Asn't a diving rod, (the one that is a stick and looks something like a letter Y made from a willow tree?

Diviners like to use wood or metal maybe old deviners think like goes to like IE if you want to find water use a willow as they grow near water.... wanna find gold use gold plated or real gold rods etc etc... wanna fine good earth using oaks who can grow deep and strong in good deep earth..

Yes, but it can be made of anything--even coat hanger wire.

It works by AMPLIFYING very small muscle movements in the hands and arms that result from the brain / nervous system encountering a change in the local magnetic fields. Apparently the nervous system is very sensitive to such things.

The results are similar to what is found by a sensitive magnetometer. That is it can detect buried metals,(pipes, wires) moving water (as ground water for potential wells) various mineral deposits and even Graves--

-Archeologists use magnetometers to find graves and post holes, BTW. The removal and replacement of dirt affects the local Magnetism, because the MAGNETIC minerals are usually leached out of the upper soil layers, and digging and re-filling a hole brings the deeper. magnetic materials to the top,

Very few people , unless they are totally ignorant of the subject doubt the accuracy of Dowsing rods in those cases. They DO work in these cases.

HOWEVER Dowsing rods ALSO can tap into the IDEOMOTOR RESPONSE(IR)--yes the same thing that drives pendulums and OUIJA boards.---Actually tapping into the SUBCONSCIOUS MIND--Again THAT part is accepted.-----

More controversial is that it can also tap into the person's "Latent ESP"--which "lives" in the subconscious mind also. This gives rise to things such as "map dowsing", the Sex of the person in a detected grave, and even "spirit communication", etc. This may or may not be true--depending if you believe the ESP aspects or not.

Summary. The dowsing rods work for stuff involving magnetic surveys and what can be found with them--the theory is sound here. They also are an accepted tool to probe the subconscious mind.

It is the ESP stuff associated with the subconscious mind which is controversial.

A divining rod is simply a tool used to channel the person's intuition. There is nothing special about willow unless that's what suits the individual. I have seen somebody use two coat hanger wires.

It doesn't matter what divining rods are made of because they don't really find water. There is water underground pretty well everywhere, so the user just has to hang on to the sticks and when they eventually dip (due to the ideomotor effect ) where ever it is water will be found.

http://www.skepdic.com/dowsing.html

That all makes sense to me, I heard a lot about this and it apparently works.