Diviners: Fools or Gifted?
Is dowsing hoax or a true and ancient art?

Some use a forked stick. Some prefer thin bent metal rods, while others use a single thick metal rod. But they're all called diviners, dowsers or water witchers. They often appear able to find things hidden to the eye. Most often, divining is associated with finding underground water, and often is called water witching, but diviners say they've also been able to find oil and mineral deposits, underground power and sewer lines, bodies and grave sites.

Here's how it appears to work, according to a local diviner and other diviners who have posted their techniques on the Internet:

Dowsing uses simple tools to emphasize special small movements that occur naturally in the hands as the human body senses subtle energies emitted by things around us. A dowser using a forked stick, often witch hazel or willow for their flexibility, will hold an end of each fork. The stick is usually held pointing up or straight out. When the dowser comes near the object of the search, the stick bends to point the way, while the dowser's hands remain in their original position.

Narrow divining rods are bent at right angles. One is held in each hand with the long ends sticking out in front of the dowser. When the dowser approaches what is sought, the rods cross or separate. A single, heavier rod also is used. Supported and leveled by one hand held under the middle of the rod, the rod pulses and points toward what is being sought.

Truth or fiction?

The ANAM Holistic Web site, which hosts the home page for the Irish Society of Diviners, maintains that divining is an ancient and true art, even though it's not so far explainable. Not everyone believes in it. Some scientists have written articles calling dowsing a hoax. One of those articles was posted on the Internet. The writer, identified as registered geologist E.H. Boudreau, calls witching a superstitious practice based on ignorance. Boudreau calls witching a "yokelism" that interferes with the collection and interpretation of the facts, and says it results in millions of dollars in dry holes drilled in obviously unfavorable rock.

Joe Kilichowski, rural Drayton, N.D., knows that some laugh at him, but he doesn't care. At 69, Kilichowski said Thursday he's been witching for more than 50 years, that he learned it from an old dowser when Kilichowski was about 16 years old. Kilichowski is the diviner who friends of Josh Collette say found Collette's body. Collette was missing and presumed drowned after he drove his snowmobile over the Riverside Dam and into open water Jan. 15. Authorities have been unable to locate the body, but friends and family called in Kilichowski to try his hand.

Using a forked willow stick, he located a body near a boat landing downstream from the dam, according to searchers who said they saw the body after drilling holes in the ice and viewing it with an underwater camera. Official workers tried unsuccessfully to retrieve the body Wednesday. Their failure prompted Collette's friends and family to continue on their own.

"It don't work for everyone," Kilichowski said Thursday. "I can't explain to you how it works. I just know it works for me." Kilichowski, who said he's found many underground sources of water for people looking to drill drinking-water wells, said the last few days have marked his first search for a human body. "It's an experiment," he said. "I think it's working. This willow's never done me wrong."