Free Republic

ST. HELENA, Calif. (AP) — With California in the grips of drought, farmers throughout the state are using a mysterious and some say foolhardy tool for locating underground water: dowsers, or water witches. Practitioners of dowsing use rudimentary tools — usually copper sticks or wooden "divining rods" that resemble large wishbones — and what they describe as a natural energy to find water or minerals hidden deep underground. While both state and federal water scientists disapprove of dowsing, California "witchers" are busy as farmers seek to drill more groundwater wells due to the state's record drought that persists despite recent...

With California in the grips of drought, farmers throughout the state are using a mysterious and some say foolhardy tool for locating underground water: dowsers, or water witches. Practitioners of dowsing use rudimentary tools - usually copper sticks or wooden "divining rods" that resemble large wishbones - and what they describe as a natural energy to find water or minerals hidden deep underground. While both state and federal water scientists disapprove of dowsing, California "witchers" are busy as farmers seek to drill more groundwater wells due to the state's record drought that persists despite recent rain.

...Former LDS historian D. Michael Quinn...Quinn's meticulous research, enriched by his access to LDS historical archives, paints a very different picture of Joseph Smith than that recounted by church elders. According to Quinn, Smith was a man deeply influenced by the Renaissance "magic worldview" imported from Europe and kept alive in America through the folkways of British and German immigrants. Quinn, who has since been excommunicated from the LDS, argued that the legend of the discovery of the golden plates reflected the practices and lore of early American dowsers. Had he, rather than Elder Mitchell, escorted me through the visitors'...