Dowsing is the action of a person called the dowser using a rod, stick or other device called a dowsing rod, dowsing stick, doodlebug (when used to locate oil) or divining rod to locate such things as underground water, hidden metal, buried treasure, oil, lost persons or golf balls, etc. Since dowsing is not based upon any known scientific or empirical laws or forces of nature, it should be considered a type of divination.

Map dowsers use a dowsing device, usually a pendulum, over maps to locate oil, minerals, persons, water, etc. However, the prototype of a dowser is the field dowser who walks around an area using a forked stick to locate underground water. When above water, the rod points downward. (Some dowsers use two rods. The rods cross when above water.) Various theories have been given as to what causes the rods to move: electromagnetic or other subtle geological forces, suggestion from others or from geophysical observations, ESP and other paranormal explanations, etc.

Dowsing and other forms of divination have been around for thousands of years. There are large societies of dowsers in American and Europe and dowsers practice their art every day in all parts of the world. There have even been scientists in recent years who have offered proof that dowsing works.

The testimonials of dowsers and those who observe them provide the main evidence for dowsing. The evidence is simple: dowsers find what they are dowsing for and they do this many times. Scientific thinking includes being constantly vigilant against self-deception and being careful not to rely upon insight or intuition in place of rigorous and precise empirical testing of theoretical and causal claims.

Controlled study of dowsers, has shown that dowsers that dowser believe in what they do - but much of it is by chance.

Dowsing is a searching tool that has been used for thousands of years by those who have tried, with the help of a Y shaped rod, to locate underground water, ore bodies, oil and other important resources. Dowsing is subjective by nature. Its success depends on the qualities developed by the dowsers themselves, who sense, via a mind-body link, the presence of underground structures.

Scientists have tried to understand the physical basis of dowsing; what factors link the movement of the rod in the dowser's hand to underground structures. No one has yet successfully explained the dowsing signal and for now it remains by chance - or another psychic tool.