THEY say that lightning never strikes twice, but professional dowser Freddie Fredericks from Pershore would tell you otherwise.

Freddie believes that underground energy can attract lightning, cause accident blackspots and even serious illnesses and she is now teaching others how to dowse to solve these problems.

She was taught the technique when she was 12 by a woman in the New Forest employed to sex turkey eggs using dowsing.

It was only when she moved to Reading when she was 28 that she realised it was not such a common practice.

Her teaching took off when a colleague complained about her child being back on antibiotics and Freddie showed her how to dowse to find the cause of the illness.

She gave up her job, was nominated onto the British Society of Dowsers and now, 35 years later, is still teaching from her home in Pershore.

While some people are better at finding water, oil or even missing people, Freddie prefers to use dowsing to solve health problems.

She runs Health in your Hands workshops at her home, which teaches people how to dowse to find the roots of their illnesses, whether it be a food intolerance or underground energy.

Dowsing works on the principle that lines of negative energy under the ground cross with water veins, streams or overhead power lines and create a weak spot on the surface.

The energy on these weak spots, known as geopathic stress, can affect our everyday lives, particularly if our homes or workplaces are built on one of the spots.

"Kids fall out of bed all the time because they are trying to get away from the underground energy," Freddie said. "And I would always advise calling in a dowser to look at your home before having a baby because of the risks with cot death."

The mystical technique involves holding a pendulum, which will give answers to questions depending on the direction it swings, and curing geopathic stress spots with Earth acupuncture using copper rods.

The 67-year-old is convinced that geopathic stress can cause illness and gets frustrated when doctors continue to prescribe medication when the solution could be as simple as moving a bed to another side of the bedroom or moving a desk at work to avoid stress points.

But she doesn't like to interfere with private matters and for that reason is reluctant to use her skills to help find missing people.

"I will always ask first if it is my business and if the pendulum says so, I continue," she said.

But Freddie admits she does use dowsing to find leaks in pipes, before buying a new car or before going on long journeys when her gut feeling is telling her to avoid a particular route or stay at home.

"Dowsing is about accessing our knowledge," she said. "We might have a gut feeling about someone we meet but we are brought up to be polite. Dowsing is visible proof that we were right all along."

Anyone interested in finding out more about dowsing can contact Freddie on 01386 554283.