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Dowsing

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: dowsing
 
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Occult practice used for finding water, minerals, or other hidden substances. A dowser generally uses a Y-shaped piece of hazel, rowan, or willow wood (also called a dowser or a divining rod). The dowser grasps the rod by its two prongs and appears, while walking, to be receiving transmissions from beneath the earth. If the rod quivers violently or points downward, some buried substance has been located. First practiced in Europe during the Middle Ages, dowsing is most often used to find water but may also be employed to locate precious metals, buried treasure, archaeological remains, or even dead bodies.

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Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia: Dowsing
 
Home > Library > Religion & Spirituality > Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia

The study and detection of human response to water, minerals, and other underground materials. Dowsing, or "water witching," is usually distinguished from the related subject of radiesthesia by its focus on nonliving materials such as water, metals, minerals, or buried objects. Both dowsing and radiesthesia operators employ a divining-rod, pendulum, or similar device as an indicator of unconscious human sensitivity to hidden materials. Radiesthesia extends such detection to medical diagnosis and treatment, discovery of missing persons, telepathy, clairvoyance, and related paranormal phenomena. In Europe (particularly in France), however, the two terms are used synonymously.

The traditional form of dowsing is with a Y-shaped hazel branch. The operator holds the two ends in his hands and walks over an area thought to contain underground water. When crossing water, the branch turns over, often with considerable force, and the dowser is able to map the course of the under-ground water.

For some years it was hypothesized that some underground emanation or occult force moved the branch, but modern researchers tend to favor the idea that the operator responds to the hidden water in such a way that his own nervous energy moves the branch. Some theorists have compared this effect with table-turning or the raps often reported within Spiritualism. This does not preclude the possibility that some electro-magnetic impulse stimulates the dowser's muscles through the nervous system, although there is no evidence of such an impulse.

Modern dowsers have developed considerable sensitivity and skill and will venture to estimate both the depth and possible yield of underground water. In addition to branches, dowsers employ many other forms of indicators—rods made of whalebone or wire, twisted coathangers, rods with cavities for a "sample" of the material sought for, and especially small pendulums. Since international agreements now outlaw whale hunting, plastic indicators are being substituted for whalebone.

Some dowsers even search for hidden materials over a scale map of a district, using a small suspended pendulum instead of a rod, and "map dowsing" has become synonymous with teleradiesthesia; (i.e., the tracing of materials or persons using a representation of an area instead of visiting the actual area). Some kind of psychic or other paranormal link is suggested between a district and its representation on a map.

Although dowsing and radiesthesia remain controversial, there seems to be considerable successes in water witching and the discovery of buried minerals. Water diviners have been widely employed by governments and businesses. One skilled dowser, Major C. A. Pogson, was official water diviner to the government of India between October 1925 and February 1930. During this period Pogson traveled thousands of miles locating sites for wells and bores and was a consultant on all matters relating to underground water.

The oldest organization in the field is the British Society of Dowsers, founded in the 1930s. There is also an American Society of Dowsers, which can be contacted at P.O. Box 24, Brained St., Danville, Vermont.

Sources:

Barrett, William, and Theodore Besterman. The Divining Rod: An Experimental and Psychological Investigation. London, 1926. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1968.

Benedikt, M. Ruten-und Pendel-lehre. Vienna; Leipzig, 1917.

Besterman, Theodore. Water Divining: New Facts & Theories. London: Methuen, 1938.

Bird, Christopher. The Diving Hand. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979.

Cameron, Verne L. Aquavideo; Locating Underground Water. Santa Barbara, Calif.: El Cariso, 1970.

——. Map Dowsing. Santa Barbara, Calif.: El Cariso, 1971.

——. Oil Locating. Santa Barbara, Calif.: El Cariso, 1971.

Carrié, Abbé. L'hydroscopographie et métalloscopographie, ou l'art de découvrir les sources et les gisement metallifers au moyen de l'électro-magnétisme. Saintes, France, 1863.

Chambers, Howard V. Dowsing, Water Witches & Divining Rods for the Millions. Los Angeles: Sherbourne Press, 1969.

Chevreul, M. E. De la Baguette divinatoire, du pendule dit explorateur, et des tables tournantes. Paris, 1854.

De France, Henry. The Elements of Dowsing. London, 1948.

De Morogues, Baron. Observations sur le fluide organoélectrique. Paris, 1854.

De Vallemont, Abbe. La physique occulte, ou Traité de la baguette divinatoire. Paris, 1693.

Ellis, Arthur J. The Divining Rod: A History of Water Witching, with a Bibliography. Washington, 1917.

Klinckowstroem, Graf von. Virgula divina. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wünschelrute. Berlin, 1910.

Maby, J. Cecil, and T. B. Franklin. The Physics of the Divining Rod. London, 1939.

Mager, Henri. Water Diviners and Their Methods. London, 1931.

Maury, Marguerite. How to Dowse: Experimental and Practical Radiasthesia. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1953.

Mermet, Abbe. Principles & Practice of Radiesthesie. London, 1967.

Nicolas, Jean. La verge de Jacob, ou l'art de trouver les trésors les sources, les limites, les métaux, les mines, les minéraux et autres cachées, par l'usage du baton fourché. Lyons, France, 1693. Translated as Jacob's Rod. London: Thomas Welton, 1875.

Nielsen, Greg, and J. Polansky. Pendulum Power. New York: Warner, 1977.

Roberts, Kenneth. Henry Gross and His Dowsing Rod. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1952.

Stark, Erwin E. A History of Dowsing and Energy Relationships. North Hollywood, Calif.: BAC, 1978.

Tromp, S. W. Psychical Physics: A Scientific Analysis of Dowsing, Radiesthesia & Kindred Divining Phenomena. New York: Elsevier, 1949.

Underwood, Peter. The Complete Book of Dowsing & Divining. London, 1980.

Vogt, Evon Z., and Ray Hyman. Water Witching, U.S.A. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Wayland, Bruce and Shirley Wayland. Steps to Dowsing Power. Life Force Press, 1976.

Weaver, Herbert. Diving, the Primary Sense: Unfamiliar Radiation in Nature, Art and Science. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978.

Willey, Raymond C. Modern Dowsing. Cottonwood, AZ: Esoteric Publications, 1976.

Wyman, Walker D. Witching for Water, Oil, Pipes, and Precious Minerals. River Falls: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977.

 
WordNet: dowsing
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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: searching for underground water or minerals by using a dowsing rod
  Synonyms: dowse, rhabdomancy

 
Wikipedia: Dowsing
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For the English iconoclast, see William Dowsing.
 This article's introduction section may not adequately summarize its contents. To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points.
A dowser, from an 18th century French book about superstitions.

Dowsing, sometimes called divining, doodlebugging (in the US), or (when searching specifically for water) water finding or water witching, is a practice that attempts to locate hidden water wells, buried metals or ores, gemstones, or other objects as well as currents of earth radiation without the use of scientific apparatus. A Y- or L-shaped twig or rod is sometimes used during dowsing, although some dowsers use other equipment or no equipment at all.

Dowsing has been in use since ancient times and is still widely practiced although the scientific evidence for its efficacy is disputed.[1] In the 1980s German physicists undertook a large experimental study of dowsing and concluded that a "real core of dowser-phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven", while physiologist J. T. Enright wrote that those same experiments provided "the most convincing disproof imaginable that dowsers can do what they claim."[2]

Contents

History of dowsing

Dowsing has existed in various forms for thousands of years.[3] The original may have been for divination purposes — to divine the will of the gods, to foretell the future and divine guilt in trials.

Dowsing as practiced today may have originated in Germany during the 15th century, when it was used to find metals. As early as 1518 Martin Luther listed dowsing for metals as an act that broke the first commandment. The 1550 edition of Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia contains a woodcut of a dowser with forked rod in hand walking over a cutaway image of a mining operation. The rod is labelled "Virgula Divina - Glück rüt" (Latin: divine rod; German: fortunate rod or stick), but there is no text accompanying the woodcut. By 1556 Georgius Agricola's treatment of mining and smelting of ore, De Re Metallica, included a detailed description of dowsing for metal ore.[4]

The technique spread to England with German miners who went there to work in the coal mines.[citation needed] During the Middle Ages dowsing was associated with the Devil.[citation needed] In 1662 dowsing was declared to be "superstitious, or rather satanic" by a Jesuit, Gaspar Schott, though he later noted that he wasn't sure that the devil was always responsible for the movement of the rod.[5] In 1701 the Inquisition stopped the use of dowsing rods in trials.[citation needed]

In the late 1960s during the Vietnam War, some United States Marines used dowsing to attempt to locate weapons and tunnels.[6] An extensive book on the history of dowsing was published by Christopher Bird in 1979 under the title of The Divining Hand. James Randi’s 1982 book Flim-Flam! devotes 19 pages to comprehensive double-blind tests done in Italy which yielded chance results.

Dowsing equipment

 This section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (December 2008)

Traditionally, the most common divining rod was a Y-shaped branch from a tree or bush. Some dowsers prefer branches from particular trees; hazel twigs in Europe and witch-hazel in the United States were commonly chosen, as were branches from willow or peach trees. Some dowsers prefer the branches to be freshly cut.

Many dowsers today use a pair of simple L-shaped metal rods, and some use bent wire coat hangers. One rod is held in each hand, with the short part of the L held upright, and the long part pointing forward. Some dowsers claim best success with rods made of particular metals, such as brass.

Pendulums such as a crystal or a metal weight suspended on a chain are sometimes used in divination and dowsing, particularly in remote or "map dowsing". In one approach, the user first determines which direction (left-right, up-down) will indicate "yes" and which "no", before proceeding to ask the pendulum specific questions. In another form of divination, the pendulum is used with a pad or cloth that has "yes" and "no" written on it, and perhaps other words, written in a circle in the latter case. The person holding the pendulum aims to hold it as steadily as possible over the center. An interviewer may pose questions to the person holding the pendulum, and it swings by minute unconscious bodily movement in the direction of the answer. In the practice of radiesthesia, a pendulum is used for medical diagnosis.

Possible explanations

Both skeptics of dowsing and many of dowsing's supporters believe that dowsing apparatus have no special powers, but merely amplify small imperceptible movements of the hands arising from the expectations of the dowser. This psychological phenomenon is known as the ideomotor effect. There is no evidence that dowsers have any subliminal sensitivity to the environment (through electroception, magnetoception, telluric currents or otherwise), nor that dowsers have any paranormal powers.

Evidence

In a scientific study in Munich 1987-1988 by Hans-Dieter Betz and other scientists, 500 dowsers were initially tested for their "skill", and the experimenters selected the best 43 among them. These 43 were then tested the following way. On the ground floor of a two-story barn, water was pumped through a pipe. Before each test, the pipe was moved in a direction perpendicular to the water flow. On the upper floor, each dowser was asked to determine the position of the pipe. Over two years, the 43 dowsers performed 843 such tests. Of the 43 pre-selected and extensively tested candidates, at least 37 of them showed no dowsing ability. The results from the remaining 6 were said to be better than chance, resulting in the experimenters' conclusion that some dowsers "in particular tasks, showed an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance ... a real core of dowser-phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven"[7]

Five years after the Munich study was published, scientist Jim T. Enright contended that these results are merely consistent with statistical fluctuations and do not demonstrate any real ability.[8] He noted that the best tester was on average 4 millimeters out of 10 meters closer to a mid-line guess, an advantage of 0.0004%. The study's authors responded[9] but Enright remains unconvinced.[10]

More recently, a study[11] was undertaken in Kassel, Germany, under the direction of the Gesellschaft zur Wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP) [Society for the Scientific Investigation of the Parasciences]. The three-day test of some 30 dowsers involved plastic pipes through which a large flow of water could be controlled and directed. The pipes were buried 50 centimeters under a level field. On the surface, the position of each pipe was marked with a colored stripe, so all the dowsers had to do was tell whether there was water running through the pipe. All the dowsers signed a statement agreeing this was a fair test of their abilities and that they expected a 100 percent success rate. However, the results were no better than what would have been expected by chance.

Some researchers have investigated possible physical or geophysical explanations for dowsing abilities. For example, Soviet geologists have made claims for the abilities of dowsers,[12] which are difficult to account for in terms of the reception of normal sensory cues. Some authors suggest that these abilities may be explained by postulating human sensitivity to small magnetic field gradient changes.[13][14][15]

One study concludes that dowsers "respond" to a 60 Hz electromagnetic field, but this response does not occur if the kidney area or head are shielded.[16]

A review of archaeological studies in Iowa suggests that dowsing is ineffective at finding unmarked human burials.[17]

List of well-known dowsers

Well-known dowsers include:

See also

References

  1. ^ As translated from a preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active dowsers in Germany alone can generate a conservatively-estimated annual revenue of more than 100 million DM (US$50 million)". GWUP-Psi-Tests 2004: Keine Million Dollar für PSI-Fähigkeiten (in German) and English version.
  2. ^ Enright, Jim T. (Jan/Feb 1999). "The Failure of the Munich Experiments". Skeptical Inquirer. Paul Kurtz. http://www.csicop.org/si/9901/dowsing.html. Retrieved on 2006-11-14. "The researchers themselves concluded that the outcome unquestionably demonstrated successful dowsing abilities, but a thoughtful re-examination of the data indicates that such an interpretation can only be regarded as the result of wishful thinking." 
  3. ^ "the earliest sign of its usage dates from a 4500-5000 year old grave inscription in Brittany." Ramsus, Jansson (1999-01-27 (revised)). "Dowsing: Science or Humbug?". http://www.lysator.liu.se/~rasmus/skepticism/dowsing.html. 
  4. ^ William Barrett and Theodore Besterman. The Divining Rod: An Experimental and Psychological Investigation. (1926) Kessinger Publishing, 2004: p.7
  5. ^ Michel Eugène Chevreul, De La Baguette Divinatoire du pendule dit explorateur at des table tournants au point de vue de l'histoire, de la critique, and de la méthode expérimentale, Paris, 1854. "Le père Gaspard Schott (jés.) considère l'usage de la baguette comme superstitieux ou plutôt diabolique, mais des renseignements qui lui furent donnés plus tard par des hommes qu'il considérait comme religieux et probe, lui firent dire dans une notation à ce passage, qu'il ne voudrait pas assurer que le demon fait toujours tourner la baguette." (Physica Curiosa, 1662, lib. XII, cap. IV, pag. 1527). See facsimile on Google Books
  6. ^ FIX ME (could not access entire article) Claudia Sandlin (1989-11-30). "Divining Ways; Dowsers Use Ancient Art in Many Kinds of Searches". Washington Post. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1225953.html. "[Louis Matacia] worked as a Marine Corps analyst at Quantico during The Vietnam War teaching Marines how to dowse..." 
  7. ^ Wagner, H., H.-D. Betz, and H. L. König, 1990. Schlußbericht 01 KB8602, Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie. As quoted by Enright in Skeptical Enquirer
  8. ^ Enright, J. T. 1995. Water dowsing: The Scheunen experiments. Naturwissenschaften 82: 360-369.
  9. ^ Betz, H.-D., H. L. König, R. Kulzer, R. Trischler, and J. Wagner. 1996. Dowsing reviewed — the effect persists. Naturwissenschaften 83: 272-275.
  10. ^ Enright, J. T. 1996. Dowsers lost in a barn. Naturwissenschaften 83: 275-277.
  11. ^ GWUP-Psi-Tests 2004: Keine Million Dollar für PSI-Fähigkeiten (in German) and English version.
  12. ^ Williamson, T. New Scientist 81, 371 (1979)
  13. ^ Rocard, Y. La Recherche 12, 792 (1981)
  14. ^ Presti, D. & Pettgrew, J. Nature 285, 99 (1980)
  15. ^ Baker, R. Nature 301, 78 (1983)
  16. ^ Harvalik ZV (1978). "Anatomical localization of human detection of weak electromagnetic radiation: experiments with dowsers.". Physiol Chem Phys 10 (6): 525–34. 
  17. ^ Whittaker, Grave Dowsing Reconsidered[1]
  18. ^ Tom Lethbridge's dowsing measurments

External links

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dowsing

Dowsing organizations

Skeptics

(2007)

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Copyright © 2001 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
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