California Is Full of Hidden Reservoirs. These Mystics Find Them.

On a recent sunny Monday morning, 85-year-old Doug Brown pulled up to a breakfast joint in Willits in his white pickup. Bold white letters on the tinted camper shell window spelled out “Water Witcher,” with Brown’s phone number written just below. Inside the truck was a quiver of wire rods, each tipped with different metals or materials, to be used for Brown’s practice of an archaic tradition: water dowsing.