this question has been puzzling me for a few years now.I do not know whether or not you have heard of or used a divining rod, but if not let me tell you a little about them. I use a coat hanger and make two lengths a foot long and about 4 inches up bend it to make an “L”, hold the small end in your loosely clenched fists and hold them parallel in fromt of your chest. if you walk over a buried water or electric line the wires will cross. It works each and every time and I can not figure out how this works. Also, I have used a stick that looks like a “Y” and sure enough that turns sideways when you cross a buried line. also works with plumbing in your house. Any insight would be appreciatede. Thanks a bunch.
-Buck
Actually, it doesn’t work at all.
My grandfather had the L-shaped rods. They were made from 4-foot rods and had about a 4" bit turned 90° as a handle. He called them a “water witch”. He had a test well on his property, and chose the location of the well after a “water witch” indicated where and how deep the water was. Fascinated, I made my own.
I don’t know if they ever “found water”, since I never dug for any. But they did cross at the same locations every time I used them. Additionally, the “water witch” could “detect an aura”. That is, the rods would spread apart when you approached a person or if you stood still while a person walked toward them. To test whether I might be making any unconscious movements when I saw the person coming, I closed my eyes. They still spread apart.
Now here’s the problem: I don’t believe in ghosts. As much as I’d like to, they’re just not rational. If I don’t believe in ghosts, can I believe in auras? Hm. Things electrical produce a magnetic field. Humans use electricity. Okay, maybe there’s something there. But why would this “field” be detectable when you have two ordinary metal rods in your hands, but not when you are empty-handed?
So. As a teenager, I tried experiments that showed me that the rods worked to some degree. But I never could figure out how they worked. Even though I tried to not influence them (keeping my eyes closed, for example), it’s still possible that I happened to tilt my hands at just the right time every time. Maybe my “internal clock” told me that it was time for a person to approach. Maybe I subconsciously detected his approach (e.g., heard-but-didn’t hear footsteps) and tilted my hands then. The rods seem to work, but I’d have to see the results of a larger experiment involving several subjects before I’ll believe it.
Here’s Cecil’s take on it: Does dowsing for water really work?
Or as Cecil said in Joe Random’s link:
Yep. The human mind is a complex thing, and made even more so by the fact that, even though it belongs to us (indeed, it could be argued that it is us), we still have no clue as to what it’s doing much of the time.
Of course it always works IF you know where the well/lines are.
If you don’t know it’s very iffy! Hits are result of intuition as to lay of the land.
Ok I know that the subconscious is very powerful, but… I use them all the time in excavating to find these lines and others get the same reading in the same spots without witnessing my doing so. And, it finds the buried lines for me just fine.
Sorry to move it, guys, but this one is gonna wind up a debate.
samclem GQ moderator
Try this in a double blind test, I think you’ll find that you cannot reproduce the results.
been using them for years… worked today at a sewer lateral hookup where the owner was unsure as to where the line came out of his house… I know it DOES work, but do not know why.
If you can prove that it works, James Randi has a million dollars for you.
If you can do this reliably, James Randi will give you a million dollars.
No kidding. Absolutely serious. If you can demonstrate that you can actually detect water or metal by using dowsing rods at a rate significantly higher than chance or guessing, you can collect one million dollars, not to mention becoming famous worldwide.
Be aware, though, that hundreds (or possibly thousands) of people who believed just like you that they could also detect water or metal pipes (or other items) by dowsing or divining rods have tried, and have all failed.
Check out this link:
Note that since JREF has tested so many dowsers, and all have failed, you’ll undoubtedly have to pass a preliminary test, probably administered by a local organization, or pay for some testing yourself to establish that you can succeed at at least some minimum level. Dowsers have been so common, that JREF frankly doesn’t show much interest in any new claimant without something to warrant special attention.
Good luck, if you get the mill, I’ll expect a 10% finders fee. 
How about 5% for you, and 5% for me? 
After posting, I see you beat me to it, but I did supply the link. 50/50 sounds good to me!
and while I’d be pleased as can be to collect, I’m not holding my breath for it.
Until you do a double blind test, you don’t know that it works.
As has been shown time and time again, people who believe that divining or witching works for them fail when taken to an unfamiliar environment. Most likely you are picking up on clues that perhaps you are unaware of, but the visual clues not the divining rods are what is driving any success you may have. Remove the clues and they stop working.
I respectfully submit that you are remembering the hits and forgetting the misses. That is why we always need double-blind, controlled testing to evaluate the efficacy of any such “unexplainable” method or device.
Bolding mine. I refer you to Randi’s book Flim-Flam! for a chapter on a detailed examination of three water dowsers who were all considered to be experts in their field.
If divining rods actually worked, we’d have to rewrite all our textbooks for at least three branches of science. And frankly, I don’t give much odds to the stick at this point…
Would you please give us a little more information?
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Are you doing this for your job, at home or both?
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If for your job, what is that?
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You say others have made it work also. Under what circumstances has this happened?
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Can you recall times when it hasn’t worked at first, but then did later?
Answers appreciated.
Sigh. Belief in James Randi is as crazy as belief in the supernatural. Why are some people so naive as to take him seriously?
I am not, repeat NOT claiming that dowsing ‘works’ I have no reason to believe that it does. I just point out that Randi’s tests are done so incompetently and dishonestly that someone would probably fail even if they really could dowse. I’d like to recount a little personal anecdote that illustrates the problems with Randi’s test methodology.
He has made a similar challenge on numerous occasions going back at least 20 years.
Only a six percent chance? Thayt didn’t sound very likely to me, so I consulted some geologists about it : here and here. What, really, are the chances of hitting a dry spot? According to the geologists I consulted :
So I wrote to Randi and asked him for clarification of what he would consider a “dry spot” to be. In the first place he told me that his challenge was “just a figure of speech” and not a serious challenge. When I pressed him for a definition I received the following reply:
At this point, I told him that I was interested in accepting his challenge, and wanted clarification of the term “dry spot” My claim is a simple one. I’m not claiming any supernatural or paranormal ability. I just say that Randi is ill-informed, dry spots are very common and anyone is likely to hit one just by selecting a spot at random.
I kept trying to establish the meaning of “dry spot.” He refused to supply a definition that he would accept, saying “What do you call, dry? What do you call, wet? It’s YOUR claim, not mine, so YOU tell me what you would want to be tested on….!” Yet when I gave him my own definition of “dry spot” he responded ** “That’s YOUR term, not mine.” ** And here we had an impasse. Randi rejected my definition, but refused to offer one. It was thus impossible to establish an acceptable meaning of the term.
Although he would not say what a “dry spot” is, Randi offered to test my claim in the following way:
I rejected his offer since I’m not a dowser, and wasn’t claiming to be one. I made a further attempt to establish a meaning for “dry spot” where Randi told me to **“read a dictionary” ** Then I gave up. It was quite clear by that time that he had no intention of honouring his challenge.
Randi is rude, aggressive and argumentative. I made an honest attempt to discuss this test with him, he was unhelpful and deliberately obstructive. He simply would not discuss it in a sensible manner. He has an absolute lack of professionalism. Quite simply he is incapable of conducting a proper test. I don’t have any paranormal abilities myself, but anyone that does would certainly encounter the same problems.
Randi is a bigger fraud than Uri Gellar. The sooner this is recognised the better.