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What’s Dowsing?

Dowsing. What’s Dowsing?. Dowsing is a method used by people to locate water, oil, minerals, etc. Traditionally uses a forked stick Now often uses a pendulum or dowsing rod Rods are held loosely in the hand When over water, the rods cross, or uncross, or move. Success of Dowsing.

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What’s Dowsing?

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  1. Dowsing What’s Dowsing? • Dowsing is a method used by people to locate water, oil, minerals, etc. • Traditionally uses a forked stick • Now often uses a pendulum or dowsing rod • Rods are held loosely in the hand • When over water, the rodscross, or uncross, or move

  2. Success of Dowsing • How can we explain the high rate of success of dowsing? • Underwater rivers are, in fact, extremely rare • However, ground water is extremely common • In many areas, more common than not • It is possible that dowsers are unconsciously moving it themselves • It is difficult to hold objects like this absolutely still

  3. The Ideomotor Effect (1) • The body moves – often unintentionally • Even thinking about moving has an effect • If I shout at you, your muscles would tense involuntarily • Your body reacts without planning to • Your body prepares for any motion you will actually do • Think of even the simplest motion – standing up from the chair • Shift your feet back to put them under your center of mass • Shift your upper body forward to balance yourself • Flex muscles to bend joints at hips and knees • If you think about moving, your body will make small motions that give it away • Magicians use this to do common tricks • Leave the room • Let the audience hide something • Magician reenters • Someone will give it away with an involuntary motion of their eyes • Or muscle tension when the magician is close

  4. The Ideomotor Effect (2) • Poker players know that people involuntarily give away what they are thinking • “Poker Face” is hard for most people • If the dowser knows where to look, he can “detect” it there • The motion of the dowser guiding the rods can easily be too subtle to notice • The dowser is not necessarily cheating • The motion can be entirely due to the ideomotor effect

  5. Ouija Boards • Ouija boards are (or were) a popular form of entertainment • Supposedly information coming from the beyond • You place your hands on the “planchette” and ask questions • It points to the answers • Doubtless causedby theideomotoreffect

  6. How to Not Test Dowsing • Put a dowser in a natural environment • Have them select a spot • Dig until you find water • Of course, water exists naturally lots of places, if you dig far enough • There are also clues that you can use to get an idea where water can be found that don’t require dowsing rods • Lower elevation • Plants • Combined with the ideomotor effect, a dowser could get a very high success rate • Again, this does not mean that dowsers are intentionally cheating

  7. How to Test Dowsing • The easiest way to test dowsing is to simply fill a bunch of jugs with water and leave others empty (or put sand in them) and let dowsers try to detect which have water • The dowsers cannot be allowed to touch the jugs • Ideally, any experimenter participating should also not know which jugs have water in them • To avoid giving it away via the ideomotor effect • This test has been done many times • Always a catastrophic failure

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