Dowsing: Fact or Fiction?

Chambers said:
Aye sir, I have. Many times. I believe that your claim to detect underground utilities without prior knowledge of the area, in effect to "divine" the location of hidden items qualifies as "supernatural." I believe that most people would agree with me on that point despite your perceptions of your practice.
If nothing else I think you can agree that not everyone walks around going "sewer pipe, water main, power line, lost ark of the covenant, power line, power line, jimmy hoffa, water main, water main, power line, etc".
Even if you ascribe this ability to simply being just a little more "sensitive" than other folk, wouldn't you say that's just a little extra-ordinary?
I guess what I'm trying to get at is no matter what you call it, or what you attribute your ability to, most folk are going to see dowsing as being supernatural. Given that general attitude why not take a shot at the million?
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Because it is not supernatural. Some physical force acts upon the rods and they react. And I do not walk around going "sewer pipe, water main, power line, lost ark of the covenant, power line, power line, jimmy hoffa, water main, water main, power line, etc". I do look for obvious cues such as an electric meter or power main. Or a septic line cleanout or roof vent, a water meter or telephone junction post.

From there, I can trace and mark the obstruction from the source to the residence, or from the residence to the source. If the excavation area is outside of the areas containing utilities, I then check the excavation site itself. Surprises often lurk. Like an abandoned well or septic system. Or a gas line to an outdoor grill. Or a water line to an old well or a garden.

Wierdest finds? A coffin and an old car (seperate jobs). I always follow up my own observations with a call to the locator service who has the utility companies themselves come out and locate the same utilities with their scientific instruments (mostly based on electromagnetic detection). They usually follow the same practice I do of following a signal from one known end to it's other end. But they don't look for other obstructions which are not the responsibility of their company. Each utility spots their own lines and ignores all others. Thus they miss a lot of things which matter to me.

I hate digging up a 1" water line and flooding the excavation. Cutting even small gas lines is a very dangerous event. Old septic systems abound. Even filled yet still running creekbeds affect my work. So I mark those obstructions and carefully explore them with the backhoe and a shovel. I can't determine an unknown obstruction's identity until it is uncovered. Some have to be removed, some have to be rerouted, some have to be capped off. Some are below excavation depth and can be safely ignored. Building codes prevent me from building a swimming pool within so many feet of utility lines. A buried creek or septic field line can flood the excavation and require control measures (a sump pit or well points).

So it aint rocket science but it is science, not ghostbusters.
 
but it is science
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But yet when this "science" undergoes testing, it fails every time.

Here's a filmed test of British dowsers:

[video=youtube;_VAasVXtCOI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VAasVXtCOI&feature=related[/video]
 
But you have been invited to come and see it for yourself. If Dawkins or anyone else would like to see it work, I would be happy to demonstrate. Someone wants to give me a paid vacation and fly me to Timbuktu to demonstrate? Fine. I am not sure if it would work in Australia though. Even steering wheels on cars are backwards there. And as for my latest demonstration of majick, the rods just crossed over the bottle of Powerade on my desk (fruit punch flavor).
 
Another test:

[video=youtube;xOsCnX-TKIY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOsCnX-TKIY&feature=related[/video]

I thought the metal rods were held pointing down and stabilized by gravity. The way these people do it make it very unstable.
 
I've never seen anyone use that method and, yes, he is obviously making that rod oscillate. You are correct, I do hold the rods parallel and with the ends pointed slightly downward so that they normally point foreward unless they, for some reason, are influenced to overcome that slight gravity and point toward each other or actually cross. The idea, in my method, is to hold the rods loosely so that they can rotate freely, excepting the force of gravity which tends to orient them forward (away from myself).

As to James Randi, you do know that Randall James Hamilton Zwinge is a stage magician? A professional showman? Entertainer?
 
So is Gillete Penn ,another skeptic. I speculate that most magicians are skeptics, because they know how east it is to fool people.
 
I've never seen it done, but I wouldn't doubt it. If it works due to belief, energy, etc.... then it works for some and not others. Not all things have to be scientifically proven to me for me to believe in them, the Great Journey when my vessel goes kaput is one of them. I'd imagine that I'd see my family, loved ones, and perhaps have the opportunity to live again in this world or the next. I don't need science for that, and I don't need science to prove dowsing right or wrong. It works for those who believe and that is my take on it.
 
Our neighbor dowses. He dowsed our well to ascertain its depth. His technique was to use a forked stick from a peach tree. He sat in a chair over the well of the mouth holding the stick over the well. He explained that when it began to twitch, he would count the twitches, and when they stopped he would know the depth of the well in feet.

How does a stick know the unit of measure?

I can't verify his accuracy because we haven't had the depth of the well independently checked. I just find it........... hard to believe that this particular method could work.

Andy
 
I haven't heard of this either. But old wives (farmers) tales abound and many, if not most, have some basis in fact somewhere in the distant past. Like good luck from tossing coins in a well.
 
Codger_64 said:
In these early studies, did you happen to witness someone sucessfully and repeatedly locating what they were attempting to detect? Were there any scientific based theories put forward to explain any successful dowsing, such as electromagnetics?
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Not with anything like 100% reliability. And, as I think I mentioned up above, no tenable theories have been produced -- the math just doesn't work out.
 
This needs to die like like the search for Jimmy Hoffa's body. Everyone step away, nothing to see here...
 
We're trying to shove two separate conversations into one, and they just don't fit. Round hole, square peg...just let it go. Even the best bushcraft blade couldn't carve any sense out of this.
 
I have seen it work in several cases and used to be able to locate water lines using L shaped rods. There was a guy where I grew up that could not wear a watch because it would stop within a day, he could locate water with either a peach or willow branch. I understand that the body's electrical system may play a role in this. Bottom line, I think there are a few people who can do this for whatever reason.
 
Same story, but adding to the heap of evidence the wonderful process of science will some day dig through. We use them here for digging wells. There is no digging without dowsing except by those who do not find water. It costs 15K eur to dig and the contractors are very reluctant to dig unless told where. Sounding with electronic equipment is not accessible here and is expensive. The local sorcier has an admittedly anecdotal 100% success rate in valley with water problems. That is not science, but drilling blind is also anecdotal. What choice would the rational mind make?

BTW, recuperating rain water, at least here, is a long term more reliable, less environmentally risky and invasive, and far cheaper alternative. Look into it before drilling and potentially contaminating water tables.
 
I played a little bit more with the dogwood branch.

When holding it palms up and applying slight tension, there is energy in it waiting to be released. I walk slowly holding it lightly , and balanced at about 45 degrees. Its impossible to keep that balance, and the stick will release its energy to the path of least resistance. It can be quite an abrupt movement .You can squeeze it as hard as you can but it still tries to release the energy. Its easy to see how people can be fooled by this. Walk around holding the stick palms down and no tension , nothing happens. There are no external forces applying energy. The energy to make the stick move is being applied by me.
 
JCavSD said:
We're trying to shove two separate conversations into one, and they just don't fit. Round hole, square peg...just let it go. Even the best bushcraft blade couldn't carve any sense out of this.
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Well, I guess that is a matter of opinion. The discussion makes perfect sense to me when we ignore the accusations, hyperbole and outright insults being flung by a few. Have you noticed the number of posts wherein the members admit that they have seen dowsing work? Several former doubters have said that they tried it and it did work for them. I doubted it when I first tried it. And it worked for me anyway. Please look at the parameters under which I use dowsing. I have gone into great detail about it hoping that some, at least, would be tempted to experiment for themselves and make an informed opinion on the subject.

As suggested, some form of electromagnetic attraction seems a plausable explanation. The human body actually runs on electricity. If it did not, EKGs wouldn't work. Water and metallic objects conduct electricity and produce magnetism. If not, electric motors and generators would not work. The Earth itself is full of electromagnetism. If it were not, a compass would not work.
 
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