Book Review: The Practical Guide to Dowsing

When I visited my local newly refurbished library earlier this month I borrowed The Practical Guide to Dowsing by Dr Patrick MacManaway. My dad taught me to dowse when I was young, but it never hurts to have a refresher or read other people’s views on a topic. What’s more, I recently bought a new pendulum so thought this book would prompt me to use it more. I also thought I’d review the book on my blog.

The Practical Guide to Dowsing was published by Lorenz Books in 2013, so it’s relatively old. That doesn’t matter because it’s still worth borrowing from a library, especially if you’re looking for a book that teaches the basics. There’s nothing wrong with reading a good older title.

I should start by saying the book focuses on using dowsing to benefit health and wellbeing from an MBS perspective, touching less on witchy aspects until the end.

Dr Patrick MacManaway explains that dowsing helps us use our “sixth sense”, bridging the gap between the rational and the intuitive. He writes: “This book is an invitation to explore a uniquely personal…path to…health. It will guide you in opening and cultivating a dialogue with your inner self.” 

He uses the word “health” to mean mental, social, and spiritual wellbeing as well as physically being fit. This he describes as a holistic approach, and emphasises the importance of learning to trust our inner self and its wisdom. 

The book goes on to explain: “The basic process of dowsing involves asking a question and is generally used to discover information.” Often this is stuff we’re not consciously aware of or don’t know. Dowsing is most frequently used for questions that require a yes or no answer, unlike Tarot, for example. The book states that we also need to remain alert and exercise reason, rather than using a pendulum to make all of our decisions for us.

The most popular dowsing tools these days are pendulums, but I was pleased to see that the book includes the use of rods, forked twigs, and bendy wands. Pretty much anything attached to a string or chain can be used as a pendulum, including rings and keys as well as crystal pendants or specially created devices. 

You start by holding a pendulum chain between your thumb and first finger, then ask “what motion means yes”, then “what motion means no”. After that, ask any question that can be answered by yes, no, maybe, or unknown. L-shaped rods are best for searching for things, traditionally including earth energy at sacred sites.  The book explains how to do this, and brought back memories for me of dowsing for ley-lines with my dad on holidays in my youth.

A small section discusses divining or water-witching. This is the practice of using dowsing equipment to find undergrounds sources of water. This technique has been used historically to find wells, but can also be used to search for other things buried underground. At the end, the book includes ways of using the cyclic chart of the Wheel of the Year and the cycle of life to ask questions about where an issue we are dealing with might be stuck. Personally, this was the part that interested me most and I’ll be using my new pendulum to try that out.

You can view an newer edition of The Practical Guide to Dowsing on Amazon as well as possibly borrow a copy from your local library. 

Please note: I earn commission from some links.

The picture at the top is a photo of The Practical Guide to Dowsing  with the pendulum I bought at the College of Psychic Studies

Other previous related posts
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2024/10/using-pendulum-as-divination-to-make.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2024/04/craft-making-divining-rods-from-twigs.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2022/10/divination-dowsing-rods-that-found.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2011/04/spells-and-divining-to-find-lost-things.html

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