This is what the individual was doing. There is some merit in the process, though it is less than 100% effective.

Link on dowsing is informative.

That reminds me, the bore-well water supplier whom I know quite well had actually told me not to go for any water detection (dowsing) in our complex, I will be wasting money. It seems he goes for boring just by intuition and wherever he finds a convenient location. According to him, it works most of the time!!

In a housing complex where all the residents would be contributing money for boring, we did not want to take a blind hit. The copper rod method worked, but with coconut, it did not work.

Is there a better method?

If for no other reason your well boring technician, by experience, knows what I stated above, there is water almost anyplace if you go deep enough, hence he choses bore points that are otherwise convenient to his task.

j.

Yeah! There is some merit. Especially since if you go deep enough you will find water at almost any place on earth.

j.

A decent dowser can also tell you the depth, usually quite accurately. Apart from depth to the water surface, he should also be able to tell what thickness of water bearing strata is present.

The mechanics of this make me shake my head for an explanation. After finding the water, he walks to where it is that they propose putting in the bore. He then paces off from here in any direction holding his rods. When they change the distance he has traveled is the depth to the surface of the water. He continues pacing until the rods change again. This is the thickness of the water bearing deposit.

I don't know why it works, it shouldn't, but it seems to be fairly accurate.

Some can even tell if the water is "sweet" or saline. I can't.

Wait! Hold on! My witching rods are picking something up...

Yep, if we bored holes in your skulls we'd find water, but nothing else!

Cynical Cat - you may be shady to this approach, but it does work - have used douser's

don't know how they do it, but it works, you get either on-top of the supply, or real close

We sunk one well that was only 42 ft. and had steady head pressure of over 85

My father couldn't do it at all. One of my daughters can't, the other gets erratic results, both my wife and I can.

The exact item used seems to be irrelevant, wood, wire, copper, brass seem to make no difference.

One time I sat on the veranda holding the rods while my daughter (the one who gets erratic results) walked over the block. At various places, the rods moved. I later tested the same spots with the same results.

I notice in the Wikipedia article they tested the ability to find an artificial wet area or location of a pipe. I've tried with no success. I can find reliable underground streams, some confirmed by drilling, but a buried water pipe doesn't show on the radar.

One item I read about was someone dousing for gold. He had a small container mounted below his rod in which he put a sample of the material he was looking for. Someone substituted brass for the gold and it made no difference. (I have no idea whether mineral dousing actually works)

If anyone has a workable explanation of dousing, I would be very interested. So far I haven't found one which is fully satisfactory.

Water, water, almost everywhere if you go deep enough.

j.

And then - magma, magma everywhere.....

Some people are very sensitive to infrared energy.The core of the earth is emitting infrared all the time. If a stream of water interferes with the radiation, a "shadow" is produced on the surface which can be detected by certain individuals.

This theory was proven by a scientist in England.He used IR beams to heat up a lined pattern on the ground, and then called in local dowsers.Some could detect the lines, and some could not.He then covered the area in a thin lead foil, none of the previously successful dowsers could detect anything.

The detection is on a subconcious level, and the movement of the dowsing rods are actually made by subtle muscles movements of the holder.

Oil companies once had a dowser on their payroll that could detect oil by flying over in a small plane and marked the locations on a map. His success rate was so high that they kept him on the payroll. Don't know how that skill worked.????

HTRN

Be so kind guest.

Direct us to documentation of that study.

j.

Interesting theory.

This is the closest I have found to a reasonable explanation.

Have you any references so I can look into it further?

I've done some dowsing with excellent results. My first hit was for a well that came in at 30 GPM @ 250 feet, unusually shallow for this area. I've dowsed septic tank service ports as well.

My best guess as to how it works comes from observations of other unusual phenomena, that leads me to believe that the other "90% of our brains that that we do not use" has such a purpose. Focusing our 'Intent', we become an tuneable antenna/receiver, much as one would search for that favorite radio station. Whether the emminations derive from a purely local source, a 'Cosmic Consiousness', or a combination of both, I do not know.

This 'Pet Theory' dovetailes quite nicely with other pet theories of mine and others as to 'how the universe works'. There's a lot happening 'out there' that is unvarifiable by scientific measurement, and it is only the human body/mind that can detect and process this information. I am alive today because of it.

"the other "90% of our brains that that we do not use"

that is not right we as humans use are total brain power not 10%.

i think it was Albert Einstein who said that but he is wrong. we use 100% of our brain. i dont have anything to back it up.

Interesting.

You have a mind, by your own assertions, that is tunable to septic tank contents.

j.

I have run across a few dowsing experts over the past few years. I have actually tried it, but I am not particularly impressed with the method. I think it works because there is water under virtually all points on the globe, it's just a matter of how deep yow want to drill. Personally, I believe you have a better chance of learning how deep to go to get to the water table by checking other local wells or looking at the topography and running a geophysical test to determine where the bedrock level is.

I agree with aquadoc. Show me some science to support dowsing and I'll consider it.

Around my way dowsing doesn't do any real good. The usual choice of where to drill is based on where the drill rig can be set up.

BTW the toughest part of the whole deal is watching every foot of the drill going down and knowing there goes another $20 bill. I got lucky at 380 feet.

Ed Weldon

Does science know everything?

By the way these are not my words but words of a human being far more superior to everyone one of us.

No!

Science does not know and will never know everything.

Nonetheless, it is by far the best tool to find out anything.

To start with anything but material data is to rely on one or another form of mysticism, i.e., to rely on the methodology of ignorance.

I would have hoped the historical experience of the alchemists had taught that lesson but apparently not.

j.

Thanks for agreeing with me an Mahatma Gandhi that science does not know everything.

You say "Nonetheless, it is by far the best tool to find out anything".

But it is not the best tool to find our Everything.

I also at some stage of my age (now I am 52) thought like you. But I am now wise enough and mature enough to know that science is not the best tool to find out anything. Of course it is just one tool.

I will not say electricity does not exist just because i cannot see it. I propose you to keep your eyes an ears open, most importantly your mind open to possibility of existence of certain powers which may not be sensed by known 5 (is it 6?) senses.

I want to be clear that I am not talking of black magic or witch craft!

Just to give an example scientists used to laugh at meditation. over 2000 years before scientists found the power of transcendental meditation old wise men knew it, knew how to harness the power of it!!

So please think again.

If it is beyond detection by your five senses or their instrument extensions, i.e., voltmeters, ammeters, Wilson cloud chambers, etc., then it is indeed magic, black or white or witchcraft.

You cannot seem to understand that if it is beyond sensory equipment then it is a figment of your imagination and not concrete, material reality.

That is not even worth arguing about with you. You might as well swallow whole hog the views of one of your predecessors, Bishop Berkeley, and agree with him that all we are, all we know, we know only because it all, we all, exist only as a thought in the mind of some god. Since god does not exist, i.e., there is no material data to argue otherwise, than your assertions are no better than those of the good Bishop and meaningless.

I don't know what you identify as science or who a scientist but there are no scientists who accept the notions of transcendental meditation since there is no material evidence to support such. Incidentally those nut cases also believe in self levitation.

There are of course incomplete scientists who are not consistent outside their narrow field and hence not consistent scientists.

But I do appreciate your participation in this discussion because it provides case in point opportunities to educate those who are confused or have not carried these issues through to their logical conclusion.

It also provides, in part, an educational opportunity for me to hear another variation, of which there are as many as there are nut cases, on all this mystic nonsense.

j.

It was those alchemists that led to our modern sciences. Paracelsus, born 1493, was the father of Iambic medicine, or the use of chemistry to effect cures for disease. Manly Hall called him "the precursor of chemical pharmacology and therapeutics and the most original medical thinker of the sixteenth century. ......[Who] gained his knowledge "not from long-coated pedagogues but from dervishes in Constantinople, witches, gypsies, and sorcerers, who invoked spirits and captured the rays of the celestial bodies in dew; of whom it is said that he cured the incurable,"

"If you argue your limitations, they are yours" Barbara C. Johnson,, 1955-2008

Scientific method is a method of investigation.

It is true that some of the alchemists derived true and useful information from the most diverse sources, some of them quite nuts like the Whirling Dervishes and other nut cases.

But it was not the derivation of such information that led to scientific method but rather the realization that one could develop a process of discovery which led to the negation of the negation at the heart of scientific method and hence to elimination at the beginning of evidence that generally has previously been discarded as false so that the many nutty concepts of "Constantinople, witches, gypsies, and sorcerers" could more readily be discarded.

Today, only nut cases would investigate claims as to levitation, walking on water, etc., because they have previously been discarded as have the myriad concepts of HHO, and other forms of the perpetual motion machine because as concepts they are not supported by any material evidence and are well outside the scientifically and historically derived laws of the conservation of matter and energy, and similar first requirements of the scientific method.

j.

I can only feel sorry for you Jack. Not all of us are "nut cases". Outlandish claims by a few have soured the rest to a real experience with a form of inquiry that leads to results that can be duplicated. It does not seem to matter which discipline one approaches mysticism, but once open to it, all agree on the fundamental precepts and perceptions. Einstein said that if he had started younger, that would have been his direction. BTW; No god is necessary for this discipline, but you can have 'One', if you want.

'The Tao of Physics' by Fritjof Capra, (Google him for his credentials), read the quote by Werner Heisenberg before the title page, and the one by Carlos Castaneda on pg2.

I read The Tao of Physics many years ago.

Capra claimed to be a nuclear physicist but he was also a nut case who had "experiences" sitting in his chair in his living room.

Although I made clear the only reason I addressed you was to engender more idiocy from you, you continue to provide such.

"Outlandish claims by a few have soured the rest to a real experience [emph. added, j.j.] with a form of inquiry that leads to results that can be duplicated. It does not seem to matter which discipline one approaches mysticism, but once open to it, all agree on the fundamental precepts and perceptions." [emph. added, j.j.]

I know I won't change the mind of someone who would make the above outlandish and extremely subjective, solipsist, statement. But for the sake of those not yet clear on such matters answer some questions.

If some statements are outlandish how is someone who has not yet reached your level of erudition to separate those "Outlandish claims by a few" from the ones that might lead to a "real experience."

You reject science, i.e., materialism, as the sole means of understanding of the universe and offer "mysticism" and assert that it matters not with "which discipline one approaches mysticism." Having rejected science and materialism (The basis of science) what disciplines are left to approach mysticism except mysticism.

Do you know what a tautology is?

In essence you are saying what the religious say, "accept god and he will come into your heart and you will understand."

"..but once open to it [Mysticism, j.j.], all agree on the fundamental precepts and perceptions."

As far as Einstein, you could well have misunderstood him because that quote, if accurate-you have not sourced it, could easily mean not what you say it means but rather be an acknowledgement that if he had earlier considered mysticism instead of science, he might have been a mystic. That in no way validates any such statements by him, by the nut case nuclear physicist and mystic Capra, or Heisenberg, or the mystic Castenada.

That is a sort of dishonest game to quote the individual errors of "experts" blathering outside the area of their expertise.

To prove any of your assertions you need to prove the reality, the concrete nature of any of these "results that can be duplicated."

Until you do you are just another nut case trying to misdirect folks who have not yet firmly set their manner of thinking in the way of science.

As I said before, if for no other reason then to experience more of the permutations folks like you continually invent so as to display and refute them as a means of intellectual training, bring it on, although I doubt you can come up with anything more difficult to deflect than these sorry examples attempting to justify mysticism.

j.

Thank you Tippy canoe for your insights and experiences. My father in law has been dousing for farmers in a small local area since he came to Canada. he always charges the same amount, 2 bottles of scotch. I don't know about the prayer part however. he has never been wrong according to the rest of his family. depth and amount of flow. large farms need a heavy volume.

2- there was a native Canadian who was frequently hired in Alberta to find water for bush camps for oil patch drilling rigs. a friend described to me that he was paid well and was also given a small gift such as a can of tobacco or something also. plus free helicopter ride. once they decided that there was water everywhere if you drill far enough or enough times. Gifted dowser was not hired. they were running out of time with no water whatsoever.[3 weeks?] they had to bring the dowser in at the last minute in an urgent manner. just to show them, he found water in about 90 minutes, but witness figured out by watching him that he found the water within 15 minutes of getting out of the helicopter.

3- Years ago, newspaper article. In Western Canada there was a child abduction/ murder. someone volunteered their services with a "new propriety dowsing device". the dowser [from a distance, not at site] described to the police exactly where in a wooded area the child's body was. police stated there was nothing found. dowser insisted that he was correct. someone [police?relative?] went back and discovered body buried at the previously described location. deeper than originally searched.

4-television news, many years ago. A missing child in a wooded area was found by a first time dowser [uncle] by using a dowsing branch wrapped with a piece of niece's clothing. he then drove around the wilderness area with the rod/wand sticking out the car window. he found the girl immediately. on television he said it would have been impossible to not find her by the way the dowsing wand bent and pulled towards her. I can't remember if this was in the USA or Canada.

5-My dear old friend and teacher before he passed away use to offer his services to police forces in the USA before he moved to Canada. i believe he was given a lot of scorn and ridicule. He could touch items and and determine a lot of the person who owned or handled certain items. I think he called it "psychometry". I don't know how closely related this is to dowsing.. there was one detective used to bring him items from difficult cases [murders] years after he moved to Canada. He never spoke of his failure or successes to anyone, or that he was even doing this. His partner told me that he could see the whole scenes of events sometimes. this I know was tested on him numerous times just to verify his abilities. His partner explained to me that this eventually was a terrible strain on him during and for days afterwards.

5- some individuals don't require the "focusing aid". it helps maintain a certain

"mental altitude", not attitude.

with the exception of the child victim found with a dowsing device,[newspaper, Okanagan area] I cannot prove any of these. these are all different individuals, different abilities, different events.

However "if your cup is full", none of this really matters anyways.

Perhaps, given all this "expertise" a thread devoted to the technology of dowsing ought to be opened.

One thing I find curious.

Given that those oil drillers spend lots of money on technology; bore holes for explosives, seismographs to read the reflections from the blasts, etc., in order to find oil, why don't they simply use dowsing.

Two bottles of booze is certainly cheap enough.

But the again, as we ruefully consider, there isn't as much oil underground as there is water.

j.

I would like to see a thread devoted to 'Metaphysics'. not 'why is the sky blue' kind of questions we get from our colleagues from India, but a serious discussion of the 'unseen'. (dons Kevlar shorts). We are really going to need to think outside of the box, coming soon!

Carl

Just how does one discuss what is unseen?

How does one even know that there is something to discuss if it is unseen?

I am assuming of course "unseen" by sight, sound, taste, touch, smell.

As a scientist I would insist that if you are going to offer any other "senses" that you would have to prove their existence by material evidence referent to our five senses.

My suggestion was, of course, tongue in cheek but invariably.....

j.

Thank you Pretzel! Dowsers are 'paid in kind', usually not in money. It keeps us honest. Two bottles of 'scotch' = one bottle of Laphroig.

3&4) This goes back to focusing ones 'Intent'. I have never tried anything like that but I'm fairly confident that given an article from the victim it would be possible.

Which leads to #5. This was taught to me by a shaman. An article from the person, organic in nature, like a leather shoe, wooden talisman, favorite toy, or sometimes a photograph, will help focus Intent. A good palm reader uses a similar technique, and I have been told by some of the subjects "I never told that to anyone". The strain your uncle underwent is real, especially in 'viewing' violent scenes. 5a) The 'prayer', or the focusing of 'Intent' is more of a command. , 'Amen' (so be it) needs to be forceful for it to work. A note to Jack below; I don't know why it is not used for oil exploration. My personnel feelings are that looking for money is a waste of time. Good works give better results.

The Russians take this seriously, perhaps so should we.

My cup runith over. Carl

Thanks to every one for all your inputs.

The latest from my side is - We have decided to test the quality of the soil from the 60 ft deep abandoned bore-well ( 2nd) bore-well, analyze water quality and see if we can get some water for at least gardening purpose.