virgula divina

Remarkably, ten out of twelve UK water utilities admit to resorting to dowsing when it comes to looking for leaking pipes. Despite volumes published to discredit the pseudoscience behind this type of divination, belief in its efficacy has persisted for centuries and the nervous energy, the ideomotor effect, that causes the rods to dip is the same sort of pretend-mediumship that pushes a planchette around a ouija board and probably ought not be the basis for diagnostics or repairs.