Anybody here have experience with dowsing?

I am by nature a sceptical person.
Yesterday I had problem with the waterpunp in the house.I called the local plumber an we talked about everything and nothing and between that  dowsing and if it works.Yes he said,,I have two L-Rods in the truck and when we are finished with the pump I will show you.When we were finished he asked if I wanted to see how it works with dowsing.He took his L-Rods and started to walk around the well.Immediately the L-Rods started to bent toward his body.I was excited and every time he crossed a special point the Rods started to bend.
I asked him to let me try.Still I was sceptic to it but when I had tested the power in the L-Rods I was not so sure that dowsing does not work.I am now so convinced that this old teqnique really works that I have ordered two L-Rods in copper to at least show with when here are guest.To answer my own question in the headline,yes dowsing works.
Any body here have experience with dowsing?

I totally believe it works. I dowsed my own well, and in my case, it worked for me but I don't have a good answer for how it works. I took two equal lengths of 12 gauge copper wire, bare with no jacket or insulation on them, and bent them into L's. Off I went. Seeing those dowsing rods move in my hands gave me goose bumps. I marked a big orange x on the ground where my dowsing rods crossed, and approached the spot from several directions, and the rods kept crossing over that spot. It was kinda spooky to take a step forward over the spot, the rods cross, then take a step backwards, and the rods uncrossed, over and over and over. When the well drillers showed up, I pointed to the location, and the guy said "Why there? was it dowsed?" I said yes. I didn't tell him I did it. Admittedly I was nervous, because well drillers charge by the foot, so I'm thinking about the hundreds of dollars which turned into thousands of dollars as they kept screwing 20ft lengths of drill pipe together and keep drilling. At about 190-200ft they hit water, and an ocean of it. I have a thread about my well drilling here: https://permies.com/t/76472/Sand-ground-water-casing

Growing up, two of my uncles used divining rods, but I was always skeptical after one of them had convinced the 5 year old me that the hood ornament was an 'aimer' that steered the car as I sat on his lap and he used his knee.
I'd seen friend's parents and grandparents use them on farms, too.  Last year we had to drill post holes for a deck and the flags for the water supply had been removed shortly after the excavation was back-filled.  The owner, a farmer, got out two rods and marked the line.  We had a crew of 5 and we spent the next hour or so each trying it and we could find the water line and also the electrical line that was buried.  I'm a total believer in it but don't ask me how it works.

There have been many, many experiments testing dowsing, and it has failed miserably in each of them that I have seen documented.  The Betz study was one of the most famous, and set out to prove dowsing did work.  It failed.  The Wikipedia site has links to a lot of studies, and the results.  As John said, The Amazing Randi will hand you a million dollars if you can prove in any kind of controlled situation that you can dowse any object correctly.  It seems odd that there are a number of dowsing groups, with lots of members, both here and abroad, and no one has collected their check.  And for the people that claim some mystical aspect that has rules against using your power for personal gain, just think of the good you could do for some impoverished group, or any charity with that million dollars.

Edited to add, I didn't know the challenge was stopped a few years ago.  Nevertheless, I'm certain if someone posted video evidence of dowsing working under controlled conditions, they would make a lot of money very, very quickly.

The people who owned my parents' property before them couldn't find water and drilled in several places looking, going broke in the process.  My parents bought the place, hired a dowser and they drilled where he said; water.  I was a kid so I haven't seen it first hand, just heard the story.  It's possible they just got lucky.  But if I were in a similar situation, I'd probably try it (maybe try doing it myself based on the stories here :)).

We dowsed for our drilled well using L-rods made from a wire coat hanger.

Cheers!  K

Well, the rods didn't move anywhere else except right over the water line and electrical lines.  

I'm throwing this dowsing image into this thread just because I think it's cool.  It's said to be from Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia, printed in 1550.

Our well was dowsed.  Thing is, there's water under all the land here, because of the nature of the limestone cave strata in this region.  My husband says "It was just a show the well guy put on."

One could not fail to find water underground around here, especially as close to the river as we are.

Oh, after dowsing the well, the guy took a GPS recording of the location, so it could be found by the drilling rig later on.  That was the best part, the combination of dowsing and GPS, so excellent!

If any of you ever pass through N. Ohio, please stop on by. I'll be glad to show you endless proofs and examples of successful dowsing. It is an art and a science that takes work, practice and learning. I'll be happy to teach you.

Jim Fry
Stone Garden Farm
Richfield, Ohio

P.S. We've been having meetings of the Buckeye Chapter of the American Society of Dowsers here at our farm the fourth Sunday of the month for the last 28 years. Our next meeting is this Sunday.

Until yesterday I was sure that dowsing was fake but after I felt the strong power in the rods I believe it works.To them who are sceptic,ask a experienced dowser to hold in your hands while you try and I am sure that you will experience the same exitement as I did.Dowsing works with or without you are a believer:)

I was a big skeptic until I used dowsing to find my well line from the house after we were not successful by assuming it ran in a straight line.    Too many rocks, etc, and it was dug in a big C shaped arc.     My daughter didn't believe me either when I told her so I had her run a trial as well and she picked up the same spot crossing the well line.   I do know how crazy it sounds, lol,  but we found the line within about a foot of the dowsing indication.     I never did find the electrical line though,  it was not with/near the water line!

Jim Fry wrote:II'll be glad to show you endless proofs and examples of successful dowsing. It is an art and a science that takes work, practice and learning.

Would you say those above in this thread who tried dowsing and were successful without work, practice, or learning were just lucky?  Or do some people have a natural ability?

Jim Fry wrote:If any of you ever pass through N. Ohio, please stop on by. I'll be glad to show you endless proofs and examples of successful dowsing. It is an art and a science that takes work, practice and learning. I'll be happy to teach you.

Jim Fry
Stone Garden Farm
Richfield, Ohio

P.S. We've been having meetings of the Buckeye Chapter of the American Society of Dowsers here at our farm the fourth Sunday of the month for the last 28 years. Our next meeting is this Sunday.

Tyler already asked one of the questions I had.  Another is this.  Could you briefly describe the "science" part of it?  Also, your group is one that I believe can find things other than water, for example, keys.  How do the rods know what you are searching for so that you find someone's keys rather than an underground stream?

This article discusses some of the science of dowsing:  https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17532-why-dowsing-makes-perfect-sense/

Jim Fry wrote:If any of you ever pass through N. Ohio, please stop on by. I'll be glad to show you endless proofs and examples of successful dowsing. It is an art and a science that takes work, practice and learning. I'll be happy to teach you.

Jim Fry
Stone Garden Farm
Richfield, Ohio

P.S. We've been having meetings of the Buckeye Chapter of the American Society of Dowsers here at our farm the fourth Sunday of the month for the last 28 years. Our next meeting is this Sunday.

Some years ago, I have this Canadian, who keeps coming back to my shop to talk just about anything, On one of those visit we were preparing to drill for water and he thought me dowsing. After he left I was so convince that I walk around the whole place, practicing and I was  able to trace the under ground stream. Two hours later my brother came and I let him try. Sure enough on the same point the wires cross. A moment later one of my children came home and we let him try and then another and another child every time the wires will cross on the same spot. We had a good laugh with my brother that afternoon, that such such a simple tool and technique can find water seemingly foolproof. and we use only a simple GI wire the one for clothesline.

I really dont know which part takes practice because my experience says otherwise.. From that time until now  I still use the same technique without fail. we can even find perch water and know that it is perch water without actual drilling.

In my family, there have been many successful dowsers. But they come from an area of Southern Ontario Canada, where it would be unusual to not find water beneath your feet. There can be variations in how deep, based on topography. My dad did it for a few people. When we talked about it, he admitted that he also looked at things like slope, tree species, and he preferred to do searches near the end of summer. In some areas the grass will brown out a bit in one area and be nice and green in another. Drill in the green spot.

He found water at the bottom of a slope on a relative's farm. It was only about 20 feet down. That relative spread far and wide the idea that my dad had some magical power. He also believes in supernatural beings. I've found this to be the most likely predictor within the family, as to whether people believe in this. So I think it's cultural. If a person has been to tent meetings where people are being healed, and they believe they've seen something, I think this conditions them to believe other things. I attended the same tent meetings, and saw nothing unexplainable. If we were to look at that scientifically I think it would be called confirmation bias. Wins are remembered and losses are forgotten.

I'd be interested to see if there are any blind dowsers, or better yet, someone willing to be blindfolded and prevented from walking around the property. Can they stand in one spot and point those sticks around and come up with anything? This would let us know if they are using visual or other cues from the environment.

I think it has to do with the depth of water. seems to me that there is a magnetic influence. that somehow makes the metal rod magnetize thus they attract one another and cross. If this is correct then the deeper the water the weaker the signal. For one water is a conductor a good path for electrical signal. Where there is electricity there is a magnetic field.

My cousin-uncle took me dowsing a few times as a child to show me how it is done.  He was famous for his ability and had a lot to say on the topic.  

He gave me a set of sticks and we walked together around different fields.  When it showed water, he stopped and told me about why it showed water.

The gist is that we observe a lot of different things around us, but we don't always know we are observing them.  In our minds is water, so we react to water signs.  Plants that like shallow water, the shape of the land, the way water flows underground, like cold air pooling in the valleys, the way it will flow from that hill.  It's all quite poetic, but he also stripped down the idea into practical knowhow - he says "this plant had deep roots, and the ground is dry around it, so of course it doesn't show water"  Our subconscious gathers this data but doesn't always share it with our conscious mind so we need a tool like a bent bit of wire or y-stick to find out what our senses know.

There's a trick he used to use at family gatherings.  He gave someone two sticks and told them to walk across the floor thinking about water.  Where the sticks crossed, he took up the floorboard, and there was the waterline.  Everyone was amazed by their ability to find water!  He explained it to me when I was a bit older.  He said "the walls, they are thick rock.  The ceiling is a bad place to put the pipe because water freezes in winter.  So the water must go under the floor.  There is the bathroom.  There is the kitchen sink.  There is no other plumbing in the house so of course the water goes from one to the other.  Their eyes sees these things but does not tell their mind about it.  That's what dowsing does - it says things in a way that the mind can hear"

This is what he learned as a boy, only it was in German and long before the subconscious became fashionable.  But as my cousin-uncle said, "If psychology had been around when I was a boy, that's what dowsing would have been called.  The old dowsers knew that the land spoke to them, but we like to keep a bit of magic eh?  Blame the sticks.  But our body knows even if our mind can't always hear."

Anyway, this is what he was taught and that's what he taught me.  Whether it is what really happens, I have no idea.  I don't really care.  It works for me for finding lost items.  I haven't tried it for water since I was a kid.  

Part of this discussion has been moved to the Education forum /topic: Science and Research. So if you're interested in dowsing, you might wish to check that out too.

As for the OP's question........yes, I dowsed for several years both in the USA and the U.K. I used bent copper rods. At the time I believed that dowsing worked and was legitimate. But an event occurred, actually several since I was still curious for a couple years, which caused me to doubt and then reverse my opinion.

This is my own experience and conclusion. As with any non-scientific supported subject, be it religion, dowsing, whatever, each person needs to look for themselves and make up your own mind.

I would like to see a cart rigged with two dowsing rods in a configuration that would allow a person to push the cart, allowing the rods to swing freely in loose sockets on the frame of the front of the cart. Even better would be a remote-controlled cart mounted with free-swinging dowsing rods.

If we could replicate the motions of dowsing rods in areas where water has been successfully dowsed before, but eliminating the human factor, it would be easier to identify the mechanism involved. We could even include infrared, UV, and EMF detectors.

Even dismissing ideas of charlatanism and malice, which I am happy to do for the purpose of the discussion, I am more inclined to believe the idea that people who aren't consciously looking for environmental and situational cues are doing so subconsciously.

If this isn't the case, we should be able to design an electronic water detector, or digital dowser, if you will. If it's an issue of conductivity, of electromagnetic fields being created by subsurface water flow against the earth's electromagnetic field, that should be detectable on some level.

I am not saying that there is nothing to dowsing. I am saying that it is illogical to me that such a thing should not only be possible, but reliable and easy, and yet not detectable by sensitive scientific equipment.

-CK

Chris Kott wrote:
If we could replicate the motions of dowsing rods in areas where water has been successfully dowsed before, but eliminating the human factor, it would be easier to identify the mechanism involved.

What if the human is the vital conductor of the magnetism/electricity?  It doesn't seem like it can be the rods themselves, because one can use wooden sticks or metal rods and get the same kind of results.

If that's the case, it should be enough to have uninterrupted metallic contact between the person pushing the cart and the rod sockets, and thus the rods, probably via a metallic handle.

Alternatively, we could set up a piece of electromagnetic equipment designed to replicate a human EM signature, down to frequency and intensity.

And if the rods can be non-conductive materials, that suggests something other than electromagnetic phenomena entirely.

To my way of thinking,  either higher levels of moisture beneath the soil change conductivity, or flows generate their own EM fields, and we detect the changes subconsciously, or the physical effects are strong enough that rods act like compass needles. They might need connection to a locally strong EM field to interact with the larger electromagnetic terrain,  like a human, but the detection is then mechanical or physical, and not a product of human judgement influenced by their subconscious.

-CK

The world is a vastly more "complicated" place than our five senses would lead us to believe. One minor example of this is some animals being able to see ultraviolet and infrared. We know there are radio waves and microwaves flying through the air all around us, yet we never see them. We also know that there seems to be more than just three dimensions. And that black holes may bend time and maybe loops it back on itself. At one time our science told us the world was flat, now we know earth is more a sort of circular shape. If I am ready to experience God (whether an old man in the sky, or the sum total of everything there ever is/was/will be working in concert with all) then I can (and do). If you can't accept that, you can't. Belief doesn't change actual reality. There is just simply all kinds of stuff all around us, that we aren't commonly aware of. Take it or leave it. Your choice.

Our bodies are quite dense. We are fairly compact matter. And all that "compactness" has a certain amount of "strength". It holds us where and as we are. And "it" doesn't really want to admit to anything different than what it can see, hear, feel, taste and smell. Because if our bodies (our minds) admit to all this other "stuff" going on around us, then maybe the body isn't in so much control. And if our bodies aren't in control, then our bodies can die. ~~And very few people want to die. So for some folks, they simply will not admit that there is anything beyond their "science" (their 5 senses).

So what the dowsing tools (and there are many including L-rods, forked sticks, pendulums, the palm of your hand, aura meters, etc.) actually do is to allow our bodies to experience the (hidden) world around us. If the rod is moving the body doesn't have to admit anything, "its just the rod moving". So your body isn't threatened by the prospect of something different than just mundane life. That's why some people are just seemingly natural dowsers, some people need further training and experience, and some people will never get it. It's just what your body is willing (and ready to) accept.

As for the particulars of Dowsing, there are actually rules. Just like driving a car, you may be able to drive the first time you ever get behind the wheel. Some people are just naturally less afraid of big moving metal things. Some have greater natural self-confidence. Some don't. But for everybody, proficiency comes with learning, and safety comes with knowledge of the rules. With Dowsing, it just better and much more likely to work well, by following the rules. And they are: When you pick up the device you are going to use, first ask, ~Can I Dowse (do I have the ability to do so now), then ~May I Dowse (permission to do so now), and ~Should I Dowse (will it be helpful/correct to do so at this particular time). Step two is to determine what your devices responces mean. Does the pendulum moving in a clockwise direction mean a yes or a no answer. Do the L-rods crossing mean yes or does moving away from each other mean yes. The third step is to always be very clear in what you are asking. You can only ask for a yes or no answer, so carefully frame your questions to allow yes or no. Example: If you are asking for finding your lost car keys, or water, or placement of a particular plant/tree. First ask in what direction. Then turn in a circle until the device saying "yes". Then go in that direction, asking for location along that line. When you get to that spot, ask height above or below ground. If you are looking for water, ask "is it 50 ft down, 100', 150'?, and so on until you find a level underground for the water. Then ask, is it potable? And, is it the best water for me to have/use/drink etc. You can simply ask any question at all as long as you ask, yes or no. So take your device to the grocery store and ask which avacado is best/healthiest for you to buy. Once you get proficient at Dowsing, there really need be any limit.

~~Look, this is an enormously complicated subject to discuss and learn. All I've done here is give a very small expaination about aspects of Dowsing. I really need to get back out to my gardens. If you want more, there are tons of books, and lots of dowsing groups all over the world. Do some learning (and maybe stop being so (body) dense). And you can learn a quite good and useful skill and art (science).

[quote=Chris Kott]
And if the rods can be non-conductive materials, that suggests something other than electromagnetic phenomena entirely.[/quote]

In some dowsing traditions, a forked stick is used.

So as I have some time on my hands.....and probably an old metal coat hanger to spare.....I will try this.  

Problem Statement:  We are about to start excavation for a new building on the property.  The new building will sit about 20 ft from a water line that currently exists somewhere about 6 feet below the ground and running parallel to the where the new building will reside.  We are in a region with heavy clay soil and a high water table if that makes any difference.  Rather quickly I need to locate with certainty where that water line runs so that we can tap into it for running a line to the new building.  I'm preparing to take the backhoe and start semi-randomly probing this weekend.  The problem is that the water line is pretty crucial on a daily bases for animal watering and food prep.....If  my 'probing' severs the line, my wife will likely be quite upset.  So I guess I'm looking for any opinions on how to go about locating the line with the least possibility of cutting into it.  For the record, I don't know for sure if the line is made of poly or of steel pipe.

Any suggestions for finding this water line safely and successfully would be appreciated.  [I admit, if my dowsing rods show me where it is, I might just freak out, quit my job, and hole up in a cave with all of my prior conceptions of the universe!  :-)  ]

Thanks!

Chris mentioned trying to measure the EM fields around people and water, in connection with dowsing.  I've heard there are some machines that can measure chakras, and Kirilian photography is supposed to show auras and spiritual activity... not something I've looked into a lot, but I wonder if some of the "ghost-hunter" tech would work.  Once you're able to measure this "force" (ie orgone, chakras, etc) you have a lot of applications, like comparing control subjects with experienced meditators, evaluating effectiveness of different spiritual practices; all sorts of stuff.

The problem with this subject (as with various paranormal or spiritual phenomenon) is people tend to either uncritically accept it all or uncritically reject it all.  I've seen enough to doubt such things are 100% psychological/BS, but have also noted that "spiritual" people are not always the most scientific in their approaches.

John Weiland wrote:Any suggestions for finding this water line safely and successfully would be appreciated.  [I admit, if my dowsing rods show me where it is, I might just freak out, quit my job, and hole up in a cave with all of my prior conceptions of the universe!  :-)  ] Thanks!

If the water line is metal, and you have access to one end of it, I'd suggest using something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/H131235A-Underground-Locator-Electrical-Telephone/dp/B00JWAXN7Q/ref=asc_df_B00JWAXN7Q/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312359228834&hvpos=1o7&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10350507512603861091&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9016205&hvtargid=pla-599128562324&psc=1
If the pipe is 6 feet underground, you might need to get/rent a higher end version.