COWDEN - When Tracy Logsdon discovered he could dowse for water, he felt a sensation like an electric shock.

A self-described skeptic, Logsdon was watching as friends tried to dowse for water on some acreage so they could dig a well.

"They were walking all over that property looking for a well," he said. "Evidently, neither one of them had the ability to use the rods. They were getting nowhere. Of course, I didn't believe in it, so I wasn't saying a word. I thought it was ridiculous, and they were wasting their time."

They asked him to try. He told them he didn't believe in it, but they insisted. He took the rods, and in mere moments, they had their location, and when the backhoe operator dug there, he struck water.

Nobody was more amazed than Logsdon himself.

These days, Logsdon spends most of his time helping locate lost graves. He said "the wife" doesn't believe in it, and she's not alone.

Most scientists scoff at dowsing, also known as divining, witching, doodlebugging and rhabdomancy, yet people continue to practice it. It's the kind of thing a person either can or cannot do. If you don't have the knack, it can't be taught, and if you do, you may be unaware of it. Those who believe in it, swear by it, and those who don't, often can't be convinced, even if they watch someone do it successfully.

Generally, the dowser uses either a forked stick or two rods. Logsdon uses wire coat hangers, cut to length and bent at right angles to form handles. Some dowsers swear by copper wire, others by wood from a specific kind of tree.

No less an authority than Popular Mechanics magazine at least entertained the possibility of dowsing's validity with an article in 1998 that examined the practice and its continuing survival. The German government financed a study that appeared in The Journal of Scientific Exploration, published by Stanford University, and that study suggested there was a scientific basis to dowsing, though the jury's still out on exactly what it is. Some theories attribute it to human ability to detect geological clues to water sources underground, perhaps unconsciously.

That would not explain Logsdon's specialty, which is finding unmarked graves.

Christians are buried east to west, with the feet pointed east. This is to ensure that on Resurrection Day, the believer will rise from the dead facing the correct direction, according to the Bible, which states that Jesus will return from the east.

When divining for graves, the rods cross as the dowser moves above the body and uncross when he reaches the end of the grave. Adults' graves are generally about 6 feet long; children and babies, much smaller. In older cemeteries, stillborn babies were usually buried at the feet of their mother because the mother also had died during childbirth.

If Logsdon or another diviner holds one rod over the grave, the rod will turn to his left if the body was male, right if it was female, and it also works on cremated remains.

He can even estimate when the person died by how far apart his thumbs are when he holds the rods over the grave so the ends can touch instead of cross: 4 inches, 1840; 14 inches, 1940. The oldest grave he's found was from 1817, by his estimate, an American Indian grave. He knew that because the body was buried north and south instead of east and west, due to American Indians' different traditions.

Karole Johnson, secretary for the cemetery department at Long Creek Township, learned to witch graves for the township's work at restoring the old cemeteries and stones.

"My understanding is, your body has energy in it, and the energy doesn't leave, so when you're buried, the energy stays in your body, and that's how this is working," she said.

She had not heard of the method of determining the age of the grave and can't do that, but determining the sex of the body works for her, too.

Long Creek witchers use copper wire, she said, and you must hold it loosely so as not to interfere with the movement. Several people in the township are available for the task, if needed.

"We did this out at North Fork (cemetery)," she said. "We have an old section, and we don't like to dig unless we're for sure."

The township had planned to erect a flagpole at North Fork, but that would mean digging, and after one of the caretakers witched the area and said there were bodies all over, the idea of a flagpole was abandoned, Johnson said. In old cemeteries, the stones may have deteriorated, fallen over or never been there.

"A lot of times, people back then couldn't afford stones," she said.

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