I was fresh out of college. My coworkers and I were kicking off an environmental cleanup project at a small gas station in the North Hills of Pittsburgh. We were on site, discussing exactly where to drill some test bores. As you can imagine, it’s risky to drill holes at a typical gas station because there are underground water pipes, gas lines, gasoline lines, diesel, electric, communication, vent, and sewer lines everywhere. Plenty of exciting things are hidden below ground at these places.
We’d put in a “One-Call” request, so there were tiny flags and spray paint marking the utility main line locations. But the gas station’s dispenser lines, vents, and the service lines were not marked by the One-Call service, as was typical. It was up to us to determine where those lines ran, to avoid hitting them with the drill.
Luckily, I was working with some hardened professionals (a geoscientist, and a scientist-turned-driller from West Virginia), who calmly walked to their vehicles and pulled out some rather unsophisticated equipment to do just that:
Two bent metal rods. That’s it. No wires. No batteries.
No science.
So I thought, “This must be a joke they play on all the newbies. There’s no way a couple professional scientists are going to rely on folklore to avoid blowing up a small, active gas station in the middle of suburbia. I’ll play along til they have a laugh at my expense.”
Imagine my doubt as they took turns walking back and forth across the property, blank-faced, holding the wires extended and noting where the wires crossed. But when the guys began spray-painting marks of their own, saying things like “dispenser lines run that way, and bend here”, it hit me: they were either dead serious, or professional pranksters.
Scientists. Out in their native habitat. Dowsing. Really?
I started carefully asking questions. Finally the drill operator just looked at me and said, “I never drill without witchin’ first”.
“Witching”. Another word for dowsing.
Oh, the things they don’t teach you in school.
Fast forward. Throughout the rest of my environmental & engineering career, I would rely on two bent rods to navigate many more underground obstacle courses. Over the years, I’ve noticed dowsing is repeatable, accurate, and reliable. I’ve seen different folks dowse the same area and get identical results, far more often than not. I can tell you, when I dowse for buried objects, the wires cross when the hidden item is directly under my back heel. Yeah, it’s that accurate. Anyone can claim dowsing is unscientific, and plenty still do, yet for what it’s worth: scientists dowse.
So how does it work? Electromagnetism? Biomechanics?
Better yet, who cares?
I mean, does it matter? Sometimes the proof of a thing is in the act of doing. You don’t need a science journal article to know you’d fall to the ground if you jumped off a high bridge. Do you? Falling works. We don’t have a full explanation of how. (Oh what, gravity?…ever try getting a straight answer from a physicist on what gravity actually is? Good luck!) One thousand years ago, anyone could have made this same prediction about jumping off bridges long before there was a modern theory of gravity. The proof is in the doing; right there, look no further. And believe it or not, that’s science.
Too often we confuse the explanation of a thing (theory) with the proof of a thing (knowledge).
We always know more than we think.
Life eventually led me to seek training under a Reiki master. I was initially invited to experience Reiki after my beautiful young cat died very suddenly (I’m an animal person so this was a major trauma). Reiki is a peaceful form of “energy work”. Among other things, it helps us release any difficult, unprocessed emotions. The benefit I received was incredible.
It was my friend and Reiki master Wendy who taught me to use dowsing rods to demonstrate how human auras respond to the world. “Everyone has an aura which extends beyond their physical body”, she says, “and it’s measurable“. This was starting to sound like, “we in fact do have souls, and here’s some proof”. Big Stuff. And dowsing was going to reveal it to me.
I was eager to try. But until then I’d only used the rods to locate buried utilities. I was worried about interference. Wouldn’t I just find the hot water line instead of an aura? Amusing. Wendy said to me, “Brandon, it’s all about intention“. Meaning, if I clearly intended to measure someone’s aura, then that’s exactly what would happen. Nothing more, nothing less. No water pipe was going to interfere. This is probably the most important lesson I’ve learned from her: “just trust“. Trust is everything. And so with trust in my heart, I began my first attempt.
Well, remember how I said the wires cross whenever I walk over a buried object? Well, as I stepped into that other person’s aura, something different happened. The wires opened. It was as though they were spread apart by some unseen spherical force. My concern about accidentally detecting something beneath the floor? Gone. This was definitely new.
So here’s what these experiences have taught me:
I know without a doubt dowsing works. No idea how.
I know without a doubt we can measure human auras by dowsing. Again, no idea how.
And while I still can’t perfectly explain what an aura is, I can say for scientific fact you have one.
Is this the soul? That’s one word for it, I suppose. Others call it the biofield, the energy body, a halo, qi…the name isn’t important. A complete theory isn’t important. I trust an explanation of the “how” and “why” is on its way. Eventually “the science” will catch up. And I am still learning.
For today, I just thought some people might appreciate confirmation that there’s an invisible field of energy surrounding every living thing – which may have sounded crazy to me if a driller from West Virginia hadn’t accidentally taught me how to measure it.
Namaste
– Brandon