In Depth:

      Dowsing rods, aka. vining rods, have been used since the Renaissance era during the 18th Century, in France. When Dowsing first came over to the United States it was called Doodle Bucking. People started to use them to try and find water for wells, later on people began to try and use them for find precious metals such as gold. Dowsing rods have also been used in the past to find petroleum and oils, however no one has been able to find any using dowsing rods.

      The American Society of Dowsers (ASD) was established in 1961. Some of the people who can dowse charge money to have them look for water on a property, however some do not charge anything. If you dowse with a twig/branch, then it has to be a certain type of wood such as: Willow, Peach Tree, or Hazel wood. Some dowsers prefer a specific branch or wood to dowse with. Dowsing can be traced back to Northern African cave paintings. The first documented people to actually dowse were a German man and a French man. During the Vietnam War the soldiers used dowsing to find locations.