Can dowsing rods detect water and other underground objects?

[Ivan Seeking]

Bill Martin doesn't look like your typical witch.

He's a fourth-generation well-digger, a ballcap-wearing, churchgoing 72-year-old who's still active in the family firm.

He's a practical man. He uses all the tools available to him, including one natural and ancient water-finding method some say reaches clear back to Moses.

Martin is, depending on where you were raised, a "water witch," a "peacher," a "dowser" or a "diviner." Using only a forked tree twig or a couple of metal rods grasped in his callused hands, the Penn Township man detects water flowing deep underground. For 40 years, he's found unmarked graves, unmapped gas and power lines, and forgotten mines this way.[continued]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04035/268864.stm

This is a funny issue for me. My dad - now 70 - does not believe in ghosts, UFOs, ET of any kind, ESP, or anything else "supernatural", however years ago he used dowsing to find power lines and water pipes on a fairly regular basis. He never realized that this isn't supposed to work. He was quite incredulous when I explained that this is considered nonsense by most scientists. It usually worked well for him and for the salt of the Earth uncle who showed him how to do it. They have both used this to solve real, everyday problems in a professional setting. He also showed me how to do it but I have never tested my own skills.

My best guess: I saw a science program about a study of this. High speed video shows that dowsers react before the rods - the muscles in the arm can be seen to flex before the dowsing rod responds. In other words, the dowser causes the action of the dowsing rod, not the water or power lines. At a glance this implies that dowsing is a bogus skill, but I think this relates to some primitive, natural ability within us to find water. It seems to me that the dowsing rods only act as motion amplifiers that alert us to our own subtle reactions.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking He never realized that this isn't supposed to work. He was quite incredulous when I explained that this is considered nonsense by most scientists.

This is a very cool story.
You ought to write an article or pamphlet on how to dowse relating what he taught you.

 

[dlgoff]

And what's funny, they're still in use.

A few years ago I watch a City of Topeka Kansas employ use a stanless steel rod with a ball bearing handle find and mark waterlines.

What the heck?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think dlgoff provides evidence of my point. The dowsing mechanism is rather unimportant, but the technique is widely used with much success. I am told that one of the best water locators around here uses dowsing also. I have seen on TV that one of the best people in Texas for finding water uses dowsing. They claimed that his hit rate meets or exceeds anyone else's in the area. The video footage that I saw - the experiment that shows the muscles acting first - did in fact yield success rates far beyond random chance. The fact that his muscles were seen flexing first was used to argue the experiment as invalid.

The technique is very simple. My dad used two pieces of wire fashioned from clothes hangers. Each wire should be straight and about 18" in length, with another six inches bent at a 45 degree angle as a handle. All of the approaches to this that I have seen indicate that ease of movement of the rods is the key [hence the ball bearing in dlgoff's example]. The rods much be held level with the long portions pointing directly forward and able to cross each other; and they must be able to rotate within your hands with even the slightest perturbation. In effect they are held in a state of unstable equilibrium. Then, just walk slowly while trying to keep your hands steady and even. When the wires "insist" on crossing, mark the spot and continue. Again though, I never have gotten serious about testing this myself. Knowing my dad I have little to no doubt that it works...at least for some people. I don't know if everyone is supposed to be able to do this. I suspect not.


btw dlgoff, did you see the guy who does this while driving in his truck? I think this is the same person.

Edit: I hadn't noticed that you live in Kansas. Did you see him in person or on TV? Maybe the ball bearing assembly is the option of choice now.

 

[master_coda]

Just a couple points:

1. Dowsing is a relatively easy ability to test scientifically. And so far no dowser in a double-blind test has performed better than random chance.

2. Dowsing success rates are very misleading, since many of the things dowsers look for are very easy to find. In areas with underground water, you can dig almost anywhere and hit water.
Moreover, if ones job involves finding power lines and water pipes, you'll have quite a bit of success at just guessing the location. It isn't like those things are just laid out randomly.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by master_coda
Just a couple points:

1. Dowsing is a relatively easy ability to test scientifically. And so far no dowser in a double-blind test has performed better than random chance.

One would think. However, I already cited one example of a study that yielded success but was ignored; this because it was assumed that since the dowser caused the action of the rods, the test was fixed.

2. Dowsing success rates are very misleading, since many of the things dowsers look for are very easy to find. In areas with underground water, you can dig almost anywhere and hit water.
Moreover, if ones job involves finding power lines and water pipes, you'll have quite a bit of success at just guessing the location. It isn't like those things are just laid out randomly.

I don't agree with this point. I live in rainy and wet Oregon and people commonly hit dry wells here. This is a big concern to anyone who builds in an undeveloped area.

Here I am in the rare position of arguing for a claim based on personal observations. I can only give the following to defend my position. First, my dad is not prone to fanciful notions. Honestly, he is the last person to buy into fringe topics, or even anything beyond Newtonian Physics...heck, he still doesn't buy into Relativity; it’s just too weird. He merely assumed that some logical explanation must exist. Next, this "skill" is widely practiced by people in the water business. I suggest that decades of experience may count for more than a few possibly flawed experiments. Next, since we don't know how this might work, how do we know that we gave fair tests? Perhaps some factors not recognized affected the tests. Perhaps "test anxiety" could have affected the ability of the dowser to focus. It happens in college, why not real life?

I don’t know I can only guess… I do know that many very practical people use this as a tool in their jobs. This goes beyond the classification of a fringe claim for me. In this situation, when one depends on success in order to put food on the table, a person does not continue to use failed techniques. If it doesn't work people simply wouldn't use it. While the dowser is out walking around and looking like a fool with their rods, sticks, or wires, the scientifically knowledgeable person should be able to steal the account every time based on their success rates. Since this doesn’t happen I must assume that dowsing works.

 

[dlgoff]

Edit: I hadn't noticed that you live in Kansas. Did you see him in person or on TV? Maybe the ball bearing assembly is the option of choice now.

I was right there on the sidewalk watching him walk and paint the ground. I could see how the device worked. The handle was wood, I think, and from the ease of movement of the rod I probably assumed ball bearings. However I was close enough to see what appeared to be a bearing in this handle.

 

[master_coda]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
I can only give the following to defend my position. First, my dad is not prone to fanciful notions. Honestly, he is the last person to buy into fringe topics, or even anything beyond Newtonian Physics...heck, he still doesn't buy into Relativity; it’s just too weird.

This doesn't inspire confidence to me. I would trust the judgement of someone who evaluates claims based on evidence, not whether or not they seem "weird".


Besides, my point wasn't that dowsing fails, my point was that it works no better than random chance. If dowsing were actually less successful than random chance, that would actually be surprising.


As for the test anxiety...that's a cop out. That's the same as a fortune teller who claims his/her ability is negated by the presence of skeptical people.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by master_coda
This doesn't inspire confidence to me. I would trust the judgement of someone who evaluates claims based on evidence, not whether or not they seem "weird".

LOL, now you are into a long term father son debate; about the evidence supporting GR and SR. The point was his refusal to accept extreme ideas and fanciful tales.

Besides, my point wasn't that dowsing fails, my point was that it works no better than random chance. If dowsing were actually less successful than random chance, that would actually be surprising.

I don't think this is true if done by a "talented" practicioner, however your position is completely reasonable and mine is not based on science. What can I say? I became convinced by observation and by knowing who uses this.

As for the test anxiety...that's a cop out. That's the same as a fortune teller who claims his/her ability is negated by the presence of skeptical people.

In many cases I would agree, but in this case I think your objections may not apply. I don't know how else to explain both that observed, and the typical scientific opinion of this "art form". Also, test anxiety does exist in a very real way. To completely ignore this possibility I think is a cop out. It is possible for anxiety to affect tests and I can prove it.

 

[master_coda]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
In many cases I would agree, but in this case I think your objections may not apply. I don't know how else to explain both that observed, and the typical scientific opinion of this "art form". Also, test anxiety does exist in a very real way. To completely ignore this possibility I think is a cop out. It is possible for anxiety to affect tests and I can prove it.

Well, I don't deny that test anixety exists. And if I usually try to help people who have problems writing tests. But I still don't consider it to be a valid excuse for failure.

Lets say I'm given two people, one who failed for lack of effort, and one who failed because of an inability to perform under pressure. I would be more willing to try and help the person who made the effort, but I wouldn't consider their failure to be any less of a failure.

What I'm trying to say is that test anxiety is a reason to practice and try again. It isn't a reason to discard previous results.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This issue or potential test anxiety, or the inability to perform while being scrutinized could be very significant to a number of paranormal claims. If we don't accept this possibility then we effectively ignore the spirit of Heisenberg.

Many alleged "skills" or "abilities" may require extreme and unimpeded concentration. If any interference with this concentration can affect the results then this must be factored in. The difference between your example and mine is that people make a living doing by this in a success dependant environment. The results are seen in the real world everyday.

Let’s turn this around. Are you saying that we can conclude that a student who fails due to test anxiety did not know the material?

 

[master_coda]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
Let’s turn this around. Are you saying that we can conclude that a student who fails due to test anxiety did not know the material?

That's a tricky question to answer. In order for me to know a student has test anxiety, I need to already know that they understand the materials.

For example, if I give a student a rigorous calculus test (which doesn't count for marks) and they perform well, but then they subsequently fail a midterm, that is an indication to me that the student has test anxiety. They know the material but are unable to perform under real pressure.

On the other hand, if a student I know nothing about fails a midterm and then claims it is test anxiety, I would still conclude that the student not knowing the material is the best explanation. Until I'm given evidence that the student does know the material, I can't conclude that test anxiety is anything more than an excuse.

And that evidence would have to be significant. For example, if the student brought me an assignment they completed with good marks, I would consider that to be weak evidence at best...enough to warrant further consideration, but not enought to change my opinion. Even weaker evidence would be classmates telling me that the student did know the material.


Test anxiety is an explanation for failure. But given no other information, the best explanation is still lack of ability. An ability which always fails under any kind of rigorous testing is not an ability. Furthurmore, it is the responsability of the subject to work around this problem, not the testers.

Note: "Avoid testing" is not a valid workaround. I'll accept paranormal abilities without testing after you convince my profs to pass me without testing.


PS. Obviously, if you aren't interested in scientific testing of any kind then this isn't a problem. It's just that you can't expect an ability to be accepted within any scientific context if it can't pass such tests.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by master_coda
Test anxiety is an explanation for failure. But given no other information, the best explanation is still lack of ability. An ability which always fails under any kind of rigorous testing is not an ability. Furthurmore, it is the responsability of the subject to work around this problem, not the testers.

You keep missing one of my essential points: This does pass in real applications. This is what bothers me about the negative scientific results. Also, I have serious doubts about the amount of testing done on this issue. We need many, many trials in order to compare the results to random chance.

Note: "Avoid testing" is not a valid workaround. I'll accept paranormal abilities without testing after you convince my profs to pass me without testing.


PS. Obviously, if you aren't interested in scientific testing of any kind then this isn't a problem. It's just that you can't expect an ability to be accepted within any scientific context if it can't pass such tests.

Ah, but you concede defeat too quickly. Maybe we just need smarter tests. You assume without any good reason that the tests done were fair and reasonable.

I refer you to the "UK man foils ghost" thread as a possible example of the scientific community jumping on the easy explanation. Like Zooby, it seemed to me that this guy was virtually irrefutable, but I just didn't buy his explanation. Now it appears that his position is not so safe as it first seemed.

 

[master_coda]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
You keep missing one of my essential points: This does pass in real applications. This is what bothers me about the negative scientific results. Also, I have serious doubts about the amount of testing done on this issue. We need many, many trials in order to compare the results to random chance.

If you take someone's home remedy for a cold, you'll probably get over the cold in a few days. That hardly proves the remedy helped with the cold, yet it seems that the remedy works in a real application.

You can always say that you feel we need more tests. But that leads to another problem. If we tested a dowser today, would you expect the statistical significance of the test to be determined just on the basis of todays test? If we perform a large number of tests, eventually dowsing will perform significantly better than chance in some of the tests.


As for having "smarter tests", how would one go about conducting them? Usually people asking for a "fair test" are actually asking for an "easy test". I'm not saying that unfair tests don't happen, but most people refuse to accept that a test is fairer unless they get a better mark. If a "fairer" test was conducted and dowsing did not perform better, would you conclude that we have evidence that dowsing does not work, or would you conclude that we have evidence that the test is unfair?


Besides, I don't claim that the scientific position is irrefutable. If it were, it would hardly be scientific. It's just that there isn't really any scientific evidence that supports dowsing. Not only that, systematic testing error is also a scientific claim, one that doesn't have any evidential support right now either.

Also, I would assume that the tests are fair if both the dowsers and the scientists (ones who don't believe in dowsing) agreed the test was fair before the test was conducted. This is only a heuristic, and to make a final decision I would have to review the tests individually, but it generally works pretty well. Indeed, the dowsers have something of an advantage over me...I don't get to see my tests before I take them.

 

[FZ+]

I have heard of a semi-plausible "explanation" for dowsing, based one charges and stuff in the rods. I'm rather neutral on the whole thing, since there is very little as far as I can tell in terms of studies into - so long as dowsers don't come to me spouting new-age mumbo-jumbo, I'm happy to ask for further tests, especially to determine a mechanism.

As to test anxiety, I agree that it is a real possibility. But it is no crutch - if test anxiety is so omnipresent - and in most cases, this would be rather unreasonable, then dowsing cannot be considered to be scientifically valid. The dowser, given practice, should experience no more test anxiety than in the testing environment of his own occupation.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think I have pretty well elucidated my position: To some extent I think dowsing must really work. I also think science must play a role if one is to accept this "art form" as valid, but I question whether or not that role has been effective as yet. I will ponder this a little more and I may say more later.

One adder: I talked with my dad today and told him that he is a source of irritation for scientists all over the world.

I asked him how often this actually passed and failed. He said that he HAD to completely rely on this about 6 times and that it worked every time. On one occasion it was necessary to cut a trench in someone's patio based on the results of his dowsing. The pipe was just where the dowsing had indicated. He insists that he was previously clueless as to the location of the pipe. Note also that he was helping a neighbor who was paying for all of this...now that's confidence!

He also passed on his own thoughts about a potential mechanism. First I told him about the experiment that showed the dowser's muscles flexing before the action of the rods is seen. I then explained my guess as to a mechanism to explain these results. He guesses that we might be sensing minor perturbations in the local magnetic field.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
He guesses that we might be sensing minor perturbations in the local magnetic field.

Any time a trench was dug to lay a pipe or utility line it would certainly disrupt the alignment of the ferrites in the soil with the Earth's magnetic field. In this case, at least, there is an authentic disturbance to be senced. (I'm not sure if an underground spring would have any effect on the magnetic orientation of the particles of ferrites in the soil above it, or the Earth's magnetic field in general.)

The question to be explored is whether or not the human body can actually sense magnetic fields and also distinguish between oriented and disorganized fields.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm not sure about this, but it seems that somewhere I have read that humans may be able to sense magnetic fields. Clearly this ability does exist in nature so the possibility of such seemed reasonable. Also, at least in the case of my father and uncle, I would imagine that all applications involved buried pipes. This may be significant. A steel pipe will definitely affect local fields. Whether or not such a perturbation could be sensed by any animal is anyone's guess... In either case its pure speculation but it seemed worth mentioning.

 

[skywise]

I read awhile back a small blurb in some science magazine about a group of scientists at MIT, I think it was, working on a theory that consciousness was the electromagnetic field of the brain. Aparently everyone's is unique.. Like a fingerprint. I don't know amything beyond that. Have any of you heard of this?

It seems to me that if this could be so determined, it would have rather far reaching ramifications regarding all sorts of areas like dowsing and other psychic or metaphysical matters.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by skywise
I read awhile back a small blurb in some science magazine about a group of scientists at MIT, I think it was, working on a theory that consciousness was the electromagnetic field of the brain.

This is the 64⁶⁴⁰⁰⁰⁰ dollar question: how does the action of neurons lead to the phenomenon of consciousness?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
Also, at least in the case of my father and uncle, I would imagine that all applications involved buried pipes. This may be significant. A steel pipe will definitely affect local fields.

A steel pipe would merely amplify the Earth's magnetic field as is.
I'm recalling what dhris said in the geology forum about magnetohydrodynamics to the effect that turbulent water can twist and jumble a magnetic field provided it can conduct electricity. (I hope I'm recalling that correctly). If this is the case it might be fruitful to investigate dowsing in terms of an hypothesized ability in humans to sense the difference between an oriented and a disorganized magnetic field. An ability along these lines would account for why dowsing would work both for finding springs and things laid in a trench.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I called my uncle and asked about his use of dowsing. I will just tell you what he said. I believe his story but I don't mean to imply that it must be true beyond any other story; I'm hardly an impartial observer.

He has used this perhaps twenty times with only one failure. [As with my dad, this answer really shocked me. I expected a much lower estimate of success]. The failure occurred while he was running a large construction project and when it became necessary to trench a large field that was covered with an unknown matrix of buried pipes. The original “AS BUILTS” [documentation that shows what it says] were apparently never filed with the city. In this case he was unable to get any definitive response from his rods. He said that on the average, the pipes turned out to be about ten feet apart. Incidently, in the end they opted to hire a repair crew to follow the trencher and repair the pipes as they went.

He claims that in all other cases he was able to locate steel and clay pipes with a high degree of accuracy; he says to within a foot.

He went into some detail about the relative angle of the pipe and the direction that one walks. It seems that optimum results are found when the pipe runs perpendicular to one’s direction of motion.

He also feels that it is also necessary that water is in the pipe, but that it doesn't have to be running water.

Not everyone can do this. It seems to have something to do with body chemistry.

I asked him how certain he really is about this. I suggested ninety percent certainty. His response was "100%". He said that he knows it works. Personally, I don't feel that it is logical to completely dismiss someone who, even when pressed for details and with nothing to gain still expresses absolute certainty about a claim.

Could he be fooling himself somehow; could he be inadvertently exaggerating his successes? Sure. Also, even if it really works, not only would I expect that the success and accuracy are not as good as he thinks, but also that he could have a lot of bad ideas about the criteria for success. He may really have no idea about when it should work or not.

Unfortunately, the steal pipe divining business has really tapered off with the advent of the modern divining machine – the electronic pipe finder.

So, that’s what the man says.

I'm really buried with work right now so I might be a bit scarce from time to time.

 

[Evo]

I tend to agree with dowsing being real, at least for those that truly are capable.

Some people are more susceptable to things than others.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Ivan,

Your uncle's report that he can find clay pipes with standing water reaffirms my suspicion that what the dowser is sensing is the disorganization of the magnetic alignment of the ferrous particles in disturbed earth.

"Black sand" which is pretty much ubiquitous, is primarily FeO₃, if I recall correctly, and this has all the properties of hard steel, not soft steel. It is permanently magnetizable.

Over time the black sand content of any soil would slowly take on the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field. Digging a hole or trench and filling it back in would cause all the black sand to be magnetically disoriented relative to the surrounding earth.

Your uncles inability to locate the pipes in the case where there was one every ten feet could have been the result of the general, massive disturbance created when the backhoe went over and over the same ground digging these closely spaced trenches, such that the background, uniform field was ruined.

Concerning his belief that there must be water in the pipe, even if not running water, did he explain why he thought this? Did he, for instance, say he'd never located, or been able to locate, a dry pipe?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

My take is that he is repeating what he was told when taught how to do this. Also, he did express a little reservation about finding a clay sewer pipe in his own yard. This was apparently more difficult to locate than most pipes.

Do you know anything about claims of human sensitivity to very weak magnetic fields? I keep thinking that this claim has been made by someone reputable. If this is true then we might have something concrete to work with here. No time for me to look right now.

Finally, one concern that I have with your one idea is that the soil has often been undisturbed for a very long time. I don't know anything about how the presense of water effects local fields. When I get a chance I will review the equations for auxiliary fields and see if anything makes sense in this respect. This might be a good question for Chroot or others. I would expect the conductivity of most water sources to be very low. Only highly contaminated supplies should provide any significant conductivity. IIR my chemistry correctly here, in clean water with a neutral PH, we expect to find about 10^-7 moles of free hydrgoen ions per decimeter of water. Typically, magnetohydrodynamics deals with salt water [shhhhhh] or good conductors such as mercury or liquid lithium.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
Do you know anything about claims of human sensitivity to very weak magnetic fields? I keep thinking that this claim has been made by someone reputable.

Google turned this up:

Neuroethology: Magnetic information in animal orientation
Address:http://soma.npa.uiuc.edu/courses/physl490b/models/magnetoreception/magnetoreception.html

Which says there is no evidence, just the suspicion it might be possible. The animals that can orient themselves by the Earth's magnetic field are found to have small crystals of Fe₃O₄ in their brains, which is magnetite The same crystals have been found in human brains. This leads to the suspicion that humans may also have this ability. Actual tests, though, demonstrate that humans don't seem to have enough talent for this to write home about.

These test seem to be about the ability to be able to point to home after having been blindfolded and taken some distance away.

I think this is different than being able to sense the difference between a uniformly oriented magnetic field and a disorganized one.

Finally, one concern that I have with your one idea is that the soil has often been undisturbed for a very long time.

Yes, we would have to find out how tenacious the magnetic orientation of black sand actually is. I don't know exactly, but I think you'd be surprised how long it can hold its original orientation when challenged only by the weak magnetic field of the earth. I'm thinking hundreds of years.

I would expect the conductivity of most water sources to be very low.

I agree, this doesn't seem as plausible. It's hard to say, though. Underground springs may in fact be loaded with dissolved minerals that make it more conductive than one would expect.

But the magnetohydrodynamics idea may be the wrong tree altogether. It could be that springs are always shifting enough black sand around to create the same disturbance in the magnetic field as a ditch.

 

[Evo]

Here is an interesting paper on electromagnetic fields and dowsing. I will look for more.

http://www.sb.luth.se/~bon/projects/Dowsing88%20eng.pdf

 

[zoobyshoe]

The technique is very simple. My dad used two pieces of wire fashioned from clothes hangers. Each wire should be straight and about 18" in length, with another six inches bent at a 45 degree angle as a handle. All of the approaches to this that I have seen indicate that ease of movement of the rods is the key [hence the ball bearing in dlgoff's example]. The rods much be held level with the long portions pointing directly forward and able to cross each other; and they must be able to rotate within your hands with even the slightest perturbation. In effect they are held in a state of unstable equilibrium. Then, just walk slowly while trying to keep your hands steady and even. When the wires "insist" on crossing, mark the spot and continue. Again though, I never have gotten serious about testing this myself. Knowing my dad I have little to no doubt that it works...at least for some people. I don't know if everyone is supposed to be able to do this. I suspect not.

I'm digging this thread up because I happened to find this site:

http://path.berkeley.edu/~singyiu/vehicledetection/research/magnetic/magnetic.htm

which shows the distortion in a general magnetic field created by the presence of magnetic materials. It makes me wonder to what extent the coat hanger dousing rods as described by Ivan would react when encountering such a distortion created by a buried iron pipe, or simply from dirt that's been dug up and replaced with the magnetic fields of the ferous particles now all misaligned with the Earth's field.

 

[Aether]

When I was a teenager my parents built a new house and had to drill a water well. The flow-rate of water from the well wasn't satifactory, so they drilled another deeper well; but the flow-rate of water wasn't great from that one either. As they were considering drilling a third well, someone suggested that they use a dowser to find where to drill. They did, and got a nice flow-rate of water from the third well. My mother and I were intrigued by this, and set out to test dowsing for ourselves. There was a country road/driveway that ran about 200 meters down the side of our yard, and my mother walked down that road with a dowsing rod and made small piles of rocks where the dowsing rod indicated that it was detecting something. Then I walked down the road with the dowsing rod, blindfolded, and only lifted the blindfold when the dowsing rod indicated that it was detecting something. There was a 100% correlation between the locations of mine and my mothers points where the dowsing rod indicated that it was detecting something. Of course, we didn't dig-up the ground to see what lay underneath, but we were impressed by the correlation of our results. The detections were not subtle at all as I recall, and the dowsing rod felt almost like it was going to be yanked out of our hands a number of times! I would like to see that experiment repeated using a differential GPS to mark the spots where the dowsing rod indicates that it is dectecting something.

 

[zoobyshoe]

That's a very cool story, Aether. What material were your rods made of?

You can see in the illustrations in the link how a magnetic field is "pinched" together when a ferrous metal is present with areas of rarefaction on the outsides. That says that there is, at least potentially, something real and authentic to detect. An underground flow of water might somehow have the same effect on a field, or it may just be the presence of the water cavity itself is enough to distort the field.

 

[Aether]

That's a very cool story, Aether. What material were your rods made of?

Thank you, zooby. The rods were thin forked "green" and very flexible sticks cut from saplings. The dowser recommended one type of tree, but we just used whatever was handy.

You can see in the illustrations in the link how a magnetic field is "pinched" together when a ferrous metal is present with areas of rarefaction on the outsides. That says that there is, at least potentially, something real and authentic to detect. An underground flow of water might somehow have the same effect on a field, or it may just be the presence of the water cavity itself is enough to distort the field.

That seems like a plausible-enough explanation to warrant a careful examination assuming that there is still a repeatable dowsing signal present after steps have been taken to eliminate subliminal cues entering through the normal five senses..

 

[zoobyshoe]

Thank you, zooby. The rods were thin forked "green" and very flexible sticks cut from saplings. The dowser recommended one type of tree, but we just used whatever was handy.

Hmmmmm. I've never liked the fact it could be done with forked sticks. No matter how green they might be they can't conduct as well as metal, and there's no reason I can think of for them to have any response to any magnetic field.

That seems like a plausible-enough explanation to warrant a careful examination assuming that there is still a repeatable dowsing signal present after steps have been taken to eliminate subliminal cues entering through the normal five senses..

My first idea for a test was to see if the rods did this themselves, or if a rod-human configuration was the only one that worked. I figured once you found a spot where the rods responded strongly with a person, you could mount the rods by themselves on an all wood or all plastic rolling cart and pull them over the spot to see it they responded. Whatever the outcome it would tell you alot.

 

[PIT2]

Last week there was a TV show about an institute in America called "the body farm", where they research and document the rotting process of corpses. They have about 50 corpses laying in the woods there in different positions, some buried, some clothed, etc.

One of the researchers also found out that it was possible to use dowsing to locate buried corpses. He said he thought it was the rotting meat that released chemicals and salt or something, which made the sticks move. He let a visiting woman try and find a corpse this way, and it worked both times she tried.

 

[Aether]

Hmmmmm. I've never liked the fact it could be done with forked sticks. No matter how green they might be they can't conduct as well as metal, and there's no reason I can think of for them to have any response to any magnetic field.
My first idea for a test was to see if the rods did this themselves, or if a rod-human configuration was the only one that worked. I figured once you found a spot where the rods responded strongly with a person, you could mount the rods by themselves on an all wood or all plastic rolling cart and pull them over the spot to see it they responded. Whatever the outcome it would tell you alot.

There is no way that a local distortion of the geomagnetic field is going to be able to directly apply a sensible force to either a metal rod or a stick. I think that whatever the mechanism, it has to be the central nervous system (CNS) of the dowser that directs their muscles to move the rod/stick. The question is, what is it that the CNS is reacting to?

 

[SGT]

My best guess: I saw a science program about a study of this. High speed video shows that dowsers react before the rods - the muscles in the arm can be seen to flex before the dowsing rod responds. In other words, the dowser causes the action of the dowsing rod, not the water or power lines. At a glance this implies that dowsing is a bogus skill, but I think this relates to some primitive, natural ability within us to find water. It seems to me that the dowsing rods only act as motion amplifiers that alert us to our own subtle reactions.

This is called ideomotor effect

The ideomotor effect refers to the influence of suggestion or expectaton on involuntary and unconscious motor behavior. The term "ideomotor action" was coined by William B. Carpenter in 1852 in his explanation for the movements of rods and pendulums by dowsers, and some table turning or lifting by spirit mediums (the ones that weren't accomplished by cheating). Carpenter argued that muscular movement can be initiated by the mind independently of volition or emotions. We may not be aware of it, but suggestions can be made to the mind by others or by observations. Those suggestions can influence the mind and affect motor behavior.

It is not bogus, as you already know, since your father and uncle do it. Most dowsers are sincerely deluded people. They are normally very knowledgeable of their surroundings and have several unconscious cues or the presence of water.
The dowsing rod is normally held in such a manner that imperceptible muscle movements are amplified, making the rod bend.
The http://www.randi.org/jr/011102.html tested 52 dowsers in a controlled experiment, obtaining results consistent with chance.
If your father and uncle want to try it, The JREF offers one million dollars for a successful controlled dowsing demonstration.