Dowsing for pipes ...

[Jethro_uk]

Seems to be an enduring myth ...

and yet I've seen it done, with "success" ????

[Brian Gaff]

Yes the idea is that we do react to the changes in electrical and magnetic conditions.

The explanation I see is that all methods rely on the finely balanced device being put out of balance theory, a bit like a toggle switch almost but not quite at the point where it toggles. The tiny effect on our nerves thus creates a much larger effect seen in whatever the device used to indicate things is. The bit that I do not understand is that some people seem to be able to tune it for different things, like voids etc for old burial sites etc.

Nowadays of course we seem to have decided to go for ground penetrating radar instead. They were doing this around here at night recently to finally find out where badly documented services ran under a major road junction about to be redeveloped. Brian

[thescullster]

I have done it and it certainly worked for me!

Many moons ago, the maintenance guy at the school that I attended was using a couple of bent copper (I think) rods to locate a large buried drain. He didn't tell me where it was but told me to walk across part of the playing field with the rods held out in front and free to rotate.

They undoubtedly crossed at a point which he confirmed was the line of the drain and I could repeat this exercise consistently.

I have no idea how it works - perhaps more importantly it is not clear (to me) how large a drain/volume of water would need to be involved for this to work.

Phil

[Harry Bloomfield]

Jethro_uk used his keyboard to write :

I used to have a friend in the north east who swore by it and wrote numerous books on the subject. I corresponded with him a few times out of curiosity and one of the things he described having done was to find escape tunnels under religious building, from the middle ages. He described some of them as half a mile long, with no obvious clue where they began or ended before he had dowsed. Sure enough, he said, there they were when they dug down to them. He had a scientific leaning, but he had no idea how it worked, just that he sounded convinced that it did.

Me, I have an open mind. One blind test I saw conducted on TV, produced just slightly better than random results a few years ago.

[NY]

I'm sceptical - I can't see how it *can* work, scientifically. But at the same time I'm open to evidence that shows a significant correlation between buried objects and being able to detect them by dowsing.

I know someone who can feel very low voltages - if she puts her fingers on a circuit board she can feel voltages of less that 5V as a definite tingle (as most people can with their tongue). Maybe dowsers have a similarly heightened sense that is latent in us all...

[Clive Arthur]

I think it may be that some people are more attuned to certain indicators too subtle for most of us, for example very minor changes in vegetation over a water course, the lie of the land, worms, dew formation etc. They may not know how they're doing it. I suppose they just 'feel it in their water'.

Of course, there will be charlatans too.

Cheers

[Jethro_uk]

all very well. But *repeated* experiments under scientific conditions have all resulted in nothing to report ... dowsing doesn't work.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Clive Arthur wrote on 22/11/2017 :

That might be it - they didn't know how birds and other animals were able to navigate their way around, until they experimented. One of my dogs used to take off by himself for a wonder round the village, he never got lost, but I never showed him his way around. I wasn't happy about it, we tried to fence him in, but he was very resourceful I would find a way to escape. I even found him when out and he ignored me walking straight past me - weird.

[Jethro_uk]

The problem is they have done many experiments with dowsing, and whenever you double-blind it, it stops working.

It's entirely possible there is a flaw in the way it's being tested, but statistically, the odds are with science ....

[misterroy]

did you dig down and find the drain? The real question is: Did the maintenance man find it as funny when he got you to do it, as it was with all the others?

[harry]

Similar thing happened to me. Virtually anyone can do it. Whether they believe in it or not. Virtually any ground disturbance can be detected. At significant depths too. But works best on live electric cables. But I can't tell what it is I've detected.

[harry]

Migrating birds have magnetic particles in their upper beak.

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

Remember dowsing for coins as a kid.

2 biro tubes and a straightened wire coathanger cut in half and folded into "L" shapes. Short end went into the Biro "handles" I went out the room and my brother would hide a coin under the large rug in the front room. Methodically walking over the rug holding the wires parallel, as soon as I went over the coin they would cross. Worked every time. I think it was shown on Blue Peter or perhaps HOW which is why we tried it.

There's far more going on in the world than "science" can manifest reasons for.

[Reentrant]

And yet no-one claimed James Randi's 1 million dollars between 1964 and the challenge ending in 2015. Strange considering how many people swear they are successful dowsers.

[David]

Hmmm.....perhaps the attempts to measure it interfere with the mechanism?

Cheers

Dave R

[Pinnerite]

About 10 years ago while visiting (a slightly eccentric) cousin in a remote part of Norfolk I happened to mention an interest in dowsing, having read and been fascinated by it for years and watched several TV demonstrations.

She said 'I have dowsing rods' and sent her boyfriend to locate them. For about ten minutes I behaved like a lawn mower moving back and forth but with narry a tremor.

When I complained she said 'try over there', pointing to a strip of lawn between two flower beds. To my amazement the damned rods went ballistic. I could not control them. I tried it several times.

Experiments twenty or thirty years ago seemed to prove that some tiny muscles or nerves in our wrists respond to small magnetic fields. apparently underground streams crossing each other will throw up a magnetic disturbance that can trigger the muscles/nerves.

Not long ago while walking tin the gardens of Bury St Edmundsbury Cathedral, I came across a young man dowsing. He didn't need any rods. He was apparently extremely sensitive.

You do no need anything special and L shaped artefact that has a short arm that you hold over your fingers with the long arm pointing away from you, gently prevented from falling by your thumb.

Just experiment. You will be surprised.