Are water-diviners living proof that ESP is a practical reality?

Question

The question of how certain people can detect underground drinking water using just a simple forked stick has fascinated me for a long time. Is there any scientific explanation for how this works?

Answer 1

It works because the dowser is clairsentient. meaning they are sensite to the subtle shifts of energy between water and earth.

Usually dowsers use L shaped metal rods or a pendulum. Another thing the dowswe doen not actually have to be on site to find water, They can use a map of the property and dowse the property from thousands of miles away.

Some phone company repairmen use dowsing to find broken underground cables.

and another field that uses dowsing is mining, and drilling for oil.

Answer 2

No!

Answer 3

.  Water divining is not ESP.  To the extent that it works, which is questionable, inspite of quite a few anecdotal accounts from people I respect, it must rely on slight differences in the local gravitational field.  I have never seen it applied and have read no accounts of it being applied in a controlled and verifiable setting, so it is difficult to say whether it actually works.  I have never heard of any actual experiments measuring forces on the diving rods to determine in a scientific way whether it works.  

.  For water divining to be proof of ESP, it would be necessary to prove that water divining works and that, if it does work, it is not based on some principal of physics.

Answer 4

Well to date there hasn't been a single water-diviner or water-dowser who has been able to pass a controlled test for detecting hidden water. Dowsers certainly have plenty of unsubstantiated stories of finding water in uncontrolled conditions, but such stories have no value if you want to scientifically investigate this supposed phenomenon.

Moreover, there is a certain myth about underground water which seems to go along with dowsing. The myth is that water exists in underground streams. This is false except in areas where the underying rock is primarily limestone. Instead, underground water tends to exist in very expansive "aquifers" consisting of porous, cracked rocks and gravel. Water flows very slowly in these aquifers, on the order of a meter a day or less. If you drill a well into these aquifers, you will strike water. So when a dowser uses his sticks to determine a well location and he strikes water, it's not evidence of his water-dowsing ability. It's just the fact that there is underground water nearly everywhere.

EDIT: Come on trolls, only 3 thumbs down? You can do better than that!

Answer 5

Dowsing isn't exactly esp.  I've seen many of the Amish communities use a dowser when searching for the best place for a well.  And here where I live it's not at ll uncommon to call in a dowser.  They are respected and sought after, and far cheaper than hit and miss drilling.  As you probably know, looking for water and drilling a well is not cheap.   You don't really need special tools, although some find it helpful.  Most of the old, and I do mean oldtimers define it as a change; they literally feel an internal change in their body.  Which I guess nowadays we would define as being able to feel the physiological change due to feeling the electromagnetic energy shift in various places as they're walking.

Answer 6

Actually its a little different than ESP It is divining related to Kineseology. All things having energies & concentration for correct answers, Muscle testing its Kineseology is taught in colleges now such as ASU in Az. Using a pendulum is on the same order.

Answer 7

I'm going to go with it is much different from ESP.  Assuming that dowsing works, the sticks are a representation of something physical happening to the body, and not necessary for the actual dowsing process.   Again, going witht the assumption that it works, the idea is that the body reacts naturally to the signs in the environment that the water is closer to the surface in one particular spot.

As for the question of why the sticks react to other uses, such as mining, it is simply a reaction of the user's needs.  If the user needs water, the user is focused on looking for water and thus the body reacts to those needs.  If the user is looking for metals, the body is focused on that.  Dowsing is supposedly a method of tuning in to instincts created by years of evolution, which we have been trained to ignore as useless in modern life.

Answer 8

When scientific controls are used, it doesn't work at all.

http://www.csicop.org/si/9901/dowsing.ht...

Answer 9

Water is underground on planet earth. It is pretty hard to not have any water under the place you are standing.

Back in the day when you dug the well with a shovel how deep mattered rather a lot. They used experience and kept knowledge secret by using a dousing rod as a smoke screen.

Answer 10

It's a moot point because water divining doesn't work.  It's sheer luck.

Answer 11

Yes, there is a scientific explanation:  dowsing does not work.  Those who claim to be able to dowse for water are simply exploiting the ideomotor effect and reading cues in the environment to locate water and/or other items.

Answer 12

Why is it that with the same pair of sticks you can dowse for water, gold, oil and graves?  That alone should tip you off that it just doesn't work.  Add to that the fact that no one has been able to prove in a controlled environment that dowsing works.  In other words, it doesn't exist.  Neither does ESP for that matter.

Answer 13

In North America, there are so many near-surface water sources that it is almost impossible to drill a water well and NOT hit water.  New England is especially well-watered, with something like 95%+ of the entire region underlain with ground water.

So, being a "diviner" is really a joke.  BUT it's also a great business opportunity since there are SO many people who fall for this scam.  It's NOT illegal to proclaim yourself a diviner and go into business offering this service...for a nominal charge, or course.

Scientifically, NO there is nothing at work here--no special forces, no mystical powers, nothing--it's all a matter of luck, with the odds in YOUR favor by a better ratio than even casinos have!  There have been some studies done that indicate that the diviners are involuntarily (in fact, sub-consciously) manipulating their divining rods.  They aren't always aware that they're doing it, but it's THEM nonetheless, and not some mysterious forces at work.

Hope this helps.

Answer 14

No, I don't think this has anything to do with ESP, because anyone can do it once they have the sticks in their hands. With ESP you have to percieve something unseen with your mind, not a pair of sticks.

Answer 15

I have told the well drillers where to drill on my two properties in the mountains of NC and each time they have told me they didn't know whether there would be water there or not.  Other members of the family  in the same area, same well drillers, couldn't hit water for 2000 feet, had to try another location on the property.  I told them I wanted my well here, and there would be water, both times.  I knew it would be there.  I didn't use a divining rod or any other tool, I just "knew".  Both wells were hit at less than 200 feet, one was an artisan well that was hit at about 120' and had so much water they had to put a overflow on it to keep my plumbing pressure down in the cabin.    After I told them where to put the second well on the second piece of property in another county, the well driller offered me a job.  He had never had that kind of luck in that area drilling wells and hitting that much water at that shallow of a well on only one try.   He was amazed.  I didn't think anything of it.  Sometimes I just know things.  You can believe it or not, but it saved me a bunch of money by having him hit water right away, and no, I didn't quit my day job.  I just figured it was my "luck".   I don't know if it would work on anyone else's property or not.

Answer 16

Water dowsing" refers in general to the practice of using a forked stick, rod, pendulum, or similar device to locate underground water, minerals, or other hidden or lost substances,and hasbeena subject of discussion and controversy for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Although tools and methods vary widely, most dowsers (also called diviners or water witches) probably still use the traditional forked stick, which may come from a variety of trees, including the willow, peach, and witchhazel.Other dowsers may use keys, wire coathangers, pliers, wire rods, pendulums, or various kinds of elaborate boxes and electrical instruments.In the classic method of using a forked stick, one fork is held in each hand with the palms upward . The bottom or butt end of the "Y" is pointed skyward at an angle of about 45 degrees.The dowser than walks back and forth over the area to be tested . When he passes over a source of water, the butt end of the stick is supposed to rotate or be attracted downward,however the simple fact that

they could find drinking water ,when 'Hydrologic, geologic, and geophysical knowledge wasn't around",now to say that is

ESP proof ,well in some sense might be.