Unexplained

Animal Instincts and the Skill of Dowsing

Dowsing Avebury by Jupiter Firelyte, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic LicensePhoto by  Jupiter Firelyte

Animal instincts and learned behavior is something we’re all equipped with. Creatures of the Earth and even man has some form of instinct, some may even call it common sense. The skill of dowsing is something of an instinct itself. If you’ve not heard of Dowsing, it’s a instinctive way of finding water underground by use of a special tool. This tool has been known as the witching stick.
 
How is it that a sea turtle can swim for thousands of miles and still find its way back to the beach it was born on many years prior? Sea turtles do this instinctively and on que every season. They will return to their birthplace island to lay their eggs.
 
Birds are also well known for their animal instincts. They will migrate South during the winter in order to find warmer climates. Some suggest this may all be a matter of skill, or is it instinct?
 

Dowsing for Water

The Skill of Dowsing was originally invented as a way of finding underground water sources. Mainly in areas that were otherwise dry to the naked eye.

 

The skill of dowsing is often referred to as witching for water, or water witching. Dowsers will use many different dowsing tools. The most common is a forked stick, carrying it with the Y formation facing their bodies. Holding one end of the Y in each hand. When water or a water source is discovered, the opposing end of the witching stick will dip or bend downward pointing out the location.

 

Some dowsers have even used metal rods in the shape of an L. They will carry one rod in each hand by the short bent end while the long ends of the rods sway back and forth. In some cases dowsers have even used a pendulum to make their discoveries. This is often referred to as pendulum dowsing, imagine that…lol

 

The earliest known practices of dowsing were done by the ancient Egyptians and ancient Chinese, believe it or not, dowsing is still quite popular today.

 

It’s not well known exactly how this skill of dowsing works, but what is known, is that most discoveries located by dowsing are in fact legitimate. It has often times been used in discovering not only water, but metal, oil and other buried items.

 

Animal Instincts of Migration

There are many different species that will migrate during different seasons of the year. Birds, turtles, toads, butterflies and even reindeer are known migrating species.

 

Many of these animals will instinctively travel either to different nearby areas or even as far as going to other countries in search of warmer climates. Their search may also be cause for locating a better food supply, a mating place or a place to lay eggs or give birth to their young.

 

Some of these migrating practices can cover extremely long distances, but it’s not very common for them to get lost regardless of the distance. So how do they do this?

 

Is it possible they could be navigating by the wind, stars, moon phases, by scent, or sound? Maybe they are going forth using only their memories that have been inherited by their ancestors.

 

In the 1950s, a study at Frankfurt zoo in Germany revealed that some bird species that were known to migrate to the southwest during the winter, would actually huddle in the southwest corners of their cages when it was their normal migration season.

 

This discovery led science to believe the birds were responding to the Earth’s magnetic fields. Upon completing further studies, there were many other animal species that displayed similar traits and abilities.

 

The Magnetic Fields and Migration

It is said that the Earth contain molten iron in the center of the planet. When this molten iron moves it creates electrical currents that extend outward and upward. This is believed to create the Earth’s magnetic fields.

 

All living creatures have tiny traces of magnetite in their brains. This magnetite will react to the Earth’s magnetic fields similar to the way a compass does. It’s said the human brain also contains this magnetite, but we apparently do not use it. Do you think it’s something we could learn to use? And if so, what could this allow us to do?

 
Animal instincts and the skill of water dowsing are similar concepts. Some believe that migration is nothing more than a skill rather than instinct. What if water dowsing were an instinct instead of a skill? Maybe both of these actions are a little bit of both. We may never know simply because we will never be able to fully understand the thought patterns or complex behaviors of other animal species. All we can do is continue to explore and expand on the possibilities of the animal we can relate to, ourselves, the humans.
 
Any thoughts on these animal instincts? Have you ever used a witching stick or known someone that has? Spew forth the information so we may all learn in the comments below.
 


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17 thoughts on “Animal Instincts and the Skill of Dowsing
  1. It’s incredible how even domesticated animals still have most of their primal instincts. It’s all about those magnetic fields.

    If you’ve witnessed dowsing in real-life, it may come off a bit strange. Using the word “witching” is very fitting.

    1. Yah witching is a trip, I remember seeing a guy doing that on my Grandparents land when they were drilling for a water well, I was just a kid at that point. Probably over 30 years ago, but it was quite interesting.

  2. Hello dear author, you write a awesome article which really informative and I’m searching for this kind of article for about 1 hour in Google and after a long time I get this article which really easy to understand and I perceived the weight of this content. I read out your post very carefully and using as implementation.

    1. Well thank you Amanna, I’m glad you were able to find my article and I hope it was useful to you. Please stop by again. 🙂

  3. Hi Sir
    Awesome post !!! usually i found post about internet computers and other but you choose different subject it belongs to nature, science and sometime about us.I love to read your post.
    I think its gift by the god to animals . Animals learn naturally like dog know how to swim birds know how to fly nobody teach them they learn automatically

    1. That’s correct Ashutosh. Animals have the fortunate ability to be born with knowledge pass down from ancestors that allows them to do many amazing things.

      Humans also have many instinctive traits, but I think we feel limited by our own fears and doubts which may cause us not to trust our instincts. That’s one disadvantage to thinking with a more complex mind. 😉

  4. This to me as a special article you have written. Great post!
    I have never heard of drowsing before reading this article but after reading it I can see how your views make sense.

    1. Yah dowsing isn’t used a whole lot any more, but it used to be a pretty common method for locating water and other buried things. Some believe it’s all made up mumbo jumbo, but I believe it works. If you consider the magnetic fields are in the equation.

      1. Its still surprisingly used allot for locating water. While it has evolved to include more ‘new age’ thought, there are many people who stick with the traditional water dowsing. I read somewhere once that even humans had these magnets in their brains. I’ve often wondered if animals can access this part of their brains easier than us because they don’t have egos 🙂 Great article, really inspired me to think!

        1. That’s great Jax, I appreciate your input on this. That’s a cool website you have there too, if anyone is interested, check out Jax’s site Dowsers

  5. wow great article ..i read the whole article and i really enjoyed it .this article is very interesting and unique.

    1. I’m glad you enjoyed it Harish. Dowsing is a very cool thing and I believe it works. I all makes sense when you look at the magnetic fields being responsible. Thanks for stopping by.

  6. Well, dowsing is truly something odd. I often read about this but still can’t believe it if I hadn’t try it myself. Lol. I’m thinking to try it if i go camping

    1. Yah it is a hard concept to swallow, but the Earth’s magnetic fields do some strange things. Good luck if you give it a go and let us know how things turn out. 🙂

  7. It great the post which you are updating is always coming with unique !! How much we have desire same thing happening with animals they are also trying for their food !!

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