Domestic wells and dowsing

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Domestic wells and dowsing
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Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 5:54 am Post subject:
Well if someone can find water by looking at the surroundings as well as carring some rods in their hands I can't see anything wrong with that. It's intesting to see that the 'scientific tests' being suggested are limiting to such an extent that it's hardly surprising it's not been proven.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 9:14 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

Well if someone can find water by looking at the surroundings as well as carring some rods in their hands I can't see anything wrong with that. It's intesting to see that the 'scientific tests' being suggested are limiting to such an extent that it's hardly surprising it's not been proven.

The way you'd do it is by picking locations where subterranean water sources are mapped but not obvious; contact any good hydrologist and you can find that out (there are some good people at Lancaster University and some at UEA). They would give you the location (but not the precise spots of the water sources) and then you'd go out with your dowser(s) and see how well they do against a control, and against someone who merely takes environmental factors into account; you wouldn't know yourself where the water sources are, the dowser wouldn't know, and you'd be informed of the precise location afterwards.

Dead easy. If anyone rekons they can do it, claim the million dollars.
Simple and easy.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 9:52 am Post subject:

PHLS was the Public Health Labs, but they are now the Health Protection Agency. They have branches in your local District General Hospital.

We haven't told the waterboard. It's got bugger all to do with them. They have written to us on several occassions, demanding to know if we're on their system, and threatening to cut us off if we don't reply. We haven't, but they don't seem to have stopped the rain yet...

Foghorn

Joined: 23 Nov 2004
Posts: 49
Location: Barcombe, E Sussex

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 11:25 am Post subject:

Cab, you appear to have an unhealthy (for a downsizer) preoccupation with that large wedge of Randi notes, but thanks for your offer nonetheless.

Actually, I'm not bothered about trying to prove that it works - I'd just like to find some dowsing contacts so I can continue my own personal quest.

Nickhowe, cheers for the advice - I thought I'd read somewhere that you are obliged by law to report a working well to the water authority. Though I'd gladly follow your example and offer them a free personal inspection of the bottom of the well.

Actually, is there any way of finding out how deep the well is, and /or further surveying it? I'd love to know what's at the bottom.

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 11:30 am Post subject:

Foghorn wrote:

Actually, I'm not bothered about trying to prove that it works - I'd just like to find some dowsing contacts so I can continue my own personal quest.

I'd be surprised if there aren't others here who have given it a bash, but just in case, try this:

https://www.britishdowsers.org/

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 11:30 am Post subject:
You may HAVE to report it, don't get me wrong, but no-one's told me I have to.... Depth can be worked out with a plumb line.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 12:03 pm Post subject:
the dover castle well was excavated early 1980s with a bloke and a bucket on a rope 220 feet i think happy digging .

Beckyess

Joined: 08 Jan 2006
Posts: 1076
Location: Worcestershire

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 3:45 pm Post subject:
Truro College had a course on dowsing a year or so ago but unfortunately it coincided with another course I was on Becky

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 3:51 pm Post subject:

Foghorn wrote:

Shame. It isn't an unhealthy obsession at all, but if there's a way that any one of our members here could win a million US dollars simply doing something they believe they can do (translates into less sterling, of course, but is still worth having) then I'd offer to lend a helping hand. I should think that if anyone here were to try such a thing, were they to ask for help they'd get a whole load of offers.

It strikes me that if it did work, one of the dowsers who has tried would have claimed the money by now. And if it does work, then I'd rather it was 'one of ours' that proves it.

sally_in_wales
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 4:04 pm Post subject:

I personally feel it probably 'works' by bypassing the concious thought part of the brain, so in other words a good dowser will have a natural feel for the indications of water, but may not even know how to put those into active words if questioned. When they go dowsing, they allow thir brain to process all the little physical indications in the landscape and translate that into the dip of the wand or crossing of the rods. Possibly no difference from a good intuitive gardener 'knowing' where to site a new and unfamiliar plant- they are really drawing on experience and many other factors, but just not actively thinking it through step by step. Lots of skills manifest that way especially in traditional crafts, you often hear people say 'ooh, you're a natural at that' or 'he has a real feel for working with whatever'. As such, any tool that helps the person get in the right frame of mind to use their skill to the best effect is fine- but it might not be scientifically demonstratable.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28239
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 4:34 pm Post subject:
I tend to agree, a while back I off the top of my head said to Elfy "going to be thunder and lightning" in a minute, and then had to think about what sensations told me this. I think dowsing success is something like that, but on a more subtle level.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 5:07 pm Post subject:
Sally, I agree with all of that, except for the last bit. If it doesn work that way, then it is scientifically demonstrable. Easily so.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 8:04 pm Post subject:

i read a book by a chap called lethbridge (maybe )he seemed convinced by dowsing .
for water .read the landscape and flora .
for minerals read the geology
as for which bucket the cup of water is under

however i may be daft but i find very high voltage electric fields (330k power lines or thunderstorm )have a certain feel , even a charged balloon can be detected from an un charged one .
mabe some can detect very small field changes . maybe even smell water .
for a �gig its worth a go . start practising . better odds than the lottery .

Foghorn

Joined: 23 Nov 2004
Posts: 49
Location: Barcombe, E Sussex

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 06 8:34 pm Post subject:
Thanks to all for your helpful replies - if I continue with my dowsing successes, I'll be sure to remember your kind offer, Cab

Bovey Belle

Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 77

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 06 5:06 am Post subject:

I used to belong to the local dowsing group. Note "used to" (they have since folded up due partly to disagreements between the primadonnas on the committee.) Well - mixed experience - some genuine people and the sort of oddballs that anything deemed remotely "alternative" seems to attract.

IMHO it is all down to the individual - you don't actually need to use dowsing rods to "pick up" on what you are searching for, be it water or a lost ring - the rods just physically manifest what your body is picking up on an intuitive level. I think anyone can do it, but some people are more tuned in and open than others. See it on a level with walking into a room where there's just been an argument, and picking up on the atmosphere. There's nothing physically present there - but you can sense it. Some people are very good at divining for water - there's a chap locally who's a water diviner and who drives a very large and expensive 4x4 and travels round and tells farmers where to sink a borehole to find water - I don't think he has many failures, but I think that in his case it is down to a good eye for the landscape and years of personal experience.

Having said all that - I was NOT at all impressed by a field trip given by the dowsing group, when we "beginners" had a test set up by the very experienced members, where we had to go and test for our name on numbered pieces of paper. Not one person (if I remember rightly) got it right - and that included the people who had set it up. We didn't go back after that! Perhaps that just means that such tests don't work, but my faith in High Command took a nosedive

By the way, if you want an interesting experience, visit the Rollright Stones. There you are handed a pair of dowsing rods before you walk around the stones, and believe me, you get a remarkable reaction from the rods - they spin round and round and from that you may conclude that there IS something in it after all . . .

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