A Testimony Of Dowsing?

[Thinking]

Auto-correct was too eager.

 

Sometimes technology is not friendly.

[Scott Lloyd]

When I was a kid, ~ 10 years-old living in a little town called Glenwood in Sevier County, Utah I got an introduction to "dowsing." An LDS relative (on my dad's side--I won't provide more information than that) visited and brought with him a forked stick in the shape of a Y. He was persuaded (and my dad as well) that if you gripped the forked ends of the stick and walked along the ground, the long end of the stick would be drawn towards the ground in the event of any water underneath. Indeed, if you were gripping it hard enough and thereby resisted it, the force could injure your hands--such was the power of the instrument.

At the time, our property didn't have irrigation water (which in Glenwood was a separate system from the drinking water). Following the dowsing effort, my parents bought a 1/2 share of irrigation water rights and had a pipe laid to the property. The dowsing effort produced nothing (although in retrospect it seems like it should have at least given a twitch as it passed over the septic tank--perhaps we weren't doing it with sufficient faith).

So it was with some interest I read Daniel C. Peterson sharing his experience dowsing on his blog (dowsing worked for him). And while I don't think the belief and practice is unique to adherents of Mormonism--I am curious what people on this forum think of it. Please share your thoughts.

--Erik

Can you link to Peterson's blog post? Edited August 16, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[Calm]

An uncontrolled scientist´s babble?

If it is the same as he stated before, Dan just presents it as something to think about.  He makes no claims about it being a scientific endeavor, him being a scientist making an empirical observation or anything close.  It was just an experience that occurred to him that demonstrated the continuing practice of dowsing and that he wonders about from time to time.

 

And he probably shares it because he thinks it of value for others to be aware that this is still occurring (thus demonstrating that it is still respected among many educated as well as uneducated individuals challenging the idea that only idiots or the uneducated believe in such things, either now or in the past) and to wonder about possibilities as well.

Edited August 16, 2015 by calmoriah

[cinepro]

The questions are a little too limited in the poll.  It's possible that dowsers also find success not due to pure chance, but through picking up on subtle cues in the landscape.  Most people underestimate the degree to which me way be influenced by unnoticed but very real subtleties around us.  Crazier things than dowsing have happened based on such cues.

 

Suffice it to say, I don't believe in dowsing.  But it seems that dowsing can be a useful tool for showing us how people view the world, and how well tuned their Baloney-meters are.  Because once you strip away all the bad arguments for dowsing, there aren't very many (or any) good ones left.

 

This PBS video (hosted by Alan Alda) offers an interesting glimpse into the mind of some dowsers, and shows an interesting experiment testing a dowser's abilities:

 

[cinepro]

I also like this article's look into the more spiritual and communal aspects of dowsing:

 

Science may call it drivel but there are some that find a mystical power in the pendulum. Josh Wingrove hangs out with a group using an age old technique to try to make the world a better place.

By: Josh Wingrove
March.15.2005

Show me 'yes,'" I stammer, almost yelling at the stone that is suspended from a string held by my fingers. The stone starts spinning in a clockwise direction.

Freaky: clockwise means yes.

"K, thanks," I say.

It stops.

"Show me 'no.'" The stone complies, circling counter-clockwise around my knee.

I think I need to change my pants. How could this be?

I am sitting in the middle of a room with 120 people in Toronto's Latvian Centre. Tonight is the monthly meeting of the Toronto Dowsers.

What is dowsing, you ask?

Dowsing is a method of reading energy in an environment. According to dowsers, energies in the environment create a neuro-muscular response in the human body, which is made physical and read by means of a conductor.

"Dowsing has been around for easily 5,000 years," Marilyn Gang says. Her group, the Toronto Dowsers, has no president. Gang considers herself the "Head honcho" of the 300-member group.

"We are the cutting edge of dowsing groups. No one in the world is doing what we're doing," Gang says.

While dowsing is typically used for such tasks as choosing wallpaper, selecting medication, avoiding police radar, finding your way when lost or determining the gender of an unborn child, Gang's group has made the primary purpose of their dowsing the reading and healing of the energy around us.

"We change energies," Gang says. "You change them from detrimental to beneficial."

One of the evening's presenters, Alicja Aratyn, explains the art of dowsing in more pragmatic terms: "Dowsing is about using pendulums," she says.

Pendulums, eh? And before I can ask, pendulums are brought out all around me. Brass ones, wooden ones, beautiful stone ones on what look like gold chains. And what's more--people are talking to them.

"I think it deals with your own energies," says Bernadette Halloran, an accountant who started dowsing last October. "I was a natural at it. I was very fortunate."

She keeps her personal pendulum in its own little pouch--the same pendulum that I had spinning above my knee.

"Dowsing has changed my life," Halloran says. "There's a whole world. And that's what I like about (Gang's) group, is she opens up a world to everyone."

Halloran uses dowsing in business to clear the energies that are attached to the contracts with which she deals. She says it has revolutionized the way she does her work.

Rick Roocroft, a retired Ontario Provincial Police special constable, said he wished he knew about dowsing while with the police force.

"Once you start dowsing, you come in contact with the intelligent part of your subconscious," Roocroft says. But, he adds, it's hard to convince others of its veracity.

"There's a real problem with the scientific method. Scientists want answers they can touch," he says. "Scientists don't recognize there is power in nature."

Gang says she recognizes this natural power, but can't necessarily explain how it works.

One of Gang's dowsers, Bob Seyffert, confronts this natural power in houses. Seyffert says that dowsing allows him to sense bad energy left over from things such as domestic fights.

"When I come across a negative thought form, I send it back to its owner in the form of love," Seyffert says. OK, I know what you're thinking. Dowsers read energy? With a ring on a chain? Are they the Ghostbusters? They send a thought form back as love? Is this some kind of cult?

No, it's not a cult. And anything can be a pendulum. If you have headphones, hold them halfway out between your index finger and your thumb, with the heavier headphone part swinging down--Voila: a homemade pendulum.

Dowsers claim their craft is used by mining and oil companies to find underground deposits. The U.S. Bureau of Mines website actually defines dowsing: "to...locate and delineate formations bearing water, oil, or minerals by use of a divining rod or other non-scientific means."

Still I was a little skeptical of the whole thing and the fact that I was the youngest of the 120 people at the meeting was making me feel a bit out of place.

"Definitely it leans towards an older age group," Gang's niece, Leah Breuer, says.

Breuer graduated from Ryerson's Radio and Television Arts program in 2003, winning a TARA award for her success in the program. The 24-year-old is working as an assistant editor for New Wave Entertainment in Los Angeles.

But it might not be the award or the education that guaranteed Breuer her dream job--Gang says she dowsed for her niece before her interview, giving Breuer the energy she needed to secure the position.

"I think it takes a certain kind of person to begin with," Breuer says. "A lot of us, especially in Toronto, are a little too cynical."

Breuer says that while her family always teased her aunt about her alternative lifestyle, they supported her at the same time.

"Having her in my life, specifically her, has taught me a lot about accepting other people's beliefs," Breuer says. "It taught me that people are different and that it's OK."

Gang now leads the dowsing group full time, although her background is in computers. She received her undergraduate in French and education and her master's in French from Long Island University in New York State, in addition to a diploma in holistic healing.

She started the dowsing group to try and make a difference in a world she says is corrupted and exploited.

"It's the attitude and mindset of closed-minded people who want what they want for their own personal needs and they don't give a damn about anything else," she says. "This is why we are so attracted to dowsing. Because in dowsing we have the means to uncover the truth."

So it's not a cult. Rather Gang sees her group as simply a collection of people drawing strength from each other and from a new craft.

"Some people have hockey groups, others have book groups," she says. "We have a dowsing group."

It is clear to me by the end of the evening that Gang truly honours--as she calls it--the art of dowsing, and that her motives appear to be as simple as trying to help people and bring them together.

"Dowsing is going to be very big," she says. "I'm just trying to make sure it's done with honour and integrity.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060321094 ... oryid=1886

Edited August 16, 2015 by cinepro

[Five Solas]

Can you link to Peterson's blog post?

At the moment--no.  It was in the discussion section of "Two thoughts on the seer stone" on his "Sic et Non" blog.  But now I can't get the comments section to load.  Maybe it was all just a dream...

;0)

 

Seriously, I should have done this in my original post but I was lazy, figured most around here knew about Dr. Peterson & his blog and mostly I wanted to share my own experience and see if it resonated.  My apologies for not being more diligent.  If anyone else can link--please do.  Obviously a number of folks did see it.

 

--Erik

[Five Solas]

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with southeastern Washington state

Agree - East of the Cascades has more in common with some of Utah than it does with the West.  The State of Washington is remarkably diverse--from rain forest to semi-desert. 

 

--Erik

[Calm]

This is what Dan said:

 

The clay water pipe that I found was under a concrete floor in a construction company office.

 

 

 

I found water running through a buried pipe of which I was unaware. I didn't even know I was looking for anything.

I was simply told to allow the two metal rods free play.

They crossed at a certain point, then uncrossed. It was very distinct.

Only after repeating that several times was I told that a clay pipe ran under the floor right where the rods crossed.

I had several other people undertake the same experiment throughout that day. With one exception, they all had the same experience. (The one exception was a big burly mechanic with huge hands. I suspect that he didn't allow the rods free enough movement.)

I wasn't expecting what happened. Nothing in my worldview predicted it. It didn't fit my scientific notions, and nothing in my beliefs depended on it happening.

Yet it happened.

I found it very strange and unsettling.

 

 

 

 

I don't expect you to believe it, and you shouldn't expect me to respect your amateur mind-reading or your somewhat contemptuous assignment of imagined motivations.

(Please give me a reason to permit your rather surly presence to continue here on my blog.)

I've claimed no "ability." I simply report that it happened. I've drawn no sweeping conclusions from it, I've proclaimed no theories, and I have no idea whether it would ever happen again.

You should perhaps work on being a bit less hostile.

 

 

 

YOU obviously care about my "personal miracle," as you derisively describe it. And you obviously feel that you need to criticize me.

I freely grant that I can't "back it up."

It happened roughly thirty-five years ago. Both the person who asked me to use the rod and the mechanic who "failed" the test are dead. I believe that the office manager is, as well. I've forgotten the names of the others involved; I never knew the name of the postman whom I invited to try it (and for whom it worked).

If I were offering my experience as solid evidence, as a major point of data in an argument, you would be right to demand corroboration of it, and to dismiss my anecdote if I failed to provide such corroboration.

But I'm not.

It's simply something that happened to me, a surprising personal experience that I've never forgotten.

I have no theory to explain it. I claim no special gift of dowsing. I simply report what happened to me. You're entirely welcome, and free, to dismiss my story out of hand.

And yet it happened.

You can (and, no doubt, will) call me a "buffoon" to your heart's content. Here, though, on my blog, you'll do it only once.

 

You have to "load more comments".  It was five days ago, no time on it so can't really pinpoint where it is at.  You will just have to look for it to see the context.  Sorry.

 

I figure that is enough to demonstrate that he isn't claiming anything more than it happened to him, he saw it happen with others and he doesn't know why.

Edited August 16, 2015 by calmoriah

[TheSkepticChristian]

An uncontrolled scientist´s babble?

 

I don't think there is a scientist that believes in dowsing, I hope not.

 

Dowsing is no different than fortune telling or a rabbit's foot.  

[TheSkepticChristian]

I wasn't expecting what happened. Nothing in my worldview predicted it. It didn't fit my scientific notions, and nothing in my beliefs depended on it happening.

 

but it never impresses professional skeptics like Michael Shermer

[Five Solas]

This is what Dan said:

 

..."Both the person who asked me to use the rod and the mechanic who "failed" the test are dead. I believe that the office manager is, as well." ...

Appreciate the content & explanation, Calmoriah.  (Are we good, Scott?) 

 

Regarding my own experience (which appears to have happened around the same time as Dr. Peterson's) I'm pleased to report that whilst our dowsing effort failed to identify any underground water (including an underground septic tank, an inexplicable miss)--at least it wasn't lethal to the participants, all of whom are still amongst the living. 

:0)

 

--Erik

[ERayR]

but it never impresses professional skeptics like Michael Shermer

 

And who should I be impressed with, Michael Shermer or my lying eyes.

[Five Solas]

And who should I be impressed with, Michael Shermer or my lying eyes.

Okay, since I'm the author of this thread, I think I'm entitled to a little latitude.  ERayR, through no fault of my own, I'm a pop music aficionado (you may of course ask me --'whose fault is it then?'--but I'm not going to go there!). 

 

And your choice of words, "lying eyes" immediately called to mind one of the great American rock bands of the 1970s - The Eagles.  (I had the privilege of seeing them a few years ago in Seattle when they played at Key Arena.)  So here it is folks--take a short break & enjoy the songwriting craftsmanship of Don Henley and Glenn Frey--

 

 

--Erik

 

PS.  You're welcome.  You needed that.  I know.

;0)

[Jude2]

Having voted random chance, my great grandfather lived out on the Mojave desert and part of his property is now Edwards Air Force Base.  During WW2 the government could not fined water so they came to him and he used his dowsing abilities to find it for them. That's the family story anyway.  

[Five Solas]

Having voted random chance, my great grandfather lived out on the Mojave desert and part of his property is now Edwards Air Force Base.  During WW2 the government could not fined water so they came to him and he used his dowsing abilities to find it for them. That's the family story anyway.  

Interesting story, Jude2, appreciate you sharing.  You have heard--but you do not believe (based on how you voted--"random chance").  Care to share why you don't find the "family story" more compelling?  I'm not saying you should, I'm just curious why you don't.

 

Also--was your great grandfather LDS? 

 

--Erik

Edited August 17, 2015 by Five Solas

[ERayR]

Okay, since I'm the author of this thread, I think I'm entitled to a little latitude.  ERayR, through no fault of my own, I'm a pop music aficionado (you may of course ask me --'whose fault is it then?'--but I'm not going to go there!). 

 

And your choice of words, "lying eyes" immediately called to mind one of the great American rock bands of the 1970s - The Eagles.  (I had the privilege of seeing them a few years ago in Seattle when they played at Key Arena.)  So here it is folks--take a short break & enjoy the songwriting craftsmanship of Don Henley and Glenn Frey--

 

 

--Erik

 

PS.  You're welcome.  You needed that.  I know.

;0)

 

I don't understand what you are getting at.  I was countering Skeptics professional skeptics with an assertion that I have seen well witching (dowsing) work.

[Jude2]

Isaac Sopp lived out there for many years and had wells of his own, he may have without really realizing it known where the water aquifers were running under the ground. His son Claude  graduated from Cal-tec  as a Hydro Engineer, water sort of ran in the family.

[Robert F. Smith]

I have seen dowsing demonstrated twice and it worked both times. When I was a young child my parents bought ten undeveloped acres in rural eastern Washington. My Dad hired a water witch (not a mormon) to find him a place for a well. My brother and I followed him around the property until he found two places he recommended to dig. He even estimated the depth. Sure enough my Dad dug and we had ourselves a very good well. The other time was in Iowa where a rancher showed our scout troop how to dowse. Several of the boys had success with it but I was not one of them.

Many years ago, while I lived in Wichita, Kansas, I worked for a water-well driller. He had an excellent, professional map of the aquifer in the area, and he knew ahead to time what depth he would have to drill to obtain water.  We used an old GMC oil exploration rig adapted to water-well drilling.  We would drill, line the hole with large PVC pipe, insert a submersible pump, and the customer would be happy.

 

Once, a rancher called us out to his property and showed us the spot which he had witched beforehand.  My boss was always respectful of water witchers, but he already knew at what depth he would find water, so we were never surprised.

[strappinglad]

The Amazing Randi, of skeptic fame, has said that scientists are among the easiest people to deceive. One of the reasons is that they are so convinced of their 'unfoolablility '. Netflix has his movie ' an Honest Liar' which documents this assertion.

[ERayR]

Many years ago, while I lived in Wichita, Kansas, I worked for a water-well driller. He had an excellent, professional map of the aquifer in the area, and he knew ahead to time what depth he would have to drill to obtain water.  We used an old GMC oil exploration rig adapted to water-well drilling.  We would drill, line the hole with large PVC pipe, insert a submersible pump, and the customer would be happy.

 

Once, a rancher called us out to his property and showed us the spot which he had witched beforehand.  My boss was always respectful of water witchers, but he already knew at what depth he would find water, so we were never surprised.

 

Give some respect to the old farmer who didn't have the aquifer maps and still got it right.  He was either good or lucky.

[Five Solas]

I don't understand what you are getting at....

It was only my attempt at humor, ERayR.  Wouldn't be the first time I've fallen flat on my face in this forum.  You (perhaps unknowingly) cited the title of a famous song (Lyin' Eyes) from a famous American rock band in the 1970's (The Eagles).  And so I had a litte fun with it--I couldn't help myself.  Forgive me if The Eagles were after your time (or before your time--although I suspect this unlikely as Gen X'er's & Milleannials tend to have a better sense of humor than the "Baby Boomers" and so-called "Silent Generation"--at least in my experience). 

 

But I'm good with 1950's references too - should you choose to make one. 

;0)

 

--Erik

[ERayR]

It was only my attempt at humor, ERayR.  Wouldn't be the first time I've fallen flat on my face in this forum.  You (perhaps unknowingly) cited the title of a famous song (Lyin' Eyes) from a famous American rock band in the 1970's (The Eagles).  And so I had a litte fun with it--I couldn't help myself.  Forgive me if The Eagles were after your time (or before your time--although I suspect this unlikely as Gen X'er's & Milleannials tend to have a better sense of humor than the "Baby Boomers" and so-called "Silent Generation"--at least in my experience). 

 

But I'm good with 1950's references too - should you choose to make one. 

;0)

 

--Erik

 Okay now it makes sense.  My kids would have probably got it. 

[Five Solas]

 Okay now it makes sense.  My kids would have probably got it. 

all good - no offense intended, ERayR.  diversity makes us stronger. 

 

--Erik

[Robert F. Smith]

This is the old time equivalent of Essential Oils, DoTerra, or any other MMM introduced in Utah.  Why Peterson thinks there is anything to gain from telling his bizarre story is beyond me.  It reads as narcissistic and uneducated. 

The pragmatic value of magic has been of prime importance in the anthropological understanding of it as a necessary "pseudo science" to be applied wherever human endeavors involve risk or emotion, i.e., in the absence of "the control of rational methods and technological processes."  Although these observations were made about primitive peoples, Evon Z. Vogt and Ray Hyman found that, in the United States, "water witching persists in rural regions where the educational level is relatively high."

 

This from Vogt & Hyman, Water Witching U.S.A., 1st ed., 191, adding that "the difference in educational levels in various regions of the United States does not begin to account for all the variations we have discovered in the practice of water witching."  Cf. “A History of the Divining Rod, With the Adventures of an Old Rodsman,” The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 26 (March 1850):218-225; 27 (Apr 1850):317-327 (copy in H. M. Marquardt Papers, Univ. of Utah Special Collections, Accession 900, Box 155, Folder 30); David Ludlum, Social Ferment in Vermont, 1791-1850 (1939/1948), and Barnes Frisbie, History of Middletown, Vermont (1867), 54-55, on the Wood Scrape affair. 

 

Dowsing is an example of what can be broadly subsumed under the heading of "divination," which is "the art or practice of foreseeing or foretelling future events or discovering hidden knowledge, often accompanied by rites."  Vogt and Hyman consider dowsing as ineffective and "irrational," but hasten to add that "the definition of rational is quite arbitrary; what is rational on one set of assumptions becomes irrational with another set of assumptions," i.e., when a decision must be made in the absence of sufficient logically based data, it can be reasonable to proceed to make the decision in an unorthodox and "irrational" manner, particularly "where a high degree of risk and uncertainty are involved."  In other words, when there is apparently nothing to lose.  Vogt & Hyman, Water Witching U.S.A., 194, 211.

 

As the late William F. Albright pointed out, "the prophets were originally called ro'im, 'diviners' (I Sam. 9:9)" √רואה  -- a synonym of hozim √חזה  (Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan [1968], 215 [= 187 in London ed.]), both of which are normally translated "seers" (cf. II Sam 24:11).

Edited August 17, 2015 by Robert F. Smith

[Scott Lloyd]

I know what Sevenbak is referring to.

I was in Iowa covering a Mormon Trail academic conference in Des Moines not long after that.

After the conference, the Church public affairs missionaries assigned to Nauvoo took a group of scholars who had been presenters at the conference on a road trip to view Church historic sites in Iowa. One of the stops was at Mt. Pisgah. I tagged along.

The landowner, Bob Brown, took us out into his fields where he showed what he thought were foundations of buildings from the temporary Mormon settlement that had been set up there as a way station to the Salt Lake Valley. He said he had found them through diving.

Then he took us to the yard of his home and brought out a bunch of clothes hangers that had been bent into the shape of divining rods. These he handed out to us and invited us to walk back and forth across a spot where there were water lines buried beneath the surface.

It worked for me. My memory is it worked for most of the people -- perhaps all -- in the group.

I didn't write about it in my coverage of the conference, so I can't link to anything about it that I wrote, but I do remember it.

Do I believe in it? I am agnostic on it, but due to the experience I had, I can't dismiss it out-of-hand as some here are doing.

Epilogue:

Our home teachers (a married couple) took a vacation trip a few months ago to see Church historic sites. They visited Bob Brown at Pisgah and had a similar experience to what I have described here. They said it worked for them.

Incidentally, Bob Brown is not a member of the Church.

He is well respected in the community and, at the time I met him, was on the board of county supervisors.

I sat next to my home teachers in Sunday School class today and confirmed with them that their experience with Bob Brown was just as I indicated. They both said it worked for them.

I think this significant, because their experience is far more recent than mine.

The wife said they had a team building event at the hospital where she works and has a supervisor role. They had an activity based on what she had experienced with Bob Brown and all but a couple of them had success detecting underground utilities.

These are both intelligent, educated people of normal sanity, just as I consider myself to be fairly normal.