Engineering Snake Oil: Do Dowsing Rods Really Work?

They 'work' but only if you believe they work.

I don't know whether it works or not, but just in case, when I needed a well drilled in the mid-1980's I called a local Ojibway man, for his dowsing services. He paced around with two L-shaped rods held in front of him, and after some time, claimed to have found the intersection point of two underground streams. He marked the spot, I thanked him, and asked what I owed him, but he refused to accept payment. He said that if he charged for doing it, it would contaminate the gift that the Great Spirit had given him, and it would be taken from him. The well-driller hit water at 80 feet, and it rose in the well to within 20 feet of the surface. The water was cold and clean, and the well always produced 5 gallons per minute even in dry summers.

As Hamlet said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Colin Wilson, a British writer on the paranormal, devotes a chapter in one of his books to the subject of the I Ching - the ancient Chinese system of divination. He said that he was struck by the odd appropriateness of the answers he received when consulting the I Ching. One time, as a test, he asked the same question twice, expecting this to prove that the results were random, and he was just reading meaning into them. The hexagram that came up on the second asking of the same question read something to the effect that, "The oracle turns its back to those who are triflers."

Uh, they're all triflers! How could we be any less?

I do believe your previous story however.

unfortunately, you didnt test whether there was water at another location 20 feet away. it could have even been a better source.

I stated the fact that a good well was drilled at the dowser's indicated location, and I thanked the dowser for his help. I make no assertion of belief in dowsing. I do however, believe in the truth of Hamlet's words, which I quoted in my post.

Several times I have used 2 L shaped pieces of coat hanger to find a void underground like a drain pipe. When you walk over a void in the ground, holding them slightly forward, they will come together when you find a void.

Color me skeptical.

Dowsing for water seems to be a popular use for this technique. In those instances where the dowser found water, did anyone try digging a well elsewhere to prove that this was the 'best' location for a well? (No one would because they got what they wanted already.)

Who has ever heard where a dowser indicated a desired outcome, but then the water/object/etc. was not found? Stories of failure do not typically become etched in lore.

Now, in the interest in fairness, if someone could show me a physical measurement, such as the gravitational field is stronger/weaker where the water table is closer to the surface, I might be able to be convinced.

look at my comment Sir Robin

I did. I'm still skeptical. Are there any peer-reviewed papers on quantum DMI (Direct Matter Indicator)? Or is it trade secret? I get the ground penetrating radar, electro-resonance to find ferro-magnetic materials in concrete, but I must admit I'm still unsure about the finding of aquifers, oil/gas in the earth. Does Direct Matter Indication use some background radiation, neutrinos or some other emission from the earth's core?

Every substance has its own unique electro-magnetic resonant frequency determined by electrospectrophotomoter. QDMI used the earths natural semi stable electromagnetic field and it measures the change in capacitance in micro electron volts caused by the target substance distorting the field as it passes through it.

Since when is capacitance measured in units of electron volts?

Hmmmmm . . . . individually, I know what all those words mean. Put them together in that arrangement leaves me with more questions than answers.

It doesn't help that the company has blocked your domain, so I will have to wait until I get home to view your company's web site.

Given that I am an electrical engineer, I understand instrumentation, but I don't have very much background in geology. Given the size of the earth, I would expect you would have to be integrating data at ELF and below.

When you get to the site, it reads like a buzzword bingo card. http://integrative-tech.com/en/

The bottom picture resembles iron pyrite. Maybe they've found the mother lode load.

I think if it does work at all, it's an unconscious reaction of the dowser who is reacting to clues like soil color or vegetation. The forked stick or 'L' shaped rods amplify small movements of the hands, making the dowser feel like the stick or rods are moving on their own.

Another factor is selective memory. It's much easier to remember when, by chance, it was successful and forget or rationalize the times when it was not.

I once had a coworker engineer who was either a real believer, or he was having some fun with the rest of us. I couldn't tell which.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17532-why-dowsing-makes-perfect-sense/

Try it yourself. Take 2 pieces of coat hanger bent into an L shape and hold them loosely in your hands and walk around where you might find drainage pipes buried. The force is unmistakable. It feels like a magnetic force pulling both rods towards the center when you walk over a void in the ground. I never felt it was finding water though, just a void in the ground.

Dowsing is a scam just like rainmaker...

https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/how-do-hydrologists-locate-groundwater?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

Dowsing is NOT a scam. This article represents technology which is 20 years out of date, please see my comment earlier. A base hydro/geological-logical assessment is mandatory before any exploration.

I have a mixed opinion. I don't see at all how a Y-shaped branch or two L-shaped rods can reliably divine what is underground. On the other hand, I do see the wielder of the branch or rods may subconsciously absorb the details of terrain and type of plant growth to identify a likely spot to drill.

the wood y-shaped branch I know nothing about. the rods I have used were welding rods. and I have actually seen a guy have a set of commercial rods that had rubber bicycle handles and extendable rods (radio antenna) and they swiveled at the handle.

the rods are held in front of you and they cross perpendicular to the direction you are walking. you would do this from the other direction (180 degree) to confirm the location.

Is this an excerpt from your memoirs?

In future installments I will recount my arduous path back to that lost state of grace, to finally take the willow branch back into my hands, and drink deeply the living waters from the well of the Great Spirit. A powerful story of loss and recovery, exclusive to CR4 subscribers.

Here is my 2.2c worth with added GST.

#1 When I had a dam dug the dozer found a stream of water but it was brackish, not too bad but we decided to seal the stream off from the dam and he brought in a D4 to dig the stream out while the D7 piled up the clay for filling. The hole he ended up with almost hid the D4. The dam was sealed and held water.

#2 Same story on a second dam but his one would have leaked into the stream, same outcome so I knew there were two streams on the property.

We knew three dousers who were reputed to be good so as a test I took them for a walk around the yard and none found the streams but I took them for a walk across the land in a different direction and none found the known streams.

They went and divined for a neighbour and found a spot where they said water flowed free. He invested a bucket full of money and came up with granite, no water but moist clay and they drilled down a very long way.

They has doused a couple of spots in our yard but after this debacle we declined to throw good money away.

When I told them of the streams it was "Oh you're an unbeliever and stopped it from working".

So from my perspective they failed. Having worked in open cut mines, often streams were found but they may only be a meter wide and deep in the rock face so good luck finding them down 150m and at $100 per metre to drill, hope you have a good wallet and believe in fairy tales.

Not a daydream believer.

I grew up on a raised area. In Kansas, we call it a hill, other's wouldn't. My grandpa homesteaded the place and he always said the well was witched (dowsed). Being in a Bible thumping area, it wasn't talked about much, but a few others admitted to finding water the same way. Late 1800's to very early 1900's. It could have been a joke he took to the grave, but how else would they find water back then?

Does it work? Who am I to say. I don't say this often; I don't believe science has found everything there is to know about the universe yet. Perhaps there is some force we don't know about yet and therefore can not measure.

used them on underground transmission pipelines and compared to an actual pipe locator and I can say they DO work. at least for this. I was skeptical but am now a believer.

any pipe put in the ground creates an electrical current (which is why cathodic protection is necessary in certain parts of the US.), so maybe this has something to do with it?

Ok, I am not answering from my engineering background. I don't have one.

I am answering from my other life experience. It will not help btw.

Belief has power. Belief is a measurable force. (placebo effect)

There are many things in nature we do not yet perceive or understand. The Shakespeare quote is already in play.

In my 60 years I have witnessed things I have no explanation for.

I don't believe we are sufficiently advanced to understand it if it does work.

It does appear just as magical as a camera did 200 years ago.

I remember seeing something on TV about dowsing rods as a kid (possibly a this old house episode or something like that) I of course went out and found a Y shaped branch and tried it. It did move up and down as I walked but I can't say I believed it was telling me anything.

One thing that convinced me that dowsing rods were likely bunk was another simple kid type science experiment (possibly on mr wizards world) you can all give a try if you want.

Hold small a weight on a string a foot or so long in your fingers of an outstretched arm. Intentionally make this pendulum rock back and forth a little and keep it going. Now just watch it rocking and picture it moving in a circle, don't try to make it do it, just picture it. You can also picture which direction it is moving or go back to moving in a pendulum motion or up down vs left right.

For me, picturing the pendulum moving in said direction would cause it to move in said direction after a short while. To me that was the proof in the pudding that dowsing rods worked on the same principle.

Dowsing has been used by many a Public Works Director I have worked with to locate PVC water mains that do not have tracing wire. And in 100 percent of the cases, they were not even close.

My experience with dowsing as a legitmate means to locate buried water main has been disasterous.

Thank you so much for providing the link to that article.

I feel so much better after battling the "spirits" for so long.

James Randi and his ilk could debunk many things, to the complete satisfaction of those who smugly contend that existence contains no mysteries. Some phenomena are resistant to probing. I read that there is still uncertainty about exactly how a cat purrs. The problem for scientists is that when they try to stick a probe down the throat of a purring cat, the cat stops purring. The problem of the purring cat is similar to the problem of the paranormal.

We have all experienced what Carl Jung called "synchronicities", that is, meaningful coincidences. A typical experience: You happen to be thinking of someone you haven't talked to in ten years. A moment later the phone rings, and it's that person. Coincidence? Or is something else going on?

James Randi would say, "Okay, write on a slip of paper the name of someone you haven't talked to in ten years, and we'll sit here and wait for the phone to ring." All the sceptics laugh, "Ho, ho, ho." when the phone remains silent. But maybe things don't work that way. Maybe, as the I Ching bluntly told Colin Wilson (in #2) when he tried to make a mockery of it, "The oracle turns its back on those who are triflers."

..."Purring involves the rapid movement of the muscles of the larynx (voice box), combined with movement of the diaphragm (the muscle at the base of the chest cavity). The muscles move at around 20 to 30 times per second. As the cat breathes, air touches the vibrating muscles, producing a purr."...

https://www.purina.com.au/en/Cats/Behaviour/Purring#.Xh6gSshKiUk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purr

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17532-why-dowsing-makes-perfect-sense/

Once we have a viable theory, it must be disproven or accepted as current belief...

One possible theory would be Panpsychism, a theory that proposes that consciousness is pervasive throughout the universe, and all matter has some form of consciousness...If this has some truth to it, that would enable some form of communication between man and matter, that could explain the possibility of knowing things with no apparent means at hand other than holding some tree branch or other focal point of concentration enabling mechanism...granted this would be difficult to prove at this time, unless somebody could perform these feats with 100% reliability, which does seem to be missing...then again I guess one could argue that there exists certain forms of disruption that muddy the waters of transcendental communication with objects, or even a possibility that some matter is deceptive in nature, sure why not... are we so naive that we believe all matter speaks the truth?? What precedence do we have? I do have a close relationship with my car and can usually tell if it's happy and running in balance, but I wouldn't be so surprised if something failed, maybe the parts are just not smart enough to know what's going on....I would like to start a divining service, I'm just not confidant I could hold a straight face when taking the money...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-consciousness-pervade-the-universe/

My dad taught me to dowse when I was a kid. I can't tell you how it works, I just know I can use it with some success. I learned to find water, and if the water is moving it is easier to find. I think it might have something to do with charge and how my body relates and or interacts with that charge.

Doing it is rather easy with some practice. Explaining it? not so much. What I do know is that in Saskatchewan where my dad grew up, nobody dug a well that wasn't dowsed even if a geologist was used as well to get a good guess of where the water lay. In many cases, according to dad, the dowsers were right where the geologists were not.

I didn't until I saw my neighbors hunt for and find not just one, but TWO separate septic tanks at their house they bought. and the lines to the leach bed from them.

I doubt that that happened. Instead, I imagine they went to city hall and got some drawings.

Nope, this was 40 years ago, its a rural area and there was no city water or sewage....there was never any problems since they bought the house and this information wasn't one the paperwork. Like I said, I saw another neighbor do it who lived there even less. Never saw it before or since.

Why didn't they stop after finding one (as would be usual)? And then why did they stop after two, rather than going for 3, 4, etc.?

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, especially over the septic tank.

Thank you for an excellent question. There is of course a scientific reason why dousing works/dosnt work and HAS merit. I am a scientist and an engineer and have been successful in detecting and accurately identifying steel in concrete in over 3000 cases using electo magnetic resonance and ground penetrating radar.

Using traditional/classical dousing techniques Y willow branch, Two right angled welding rods and a 2l coke bottle filled with water many years before, I correctly and successfully, located a position on my property which became a successful borehole with spectacular results. The technique cannot tell you how deep the water is, nor its quality or the thickness of the aquifer but it is a physical manifestation of electromagnetic resonance and the distortion of the earths natural pulsing electro magnetic field.

I represent a Canadian Company (ITI,Inc) which is a world leader in accurately detecting and identifying depth, quality and volume of any natural resource from water to oil to gold etc. using our Quantum Direct Matter Indicator (DMI) technology which is based on ultra sensitive long range sensing and Quantum Geoelectrophysics (QGEP). Our biggest success was accurately predicting and finding 100l/sec pure water in Monterrey Mexico at 300m below 5 other aquifers (some of which were polluted) where ALL the countries and corporate hydrologists categorically stated that there was none. Other studies in over 600 projects around the world have confirmed that our technology and methodology (IEM) is very accurate, yielding predictable results.

Hope this clears up the issue. Luddite hydrologists and geologists have to drill a hole to verify what they think they might find, where as we know what we will find every m of the way.

" The technique cannot tell you how deep the water is, nor its quality or the thickness of the aquifer"

Then the dowsers you have seen have not started to stamp their foot, right or left, and when they stop stamping that is how deep the water is?

Or they put salt in one hand and water in the other and tell you whether the stream is salty or clear.

Or they put a coin on the tongue and come up with the mineralisation of the stream.

Shucks you have been hanging around the wrong dowsers.

Now here is something for you to ponder. An old bushman told me to walk over a field at night and when you find a spot with colder air there is water below. I could be just a low point where the colder air gathers though and I am not prepared to drill to find out one way or the other.

We have a bore on the farm and it is where I would put a hole for water. It is at the head of two gullies which go in different directions and has water. There are also several other bores all dry that may have been dowsed that were put down by a previous owner who had his own percussion rig. Maybe he was just bored or had Meccano when he was a kid and wanted the farm to have holes in it.

Hi Stef sorry about your terrible drought.

How big is your farm if i may ask?

A Google kmz file of boundary co-ordinates would help.

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I think dowsing is useless for finding anything of value, but is perfect for finding gullible persons.

My grandfather was often called upon to dowse for a well and he used a Y branch from an apple tree. He was considered the man to go to for this activity. My father his oldest son was not as skilled.

I got involved with a group that used dowsing and made up some L shaped dowsing rods the short end of the L I slipped some light steel tubing over then bent the last 1/2 inch 90 degree to keep the tubes in place the tubes allowed a good grip and long section could swing about easily.

My oldest son (engineering graduate) was boo hooing my rods and playing about in the yard while I was making supper when he announced that they did not work so I went out side to see what caused this proclamation and he was showing me that at a certain place where in his words there was nothing the rods always faced away from each other. I laughed and stated that he was standing on the exact location for the underground power wire for my business outdoor sign. No matter how he crossed the location the rods swung, not that this proves much but he could not give any other explanation. I have seen this done many times in industry when an underground electrical cables had to be located and there were no record of the location. Any way a good story.

I worked at a large Military installation where the records for the water shutoffs for all of the residential housing were lost. Over a period of 70 plus years the contractors were very creative in where they put these cut offs. In many cases no one was checking up where the cutoffs were installed. I worked with the village plumber to locate All shutoffs . We had to locate, put a designation physically on the buildings, enter in the log where each shutoff was located. Management had an emence problem that surfaced the year that the maintenance company took over when a bathroom sink was leaned on and the sink came off the wall and sheared off the water valve under the sink. 70 plus pounds water pressure and 30 plus minutes later flooded the middle C unit in a 5 plex from the second floor all the way down to the basement and the B and D units because the emergency crew could not find the shutoff in front of the building. Ed said there was an easy way, But he did not tell management. Ed took 2 pieces of bare 12 gauge wire about 18 inches long. He made a bend 90 degrees with 6 inches on the down and 12 inches on the long. We made a fist in each hand with just enough of an opening to insert the small end into the loose fist of each hand. I Went in front of the building between the main water feed and walked across the yard until the 2 12 inch wires in our hands crossed. Then we went back to the building and knew exactly where to look and Wow we found them all. There were a large number of buildings.I was amazed. Ed says ok watch this. We walked out to the main road from the side street and Ed says now walk over here I think this is the 6 or 8 inch main should be. As I got to the main the 2 wires did not cross, they went the opposite way. The left wire was pointing to the left and the right wire was pointing to the right. Ed said he did not know why. Years before he was working in a nearby city and up the street were a bunch of city water department trucks, backhoes, workers, and of course management. Ed knew one of the plumbers and went down to see what they were doing. The water department had a huge leak in the area and all of their technicians with their Very expensive test equipment could not pin down the location. Ed said just a minute and went back to his truck and came back with 2 wires. All these people looked at and watched as he walked along and the wires reacted to the water leak below the surface. The backhoe operator was told to dig. They found the old wooden pipe that had fed the neighborhood was cracked and gushing out gallons of water a second. Unbeknown to Ed the head of the department was standing near Ed and the crew when the broken pipe was dug up. He turned to Ed and thanked him. He said to the foreman that they had spent some $20,000 plus on all this test gear and he could have just bought them a 250 foot roll of ground wire for less than $50.00.

The Real Snake oil is what passes for Modern Engineering and Science which is little more than dogma and repetition of a lot of things that have both never been proven and are starting to break down in colossal fashion.

Dowsing is a real Science that also involves Human Sensitivity to Subtle Energy fields. Its the real thing while most of so called science is rooted in dogma and is in fact a religion.

Wow. Talk about chutzpah. Could you please tell me how that device you are reading and typing into was produced by dowsing?

90 percent of our universe is a missing.Only around 10% of baryonic matter and energy can be seen or directly measured.

To say that there are not any unknown energies at work is just egocentric anthropological hubris.Nature is not wasteful..everything has a purpose.

I have seen much that science cannot explain,and rejects anything that cannot be demonstrated repeatedly in the lab on command.

I remember reading about a man that could find the location of an underground oil reservoir.He must have been very good,because the oil companies paid him large sums to fly oven an area,and mark productive locations on a map.

A scientist in England decided to prove or disprove dowsing,so he solicited for dowsers to take his test.He had created a grid with infrared,and told the dowsers to tell when they found water.About 10percent were successful in finding the spots he had radiated with infrared.

He then covered the entire area with lead sheeting and took told the successful ones to try again.

None of them detected anything.

His theory is that some people are more sensitive to infrared than others,and that underground water cast a "shadow" on the surface,which was interpreted as water below.

Perhaps a super-sensitive infrared or magnetic detector could do the same thing?

I remember going into the local country store when I worked on the farm at lunch time to get a snack,and I could "feel" the 100 watt incandescent bulb above the counter on my face and back of my neck.If someone walked between me and the bulb I could tell by the heat on the back of my neck without looking around.

Your anecdote also agrees with dowsing results being purely random events.

On the quantum level, an observation changes the outcome of the experiment;double slit,Schrodinger's cat,etc.

The answer may well lie in the quantum domain.

The consciousness is now considered to work on a quantum level,so how can we intelligently exclude anything that we do not understand because we cannot measure it........yet.?

"Vain.Vain. All is vain."King Salomon.(970 to 931 BC)

Except that I did help a neighbor try and find a septic tank drain to the leachbed ..we had dug a LOT of holes equally paced across the yard...with no luck...antill another neighbor comes does this divining thing...first try found the pipe...AND a second septic tank nobody new about. Two hits BOTH proved real on a property 100 feet wide.

Never witnessed anyone else do that before or since. Believe what you want...this is something I witnessed personally.