How to Locate a Grave With Rods
The use of divining rods to locate water, graves, electrical lines and other objects is a practice that goes back thousands of years. The practice is often referred to as "dowsing," or "witching," and it requires the use of two L-shaped metal rods that can either be purchased or made at home. No one has really determined how the rods works, although some theorize that the metal rods pick up electromagnetic fields.
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Instructions
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Making Your Divining Rods
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1
Cut each hanger below the hook and the part where the hanger is twisted together. You can discard the top part (the hook and twisted portion).
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2
Straighten out the rest of each hanger as well as you can. There should not be any visible bends or kinks.
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3
Form handles by bending one end of each hanger 90 degrees, about four inches from the end.
Holding Your Divining Rods
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4
Hold each hanger by the short handles, with one in each hand.
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5
Keep your grip slightly loose so that the rods can pivot while being held.
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6
Keep the rods upright and pointed straight in front of you, away from your body. They should be at about the level of your stomach.
"Dowsing" for Graves
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7
Walk around slowly in the area where you believe you may find a grave, while holding the rods in the correct position (as described in Section 2).
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8
Watch for the rods to come together and cross, which indicates that you may be over a grave.
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9
Practice this technique in a cemetery with marked graves to see if you can get the rods to cross when you walk over a known grave. Once you are getting good results, you can try dowsing over unmarked graves.
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1
Tips & Warnings
Some dowsers prefer to use a Y-shaped rod, with the base of the Y pointing outward.
Some dowsers prefer to have rods made of wood rather than metal. (There is no evidence that one type works better than another; it is a matter of personal preference.)
According to the University of Iowa's publication, "Locating Unmarked Cemetery Burials," some traditions state that the rods will move together if the body in the grave is male, and will move apart if the body is female.
You may need legal permission from a family or landowner to disturb a grave. Once you have decided, based on your dowsing, that a body lies buried beneath an unmarked spot, the only way to check is to excavate (if you have permission), or use some other scientific method of checking for a burial. This might include rod probing or soil coring.
