I asked a group who preserves and catalogues old cemeteries and this was one of the answers: "Witching sticks" are simply dowsing rods, or divining rods. They have been used to locate everything from water, to pipes, personal belongings, missing persons, etc. When someone wants to find something, they will take a couple rods, and start walking. The theory behind it is that there are "E-rays" that eminate from deep within the Earth, and penetrate through the crust to form neat lattices (about 10cm to 20cm squares), and covers the whole earth. E-rays, supposedly, have negative polarity. When an E-ray penetrates through certain types of matter, they get redirected, and disturbs the neatness of the lattices. Furthermore, redirected E-rays switch to positive polarity. Thus, divining rods are able to detect disturbed positive E-rays. Of course, that's if you believe in that stuff. The talent lies in knowing how to interpret the actions of the divining rods. That is, how do you know if you found water, a body, an artifact, metal, etc.? I've heard that E-rays disturbed by graves cause a lot of wierd things to happen, including the twisting of tree trunks. Steve Johnson