Media Events

Friday, May 27th, 2011

We Made the Front Cover of the Hamilton Spectator!

Their Shtick is Dowsing , Their Goal is a Mastodon - Practitioners Align for Conference

By Jeff Mahoney (www.thespec.com) , May 27, 2011

Raise your water-witching rod if you think dowsing is just about farmers and eccentrics criss-crossing meadows with forked sticks as they're pulled from one spot to another by unseen forces, searching for a good place to dig a well.

There is that part of it. And dowsing techniques were reputedly used by the United States Marines to locate weapons and tunnels during the Vietnam War.

But dowsing - sometimes called divining - has broader aims these days as you will learn this weekend if you follow the earth radiation currents (or your GPS) to McMaster University's Michael G. DeGroote Centre. That's where the country's dowsers, diviners, doodle buggers, pendulum people and sundry other believers in the guiding power of the universe's energy fields and lines of flow will congregate. No car and boat show, it's the 24th annual convention of the Canadian Society of Dowsers. It starts today at 9 a.m.

Modern dowsers use the practice to help find everything from pet hamsters, to the healthiest fruit at the produce stand.  They use their talents to find misplaced eye glasses and insight when making their most fundamental personal decisions. Oh, and mastodon bones.

As I talk to Hamilton's Jennifer Lyall over the phone, she tells me she has been asking her crystal pendulum how much to pay on a large outstanding bill she owes (if it swings clockwise, the answer is yes; counterclockwise, no).  And later, she confides to me, she is silently asking it if I'm going to make her out to be a kook. We continue our talk so I presume I passed muster.

Susan Collins, 2006's Dowser of the Year, is one of the featured speakers. Her talk will be about dowsing for mastodon bones.  "A dowser from London owns a farm near where mastodon bones were discovered 150 years ago and she invited me to dowse on her property, " she says.   Susan mapped out co-ordinates and digging is scheduled to start soon. At the convention she is asking dowsers to "map dowse, " whereby they respond to impulses they pick up from maps of the site with their L-rods, pendulums and bobbers (various apparatuses used in dowsing).  Susan has written several books on dowsing, including ones that reconcile the practice with biblical Christianity and Islam. "When it says in the Bible that Moses struck the rock with his staff and water poured forth, " says Susan, "that's a reference to dowsing."

You don't have to believe in God to be a dowser, just in energy. Many believe the energy to be divine, but dowsing draws an eclectic following. They get into its waters at different depths.

"My father was a dowser, " says Kathy Wilson, from Toronto, current president of the CSD, "though he wouldn't call himself that. As an electrician and farmer he would look for flows. Where should he dig to place electrical cables?"  She herself is a "truth" dowser, seeking answers to things that don't make sense.  But she's not above more pragmatic applications, and she and her daughter Anne used dowsing when Kathy's brother realized his hamster Mookie had escaped from its cage and couldn't find him anywhere. "It had built a home in an old guitar box, " says Anne. "It took us a minute to find him, but an hour to catch him."

Joan Nathanson from Hamilton calls herself a spiritual dowser and helps clients with personal healing and guidance.  "Dowsing is like the Internet, " says Joan. "There are no secrets in the world. The answers are there if you ask. Everything works in frequencies - colours, sounds. If we ask from a neutral place and get our egos out of the way, we can tune in."

Naturally, there's skepticism about dowsing. So-called scientific tests have not found dowsing to produce better than random results at finding water.   And some religion has tagged it as heretical. Dowsing was practised by witches, and Martin Luther blacklisted the activity (it seems to have begun in Germany in the 15th century).  But look at religion and science. Miracles? Big bang theory? Pretty big credulity stretchers themselves.

Jennifer knows dowsing can seem, in her words, "woo woo." She came to it fairly recently, after an akashic record reading (past life memory recovery) told her she would find a "tool" for living, which turned out to be pendulum dowsing. And, she says, it works.

"Sometimes I catch my husband rolling his eyes, but mostly he's respectful."

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Press Release: Local and International Dowsers Swing into Hamilton for Canadian Society of Dowsers Convention, May 27-29

Release can be found posted here on Wire Service Canada

On May 27-29, 2011, dowsers from across Canada and around the world will bring their pendulums, bobbers and rods and “resonate to the swing” at the 24th annual convention of the Canadian Society of Dowsers (CSD) in Hamilton, Ontario.

LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL DOWSERS SWING INTO HAMILTON FOR CANADIAN SOCIETY OF DOWSERS CONVENTION, MAY 27-29

HAMILTON, May 19, 2011 – On May 27-29, 2011, dowsers from across Canada and around the world will bring their pendulums, bobbers and rods and “resonate to the swing” at the 24th annual convention of the Canadian Society of Dowsers (CSD) in Hamilton, Ontario.

The theme of this year’s convention is “Resonating to the Swing,” and it features 16 speakers and presenters on topics including health, connecting with guidance, sacred geometry, labyrinths and spirituality. The convention also features an outdoor labyrinth open to the public and family-themed events for people of all ages. Information about the convention is available at http://www.canadiandowsers.org/events/convention/2011.

Dowsers, who come from all walks of life, use simple tools to detect objects such as minerals or water. They also use dowsing to detect, transform and balance physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energies for health and well-being. The convention is an opportunity for new and experienced dowsers to hone their skills, meet new friends and get inspired by the many uses of dowsing.

The convention is geared to everyone who is interested in dowsing and in raising their vibration and consciousness. “We are living in exciting times,” says CSD president Kathy Wilson. “Our conference theme, ‘Resonating to the Swing,’ embraces the change of subtle world energies and our interaction with them. As we move into these new energy vibrations our sense of intuition, sensing, feeling and seeing are heightened.”