Dowsing

Dowsing is a controversial practice which dowsers claim empowers them to find water, metals, gem stones, and hidden objects by carrying or waving a stick or other apparatus over a piece of land and watching for any movement. However repeated tests under controlled conditions have never provided support for this claim.

Dowsing equipment

Most dowsers use simple brass rods bent in an "L" shape known as divining rods. According to dowsers who use divining rods, the choice of brass allows the rod to attune to the magnetic fields emanated by the target without the earth's EM field interfering, as would be the case with a metal such as steel. The end of the rod to be held by the dowser is often encased in a material that provides a constant electrical impedance, to prevent the dowser's own conductivity from interfering with the dowsing process.

Related Topics:
Brass - Divining rod - Impedance - Conductivity

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According to skeptics, the L-shape is necessary to create an unstable system in which the tiniest (involuntary) movement on the part of the dowser causes the rod to move (see ideomotor effect). A similar unstable system can be made with a pendulum, which is also sometimes used in dowsing, particularly map dowsing.

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Some books on dowsing insist that dowsing or divining rods should be made only from freshly cut twigs, because only these can tune into the forces of nature, while other books by different authors insist on the use of brass or steel rods. Dowsers say that what works for one dowser would not work for another. They claim that each novice dowser must experiment to find a tool that works for him.

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Some rods also utilize a "witness chamber", especially those claimed to be able to find minerals. The user places a sample of what he wishes to find in the witness chamber, usually located at the end of the rod, and the rod is supposed to respond only to material of the same type as that placed in the chamber.

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In recent years, electronic dowsing rods, also known as long range locators have sprung up on the market, often costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The makers claim that these devices have specially tuned electronics that allow one to find anything from water to gold to (hidden or lost) humans. In every known case, however, it has been found that the locator electronics are either totally nonfunctional or do not perform as claimed when tested under rigorous scientific conditions, such as a double-blind test. It has been found that there always is an electronics part and a moving indicator part which are unconnected, with the moving part clearly movable by the ideomotor effect. To people unfamiliar with the ideomotor effect, these devices often seem so convincing that even police and rescue teams have spent significant amounts of money on such devices.

Related Topics:
Long range locators - Electronics - Water - Gold - Human - Double-blind

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