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Dowsing

Arthur ASCII said:
Trendy things for your children to suffer from:

First it was allergy, then it was E numbers, then it was hyperactivity, then it was dyslexia, now it is autism.

Some poor children suffer greatly from the above, and my heart goes out to them and their parents, but do I detect a fashion...?

You forgot to mention that kids also suffer from the A name syndrome, though this IS entirely their trendy parents fault,

eg, Keisha, Latecia, Micha etc....
 
You missed Attention Defecit Disorder!

I have not heard of dowsing undergoing a renaissance, but have tried it myself with water pipes and stone circles.

I find it a bit strange that people "don't believe in it" when it clearly just works. I also find it a bit strange that the people who are mad keen on it go as far as to distinguish between devices for dowsing, ie different types of crystal to use as pendulums and so on (I always find my Swiss Army Knife on a string to be effective enough)

I daresay that it is this type that is dowsing for the "trendy" people and no doubt charging them a fortune for something they could probably do themselves!

Is there anyone who has tried dowsing and found nothing has happened?
 
Min Bannister said:
I find it a bit strange that people "don't believe in it" when it clearly just works.

You've hit the nail on the head there Min.

You BELIEVE it works.

No serious double-blind scientific testing that I am aware of shows that dowsing works.

But I know that won't change your belief.
 
Its funny you should say that because when I first tried it, I had thought that only "certain" people (ie not me) could do it, a friend just picked up a couple of pieces of old fencing wire one day and said "Try This" so I did.

I have also been to stone circles where I have dowsed with my penknife, finding it rotated alternately clockwise or anticlockwise, except for one or two where nothing happened, even though I tried it several times. If I "believed" it was going to rotate for that stone, why didn' t it?

I don't expect you to believe me!;)
I do take your point though. :)

Anyway, what were these trials of which you speak, where can I find reference? Did they use people off the street so to speak or people who reckoned they were expert dowsers?

Edit, I'd also like to point out, I didn't say I believed in it. My belief is that it just is! A subtle difference maybe, but not like for example, saying you believe the aliens have landed when you have never seen one.
 
For me, dowsing is an interesting human phenomenon.

Here are a few quick links to some interesting articles from my bookmarks list:

James Randi
http://www.randi.org/library/dowsing/

Kassel Dowsing Tests
http://www.phact.org/e/z/kassel.htm

Kassel Debunk
http://www.phact.org/phact/dowsing.htm

Csicop debunk
http://www.csicop.org/si/9901/dowsing.html

Big believers resource
http://www.earthsky.com/BBS/Observers-Notebook/19x44.html

Most search engines will merely provide a list of mutual admiration societies, where people re-inforce each others faith ('cos it's a bit of a mystical thing isn't it?).

I'll dig out some more studies when I caTill then, happy dowsing.
 
Arthur ASCII said:
For me, dowsing is an interesting human phenomenon.

Those WERE interesting... and sobering, thanks.

Guess the question then is why should dowsing in particular bring out these effects on people, the "ideomotor effect" and so on. And why should it be so suggestive?

I consider myself to be a "proper" Fortean in thinking about these sorts of things, I don't dismiss things but I don't blindly believe them either. I tried dowsing with an open mind, not really expecting it to "work" but it did. Strange in itself I think.

Particularly when I have never seen a ghost/loch monster or in fact ever really experienced anything "paranormal" when I would really love to, being interested 'n all.

And you can't really argue with the experiments either, as they were set up to the dowsers wishes, they only had to detect what they thought they could.

Still fancy getting some pals to try and locate an underground stream or something that only I know about to see what happens. Perhaps it is only people who think they are experts in dowsing are the ones that are self deluded. Ah ye can't keep an old believer down! :madeyes:
 
Min Bannister said:
I consider myself to be a "proper" Fortean in thinking about these sorts of things, I don't dismiss things but I don't blindly believe them either. I tried dowsing with an open mind, not really expecting it to "work" but it did. Strange in itself I think.

For me, it's not a matter of whether it works or not, it's the BELIEF that's fascinating.

Acupuncture
Feng shui
Homeopathy
Faith Healing
Witchcraft
Dowsing
Ley lines and crop circles etc

They all seem to me to demand that one suspends or disregards a little bit of logic and common sense in order to join their coterie of adherants.
 
As far as I can figure it,
underground streams don't even exist,
except in limestone country, where they are buried deep in the rock;
if you dowse and find water, it isn't a stream, that is the water table;
different thing altogether.
 
I dowsed for the water mains coming from the storage tank in the field above St. Just, I knew where the pipes came out, as I saw them being replaced when the tank was re-lined. Sure enough, I got reactions in the right places. Carrying on in the next field, I got a strong reaction which I traced across it. Later I asked my son to try, and he came up with the same plan inc. the trace in next field. Seeing a water board man on site I asked him about the "stream" we had found in the next field going toward the tank. "You sure would find something there" he said,"that's the main water incoming pipe which fills the tank." He didn't seem surprised at our experiments and said that they often used dowsing themselves to locate pipes where plans were not available. So, seems to me that it works, and that there is nothing fortean or psychic about it. Reckon if you lived in the desert it might be a very useful thing to be able to do to.
Dowsing off-sight using a map or whatever seems not to be a natural ability, and I'd like to see some results demonstrated as I can't do it! :mad:
 
Re: Re: Dowsing Renaissance?!

JerryB said:
That 'black energies' thing sounds rather daft (i.e. neo-New Age) to me ;)

Aye! But that's just the sort of people the customers were!:p


I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that some water companies employed dowsers to find water mains?
Or was that fanciful hokum?!:confused:


That's a very good point about underground streams only occuring in limestone, Eburacum. Never thought of that...
Does water move en masse through other rock uniformly? Or does it follow 'fissures' or something. Like a 'stream' in that it's 'concentrated' where rocks allow it through faster, while around it is water too, just less concentrated?
(Sorry, I'm not explaining it well!)
 
Eburacum45 said:
As far as I can figure it,
underground streams don't even exist,
except in limestone country, where they are buried deep in the rock;
if you dowse and find water, it isn't a stream, that is the water table;
different thing altogether.

Hmm, I live in the city now but the burns where I lived used to just "start", coming out of the ground/rock. I had thought that it had been a stream before that as well and just found an outlet somewhere.

Do they just come from the water table then? I mean is there a big loch of water underground and every so often it finds an outlet and comes out as a burn? Or does it happen how David Raven suggests?
You learn something new..
 
Dont know how it works but it does. At my day job on a water treatment works, if Iwalk about with a couple of bent welding rods they cross over every time I walk over one of the undergound mains, have even found a few really old ones that are not on any drawings!. And Arthur please take care when you talk about the MMR as our youngests Autism WAS caused by it.:mad:
 
Michael Wason said:
Dont know how it works but it does. At my day job on a water treatment works, if Iwalk about with a couple of bent welding rods they cross over every time I walk over one of the undergound mains, have even found a few really old ones that are not on any drawings!. And Arthur please take care when you talk about the MMR as our youngests Autism WAS caused by it.:mad:

I am of course VERY sorry that your child suffers from autism that you believe was caused by the MMR vaccine.

You are perfectly entitled to your beliefs, and I respect them. I on the other hand am entitled to mine, and these threads are where we debate. Usually without rancour.

I'm sure you will admit that dowsing for water in a water treatment works is a bit like dowsing for sweets in a sweet shop.

Almost every facility of that nature (and I speak from experience) is criss-crossed with buried water and gas pipes, elecrical cables/conduit and waste water/sewage pipes.

Either you put your skills to the test through a double-blind scientific test and PROVE them, or you content yourself with your BELIEF.

If dowsing claims can be scientifically proven, no one will be happier to "eat their hat" than I, and we can take the knowledge on board and apply science to extend it's use.

If you believe you have this gift, surely it's your duty to have it proven so that it can be studied, and the knowledge applied to the benefit of Mankind.
 
This discussion about the authenticity of dowsing has already been exhausted on a much earlier thread in which myself and another ft board member were challenged to prove it by applying to James Randi, a challenge which was taken on, and as I understand an e-mail sent to Randi who was not interested. Why not? Apparently he accepts dowsing for water works even though we do not have a 'scientific' explanation of how. Perhaps someone else remembers all this as I can't locate the thread at the moment.
 
Michael - very interested that you have %%proof%% of an MMR/autism link.

Could you give a ref/link or whatever?

our family just read up on all the research (we are lucky in that we have the access ad training to do it) and came down on the other side without any qualms.

So I'm horrified to find we missed something... can you explan please?

Kath
 
brian ellwood said:
... and as I understand an e-mail sent to Randi who was not interested. Why not? Apparently he accepts dowsing for water works even though we do not have a 'scientific' explanation of how.
You should have kept plugging at it, because that doesn't seem to be the view portrayed on his website (though perhaps I am mis-reading it.)
 
http://www.phact.org/e/dowsing.htm

This webring also has both pro and sceptical dowsing sites. Worth a look if anyone's interested or hasn't seen it before.

I've just been to an antique fair this afternoon and picked up a book by Emile Grillot de Givry (1874-1929) Illustrated Anthology of Sorcery, Magic and Alchemy-
it has an interesting section on Rhabdomancy, or the art of using the divining-rod. It also has some woodcut prints of the use of divining rods in German mines in the 16thC, showing the mine in sections with the dowser and his divining rod that's described as a 'Virgula divina'.

"In 1692 a humble Dauphine peasant, Jacques Aymar, had called to the attention of the divining-rod, which seems to have been almost unknown in France at that time, except in this province. Not only did Aymar discover water, mines and hidden treasure, but he was able to trace robbers and murderers by means of his rod."

It also goes on to describe his adventures in tracking down a murderer in Lyons (sic) and also has nifty little woodcuts of the most fashionable rods being used in France in 1762. Sadly it only offers demonic or spiritual explanantions of how dowsing is meant to 'work'.
 
brian ellwood said:
This discussion about the authenticity of dowsing has already been exhausted on a much earlier thread in which myself and another ft board member were challenged to prove it by applying to James Randi, a challenge which was taken on, and as I understand an e-mail sent to Randi who was not interested. Why not? Apparently he accepts dowsing for water works even though we do not have a 'scientific' explanation of how. Perhaps someone else remembers all this as I can't locate the thread at the moment.

The thread you are thinking of is HERE .
Stu Neville wrote to Randi, but it seems he didn't get a reply. I don't know if he took the matter any further - perhaps he will tell us.
I think you are incorrect to assert that Randi accepts dowsing for water. Why would he? All of the testing he has done has not produced a scrap of evidence that it works.
Go on. Have a go. Take the challenge, win a million dollars and stake your place in history.
 
Arthur, try it yourself, all you need is a couple of welding rods with the ends bent at 90% to make hand holds, hold them in front of you and wander about ,see what happens, this is so easy its something everyone can do. And Stonedoggy I dont know if your serious or taking the piss.
 
I was serious - why would you think I wasn't?

Kath
 
I was doing a bit of local history research into weird things and came across this:-

In 1934, A. Reginald Smith, well-known watercolour artist, lost his life in the raging torrent of the famous Strid at Bolton Abbey, in the Yorkshire Dales.
His disappearance was a mystery at the time. According to the local newspaper the Telegraph & Argus;-

The body was recovered from a deep crevice which last week was indicated by a water diviner, Mr R. Brotton, of Richmond, as the point where a body would be found.

This quite surprised me. I thought the use of 'diviners' was a relatively recent thing, seeming to recall stories from the seventies or eighties where the Police employed their services. How did they do it? Pendulem over a map? Can anyone remember any details of the cases?
 
David Raven said:
I was doing a bit of local history research into weird things and came across this:-

In 1934, A. Reginald Smith, well-known watercolour artist, lost his life in the raging torrent of the famous Strid at Bolton Abbey, in the Yorkshire Dales.
His disappearance was a mystery at the time. According to the local newspaper the Telegraph & Argus;-



This quite surprised me. I thought the use of 'diviners' was a relatively recent thing, seeming to recall stories from the seventies or eighties where the Police employed their services. How did they do it? Pendulem over a map? Can anyone remember any details of the cases?

If you look on page three of this thread, right at the bottom, I've quoted a case from the 17th C, I was just as surprised myself to find how long divining has been around. Plus the link I've posted, if you scroll right down the page it will also give historical time periods/dates of known use of divining.
:)

IIRC clearly when 'dowsers' wish to locate bodies such as in police investigations, it usually done by pendulum and map. I can remember reading instances of it 'apparently' being of help in investigations but cannot give any solid reference to it. Which is of course no help to you, but I hope you find what you are looking for!;)
 
Interesting, Quixote.
Does your book say if the french 'peasant' was employed by the police? I assumed divining per se had been around for ages, it was the early use in aiding law enforcement that surprised me.

Have you noticed, the funny thing with 'research' is how you come across things that tie-in with so many other things...?I'm not sure I know what I'm looking for anymore! So many interesting roads to follow...not enough time to pursue them all...
 
I may have missed it, but I haven't seen any mention of dousing for graves. If you take metal dousing rods into a cemetery, they will cross over the graves. Maybe a subconscious thing, but I also know of mass unmarked graves being located and flagged -- by the highway department -- using this method.
 
David Raven said:
Interesting, Quixote.
Does your book say if the french 'peasant' was employed by the police? I assumed divining per se had been around for ages, it was the early use in aiding law enforcement that surprised me.

Doh! Sorry, slow on the uptake. :goof:

Yes he was employed by a 'Procureur du Roi' and the 'Leiutenant-criminel' which would be akin to magistrates I believe.

I quote:

"His renown caused him to be summoned to Lyons by the Procureur du Roi and the Leiutenant-criminel to help them discover the murderers of a wine-merchant and his wife who had been found in a cellar with their throats cut. "His rod twisted rapidly at the two spots in the cellar where the two corpses had been found," wrote Pierre Garnier, physician of Montpellier, in his Dissertation physique sur la baguette, published at Lyons in 1962, the very year of the crime."

In this case he did use the divining rod to follow the trail of the murderer only to find the criminal had already been arrested for another crime and the trail had lead straight to a prison, where the murderer confessed to the double killing.

Bearing in mind how dowsing could easily be misconstrued as the 'devil's work' in 1692, I think this Jacques Aymar was a pretty brave guy to be doing this kind of thing considering the fate of proven 'witches' etc..

I know this use of the rod totally contradicts my earlier post where I said I recall only pendulums being used etc. but I have only heard of contempory dowsers using said pendulum and map in aiding the police. It would be interesting to find out if that is correct or not.
 
Play Dead said:
I may have missed it, but I haven't seen any mention of dousing for graves. If you take metal dousing rods into a cemetery, they will cross over the graves. Maybe a subconscious thing, but I also know of mass unmarked graves being located and flagged -- by the highway department -- using this method.

Never thought of that.
Er, do you get many 'mass unmarked graves' in your locality?:eek!!!!:

It struck me the other day, because we live on such a tiny overcrowded island, we're probabley never too far from the final resting place of someone. Who knows what happened where you are sitting right now, in centuries past...
 
David Raven said:
Never thought of that.
Er, do you get many 'mass unmarked graves' in your locality?:eek!!!!:

LOL!

This was along the Oregon Trail -- and it was surmised that an entire wagon train may have been wiped out by an epidemic.
 
Michael Wason said:
Arthur, try it yourself, all you need is a couple of welding rods with the ends bent at 90% to make hand holds, hold them in front of you and wander about ,see what happens, this is so easy its something everyone can do. And Stonedoggy I dont know if your serious or taking the piss.

Tried it.

Didn't work.

Dowsing does not appear to be a scientically proven ability. You'd think that if "it's something everyone can do" someone would have done it!

If you really can do it. Go earn a million dollars. I'll be rooting for you.
 
Arthur ASCII said:
Tried it.

Didn't work.

Go earn a million dollars. I'll be rooting for you.
Really suprised it did'nt work, try again?.
As for the million Dollars, the contract's probably got even more loopholes than an insurance policy.!.
 
Michael Wason said:
Arthur, try it yourself, all you need is a couple of welding rods with the ends bent at 90% to make hand holds, hold them in front of you and wander about ,see what happens, this is so easy its something everyone can do. And Stonedoggy I dont know if your serious or taking the piss.

This can also be done cheaply with metal clothing hangers simply straightened and bent. Unlike dowsing with twigs, which to my knowledge are held tightly, the long section of the metal rods are just rested across your forefingers, the handle against your palm.
 
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