dowsing for water!!
 

we have been having little tiny streams even without raind. we did some research and decided to make divining rods and try them out. IT is SO COOL!!! we used them over the trickel of water it didnt do much, we went about 15 feet above the trickle and thos rods started swaying and then they crossed each other. WOW!! what a rush. I had heard about it but, never believed it really worked. It is so amazing, my kids did it too, you should have seen the looks on their faces. I just had to tell ya. Ill let you know if we find a good stram, maybe an aretisian.

Isn't it cool!!

My Dad was joking around one day and came in with a couple of rods pretending to dowse. He got quite a shock when they suddenly crossed! I tried it and the same thing happened in the same spot, right in the middle of the livingroom!

p.

It works! And older friend taught me over 30 years ago. I have done it to find water.....but also to find water pipes, gas pipes, and other similar things.
I don't know why or how it works, but it does! :shrug:

Perhaps it has something to do with "magnetism".

Certainly worth knowing! :)
Bruce

Diggers hot line doesn't think so much of dowsers, but I have also seen it work, looking for a buried electric wire that they (Diggers Hot line) couldn't find.

I have actually seen it worth myself. A local well drilling company follows the advice of a "dowser" - they have never failed to find water within ten feet of the depth where he says it will be!

You can hide money and dowse for that too. Nice if you have buried treasure.

it's cool huh, almost wish i didnt have to work tomorrow so i could dowse and dig!lol
couple of metal clothes hangers gave us a full day of excitement!! If i hit good water ill be thrilled maybe i wont have to pay thousands for a well after all.

Have been thinking of dowsing in regard to a piece of land I'm interested in. There is no well, no mains and it's on higher ground.
So the only water would be rainwater which falls in plenty usually. But with the changing weather patterns it's not something to rely on so that's where the dowsing came to mind.

Could there be a watervein on the outskirts of lower mountains? It's something worth looking into.
I'm confident a dowser could find it, just not sure if this particular geography would supply any.
Does anyone here have experience in that?

smallhold, youre in the same position im in i live on a moutain, but i have found a ling line where the rods cross alot, so im wondering what it is, its very strong energy, and its not going from up to down, so maybe we have something here

For water, I use a live-cut, fresh Y branch from a fruit-bearing tree, myself. My FIL showed me how. He used to witch for underground springs, and then install tile spring wells with a backhoe for a living. He said to hold on to the branch as hard as I could...and when it pulled down, I had it held so hard that it twisted the wood near my hands! It is amazing, and shows how little we actually know about the state of things.

My favorite witching story: 6-7 years ago, during a hot dry summer, I witched the place in an area where I wanted to drill a new well. I found two hot spots, but one was not located in a good spot.

2 years ago, also during the hot dry summer, I finally had the driller come out for a look. I told him, "Here is where I want the well." To my surprise, he then went to his truck and pulled out a branch! He walked around, and BAM! When he hit the edxact spot I told him to drill, it pulled down hard.

Only then did I tell him I had already witched that spot 4-5 years ago. So it was twice-confirmed. The resulting 70-foot well produces 15 gpm in summer and over 60 gpm in winter, with the pump at 50 feet. After he drilled it, he told me, "You will never run out of water."

I've seen guys witch for buried wires and water lines, using the 2 rods you all describe.

About the line lines in the mountains, that is likely a spring line you are following. A fracture or fissure in the rock is directing water flow. It's what my FIL used to look for to set his tile wells. He would use a backhoe to make a pretty big hole, probing around til he found the vein, then dump in real coarse gravel for the water to come up through, then stand up the concrete tiles, and backfill it.

It always makes me unpopular to be the guy that rains on the parade, but the fact is that dowsing does not work.

James Randi lets dowsers or witchers attempt his Million Dollar Challenge for paranormal abilities, and the fact is that every one of them has failed to prove their ability, even when using testing guidelines that they help design. They do come up with very clever excuses, though.

Finding water
 

I knew a gentleman that was very good at finding water and minerals! He could even tell you the depth and quality of the water. This gentleman found water on two different pieces of property we owned and told us the depth correctly and one was 147 feet deep. He spent a lot of time using his skill at finding water and many people here got help from him. He could find keys easily that were dropped in tall grass by just using his skill. I guess that you would have to see it to believe it but I saw it and I believe in his skills! This man believed that this was a God given skill and he would not abuse it.

Philbee :)

I also know an old guy here who witches for old grave sites. I'd never heard of that before.

I think he's documenting all the graves and cemeteries for the local historical/family history society.

P.

I agree! I drilled water wells for two years, alot of them had been "witched", by different dowsers. As many dry holes as water in them. Some would make claims as to depth and production.
Knowing the lay of the aquafier was of more help in determining the depth and water production.
Also looking at the drainage areas for shallow wells will in all probability be more decisive than dowsing.
Yes.... there is a pull on the wires or stick. What can make that happen, I don't know? :shrug:

My Father dowsed our well in Vermont in 1990. They dug it right where it pointed and they hit an artesian. It started spraying 30' in the air. Wonderful water!

I wondered when the detractors would log in! LOL. I think whether it works or not depends on the person doing it, too. Not everyone can do it, but it is an easy thing to fake, especially if it is being faked on a paid basis. I also don't think it is a "paranormal ability." I think it is quite normal. Just my opinion.

James Randi is a board advisor of a group called the Bay Area Skeptics, a group dedicated to proving all manner of unexplained phenomena and certain philosophies wrong. (I think they call that a bias in scientific circles.) I have read a number of their "challenges," and each one is about some guy who claims to find money or gold or some such. They always trick the person in some way during the "test" (which could skew the result, right there, and so is not scientific method). There is no control experiment also undertaken at the same time (also unscientific.) So I can debunk that group's debunking, too.

I don't claim that witching does anything for me but find water.

My FIL did his witching for water in an area of Connecticut where it runs in cracks and channels in rock. He paid off his backhoe and made money at it for years. You don't do that if you are turning up dry holes.

In my original post, I said my FIL had taught me how to witch. (I wonder if learning from someone who is successful at it helps?) That was at the height of summer in a backyard in Williamsburg, Va. I was a skeptic. I could not believe it when the branch twisted down so powerfully. The spot where the branch twisted out of my hands was right next to a corner of my house. Unknown to me at the time, my house had a problem where water would rise and sit in winter in the crawlspace. It made a mold problem in the walls. When I found that out later, it turned out that a wet weather spring rose in that spot where I had witched water, and was coming up under the house. A sump and pump solved that.

I mentioned that it was real dry when I witched for my well here in Tennessee, and I came up with two spots for the well. The one I did not use came up a wet weather spring several years in a row when we had a lot of rainfall. Made a permanent puddle all winter long, then receded in spring.

Like I say, I don't know about finding treasure or whatnot, and I don't advocate people using it if they think it is bunk, but it worked for me a couple times. Oh, and when the driller got that branch out of his truck? As far as I was concerned, he had the job right then!

I learned to witch for water from my dad. He was very good at it. All the wells he found came up with lots of water. He never witched for anything else. just water. Who knows, maybe he was just lucky - but that was some streak of luck he had :D

its basically i think about energy, i dont know i got some books from the library to seehow they figure the depth. It could be a spring, this is alot of rock, mostly rock ledges, im gonna think positively and optimistically and think its an underground river. LOL all i know is its fun and amazing. I dont care who believes. You have to do it to know its for real.

My DGF witched (dowsed) a well on his homestead back in 192??. He then started digging by hand, putting in cribbing as he went. At the depth of 8 feet he broke into an underground spring. It was a mad scramble to get himself out of there, leaving the shovel and pickaxe behind.

The water came to within 2 feet of the top and it hasn't changed to this very day! It is the sweetest, cleanest water anywhere. No matter how much they pumped, the water level never varied.

He used a forked branch from a willow as a dowser. No matter how tight he would hold that branch, it would point downward, peeling the bark right off it.

I did a job attempting to find a sewer line. The BEST dowser in the area came out and located it, this guy is supposed to be so good that the cops use him to help them find buried bodies.

I was a sceptic to begin, but dug down 12 feet, over three feet into virgin dirt and never found the sewer line. I dug 10 feet in both directions from where he said it was. I don't believe it existed.

They are crackpots, every last one of them. The only thing that determines how good or bad they are is how much money they manage to swindle out of the new suckers that are born every minute.

Pete

so if i find water im a crackpot???

As a cable repairman for at&t I have seen it used very effectivly for locating abandoned/damaged cables, when there is no access to use electronic equipment. I have also watched and talked to Dallas Water Utilities and many of them swear by it. I recently used it myself to locate a water line at my mom's, only problem was that my older brother showed up and pointed out this was the old metal line abandoned when I was in diapers. Randy

Finding water proves nothing. How do you know you wouldn’t have found it anyway? I was asked by a driller a couple years ago if I wanted to have my land dowsed. I said, no, just drill off the lawn there where it was out of the way. Hit lots of water the same level as the neighbor. I wouldn’t be surprised if some dowsers just study the well records and aquifers and make it look like a miracle when they find water. Kind of like those preachers that rig things to make it look like healings.

Alan Alda did a science show on this subject. Showed that if you think there's water, you will subconsciously make your muscles flex pushing the rod down. He also tested dowsers with water hidden under certain barrels and they didn't do any better than chance at finding it.

We hear more stories of success than failure. How many would want to admit the money they spent on a dowser and drilling only to have a dry well? Most don't admit when they waste money. To make a true evaluation, you have to hear all the stories, not just the ones you want to prove your belief of choice.

RedneckPete -- You are giving rednecks a bad name! :cowboy:

hmm well im not an experienced dowser, i have no records to study and you cant just drill anywhere in bedrock. so if i find water i guess im a crackpot. Ive been called worse!! lol Im having fun!! and my kids are too, statistics and negative comments dont bother me, Im optimistic!! if i find water great if i dont thats fine too im not having a driller come out here.

Dowsing, also known as witching, is a variety of witchcraft and therefor an affront to God. I'm always amazed at how many "Christians" believe in this stuff when the Bible is so very strongly against it.

Dunno about that Christiaan. Moses hit a rock with his staff at Rephidim and the water spurted out.
Seems well in line with the topic me thinks.

While we're at it, the ban on witchcraft in the Bible is a translation mistake. In the original Aramese it said not to leave a poisoner alive and due to the mistake in translation it now read witches. Cost quite a few lives there, by mistake.

I dont think its witchcraft its an energy source that GOD provided. Are windmills withcery too? wind is also a natural energy source. theres lots of resources that God gave us. and well drillers use electronic devices to search for the best spot for wells, are they witches? some people have ways of catching more fish than others are they witches? No offense , but not everything that is unusual is witchcraft. its energy, and the rods, or willow branches or cherry tree branches react. just like a plant in the windo, its going to grow towards the sun and water, thats not witchcraft, thats the way God made it.