Why would my clients pay me
up to $1000 per day to find things for them?

It's all because of a single human hair.

But before I tell you about that hair, you need to know how I got started...

It all started one day at the barber shop in Helena, Montana. The men at the barber shop were talking about a local legend—or myth, I wasn't sure at the time—a rancher who could find water with a stick.

They said he was never wrong and he could even tell the drillers precisely how deep the water was in addition to how much could be pumped out per minute. I was extremely curious about this, so I asked where he lived.

After my haircut, I drove to his home south of Helena and knocked on his door. When he answered I told him what the guys had said about him and asked if he would be willing to teach me how to find water. I told him I'd show up every day to work his ranch until he felt compensated. He chuckled and grabbed a stick and two coat hangers and we went to his backyard.

Over the next two hours or so, he explained the basics to me, and had me practice finding coins he would toss out in the yard while my back was turned. I found every coin using the coat hangers.

When I began to find the coins, it seemed as though my entire life had been orchestrated in order to get me to that yard with those coat hangers in my hands. It was a powerful moment, finding what I was supposed to do in life.

He than had me locate his septic, and then his well. Then he told me to go over to his stable of horses and tell him which mare was pregnant. I did and was correct.

And that was about it, but as I was getting in my truck, he told me this secret:

"It's not the rods or the stick--it's you,
and you can find anything you set your mind on."

The fact that it was me and not the rods helped me understand that I could develop myself. The more I became tuned in, the better and more I could accomplish with this thing called “dowsing.” So I went home and demonstrated my new-found skill to my wife and children.

The next day I hiked up a mountain that locals call the "Sleeping Giant," and thought about dowsing in general and its origin. By sunset I knew what the source was and how to tap into it upon command. 

But my biggest insight was that I became aware that dowsing has no limits. That space, time, size, and value have no impact upon the phenomenon. Finding a dime a mile away is no more difficult than finding oil halfway around the world!

The Big Event

Less than a month later, we came across a promotional piece on the bulletin board at the grocery store about the World Dowsing Championships in Great Falls, MT. It said dowsers from all over the world would be there.

My oldest daughter got excited and was certain I would win. I pretended to be confident and agreed to drive up and check it out. I figured if nothing else, I could pick up a few secrets from these great dowsers.

When I arrived, I wasn't sure that I would enter the event, but I wanted to at least watch these great dowsers demonstrate their talent. I have to admit that I was a little nervous about entering. I had never witnessed another person dowse, ever! My teacher just told me how to do it. He never demonstrated it for me. At the time, I didn't know if I was a decent dowser or a poor one. I just knew that I could find anything, anywhere. But I thought that these experts could too. Boy, was I wrong!

By 10:00 several hundred people arrived at a field next to a Wal-Mart. It was a glorious spring day, with a slight breeze. I remember being slightly embarrassed because people going in and out at the store were wondering what was going on in the field, and would stand on the blacktop pointing at us dowsers as we followed our coat hangers.

There were tents and lawn chairs scattered around the field. People were sharing stories about finding gems and gold. An older couple offered their expertise in dowsing to all the attendees that were interested in learning. The atmosphere was similar to a carnival with popcorn, hot dogs and balloons on strings.

The testing area was about the size of a football field. My oldest daughter told me that I just had to enter the "race" because I'd win the big trophy. With that inspiration, I walked over and put my name on the list with my $25 entry fee. They gave me a tiny garden pocket shovel and a number that my wife pinned on my back like I was a marathon runner or a bull rider (two sports I'd never try!).

I was #66, one of the last to arrive. The expert dowsers were introduced first. When it was my turn, my family jumped up and shouted as though I had already won!

One guy was from Australia, another was from Great Britain, but most came from Canada and all over the USA. Most were about 50 or 60 years old. I was 34 and one of the youngest participants. My rod was a real wire coat hanger, one of two I had brought from home. Most of the other dowsers had fancy brass L-rods that gleamed in the sunshine. Mine had peeling white paint and was bent and twisted!

I didn't have a clue how they would determine who was good and who sucked. But they had buried silver dollar coins about three inches deep all over the field. All you had to do was find the coin in less than 10 minutes to advance. It seemed odd. My wife later said, we looked like we were hunting Easter eggs!

Half, or about 30 of the contestants, were unable to locate the coin and were eliminated. I was thinking how silly this all was and surprised that anyone would fail to find a coin.

Then we were told to find a large nail hammered in the ground. Only nine of us found a nail. Andy Vaughn, the event coordinator, told us they had only hidden a dozen nails, which meant you had to be a quick dowser too, since there were 30 of us looking!

We then had to locate a blue plastic poker chip and then a 35mm film case filled with water. The cases were scattered on top of the ground—some empty and some full of water. If you got an empty case you were eliminated. Seven of us accomplished both of these last two tests.

Finding a Human Hair

I wish I could say that it was tense and the competition was tight, but I was getting frustrated playing these childish games. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. After the water test we had lunch break and I approached Mr. Vaughn and asked how many items were were going to be searching for after lunch. He said that they were out of items and he appeared to be a little worried about how to continue.

I just said, "We should play a game of O-U-T, like in basketball. You do something, then your opponents have to duplicate it or they are out." He loved the idea and asked me if I would be first. Wanting to get back home before dark, I agreed to make the first challenge.

We all gathered and he announced the new test. I stepped forward and said, "We need a plastic bag to put my wife's hair inside, then someone can take this up to an hour away from here and I'll find it in less than two hours."

Every dowser looked at me like I was crazy. That surprised me because I thought they could probably do this too. I had only chosen a hair so I wouldn't be trumped by something smaller. Mr. Vaughn asked if any dowser wanted to offer a grander challenge so they could go first. They didn't utter a sound.

I had never tried this before but I knew I could do it because distance has no effect, nor does size. I kind of thought all dowsers had realized this on their own, but I was wrong! Dowsers for the most part have the same misunderstanding about the phenomenon as non-dowsers do. They think of dowsing in terms of gravity. The larger and closer the target is, the more strength. But dowsing is not like gravity and I was beginning to realize that I knew something that my competitors didn't—no matter how new I was to the profession.

Event people arranged for me to sit in a chair with a baby blanket over my head while they left. My family was not allowed to talk to me. I sat covered up in the middle of a pasture wondering how silly I must have looked with baby blue elephants and the alphabet draped over my head! I fell asleep.

After an hour, a lady came up and said that I could begin my hunt. I grabbed my rods, asked two questions and got in my car, drove onto the street and turned left. I mostly went straight but ended up driving about 10 minutes when we passed a group of cars that honked at me. I watched them make U-turns in the rearview mirror. It was my competitors and the event coordinators.

I just drove wherever my rod pointed. After a few turns, and about 15 miles outside of Great Falls, my rod twisted hard right, pointing to a gravel road. I drove down it about a mile and the rod twisted left across my chest, pointing to a creek bed and some trees.

I got out and crawled over a barbed wire fence. There were about twenty people behind me—I never looked because it would distract me. Nobody said anything.

I walked to a spot next to the dry creek and my rods went parallel. Directly below me was a small fresh mound of dirt. I dug down about eight inches and pulled out a plastic bag with a hair in it. The bag had a series of numbers written on it. As I turned to show the bag, everybody broke out in shouts of amazement, but the loudest voices were my kids!

The other dowsers were the most amazed of all. They recounted how they thought about going further but didn't think I would get within even ten miles of where it had been buried. A newspaper reporter asked me a few questions and then interviewed some of the other dowsers and Andy Vaughn. I tried to be polite but wanted to get home. Andy wanted me to go back to the event and take a photo with the big trophy, but I told him to mail it to me.

About a week later he sent me a broken trophy (thanks UPS!) and wrote me a letter about how I had revolutionized dowsing. He added a newsletter that he had published, outlining my feat. The article mentioned that this was the 3rd World Dowsing Championship and the next one would be held in Denver.

A year later, Andy wrote me again saying that only six novice dowsers showed up to the next WDC. He said that he lost a lot of money promoting it and that the reason nobody came was because they knew they could never do anything like what I had done the year before...find a single strand of hair buried within a sixty mile radius. I won the World Dowsing Championship and killed it in one afternoon. It kind of felt like winning the lottery with a bad check!

I've kept my dowsing secrets to myself but now I believe it is time to share them with you. Dowse Like A Pro will add depth to your life's resume.