Water divining: Is there any evidence that it works?

[Bluebells]

Mods note: This discussion has been split from the Group Water and Well KeyPost by ajapale . The original discussion was not started by Bluebells


Hi bespoke.
You are looking for a diviner, but you may actually be one yourself. I discovered I was one, and was delighted until I was told that it is not that rare.
Get a wire coathanger. Break off the hook, and straighten the wire so that you have one long piece. Make a V with it. Bend the two ends at right angles, and hold those ends tightly in your hands. Put your elbows in close to your body and walk, pointing the V in front of you. If you can divine you will know, because it is the most bizarre sensation to feel the wire lifting.
Try it out first over a place where you know there is water, like a water supply pipe.
However don't go sinking wells or drilling holes until you have a second and/or more scientific opinion .
Have fun.

 

[ClubMan]

Re: Key Post: Group Water Scheme & Private Wells.

Try it out first over a place where you know there is water, like a water supply pipe.

Hardly a scientific/objective [double] blind test now is it?

However don't go sinking wells or drilling holes until you have a second and/or more scientific opinion .

"More scientific"? Don't you actually mean simply "scientific"?

Have fun.

Indeed - have fun. But don't take this stuff seriously in the absence of any objective evidence that it actually works.

 

[z108]

Re: Key Post: Group Water Scheme & Private Wells.

What intrigues me is how birds for example appear to have an internal compass and use this to navigate when migrating.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1102_TVbirdflite.html


Maybe the dowsers in wikipedia were tested for the wrong thing and should have been tested for magnetic sensitivity instead.

But I'm skeptical too !!!

 

[ClubMan]

Re: Key Post: Group Water Scheme & Private Wells.

Maybe the dowsers in wikipedia were tested for the wrong thing and should have been tested for magnetic sensitivity instead.

The key point is that in properly conducted tests dowsers have failed to come up with results better than chance so there's probably no need to test them for anything further. One reasonable explanation of the movement of dowsing "devices" is the ideomotor effect which would not involve any external influences such as magnetism etc.

Could birds not perhaps actually navigate by the sun or other environmental cues rather than having any in-built "compass"?

 

[Bluebells]

Re: Water devining: Is there any evidence that it works?

Hi ClubMan,


If one wants to discover if they can find water underground, they must try it out first over a known body of water. They will have an answer right away if they have a reaction there. Hence my suggestion about the water pipe.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Bluebells

That is simply not a test of divining skills. You think you have some divining gift. I know that I have none. You will walk on water and your joss sticks will lep up and down. Mine will stay stable. The mind is very strong and is fooling you into thinking you have some skills.

If I told you that you were walking on water, but I knew that you were not, I am sure that your joss sticks would respond as well.

There is only one test and when ever it is repeated systematically, water diviners fail to find water any more often than those who are not diviners.

Brendan

 

[ClubMan]

Re: Water devining: Is there any evidence that it works?

If one wants to discover if they can find water underground, they must try it out first over a known body of water. They will have an answer right away if they have a reaction there. Hence my suggestion about the water pipe.

Have you read any of the links to skeptical views on this sort of thing in the Wikipedia article that I linked to above? Do you still believe that there is something to dowsing in spite of the results of rigorous scientific testing of the phenomenon? If you do then that's all it is - a belief, and not something backed up by any hard evidence.

 

[ClubMan]

Actually - really says it all...

One thing must be made clear—dowsers on the whole are very honest folk. They believe in what they do. Unfortunately their belief is poorly placed. They CANNOT perform as they think they can. Having a string of successful wells to which one can point, proves nothing. A better test would be to ask the dowser whether he can find a DRY spot within 100 metres of a well he has dowsed. With more than 90% of the world’s land mass above reachable supplies of water, this should be quite difficult.

Diviners are often believers in various cult matters, such as faith-healing and spiritualism. Some, however, refuse to accept their claimed powers as anything supernatural, They tend to think anyone can do what they do. And in this belief, they are quite correct. Any person can be seized by the idiomotor-reaction enthusiasm. But the test, as always, is whether or not they can then discover water, oil, gold or other substance solely by means of this twitching of a forked stick. Tests done in Australia and many other countries of the world indicate that belief in water dowsing, and in all forms of divining, are false and fanciful.

Though diviners will continue to be hired by believers in such powers, and wells will be dug with great precision on spots located by forked-stick folks, these water supplies will not prove that dowsing works. They will only prove that there is a great deal of water down under the earth, and we do not need silly folks wiggling sticks to tell us that.


Divining is a delusion, and must be recognised as such.

 

[Bluebells]

Question.
I posted a reply to ClubMan.
It was in two parts. Part one wondered how a reply to a post in another thread became a new thread, apparently started by me and with a misspelt title. I was not asking about the merits or otherwise of divining as a means of finding water underground. I was merely responding to a question.
However my post shows only the other part, in which I give my reason for telling the OP, bespoke, to test ability over a waterpipe.
Why has the first part been left out?
I see that the spelling has been corrected on the Thread Title list, but remains incorrect on what appears to be my individual thread title. I didn't write ' deviner '!

I did not have a query as to whether divining works or not. I don't know how, or if it works for everyone every time, and I don't care. I just know that a forked wire behaves in a very odd manner if I carry it over water.

Brendan, I do not see it as a ' gift '. You obviously have a strong belief in mind over matter, and in the potential power of your mind over mine. But it is indeed a gift to be able to harness that power. How do you do it ?

I don't take Wikipedia very seriously, given that anyone can edit it.

 

[ClubMan]

Question.
I posted a reply to ClubMan.
It was in two parts. Part one wondered how a reply to a post in another thread became a new thread, apparently started by me and with a misspelt title. I was not asking about the merits or otherwise of divining as a means of finding water underground. I was merely responding to a question.
However my post shows only the other part, in which I give my reason for telling the OP, bespoke, to test ability over a waterpipe.
Why has the first part been left out?
I see that the spelling has been corrected on the Thread Title list, but remains incorrect on what appears to be my individual thread title. I didn't write ' deviner '!

One of the moderators (not me - maybe Brendan) saw fit to declare the discussion of dowsing off topic in the original thread and split it into a separate thread. The link to the original thread is included in the edited original post for people who want to check the original context.

I did not have a query as to whether divining works or not. I don't know how, or if it works for everyone every time, and I don't care. I just know that a forked wire behaves in a very odd manner if I carry it over water.

Be that as it may that does not prove that dowsing "works".

Brendan, I do not see it as a ' gift '.

...

But it is indeed a gift to be able to harness that power.

Eh?

I don't take Wikipedia very seriously, given that anyone can edit it.

Yes - but not anybody can edit the content of the links to which it refers including some that document rigorous scientific tests of dowsing which show that it yields results no better than chance - or to put it another way, that it does not "work".

So I take it that you "believe" that dowsing works in general or at least in your specific case? If so why not apply for James Randi's $1M prize?

 

[Bluebells]

Brendan said, that if he told me there was water somewhere, and he knew there was not, his power of suggestion is so strong, that he would influence the way my mind would work. Is this not a ' gift ', in the sense that Brendan used the word originally?
Thanks for explaining how this ended up in a new thread, but why did whoever split the thread, not just put their own name on it, instead of a new title and under my name?

I had no wish to get into a debate about this. I only know as much about it as I described, nor have I any desire to do so. To me it is just fun, and I don't take it as seriously as you seem to think I do. If the scientists say it doesn't work, thats fine by me, I can't go against proven science.

 

[ajapale]

This discussion has been split from the Group Water and Well KeyPost by ajapale Last edited by ajapale : Yesterday at 03:10 PM. Reason: discussion split from keypost

Key Posts are not for discursive discussions.

I apologise for spelling divining incorrectly.

 

[ClubMan]

Brendan said, that if he told me there was water somewhere, and he knew there was not, his power of suggestion is so strong, that he would influence the way my mind would work. Is this not a ' gift ', in the sense that Brendan used the word originally?

I presume that Brendan was referring to the ideomotor phenomonen in general and not any special gift that he claims to possess. But I'm sure he'll let us know if he possesses any paranormal powers.

Thanks for explaining how this ended up in a new thread, but why did whoever split the thread, not just put their own name on it, instead of a new title and under my name?

That's how thread splitting works.

I had no wish to get into a debate about this. I only know as much about it as I described, nor have I any desire to do so. To me it is just fun, and I don't take it as seriously as you seem to think I do. If the scientists say it doesn't work, thats fine by me, I can't go against proven science.

Fair enough.

 

[woods]

I will be building a new house shortly and would be interested in getting some one to "divine" for lines of magnetism.
I understand that both tallents are related.
Does anyone know anything about this or anybody that does it or any book on the topic.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

I would say that your local Feng Shui consultant would be able to help you. They might tell you what the best way to face the house is as well.

Brendan

 

[Gatherer]

Presume all these scientific, rational and skeptical contributions are not from people whose sundays involve subscription to the primitive belief system that is so popular on the island...

 

[ClubMan]

I will be building a new house shortly and would be interested in getting some one to "divine" for lines of magnetism.

Why not use a compass? Why does magnetism matter to you anyway?

I understand that both tallents are related.

You mean more hocus pocus?

Does anyone know anything about this or anybody that does it or any book on the topic.

http://www.amazon.com/Mumbo-jumbo-Conquered-World-Francis-Wheen/dp/158648348X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-1682468-4762324?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183321600&sr=8-1 (This one) maybe?

 

[ClubMan]

Presume all these scientific, rational and skeptical contributions are not from people whose sundays involve subscription to the primitive belief system that is so popular on the island...

Certainly not in my case or Brendan's unless he's had a conversion since I met hime last.

 

[Gatherer]

Certainly not in my case or Brendan's unless he's had a conversion since I met hime last.

Good to hear. Water divining may be hocus-pocus but it's not the prevalent one, there aren't any shrines to it and nobody to seems to be killing anyone over it. Or if they are, they're keeping it quiet.

 

[z108]

But is somebody somewhere making money from it ?