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Dowsing

Raevenskye

Seer of All Things Spooky
Thoughts? Has anyone tried using dowsing to detect spirit energy? I've never done it myself, but I'm seeing it more and more on ghostie shows, and I'm just not sure how much credit to give it.
 
I've used it occasionally to detect where underground water pipes were, as well as to discover exactly how big an old tree's root system was.
 
When I have time and the quiet atmosphere to try it, I will. My spouse has done it successfully when looking for pipes too. It never occurred to us until recently to try it for other questions.
 
I have used it to find water, pipes, and it will point <l-rod>, if asked to your spirit guide, but I have no idea on any further contact to the spirit guide..

DOCTOR WHO
 
I have my doubts when I see these things. I have literally seen people manipulate these things and then when I asked them to participate in a controlled experiment they either refused or failed to get responses. I used them and I have to admit I was amazed but there are so many direct and indirect variables involved in getting these things to move that I have to sit on the fence.

Try this...ask someone to think of something that makes them mad and then approach them with the rods. Then ask the same person to think of something that makes them happy and approach them again. You'll get the rods doing two different things. Pretty cool...but still very questionable.
 
I think it has a lot to do with our senses and awareness of our surroundings beyond what we're normally consious of. This is just a method of accessing subconsious knowledge that's already there.
 
i used them for many years to locate utility lines of all kinds and water pipes. i have literally trusted my life in them at times when digging around high voltage or high pressure gas mains. they do work.
it can look like they are being manipulated and quite frankly at time they are. they have to be kept fairly level. when you walk or move much you have to manipulate the way you hold them to keep them level.

i located a small electrical parking light wire that was 16 feet deep one time with nothing but coat hangar wire. i have used tie wire and barbed wire as well when did not have my own wires with me.

anyone can be taught how to use them.
 
dowsing=shit

I know some of you are going to reel when you read the above equation but rest assured it is true. Statistically, the ability of dowsers to locate or divine underground objects is identical to chance. Numerous studies have shown this outcome time and again. So trusting your life to bent pieces of wire is retarded.

Because you may be successful with the rods does not make you psychic/telekinetic/or able in anyway to detect subsurface objects. In most cases individuals know what they are looking for and the relative location of the object. The rods play no part.

I know a few of you will swear they work, but you need to be honest with yourself. Most dowsers, when they fail, blame the occurrence on equally noncredible focuses: bad rods, bad vibes, negative entities, mysterious energies…What interaction does any underground object, regardless of composition, impart on 90-degree metal wires? Even electrical induction is two weak to have a physically displacing effect, and this has been measured.

If it has been shown that abilities of divination through rods is identical to chance what does that say about their abilities to detect something more ambiguous like ghosts? Errrr, that’s right, shit.

Home

I know you can post a million internet articles supporting dowsing just as I can post a million discounting it. However, read the supporting sites and try to figure out HOW it supposedly works. There is no science behind the findings.
 
pixelsmith said:
i used them for many years to locate utility lines of all kinds and water pipes. i have literally trusted my life in them at times when digging around high voltage or high pressure gas mains. they do work.

I'm sorry, but I am picturing some utility worker popping up from a big hole in the ground and returning to the truck for the dowsing rod. And I see a uniformed utility employee walking near a buzzing power plant looking at this stick as cars drive by in disbelief. This doesn't shed any more to the discussion by I am still laughing as I write. Then to top it off I see Seths equation and the laughing escalates to near uncontrollable.

OK, sorry again. It may even work, I don't know a damn thing about it. I do remember catching a segment of a show about the Persian empire. One of the many problems was how to get water. And it showed a person with a rod walking along and then they started digging. Of course they found water and developed intricate canal systems to move water from place to place. I don't know that it was actually stated that divining rods were used or if this is speculative. In any case I thought I had to add something perhaps useful in spite of my previous tangent.
 
To be honest, I was a little thrown by Seth's remark. That all may well be true, but before I knew better I used dowsing rods to locate the drainage tile for the field next to my house, and for other things like it. It seemed to work, found the tile, and found it where I didn't expect it to be. The rods did seem to move of their own accord, and if you backed away from the location the rods would move back appropriately.

I'm not saying any of this to be flip or a know it all. It seemed effective to me, but yet rigorous testing doesn't support it. There is like a schism in reality between what can be objectively proven and what works fine in practice. That doesn't sound like it makes sense, but no apologies here.

There are other paranormal things that don't replicate will in a controlled setting. Most psychic abilities perform poorly within a rigorous structure.

I don't know the answer. Using "witching sticks," as they were called around here by farmers, seems pretty reliable. They certainly impressed me. Maybe hard evidence and objective numbers are overrated.
 
Scott Story said:
...... Maybe hard evidence and objective numbers are overrated.

They are Scott, i agree. Just because the phenomena cannot be measured or confirmed using "scientific" methods doesn't mean they don't exist.
It just means that science has not found a way of properly measuring or investigating it.
 
The Pair of Cats said:
It just means that science has not found a way of properly measuring or investigating it.

I would be remiss if I did not concede to that statement. I agree with you on that point ‘cats.

What is known is that there is no known cause for this phenomenon (disregarding those who are disingenuous) and that the reproducibility of it occurring in controlled settings is identical to chance. For my money I would say that there is no paranormal truth to these rods with the evidence currently gathered. In other words, for people to put tremendous stock in the fact that divining rods in any way prove ghosts is a ludicrous assumption.

This argument is similar to that of EMF readers. How do ghost hunters know these detectors are tools capable of identifying spirits? They do not. My contention is the same for dowsing rods. They are not proven to find underground objects so why would we assume they are capable of identifying spirits?

ONE CONTRIDICTION THAT SHOULD BE BROUGHT UP MORE: speaking of science, if science is not to be trusted, then why do those that discount it in one sentence use electronic devices and explanations for phenomenon that are based on scientific principles, equations, theories? This is a paradoxical/hypocritical relationship. (I am not accusing anyone here of this, I am just pointing out a far to common occurrence)
 
I'm not a ghost hunter, and don't plan on becoming one. That means, for me, I won't be trying dowsing rods or emf meters or anything else like that to find or prove the existence of ghosts.

Science isn't the the end all-be all, but it is a good system for figuring out things. I feel conflicted, because I understand the objective facts and benefits that science has brought us, but at the same time I feel the loss of mysticism and spirituality that got tossed out with the ignorance and superstition of pre-entlightened times.

I have a lot of sympathy for this case too. It's like science has proven that red isn't red, but I still see red. I don't have any reason to suspect the science was flawed, not without knowing more. Yet, the red (dowsing) seems pretty convincing to me when I use it. I've only used it to locate things in the ground, mind you.

When I went to Stonehenge, I remember people walking around with dowsing rods commenting on the different energies in the different stones. That seemed suspect to me, but I'm not passing judgement until I know more.
 
Seth.
It's not that science or the scientific method should not be trusted, it's that the scientists or lay persons involved in the investigation of esoteric subjects are sometimes applying methods of research that cannot fully explain phenomena such as dowsing or ghosts etc..
As good as the documentation for or against the existence of dowsing and other paranormal activities is, it still comes down to the fact that just as many say "nay" as say "aye".
In fact "science" has not been able to fully discount these phenomena as paranormalists (for want of a better term) have not been able to prove their existence. It all comes down to belief. If you have tried it or seen some evidence of its reality, then you might be inclined to believe in it. If you believe that "science" has successfully discounted anything otherworldly in these phenomena, then you probably don't believe in them.
For some science itself has become a belief system. Some people look to science for all possible explanations to mysterious occurrences just as they looked to religion not all that long ago or their medicine man or shaman as they did long ago or indeed, in some places, still today.
Science does not have all the answers.
 
I've been skeptical of people feeling different "energies" forever, but I'm trying to let that go, if only for investigative purposes.

Thing is, atoms vibrate at different energy levels in order to form mass. The chair one sits in is made of atoms that behave a bit differently from those of water, right? So the rate of vibration, or frequency, differs? (Yeah, I'm truly clueless. Need to pick up a science book, granted.)

If that is so, then it may be possible for people to be sensitive to vibrational rates/frequencies without even knowing it. A few may have discovered they sense a difference, at least in a particular area of study.
 
SETH = SHIT

i know what i am talking about. they do in fact work. and yes the local utility company also uses them sometimes. talk to any older heavy equipment operator and most of them can use them as well.
 
Scott Story said:
It's like science has proven that red isn't red, but I still see red. I don't have any reason to suspect the science was flawed, not without knowing more. Yet, the red (dowsing) seems pretty convincing to me when I use it. I've only used it to locate things in the ground, mind you.

That is a very interesting analogy and one I rather like. In effect, the in colors with which we see are the reflections of different light frequencies. So, objects that appear red are actually every color EXCEPT red as the object absorbs all other frequencies and red is reflected back to the observer…what a fitting example of how thing APPEAR different than they actually ARE.

I guess this underscores my point concerning dowsing: how can one be positive the rods are actually detecting anything? The evidence is showing us that there is no significant link to tangible objects. I do understand there may be other factors at play, but when people try to explain dowsing in terms of science, well, it just doesn’t pan out. Spiritually they may work, but for tangible objects, nah uh.

--Geez, pixelsmith you could at least supply some support to your claim. I am just saying it seems silly to use dowsing rods in serious life-threatening/dependent situations, but maybe that’s just me. I apologize for upsetting thee, but my father was an electrician, my neighbor operates an excavation company, and I have worked for a construction company for several years, all of which think dowsing rods are not trustworthy or accurate enough for their jobsites.
 
SETH
over 15 years of using rods on a nearly daily basis to detect utility lines ACCURATELY seems like pretty good evidence that they work. very often i could locate BETTER than the fancy locators that they use now days. in fact while waiting for an official locator person to show up i would often locate and mark the line locations before they got there. some would scoff and those that knew me would smile knowingly. it is not hard. nothing spiritual about it. i believe it is related to magnetic forces.
 
Anecdotes and beliefs do little in the way of finding the true nature of things; in fact, they tend to confuse and manipulate actuality.
 
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