Disease or a Gift? Controversies in the 17th-19th Centuries

First making its re-appearance in the 15^th century Germany, rhabdomancy remained worthy of attention by scientific communities until the end of the 19^th century.

Dowsing is an art used to find underground waters and minerals by using a branch of a tree, forked so the dowser holds “one end of the fork in each hand, [and] walked over the ground, holding the stick before him, the ends pointing towards the earth,” and when he comes to the spot under which water is said to be, “the stick raise[s] itself and turn[s] over in his hand with such force as sometimes break itself.” The controversy obviously involved with how it happens, since only a few randomly selected people seemed to possess this power to successfully perform rhabdomancy. As can be seen from Lynn’s article cited in this paper, Jacques Aymar as well as many others used rhabdomancy not only to find water and minerals but also to find murdered bodies, (a bag of) gold under the earth, lost items and thieves, etc… Further, although the stick used for dowsing should preferably be wood from the trees of hazel, “the almond, the willow, the ash, or somo fruit-bearing trees,” it could also be substituted with a metal or a clock spring, depending on what you are looking for. Some dowsers in fact did not need a rod at all to detect water and minerals, making the rod no more necessary by the diviner than a cowl is necessary to the monk. However, whenever it is used, the rod is always “a forked twig, the ends of the two limbs being held by the operator, and the fragment of the main stem projecting in front.” Holmes notes that this is a curious fact, as it is “the exact opposite of the way in which a forked rod would be held for the purpose of warding off the effects of the ‘evil eye’ by persons fearing that influence.” He thinks that this also makes a rational sense, since with the case of warding off the bad spirits, the rod is used to reduce the effect or reception of the spirits onto the subject holding the stick, whereas in the case of rhabdomancy, the subject desires to be effected by the presence of minerals, as well as whatever is being sought for. Hence, one dowser claimed that he was “conscious of a feeling of ‘chill’ when passing over water,” another claimed that the feeling was “something like a cramp in his back, that the sensation was a painful one, and that it made ill if he continued the process for any length of time.” Similarly, Aymar, who detected dead bodies and thieves, generally felt discomfort but “fell violently ill only when on the trail of particularly violent criminals and not when merely tracking thieves or finding springs and ores.”

Now, despite the cynical disclaimers like those of Riddick, the fact is that these people were, with an outstanding rate of success, able to detect what they looked for. But how can we explain this phenomenon scientifically? Are the dowsers lying when they say ‘they didn’t move the tree’ when the twig apparently movesitself upon detecting water? Holmes does not think so, but he does seem to attribute the cause of the stick’s moving to the muscular motion, initiated psychologically by the subject himself. If that is the case, then we must try and find the answer for the intelligible explanation for how rhabdomancy is possible at all. To rescue dowsers, Cartesians offered a corpuscularian explanation. Accoridng to the corpuscular theory, people leave tiny but very strongly constituted corpuscles behind as they pass. These philosophers expanded this basic tenant of corpuscular theory to suggest that “a dowser could ‘read’ the matter left behind by certain individuals just as one’s hand remains warm for a time after it is removed from a source of heat.” The rod was used as an instrument to focus on these corpuscles, just as the eye is needed in order to see corpuscles emanating from objects.

Now, a couple of concerns still remain – for there is a sense in which this can be seen not as a gift but as a disease, like hydrophobia that stirred up a discussion in the Royal Society of London. According to the reports, a dowser feels pain in close proximity with water. This is quite stressful, as he must constantly be in pain since water is everywhere. If indeed a dowser becomes intense, and “starts off in a trance-like state” every time he senses water, there is no reason why he should not be in a psychiatric hospital rather than publicly celebrated. As one doctor says, people “suffering from rheumatism and neuralgia [are] able to trace water by the sensation of damp.” Also, a yet another set of concerns was also raised that rhabdomancy could be nothing but a case of tree-worshipping, believing that “the divining rod to be ‘a superstition cognate to the belief in sacred trees.’”

As Browne concedes with a professor who explained that “‘[t]esting the divining rod is difficult and promises no answer that will be universally accepted.’ Following the negative results reported in one test come the favorable results reported in another,’” I too believe that the authenticity of the dowsers’ claims will always be contested. But at the same time, it is these anomalies in sciences that propel us to further endeavor and undertake in trying to find rational explanations concerning natural phenomenon.

Micheal R. Lynn, “Dividing the Enlightenment: Public Opinion and Popular Science in Old Regime France,” in Isis vol.92:1 (March, 2001), 34-54. See also Lee J. Vance, “Three Lessons in Rhabdomancy,” in The Journal of American Folklore, vol.4:14 (Jul. – Sep., 1981), 241-246. Particularly, at the footnote 1 on p.244, “The first mention [of the rhabdomancy] is credited by M. Chevreul to Basil Valentin, a monk of the fifteenth century.

Its peak seems to have been at around 1880’s. See C.A. Browne, “Observations upon the Use of the Dividing Rod in Germany,” in Science, New Series, vil.73:1882 (Jan. 23, 1931), 84-86.

A gerundive for rhabdomancy; someone who practices rhabdomancy, thus, is called a dowser.

A.W. Buckland, “Rhabdomancy and Belomancy, or Divination by the Rod and by the Arrow,” in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol.5 (1876), 436-450.

For instance, astrologers claimed that the “positions of the heavenly bodies influenced the powers of the divining rod itself. Iron, for example, should be sought using a rod cut under the influence of Mars, while diamonds were under the sways of the moon.” But many dowsers did not fit the descriptions. See Lynn’s article.

See Lynn’s and Buckland’s articles. Also Browne, 86.

See Buckland’s and Browne’s articles cited above.

T.V. Holmes, On the Evidence for the Efficacy of the Diviner and His Rod in the Search for Water, in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol.27 (1898), 233-259. Holmes also describes the account by the diviner that “he could do just well without any [rod] at all, and that the use of the twig was a mere dramatic detail of the situation so far as he personally was concerned.”

Ibid.

Ibid. It is also interesting that in almost all instances throughout the history, ‘the dividing rod’ where applicable, is in a form that “resembles the letter Y, [which is] vaguely the form and number of limbs of the body,” and Vance quotes Walter Kelley, the author of Curiosities of Indo European Tradition and Folklore, who argues that “a forked rod is the simplest possible image of the human figure.”

Ibid.

Ibid.

Lynn, “Dividing the Enlightenment,” 41.

Thomas M. Riddick, in his article, “Dowsing – An Unorthodox Method of Locating Underground Water Supplies or an Interesting Facet of the Human Mind,” argues that there is no mystery in explaining how dowsers can tell where the water is, for he says that “I have no doubt that moderately non-saline and ‘drinkable’ water can be withdrawn from locations,” and that locating of “simple dug wells is not astounding or amazing, except to those who wish to be amazed by treating the commonplace as miraculous.

Holmes, 240. He says “[n]o doubt they are perfectly honest,” but “we know by experience… our own hands [can] deceive out intellect.” That is, honest dowsers are easily deceived by the unconscious actions of their own muscles.”

Lynn, 41.

Vance, “Three Lessons in Rhabdomancy,” 241.

Buckland cites Dr. Spratt saying “there are evidently certain nerves connected with the brain that appear to become more active if over-pressed with local irritation,” in connection with the ability to trace water.

Holmes, 253.

Browne, 86.