Throw Away Those Metal Detectors And Use A Bit Of Wire Instead

[ShintoSunrise]

Well my advice then would be to become a second son to this guy and then tell him to call up Chevron so he can show them his moves, because he's about to become the richest person on Earth...

[oneguy]

Don't know about gold or water but if you throw out a 12" cresent wrench in 2' of snow and I happen to walk over it with a couple coat hangars I'll find it...every time!  Old logger showed me and a bud how they used to find chains, j-hooks, tools etc. that got lost in the snow with divining with rods.  We laughed but followed along with it and then we both tried it.....it works.  

I also found an old iron city sewer line for a contractor that was tearing out old sewer line(s) for new.  There "map" and info was about 3' off where the line was supposed to be.  It works for me on bigger metal stuff....

[Steve Herschbach]

3 hours ago, flakmagnet said:

Some things can't be rationally explained, but that does not mean they aren't real and don't work.

The statement is reversible “some things can’t be rationally explained, but that does not mean they are real and work.” Picking a spot and finding water does not mean dowsing works. Seeing somebody do that is not science, it’s anecdote. I know you saw what you saw David, but that’s not enough in my world to constitute proof that dowsing works. Nobody ever steps up and proves it under anything like a genuine scientific setting. But I’ll leave it there because whenever people start talking belief vs science, my communication ability completely breaks down. Shared reality disintegrates. People can believe whatever they want, but belief won’t put a man on the moon. Science is my candle in the dark (to steal a phrase from Sagan), and despite this country’s turn away from science, I’m sticking with it. Might be the last one left though, and if so I’ll turn out the lights when I leave. 

[jasong]

I drilled a hundred or two oil and gas wells in Wyoming and Colorado. I could, in these two areas I worked, walk to any adjacent ranch and tell the owners with a very high degree of certainty exactly where to drill a well and at what depth they might expect to hit oil or gas. Further, I could with a fair degree of certainty tell them where to drill a water well and at what depth too.

That's not magic coat hangers though, it's just basic geology and many well's worth of drilling experience knowing when I hit water, oil, and gas in specific areas I'm familiar with. Yet, if I held some bent wire and told people it is magic then they'd almost surely believe me, for no good reason at all.

Another example: I've replaced a lot of sewers on houses I've worked on. Just by watching where the contractors dig I have a pretty good guess where they are going to be now based on the neighborhood and style of house and year pipes were installed.

Coincidentally, the one contractor I know who "witches" pipes always guesses wrong exactly when I guess wrong. Why? Because he's not dowsing anything, he's just going off experience based on what he's seen before. Just like me. So when he encounters something totally new and unexpected, something that diverges from his real life experience, dowsing magically no longer works.

There is nothing real in this universe, to my knowledge, which defies any kind of explanation. Anything that completely defies explanation is magic, and magic is not real.

[jrbeatty]

Yep. One of those eternal debates that lead nowhere constructive. 

 Anecdotal stories and the total lack of disclosure of the many failures add to the allure of divining. Random chance success must also be taken into account.

Another aspect regarding claimed divining success is the fact that many experienced diviners are also very commonsensical observers of landscape. They wave sticks, wires, etc, in areas more likely than not to contain what they seek.

The prize money still awaits - - - 

Edit: you beat me to it Jasong - - :)

[oneguy]

Try it yourself the way it was shown to me and a bud.  Find a clean spot in your yard and toss a 12" cresent on the ground, take your coat hangars bent in an L shape and rest them against the palm of your hand and over your fore finger about 12-14" apart, holding them parallel and straight out.  Walk over your wrench and those rods will either cross over each other or spread out away from each other.  Rock gently back and forth over target and watch the rods move back and forth as you move closer or farther away.  My guess is 50% will say it don't work...50% will say I'm a believer....????

Try it yourself.......

PS....Jasong,  worked floors and some dericks on Exeter Drilling Rig #24 during '80-'82....  LaBarge, Evanston, Vernal, Big Piney, Pinedale, etc....  good country down there!!!

[Lunk]

Then try it by having someone hide the wrench so that you can't see it and don't know where it is.

[Steve Herschbach]

I’ve tried dowsing. I own a set of rods. I’ve observed the effect. I’m not closed minded, I simply demand rigorous logic and scientific proof, and nobody is willing. Those that are willing, always fail.

I’ve liked every post in this thread because I do respect opinions. But I am not going to dowse my way through a minefield based on opinions, and I challenge anyone to put their life on the line doing so with dowsing rods. Me, I’m using a mine detector. That’s where the rubber meets the road between belief and science. Are you willing to bet your life on it?

[Joe D.]

  Now see what y'all have done! I'm going to have to try this out!! But we no longer have wire coat hangers in the house! Can i try copper or aluminum wire?? How about plastic, or wood??

 

   Steve,

  "I'm always willing to succeed at failing! But i never fail to succeed!"  If i weren't, i wouldn't have gotten married twice!🤣👍👍

[jasong]

What Lunk proposed is a scientific experiment. Throw in a control experiment where no wrench exists, and don't tell the dowsers which experiment they are a part of. Also have an independent 3rd party hide the wrench, and the perform the experiment in a place totally unfamiliar to the dowsers, and we have some science happening from which useful data can be derived!

But James Randi already proposed doing just that for decades, with a large cash prize for anyone to prove supernatural powers. I told my sewer contractor about it years back, but he was always too busy.