At one point, I had a fellow surveyor/Dowser agree to come to Sanibel so we could test him. But then he changed his mind. I was going to use something like Randi's protocol... not paying a million bucks, but I will buy dinner for anyone that wants to come here and successfully do it, though.
Andy, that million dollar challenge gets mentioned every time dowsing is spoken about. Since nobody has collected - then it is obviously a bunch of people fooling themselves.
I'm a very scientific type person, as are most people these days.
Things like dowsing and quantum mechanics really fascinate me because they are difficult to prove and an open mind is required in order to understand.
Obviously quantum mechanics has had much more research and funding dedicated to it.
I cannot explain how it works, but it definitely has been a tool for my dad to solve real world problems.
Have you tried it yourself?
Andy J, post: 422760, member: 44 wrote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon
look up "Clever Hans effect"..an interesting story about a 19th. century horse that apparently could perform math.
imaudigger, post: 422761, member: 7286 wrote: Andy, that million dollar challenge gets mentioned every time dowsing is spoken about. Since nobody has collected - then it is obviously a bunch of people fooling themselves.
I'm a very scientific type person, as are most people these days.
Things like dowsing and quantum mechanics really fascinate me because they are difficult to prove and an open mind is required in order to understand.
Obviously quantum mechanics has had much more research and funding dedicated to it.I cannot explain how it works, but it definitely has been a tool for my dad to solve real world problems.
Have you tried it yourself?
How is that there are so many claims of dowsers, yet that challenge went unearned for so many years??? Have you read the actual protocols? It doesn't seem very complex at all, so it's not like he was asking them to breathe underwater.
No I have not, but if you want to teach me how, I'm game!
Call me a skeptic also, it doesn't work. As many times as I've seen it work I've seen people not be even close.
That said, I do have a certain special skill, I can often find water lines without even using rods or tree branches. Its called the power of observation, such as curb stop, valves, meters, low spots in yards etc.
Andy J, post: 422764, member: 44 wrote: How is that there are so many claims of dowsers, yet that challenge went unearned for so many years??? Have you read the actual protocols? It doesn't seem very complex at all, so it's not like he was asking them to breathe underwater.
No I have not, but if you want to teach me how, I'm game!
Not sure about the challenge. I actually have a real world use for dowsing and it would be an interesting experiment to add to this discussion.
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I live at a house that was constructed in the 1930's. I only have 2 hose bibs. One at the house that I use to water the lawn and one at a water trough for the animals (you can see the green area where it overflowed). I want to put another hose bib at the barn and maybe elsewhere depending on where the underground pipes are. I suspect that they are buried fairly shallow and I may be able to use a metal detector.
I am going to have my dad come out and try and find out where the pipes are located using his dowsing rods. Only after he has located the water line, will I use a metal detector to verify. If he is unable to locate any of the pipes for some reason, I may use the metal detector to get him started at the northerly hose bib, then let him find where it crosses the ditch.
We do know the water pipe has to cross perpendicular to that ditch somewhere. There are no settled trenches and really nothing to line up with. All the tracks you see in the photos are horse trails.
It would be an amazing coincidence if he could give me the location where the pipe crosses the ditch with nothing more than dowsing rods? Correct?
I'll post results in a few days and hopefully not be eating crow.
I'm sorry, even if he does find it, it won't count in my book. It looks like you already know where it starts and ends. Thats why I do believe people can do it but its not based on rods turning, its based on what the person sees.
I tried using brass welding rods, coat hangers, apple branch.
Never successful. Tried to find an old water well head once. Found it by just observing the area.
When I was a kid, there was a big drought one summer. Someone in the neighborhood was going to dig a well in their yard. They doused for location and set up a little manual well rig and had all us kids working the pipe into the ground while he sat back and popped beers.
Never hit water. There was a brook less than 100 yards away.
Once in the Ozarks, one of neighbors spent the day dousing in his yard to no luck. I have seen others try but were they were unsuccessful. But I have heard many claim that they were successful in dousing especially from the surveying community.
So I'm in the skeptic camp.
I have read a few books from
Douser societies in Europe.
Also dousing became popular with the old Mother Earth News publications that were associated with 'back to land ' hippie movement.
There are things in life that are beyond chance and have inexplicable outcomes for sure.
I have only witnessed a few. I've known people who have witnessed more.
I have seen artistic stuff happen with people. Some claimed they enter a trance like state and have no awareness of their efforts.
The subconscious mind is a hidden frontier of the human experience.
Imudigger's correlation of quantum mechanics and dousing is an interesting thought.
A trip to Hannibal, MO is not complete without a midnight tour as follows:
This 170-year-old cemetery was made famous by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer -- young Sam Clemens stood in Old Baptist in 1847 as his father, John Marshall Clemens, was laid to rest there. Nearly thirty years later, Mark Twain recalled his father's funeral and made it the setting in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer where Tom and Huck witness the murder of Doc Robinson by old Injun Joe.
This one-hour guided tour may last a bit longer if you find you're having fun in the cemetery...Tickets are $25 per person and include a pair of special Haunted Hannibal dowsing rods as a souvenir.
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Been there. Done that. The dowsing rods become quite active in such a setting. On our return path on our journey to Hannibal a few years ago we stopped past the home of my daughter and three grandchildren. The kids became fascinated with the dowsing rods and the potential to discover buried things. The innocents went out one by one to assess if they had dowsing abilities. Each one found the rods would rotate anywhere along a line running from a few feet to one side of their front steps to a point near the street curb. I would keep track of where this was happening. After all had given it a try, I showed them the common alignment of their findings and they all agreed that was the true line. What none of them had noticed was the small water meter lid near the curb, but nearly covered by vegetation. I then had their parents come out and asked them one question, "Where does your water line enter the basement?" They pointed to a spot a few feet to one side of the front steps consistent with the line "discovered" by the dowsing rods.
A related funny story involves that same dowsing experience by my grandson. He was hoping to find a grave, which would have been extremely amazing in their subdivision. Earlier we had been told that one of their cats, Muzzles, had been missing for over a week and was assumed to be deceased...........somewhere. So, as he wandered about the yard with the dowsing rods and thinking of graves, he was also thinking of his dear departed Muzzles. In fact, one time as he passed over the buried water line he did not know was present, the rods turned indicating to him that maybe he had found a grave, when what did he hear but a distinct MEOW at that very instant. It was Muzzles hiding in some bushes a few feet away. The combination of the turning rods and the MEOW nearly scared the poor lad to death.
David Livingstone, post: 422783, member: 431 wrote: I'm sorry, even if he does find it, it won't count in my book. It looks like you already know where it starts and ends. Thats why I do believe people can do it but its not based on rods turning, its based on what the person sees.
Now wait a minute David - I would agree with you if the pipe runs in a straight line between the pump house and the hose bib at the water trough. That would be very easy to locate using a plumb bob. Or if there was a visible change in vegetation or a settlement from a trench.
That is not what I am anticipating happening. There is also an old hand dug well about 30' away from the current pump house. No telling where they hacked into the water system.
It is easier to find a water line if you know the general location and can walk perpendicular to the pipe.
It will be awhile before I post an update because of the weather here and the Easter holiday.
