Water Dowsing

[Mr Celine]

Another cynic here who tried it and found it worked. It completely freaked me out - walking across father-in-law's garden with a couple of bent rods to humour him .... Aaaargh... They just moved! I didn't do anything to make it happen. And yes, there was a buried field drain there.

 

[Illaveago]

I tried it years ago using some bent welding wire. I found that the wires crossed for water and repelled for electricity.

There was a series of programmes years ago by Arthur C Clarke in which he looked into various mysteries, one of which was dowsing and he came to the conclusion that the dowser subconsciously detected what they were looking for which then caused the tools to move.

 

[winjim]

Anyone play with ouija boards as kids?

My wife and I played ouija board a while ago. The effect is weird but also pretty boring with only two people as it just goes back and forth, you can't get it to spell anything out. That probably why my teenage witch friend told us you needed an odd number of people for it or bad things would happen.

 

[Profpointy]

i don't know if you can relaibly find water but having dabbled myself with bits of coathanger you can certainly find something. It's not just some random wobblynes, as you can feel your own muscles tensing and crossing the wires. I'm a rational science type guy, but there truly is somethething going as I can literallt feel it as well as any amplified wirea crossing. I have no idea what is happening though. That said i rwad a book on dowsing which talked about "remote" dowsing off.a.map which is clearly bollocks. But having felt your own musclea twitch detecting a line of "somethign" across a road - well something is going on.

I did a trial once where my friends hid a coin i sandpit which I attempted to dowse for..Duly tried and found a line of reaction on the sandpit. We dug down and there was an unknown to us hosepipe burried in the sand. We never found the coin. Ther really is something in dowsing but I cant fathom. what it is.

 

[Profpointy]

I tried it years ago using some bent welding wire. I found that the wires crossed for water and repelled for electricity.

There was a series of programmes years ago by Arthur C Clarke in which he looked into various mysteries, one of which was dowsing and he came to the conclusion that the dowser subconsciously detected what they were looking for which then caused the tools to move.

That's my view too. You are moving rhe rods or twig , yet you actually feel it in your myscles. So wtf are you feelling ? It is genuinely real but I cN't explain it

 

[Illaveago]

My wife and I played ouija board a while ago. The effect is weird but also pretty boring with only two people as it just goes back and forth, you can't get it to spell anything out. That probably why my teenage witch friend told us you needed an odd number of people for it or bad things would happen.

Ah! You had the Enigma version.

 

[swansonj]

..,

I did a trial once where my friends hid a coin i sandpit which I attempted to dowse for..Duly tried and found a line of reaction on the sandpit. We dug down and there was an unknown to us hosepipe burried in the sand. We never found the coin. Ther really is something in dowsing but I cant fathom. what it is.

Respectfully: you did a trial where you were looking for one thing, failed to find it, but found something else. You need to do a trial where you define in advance what "success" looks like: what range of objects, within what range of distance, you would regard as evidence that your dowsing had found something. Then you need a control: you need to dig some random holes in random sandpits and find out how often one of the objects from your pre-defined list cropped up within the pre-determined distance. Finding an object isn't evidence that dowsing works; finding an object more often than random might be. You then need to repeat your trial enough times to generate statistical significance at a pre-declared level. And you need to declare in advance the trials you are going to do, to guard against cherry picking the ones that give positive results.

I'd love for there to be something in dowsing, for multiple reasons. Likewise homoeopathy and reflexology and fortune telling. Show me good evidence and I'd believe you like a shot.

 

[Profpointy]

Respectfully: you did a trial where you were looking for one thing, failed to find it, but found something else. You need to do a trial where you define in advance what "success" looks like: what range of objects, within what range of distance, you would regard as evidence that your dowsing had found something. Then you need a control: you need to dig some random holes in random sandpits and find out how often one of the objects from your pre-defined list cropped up within the pre-determined distance. Finding an object isn't evidence that dowsing works; finding an object more often than random might be. You then need to repeat your trial enough times to generate statistical significance at a pre-declared level. And you need to declare in advance the trials you are going to do, to guard against cherry picking the ones that give positive results.

I'd love for there to be something in dowsing, for multiple reasons. Likewise homoeopathy and reflexology and fortune telling. Show me good evidence and I'd believe you like a shot.

Whilst I get your point, my anecdote wasn't intended as proof but more to illustrate the oddness of it. What I have found is that you do detect lines of '"sonethign" if you walk up and down a piece of ground. Different people seem to detect the same lines. I can feel my muscles tensing when this happens so the rods move because you are moving them, not moving by themselves. I've seen rational scientific people drop the rods in shock/fright when they themselves try it.

There is definitely something going on. It is however a much bigger burden to prove finding water or ore or whatever. And clearly some of the claims are just bollocks, and akin to homeopathy.

I have no idea what the effect is however, but I tend to favour the notion that you are subconciously noticing little things and your brain processes this into the reaction. I've not evidence for this but it's less outlandish than some other ideas.

Anyone who doubts there's an effect is easily convinced by cutting up a wire coat hanger and walking across a car park. Well 19/20 get something so maybe not all.

 

[nickyboy]

I'm gonna unbend a few coathangers and have a dabble today

My gut feel, being a rational sort, is that it's utter bollocks. But we'll see

 

[Time Waster]

Apparently researchers have found a mechanism for the movement in the dowsing rods. As boring as it is the person holding them is moving it.

That leads to the question why are they moving it. There's research into that too.

I can't remember the details but there's been plenty of proof it is something the dower is doing in response to clues and indicators they've picked up from the environment.

It seems we are quite possibly closer to the natural world than at first it seems. Like a wild animal in a dry region can find water or where to dig to find water, we can do it too but some use metal sticks to convince them it's where they thought it was.

I'll believe it when there's been a scientific consensus through double blind testing by multiple test centres. I'm sceptical. I'd prefer a mechanism or proof of the ju-ju that causes the dowsing rods to be moved before I'll do anything but laugh at the duped idiots who hire dowsers or do it themselves thinking it's real.

A bit like those who think homeopathy is real!

 

[Profpointy]

Apparently researchers have found a mechanism for the movement in the dowsing rods. As boring as it is the person holding them is moving it.

That leads to the question why are they moving it. There's research into that too.

I can't remember the details but there's been plenty of proof it is something the dower is doing in response to clues and indicators they've picked up from the environment.

It seems we are quite possibly closer to the natural world than at first it seems. Like a wild animal in a dry region can find water or where to dig to find water, we can do it too but some use metal sticks to convince them it's where they thought it was.

I'll believe it when there's been a scientific consensus through double blind testing by multiple test centres. I'm sceptical. I'd prefer a mechanism or proof of the ju-ju that causes the dowsing rods to be moved before I'll do anything but laugh at the duped idiots who hire dowsers or do it themselves thinking it's real.

A bit like those who think homeopathy is real!

Apparently researchers have found a mechanism for the movement in the dowsing rods. As boring as it is the person holding them is moving it.

That leads to the question why are they moving it. There's research into that too.

I can't remember the details but there's been plenty of proof it is something the dower is doing in response to clues and indicators they've picked up from the environment.

It seems we are quite possibly closer to the natural world than at first it seems. Like a wild animal in a dry region can find water or where to dig to find water, we can do it too but some use metal sticks to convince them it's where they thought it was.

I'll believe it when there's been a scientific consensus through double blind testing by multiple test centres. I'm sceptical. I'd prefer a mechanism or proof of the ju-ju that causes the dowsing rods to be moved before I'll do anything but laugh at the duped idiots who hire dowsers or do it themselves thinking it's real.

A bit like those who think homeopathy is real!

Have you tried it yourself ?

 

[Dirk]

We used to have a parlour game where my dad would hide two sixpences of our pocket money somewhere on the ground floor of the house whilst me and my brother were out playing. We would then use bent metal coat hangers to 'dowse' for it. We would both invariably identify where they were as the rods crossed. Kept us quiet for a while. Don't ask me how it worked; I haven't a clue, but we never lost out on our pocket money!

 

[Illaveago]

It doesn't work for some people. It may be a bit like those 3D pictures that were about in the 90's. I couldn't do them, it took me ages yet some people could see them straight away.
As an animal we have a very large brain which we don't seem to use much of, perhaps it is in one of those areas that some people are more in tune with.

 

[Mo1959]

My dad was a fencing and drainage contractor all his life. He used to use rods to find drains and seemed to have good success.

Wonder if some people are just naturally more sensitive to magnetic fields or whatever causes it to work??

 

[Time Waster]

Have you tried it yourself ?

Yes. Didn't work without me moving it. Trouble was I moved it where there wasn't water and it never seemed to move in the same place.

Perhaps I'm just not as keyed in to the subtle signs of underground water as you believers are so that when I moved them there wasn't any water supply.