I don't know that "awesome" is quite the word for this. If these things work at all, they work as dowsing rods, and not even the most fanatical New Ager claims

I don't know that "awesome" is quite the word for this. If these things work at all, they work as dowsing rods, and not even the most fanatical New Ager claims that everyone in the world can dowse. (Claims tend to be more of the "1 in 100,000" variety.) More likely, these things just don't work at all, for anyone, no matter what unlikely theories about the world might or might not be true... as shown by the Wikipedia article, which relates cases of contraband passing frightening numbers of checkpoints operating these pieces of junk. One Iraqi general was fond of them, but apparently he was heavily bribed...