Hey guys, kinda new to this site and just scrolled down the main page far enough today to notice there was a dowsers forum on here. I'm not new to dowsing and have been doing it off and on since childhood (40 now) and have always used coat hangers with relative success. There are a lot of interesting posts in this thread that I would love to add or comment on but I will add to them at a later time as it is getting late here. Anyway, I thought I would include a post that I submitted on another site after reading several post from the skeptics of dowsing and felt that it would fit into this thread also because it does have a bit of a tutorial in it that may be very helpful to those of you that are new to dowsing or wonder why you may be having problems with accuracy.
Now the skeptics were talking about mounting the rods in a block of wood, and joking about ppl talking to the rods, just to clear up some confusion you may have about the content and direction of some of the post.
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Ok it seems all of the skeptics think the rods are what does the locating when in reality it has nothing to do with the rods or a pendulum. Dowsing and divining is based on a psychic phenomenon known as ESP (extrasensory perception). The human body is the locating device. The rods are merely tools for identifying the minute signals received by your body.
It’s kind of like using a windsock to determine which way the wind is blowing. If you are standing in the middle of a paved parking lot with no visible ques to determine the direction, you can guess but you may be off 30 degrees in one direction or the other. To get an accurate reading you have to use a tool. So you pull out a windsock, piece of string, strip of ribbon or flag, blow smoke or toss some powder in the air to determine the absolute wind direction.
This is basically what the rods do, they are the pointing tools to show you direction and/or target location. I have read articles (GPAA Pick and Shovel Gazzet) about dowsers that could dowse barehanded. They were so self-aware that they could recognize small changes in heat sensations on their hand when the target was located.
Mounting the 2 rods on a board, defeats the purpose of having 2 independent rods and yes, they will both swing in the same direction when the angle of the board changes. Doing so is equivalent to mounting your metal detector to a fixture, turning it on and expecting it to locate an object w/o any further human interaction. Its not going to locate anything unless you pick it up and swing it side to side while walking in some direction. In the same sense dowsing rods won’t work unless they are held independently, one in each hand.
Talking to the rods: Yes you have to talk to them (actually you talk to yourself but…). If you want to know the answer you have to ask the question. For dowsing rods or pendulums to give you an answer, you have to ask the question. Let’s say you want to dowse a park for old coins. You drive to the park and look over the area you want to dowse while taking a few minutes to meditate and tune into the psyche. Yes, mood and mindset matters and you have to be tuned in. When you are ready you hold the rods in front of you and level them out parallel to each other. Now with out taking any steps you ask the question. “In what direction can I find an old coin in this area of the park?” While standing there you repeat the question several times (the good news is you don’t have to talk out loud, you can think the question also). After a minute or 2 your rods will begin to swing. If they both swing in the same direction, (lets say they both swing and point to the right 15 to 20 degrees) you start walking in the direction they point. Sometimes only one will point in the direction you need to go.
Now you have to tell the rods what to do when the item is located. So you tell them, “when over the location of the item (Old coin) the rods will cross”. You also have to continue asking for direction of the item while telling the rods what to do when you locate it. As you get closer to the item the rods will slowly start to cross. If you walk past the item the rods will over cross and swing as far back as they can until they lay against your chest. Mark the spot where they crossed on the ground. Walk about 10 paces beyond the point you marked and start again. If the rods cross at a distance away from the first location, mark the second location. Now you want to turn 90 degrees left or right and walk 10 paces and start again.
So if your first line was north to south, your second line would be south to north, 3rd line east to west, 4th line west to east. Now you should have 4 marks on the ground. If you draw a line from one to the other to form a cross, your target should be at the X. Some say the distance between each mark is how deep the target is in the ground or from the height of the rods. Another way to find out the depth is to stand over the target and once again ask the question and give the command, “How deep below the surface is the object? As I count the rods will cross when I reach the number that relates to the depth in inches”. Now you slowly start counting while pausing between numbers to allow the rods to react. When you get to the depth the rods will cross, if you count past the depth, the rods will open again.
Now you can dig up your target or go back the truck for your metal detector to see if the rods were right. The only problem with depending on the detector is if the coin you located was an old wooden nickel or plastic coin some kid lost. Its still an old coin although it may not have value. So in answering the question about dowsing rods being discriminating, yes they are. They will locate only what you ask it to locate and discriminate out everything else. Be it power lines, sewer lines, water for a well, gold, silver, keys, watches, rings, gem stones or what ever you desire to locate. That’s what you will locate.
Bottom line: Dowsing Rods do not locate the target, your body and subconscious mind do the locating. Dowsing Rods are merely visual tools for the dowser to use to recognize a target’s location. Metal detectors wont work unless you turn it on and swing it while walking, Dowsing rods wont work unless you have faith, ask the questions and give commands. Kinda like a calculator, you need an answer to a problem, you input a command, and you get a result. The problem with skeptics is they want results that are repeatable any time/every time. Psyche or ESP doesn’t work that way. Its not something that can be turned on and off like the flip of a switch. Your body and mind has to be in tune with nature just as your metal detector has to be balanced to the mineral content of the soil in the area you are searching.
Another problem is that people are lazy or in a hurry. They want to be able to flip a switch and have a device tell then where the biggest chunk of gold or a huge cash of treasure is buried and how deep it is. They want to be able to drive up to it in the truck and not have to walk more than 20 feet off the road or dig more than an inch below the dirt for it. Also they don’t want to have to spend more than a few minutes out in the field looking for the treasure before moving on to the next hoard of treasure. What they don’t consider is that it takes hours to walk a field with a metal detector to cover the whole area. While it can be dowsed in a few minutes that requires walking a portion of the area and not having to dig up 40 cans, bottle caps and gum wrappers to find 1 ring or coin.
Are you still a skeptic about dowsing or even ESP? Think about how many times you have been in a restaurant or bar and had the feeling someone you couldn’t see was watching or starring at you and you turn around to see who it is. How did you know what direction to look? I would say you dowsed the person starring with out the use of tools.
