Dowsing is an ancient practice used to locate what lies unseen—traditionally water, oil, gemstones, or ores. Yet its applications reach far beyond the physical world. With experience, a dowser can detect stuck emotions, food intolerances, mineral deficiencies, or the subtle need for nutritional support. Dowsing can even reveal unseen energetic influences in your home or workplace: underground water courses, electromagnetic fields, environmental imbalances, or place memories that linger in walls and land. The possibilities are truly endless.

A dowser is someone who learns to surrender the ego, quiet the mind, and open to intuitive guidance. Many possess natural psychic sensitivity. Some prefer to work with rods or pendulums, while others use tarot cards, runes, or even a crystal ball. The tool itself is not the source of power—it simply responds to the dowser’s subtle, unconscious movements and inner knowing.

When I dowse, I mostly work with a pendulum and the runes. The pendulum allows me to gather information—whether I’m working with a person, an animal, a map, or a floor plan. The runes, on the other hand, tell a story: a beginning, a middle, and an end. They reveal the deeper narrative of an emotion—whether it belongs to the individual or an ancestor—and show me where that energy resides within the layers of consciousness or the aura.

Many people are capable of dowsing; it is a natural human gift that simply needs practice and patience. To develop true competence in this art, I undertook a three-year apprenticeship in divination, healing, and magic, where I learned to use the runes as my main divinatory tool. Since then, I have also completed courses in home and place healing, dowsing for health, and ancestral healing, expanding my understanding of how energy flows through both people and places.

One memorable case involved a pony named Artemis, who had long suffered from laminitis—a painful inflammation in the feet that made walking difficult. Over several weeks, my colleague Janice and I had been working to release Artemis’s trapped emotions. Her history held a deep thread of grief. As a foal, she had been separated from her mother during the annual Dartmoor roundup. Later, she was left for long periods alone in a stall—isolated and unheard. These experiences had settled deep in her subconscious, surfacing repeatedly through her behaviour and physical health.

That morning, after feeding the horses, Artemis was brought up from the paddock where she had spent the night with the herd. The barn smelled of hay and horses. Lolly, the stable cat, darted between the dogs—Scamp stalking her playfully while Edson kicked a hard red ball up and down the concrete aisle. Amidst the commotion, Janice swung her pendulum, murmuring, “Give it a rest, Edson!”

We sat with our coffee as Artemis stood quietly nearby, ears flicking, seemingly listening. Then Janice looked up.

“I get a yes as well,” she said. “This affected emotion is definitely in column B.”

We dowsed again, narrowing down the chart. The pendulums remained still until I asked, “Is Artemis’s trapped emotion heartache?”

In an instant, my pendulum spun wildly in circles.

Heartache—connected to the heart and small intestine. It made perfect sense, considering her history of loss, isolation, and digestive distress.

As I released the emotion, the atmosphere shifted dramatically. The air thickened; Artemis trembled. A wave of anguish swept through the stall like a dense grey fog rising from within her body.

The energy was overwhelming. I felt her despair surge through me—Get me out of here. Let me escape. Help me.

Beside me, Janice clutched her chest. “I’m getting sharp pain—like a heart attack,” she gasped.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the heaviness began to lift. Artemis exhaled deeply, her muscles relaxing. The energy around her lightened. Later, out in the paddock, she moved more freely, her spirit brighter and more expressive. She had begun to find her voice again.

Conclusion

Dowsing is not simply about locating things—it’s about listening. Whether to the land, a person, or an animal, the practice reveals what lies beneath the surface and helps bring hidden energies back into balance. Through it, healing can unfold in the most unexpected and beautiful ways.