With Memorial Day coming up, we need to know where the bodies are buried. Jack Mavins claims to know how… The following excerpt is from an article in the May 27, 2011 edition of the Brandon Sun.
ANOLA – Jack Mavins says “witching” a lot but allows that “I really should say ‘dowsing.’ ”
No, witching sounds better. Graves and witching go together like corpses and suspicious deaths.
Mavins, 79, is a witcher of lost and unmarked graves, searching out unknown burial sites on windy hilltop cemeteries and vacant corners of old farmyards for the past 20 years.
Mavins claims to not only find where the bodies are buried but also determine whether it’s a male or female, and whether it’s an adult, adolescent or child. He uses two welding rods and they will cross each other where the body lies and uncross once he’s walked past. The welding rods will spin counter-clockwise for a female — no jokes, please — and clockwise for males.
He says he can also tell whether it’s animal or human. Humans lie straight whereas animals are typically on their side, often curled with their legs in front of them. The only thing he can’t say is why it works. Perhaps the dead rise ethereally from their graves and mischievously whack the metal rods when Mavins passes. Like others who claim to witch, usually water and then it’s usually called ‘divining’, Mavins thinks it’s nothing out of the ordinary, really. His two sons can do it; his wife and daughter can’t.
