Designing a common psychic test-Dowsing

Great Debates
21

Hold it. You said dowsing for utility lines “works.” Only not all the time, or to a particular degree of accuracy?

Applying heat to water to get it to boil works. Using a battery to start my car works. Putting a foundation underneath a masonry wall to keep it from sinking works. Again, not intending to slap you down, but you are using a specialized definition of “works,” if it is* less reliable* and less accurate then an alternative method that is “not infallible … by a long shot.”

I would submit that it hardly works at all, and that not applying for the Challenge is a wise decision.

22

I don’t think anyone here is calling you a liar. I think that you may be misinterpreting the results. It’s quite possible that given your years of experience in locating utility lines you may just have learned to predict with better than random accuracy where these lines would have been run by the original installer. Just by knowing where the water service entrance is and where the faucets are a plumber has a pretty good shot at predicting where the pipes are. It’s not a psychic ability, it’s an unconscious intellectual one. The ideomotor effect explains the rest.

23

Sorry you were insulted. This board is not good for gentle people. Just want you to know I believe you, I have seen it happen many times. Exactly why? I don’t know either. Have a good day.

24

I think you are confused because not everyone, if fact most people, don’t have anything to prove. They just do what they do, and don’t expect to be challenged on everything they say. Suggest you just observe quietly some of this activity taking place. I say this honesty with no offense intended.

25

And I suggest strongly that you not hijack this thread. We are trying to establish proper protocols for testing dowsing, and the one protocol I can pretty much guarantee will not be adapted will be sitting back and watching a dowser do whatever she/he wants without any controls.

26

Hopefully you’ll indulge me a quick story, fisha.

Many years ago, when I was teenager, I picked up a couple of bits of metal and, out of boredom, bent them to form dowsing rods. I held these in the way I’d seen on telly and proceeded to dowse around my parents house.

The rods crossed whenever I went over pipework or other sources of water and uncrossed when I moved away. Out into the garden I went and I followed accurately the underground pipes serving the house.

It was truly remarkable, me, my parents, and everyone thought I had a gift. It was around that time that my neighbour was searching for a missing water pipe in his garden. So I was duly voluntereed to find it.

I failed. Miserably.

Thinking about it in the months later I realised that for all my previous ‘hits’ I’d known where the water was. I hadn’t always consciously known but I knew the layout of the garden and the pipework in the house 'cos my dad had told me before.

In the neighbours garden, where I didn’t know in advance, I couldn’t find anything. I experimented some more and found out that my ‘gift’ only worked when I knew, or could work out, the answer.

I’d wager that, for you, the dowsing rods are merely reacting to your knowledge of the most likely places for things to be.

I’ve learnt much more about dowsing, the ideomotor effect, and the effect of subconscious knowledge.

I still remember the feeling when I thought I could dowse, and later on I really wanted it to be true, but I’m forced to accept that it’s just not.

You sound like you’re already completely convinced of the truth of dowsing, but perhaps that might inspire you to think about how and when it works …

27

I think it would be really cool if dowsing turned out to be true. If the mechanism could be studied and turned into something more general and methodical it would have have huge implications. Think of the lives that could be saved if we could dowse for landmines.

As for the OP … maybe you could create a “standard field”. Install a set of permanent conduits covered by a few inches of dirt. Mark the top off with a grid. Pipes or buckets or bits of metal or whatever the test required could be put in the conduits fairly easily – just scrape off the dirt, open the lid, drop the test object in, and cover it up again. Much easier than digging holes from scratch. And the standardized layout and grid would make it easier to compare test runs by different dowsers.

28

We would have to guarantee a large enough flow of water-otherwise the dowser can claim, perhaps rightly, that the amount was too small to detect.

29

That’s a great idea, if you’re dowsing for “objects”. What does it have with flowing underground water, which is what most dowsing is done for?

Sorry, Czarcasm, you beat me to it.

30

Your choice, but I was hoping you would apply for the MDC instead. After all, you said you could do it – all I asked was you do it once more, under circumstances where no one can be misled. No more, no less.

31

We must also guard against fraud and deception, so I suggest that pipes are buried deep enough to prevent detection via sound or ground vibration from the flowing water.

32

Do we need to be ‘burying’ stuff. In the ground?

What about just a floor that lifts up with conduits for pipes and wires under it.
Then we can hide whatever our dowser says they can find under it.

33

I can tell when water is flowing through the pipes in my house, via sound and vibration. We would still need some way to insulate from both.

34

It’s not this that perplexes me, it’s the whole thing about not really being all that sure whether it’s worth trying to win a million dollars.

35

Packing peanuts? Some other sound dampner. Or maybe we just have loose packed earth with a floor above it. I’m trying to imagine ways to make it as easy as possible to change the test.

Your home water supply is fairly high pressure, I’d imagine we could run a lower pressure supply which should fix the vibrations. Not sure about the sound, pump white noise into the room to obscure it?

36

Again, if the water pressure is too low the claim can be made that the dowser just can’t detect that small an amount.

37

Don’t most dowsers claim to be able to locate buried metal? If so, surely a far simpler test (albeit maybe not universal, but I doubt you’ll get that anyway) would be a game of find the lady - 100 identical upturned clay bowls under which are randomly placed a number of gold coins.

38

No, I am not pissed. The only thing that chaps my ass is that I am a pretty sane poster, and have nothing to gain by making outrageous statements. Except unending derision and loss of credibility. Yet I am still here, trying to explain myself, however poorly.

A little backstory.

#1 I had this job in 92-93. 15 years ago.

#2 The times I did it, maybe half a dozen. The times I saw it, maybe a dozen. It was one more tool in the arsenal, if all else failed. It was basically a shot in the dark, that more often than not worked when nothing else did. I wouldn’t stake my firstborn child on it being 100% accurate, but I am willing to say it does work more often than blind chance. In addition, when locating lines, at least by early '90’s rules, we had a two foot grace on either side of the marks, where no one was supposed to dig

#3 I’m talking about utility lines. Repeatedly water dowsing is brought up in what I have said. I don’t have any familiarity whatsoever with finding water. I was telephone and electric, sometimes gas, but rarely.

#4 Intuiting where the lines are. Absolutely. You do that job for a while, you get a pretty good idea where things are, just from experience, and familiarity with a certain area. To this day, I could probably find over 60% of lines in a typical suburban lot just from remembered experience. But homeowners, lazy or inept crews, natural land features, and sheer random insanity sometimes changes where the lines are laid.

#5 I am practical, sensible. The guys who did this, showed me, were salt of the earth. It wasn’t some funky hoodoo stuff. Nothing paranormal about it. Just one of those things. Kinda cool, but nothing to write home about. Like picking up the phone to call someone, but it rings, and they’re calling you. Or looking at a cow and saying she’s going to calve before tomorrow.

#6 You all are making this out to be like I am trying to cause some big brouhaha. I’m not. I just said, I’ve seen it, I’ve done it. I don’t make my living off of dowsing, I don’t walk around trying to convince people of it. In fact, other than this thread and the last one, maybe a year or so ago, I haven’t even thought about it. I should have learned my lesson last time.

#7 We are talking about a 2 year period of my life 15 years ago. No, I am not going to take Randi’s challenge. I don’t need the money, (although I would take it) I don’t need nor want the celebrity. For what reason? I would be willing to do a test like I have described upthread, just for shits and giggles, but for something I did approx 6 times 15 years ago, I’m not willing to stake my reputation on.

This was more of me relating an experience, than a declaration of intent. I gave a suggestion of a test, but it doesn’t relate to water dowsing, so I guess that didn’t help, either.

Mangetout, I look at Randi’s challenge like being President of the United States. Even if I could do it, why the hell would I want to? Seriously.

39

I can think of a million reasons, green ones.

40

Why the hell wouldn’t you? Seriously?

You made a claim to be able to do something. Was that serious? We don’t believe you. We are serious. We want proof. Why would you make such a claim if you couldn’t back it up? Were you just kidding?

Think of it as a bar bet. Ever made $20 from a bar bet? $100? $1,000,000?

Serious cash for a serious cause. Easy test. Easy money. Give it to charity. Throw it in the river. Burn it. Roll in it. Eat it. But do it.

For the OP: The idea of a baseline test is the solution. With full knowledge of water flow/location, adjust the flow enough so the dowsers say they can detect it. You could even try alternate flows by adjusting valves. Then when the rate is just right, blind the test and adjust the valves again. Maybe even do an after-test without blinding.