{"id":909,"date":"2007-07-21T23:48:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-21T23:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=909"},"modified":"2007-07-21T23:48:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-21T23:48:00","slug":"dowsing-for-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=909","title":{"rendered":""Dowsing for the Dead""},"content":{"rendered":"

I cannot improve on the headline that Dallas religion journalist Rod Dreher put on his own blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

I learned to dowse for underground pipes on a Talpa, New Mexico, construction site at age 20.<\/p>\n

M.’s father, a civil engineer, also did some dowsing. We once all attended the national dowsers’ convention<\/a> in Danville, Vermont–which happened to be the town where he grew up.<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[62,39],"class_list":["post-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-dowsing","tag-occultism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-eF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1069,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1069","url_meta":{"origin":909,"position":0},"title":"These Witches Have No Covens","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times profiles a California water witch (dowser).How many rural witches are still around is an open question. Water witches have no trade unions \u2014 or covens. Few advertise, or dowse full time.I learned dowsing on a construction job, and I had no \"intuitive sense\" of where the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nature\"","block_context":{"text":"nature","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":832,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=832","url_meta":{"origin":909,"position":1},"title":"Wicca, ELF, and insomnia","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a lot of trouble sleeping this past week. Too much waking up with full bladder around 5 a.m. and then being unable to return to sleep, sliding instead into the pre-dawn jim-jams. \"My Wasted Life\" and other such perennial themes.Pre-dawn wakefulness always reminds me of one of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"weirdness\"","block_context":{"text":"weirdness","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=weirdness"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6341,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6341","url_meta":{"origin":909,"position":2},"title":"More Confirmation about Bigfoot","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I read this article in the Colorado Springs Independent and a paragraph jumped out at me: She learned about her [Nepalese] people\u2019s animistic prayer traditions, and had shamans explain to her that yeti aren\u2019t the silly abominable snowmen of cartoon legend, but actually shape-shifters and guardians of the mountains. At\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":226,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=226","url_meta":{"origin":909,"position":3},"title":"Why we go to British\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Why we go to British Columbia We go to British Columbia to see the big trees, like this Western red cedar in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park. Although these mountains are well inland--they are the Western ranges of the Canadian Rockies--they catch the storms and produce landscapes that feel in places\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":127,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=127","url_meta":{"origin":909,"position":4},"title":"Shocking for evangelicals Although he\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 25, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Shocking for evangelicals Although he does not use Harvey Whitehouse's division between \"semantic\" and \"episodic\" experiences of religion (or, \"arguments\" and \"icons\"), this review of The Passion of the Christ by Kenneth L. Woodward in the New York Times (free registration required) takes a similar approach--which explains why the movie\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":506,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=506","url_meta":{"origin":909,"position":5},"title":"What about the dogs (cats,\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 8, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"What about the dogs (cats, hamsters, etc.)?I cannot agree with uber-blogger Glenn Reynolds, who said, \"I think you should leave the dogs behind\" when evacuating New Orleans (or elsewhere, I presume).I have a contract with my dogs: You be good dogs, and I will see to your needs, take care\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}