Dowsing - "The study and detection of human response to water, minerals, and other underground materials. Dowsing, or 'water-witching', is usually distinguished from the related subject of radiasthesia by its focus on nonliving materials such as water, metals, minerals, or buried objects. Both dowsing and radiasthesia operators employ a divining rod, pendulum, or similar device as an indicator of unconscious human sensitivity to hidden materials. Radiasthesia extends such detection to medical diagnosis and treatment, discovery of missing persons, telepathy, clairvoyance, and related paranormal phenomena."

• Taken from the Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology edited by J. Gordon Melton.