Dowsing

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For the English iconoclast, see William Dowsing.
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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

[edit] 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 root), 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.

[edit] Dowsing equipment

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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.

[edit] 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. Some supporters[who?] agree with this explanation, but maintain that the dowser has a subliminal sensitivity to the environment, perhaps via electroception, magnetoception, or telluric currents. Other dowsers say their powers are paranormal.

[edit] 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]

[edit] List of well-known dowsers

Well-known dowsers (restricted to those with Wikipedia articles) include:

[edit] See also

[edit] 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

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dowsing

[edit] Dowsing organizations

[edit] Skeptics

(2007)

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