The Dowsing Phenomenon: Beliefs, Biases, and Scientific Studies

[rashore]

Quote

For centuries, people in various parts of the world have claimed to possess a unique skill that allows them to locate the presence of water below ground. At least as early as the 1500s, miners in the high Harz mountains of northern Germany near Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia were known to have used forked hazel rods to detect where copper and other metals could be successfully mined. Accounts of such practices appeared in 1556 in the writings of the early mineralogist Georgius Agricola.

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2021/07/the-dowsing-phenomenon-beliefs-biases-and-scientific-studies/

 

[Buzz_Light_Year]

Yeah I can do it. Don't ask me how because it just works and freaks me out just about every time.

[papageorge1]

I have heard some very interesting things about dowsing. My takeaway: it probably does involve elements not yet understood by science.

[+ouija ouija]

I bought some dowsing rods years ago and never used them. I think I'll get them out and give them a go!

[Bendy Demon]

Problem is that it is hard to differentiate between coincidence, blind luck and wishful and/or delusional thinking.

I mean it sounds all nice and supposedly plausible but on the other hand I have yet to see any actual, certifiable evidence that holding sticks, rods or using a rock at the end of a string does anything.

[+OverSword]

I myself dowsed a well for a man I worked for as a teenager.  It worked, he drilled installed a pump and had fresh water for the new home he was building.  The property was within a mile of a river in a forested area, so I'm going to guess that he could have tapped that water source anywhere on his property.  I don't know that for sure because where he dug the well was where the dowsing tool (stick shaped like a Y) pointed down at a spot where my steps intersected.  Maybe if he had dug somewhere else he wouldn't have hit water or would have had to drill deeper?

[Buzz_Light_Year]

13 hours ago, OverSword said:

I myself dowsed a well for a man I worked for as a teenager.  It worked, he drilled installed a pump and had fresh water for the new home he was building.  The property was within a mile of a river in a forested area, so I'm going to guess that he could have tapped that water source anywhere on his property.  I don't know that for sure because where he dug the well was where the dowsing tool (stick shaped like a Y) pointed down at a spot where my steps intersected.  Maybe if he had dug somewhere else he wouldn't have hit water or would have had to drill deeper?

That's not always the rule. Along our road we have a neighbor 1/4 mile to the north on the east side of the road that never had a good well while we on the west side had a well that couldn't be pumped dry and just 30 feet away we had another well that went dry every summer. A 1/4 mile to the south on the same side of the road as our place that neighbor didn't have a good well while 500 yards down the road on the east side they had a very good well and the property just across the road from them had to haul water every summer and they had a pond in their front yard.

The topology of the area is basically we live on a flat hill about a mile long and and 1/2 mile wide surrounded by creek bottoms on all sides.

In the early 70's I helped a neighbor hand dig a well and at about 15 feet down the bottom, not the sides, of the well collapsed into sandy water layer and we almost lost him if it hadn't been for the rope attached to the bucket for removing dirt.

That old saying "Colder than a Well Diggers Ass" is True.

 

[Tatetopa]

I saw an excavating contractor use two bent clothes hangers to find  the water main and buried cable in the front yard.  He was spot on both times.  Could have been luck, but it sure looked impressive.

[psyche101]

It doesn't work when put to the test.

I put up a video of Richard Dawkins performing a note than fair experiment with people who claim to be genuine dowsers.

When they failed, he asked them for their own opinion as to why it failed.

The answers were very interesting, but it seems to have been removed. 

Is that because there is an influence in this thread who feels real tests should not be shown? Only anecdotes should be discussed?

That does not seem fair or a  balanced discussion at all to me.

Why exactly was it removed? 

[+ouija ouija]

On 7/24/2021 at 10:47 AM, ouija ouija said:

I bought some dowsing rods years ago and never used them. I think I'll get them out and give them a go!

Disappointing result . I realised that I only had to tilt my hands the tiniest amount and the rods would swing wildly about . . . . impossible to keep hands perfectly still whilst walking about. I don't know how it would be possible to differentiate between that movement and an indication of a water source.

[Silver]

On 8/9/2021 at 9:56 AM, ouija ouija said:

Disappointing result . I realised that I only had to tilt my hands the tiniest amount and the rods would swing wildly about . . . . impossible to keep hands perfectly still whilst walking about. I don't know how it would be possible to differentiate between that movement and an indication of a water source.

Dowsing has been debunked. It is hokum. But if people want to believe it works, all power to them.