First contact with dowsing

When I was around 4 or 5 years old we moved from the town we were living in to the country. One of the things my parents had to do there before we moved was find a water source for us to have. It so happened that one of our neighbors was an elderly Mennonite person that knew how to find water. As the building of the cellar and at that time the garage was made, I watched this gentleman who had a Y looking willow stick. He would walk around and the stick would go either up or down. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was helping to look for water for my mom and dad. This was the first time I had ever seen anything like this.

The man's name was Lemon Hostettler and he has long left this world, but gave me the first lessons in dowsing. He showed me how to take a branch off of a willow tree to find water. He referred to this method as using a witching stick to find water. He showed me that the up position when used was the "Yes" answer and that "No" was down. When looking for direction it would point out straight and if you were going the wrong way it would point up. If you found a place you were looking for that had water under it then it would point down. This was my first lesson in learning dowsing and divining of which I had many more to come and from different types and styles of dowsing and divining.


Mark aka Dreagus