Dowsing for water

[Toddy]

Tell you what, you get two wee short lengths of fence wire, and bend them as described above, and give it a go.
Or better yet, more bushcrafty anyway, a forked hazel branch.

Then you can have either a laugh at us or join in the same puzzled delight that we do

cheers,
M

 

[Bushwhacker]

Tell you what, you get two wee short lengths of fence wire, and bend them as described above, and give it a go.
Or better yet, more bushcrafty anyway, a forked hazel branch.

Then you can have either a laugh at us or join in the same puzzled delight that we do

cheers,
M

If anyone on the farm saw me doing that they'd have me sectioned.
Could you get someone to do a workshop at the moot on the subject and video it for me?

 

[Toddy]

I suppose..........there's surely loads of them on the utube thing though

It's just all rather, well, surprising, and sort of, "Oh, would you look at that! ", when it works. Then the rational mind clicks in and says, "Yeah, right. Do it again, from a different place." and it still works

I don't know why; I'm a housewife, and though my education is science based, it's archaeology and those folks are a lang time deid I don't even know if they did it this way in the past, just that the hazel fork is well known and those who can use it effectively can make a good living from it even now. Artesian wells and such like, apparantly.

atb,
M

 

[tomongoose]

A friend told me he wanted a well dug on his farm he had one chap come out with dowsing rods and wander around for a couple of hours and said dig it here, another chap from a bore hole company just said where do you want it if we dig deep enough we will hit water

 

[Huon]

Did you lot all get lost on the way to finding this thread? http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89706&p=1082420&posted=1#post1082420 (I guess you were all using your dowsing wires to find it )


N.B. No offence intended, just a hearty joke.

No problem. That thread can come to you.

We're everywhere! :evilangel:

 

[Toddy]

A friend told me he wanted a well dug on his farm he had one chap come out with dowsing rods and wander around for a couple of hours and said dig it here, another chap from a bore hole company just said where do you want it if we dig deep enough we will hit water

Isn't technology wonderful ?


M

 

[sandbender]

I'm not inclined to believe in this kind of thing, but I have watched it done.

My neighbour (or neighbours architect) hired a dowser to search for a water source on his land and a considerable sum of money was then spent putting in a borehole based on his findings.

The neighbour is seldom there and the building site that was yet to be his home was unoccupied and so spying this little old guy wandering about with bits of wire in his hand I went out and had a chat with him, this led to me giving him a mug of tea and biscuits for which he gave my paddock a once over, he reckoned that I have a much larger source of water that is much nearer the surface by my drive way gates. I don't need to dig for it now but one day I'll have a look.

 

[woodspirits]

not surprisingly a fair bit of scepticism. cant blame them, it would seem odd that a bit of bent wire, a forked stick or even a deviceless method could possibly find the unseen.

but it does work and has done for me for the past 40 years. but its not just water it could be any buried utility, in plastic metal or crock, rock or wood. differetiate between sizes, find blockages junctions joins or whatever. or for a bit of fun maybe archealogical dowsing

i suppose i do have the advantage of when out on site, i can just hop into a 360 dig away carefully and there it is, most of the time. i really dont need to prove anything to anybody, i just know it works...for me

 

[Bushwhacker]

Tell us how it works then.
My face is full of more palm than Torquay seafront at the moment.

 

[zarkwon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VAasVXtCOI

 

[woodspirits]

Tell us how it works then.
My face is full of more palm than Torquay seafront at the moment.

wish i knew the answer mate, if i did id write a book and be rich!

interesting video but hardly representative eh?

 

[Jaan]

Believers or not, I think this wonderful forum about the natural world shouldn't be tainted with pseudoscience. Bushcraft celebrates all that is real - being out there in nature and seeing what she has to offer. Making fire doesen't involve beliefs and neither does carving, hunting or foraging. It doesen't happen in a mysterious way. Some of us might not know the physics behind friction fire lighting for example, but it can be repeated and tested. It can be proved.

The burden of proof lies on those who claim something. Go to James Randi and prove dowsing, you will be the first person in the world to succeed. Then I will believe you. In my country there's a society of skeptics who offer 1000€ for anyone who can prove anything mysterious. So far they've had that reward up for years.

 

[Toddy]

Away and try it.
I cannot guarantee it'll work, as I said, 3 or 4 out of 5........that's better than statistics would give, but not a 'proven' in the eyes of the folks who're out to 'debunk'.

Actually, I'd have thought that someone interested in the natural world would have been prepared to try a bent stick 'technology' instead of clinging with religious fervour to scientific hard science.
Takes all kinds I suppose.

I think of it along the lines of birds migrating across the world, butterflies travelling thousands of miles to reach traditional over wintering roosts, ladybirds congregating in their millions in places like the Alva Glen, salmon and elvers returning to the rivers to spawn.
Maybe it's an inbuilt geology recogniser in us or maybe the water 'can' somehow be felt
It just happens to kind of work but that's how natural it feels

cheers,
Toddy

 

[charleslockerbie]

The rods move because you move them. Why you move them is a little more complicated.

 

[Toddy]

I can't move them. They're suspended in the wooden tubes from the elder branches.
Standing completely still they just hang there, but if someone moves a bucket of water or such like nearby, they swing...........even when I've got a blindfold on, earplugs in and there's music blaring out too.

Walking around, they freewheel and then quite definitely fixate on 'something' .


Go on, I dare all the sceptics, because I've been there and I still wonder, have a go yourselves and then come and you can ridicule to your hearts content......or puzzle along with the rest of us

cheers,
Toddy

 

[mountainm]

What happens if you walk up to em with a bucket of sand, or a glass of water?

 

[sandbender]

"...Walking around, they freewheel and then quite definitely fixate on 'something'..."

That describes what I saw, I'm not one for "pseudoscience" if it was a trick it was well done and my neighbour now has a water supply that can fill his swimming pool.

One thing the dowser did suggest however was that not everyone can do this, that it was in the blood.

 

[Toddy]

What happens if you walk up to em with a bucket of sand, or a glass of water?

3 out of 5 with a bucket of something, but a glassfull of water did nothing.
I really wish I did know *why* and *what* and *how*, but I don't. I know I can find water........usually, but not everytime, but I've met folks who reckon they can find metals, follow pipelines, work out where electic cables are buried, gas pipelines, even old mineworkings, and I'm as sceptical of their claims as I am of the dowsing I and others do

It's all a bit odd to my scientifically trained mind
Put it this way, if it wasn't me, I'd be incredibly dubious, so I can fully understand where the doubters are coming from.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[mountainm]

What's the floor like? Floorboards?

 

[charleslockerbie]

In reply to Toddy

If you do not move them then they would move even if you were not holding them and they were held by something else (non organic). Your apparatus of elder branches does not negate the fact that gravity will still pull them in a direction of your choosing by tilting the branch.

I am sure that they will not move in the same way that a pendulum does not start moving on its own.

Also your senses are not limited to sight and sound.

I am not trying to call you a liar, Im sure you are absolutely not aware that you are doing it. But you are doing it.