Dowsing

[Sharon Hill]

Who said anything about occult practices? One day you may change your mind and check out Reddish's work, until then you could check out the autobiography of Evelyn Penrose:
Penrose, E. Adventure Unlimited, 1958
She was a professional dowser who made a very good living locating valuable mineral deposits for big corporations. And as I mentioned before, geologists in Russia routinely employ dowsing in their work (indeed, most go on to take a course in dowsing after graduating).

I'm sure one of the major astronomers of the 20th Century would have been amused at your claim that he was dealing in the occult!

Dowsing is a form of divination, which is an occult practice.

I'm not going to change my mind by reading about it from promoters, considering anecdotal tales after centuries have failed to show it works. I'm certainly not going to waste my time on an imaginative bio. That's now how reliable knowledge is formed. This promotion of dowsing is reflective of a belief system, not a scientific process. I will take a hard pass. It's up to the dedicated proponents to come up with something better than stories and effort for people to try it and fool themselves.

 

[Carl Grove]

Dowsing is a form of divination, which is an occult practice.

I'm not going to change my mind by reading about it from promoters, considering anecdotal tales after centuries have failed to show it works. I'm certainly not going to waste my time on an imaginative bio. That's now how reliable knowledge is formed. This promotion of dowsing is reflective of a belief system, not a scientific process. I will take a hard pass. It's up to the dedicated proponents to come up with something better than stories and effort for people to try it and fool themselves.

Well, why don't you just ignore all the references to serious scientific study of dowsing by a top astronomer, all the references to the Russian work, the comparative study that showed dowsing to be equally as good as the best high tech equipment, and the evidence that the dowsing rods are moved not by unconscious movements but by external forces?

Sorry, I forgot, you're doing all that already!

 

[Coal]

Blind testing. A very interesting study was conducted in Zimbabwe where two high tech methods for locating aquifers were compared with the performance of a dowser. The result was a tie -- all three located exactly the same promising water source. However -- and that is a big however -- in a poor country in the third world cost effectiveness is a major factor. And I imagine that a lot of companies who are most interested in their profit margins do indeed discreetly employ dowsers -- judging by the ludicrous outcry when it was revealed that most water companies employ dowsing to locate pipes, they are generally going to keep it secret.

The "D Force" as Reddish called it in his first book turned out not to be EM in nature, according to the Russian research. It was torsion, the result of rotation of objects, something I find hard to comprehend, but it is apparently something that has been researched since the 1900s. I give a summary of the subject, and Reddish's findings, in my Rougham Mystery report.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4tjuu3rr9yrnwqg/THE ROUGHAM MYSTERY.pdf?dl=0

There's also an update about dowsing towards the end. To summarise, when testing is carried out in a sensible way, dowsing does give results, but usually it isn't. The only consistent finding -- and this reflects the theoretical bias of the experimenters, of course -- is that skilled dowsers appear to show an incredibly high sensitivity to magnetic fields. This actually confirms the torsion link, because according to theory all magnets should generate a torsion field as well as a magnetic one.

Blind Testing: Can you link to this study please?

D Force: I read Reddish's work last time around on this. For some reason they don't seem to have changed the world of theroretical physcis in the last four years.

I read your report. Few things:

Laithwaites apparent finding in contradition with Netownian physics has long since been shown to be an error, with no mysterious forces at work at all.

"Laithwaite later acknowledged that gyroscopes behave fully in accord with Newtonian mechanics" (wiki).

Torsion fields: "Presently championed exclusively outside of reputable scientific research due to its lack of evidence and absence of sound theoretical underpinning," (also wiki, but parahprase of this senitment can be found in most refernces to it.)

The use of torsion fields even speculatively for the effects you describe relies on an a priori assumption that torsion fields are real and verifiable and you've not either shown this or referenced published papers that do. In effect you're building an argument on something that hasn't been supported by the scientific method. Everything you detail that supports the assertion that dowsing has been verified as a repeatable phenomenon is anecdotal.

@Carl, you've put a lot of work into this, but it's almost completely anecdotal and even the references are anecdotal. If you really are seeking to pursuade, you're going to have to present arguments based on solid ground and perhaps add in some good academic (published) references.

 

[Robbrent]

As far as I can see dowsing like all Fortean phenomena is ambiguous to the extreme, that it clearly works for some and not for others, and is difficult to prove one way or the other, it's got it all

 

[Carl Grove]

Blind Testing: Can you link to this study please?

D Force: I read Reddish's work last time around on this. For some reason they don't seem to have changed the world of theroretical physcis in the last four years.

I read your report. Few things:

Laithwaites apparent finding in contradition with Netownian physics has long since been shown to be an error, with no mysterious forces at work at all.

"Laithwaite later acknowledged that gyroscopes behave fully in accord with Newtonian mechanics" (wiki).

Torsion fields: "Presently championed exclusively outside of reputable scientific research due to its lack of evidence and absence of sound theoretical underpinning," (also wiki, but parahprase of this senitment can be found in most refernces to it.)

The use of torsion fields even speculatively for the effects you describe relies on an a priori assumption that torsion fields are real and verifiable and you've not either shown this or referenced published papers that do. In effect you're building an argument on something that hasn't been supported by the scientific method. Everything you detail that supports the assertion that dowsing has been verified as a repeatable phenomenon is anecdotal.

@Carl, you've put a lot of work into this, but it's almost completely anecdotal and even the references are anecdotal. If you really are seeking to pursuade, you're going to have to present arguments based on solid ground and perhaps add in some good academic (published) references.

Firstly, have you obtained copies of Reddish's books, which represent the major research into dowsing, and what I base my own conclusions upon? You can still get copies through libraries or on Abe. The Russian work is mostly dependent upon the research of Nicolai Kozyrev, who developed very sensitive detectors of torsion. His theoretical speculations about torsion are interesting but not, in my view, especially relevant here. The main point is that torsion can be shown to exist. Secondly, the subsequent research into torsion was based initially upon his work, but has now developed a Quantum based theory that I am not even going to attempt to understand. However, some of the findings are especially interesting, e.g. in connection with what will detect torsion and what will block it. When the MoD contacted Reddish after publication of his first book they specifically requested that he try to confirm the Russian findings, and that is what he did. Moreover, with the aid of his helpers around the world, he was able to confirm the existence of variations in torsion due to interactions between the solar and earth generated torsion. I'm not concerned too much about theoretical underpinning, but establishing the basic facts, and it seems to me that these are now verified. If anybody doubts Reddish then it is up to them to replicate his findings, or to fail to replicate them. But the fact is that nobody since Reddish seems to want to do the basic research. Anyone can write a sceptical Wikipedia article but if Reddish is wrong it should be easy enough to demonstrate this experimentally -- all you need are dowsing rods, a torsion generator, and substances such as rubber and polythene. In fact, why not go the whole hog and try to make a dowsing device similar to Sanderson's?

I didn't know that Laithwaite had agreed with his critics regarding gyroscopes, and I can't see why gyroscopes should appear to lose weight, or people appear to gain strength when moving them around!

I'm not seeking to persuade anybody! If someone can study the time slip phenomenon and come up with any alternative approach to it I will be more than delighted. But expecting replicated confirmation of what is, at the moment, a very tentative hypothesis, is totally premature. I've found connections between time slips and other strange events and torsion appears to be a common factor -- I have no theory as to why or how they are connected!

 

[Carl Grove]

Blind Testing: Can you link to this study please?

D Force: I read Reddish's work last time around on this. For some reason they don't seem to have changed the world of theroretical physcis in the last four years.

I read your report. Few things:

Laithwaites apparent finding in contradition with Netownian physics has long since been shown to be an error, with no mysterious forces at work at all.

"Laithwaite later acknowledged that gyroscopes behave fully in accord with Newtonian mechanics" (wiki).

Torsion fields: "Presently championed exclusively outside of reputable scientific research due to its lack of evidence and absence of sound theoretical underpinning," (also wiki, but parahprase of this senitment can be found in most refernces to it.)

The use of torsion fields even speculatively for the effects you describe relies on an a priori assumption that torsion fields are real and verifiable and you've not either shown this or referenced published papers that do. In effect you're building an argument on something that hasn't been supported by the scientific method. Everything you detail that supports the assertion that dowsing has been verified as a repeatable phenomenon is anecdotal.

@Carl, you've put a lot of work into this, but it's almost completely anecdotal and even the references are anecdotal. If you really are seeking to pursuade, you're going to have to present arguments based on solid ground and perhaps add in some good academic (published) references.

Here's the comparative study:

 

[Coal]

Here's the comparative study:

Thank you, interesting. I note that there is no detail on the methodology of the dowsers, how these result were interpreted and overlaid with the instrumentations’ data, and that correlation remains anecdotal.

Also, there’s no indication of who went first and where. I'd suggest that a proper comparison would require the dowsers to walk a line before it's surveyed and to quantify the results at intervals (one might ask the dowser to gauge the response on a simple 1-10 scale) which could then be laid over the measurements taken and shown in the graphs.

Then reverse the order on another site or sites.

The paper certainly talks like dowsing works well alongside the instrumentation results, but doesn't show or record dowsing data or the methodology. While I'd love to take it at face value, it doesn’t read like good support for the dowsing hypothesis.

-- all you need are dowsing rods, a torsion generator, and substances such as rubber and polythene. In fact, why not go the whole hog and try to make a dowsing device similar to Sanderson's?

Have you built such a device? Why not replicate this work yourself? Happy to advise.

Firstly, have you obtained copies of Reddish's books, which represent the major research into dowsing, and what I base my own conclusions upon? You can still get copies through libraries or on Abe.

I read at least one of his papers on the subject and given the time elapsed since I did my 'half-physics' degree, it's possible I misread it, but it very much felt like a quest to show something be believed in was real, but more than that, his work didn't come off as using a sound methodology. If I thought the paper I read was sound I’d buy the book, but, alas not the case.

The whole infrerometer set up was imho dubious, using dowsing rods to detect some hypothesized effect.

So for the sake or argument, there no blind testing of such rods use with (say) some buried object or field generators, including control conditions to show dowsing worked. Reddish didn’t do this, his work a priori assumes dowsing really works. Additionally, if the effect is one of human reaction to ‘some thing’, one could equally walk with one arms out and put ECG pads all over the arms to see what was occurring. Reddish didn’t do this either.

In short, he used one unverified thing to infer the existence of another unverified thing (by all the definitions of the scientific method, this is iffy).

I'm struggling to get behind it, sorry.

 

[Sharon Hill]

Well, why don't you just ignore all the references to serious scientific study of dowsing by a top astronomer, all the references to the Russian work, the comparative study that showed dowsing to be equally as good as the best high tech equipment, and the evidence that the dowsing rods are moved not by unconscious movements but by external forces?

Sorry, I forgot, you're doing all that already!

I see no good reason to care what an astronomer says about how water moves underground and how to find it (or metals). I am, however, a licensed geologist and worked for 29 years as a hydrogeologist. So, I think I might have an edge about groundwater behavior. Simply put, hand waving and passionate belief are not going to move me in the least.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I see no good reason to care what an astronomer says about how water moves underground and how to find it (or metals). I am, however, a licensed geologist and worked for 29 years as a hydrogeologist. So, I think I might have an edge about groundwater behavior. Simply put, hand waving and passionate belief are not going to move me in the least.

Why not do the scientific thing and put it to the test yourself?

I was totally sceptical about dowsing until I witnessed a demonstration on a farm in France, using bent metal rods. I was invited to have a go and was surprised when the rods swung inwards quite dramatically when I walked over the location of an underground flow of water, subsequently shown to me on a plan of the property.
a while later, I tried it on a hike near my home in Hampshire, using the more traditional Y-shaped springy twig. I was crossing a valley bottom where I could faintly hear water but not see any and, at one point, the twig pulled sharply downwards for 2 or 3 of my steps. The effect was repeatable when I retraced my steps, walking backwards over the spot.

So my own experimentation has persuaded me to accept that there is definitely something going on there. I would rather believe in my own experience than trust in dogma.

 

[Carl Grove]

Why not do the scientific thing and put it to the test yourself?

I was totally sceptical about dowsing until I witnessed a demonstration on a farm in France, using bent metal rods. I was invited to have a go and was surprised when the rods swung inwards quite dramatically when I walked over the location of an underground flow of water, subsequently shown to me on a plan of the property.
a while later, I tried it on a hike near my home in Hampshire, using the more traditional Y-shaped springy twig. I was crossing a valley bottom where I could faintly hear water but not see any and, at one point, the twig pulled sharply downwards for 2 or 3 of my steps. The effect was repeatable when I retraced my steps, walking backwards over the spot.

So my own experimentation has persuaded me to accept that there is definitely something going on there. I would rather believe in my own experience than trust in dogma.

Exactly!

 

[Carl Grove]

I see no good reason to care what an astronomer says about how water moves underground and how to find it (or metals). I am, however, a licensed geologist and worked for 29 years as a hydrogeologist. So, I think I might have an edge about groundwater behavior. Simply put, hand waving and passionate belief are not going to move me in the least.

Sharon, Reddish never said anything at all about finding water, nor was he looking for it! Not only have you not checked out his work for yourself, which I would expect a scientifically educated person to do, but you clearly haven't even taken on board the account that I have given you. Nor did he passionately "believe" in dowsing -- he had to be persuaded by his neighbour to try it for himself, and when he did, he found that it worked. There is no "hand waving or passionate belief" involved. It seems to be you who is getting passionate about the matter!

 

[Carl Grove]

Thank you, interesting. I note that there is no detail on the methodology of the dowsers, how these result were interpreted and overlaid with the instrumentations’ data, and that correlation remains anecdotal.

Also, there’s no indication of who went first and where. I'd suggest that a proper comparison would require the dowsers to walk a line before it's surveyed and to quantify the results at intervals (one might ask the dowser to gauge the response on a simple 1-10 scale) which could then be laid over the measurements taken and shown in the graphs.

Then reverse the order on another site or sites.

The paper certainly talks like dowsing works well alongside the instrumentation results, but doesn't show or record dowsing data or the methodology. While I'd love to take it at face value, it doesn’t read like good support for the dowsing hypothesis.



Have you built such a device? Why not replicate this work yourself? Happy to advise.


I read at least one of his papers on the subject and given the time elapsed since I did my 'half-physics' degree, it's possible I misread it, but it very much felt like a quest to show something be believed in was real, but more than that, his work didn't come off as using a sound methodology. If I thought the paper I read was sound I’d buy the book, but, alas not the case.

The whole infrerometer set up was imho dubious, using dowsing rods to detect some hypothesized effect.

So for the sake or argument, there no blind testing of such rods use with (say) some buried object or field generators, including control conditions to show dowsing worked. Reddish didn’t do this, his work a priori assumes dowsing really works. Additionally, if the effect is one of human reaction to ‘some thing’, one could equally walk with one arms out and put ECG pads all over the arms to see what was occurring. Reddish didn’t do this either.

In short, he used one unverified thing to infer the existence of another unverified thing (by all the definitions of the scientific method, this is iffy).

I'm struggling to get behind it, sorry.

Reddish never "believed that it was real." He just saw it at work in front of his own eyes and was chided by his neighbour because scientists didn't know how it worked. He actually felt a sense of reluctance to try the rods himself. He was not on a quest, just doing what a good scientist should do, checking something puzzling out for himself rather than relying on second hand opinions. His view, which was corroborated by the photographic evidence that he made, was that the rod does not move because of unconscious (or even conscious) movements of his hands. He was entirely unaware of previous work in that area, including Sanderson's dowsing machine. In a way this lack of background research was a good thing, because he didn't get lured down the rabbit hole of testing this or that theory before starting, and by a lucky circumstance, was someone who had relied upon measurements of wave interference in his career. I can see nothing wrong with his methodology, which was careful and systematic. Many of his ex associates in astronomy were convinced by his findings and willing to take part in the global study that he designed. The MoD were certainly impressed enough to reveal some of the Russian findings to him, and he was able to replicate them. He also showed that by using Morse code a simple message could be transmitted a short distance using torsion (the MoD wondered about using it for submarine communications). For an elderly man with a serious heart condition he did better than virtually anyone else in confirming the value of dowsing. He might not have thought much of my research connecting torsion with time slips, however!

 

[Coal]

Why not do the scientific thing and put it to the test yourself?

I did this unscientific test myself as it happens, wayyyyyy back in 1981/2 or so, probably after reading 'Needles of Stone' and certainly after a long whisky soaked chat with a 'communications studies' lecturer at college followed by a bit of corridor dowsing.

Having made some rods up and walked about a bit and seen them cross and so on, I dowsed a 30x30yd section of tarmac with buildings on three sides, on the site where I worked, an R&D establishment for the paper industry, and detected/mapped the routes of the various pipes and electric cables.

I then cross-checked my results with site services.

I wasn't even close to correct.

The MoD were certainly impressed enough to reveal some of the Russian findings to him, and he was able to replicate them. He also showed that by using Morse code a simple message could be transmitted a short distance using torsion (the MoD wondered about using it for submarine communications). For an elderly man with a serious heart condition he did better than virtually anyone else in confirming the value of dowsing.

I can see nothing wrong with his methodology, which was careful and systematic.

I repeat: he used an unverified measurement system that has so far failed all double blind trials (dowsing) to validate a phenomenon which no-one has shown to actually exist 'torsion fields' [i.e. "that the quantum spin of particles can be used to cause emanations to carry information through vacuum orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light" 'wiki'] as defined by others - even the Russians in question admitted to fraud.

You can be a methological as one likes, but if the measuring stick is wrong, the results will be wrong.

Can anyone direct me to the schematics for Sanderson's machine? I'd be fascinated to take a look at those.

@Carl Grove why don't you build the instrumentation and do some rigourous testing using accepted scientific protocols?

 

[Carl Grove]

I did this unscientific test myself as it happens, wayyyyyy back in 1981/2 or so, probably after reading 'Needles of Stone' and certainly after a long whisky soaked chat with a 'communications studies' lecturer at college followed by a bit of corridor dowsing.

Having made some rods up and walked about a bit and seen them cross and so on, I dowsed a 30x30yd section of tarmac with buildings on three sides, on the site where I worked, an R&D establishment for the paper industry, and detected/mapped the routes of the various pipes and electric cables.

I then cross-checked my results with site services.

I wasn't even close to correct.




I repeat: he used an unverified measurement system that has so far failed all double blind trials (dowsing) to validate a phenomenon which no-one has shown to actually exist 'torsion fields' [i.e. "that the quantum spin of particles can be used to cause emanations to carry information through vacuum orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light" 'wiki'] as defined by others - even the Russians in question admitted to fraud.

You can be a methological as one likes, but if the measuring stick is wrong, the results will be wrong.

Can anyone direct me to the schematics for Sanderson's machine? I'd be fascinated to take a look at those.

@Carl Grove why don't you build the instrumentation and do some rigourous testing using accepted scientific protocols?

We are not going to agree on this matter. So far as I know, none of the main torsion researchers have admitted to "fraud," indeed Kozyrev was widely regarded as the "Russian Einstein." However, a schism developed when a major quantum based model of torsion was published. Another scientist thought he saw an error in the maths and offered to "show him the correct equations" but was curtly refused. From that time on that individual became a passionate opponent of torsion and kept on to the Russian scientific academy to condemn it. Eventually they relented and set up a commission to examine the matter -- with that same individual at its head! No surprise what it decided, and subsequently the same guy wrote a staggeringly unfair and inaccurate Wikipedia entry describing torsion as "pseudoscience" which is of course the "scientific" equivalent of heresy. (Not difficult to guess his identity from the article.) Meanwhile the 80-odd researchers involved in this work carried on, but nothing of it is now reaching the west. Russian intelligence is no doubt just as interested in the possibilities as the MoD and DARPA. Moreover, dowsing itself is still officially accepted there and (under the term biolocation) employed routinely by geologists.

I see no reason to change my conclusions regarding this matter -- dowsing does work, Reddish's research was in my mind a textbook example of how science should react to unexplained phenomena, and the findings of him and his team are of great potential significance. The fact that the Earth's own putative torsion field interacts with that of the sun's and can be shown to have systematic variations on the dowsing response pretty well decides the matter, in my book.

If I had the energy and drive (running a bit low as I get older) I would be inclined to pursue the connection between time slips and torsion. In theory it should be possible to induce time slips under laboratory conditions, but it would no doubt take a lot of fine tuning and selection of sensitive subjects to get results!

Sanderson gave a fairly detailed description of his dowsing machine in his book Things, both that and More Things are now available in an omnibus edition.

 

[Carl Grove]

I did this unscientific test myself as it happens, wayyyyyy back in 1981/2 or so, probably after reading 'Needles of Stone' and certainly after a long whisky soaked chat with a 'communications studies' lecturer at college followed by a bit of corridor dowsing.

Having made some rods up and walked about a bit and seen them cross and so on, I dowsed a 30x30yd section of tarmac with buildings on three sides, on the site where I worked, an R&D establishment for the paper industry, and detected/mapped the routes of the various pipes and electric cables.

I then cross-checked my results with site services.

I wasn't even close to correct.




I repeat: he used an unverified measurement system that has so far failed all double blind trials (dowsing) to validate a phenomenon which no-one has shown to actually exist 'torsion fields' [i.e. "that the quantum spin of particles can be used to cause emanations to carry information through vacuum orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light" 'wiki'] as defined by others - even the Russians in question admitted to fraud.

You can be a methological as one likes, but if the measuring stick is wrong, the results will be wrong.

Can anyone direct me to the schematics for Sanderson's machine? I'd be fascinated to take a look at those.

@Carl Grove why don't you build the instrumentation and do some rigourous testing using accepted scientific protocols?

Like you, I tried dowsing when I was young, and didn't get any results at all. However, you tried it, but didn't get good results. Suppose you had: suppose you had decided to investigate it yourself. How would you have proceeded, and what would you have done differently from Reddish (assuming that you knew enough to recognise an interference pattern when you came across one)?

 

[Sharon Hill]

Why not do the scientific thing and put it to the test yourself?

I was totally sceptical about dowsing until I witnessed a demonstration on a farm in France, using bent metal rods. I was invited to have a go and was surprised when the rods swung inwards quite dramatically when I walked over the location of an underground flow of water, subsequently shown to me on a plan of the property.
a while later, I tried it on a hike near my home in Hampshire, using the more traditional Y-shaped springy twig. I was crossing a valley bottom where I could faintly hear water but not see any and, at one point, the twig pulled sharply downwards for 2 or 3 of my steps. The effect was repeatable when I retraced my steps, walking backwards over the spot.

So my own experimentation has persuaded me to accept that there is definitely something going on there. I would rather believe in my own experience than trust in dogma.

*Sigh*

That's not how this works.... I'm not going to explain how scientific investigation works except to say it DOESN'T work by one person trying it themselves.

I'm outta this thread, the discussion is pointless. You can go on hoping, believing, and moving goalposts and stuff. Whatever.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

*Sigh*

That's not how this works.... I'm not going to explain how scientific investigation works except to say it DOESN'T work by one person trying it themselves.

I'm outta this thread, the discussion is pointless. You can go on hoping, believing, and moving goalposts and stuff. Whatever.

OK Sharon and I don't need to be reminded about how the multiple peer-reviewed process works.
My comment was not about hoping or moving goalposts.
Just thought dowsing might be something you would try out of personal curiosity.

 

[Carl Grove]

*Sigh*

That's not how this works.... I'm not going to explain how scientific investigation works except to say it DOESN'T work by one person trying it themselves.

I'm outta this thread, the discussion is pointless. You can go on hoping, believing, and moving goalposts and stuff. Whatever.

Newton managed it. I've spent most of my life doing scientific research and in the initial exploratory stages (which dowsing is certainly in) it's not at all unusual for one or two pioneers to kick start the whole process. You need to study the history of science before being critical about other peoples' research.

 

[Mikefule]

As a kid, I tried dowsing with a pendulum a few times, and it always circled over the spot where I had hidden the coin from myself.

My dad was a joiner/builder all his working life. He left school at about 14, and worked through until his late 60s. By the end of his career, he was a respected site foreman.

My dad believed that he could dowse, and was often asked to use his ability to find the drains on a site when the plans were incomplete. For example, on a brownfield site, where the previous buildings had been demolished, my dad would be asked to trace the drains before digging commenced for the footings for the new buildings. He was very proud of his high success rate in finding these old drains.

My own view, never expressed to him of course, was that someone with 50 years' experience on a wide variety of building sites would have a good eye for the lie of the land. Drains are an artificial construction, and the construction follows a few basic rules relating to gradiets and directions. The drains will always need to flow from the source of the waste water, and in the direction of the main drains or sewer or a nearby watercourse. It would be surprising if he could not intuitively get it right more often than not.

Also, of course, the only way he would ever know about the drains he had failed to divine is if one of them was accidentally exposed or broken during the subsequent excavation and building work.


My former partner moved to Devon and bought a cottage which relied on a water supply from a borehole. One day the borehole was contaminated and the end result was that the insurance company paid for a new hole to be drilled.

The insurance company paid for a dowser. The dowser came into her field, did his thing, and pronounced that the best place to drill to find water happened to be the only small area of level ground, just a few metres inside the gate of her 7 acre field, and just a few metres from the cottage. They could not have divined water at a more convenient location if they had tried. Coincidence? Well, local farmers suggested to her afterwards that you will find water pretty much anywhere you drill in that area.

 

[Coal]

Like you, I tried dowsing when I was young, and didn't get any results at all. However, you tried it, but didn't get good results. Suppose you had: suppose you had decided to investigate it yourself. How would you have proceeded, and what would you have done differently from Reddish (assuming that you knew enough to recognise an interference pattern when you came across one)?

I don't claim dowsing is a real thing, so there's no onus on me to prove it one way of the other

 

[Carl Grove]

I don't claim dowsing is a real thing, so there's no onus on me to prove it one way of the other

I never talk about "proof," I just wondered how you would have reacted if you had found that you were getting results. Would you have shrugged it off, ignored it? Wouldn't you have been at least curious about it?

 

[Coal]

I never talk about "proof," I just wondered how you would have reacted if you had found that you were getting results. Would you have shrugged it off, ignored it? Wouldn't you have been at least curious about it?

Apologies, you're quite right. I should have written "I don't claim dowsing is a real thing, so there's no onus on me to show any support for this hypothesis.”

 

[Carl Grove]

Apologies, you're quite right. I should have written "I don't claim dowsing is a real thing, so there's no onus on me to show any support for this hypothesis.”

I don't think you're answering my question! What would you have done if you had been able to find things using dowsing?

 

[Coal]

I don't think you're answering my question! What would you have done if you had been able to find things using dowsing?

I really have no idea. That was 40 years ago. But I'd probably have recalled that a sample size of '1' has no statistical validity in either event...if I’d wanted to run a proper trial I would've, but that's been done now anyway.

I was curious enough, perhaps 5 years later, to write a program to evaluate the likelihood of 'Ley Lines' being 'non-chance' compared with alignments based on a large number of runs using the same makers, but with each new run shifting them randomly 20 yards from the original set, the idea being to keep the basic location in place, but tweak everything a bit. I used OS maps for date, the grid coordinates for loci and made a perspex grid for reading postions off to within 10yards. My old CPC6128 was rather slow and although the results were reasonable, I re-ran data sets about 7 years later after tweaking the basic to run in MS/DOS QBasic on a '386. It flew and allowed me to concatenate a number of adjacent maps and process the data in an hour or so (rather less than a week of run time told you the amstrad was slow).

I rather predictably found that (1) the more markers there were, the more alignments showed up and (2) the results were indistinguishable from many runs of chance alignments and (3) next time I ask you a question how about you give me a straight answer?

 

[Carl Grove]

I really have no idea. That was 40 years ago. But I'd probably have recalled that a sample size of '1' has no statistical validity in either event...if I’d wanted to run a proper trial I would've, but that's been done now anyway.

I was curious enough, perhaps 5 years later, to write a program to evaluate the likelihood of 'Ley Lines' being 'non-chance' compared with alignments based on a large number of runs using the same makers, but with each new run shifting them randomly 20 yards from the original set, the idea being to keep the basic location in place, but tweak everything a bit. I used OS maps for date, the grid coordinates for loci and made a perspex grid for reading postions off to within 10yards. My old CPC6128 was rather slow and although the results were reasonable, I re-ran data sets about 7 years later after tweaking the basic to run in MS/DOS QBasic on a '386. It flew and allowed me to concatenate a number of adjacent maps and process the data in an hour or so (rather less than a week of run time told you the amstrad was slow).

I rather predictably found that (1) the more markers there were, the more alignments showed up and (2) the results were indistinguishable from many runs of chance alignments and (3) next time I ask you a question how about you give me a straight answer?

I think that it is now obvious that ley lines, on the whole, are unlikely to amount to anything significant. There are a handful of very impressive alignments on a local scale but attempts to extend them across the country are not very convincing. From my own research I found, for example, that the Michael line, said to extend across southern England, is probably an artifact -- there is a narrow corridor within which the two major earth energy lines located by dowsing (therefore unreliable in your eyes) travel, linking many ancient sites, and correlated with strange phenomena, and that is probably how the idea originated. Yours sounds like an excellent study, and reminds me of Vallee's classical analysis of orthoteny, which of course also proved to be artifactual, and over generalised. from one extremely linear and highly significant alignment, BAVIC.

Not sure what you mean about wanting straight answers, I meant by that you had evaded, and have still evaded, the key question: if your unsuccessful experiment in dowsing had actually been a great success rather than a disappointing failure, would you have done the scientific thing and started studying the phenomenon, as Reddish did? If not, why not? Would you have preferred just to look into the generally irrelevant and hopeless literature at that time which used very questionable procedures largely designed, in my view, to provide a reason to dismiss the phenomenon rather than to study it systematically? Would you have then said, "obviously I must be wrong in thinking that I can dowse?" And if you had decided to study it, what would you have done differently from Reddish, who worked carefully and systematically, as you would expect a leading scientist to do, at every stage of his investigation?

 

[Coal]

And if you had decided to study it, what would you have done differently from Reddish, who worked carefully and systematically, as you would expect a leading scientist to do, at every stage of his investigation?

OK, here's a double-blind experiment proposal for the hypothesis that dowsing can detect 'some target'.

I’d get some dowsers together for a test and ask them if they can detect a target ‘thing’ (to be nominated and agreed) under a completely opaque plastic bucket marked by a bamboo pole with a small paper flag. I'd let said dowsers using any method they chooose, rods, forked twigs, waving hands etc. Each dowser's chosen method has to be used for all experimental runs. The subjects that remain will carry out the following experiment.

I’d make a test field up with 10 such buckets upended in holes about 6” deep. Let's pretend I have a big field and can keep them five meters apart. Each bucket would be marked with a small flag set about a yard from the bucket. This identifies the buckets without marking the buckets.

10 random placements would be generated of one such target item, using as close to a random number generator as could reasonably be found. The output would be used for the tests even if it then generated several identical positions.

The dowsers would be kept in a closed room until their turn. Each one would then be led, one at a time, by a chaperone experimenter to dowse the buckets and nominate the one they think the target is under. The chaperone will confirm the number the subject’s picked is the one they meant. The person acting as the chaperone for the dowser will not know where the object is.

The subjects are then led into a separate closed room with its own chaperone.

Then the second subject etc.

Repeat twelve times. Two of the runs will have no target under a bucket (a control).

No results may be changed or altered after any run is complete. The subjects would get to see the buckets being removed after each run so they know where the object really was.

I’ll need another experimenter to replace the target and all the buckets between each run when the subjects are back in their closed room.

I’ve chosen 10 buckets as over ten 'target present' runs everyone will probably get one right.

Two consecutive ‘hits’ would be 1:100. Three would be 1:1,000. Four would be 1:10,000. Be very easy to see if anyone is doing way better than chance, but even someone getting 3/10 overall would still not be that unlikely by chance. Statistics analysis in any event.

It might be worth using a set of ten targets as a second control.

That’d do it.

If the statistical analysis of these results showed that the null hypothesis being true was sufficiently unlikely (we’re supposed to use p=0.05 as a significance line), I'd run the experiment a few more times to make sure that the 1:20 chance of a fluke result wasn’t just that. That might depend on the number of willing subjects. The more subjects, the greater the significance of the result in general.

If this replication supported the hypothesis that dowsing was a repeatable detection instrument (with presumably a margin of error) I might consider dowsing to detect something else.

Feel fee to run that protocol and write it up.

 

[Carl Grove]

OK, here's a double-blind experiment proposal for the hypothesis that dowsing can detect 'some target'.

I’d get some dowsers together for a test and ask them if they can detect a target ‘thing’ (to be nominated and agreed) under a completely opaque plastic bucket marked by a bamboo pole with a small paper flag. I'd let said dowsers using any method they chooose, rods, forked twigs, waving hands etc. Each dowser's chosen method has to be used for all experimental runs. The subjects that remain will carry out the following experiment.

I’d make a test field up with 10 such buckets upended in holes about 6” deep. Let's pretend I have a big field and can keep them five meters apart. Each bucket would be marked with a small flag set about a yard from the bucket. This identifies the buckets without marking the buckets.

10 random placements would be generated of one such target item, using as close to a random number generator as could reasonably be found. The output would be used for the tests even if it then generated several identical positions.

The dowsers would be kept in a closed room until their turn. Each one would then be led, one at a time, by a chaperone experimenter to dowse the buckets and nominate the one they think the target is under. The chaperone will confirm the number the subject’s picked is the one they meant. The person acting as the chaperone for the dowser will not know where the object is.

The subjects are then led into a separate closed room with its own chaperone.

Then the second subject etc.

Repeat twelve times. Two of the runs will have no target under a bucket (a control).

No results may be changed or altered after any run is complete. The subjects would get to see the buckets being removed after each run so they know where the object really was.

I’ll need another experimenter to replace the target and all the buckets between each run when the subjects are back in their closed room.

I’ve chosen 10 buckets as over ten 'target present' runs everyone will probably get one right.

Two consecutive ‘hits’ would be 1:100. Three would be 1:1,000. Four would be 1:10,000. Be very easy to see if anyone is doing way better than chance, but even someone getting 3/10 overall would still not be that unlikely by chance. Statistics analysis in any event.

It might be worth using a set of ten targets as a second control.

That’d do it.

If the statistical analysis of these results showed that the null hypothesis being true was sufficiently unlikely (we’re supposed to use p=0.05 as a significance line), I'd run the experiment a few more times to make sure that the 1:20 chance of a fluke result wasn’t just that. That might depend on the number of willing subjects. The more subjects, the greater the significance of the result in general.

If this replication supported the hypothesis that dowsing was a repeatable detection instrument (with presumably a margin of error) I might consider dowsing to detect something else.

Feel fee to run that protocol and write it up.

The basic design is excellent, but the question of targets is a critical one. I would use a slightly different setup. Knowing that linear features, especially pipes, are easiest to detect, I would either find a field under which a known pipe or cable is running, and require each dowser to try to trace its course, or dig up the whole area and put in pipes and maybe other targets (positions determined by random number generator). Also the plastic buckets might create problems if they include the type of plastic said to block, or more precisely polarise, the torsion signal. If you wanted to go further and replicate some of Reddish's specific findings, then there is the option of using parallel pipes a meter or two apart to create the multiple interference patterns that he observed, or of using angle grinders to generate torsion.

As far as I know, aside from Reddish's international team that he recruited, nobody (pro or anti dowsing) has ever attempted replication of any of his results. Obviously you would be looking for 1:100 or 1:1000 levels of significance. Not sure whether you would be using parametric or nonparametric tests. It would be good to see someone with the interest, resources, and knowledge of research protocols, to take on this study! Thanks for going to the trouble of working out the detailed proposal.

 

[Coal]

The basic design is excellent, but the question of targets is a critical one. I would use a slightly different setup. Knowing that linear features, especially pipes, are easiest to detect, I would either find a field under which a known pipe or cable is running, and require each dowser to try to trace its course, or dig up the whole area and put in pipes and maybe other targets (positions determined by random number generator). Also the plastic buckets might create problems if they include the type of plastic said to block, or more precisely polarise, the torsion signal. If you wanted to go further and replicate some of Reddish's specific findings, then there is the option of using parallel pipes a meter or two apart to create the multiple interference patterns that he observed, or of using angle grinders to generate torsion.

As far as I know, aside from Reddish's international team that he recruited, nobody (pro or anti dowsing) has ever attempted replication of any of his results. Obviously you would be looking for 1:100 or 1:1000 levels of significance. Not sure whether you would be using parametric or nonparametric tests. It would be good to see someone with the interest, resources, and knowledge of research protocols, to take on this study! Thanks for going to the trouble of working out the detailed proposal.

I'd let dowsers decide the targets within reason, then they can't complain if they can't spot them. Frankly, they can chose the covers as long as they're practical, identical and opaque. Bottom line, if dowsers say they can detect 'a target', that can be the target. If they pick an impractical target (digging trenches comes into that category, as it would inevitably leave a trace on the ground and make control experiments using 'no pipe' all but impossible on the same terrian) or one that make experimental protocols impractical then the results are worthless. If it can’t be double blind it’s worthless.

I doubt there enough dowsers for such a test to get anything like a parametric distribution of dowsing abilities across a sample.

 

[Carl Grove]

I'd let dowsers decide the targets within reason, then they can't complain if they can't spot them. Frankly, they can chose the covers as long as they're practical, identical and opaque. Bottom line, if dowsers say they can detect 'a target', that can be the target. If they pick an impractical target (digging trenches comes into that category, as it would inevitably leave a trace on the ground and make control experiments using 'no pipe' all but impossible on the same terrian) or one that make experimental protocols impractical then the results are worthless. If it can’t be double blind it’s worthless.

I doubt there enough dowsers for such a test to get anything like a parametric distribution of dowsing abilities across a sample.

It depends how the targets are located and how the digging is done. If the area is given a final sweep so that no trace of individual holes can be seen, or even covered with a layer of sand, for example, then it should be practicable. There should be no problem arranging a double blind design, there can be separate teams doing the preparation and those observing the dowsers at work. It's a good idea to allow dowsers to choose the kind of target they prefer, there is no doubt that some are more specialised than others. Ultimately all are detecting the interaction between the target and the torsion energies, but those experienced in finding water at depth would probably require more specialised treatment, as they are trained to detect useful water sources at depth, so would normally ignore small pockets of water near the surface.

I am thinking that if we are talking about a serious, major study, each dowser would generate several replications, so a more powerful analysis might be possible, especially if we include other variables. It would also be useful, even essential, to get info on their experience in dowsing and their track record. (However, many of the more "new age" folk see themselves primarily as energy dowsers.) Finally it would be good to include photo or video evidence showing whether or not the movement of the rods can be explained by the "unconscious movements" hypothesis, which has been widely accepted for years without (to my knowledge) any kind of objective evidence in its support. Reddish had photos taken of his hands showing that there was no movement on his part, but today video analysis is highly sophisticated and it should be possible to settle this question conclusively.

 

[JahaRa]

Dowsing is a form of divination, which is an occult practice.

I'm not going to change my mind by reading about it from promoters, considering anecdotal tales after centuries have failed to show it works. I'm certainly not going to waste my time on an imaginative bio. That's now how reliable knowledge is formed. This promotion of dowsing is reflective of a belief system, not a scientific process. I will take a hard pass. It's up to the dedicated proponents to come up with something better than stories and effort for people to try it and fool themselves.

Its ok to have your beliefs even if other don't agree with them. But it is also ok for others to have their beliefs. You don't have to agree with them. I have seen dowsing work, and I was raised in a religion that said anything unexplainable, whether helpful or hurtful is the work of the devil. But I am a thinker and I grew up and over the years I have given up my anger at those who insiste everyone is wrong because... I realized some need what ever belief they cling to just to function in this crazy world. Most of my beliefs are in a realm that even new agers don't want to go. It is how I understand my place in this world and everyone has to have that, a way to understand their place in a human body on planet earth.