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Anybody here have experience with dowsing?

 
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I come from a long line of midwives, witches and root workers. I grew up in the Appalachia mountains but money was never a problem. I’m in my 70’s now. My brother and I are both dowsers.  He has been since he was a teenager and he is also in his 70’s.  He was born with a natural talent for dowsing and especially for picking up unseen energy. This knowledge is kept in the family though as he’s very quite and shy about what he can do. He still lives a very simplistic life even though he does not  have to. He’s never been on a computer  or joined the world of the latest inventions.  His ability to feel unseen energy and get a  glimpse of a spirit amazes me.  He recently retired from a county facility that was built on a graveyard and he was constantly seeing “things” and experiencing strange phenomenon while he worked the evening shift. He never told any co-workers but they soon began to experience the odd things going on around them. Each office had to be locked at night and there was this one office that would somehow unlock itself. They could never figure out how this happened. Trash cans would come rolling down the hallway when there was only he and his co/worker in the building.  Lights kept turning themselves on.  A contractor was using the bathroom one night and he said something hit him upside the head. No one had ever told him about the paranormal activity in the building. They hired a new worker when he retired and within a week or two he got a text msg from the new worker with the picture of a broom standing straight up in the middle of the floor. There are only 2 workers in the building for the evening shift and what gets me is why they stay on the job. I would be out of there so fast I’d leave skid marks. But they keep on working and never talk about it.  Although there was one employee that had a I’m bad-ass attitude but he left after a couple of weeks refusing to come back in the building and refusing to say why. Sometimes I hear people saying there is no such thing as spirits/ghosts etc., and I just smile to myself and think someday they’ll know. As far as dowsing my brother has found graves, water and answers to questions he asks.  His advice would be to choose dowsing rods that “feel right” in your hands. Keep them near you and rub them frequently as you want your energy to infuse with the rods. Always use the same rods and be kind and respect them and always thank them.
 
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I found both wells on our lots. My uncle taught me not only how to locate water but also to determine the depth at which the water occurs. I’ve also met an elderly gentleman who had been a wildcatter who could dowse for oil and gas.
 
pollinator
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I dowsed for our well.  Found several sites but drilled on the strongest one.  Water at 180 feet while all the other wells around us were at 400 to 600 feet.

A few years ago I was doing a remodel of a big store in Colorado and they, (municipality) could not find the water lines both going into the building and the inground sprinkler system.

I went out and dowsed it .  They found the lines exactly where I marked them.  Made a couple of believers that day and showed them all how to do it using just a couple of the thin metal marker flags.  City guys were mumbling something about their several thousand dollar machine when they left.  ;-)
 
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I tried it as a kid and it seemed to work for finding water mains, but it wasn't a controlled experiment by any means. It seems to me that wire rods will twitch in response to tiny movements by the person holding them, especially if you lean forward or backwards by a degree or two. A farmer I knew claimed to be able to use a pendulum and a map of her farm to find lost tools, and also told me that she had had problems with theft. Later a worker on her farm who had fallen out with her told me that he had tested her abilities by hiding a spade. She never found the spade. A few years ago, my neighbour attempted to use dowsing to find water, claimed to know where the water was and how far underground it was (3m). The location he chose was close to two existing wells, in a fairly lush wet area. With a group of friends he proceeded to dig by hand a completely dry hole to 3m and then declared that the water was actually 5m down. When he failed to find water at 5m he gave up. Incidentally one of the participants wrote on a blog that they had successfully found water. Eventually he hired a drilling company and sunk boreholes at two other locations. They had to go 40m down before they found water at one of the spots. He claims this location was found by dowsing, but it seems to be confirmation bias to me. The drilling company said they could always find water if they went deep enough.
 
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I was kind of skeptical, but I really don't know.

Years ago, I had my father douse for my well, and so he told me a spot and so I put a big rock where he said to drill. A few months later this old friend of my grandmother stops by and sees I am getting ready to build a house, so he says, "Do you want me to douse for you?" I said, "Sure Leland, humor me".

So, he does, gets out his bent brass rods, does this and that, and proudly determines, "it is right here", and lo and behold, it was over the rock where my father said to dig. So, I am feeling pretty confident.

Then he says, "do you want to know how deep"? And I say, "sure Leland", so he does this and that, dip and lifts, rolls and pitches, and even hogs and rears back. Finally, he puts his hand on my shoulder and says, "Son"... he always called me son, "Get a backhoe, seventeen feet down".

So naturally I get a real well driller and have him put the bit right over the spot both him and my father both said to drill a well. $4500 later, and some 290 feet down, I get 2 gallons per minute.

BUT... keep reading!

So the next day I take a block of wood with a screw in it and a wad of string and drop it down in the hole. The water comes to within 17 feet of the top of the well. For 28 years the water has been exactly 17 feet down. Why? Here in Maine, water comes to the top of bedrock generally, and that is 17 feet down. Leland was right, there was water 17 feet down. I would have pumped it dry in no time, so I needed a well 290 feet deep, but he was right. How, I will never know. He is long dead now, but a local character unto his own.

Rest in peace
 
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Everything is energy.  When I was 16 I used to breed Peachfaces (the noisy little parrots). Peachfaces are a funny breed where the females will pair up but lay infertile eggs, the males will pair up and lay no eggs, or if you're lucky you may end up with a true 'pair' that will make you babies. They are hard to tell the sex of them without putting a key or something against their pelvic bones. Anyhoo... This old guy (he was in his 70's at the time) that was selling me a 'true pair' taught me all of this and showed me how to dowse their energy (male/female), yes you got it.. with the old ring on a string.. or pendulum dowsing as it's also known as. I did this on all my new pairings and it never failed me! Over the years I studied and trained in many energetic practices, and also tried my hand at divining with the rods. I am yet to prove to myself that I can find water (ie, yet to drill for water), but over the years I have found cables, ley lines etc & seen others do it, and have had enough my own experiences working with energy to know it works. Depth can also be dowsed for, as too people's emotional time lines etc, but that's off topic. Animals and insects also follow energy lines (and that too is a whole other Convo). But having said all that I have also witnessed failed attempts, you can't always force an outcome, sometimes if you are trying to hard you can miss the subtle energies. As the old saying goes... You just gotta go with the flow, and follow where it leads you 🙃🙏
 
pollinator
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This subject has always fascinated me, as I've tried it multiple times with both forked sticks, metal rods and copper wire, and never 'felt' anything or had anything happen. But I had a grandfather who found water for a lot of people, though I'll never know if the water was just there anyway, like a high water table, and it was a fluke. But I have watched it done a couple times.
I saw one guy do it in a huge empty warehouse building, maybe 150' long, and they knew there was a water main under the floor somewhere but no idea where. He took a steel shovel and just walked, sliding it in front of him along the concrete. He went the length of the building, and dropped a pencil at one spot. At the end he turned around and waked back, and dropped another pencil near the first one, and declared the water main was in that area. It was indeed between the 2 pencils when they dug up the floor. I talked with him about it, and he said he could just feel it, and could not explain it.
The second guy ran an excavator, and he could dig near buried powerlines and then would just stop, and he would tell the laborer to dig by hand because the line was close. He said he could feel a tingle on the back of his neck. Same thing, he would be within a foot or less of a 6' deep line. Now, obviously he knew about how deep lines are buried, but at the same time, he was able to stop just short of them.
I'm firmly in the science camp, having never seen proof positive of anything supernatural, but I'm still open to possibilities. Unfortunately a lot of this stuff is anecdotal so...
 
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I’ve always been interested in dowsing.  When I first bought my property I didn’t know much about the art and had heard of an elderly man that was said to be a dowser.  Well I called him and he came over.  He explained that he had the gift and that I had it too.  We walked all over the south end of the property and he found many water crosses.  I noted where they all were. Then we went over it all again with me holding the rods and lo and behold I hit exactly the same spots!  I was thrilled and have since been asked many times to help new property owners find the best spot for drilling for water. I can even dowse for depth.  Through the grapevine I heard a story that my brother told me. That his friend was looking for a dowser and this woman comes to his property and dowses his land and and tells him where to dig for water and how deep he would find it.  My brother is a sceptic!  The man said it was the best water and exactly at the depth she said!  He said that he thought of that dowser as soon as he sold his property and was moving close to Kingston.  He was trying to find the same woman to come to his new property to find water before he started digging.  He would pay for all her expenses.
I asked my brother where his friend was living?  When he told me I said “oh that was me”. He looked at me incredulously!”  
 
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Tyler Ludens wrote:This article discusses some of the science of dowsing:  https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17532-why-dowsing-makes-perfect-sense/



Hello. New here. To add to what the article says I think in my opinion that some of it has to do with the electricity that is in all of our bodies. Some people have it more than others. My dad can't wear a watch, it dies in a day. Just my thoughts.
 
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For some reason I no longer remember, when I posted my first reply here concerning dowsing, I failed to mention several additional notes.

~I am a member of the Ohio Buckeye Dowsers. We've been meeting here every fourth Sunday of the month, for 30+ years now. Before this group, I was a member of the Jim Perkins Dowsers meeting in Massillon, Ohio. Both groups have long been members of The American Society of Dowsers, headquartered in Danville, Vermont. I originally learned dowsing at the Seneca Reservation in N. Y. In all those years I have met and learned from some of the best dowsers in the world. I guess all together I have 40+ years dowsing. There are not so many folks who have more experience at dowsing than I have. I have talked about, written about, and lectured about dowsing in many places in America, and a little bit in Europe and the Middle East. --So what I wrote originally in reply to this post, is based on a little more than just personal experience. In any case, dowsing works, it's an art, it's based in science, you can learn to do it. I've been challenged to prove it by skeptics and proved to them it works. There are plenty of books to buy, and info. online. It's a great tool to have in your life.
 
master steward
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Hi Lyn,

Welcome to Permies.
 
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Everything is connected we are all from one God which makes us and the earth and the universe all one. So if there is something hidden from your senses it is not hidden from all allowing our subconscious mind to guide us with dousing rods or pendulums to whatever we are looking for you just have to practice focusing on what you want and ask to find it. You can find lost keys with dousing rods or a lost person if you want to prove it to your self then try it but believe in it and focus you will be amazed. This like most things should help strengthen your faith in God and make you realize life is more than just what we experience on earth.
 
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I grew up on an old-fashioned dairy farm in England, with three generations under one roof. The older folks, two brothers and a sister, would tell me about growing up in a cottage on the Oxford Canal, where their Dad was a lengthsman, meaning that he was responsible for looking after a length of canal. They used to maintain the towpath, cut the hedges on either side of the canal, mow the grass and do any other jobs as needed. The hedges were thick, usually had ditches on the other side and were full of rabbits. Sometimes a more adventurous rabbit would burrow through the bank into the canal and start a leak, which would run away into the ditch. They’d notice the drop in the water level and have to find and stop the leak, so they’d get the shovels out of the tool shed and cut a fresh forked hazel twig out of the hedge. They’d use the hazel twig to find the leak and the shovels to dig down and stop it. To them, the twig was just as much a tool as the shovels.

On the farm, we sometimes wanted to find a field drain or maybe a water pipe and to save us a lot of time and hard work, we’d dowse for it. It never occurred to us to be ”sceptical” about dowsing or wonder what ”Science” thought of it, it worked and that was good enough.

Later on, when I had an engineering degree and become a Chartered Engineer, I used to test people’s ability to dowse. By then, I’d come across a design for a little silver and brass gadget which looked nothing like a conventional dowsing rod. I’d ask them to help me with an experiment, not mentioning that they were the subject, ask them to hold this little gadget just so, start over there and walk towards me, while I watched carefully to observe any reaction. Only afterwards would I tell them that they had been using a dowsing rod and were themselves potential dowsers! Out of the many people I tested; my colleagues and others, I only ever found one who got no response at all. He already knew what I was up to and had rigid ideas about “Science”, which could have got in the way?

What I learned from this was that when Science can’t explain something, it’s more than likely the science that’s lacking. Maybe it just hasn’t caught up or no-one has done the work yet. Or perhaps Science thinks it already knows the answer and it’s the world that’s wrong, so no-one ever will investigate that subject for fear of ridicule. I’ve heard it said that Belief is the enemy of Knowledge and certainly those who believe the most seem to learn the least. Best to approach each new experience with a Beginner’s Mind: you know nothing. That way, you will learn as much as possible and won’t risk missing something important. Always question what you know: if you know something but have no evidence for it, sorry, it’s Belief and not Knowledge. On the other hand, if you believe something and you have evidence for it, then it’s actually Knowledge and not Belief. Never has this distinction been more important than over the last three years…………….
 
Julie Reed
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Out of the many people I tested; my colleagues and others, I only ever found one who got no response at all. He already knew what I was up to and had rigid ideas about “Science”, which could have got in the way?



But isn't that saying that belief trumps science? Further on you say:

Always question what you know: if you know something but have no evidence for it, sorry, it’s Belief and not Knowledge.


And that, to me, is where dowsing lands on the scale. If it only 'works' for those who believe in it, that's not science. Gravity, for example, works whether you believe in it or not. So substitute having all your test subjects step off a chair, and even the guy 'who knows what you're up to' will end up on the floor.
I found this quote on the BBC Science Focus website: There is some evidence that dowsers can find water or oil when more traditional methods have failed, which seems miraculous. But experiments show that this works only when the dowser has some unconscious knowledge of where the target is. For example, they might be using clues from vegetation, geography or temperature. They might not realise what they’re doing, and so believe in the supernatural power of the rods. Experiments have been done that eliminate these possibilities, by running water through one of 10 pipes laid underground, or moving the position of water pipes. Under such controlled conditions dowsers do not succeed.
I do agree there is the possibility that there is some internal magnetism that only some people have (such as those who cannot wear a traditional watch), and maybe science hasn't discovered it yet, but that would have been more likely 100 years ago. Then again, I look at my observation of the guy with the shovel I mentioned in an earlier comment, and wonder. But, it wasn't any sort of scientific controlled experiment. For all I know he had other knowledge of where the buried line was, and was just having fun putting on a show.
It's definitely an interesting subject to me, and despite being very much 'science minded', I'm open to possibilities. Years ago I had neighbors who were both (husband and wife) very smart engineers. Science people. Yet they were also very religious, and we had a couple long discussions about how absolutely unscientific it is to have a belief in any god. They freely admitted that was so, but said they hoped to be correct about their faith in something with zero evidence. I think dowsing maybe fits that description.
 
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Here is an interesting video on this subject by Living Web Farms,it is a 2 part video so be sure to watch them both.
The dowser Lee Barnes talks about much of what has been said here,with hidden energy and magnetic fields,moving energy and such.He refers to the rods as a tool to dowse with,but you are why the tool works,your sub conscience is telling you what and where something is.

If you do use this gift dont abuse it.

My uncle and cousin made a living drilling wells,my cousin could tell the depth of the water.I can sense water but havent done it enough to tune my senses to find depth or quality.
 
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I haven't used dowsing for water but have used it for finding water pipes and electric lines. Brass brazing rods bent at a 90 the short leg being abouit 10 inches. I have no idea why it works but it does.
 
Dennis Barrow
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But isn't that saying that belief trumps science? Further on you say:

Always question what you know: if you know something but have no evidence for it, sorry, it’s Belief and not Knowledge.


And that, to me, is where dowsing lands on the scale. If it only 'works' for those who believe in it, that's not science. Gravity, for example, works whether you believe in it or not. So substitute having all your test subjects step off a chair, and even the guy 'who knows what you're up to' will end up on the floor.
I found this quote on the BBC Science Focus website: There is some evidence that dowsers can find water or oil when more traditional methods have failed, which seems miraculous. But experiments show that this works only when the dowser has some unconscious knowledge of where the target is. For example, they might be using clues from vegetation, geography or temperature. They might not realise what they’re doing, and so believe in the supernatural power of the rods. Experiments have been done that eliminate these possibilities, by running water through one of 10 pipes laid underground, or moving the position of water pipes. Under such controlled conditions dowsers do not succeed.
I do agree there is the possibility that there is some internal magnetism that only some people have (such as those who cannot wear a traditional watch), and maybe science hasn't discovered it yet, but that would have been more likely 100 years ago. Then again, I look at my observation of the guy with the shovel I mentioned in an earlier comment, and wonder. But, it wasn't any sort of scientific controlled experiment. For all I know he had other knowledge of where the buried line was, and was just having fun putting on a show.
It's definitely an interesting subject to me, and despite being very much 'science minded', I'm open to possibilities. Years ago I had neighbors who were both (husband and wife) very smart engineers. Science people. Yet they were also very religious, and we had a couple long discussions about how absolutely unscientific it is to have a belief in any god. They freely admitted that was so, but said they hoped to be correct about their faith in something with zero evidence. I think dowsing maybe fits that description.



When I dowsed our land for water everything was dry and brown, a bit hilly, but nothing that was taller, (grasses), than anywhere else.  I marked all the locations and drilled at the strongest dowsing area.

As for belief, well, if you don't believe in bigfoot, is it real?  But if you have seen one and no-one believes you, is it real?  Lots of footprints and a few good pictures and lots of bad pictures, but no Scientific proof and 10's of thousands of people saying they have seen it.  Just saying.  lol
 
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Hi,

Here is my experience after +20 years of dowsing.

Several old-timer's from Wa and Mt worked with me for years before it stared working.  I was skeptical and at first it did not work.  But later it started working little by little.  One of the lessons I learned is not to get in a hurray, don't rush!  But the most important lesson I learned was from an old Sourdough (93 yrs old) from Washington who had prospected and mined all over Ak, Wa, Nv, Az, Or.  He told me very sternly, "Never dowse for greed, dowse for need!"  

Over the years I have mainly dowsed for prospecting and have found several nice mineral prospects (copper, silver, gold...) along the way.

Dowsing does work, but I have also found there are a lot of factors that go into it and a lot of unseen factors that can really mess you up.  An old-timer in Montana I worked with told me a story of digging a 30 foot prospect pit on a strong gold signal he got only to break into an old stope below.  Thankfully, he was tied off so when the thin layer of rock at grassroots collapsed into the stope below, he was able to scramble out just in time.  

I recently dowsed for a well for myself and everywhere I went on the property showed water a 6-7 feet.  I knew it couldn't be shallow because I had already dug down to +7 feet in one area and all I found was heavy, saturated, clay-sand mix from 4ft down.  I finally hired a driller and gave it my best guess.  He hit heavy, saturated, clay-sand mix from near surface to about 65 feet where he hit a 15 foot thick layers of heavy, wet clay, before finally punching into fractured bedrock and water at 120 feet.  

I have noticed similar interferences in prospect-dowsing where a specific rock layer will mask a vein.  I now realize this is a similar situation because the multiple clay seams acted like barriers to the "signals" water creates as if flows through the ground beneath our feet.  If it was just soil or gravel or even rock, no problem, but clay is like a "wet blanket" - it inhibits the signals from coming through, especially 15 feet of it.  

The best way I can explain dowsing is it works just like modern day geophysical surveys.  But, instead of a magical black box hooked to all kinds of sensors laid out on the ground for 1,000's of feet, one's body acts like a receiver and can provide insight into one area at a time.  The cool thing with the geophysical surveys I have worked with in the past is they can give you a pretty picture of a large area, whereas dowsing is basically just of the area where you are standing and then you have to connect all the dots - like several posts here have mentioned.

Every time I dowse, I learn something new...So enjoy it and don't stress so much as to how it work, but what you can learn about the area you are dowsing.  And remember, "Don't dowse for GREED, dowse for need!"

Cheers!


Sourdough-Al
 
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FWIW,

I saw this thread because of the dailyish last week. I just had a well drilled and, at the time, I *felt* like the driller scammed me. He dowsed a spot with a Y shaped stick or piece of metal, I don't recall, and it pointed down basically where he said he thought it would. I watched him do it, but it was so quick and with no explanation, I felt like... why the show? We had discussed the geology and had already agreed that this particular draw was likely a good spot, but nonetheless, he wanted "confirmation". Fine; I was happy to see something new, and I was hoping dowsing would work. It just had a strong feel of confirmation bias.

So, they drilled start of January and hit first water around 140ft, and ended up drilling around 500 ft. We got somewhere between 1-2 gpm. I felt I got a little ripped off. The frequent phone calls while I was working over the 3 days they drilled largely consisted of "It's only another $1000 and we can go down another 40ft (roughly). Surely there will be a lot more water just a little deeper because that's where the dowsing rod pointed!" I now need to spend a lot more money on infrastructure than expected, and will likely drill a second well, once my bank account recovers. Fair enough, I knew the risks.

So, then I see this thread. I am heading out to the property anyway to get some firewood and move a trailer, etc. I look through some scrap and find 2 30" sections of 12 gauge copper wire. I straightened them out and bent them about 6" at one end. I want to see if this was a gimmick. On the way over to the new well, I am feeling the rods deciding how to hold them etc. and I figure, whatever, it's either going to work or not. As I approached the well, nothing had happened. I walked about 50ft out to the east and west before coming back to the well. (It is on an elongated flat spot running east-west). As soon as I get directly over the well, the rods cross. I tried again dozens of times, holding the rods different ways. I can't reasonably make them not cross right over the well. Okay. I also found a line going down the hill toward a large oak, then further straight to a large madrone. Hmm. I was there with 9 other people. Everyone interested in trying got similar results. None of us had ever dowsed before. I guess I didn't get scammed per se.

It is a large property and I tried two other locations about 1/4 and 1/2 mile west of the original spot, both near, but not at the bottom of, large draws (ravines). Same thing. Clear lines running N-S that 100% line up with the largest of the trees on my property. After looking back, I don't know why I never noticed all the large trees were in a line, but it is fairly thick for a chapparal forest, and they are roughly 60-100ft apart.

So, the phenomenon is real. I don't know how humans made the connection to water or other things it might find. I can't hardly stop thinking about this in the sense that I am devising experiments instead of sleeping to try to learn more about what's really going on.

One observation: This property used to be a very popular gold mine until WWII, and was one of the very few that was reactivated after it was no longer illegal to mine gold. I have over 1000ft of workings (tunnels) on the land and can clearly see where lines of quartz were followed through the winding tunnels. Some of the places where I got "hits" seem to line up 1:1 with quartz veins. Quartz is not only associated with gold and water, but also electricity. I saw a convincing documentary that theorizes that quartz veins were created by uplift and sinking of rock layers that compressed and superheated heavily sedimented ocean waters. The heat is what drew the gold into the quartz in the first place, possibly. Quartz fractures and decomposes much differently than the sedimentary rocks around it, so it is easy to see why water might naturally find its path of least resistance in a quartz vein.

So many questions... First things first, though. I NEED a map of the entire world with dowsing lines...
 
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About 7 years ago, shortly after I moved here (WV) from NYS, I had to relocate an electric panel that was inside the collapsed barn. I knew there was a water line nearby as well, and figured I had to be prepared to turn off the mains, dig all around the box to find the power and replace whatever we damaged in the process. No one knew anything about the location as the lines had both been in place since about 1976 and everyone who had any part in laying them was long dead.

My neighbor pulled some coathangers out of his truck, cut and bent them into a good shape and dowsed the location for the lines, but couldn't tell how far down or whether both lines were there. He immediately called his cousin who, in his words, was "good at witchin' burred war and lines"

Paul arrived in about 10 minutes. He was retired from the phone company and we had a nice chat. He pulled out a similar pair of bent coathangers only his had wooden handles. He quickly located both the water line and the electric line, in the same places my neighbor dowsed. He told me that the water was down at 3.5' and the electric he felt was above it by a foot. They shared the trench in some places, then split off. The water line would not be disturbed by our work if he was correct. He marked the ground with some paint. He explained that dowsing was easy and let me try with his wires. I also had them cross in the appropriate locations despite the fact that I was sure it was nonsense.

We dug, and both lines were exactly where Paul said they would be.  Whenever I have to locate some of the many thousands of feet of buried water lines here, I can dowse them and I have found lines in unexpected places many times. This is pretty convincing. Often the lines are not in the location you'd expect from common sense, so it's not as if the dowsing confirms an existing logical guess.

When trenching for our outdoor wood boiler's buried lines, I called the power company to locate the buried wire for my service entrance. I had dowsed it, but came up with a really improbable route. The power company guy came and located the line in exactly that location, and when we carefully dug to get under it, it was right there.

So yes, it definitely works.

 
pollinator
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I find it interesting that apparently everyone and their brother can just pick up a couple of coat hangers and dowse anything, but in controlled experiments, "experienced" dowsers can't do any better than random chance.
 
Robert Ray
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William Barrett did an extensive study in G.B. His book might be worth a read.
dowsing.jpg
[Thumbnail for dowsing.jpg]
 
Trace Oswald
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Robert Ray wrote:William Barrett did an extensive study in G.B. HIs book might be worth a read.



From Wikipedia, with references:  "Barrett became interested in the paranormal in the 1860s after having an experience with mesmerism. Barrett believed that he had been witness to thought transference and by the 1870s he was investigating poltergeists.[4] In September 1876 Barrett published a paper outlining the result of these investigations and by 1881 he had published preliminary accounts of his additional experiments with thought transference in the journal Nature.[4] The publication caused controversy and in the wake of this Barrett decided to found a society of like-minded individuals to help further his research. Barrett held conference between 5–6 January 1882 in London. In February the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was formed.[6]

Barrett was a Christian and spiritualist member of the SPR.[6] Although he had founded the society, Barrett was only truly active for a year, and in 1884 founded the American Society for Psychical Research.[4] He became president of the society in 1904 and continued to submit articles to their journal.[4] From 1908–14 Barrett was active in the Dublin Section of the Society for Psychical Research, a group which attracted many important members including Sir John Pentland Mahaffy, T.W. Rolleston, Sir Archibald Geikie, and Lady Augusta Gregory.[7]

In the late 19th century the Creery Sisters (Mary, Alice, Maud, Kathleen, and Emily) were tested by Barrett and other members of the SPR who believed them to have genuine psychic ability, however, the sisters later confessed to fraud by describing their method of signal codes that they had utilized.[8] Barrett and the other members of the SPR such as Edmund Gurney and Frederic W. H. Myers had been easily duped.[9]

As a believer in telepathy, Barrett denounced the muscle reading of Stuart Cumberland and other magicians as "pseudo" thought readers.[10]

Barrett helped to publish Frederick Bligh Bond's book Gate of Remembrance (1918) which was based on alleged psychical excavations at Glastonbury Abbey. Barrett endorsed the claims of the book and testified to Bond's sincerity.[11] However, professional archaeologists and skeptics have found Bond's claims dubious.[12][13]"
 
Robert Ray
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From the Farmers Almanac
"However, there is one study, conducted by the German government in the 1990s, that perplexed the scientific community. During this study’s 10-year research period, researchers paired up experienced geologists and dowsers, sending them to dry regions like Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Yemen. Scientists were surprised to find that many of the dowsers were spot-on. In Sri Lanka alone, drill teams drilled 691 wells under the supervision of dowsers and found water 96% of the time."
Just like some people can't wear a wrist watch and others affect electronics it might be something that just some people can do.
 
Shookeli Riggs
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He immediately called his cousin who, in his words, was "good at witchin' burred war and lines"



Nice subtitles so us contree folk can unnerstandcha

I dont think everything needs to be scientifically studied and proven to understand that it works or does not.Looking at human history can teach us today that somethings just work.Most homesteads that were started in a new area were built near running water or had wells.These people did not have the time, and they certainly did not want to waste energy or materials digging a well in random places until they found water.

I do believe every person on the planet can dowse,some are just better at it than others.
 
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Growing up, everyone in the area had their water wells dowsed, usually by an old fella named Keith. No one questioned the practice. I have no idea how accurate he was.

When my dad and I were building my little cabin in my grandmother's backyard we were required to call the locator guy before digging, but dad dowsed for buried lines and objects first. The locator guy found a natural gas line and a sewer line and marked them.  Dad had found those, but also two other lines and something that seemed to be a large buried object that the official locator guy didn't pick up. As we dug, we were mindful of both the official markers and dad's markers. We soon found an old abandoned sewer line, parallel to the new one but 5 feet east, and an abandoned and rusted out fuel oil tank. More disturbingly, we found something that looked like a very old natural gas line. We called the gas company and they said, Oh yeah, there's an old network of gas lines that we haven't used for 10 years, but we haven't quite gotten around to capping and draining. Yup, dad found a live gas line that the locator dude missed.

I was curious and gave dowsing a try. Only my left hand works - I always put a bent wire in my right hand too and it waves around at random, but indicates nothing. My left hand is pretty accurate though, and only works if I also have a wire in my otherwise useless right hand. I have multiple sclerosis, so I wonder if that has an effect. I'm accurate to within half a foot or so for buried lines, and I can choose what I'm searching for - only sewer, only water, only fiber optic, etc.  My dad is astonishingly accurate, to the inch, but finds everything and can't tune anything out. He's really good at finding gold - likes to pan for gold and can find concentrations with his dowsing rods. He has been told that he probably has MS as well, and if he's tired or chilled he can't dowse anything.
 
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It's interesting that so many people are so cautious about something because they fear the woo-woo factor.  That is how ingrained we are to not only fear witchcraft but to completely "other" the things associated with it, and do what is called ritual defamation.  It's easy for people to jump on the ritual defamation bandwagon because the modern world is based on provable facts and so anything outside of that can easily be thought and put out to others as pseudo-science.  But defaming something that you don't understand to me is really as much poppycock as believing in something unprovable.  If it works, it works.  We don't need to know how it works to see the proof of it working before our eyes.  At any rate, when people don't understand something or feel that a thought or an opinion or statement does not fit this modern scientific paradigm, this framework where we make somewhat culturally arbitrary margins and anything outside of it is considered super-woo, the person who's worldview is being challenged often becomes antagonistic towards something just because they don't understand it, or because it is unexplainable.

I had my personal experience with dousing from an unexpected situation.  I was working on the railway and had a casted arm injury from a mountain bike accident and so couldn't do my regular labor job.  Fortunately, the management had a non-labor job that needed doing, so I could remain on the job at full pay.  All the culverts on the entire section of track that we were responsible for had to be inspected on a semi-regular basis, (like every 3 years or something). Some of these culverts were buried under the angular ballast rock that the railway ties and track sit upon to the point that the culvert was not visible.  The ballast rock gets replaced and added to and things get buried in it over time.  Also, the railway bits incuding the culverts could have been placed up over a hundred years ago.  It was really tricky finding some of them, and in some cases impossible, even with GPS coordinates (which are not accurate to the foot but have some uncertainty of within say 15 or 30 feet depending on how many satelites are triangulating and probably between the the various devices).  GPS's are not perfect.  Then one day I was waiting for track time as trains rolled by and a signals maintainer (the electricians on the railway) came by and was also waiting to get on the track.  We discussed our day and I explained the predicament.  

I hadn't inspected the area up to the crossing yet, as I had to drive a bit from where I was working to clear the tracks for some trains and cancel my occupancy permit, so the area where we were waiting I had not inspected.  He went into his truck and cut two pieces of heavy gauge wire.  He bent them to 90 degrees, so that he had L shaped rods.   He walked down the track with the rods loosely in his hands.  They turned inwards at one point.  He told me that there was either a buried wire, a culvert, an underground creek, or some anomole of nature at that location.   I checked my spreadsheet and sure enough there was supposed to be a culvert nearby.  We checked in the ditch on the low side and sure enough, there was a bent piece of metal that with a small bit of shovel work proved that it was indeed a misshapen culvert.  I was still skeptical.  He gave the rods to me and showed me how to hold them.  I walked back and forth over that spot, and it worked.  I went to a ravine where there was bound to be a culvert and it worked repeatedly there.  I kept the rods and work went a lot smoother after that.  

I don't know how it works, but it does.  I've never tried to do any more with it since then but I am tempted to do some now that I understand the way to do it.      
 
Dennis Barrow
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I was working on a commercial remodel many years ago in CO.  The city guys were there trying to find all the buried lines, water and electrical.  They had this nice several thousand dollar piece of equipment and could not find the water lines.
I grabbed a couple of the metal marker flags, bent them at 90 degrees, had one of my guys follow me with more flags and told him where to put them.  I found 3 water lines, there were only supposed to be 2.  Ended up teaching the city guys how to do it.
Told them the most important thing was to believe and focus on what you are looking for.
Several years later, I am getting ready to build new on some acreage.  This was 4 years ago.  I walked all over the land in the area I wanted to build.  Put a lot of flags in the ground.  Had the well drilled where it was the strongest and most flags.  Hit water at 160 feet.  ALL my neighbors are at 450 to 700 feet.
Have had many people tell me it is a bunch of hooka.  lol
I guess Bigfoot is also, until you have seen him with your own eyes.
 
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A lot of people misuse the term Skepticism, with the result that they artificially bolster their own arguments and notions. Skepticism is a doubtful attitude towards knowledgeable claims. Disbelieving in a subject that has a long history and many examples of its practice simply because you or others do not understand how it works is the logical fallacy of  personal incredulity. With the logical fallacy of appeal to authority (the bane of the modern wannabe  intellectual) hovering in the background. That is not skepticism. This is not just semantics.

Dowsing has a long history, with many instances of eye-witness testimony and much anecdotal evidence to attest to its effectiveness.   The burden of proof is upon those claiming that it doesn't work.  Therefore, the skeptic would be the person doubting the claim that dowsing doesn't work.

Anyone citing "studies" that dowsing doesn't work has yet to either be informed about or comprehend the enormity of the replication crises in modern science. Everyone should be actually skeptical of any such study, and not give undue weight to the arguments of the same sort of authorities that brought us modern agriculture and ended traditional agricultural practices that we are now forced to rediscover.  

I have seen dowsing work, and wise people I knew both used and trusted it.  I don't have to know or explain how it works for the technique to be valid, anymore than a person using a flashlight has to explain how electrons flow for their claims of being able to dispel the dark without fire to be valid.

My great-aunt Ethel preferred a  hazel fork to a willow one.


 
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I have not had experience with dowsing, but Hubby's an electronics engineer and he's used an old portable radio to find shallow electrical wires. I can't remember if he uses AM or FM to do so, or if both work. I can ask for more detail if people are interested.

However, I think that some humans can "feel" things which others can't. As a woman, I can hear higher sounds than Hubby can. In fact, for my age, I can probably hear higher sounds than many adults can. Children can generally hear higher sounds than adults.  As a teenager, on a tour of a Miso Production Facility, I kept hearing a high pitched noise, which the people I was with couldn't hear. However, the employee figured it out - it was a sound produced to chase mice away, and he was very surprised that I could hear it.

The issue is that there's great variability in some of our senses. If I had to guess, people who are good at dowsing, are using the extremes of senses beyond the typical range of the "average" person. "Average" can leave a lot out! That could be the explanation of why some people can do it well, some occasionally (like in a quiet, unstressed environment, but not in a busy, noisy area) and some think it's poppy-cock because it doesn't work at all for them.

If humans can work on being more inclusive, we might be better at celebrating, encouraging, and supporting some of those outlier people who have very useful skills! We can celebrate the people who can run fast enough to win a race, so why not celebrate the people who are using senses they may not realize they're using, in order to find water?
 
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Since our bodies are electrical and water carries electrical charge, of course dowsing works.  It is simply tuning into and allowing the science of it to work.  I think everyone has the ability to do it if they don’t reject it out of hand because they are too skeptical to allow it to work.  My Dad always dowsed before spending mega bucks on putting in a well.  I do the same and my husband and I independently dowsed without letting the other know where we were and what we found, then the well company people did sit.  We all are up with the same place, but my husband is so sensitive, he knew how big the cavern holding the water was, and how deep it was. He was exactly right.  
 
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Yes, I had a friend show me how to make 2 rods out of 2 nice thick coat hangers.

He demonstrated, then I tried it, and it worked: they really do pull and cross all on their own, held loosely. My 10 year old son was watching me, thought I was fooling him, then found he could do it too.

I dug down 6 feet and there was the water.
 
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I have fond memories as a child walking around a property back and forth in rows with my grandfather as he water witched for a well. He had a tendency to do this for people who were struggling and didn't charge them. I must of been eight at the time. In the moment it was boring for a wide eyed child but now looking back it was a moment that I can clearly remember. I'm going to have to stop by my grandfathers and talk to him about this memory...

He always like a nice apple stick that split into a Y. He had the best luck with them.
 
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