The Mystery of Life Energy

Divining rods, water witching, dowsing – these are all names for the time-honored method of finding underground water sources by using a wooden twig as the indicator that points to the buried treasure. It dates back hundreds of years and is often ridiculed as ridiculous, yet it’s backed by science because it’s so readily testable. In one study, German physicists evaluated over 2000 potential drilling sites in arid zones of several Third World countries, and had great success finding water (with a 96% hit rate on 691 drill sites in Sri Lanka, for example). (https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a3199/1281661).

Dowsing is widely used by farmers and miners around the world, although it’s mechanism of action isn’t clear. The rods are not like the needle of a compass that is responding directly to a magnetic field. Dowsing is more related to the psychological technique of muscle testing used by many psychologists (aka applied kinesiology or ideomotor signaling), in which subtle muscle movements reveal unconscious beliefs and knowledge from outside the realm of conscious awareness. It has also become a favorite tool of earth energy researchers because it’s so readily available, inexpensive, and easy to learn (See the American Society of Dowsers website for information, here: https://learntodowse.com/. So I decided to give it a try on my latest trip to England, as a way to validate some of the ideas about Earth energy that I discussed in Chapter 9. Here are some of the things I found:

The first step is to establish the signals. When using the rods, I found they remained parallel in the neutral waiting position, splayed outwards at 180 degrees at a boundary or edge of an energy field, and crossed over each other in an X whenever an energy line (ley line) was crossed.

• A Neolithic burial mound (barrow) – The first place I dowsed was a burial mound called Arthur’s Stone, in Peterchurch (Herefordshire). It’s one of many English barrows from the late Neolithic era, about 5000 years old, and is not a particularly well-known example, despite being spectacular by New England standards (because New England doesn’t have any!).

Figure 1 – King Arthur’s Stone (the entry way)

I found no specific response as I approached the individual stones in the main structure (about 3 feet high; see Fig. 1), but my rods crossed at the entry way, a series of 6 smaller stones leading into the main structure, shown in Figure 1. My wife’s rods crossed at the exact same spot when she circled around the barrow looking for an energy line (Fig. 2). According to geomancy (the theory of earth energies), this spot was chosen for the barrow because of its location on a ley line.

Figure 2 – The rods crossing over at the entry point to the barrow

• Tree biofields at Croft Castle – This huge 1500-acre estate in Leominster dates back to the 11^th century, and is surrounded by rows of ancient oaks, chestnuts and hawthorns that were planted during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. Many trees are partly decayed and hollowed out, and are known as ghost trees:  https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/worcestershire-herefordshire/croft-castle-and-parkland/ghost-trees-a-walk-through-time-and-art-at-croft-castle

Here is one of the oldest chestnuts – majestic and awesome, in the original sense of the word:

Figure 3 – A 450-year old tree (variety: sweet chestnut)

The trees’ auras were easy to dowse, and typically extended as far out as the canopy of branches in several of the old oaks that I measured. As a control, I also assessed one dead tree and was pleased to find that I got no response from the rods. However, right after finishing the dowsing, I notice a shimmering visual aura in the outer lower quadrant of the visual field of my left eye, lasting about 10 minutes. It resembled the auras that precede migraine headaches (which I’ve never had), so I’m not sure what I was perceiving, but it seemed to be the culmination of a high-energy experience.

• Avebury stone circle – This is the largest stone circle in Great Britain, spreading over 28 acres and dwarfing nearby Stonehenge, which covers only 0.1 acre in area. Working from the Visitor Center’s map, I sought out Stone #101, which had been determined by experienced dowsers Maria Wheatley and Busty Taylor (Wheatley 2014) to have three parallel horizontal lines of energy present within this one stone.  I started by trying to detect the stone’s outer boundary, and at 25 feet the rods clearly splayed outward as I walked around its whole perimeter. But I was unable to tease out any of the three separate internal layers when standing next to the stone, perhaps because they were all too enmeshed in the overall field for me to detect, given my limited experience and sensitivity (Figs. 4, 5).

Figure 4 – Dowsing Stone #101, along the outer circle of Avebury

Figure 5 – Close-up of the rods splaying out (the left rod is more visible)

(Note: I was barefoot during the dowsing, a procedure that’s recommended as a way to connect more directly with the earth’s energy. It’s a practice called Earthing – being barefoot outside so that an electrical flow can be re-established between the person and the earth. Hours, days and years of electrical disconnection from the Earth due to wearing insulated rubber-soled shoes or being indoors creates oxidative stress and sets the stage for many symptoms of chronic inflammation. The many health benefits of Earthing have been well documented:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4378297

The two nearby stones marking the southern entrance had even larger boundaries, with a 35-foot radius. Placing the palms directly against the stones was supposed to elicit energetic sensations, but I felt nothing.  In my defense, it was so hot (82° F) that it was hard to concentrate. I even forgot to check for energy lines connecting the various stones that are supposed to exist in a ring around the circle, so I wasn’t able to hone in on the micro-anatomy of this particular Earth acupuncture point.

And we were a bit too early in the season for crop circles, which tend to peak later in July and August. Only one circle had appeared so far this year, and the farmer wasn’t allowing visitors because they trample the wheat and make it unusable (respectful crop circle etiquette involves getting the farmer’s permission to explore). To show you what we missed, here’s an aerial photo of a crop circle that appeared across the street from Avebury a few years ago – the two leftmost dots in the pale segment of the circular field are the same stones that I dowsed in Figures 4 and 5).

Better luck next time!

Figure 6 – A crop circle across the street from Avebury

References:

Popular Mechanics. Finding water with a forked stick may not be a hoax. December 6, 2004.  https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a3199/1281661/

Oschman, James, Gaetan Chevalier, and Richard Brown. 2015. “The Effects of Grounding (Earthing) on Inflammation, the Immune Response, Wound healing and prevention and  Healing, and Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Inflammatory and Autoimmune Diseases.” Journal of Inflammation Research 8, 83–96.

Wheatley, Maria and Busty Taylor. Sun, Moon and Earth Energies. Celestial Songs Press, Marlborough UK, 2014.

For more information on dowsing, see the American Society of Dowsers website: https://learntodowse.com/