how does" Witching a well work"?

[picmacmillan]

I have had an opportunity to try and witch a well. To those who don't know what this is, is it's the art of taking two pieces of coathanger about 12" long each and bend them near the middle at 90 degrees...you then proceed to loosely hold these coathanger pieces in each of your hands away from your body and walk around until the hangers cross one another....in this respect i do know that it works....they cross when you are over water and if you continue past the suspected water source they will then point backwards towards it.....can anyone explain what on earth causes this phenomenon?.....i was so tickled with how this works that i show everyone who comes to my property.....they try it and it works for them too...some say that you can use a willow switch and it will also bend down a bunch of times to give depth to the water also...they say that it will work for some people and not for others...i know this sounds crazy but i know it works....just don't know why......they didn't teach me this in engineering and anything i have learned cannot satisfactorily tell me why this works......so, is it urban legend or is it real? ......pickster

[ghurd]

Saw a experiment on TV several years ago.  They ran some kind of 'beam' (x-ray or something) accross a field for a while, then removed it. About half of the 'witchers' found where the beam was and thought it was water. Interesting.

I have seen it done. Hit water at the exact depth the guy said it would be.

There had not been a well drilled within 3/4 mile of there for at least 120 years. I think that would remove pre-existing knowlege of the water table in the area.

If it can't be proven how it works, it must be an Urban Legend.

I would not pay someone to do it.  So, guess I don't believe in it too much.

G-

[skravlinge]

I do not know how it works, and I do not think it works as expressed. I know of the other hand people using a wooden branch, they find water, more often than by chance. Some can tell you the future using cards, they have right to a extend more than by chance. I do not think it is the cards, it is people who can read you, and see what you likely will be up to. I think the same is here, they can read the topography, and point out the water, maybe not knowing the way they work themselves.

[rotornuts]

In a 1 km area around my property in B.C. there have been 3 wells drilled in the last 8 years only one of them was witched. Two wells are 400' deep with a capacity of approx. 2-3 gallons per minute one of them is 50' deep with a capacity of approx. 25 gallons per minute. Can you guess wich one was witched. The distance from the worst well to the best is about 700'. Urban legend???

[skravlinge]

You have seen the same as I have. But how works it was the question!

[Trivo]

In Australia it is called Water Divining and I had it done on my old property of 10 acres they only found one spot 20 to 25 foot down 1 yard square so I put the bore down there went to 18 foot and hit clay but persisted and sure enough 20 foot no clay but good coarse white sand at 25 foot hit clay again so put the spear down and had the best producing bore in the area never ran dry like everybody else and is still pumping 2500gph

A friend of mine did a course on divining and reckoned he could feel the edges of the stream the deepest and shallowest point, the flow direction and the quality,

Me I can't find anything (still looking for the beer I put down some ware yesterday.)

remember just because we can't explain how it works doesn't mean it doesin't work just means we can't figure out how it works

Trivo

[skravlinge]

I very often do things which works, like starting a computer, and I do not know much of thats going on, I can operate it, and even tell it what it should do, I program as well. Seeing somebody walking with a wooden branch and find water, is a bit different, OK it works, but I wonder HOW.

[BrianK]

just my 2 cents I know that it works i have done it but as to how it works i have no idea there are a lot of old time things out there that work and people dont know how. kind of like placing a ring on a string and dangling it over a preg. womans belly to see if its a boy or a girl. I think the things that we are talking about here are the things that the witch's got hung for in the old days Things that work but have no understanding scare the heck out of some people.

[picmacmillan]

alright this stuff is really starting to bug me  (in a friendly way of course).... :-)...i am going to do some searching on sites such as how stuff works .com...and see what i can come up with and report back...pickster

[finnsawyer]

I've done it too.  When building my first house, I tried it using a willow branch and got some positives.  One was were the house was to go.  Well, when the house was built the basement floor showed a discoloration where the vein was that has persisted to this day.  At my present site I found a couple veins.  When I put a pond in behind the house I opened up one of the veins.  It flowed in a deposite of sandy gravel above some clay.  While the water flow was not much it did combine with fall rains to put an end to my deepening the pond.  I had basically interupted the channel by which the water flowed to a nearby drainage ditch.  The area were it entered the ditch or waterway, as we call them tended to stay damp all year.

As far as how it works, my opinion is that it has to do with the individual, which has a sensitivity that somehow allows them to feel the presense of the water.  Many animals can smell water.  On some level the human brain and sensory system is also able in certain individuals to process subtle smells or other information.  I think this is similar to the heightened sensitivity that some people have to electric current, as water is made up of a dipolar molecule, where the opposite charges have a definite seperation.

[jtbartlett]

Hey pickster. 'Witching' or 'Divining' is also commonly known as Dowsing. You can check out The American Society of Dowsers home page at www.dowsers.org  I am not accociated with these folks. I am familiar with them as they are based not far from where I live. Some believe it works, some don't.

Joel Bartlett

[Nothing40]

A friend and I were talking about it many years ago,and decided to try it out a bit.

We got a couple metal coathangers,and bent then into an L shape.

We went outside,and started dowsing in the parking lot of the apartment he was living in...Don't ask me how,but we found the water pipes,and laid them all out.

The rods would 'forcefully' cross if we walked over the big storm drain in the center of the parking lot,we could follow the pipes underground all over the place,right out into the street.It was kind of crazy.