Dowsing experiment - bushcraft members required

[scrubcutter]

This thread stems from that by Zammo 'Dowsing for water'

As someone who has dowsed with rods, I am a believer (see Zammo's thread). The phenomenon is real but don't ask me what the cause is.

As a bit of fun and to see if others can dowse, particularly those who aren't sure or are downright sceptical I've devised a small experiment.

The methodolgy is thus:

1. Make a set of two rods from a metal wire clothes hanger. Cut them to c.12 to c.16 inches in length. Bend them into a L-shape with the longer part about 2.5 to 3 times longer than the part you will hold in your hand.

2. Hold them lightly in your hand. Do NOT grip them. They will feel top heavy but experimental manipulation of the rods in your hand will get them balanced. If not then alternatively use hollow tubing such as an empty biro pen or similar. You can grip the tubing but make sure it does not affect the rods.

3. Find a clear area, say 5x5 yards in the back garden or wherever, and while holding the rods in your hands with your upper arms held against the body and the lower arms pointing straight forward, walk around the area slowly covering every part of your 5x5 yard area. If the rods cross at any point then there is interference. Find another area where there is no such interference.

4. Once the area is found to be clear, place the electrical lead of an electrical appliance/tool, e.g., mower, hedgecutter, etc., through your c.5x5 yard area. Have the lead running across in front of you. Have the appliance/tool plugged in but NOT switched on at the appliance/tool but make sure that there is an electrical flow to the appliance/tool by initially running it.

5. Have a friend placed at the plug end of the electrical lead so that they are able to switch on and off the appliance/tool. Have paper and pen for them so that they can record when the lead was switched on or off and to record the response of the dowsing rods as you walk over the electrical lead.

6. Without knowing if the appliance/tool is switched on or off at the plug, hold the rods in your hands with your upper arms held against the body and the lower arms pointing straight forward, walk up to the lead, over it and past it. Your friend will record whether the lead was switched on or off at the plug and record the response of the dowsing rods.

7. Repeat 6 above as many times as you wish although I would suggest at least 20 repetitions. Ensure that you are unaware of the electrical state of the lead - alive or dead (the lead, not you). Ensure that your friend randomly activates the plug on or off (or not at all) prior to each repetition.

8. Report back your findings.


When the plug is switched off there should be no response from the rods. When the lead is switched on they should cross.

The main variable in this experiment is how the rods are held in the hand. Because you know where the lead is, it can be easy to subconsciously cross the rods by very subtle movement of the hand thereby giving a false 'reading'. However, many repetitions of part 6 above will eventually statisically swamp this variable.

It's not intended as a foolproof experiment (there are far too many variables in my methodology) and with a little common sense you could vary the methodology according to your circumstance without ill-effect. However, it may give an idea to the extent and apparent ease of dowsing by using simple statistical analysis, i.e., chance.

Have fun and I look forward to hearing your results.

Scrubbity.

UPDATE 6th Jul.:
Works with a hose pipe with water running through it as well!

 

[Jodie]

I think you'd need to wear headphones so you don't know when the switch is flipped on
or off, probably also you'd need to avoid looking at your friend in case they inadvertently
cued you.

Note that if people are using different test areas, with different electrical appliances,
different dowsing rods, different operators and co-operators then this means that the
results can't be compared as the tests are operating under different conditions...

If you start having a bit of success you might want to get in touch with James Randi
within the next two years as he's offering a million dollars to anyone who can demonstrate
the existence of paranormal phenomena under mutually agreed laboratory conditions.
http://www.randi.org/joom/challenge-info.html

You can find out more about how the phenomenon is believed to work at,
http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=ideomotor_effect.php

I'm not a believer but good luck

 

[tom miller]

That million dollar prize has been available for a good while yet remains unclaimed. I wonder why?

 

[bushscout1]

Scrubcutter

I too am a believer, but I disagree that your test will prove the existence of dowsing:

Dowsing is primarily known for identifying underground water sources, similarly (as I have stated in the earlier thread) I have used the technique to identify water, gas & empty pipes along with electrical cables & phone cables.

The test you have described can be scientifically explained as when an electrical cable has a current passing through it, it gives off a magnetic field known as eddy currents. Hence, cable turned on magnetic field causes dowsing rods to align with the field & cable as you pass over it, cable turned off and there is no magnetic field to cause an effect.

But this does not explain how dowsing can identify water (flowing / standing), pipes (with gas / empty), and buried disused electrical cables - as none of these would create a magnetic field.

What is more interesting about your experiment is getting people to go out and test an area, particularly if they find existing 'interferences' (as you put it), because such cases can lead to you finding something which you weren't previously aware of and hence couldn't have unconciously have affected.

Just my thoughts.

 

[bothyman]

I used to dowse with rods.

Have you tried pendulum dowsing??
I started using one a few years ago after someone gave me one to try and I was surprised how well it worked.
A lot easier to carry than the rods.

 

[John Fenna]

Anything fairly heavy on a cord or thong can make a decent pendulum - though for me a qurtz crystal on a silver chain seems to work best.

 

[Meaghaidh]

Hi,

I use 14'' strong zip ties, 1 pr with the ratchet removed and the ends taped together. I hold them like the old Y shaped twigs. They work pretty well. Usually being able to define between water pipe or drains, also depth of the pipes works. We used it to identify some old farm buildings long buried, marked out the walls and drains prior to excavation. All bang on, there was no surface evidenc other than a local saying there used to be a building on the site.
I have a friend who's wife lost her wedding ring whilst renovating a farm house, they found it after using the bent rod technique pointing to the location. The ring was under the floorboards in the bathroom.

Vizualisation in my mind of what I am looking for is important. I also vizualise a scale if working on depth.

Obviously a believer.

Meaghaid.

 

[rich59]

Anyone know if dowsing for knowledge at a distance can work? - e.g. dowsing over a map, or dowsing to answer a question with a yes/ no answer?

 

[John Fenna]

Anyone know if dowsing for knowledge at a distance can work? - e.g. dowsing over a map, or dowsing to answer a question with a yes/ no answer?

I have used this kind of dowsing often - works for me!

 

[y0dsa]

Yes. Hmmm
I was once accused of stealing a musical instrument from the back of a teacher's car. It transpired that me and a mate had been selected on the basis of a pendulum swung over a list of pupils' names. Needles to say, I knew nothing of the theft, and the teacher/ parents involved rightly got their wrists slapped...

 

[bothyman]

I have tried map dowsing and it worked .

But don't ask me how.

I was introduced to pendulum dowsing a few years ago first thoughts were it's a load of rubbish until I found out it worked.

Has anyone ever asked a question they know the answer to, and then tried to make it do the opposite ??
It's a strange feeling when you realise it is in control.

 

[Glen]

Here's a trial for pendulum dowsing.

Take a sheet of plain white paper, draw a thick black line down the middle.

Hold the pendulum above the line and see if it follows it.

Turn the paper around 90 degrees and see if the pendulum now follows it.

Next blindfold yourself and spin the paper to a random rotation, wait as long as the first 2 experiments and when taking off the blindfold see if the pendulum is following the line.

Repeat the last stage a significant ammount of times and post your findings.

 

[Nohoval_Turrets]

Interesting thread. I learnt to dowse as a kid, and always seemed to work. But I'm also aware that no really rigorous experiment has ever demonstrated any real phenomenon there. There have been lots of really lousy experiments done, mostly either too woolly about what they were testing, or too sloppy in deciding what "sucess" meant.

A simpler experiment than yours would be to take a dozen or so "experienced" or "trained" dowsers and get them to walk a pre-defined line across a field, and note where the "hits" happen. The place would be chosen for being relatively featureless, and obviously none of them would know the place in advance, and they couldn't watch each other work. Allow them to nominate a maximum of, say, 5 hits. If there's anything in this dowsing mullarkey their patterns should match better than chance would allow - you'd have to decide in advance how to decide that.

This experiment would only show that there's a "phenomenon" there - that at least some of the dowsers are getting similar results. Whether it's a physical or pschological phenomenon would be another question again.

I might actually do this experiment one day.

Nohoval

 

[bothyman]

The Friend who introduced me to dowsing once got me to use a chart to answer questions, then she asked the same questions and we both came up with the same answers.

That was it for me, how we came up with the same answers I will never know but we did.

Later she moved down South and we lost touch for a while just for a bit of fun did some map dowsing to see where she was, when she did get in touch she was in the exact place I came up with.
Now that had me baffled as I started off with a map of the UK not really knowing where she was, and I pinpointed the exact spot.

I can try it with almost anything that comes to hand and it works.

 

[gregorach]

OK, give me the OS grid reference of my place of employment.

 

[bothyman]

OK, give me the OS grid reference of my place of employment.

Why are you lost ????????

Why not phone them and ask how to get there ??:thinkerg:

 

[gregorach]

So that I can judge objectively whether you get it "exactly" right.

 

[bothyman]

So that I can judge objectively whether you get it "exactly" right.

So was I right were you lost??

Did you phone up and ask where you worked.??

Hope you made it on time.

Sorry, but I know it works for me and I don't play games with it, and as you can see others think the same .

Why don't you try it ?? you might be surprised.

Hope you know your way home if not phone home

Mick

 

[Brendan]

Some GIs were issued with a single rod during the Vietnam war to find land mines, only one rod because one hand had to always be on their rifle.
I use them with a fair degree of accuracy usually for finding lost articles.

 

[Grey Owl]

When I was younger and attended a boarding school, late at night in the dormitories we would often get up to various games and experiments. One night one of the boys suggested trying dowing for coins. We would place 12-15 magazines on the floor and while the dowser was out of the room we would place a few coins under a magazine or two.

The dowser would return, concentrating on finding the coins and without fail (myself and several others) would successfully locate the coins. Until one time.... when I was out of the room they decided amongst themselves to not place any coins. Frustrated, I couldn't get a wiggle, except in one location where there was no magazine. The boys were humoured at my failure until one remembered that one of the fellows on the floor below was the accountant for the Boys Club and had the proceeds of a fund-raiser in his room in a jar.

This success spooked us all into heading for bed, and thus ended my career as a dowser!