"Dowsing for the Dead"

I cannot improve on the headline that Dallas religion journalist Rod Dreher put on his own blog post.

But if you hang around dowsers, you will not hear the world "occult" much. The old ones, at least, were a practical bunch, although a newer generation got all wrapped up in "earth mysteries" and "ley lines."

I learned to dowse for underground pipes on a Talpa, New Mexico, construction site at age 20.

M.'s father, a civil engineer, also did some dowsing. We once all attended the national dowsers' convention in Danville, Vermont--which happened to be the town where he grew up.

No one knows why it works, but it does -- although in my opinion, a strong mental desire for a certain outcome is counter-productive. That is why dowsing for gold is not reliable!