Finding buried pipe

[Cat_Driver]

The "reward" is for proof of PARANORMAL activity and dowsing is not paranormal.

I'd take two thin wires -- straightened coat hangers, usually -- and bend them at a 90 degree angle near one end. I'd put the short end in each hand, make a loose fist, and bring the fists together. The long ends of the wires would be pointing out, parallel to the ground. He would hold them loosely enough so that they could move freely.

there is a reasonably logical explanation for dowsing which doesn't invoke any supernatural explanation. A radio engineer in the UK experimented on himself, using the famous wire coat hangars, to test his theory that water radiates, and that the human body can respond. This response causes the muscles in the arms to contract in such a way that outstretched wrists will turn imperceptibly inwards. The natural consequence is that gravity will cause the two wires to dip downwards, and thus cross. This much is easily tested with just wires - no need for water - turn the wrists inward and the wires dip and cross.

He covered his torso with an aluminium "cloak" to shield the supposed radiation, and cut apertures in it to try to identify just where the body reacts, and found a two inch diameter area in the back which appeared to be sensitive.

Next he used his radio engineering knowledge to build a transmitter
in the range of freqencies he thought must be applicable. This device was demonstrated in a BBC television program: the transmitter was planted on one side of the River Thames near London, and from the other side he was able to row directly towards it. He said he just had to keep the boat heading in such a way that he could feel a sensation in his back.

A series of subsequent tests suggested that about one in three of us has this capacity to dowse, and it's not unreasonable to suppose that it was universal at some time in our past, but has largely atrophied from disuse. Finding water in the wild may be a matter of life or death.

Being curious, I tried the wires for myself - it worked remarkably well and, as it happens, allowed me to find a main water cock buried under years of vegetation in a ditch near our country cottage. I walked along one side of the lane and chalked a mark where the wires crossed. I repeated this on the other side of the lane and marked again - this mark was about three yards further on. Stretching string through the two marks and extrapolating into the ditch, located the water cock within inches. Builders had been searching for several days.

 

[/pine]

some commentary from scientific intellectuals on the subject of the human body and energy fields
21st-The Human Energy Field in Relation to Science, Consciousness, and Health

 

[Dargo]

***How come Shell, Exxon, etc. spend millions using scientifically proven methods instead of giving some rube with a stick a 12 pack?***

Exxon does employ dowsers. The major oil company I referred to in a previous post was Exxon. The dowser was locating underground pipelines. If he didn't produce I doubt he would have been on the payroll for long. Exxon is about as conservative as they come.

Zeuspaul

Back in the late 30's, early 40's, my grandfather worked for an oil company helping them find oil. No, he didn't use any sticks or bent welding rods. He used a primitive seismograph that printed on long rolls of paper and would 'read' the results when they used a thumper. The 'thumper' was a steam rig that raised a two thousand pound hunk of steel about a hundred feet up a rigging and then dropped it. He tried explaining to me how to read the rolls of paper with all these lines on it, but I never understood it. My dad still has all those rolls somewhere.

 

[Tom_H]

Repeatedly-over, and over, and over, in double blind trials controlled for all other independent variables, water witchers have FAILED to locate water at any greater percentage of the time than random guessing does.

That there are things as yet undiscovered and unexplained in science is totally obvious. The thing is, a water witch has NEVER, NEVER, NEVER produced in controlled, properly conducted clinical trials. This is proof positive that the ability they claim to have DOES NOT EXIST. Take off the blindfolds, let them observe the geology in a natural setting (as opposed to a flat well cross-plowed field where pipes were laid prior to the multiple plowing) the surface hydrology, the ever so slight depression and soil coloration differences where trenches were backfilled, etc. and they get it right more than random guessing does. The thing is, the same is true for someone trained in hydrological geology. The "witch" intuitively understands some principles of geology and hydrology or notices extremely slight topographical fluxuations, and mistakes the skill for something supernatural. In single blind trials with numerous pipes and valves buried in a plowed field, where the tester knew the location of pipes, the witches get it right at a greater than random percentage. Make the trial double blind, such that the person leading the witch around doesn't know whether the spot has water or not, the witch's percentage drops to the same as random guessing. The witch was reading the body language of the tester in the single blind trials. In double blind trials, they just cannot produce. They never have. Of every properly conducted double blind trial ever conducted, never has a water diviner produced.

Rabbits' feet, buckeyes, and four leaf clovers don't bring good luck. Stepping on cracks doesn't break your grandmother's back. Breaking mirrors, seeing black cats, and walking under ladders does not bring bad luck. Elvis is not alive. Aliens did not land at Roswell. Rats do not come from cheese and animals do not come to life through spontaneous generation. Touch therapists, magnets, copper bracelets, and crystals do not heal people. The Earth is not flat and is not the center of the universe. Rain is not brought by angels walking around on one of the 7 concentric semicircles of heaven and pouring water out of water pots. Eating ground up Rhino horn powder doesn't turn you into a stud. Voodoo doesn't kill people. Electromagnetism from power lines doesn't induce cancer. The earth didn't end with Y2k and will not end due to any prophecy in 2012. And sticks or rods held in one's hands do not locate water. The man who believes they do is no different than a man who believes one of those other things. This does not make him a bad or evil man, just one who believes in things verified not to exist. I will not hire him to find water, but I also will not turn away from his offer of friendship. I have friends of just about every religion on Earth, as well as those not believing or not caring. Most of my friends of faith would say that the others are bound for an eternity of suffering for believing the wrong faith, but that does not keep me from befriending each one while on this Earth. The world is full of people with differing notions. Science is the only epistemological process that even attempts to verify whether theories of physics, biology, and chemistry are correct or incorrect. Some people understand science; others don't. Not because they are incapable, but because they don't want to. They decide they want to believe myths and ignore real evidence-evidence that has been empirically scrutinized. But such has the world always been, and it that may never change. People believe what they want to believe for precisely that reason-it is simply what they WANT to believe. I still consider many of them to be my friends.

 

[Willl]

Tom, don't tell me your going to say there's no Easter bunny also ?

Where's that 'airplane on a conveyor belt' thread ?, I want to compare notes.

Hey you guys..... how about my question about watermelons a whole bunch of quotes back. What makes the straw rotate!

I give up, What does make the straw rotate ?

 

[/pine]

The "witch" intuitively understands some principles of geology and hydrology or notices extremely slight topographical fluxuations, and mistakes the skill for something supernatural.

First off...if you've read anything at all about the subject you would know that there is NOTHING "supernatural" about the art of dowsing...

and secondly...if you believe that anyone that has success dowsing is faking by having other knowlege or information....it's a ludicrous and blind observation...

And sticks or rods held in one's hands do not locate water

just because this is what you believe does not make it so...! and to prove it here is some actual scientific perceptionsDowsing along the psi track

BTW...got any reputable data resources (links) for all those "double blind trials" that have been performed "over and over and over"

 

[Tom_H]

Tom, don't tell me your going to say there's no Easter bunny also ?

But I never will forget the day a kid down the street told me (with great relish) about Santa. I so wanted to believe he was lying. My mom told me he WAS lying, but by then the seeds were sewn. I wanted so badly to keep believing that I kept asking her. About the fifth time, she revealed that painful truth.

Where's that 'airplane on a conveyor belt' thread ?, I want to compare notes.

I used to fly. The wheels register speed. The plane still needs to have air flow over the airfoils such that as per Bernulli's Principle, lift is generated to the point that lift is greater than the weight of the plane.

 

[Tom_H]

First off...if you've read anything at all about the subject you would know that there is NOTHING "supernatural" about the art of dowsing...

just because this is what you believe does not make it so...! and to prove it here is some actual scientific perceptionsDowsing along the psi track

Wow, you haven't even read the link you posted. Nothing supernatural? The document is full of stuff about aural projection, telepathy, ESP, parapsychology. It also gives ample details of how the person "found" objects because he/she already knew where they were. The results were not objectively documented and are not reproducible.

Science is not about "perceptions", it is about evidence, verifiable and reproducible through the hypothetico-deductive model of scientific investigation. "Scientific perceptions" is an oxymoron.

BTW...got any reputable data resources (links) for all those "double blind trials" that have been performed "over and over and over"

Already been posted above, some by myself, and some by others. Go back and read.

 

[/pine]

Already been posted above, some by myself, and some by others. Go back and read.

I said "reputable"...

sorry but the evidence is overwhelmingly against your prejudice toward the art...you are the one that needs to do more reading...

 

[Willl]

toward the art

I believe the word were looking for is 'science'. ((poke,poke))