All I know is this..
When I was about 12 (65 now), I used to "practice divining". We didn't call it dowsing.

Always used a peach tree "Y", and had watched some older local dudes divining, so I started walking around doing it..just a kid thing.

Well, a local mechanic told my step pop he needed to drill a well to runnwater to his shop, and being the kid I was told him I could find water. He took me up on it, and next day armed with a peach tree "Y", supposedly found water about 30' away from his shop.

He had the well drilled where I pointed out, and of course found water, I don't remember how deep or such, and he was always giving me free pop from his store next to his garage, so we both were happy.

Never had any luck with copper wires though.
I can understand those that disbelieve the practice just as much as I can believe those who put faith in it.

It is Voodoo Magic, I didn't believe it but it works. I have been able to locate underground pipes this way. I don't know how it works but it does. Used bent Tig welding rods bent into the shape of an "L". Hold one in each hand like a gun and walk. When they cross you've fond something. I have no explanation for this, I only know what I have seen and done.

quote:

Originally posted by DrDan:
You might look at the scientific studies linked at the Wikipedia article on dowsing: Dowsing

A geologist friend of mine explained that, except for a few places in Sweden, water can be found within 1000' of any place on earth and is usually much, much closer to the surface. I have never heard of a dowser that both found a well, and then proved water, or good water, wouldn't be found anywhere else nearby, thereby demonstrating their dowsing was actually prescient.

My Uncle could discern a degree of pull, stronger or weaker. However, he never claimed to be able to tell what that meant exactly. Except... The more water, The harder the pull. The shallower the water, the harder the pull. Less water weaker pull. Deeper water, less pull. Deep enough = no pull. This observed from a lifetime of spotting wells.

If the water was too deep it would not register to him. Around here, about the deepest water well would be drilled ~200 feet deep. As a plumber / electrician for 18 years that installed and serviced well pumps, the deepest I ever saw in My County was about 400 feet. And that was one well, I don't recall ever seeing one between 250 and that one single example. And the 400 foot hole was almost dry. Produced less than a quart per hour, we pumped and tested it over a 24 hour period.

If no water was hit in less than 250 feet it was considered a dry hole and given up on. Usually. Despite water might certainly have been found deeper.

He couldn't detect water that deep anyway he said. It would have been out of range for the average drilling practice anyway, so the idea that if you go deep enough anywhere and find water was completely irrelevant.

When the driller drilled my well he stopped at ~200 feet, he said I should probably give up and try another spot, not on top of a hill... but it was my call. I told him I trusted my Uncle, and OK'ed him to go up to 50 feet deeper... he hit good water at ~225 feet... 9 gallons per minute flow. Water level rose to about 50 feet below ground. This was ~40 years ago.

You believe whatever you want... I will certainly do the same!

Don't know about water. As for finding pipelines, sewer etc I have seen it and done it myself with bent welding rods; which I learned of from pipefitters on various construction sites. Don't believe it's magic or voodoo but a natural reaction to gravitational or magnetic anomalies causd by the presence of the waterline or pipeline. Seems like I read about this years ago. The article was not definitive but the author believed that the phenomenon falls within the laws of physics and although not completely understood, it would eventually be understood with enough investigation.

quote:

Originally posted by DrDan:
You might look at the scientific studies linked at the Wikipedia article on dowsing: Dowsing

A geologist friend of mine explained that, except for a few places in Sweden, water can be found within 1000' of any place on earth and is usually much, much closer to the surface. I have never heard of a dowser that both found a well, and then proved water, or good water, wouldn't be found anywhere else nearby, thereby demonstrating their dowsing was actually prescient.

Do you sacrifice the chicken BEFORE or AFTER you walk around with the sticks?

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Do you sacrifice the chicken BEFORE or AFTER you walk around with the sticks?

Pfffft... Noobs....

Before damn it! Everyone knows that! What good would it possibly do after the fact?

Pro tip: Needs to be a full moon, and an all white Hen.

I remember my Grandfather doing it on his "ranchette" in Aloha, Oregon. I was probably 8 or 9 and up visiting for the summer.

I was shown by a dowser how to use two bent wires, and even the bare hand to find the magnetic waves caused by deep flowing water. The spacing of the waves somehow indicated the depth of the channel. He didn't say about that calculation. Once I got the hang of it I got the same wire action he did. And with my bare hand I experienced exactly what and where he said I would.

Gives me the creeps because all I can think of is this movie where she used a divining stick and found this creature.




Link to original video: https://mhttps://youtu.be/8ZJe0D8W6uU

Call it what you want to but I have seen it work too many times not to believe. I have a farmer friend who witches all of his wells and I have seen him do other people's too.

I have a niece who built a house in the country with her husband. They did not witch the well when they built the house and about 6 months after they moved their house flooded and they well sanded down and caved in. When it was drilled it have only produced about 20-30 gallons a minute. They asked my find to come witch their new well. He walked over about a two acre area in both directions. Marked a spot and told them to drill. Their new well produced over 60 gallons a minute with exactly the same size pump and pipe. Come find out he had hit the middle of stream of water that ran through the area. The old well had missed the stream by 100'.

I can relate many stories like this. I cannot explain them but I know for a fact that witching, for whatever reason, does work.

Does it work because you WANT it to work?

It seems to also work with other underground findings. An electrician contractor I worked for a long ago told me about a Cuban labor in Miami that could pinpoint underground electric lines or even empty pipes that were lost under big pours of concrete. Even in places he had never been or worked at before. He said he saved them much labor and money finding the pipes. This was related one day when as we were trying to find a buried line. He wistfully said he wished the gentleman had not died as he sure had a gift.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Pure hokum.

This

Anyone who thinks this BS works should read James Randi's FlimFlam. Sagan's Demon Haunted World or subscribe to Skeptical Inquirer.

It worked for my father.

It works for me.

It works for my 3 Sons.

When I hit water they cross over each other.
When I hit metal they pull outward.

Doesn't work. I asked my Ouija board about it, and it turns out to be an old wives tale.

Like so many claims about the supernatural and things that supposedly work without having any natural cause, that’s the question.

Magnetic waves? How does water produce magnetic waves? If it did, we’d be exposed magnetism by commercial sources, rivers, lakes, and the ocean that’s far stronger than something produced by a flow far underground.

A better question, though, is how the original dowsing tools worked. The traditional method was to use a wooden stick for the purpose. What sort of wood is attracted by a magnet? I’m truly curious and would like to try it myself. What’s significant is the Y-shaped form of the traditional sticks, and it’s been pointed out that that configuration permits the device to move easily with a small involuntary movement of the user’s hands.

’Splain how the process works, and why it doesn’t work in closely controlled and monitored tests, and I’ll be happy to be convinced. Otherwise it’s just a form of baseless faith supported by confirmation bias and processes that have nothing to do with anything else. At one time there was a million dollar prize offered for proving that such things worked and more than one person who was convinced he could do it tried. The result? Guess. But I’m nevertheless not surprised that some people believe in such things. Many believe in things that are far less likely than that some invisible and otherwise undetectable force pulls on a wooden stick when it’s handled by certain people.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Like so many claims about the supernatural and things that supposedly work without having any natural cause, that’s the question.

Magnetic waves? How does water produce magnetic waves? If it did, we’d be exposed magnetism by commercial sources, rivers, lakes, and the ocean that’s far stronger than something produced by a flow far underground.

A better question, though, is how the original dowsing tools worked. The traditional method was to use a wooden stick for the purpose. What sort of wood is attracted by a magnet? I’m truly curious and would like to try it myself. What’s significant is the Y-shaped form of the traditional sticks, and it’s been pointed out that that configuration permits the device to move easily with a small involuntary movement of the user’s hands.

’Splain how the process works, and why it doesn’t work in closely controlled and monitored tests, and I’ll be happy to be convinced. Otherwise it’s just a form of baseless faith supported by confirmation bias and processes that have nothing to do with anything else. At one time there was a million dollar prize offered for proving that such things worked and more than one person who was convinced he could do it tried. The result? Guess. But I’m nevertheless not surprised that some people believe in such things. Many believe in things that are far less likely than that some invisible and otherwise undetectable force pulls on a wooden stick when it’s handled by certain people.

All this.

If there is no convincing explanation of how it could work, then it isn't science. You can translate "They don't know how it works, it just does," as "There is no reason to believe it works."

And if there is water within 1000 feet of anywhere, then of course dowsing works. Shit, all you have to do in Gulf Coast Texas is dig a moderately deep hole and you'll hit groundwater.

quote:

Originally posted by YellowJacket:

quote:

Originally posted by Timdogg6:
I'm in the science first kind of crowd. But I'll be damned if my parents didn't hire some water guru to walk around the yard for 5 minutes, pick upped a stick and stuffed it in the ground and said drill here.

We have had some of the freshest water you can find for 25 years ever since. It was about 12 feet down.

I think he was looking at tree growth as much as anything.

We got his recommendation from a friend who he helped do the same thing about 1/2 mile away.

Sent him to another neighbor about 10 houses down and he did it again.

was this also in Boca?

No, Barrington RI