Water Witching

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
81

In theory, yes. However it’s diffcult to test a dowser who says their ability only works on real landscape. It would be hard to conduct a properly controlled test under such circumstances, and it would be exceedingly expensive. It would be hard to find somewhere with the surface landscape and sub-surface water features that would permit testing but was also amenable to tight control. You are also going to have to drill dozens if not hundreds of test bores to get results and they don’t come cheap.

I don’t say such testing is impossible but it’s impractical.

When I was an early teen a friend and I used to joke about each having an invisible pet camel (we stole the idea from Klinger from MASH). My older brother would try to catch us out by pointing out reasons why we couldn’t actually have invisible pet camels, but we could always work around him, because we controlled the features that our camels did or did not have:

“Camels would smell and I can’t smell anything” was met with “invisible camels don’t smell”. “They may be invisible but if they were here I could touch them” was met with “invisible camels can’t be touched by anyone except their owner: your hand goes straight through”. “Camels would need feeding” was met with “invisible camels feed on air”. And so on.

In the end you can knock yourself out trying to disprove dowsing but True Believers will just go on changing the characteristics of what they can do to avoid testability.

Randi has been testing dowsers for many years: I think he did pipe tests in the eighties. However, the internet has made communication and debate about special interests like dowsing and skepticism faster. I have been reading about, and posting on the subject of dowsing here and on Randi’s boards, for about eight years. I certainly haven’t done a careful survey but my impression is that dowsers have in the past few years realised that Randi’s tests are a hurdle, and they have adapted. I see more and more “pre-emptive strikes” in dowsers descriptions of what they can do which are careful now to say that they can’t perform under conditions that Randi could test. **qazwart’s **anecdote is an example that I haven’t heard before. I’ve heard mention of dowsers who say they are not able to dowse on an artificial setup, only on real landscape. And so it goes.

In the end, woo retreats to untestable spaces. Ghosts and UFO’s don’t appear at lunchtime in broad daylight in crowded places where everyone has a camera at the ready. Those who have “crossed over” can’t give their own complete whole name, they can only say their name starts with a “C”. Psychics can’t tell you next week’s lotto numbers but only that you have a need for other people to like and admire you.

**CurtC **you are right that dowsers won’t be familiar with the scientific method and won’t accept that they have the onus of proof. But they will be equally unfamiliar with the power of scientific testing and the weakness of anecdote. You could do a multi million dollar test of water dowsing under perfect natural conditions which not a single dowser passed, but plenty of people will just say “oh sure, they failed, but my Uncle Jim, now one time he found this cable near our house usin’ nuthin’ but a piece of fishing line and a hairclip, and *he *was the real deal”.

82

The problem seems to be the difference in philosophies between those are willing to believe in absolute truths- that is, the acceptance of an event or idea as true without empirical proof- and scientific truth, where no idea is absolutely true and all truths require empirical evidence and are tentative.
These two mutually exclusive philosophies have been battling since ancient times.
It would be the difference between Aristotle, an absolutist, and Pythagoras, an empiricist. I remember a science program (Cosmos?) where Carl Sagan made the comment that if the ancients had accepted Pythagoras instead of Aristotle, we would have landed on the Moon in the 1500s.
Arguing empirically with a belief system like dowsing is a wasted effort. You’re arguing with a person who doesn’t think like you and likely and never will.

83

With all due respect Cecil, you are incorrect in your assertions on the subject of dowsing (bizzarly I stumbled on your site and this thread whilst googling the old question ‘what is colitas’ - thansk for resolving that one for me).

I am a Civil Engineer (I guess you have the same term in the States?), I am a man of science and mathematical solutions to problems. My ex-wife once bought me a pair of devining rods as a bit of a joke christmas present, we had a laugh until I tried them and tracked all our water supply pipes, sewers and soakaway drains. Difficult to prove those without digging up the concrete in the yard, but I was interested enough to try it in the field.

I work on bridge reconstruction projects. Utility companies are appalling at keeping records of their underground plant. I cant tell you how many times I have plotted the routes of their water mains to avoid digging over them/driving sheet piles through them etc on site, how often I have said ‘there is a second main’ when the utility company only claims one, or how accurately I have tracked long tunnels and culverts which are not plotted accurately on records. Until you see this in action, by someone with a steady hand - I can understand why you would question it. As I said my job is one of science, and I dont pretend to understand how this works, but there has to be a scientific reason for it.

Over the years I have asked many colleagues to try this, from senior engineers to labourers, nearly all with success, regardless of their willingness or otherwise to believe my own claims. I have only had one lady colleague who couldnt do it. Those who are less steady in walking at 90 degrees with the rods held horizontal are less accurate, but nonetheless can do it.

Richard Waters, Lincoln UK
(no, that isnt a joke name for a water devining bridge engineer!)

84

Mr. Waters,
That’s $1,000,000 if you can prove it under test conditions.

It seems to me that would be hard to pass up.

And there’s probably a Nobel Prize in there somewhere if you could determine the unknown force that you claim allows you to succeed at this.

I’m really not trying to be sarcastic here. The reward is real and there no doubt would be world-wide recognition and acclaim for the discovery of a force new to science.

We await your test results and the publication of your discovery in a peer-reviewed science journal.
(O.K., now I am being sarcastic.)

85

So what you are saying is that people who have significant knowledge of how water lines are laid out, who work with them all the time, on job sites where there is some evidence of how the lines are placed, then these people are pretty good at guessing where the lines go? It’s not a big leap to assume that you and your colleagues are relying on your knowledge and picking up (possibly subconsciously) on the many clues available to get a good approximation of things.

The problem is that whenever people who make claims like this are tested in an environment where there are no common clues they fail. This isn’t just a common thing, but it happens ever single time that this has been tested. It’s possible that you are the exception to the rule, but it’s not likely. You also haven’t explained what your criteria for success and failure were, since I suspect for someone like you with intimate knowledge of water lines it would nearly impossible to be complete wrong with an educated guess.

The bottom line (pardon the pun) is that claims for dowsing are plentiful, far reaching, and contradictory. Scientific proof of dowsing is non-existent. If you care to be challenged, there’s the possibility of $1,000,000 waiting for you, but I won’t hold my breath.

86

After you’ve divined the presence of a pipe or whatever, such that you know not to dig there in order to ensure you don’t damage it, do you dig there?

87

Richard,

As a man of science you will be familiar with scientific testing.
Why not come forward and be tested?
(As you may have read earlier in the thread, dowsers are remarkably reluctant to prove their claims.)

The Randi Foundation will give you $1,000,000 (about £625,000) if you can dowse.
You can arrange to take the test in the UK and it should only take a few hours to collect the money!

88

Thank you for your story-I found it very entertaining.

89

AND a fun exercise in the psychology of self-delusion.

I wonder what imaginative excuses richinlincoln will come up with to avoid accepting the gift of a million dollars.

90

I wont reply to each individual comment but will try to cover some of the issues raised.

Firstly, until I read your thread, I new nothing of the $1m - I will look into this and what conditions etc are applied. I like a challenge, will they pay for me to fly to USA? I guess that is where it is monitored?

Secondly, the witty reply about me being in an industry which deals with water mains etc is interesting and deserves further exploration. When I first look at a potential scheme, I cross the road at 90degrees and note where my rods cross. I repeat this at suitable distances (say 5m centres) making a mark on the road each time. This way I can locate and plot the line of buried water mains, sewers or culverts. I cannot claim to tell one type of the above from the other, or the depth, from my rods. I can claim to pick up changes in direction, when you have done this long enough to have a steady hand (and level walk - if that makes sense), you become sensitive to the movement of the rods and can actually see which way a pipe is running by the alignment of the rods (that is to say they do not always run straight down the road, perpendicular to my cross sections, but can change from one side to the other for whatever reason). Now that is quite accurate, and not something to be scoffed at lightly. Of course having an ‘intimate’ knowledge of the industry is of use, I can get plans from the utility (and indeed have to by law), but these dont usually come til after my initial survey and in any case they are notoriously inaccurate (a crude line imposed on on a digitised map has no meaningful scale and is always accompanied by a disclaimer). The plans are often out of date, not recording new mains, or failing to remove abandoned mains. There can be real clues on site as suggested by one contributer too (although not in the rural areas where most of our county schemes are), stop taps, manholes, chamber lids and when tracking something it is always useful to start at one of these, pick up the service at that location and then repeat the cross section every few metres to build up a picture. The services should not be assumed to follow straight lines, people encounter obstructions, other services, move alignment for connections, for safe traffic management, all sorts of reasons. The advent of directional drilling using flexible MDPE pipes results in watermains running in anything but straight lines. So there is more to my claim than simply being a detective, but of course that helps and you use all weapons in your arsenal to do your job. Electric and telecoms I track with radio detection equipement. Gas mains I cannot track unless I can put a trace on an exposed pipe.

I did once pick up a service with a weak movement of the rods and didnt know what it was, I was not convinced it was a water carrying service, but did track it. Excavation during the work exposed a shallow gas main, but I have not picked a gas main up before or since.

Finally to the writer who used the term ‘self-dillusion’ ; my self dillusion has saved a whole lot of money over the years. It costs money to trial hole to determine the line and depth of a main, which we need to determine before we can procedd with detailed design work. If a contractor knows there is a service, he has to hand dig, this costs time and money, if you can tell him where to hand dig - it helps. I have picked up services not recorded on plans which would have been ripped through by a bucket once the recorded service had been located and dug carefull around.

Mock if you wish, and as for ‘prove it’; I have many times, and will go on doing so. Perhgaps the burden should be on you to prove me wrong!

Best wishes, hope I havent offended anyone
Richard

91

Then winning the million dollars should be incredibly easy, and you don’t have to travel to Florida to do it. Read the rules, fill out the app, and JREF will attempt to put you in contact with a representative organization in the UK (that’s where you are, right?). Local travel expenses will be yours, but what’s a few pounds when many more are almost in the bank?

If you don’t do this, then your statement “I…will go on doing so” has no validity whatsoever. Win the money, then you can brag you did it and we will believe you, but until then, it’s nothing but hot air.

If you win it, you owe me a beer. :slight_smile:

92

But it’s not.

93

The thing is, you haven’t proved much of anything. You haven’t subjected yourself to any real analysis, and haven’t subjected your results to any real measurement. Lots of people claim to do what you do, they’ve all failed under controlled circumstances. What you described isn’t much of a testing structure, and can easily be manipulated unconsciously.

There’s no need for us to prove anything, you haven’t really demonstrated anything special yet.

94

The dowsing rod by itself does not have any power. It works with select few people. I am one such person who has been using the dowsing rod. This is used for water divining. I also use coconut for water divining.

The dowsing rod also has a very interesting use. With this I am in a position to identify the positive and negative energies at a place or of an object. I have also observed that the dowsing rod when placed before the photos of living persons and that of dead persons react differently. Further, when the photo of dead person is placed facing south, the dowsing rod indicates positive energy; while in all other directions, it shows negative energy. Similarly, photos of Indian gods and goddesses show positive energy, specially if placed facing east or west. Also, lamps used in pooja rooms show positive energy, if placed in east-west direction and negative energy if place in the north-south direction. Further, the writings in Devanagiri lipi(scripts)- Sanskrit, Hindi etc.show positive energy, whereas, the writings in English show negative energy. Same is true while speaking Sanskrit and English. Every individual has an aura of positive energy around him/her. The radius of this circle differ from individual to individual. This aura decreases when he/she talks in English and increases while chanting Sanskrit shlokas.

The word “Aum” in Sanskrit scripted on any surface shows positive energy. It also helps to reduce the negative energy at any place. Chanting of “Aum” too has a very positive impact on the positive energy level.

These have been demonstrated by me at various places. I can show this to any one.

Posted by P. Ramanujan(pramanujan2007@rediff.com)

95

Where are you located?

96

I myself can predict the future:

[spoiler]1. You won’t contact the Randi Foundation to pick up the million :confused:
2. Your reason will be one of the following:

  • my powers don’t work if anyone tests them
  • my powers don’t work for money
  • I don’t believe the Foundation has the money
  • I don’t want the money
  • it’s a lot of work filling in a form for the money
  • I am disgusted that you refuse to believe me
    [/spoiler]
97

Is pramanujan close enough to any dopers to demonstrate these powers?
If so, will ey be willing to do so?
Will these demonstrations include an indication of how one goes about distinguishing “good” “energy” from “bad”?

98

It would be great to meet someone who is prepared to demonstrate dowsing powers.
As you might have noticed from my posts here, I’ve been waiting for years for this. The British Society of Dowsers refuse to be tested, for example.

99

Are there any other Dopers who would be interested in such a demonstration? I am in WI. and I have been waiting for a demonstration myself. (If pramanujan turns out to be in my neighborhood, I would need some coaching in observational techniques, especially in the aforementioned task of differentiating “good”“energy” from “bad”.)

Every single person who has stated that they would trip over themselves to show off their powers has balked in the end, usually because of the very real barrier of distance and expense.

There are also valid reasons for opting out of the James Randi challenge-- not the least of which is that he will never ever ever pay off. (But that is fodder for a different thread.)

I think it would be in the spirit of the Straight Dope DIY science to have a Doper observed demonstration.

(The offer is of course open to richinlincoln too, but I don’t recall him saying that he’s keen to show off.)

100

No, but you are clearly demonstrating that you are NOT “a man of science” as you claim to be or believe yourself to be.