My Wife's a Witch

My wife is a very talented witch. Water witch that is. Using only a couple of metal hangers she can find water buried deep in the earth. “Drill right here.” She said.

We need to drill a well on the property in Montana we are building a house on. Life is better with running water. The question is where to drill. I’m told that if you drill deep enough there is water to be found no matter where you place the drill. Practicality dictates that at $45 per foot, we drill in a place where water is closer to the surface than to the magma in the earth’s core.

Our neighbor who owns the ranch next door suggested we ‘witch’ the property. In cowboy hat and jeans, leaning against his dusty truck he assured us that “witching works.”

Water witching, or dowsing, is the act of using an inanimate, very common object, to find water. Our neighbor said that people have used Y-shaped willow branches for hundreds (maybe thousands) of years, he also said metal coat hangers would work. I couldn’t, and still can’t, make a connection between willow branches and metal coat hangers. What magic properties could a willow branch and a cheap metal hanger from China have in common. Not that it mattered, I didn’t believe it would work anyway.

With nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon we decided to try the witching, and, I believed, fully disprove the theory that coat hangers can find water. First, we had to find the magic wand. Almost all coat hangers are now plastic, unless you shop in expensive stores where they might be wood. At any rate Walmart carries metal hangers. On to the property.

I broke two of the hangers and formed them into a shape like the letter L. Holding the L by the shorter of the two legs and holding them loosely out in front Kat walked across our property.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Holy shit, did you see that? The two metal rods turned into each other and crossed. Do it again.

The two metal rods crossed in the same location. Now Kat has been known to pull my leg so I had to try.
​
Damn, they crossed in the same place. I went twenty yards down hill and walked across the property. They crossed. I went downhill further and walked across the property and…. they crossed. All the places they crossed were in a straight line.

OK, let’s test this on a known water source. At the bottom of the hill water flows out of the ground and crosses under our driveway. I walked across the driveway and the rods crossed exactly over the water stream under the driveway. Two metal hangers from Walmart had definitely found water.

I don’t pretend to understand why this works and I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t experienced it. But then there are a lot of things I don’t understand. I’ve spent hours staring at the universe and don’t understand how it works. If God is perfect why did he make so many stupid and evil people? Why do two people love each other? What magical force of attraction makes that happen?

I’ll go ask Kat, she probably knows.

---