A pastor friend of mine was "run out of town" for interfering with water witching. He was pastoring a church someplace in New England where ground water is hard to locate and most of the local drillers used rods. Some of the fellows in the church were troubled by it, so they along with the pastor decided to "test the spirits." To accomplish this, they prayed together once a week that if the witching was the result of the action of unclean spirits that it would fail to work. Lo and behold, almost immediately the well drillers started having trouble finding water. Somehow they found out about the prayer group and then things got real ugly-fires, broken windows, gunshots at night, dead pets, you name it. The pastor ended up fleeing the state.
True story. And it happend in the 1970's, not the 1790's.
That’s an interesting story. I told above about my wife’s uncle witching for lost graves, and my wife’s father, learning the craft from his brother but never using it, taught it to me one day. Although the rods did move without my perceived intervention (we walked my front lawn and the rods crossed whenever I passed over a known water line), the whole thing did give me that ‘Ouija Board’ vibe, IOW I felt that I was dealing with something I really shouldn’t be dealing with. Tossed the rods (bent coat hangers) and never did it again.
So what you are saying is that God heard their prayers and showed the drillers that the witching was from a bad spirit? Some here say it is from the Scriptures, others say it is from Satan, others say it doesn't work anyway. I live 26' above a great water table so it doesn't concern me.