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Breakthrough to Creativity – Dr Shafica Karagulla

This account was provided by an executive, who at the time owned numerous enterprises,  including a network of TV and radio stations,  as well as being a post graduate student at Michigan University studying electronics and physics. 

In the early 1950s, we concluded that we wanted to establish a winter home in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains eighteen miles northeast of Tucson, Arizona. After acquiring some 240 acres as a buffer zone around our home, the first order of business was to ascertain the presence of water. All the ranch homes built along the Catalina foothills up to that time had open wells. These wells had to be blasted out of solid granite, since the underpinning of the mountains is almost totally rock.  I retained the services of a miner friend to blast such a well. As an amateur in such matters, he selected a site and blasted out a well which took some six months to accomplish. The well was formed in such shape as to contain 4,000 gallons of water underneath the surface. Upon completion the well started to recover water at the rate of about one-half gallon per minute.  It took a number of months for the full well to recover sufficient capacity to conclude that it was a good operating well.

Having a satisfactory water supply we then went on to build our home including a swimming pool. It required some 20,000 gallons of water for the swimming pool and another 13,000 gallons of water to fill the surface tanks. After our home had been completed and we returned to Michigan, I received a frantic call from our tenants to the effect that our well had gone dry.  I came to Arizona to examine the situation and it was true. We had no water and apparently the prospects for water were most remote, since all of the wells in the area seemed to be losing their water recovery tempo.

I went to the Geological Department of the University of Arizona, explained my plight and sought their counsel. It did not take them long to inform me that I had made the mistake of my life, that geologically they could prove that there was no such thing as water in the entire area where our ranch property was located. They got out their maps and proved the point.  Naturally, under these circumstances, we were completely distressed and sought every avenue of advice possible.

Someone suggested that as a last resort we might consult a Water Diviner. To this, I readily agreed, stating that since science could not discover water for us, perhaps we had better resort to hocus-pocus. Eventually the services of two Water Diviners were secured.  The terms for their services were most attractive.  They simply stated that if they could not find water, there would be no charge for their services. In the event water was found, then I as the owner could pay them what I thought their services were worth. These gentlemen cut off some branches from a Paloverde tree and formed them into Y-shaped branches so that the branch could be held firmly in both hands in a perpendicular fashion. For about a half-day they walked back and forth over our property.

After watching this process for several hours, I finally concluded that this branch would move from a horizontal position to a vertical position, or vice versa, depending upon the pressure exerted through the hands and arms. In fact, I informed these gentlemen that I thought I could make the thing go up and down as well as they did, simply by manipulating my wrists. They said,  “Would you like to try it?”

I took the branch, held it firmly in both hands in a perpendicular position, resolving that it would not move with me under any circumstances. When I got over the area where they had indicated that there was water, the branch started to move down and I could not hold it.  In fact, it ground the bark off the branches in my hand. After I crossed the area, the branch came back to a perpendicular position. Much to the consternation of everybody concerned, it turned out that I was a better Water Diviner than they. Both of them said that the branch responded more readily for me than it did for them.

In any event, we concluded that we would try to drill for water at the given area. A stake was driven in the ground at that point. My next move was to call in the most reputable well-drilling operators in the area and order a well.  These gentlemen asked why I had concluded to put a well down in that particular spot. I told them it was the result of Water Divining, whereupon they threw up their hands and refused to accept the job. They said it was a waste of time and money and, since it would be necessary to drill through rock all the way, the cost of the drilling would be astronomical.  They simply did not want to assume the risks for such a tenous enterprise.

In any event, I prevailed and told them that I would assume all of the responsibility and ordered them to drill a six-inch well to a depth of 200 feet if necessary. Previously I had been told by the Water Diviners that we, in all probability, would find water at about 120 feet and possibly we would secure twenty gallons per minute. This accounted for my authorization to the drillers to go to the depth of 200 feet.

They started to do their job and I went back to Michigan.

In about three weeks I received a telephone call from the drillers, saying at that time they were down to a depth of eighty-seven feet and had been drilling through granite all the way.  The day before they had run into silicone and they had broken five drills. As a result, they wanted to give me another chance to abandon the project. I still insisted that they continue to do the drilling because my home was of little use without water supply.

In another two or three weeks I received a call from the drillers in which they informed me that they had pulled the rigging and had abandoned the thing altogether. I asked them where they had stopped, and they said, 'We quit at 119 feet.' I said, 'Why in the world did you stop there? You know I authorized you to do 200 feet, if necessary.' They came right back and said, 'Because at 119 feet we struck the darnedest vein of water you ever saw.'  I asked them what the flow amounted to, and they said that as near as they could figure it, it was eighteen gallons of water to the minute!

After I returned to Arizona, samples of the water were sent to the University of Arizona for examination. They could not believe that water had been secured. They said the water was very adequate and sent representatives to examine the well. They have done so at intervals of six months ever since and they still cannot account geologically for the fact that we have a good working well. The well has continued to produce fine water in good supply for over eight years. As far as we can ascertain, it looks as if it will be a good working well indefinitely