As mentioned in the April 2019 Star Beacon article "Generational Contact," from early on in my life I would "see" things happen that would always take place three days later, and I could see "energies" around people -- the different colors known as the aura. I was quite surprised to learn later on that most people could NOT see colors around others!

As I got older, I gave aura, past/parallel life readings and health readings for others, but I just couldn't get certain information for myself.

Then I was introduced to dowsing! In the mid '70s, when hubby and I lived in student housing at Colorado State University, I found out about a lady who had an herb shop on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado. I went to her shop, and this bubbly, little elderly German lady, named Hanna Kroeger, with her hair braided around her head, came up to me and asked what she could help me with, and I asked her what I needed for vitamins and supplements for myself.

She then took my hand, and dowsed it with a pendulum, and then grabbed the vitamins and supplements I needed from the shelves! This sweet little German lady had just changed my life! Vielen Dank, Frau Kroeger!

Dowsing as a tool, used with spirituality (prayer and meditation), draws us closer to Source/God/All That Is, by setting us on an enlightened path. Dowsing is a tool that connects us to our own Higher Self. Your Higher Self is an extension of yourself that is unlimited and eternal -- that which is part of Source/God/All That Is -- the ultimate higher power, the universal source of cosmic energy which can be used to access universal wisdom and knowledge from within.

Your Higher Self is your inner guidance that is separate from your ego self. Your Higher Self is that part of you that is wise, aware and connected to Source/God/All That Is.

Connecting to your Higher Self is one of the greatest journeys we can embark on, especially during these uncertain and uncomfortable times we're in now. Your Higher Self communicates with you through your imagination, through meditation, through "signs," through dreams, and through dowsing.

Dowsing has a very ancient history, dating back thousands of years, with its original purpose of connecting with the divine energies. Caverns found in Algeria, known as the Tassili Caves, estimated to be about 8,000 years old, showed pictographs of a group of tribesmen watching a diviner with a forked stick in his hand.

Etchings have been found on 4,000-year-old temple walls of pharaohs holding devices resembling dowsing tools. In China, 2,500-year-old etchings have been found of the Chinese Emperor Yu holding a device resembling a dowsing tool.

Evidence has been uncovered by researchers that the Pytheon Oracle of Delphi used a dowsing tool to answer questions from her clients, kings, queens, nobility and military commanders.

Herodotus described how the Scythians, in fifth century B.C., dowsed with willow rods. Oral tradition suggests that the Queen of Sheba included dowsers in her entourage when she traveled -- to find water and gold.

In the 16th century, dowsing rods were used regularly to find and explore German mines. Some of these German dowsers took their skills to England to help the locals divine for tin at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth I.

Dowsing recognizes that we have the power to use our intuition in focused ways to help us get answers that we need to live better. As Joey Korn, author of Dowsing: A Path of Enlightenment said in an email to me, "Dowsing is about detecting energy. It's about tapping into our own God-given ability to explore the world of subtle energies that are everywhere within and around us. It's about drawing ever closer to the Divine in our lives."

Dowsing can be used for questions regarding everything from health and healing, to vitamins and supplements, relationships, gender of an unborn child, finding gold and treasure, finding water, leylines, missing persons, automobile diagnosis, your plants, tracking storms, veterinary diagnosis, finding fish or animals, lost objects, ancient sacred sites etc. The questions are endless!

*** IMPORTANT -- Have a clear set of ethical guidelines when dowsing -- only dowse about yourself or people who have given you verbal permission to dowse about them. Never dowse someone else without their permission! ***

One of the most used dowsing tools for answering questions, or aid in decision making, is the pendulum. A pendulum is used to check on what supplements/dosage a body needs, the health of a body, money questions, relationships, dreams and desires. You can connect with your spirit guide, or your Higher Self. There are a lot of dowsing charts available to help with your questions -- many are free online!

In some of my research information, I found this, relating to pendulum dowsing: "The possibilities are endless. Just remember you are the final judge, not the pendulum. God gave us free will, and it is our choice how to live. The pendulum is merely a tool to teach us how to listen to our inner guidance." This was written for The Star Beacon, January 2008 by our own editor/publisher, Ann Ulrich Miller!

When I was asked to help the Colorado State Police in the search of a young woman, I wrote to Gabriele Blackburn, author of The Science and Art of the Pendulum: A Complete Course in Radiesthesia, to get advice. Here is what she wrote:

"You wrote asking about map dowsing, and finding lost people. I would use the same 'detective' method to find an area. Perhaps first ask general questions, as to where the lost person is, starting at a wide range, country, state, city, etc. Then actually use a map, or if you don't have one, draw it, if it's someone's farm for instance. In the same way you can determine if the lost person is alive, hurt, hiding, etc.

"Then also you can find out about the persons involved: kidnapped victim, parent, stranger, male, female, and so on. The answers to the questions, as you go along, will determine the next questions needed to get a complete picture; remember, however, that you need a neutral pendulum, and it will only act as a guide to that knowledge that is available for you to tap in.

"I'm sure you will be able to find your own way. Keep notes, and see how accurate you are, but remember, emotional traumatic cases often are very difficult, and don't feel bad in cases where you can't seem to find an answer. Perhaps it is not to be found, in some cases, and the person must go through their own causes and effects."

With the information I got through clairvoyant visions and the dowsing tools, the young woman was found miles away from where she was supposed to have been. A sad day for everyone who was part of the search.

Here are a few of the numerous methods of dowsing:

Field Dowsing -- this is the "traditional" use of dowsing, which involves locating water, objects, ley lines, etc. on a terrain.

Here are some personal stories: A homeowner, living near Sheridan, Wyo., asked my friend Monna and I to come to his home, to figure out why his daughter was getting such terrible headaches when she was in her bedroom, but was fine elsewhere in the house. I brought my L-rods, and on the search what we found out was that she was getting geopathic stress from "pernicious rays" (detrimental energies) coming directly into her bedroom from an unattached satellite dish some houses away!

Then we dowsed to find out how to eliminate the problem, and were guided to place smoky quartz on the baseboards of the wall facing the satellite dish in his daughter's room, and placing petrified wood on the outside walls for protection from the negative energies emitted from the satellite dish.

At a later time, the father called to let us know that his daughter wasn't getting any more headaches!

The Sheridan, Wyo. Prospectors Club had a weekend outing up in Zortman, Mont., at a private claim. Everyone needed to be in groups of five or six because of the limited panning equipment. So, using my L-rods, I dowsed to see which group I should be with that would find the most gold flakes and pickers. Then, I used a special pendulum with a witness chamber using a real piece of gold in it, and then pendulum-dowsed where to dig. By the end of the day, our group had found the most gold!

Another story is about the club outing of the Black Hills, S.D., Prospectors Group on a private claim. With my L-rods in hand, my hubby and I walked stretches of creek that weren't being actively panned. We found a stretch of creek that no one else was interested in, but we saw no "signs" (like black sand or snakegrass) usually connected with finding creek gold.

I used my L-rods and they kept crossing, telling us it was where we should be! So, we settled in for a day of panning, finding some nice flakes. Later in the day, the claim owner stopped by to see how we were doing, and we showed him our pan. He was VERY surprised, because even he said there just weren't those "signs" that gold would be in that section of the creek, so no one ever panned there. We told him we were at that spot because of the positive dowsing response we'd gotten, and then he shared stories of using "witching rods" with his father when he was younger!

The next day, the claim owner called us to let us know that he had found old geological maps of that area, and found out that an ancient river bed used to run right through the spot we were panning! He then told me that he named that section where we had panned "Sheri's Bar," and it would be listed as such on all new topo maps of that creek area of the Black Hills!

And one other story: Hubby and I were driving our son's Chevy Blazer to Florida from Wyo., to take it to him as he was just accepted to an advanced college internship program at Disney World, and he had to fly out ASAP. So, here was my chance to go to the Fort Smith area of Arkansas to dowse for crystals on the way!

We really wanted to find crystals on our own, but there were just no public places around to dig for crystals. But, there were lots of small shops selling crystals! The next morning, we were up early so I could go to some of the shops before traveling on, and a shop owner was bringing crystals to the outside tables. I offered to help her bring them out, which she appreciated. I detected a "German" accent, and asked if she was from Europe, and she said yes, from Switzerland. I then started speaking with her in German (my native language) and asked her if there were any public areas where we could dig for crystals, and then she invited us to dig at her crystal mine!!!

So, hubby and I drove to her mine to dig for crystals! He dug in one area while I was in another area. When I found a crystal, I would dowse and ask if it was for my highest purpose to have the crystal. If not, I would put it back. At the end of our digging adventure, I had quite a few beautiful huge crystals. Hubby, knowing that we would have to fly back to Wyoming from Florida, mostly dug small crystal points. I guess I forgot about the flying part ... we had to send about 70 pounds of crystals back to Wyoming by UPS! What a wonderful adventure we were gifted with!

Map dowsing is actually a form of remote dowsing) --locating the target by using a map or a sketch. There are no distance limits involved. It's used for locating oil and water wells, for finding missing persons or pets, for finding buried or lost treasure, for finding things like lost keys and misplaced items in the house.

I remember Dr. Jack Lapseritis sharing a story about his search for Sasquatch at one of Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle's Rocky Mountain Conferences on UFO Investigation. If memory serves me, he contacted three different psychics and asked them to map-dowse the location where the Sasquatch lived. They all, separately, gave him the SAME map location! And the resulting interactions with the Sasquatch changed his life!

My personal story on map dowsing: My husband volunteered for our local Search and Rescue group, and I volunteered to do the "Call Out's", which then gave me a chance to map dowse, using a quadrangle map, to find the missing hunter's location up in the mountains while hubby was packing his gear. I would then let him know where the missing hunter was located, and every time, the hunter would be found in that location!

Body Dowsing -- using the body to provide the answer. It could be a twitch of the hand, or a feeling on the back of the neck, a tightening of the shoulders, a blink of an eyelid, a weak feeling on one side or the other, the body swaying, moving forward or backward.

My personal story on body dowsing: A friend had told me that body dowsing worked for them at casinos, so I gave it a try the next time I was at a casino. So, I stood in front of a slot machine, asking my Higher Self to show me what my body response would be if the machine would pay out. All of a sudden, my body began leaning toward the machine!

Aura Dowsing  -- The energy field which surrounds you, your aura -- that energetic body which surrounds the physical body, can be dowsed. You can find how far your energy (auric) field actually reaches.

There are a couple ways to do this -- by having another dowser find the boundary of your auric field, or you can do it yourself, by having a dowsing instrument in hand while mentally asking to be shown the boundary of your auric field, and then walk towards a wall or a mirror, until your dowsing instrument begins moving. A great reference book is Barbara Brennan’s book Hands of Light -- A Guide to Healing through the Human Energy Field.

Dr. Richard Boylan, at the Star Family Reunion Conference in New Mexico in 2010, (see Star Beacon article "Star Family Messages and Spirit Photography" August 2019), shared information on the bio-electromagnetic-photic field of regular humans versus Star Kids/Star Seeds. He said a regular human's energy field is about 12-18 inches out from their body in all directions, and that Star Kids and Star Seeds have much wider fields, anywhere from 3 feet up to 70 feet!

For demonstration purposes, Dr. Boylan asked my friend Nannette (whom I originally met at Dr. Boylan's StarKids/StarSeeds Workshop in Allentown, Pa.) to walk down the aisle away from him and then turn around and approach him as he aimed two dowsing rods (L-rods) toward Nannette, and her energy field must've been 20+ feet!

Dowsing Pitfalls-- As with anything, you need to be aware of dowsing pitfalls that can happen while dowsing. Some of the most common pitfalls to watch out for are: being emotionally attached to the answer, asking a poor question, and polarity reversal. Any of these can give you a false answer.

Dowsing is best done when you feel calm, balanced and centered. The best way to get clear, accurate dowsing answers is to ask the right questions! The quality of your dowsing answer depends mostly on the quality of your question. Getting more accurate answers will build your confidence and encourage you to continue to dowse more often about more things.

I have a whole book titled Ask the Right Question -- The Essential Sourcebook of Good Dowsing Questions by Maggie & Nigel Percy. It's that important! (Want to thank Maggie & Nigel Percy for much of the information used in this article. Their website is: discoveringdowsing.com)

Here's a personal experience about asking the right question: My husband and his hunting buddy were scouting for elk in southwestern Colorado, just prior to elk hunting season. Hubby asked if I would come along to dowse for elk. Since it was before hunting season, I agreed.

We're up in the mountains, and every-so-often, hubby would stop the Jeep and I'd get out and dowse for elk with my homemade coat-hanger L-rods. Then, at another stop, I got out, dowsed, and told the guys that there would be elk over the ridge (my L-rods had crossed). I stayed with the Jeep while they trekked over the ridge. Once they returned, they weren't excited, so I thought maybe I somehow gave them wrong information.

Then hubby says: "They're all cows and calves! We've got bull tags!" He never specified bull elk!

One of the ways of getting wrong answers in dowsing is because of polarity reversal. Your body has a north/south polarity orientation, like a magnet. If your polarity is reversed, then your dowsing answers are also reversed. The main reason of reversed polarity is from an overload of stress -- anything from abuse, upsetting news, geopathic stress, dietary imbalance, accidents, overwork, lack of sleep, dehydration, etc.

When the body is sufficiently stressed, those magnets switch polarity. A good way to determine if your polarity is reversed is by asking a question that you know would give you a "yes" response. If you get a "no" response to the question, then your polarity is reversed.

I've found that the best way to fix this reversal is to do the "Thymus Thump," by tapping your breastbone with your fist several times and affirm that your polarity is back to its perfect function. Then ask the question again.

My personal story: My friend Monna (who I wrote about in the Star Beacon article "Monna, Motherships and Missing Time," October 2018) and I were in a metaphysical bookstore, checking out all the crystals in the store. We both were dowsing to see which crystals had the best energies for what we needed them for, and no matter which crystal we dowsed, we both came up with opposite answers.

As this had never happened before in all the energy work we had ever done together, we just couldn't believe how our answers were so opposite from each other! Then the "light bulb" came on, and we realized that one of us had a polarity reversal issue. We did the Thymus Thump, and then our dowsing answers were in sync!

Your Higher Self is always connected to you, and guides you through intuition and insight. The Higher Self is your closest connection to Source/ God/All That Is. It is absolute truth! In the dowsing I do, I am always connected to my own Higher Self (which is the soul consciousness) before doing any dowsing work. My dowsing instrument of choice for my personal questions is the pendulum.

Whenever I use any dowsing tool, absolutely the first thing I do is to clear and cleanse me, my tool and my space. For myself, I say a mantra/prayer of protection like this:

"I ask for a complete clearing and cleansing of myself, my space, and my pendulum within the universal White Christ Light, the green healing light and the purple transmuting flame. Within God's will and for my highest good, I ask that any and all negativity and/or evil be completely sealed in its own light, encapsulated within the ultra-violet light, cut off and removed from me. Impersonally, with neither love nor hate, I return all negativity and/or evil to its source of emanation, decreeing that it never reestablish itself within me or anyone else in any form. I now ask that I be placed within a triple capsule of the universal White Christ Light of protection, and for this blessing, I give thanks." (Fellowship of Universal Guidance mantra).

Use a prayer or mantra that you feel connected with.

There are many, many dowsing articles and videos available online to learn more about dowsing, and there are tons of books out there also. There's also a PDF available free online called "Letter to Robin," which is a mini-course in Pendulum Dowsing, designed as a learning tool for beginners.

Thank you for letting me share with you!

Sheri Gould is an experiencer and a clairvoyant who writes from Wyoming.