'Course it works! 'S Divine, init?
OK, so that's the Monty Python version.... A few years ago, I was on holiday in Nova Scotia, Canada, staying with friends. I was a pure sceptic at the time, but my host assured me there was something to water divining. He set about proving it. He had a pair of 'rods', l-shaped, cut and re-shaped from a single wire coat-hanger. He demonstrated, walking across his garden, and the rods crossed. Maybe consumption of alcohol fueled my intrigue.... I had a go, and to my utter amazement and disbelief the rods did exactly the same with me, and at exactly the same place. I suggested it might be an underground cable, or some other magnetic effect, but my host took a compass into the garden and showed that it didn't flicker at all, anywhere; it just showed the same (magnetic) North-South alignment all over. He then showed me where the water supply came from, and how the pipe came straight across the very line where the rods crossed. I was suddenly more open-minded.
On coming home I cut up a ubiquitous wire coat-hanger (what did mankind do before they were invented...?) and made my own 'rods'. They work just as well, and I have used them countless times with usually a good success rate. Though I did fail to find water under my allotment, but i only dug down about three feet, so it may have been deeper. It has helped find water pipes that could be inadvertantly dug up when planting trees, and i've found two natural springs. I'm still sceptical, preferring not to gurantee success, so I'm amazed when it works. But it does. And Lord knows how or why....
Sunny John