Written for Human Spirit Magazine, Spring 2007

Dowsing for Wells and Wellness

By Susan Collins, B.F.A.

Whether I’m looking for wells or wellness, dowsing helps me find the answers. Dowsers are well known as “water witchers,” people who find the energy of water, but we can also find the energy of plants, animals, people and just about anything else in this vast universe.

I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis over twenty years ago, and spent many years struggling with both western and alternative medicine trying to regain my health. When I discovered dowsing, I began to listen more closely to my body and learned to test my foods and my environment to make sure that what I ate, how I exercised and where I lived were beneficial to my health. For example, when I go to the grocery store, I sometimes use my pendulum to check whether eating various foods will support my health, or to determine how much I can eat of something that I like, but perhaps isn’t the best thing for me. I also routinely check the environmental and earth energies of any place I spend time, and either avoid the hot spots that don’t agree with me, or actually transform the energies that are there so that they do support my health.

Does this sound a bit far-fetched? Perhaps, but today I no longer take drugs for my arthritis, and am virtually pain free and firmly believe that if we all listened to our bodies a little more, we’d be in better shape. Can you learn to do this? Yes. Dowsing, the detection and transformation of energy, is an ancient, powerful skill that anyone can develop with desire and patience by focusing their mind and listening to their body. Many mothers begin to dowse as a way to help their children with food sensitivities. Children themselves, who we know are often very comfortable relying on their intuition, can be taught simple techniques to choose between foods.

But what is dowsing really? It’s almost an umbrella word for a practice that is used in many modern holistic mind/body modalities based on energy such as Reiki, homeopathy, naturopathy, Feng Shui, hypnosis, kinesiology, sound healing and various types of physical and spiritual counseling.

Sometimes we feel uncomfortable in our homes – we may notice chronic, unexplained illnesses, our pets may suffer, we may have prosperity issues, or just have trouble sleeping. Feng Shui practioners may be called in to work with the design elements of a home. What many people don’t realize is that Feng Shui is the Chinese name for “Geomancy”. A Geomancer is a dowser who checks the earth energies of a place and aligns them with the people who are living there. A Geomancer can also investigate energy phenomena such as crop circles or the natural “power centres” of someplace like Sedona, Arizona.

A homeopath or naturopath might use a pendulum to determine which remedy, supplement or essence will be best for a client. With dowsing, a practitioner can also determine the appropriate amount of a substance to recommend to someone they are working with. Muscle testing, the practice of applying resistance to a body part to check for strength, is also often used.

A sound healer might use dowsing to determine what specific notes and frequencies will bring a body into healthy resonance with the environment. What is fascinating is that as our needs evolve, dowsing can provide a method for creating an ever-changing energy matrix that will continuously adapt to support us in our environment.

For me, dowsing is primarily a tool that I use to find out more about the world and my place in it. I can do this for myself, any time, anywhere. Whether I am measuring the energy field of a crop circle or a person, the procedure is basically the same. I focus my intent, align myself with the Divine Source, and ask for a true answer. The tools themselves, the pendulums and rods, have no magic power, just as a hammer has no power until we pick it up. Our bodies are the primary tool.

Of course one doesn’t give one’s decision-making power over to the pendulum. This is a free will planet, and we are free to choose our path and to make our own mistakes as we go. Folks who use dowsing as a research tool can often get a unique perspective on an issue that would otherwise be unavailable to them. And of course no intuitive tool is meant to replace traditional medicine for diagnosis or treatment, but for those who want to learn to trust their body’s natural knowing, dowsing can be very useful.

I also find it handy for getting convenient parking spaces and deciding where to plant my flowers. The many practical applications of the skill are the reason I’ve been drawn to it and the Canadian Society of Dowsers over the years. Someone once said that “dowsers know how to know” and it seems to be true. With simple tools, we can easily break down complex problems into simple chunks, and then narrow down our questions until we arrive at an answer.

Whether you refer to it as “chi”, “prana” or life force, we are energy. You can see the effect of resonant energy in the ripples in a pond when a pebble is tossed in, in the flow of long grass when the wind blows on a summer afternoon, in the vibration of a guitar string when another string is plucked. Dowsing gives us a way to know ourselves, and to be in harmony with our world.

Susan Collins of King City, Ontario, is Past President and Dowser of the Year (2006) of the Canadian Society of Dowsers and an international dowsing teacher, speaker, workshop leader and author of Bridge Matter and Spirit with Dowsing. She can be reached at 905-833-2440, susanjcollins@rogers.com or through her website at www.dowser.ca. The Canadian Society of Dowsers, www.canadiandowsers.org, is a volunteer, non-profit society dedicated to promoting dowsing in Canada. The society will be holding its 20^th Annual Convention June 22-24 at Humber College in Toronto. For more information call 1-888-588-8958.

The author uses a pendulum to check how beneficial her food is for her before she buys it.