[Malvern] Dowsing

[Guy Inchbald]

On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 17:38:58, Phil Ironside <phil at creativespaces.co.uk> 
wrote:
>Yo
>
>This is an interesting article
>
>http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/Dowsing.htm
>
>Especially the bit about blind folding and stuffing cotton wool in the 
>ears of the participants.


Hi all, 'fraid I've been doing other things lately. (Anybody know a neat 
way to re-scan my mouse say every second, so I can use my KVM with 
Ubuntu?)

Anyway, a neighbour of mine did some extensive research into dowsing 
many years ago, and came up with a novel explanation. Sadly he is a bit 
dyslexic, especially with numbers and equations, so has never been able 
to become a "respectable" professional, and I know of no write-up of his 
work.

None of his work was subject to double-blind design or other rigorous 
checks, but even so I find it all most convincing.

First he learned to dowse reliable, using L rods. Soon after he moved 
into our neighbourhood he found a ley in our back field. On the map, it 
aligned with a variety of local archaeological and historical sites. 
Makes sense: call the local druid and ask him where to build a mill or a 
ferry crossing or whatever. he trots along the riverbank (or wherever) 
and when he dowses the ley he sacrifices a chicken and that is where you 
build. And that was what Tony found.

So then he set up experiments to check out all the magnetic and RF stuff 
and soon discarded it all as rubbish.

It then occurred to him that there is a large electrostatic potential 
between ground and sky. This is clearly affected by underground water, 
trees, power lines, and other stuff - stuff that dowsers typically 
detect.

We may speculate that ambient electrostatic effects had never been 
studied before because they do not appear in the usual "magnetic" and 
"higher-frequency" obsessions of the typical psi researcher.

He built a vertical electrostatic field generator with an overhead 
electrode that he could walk under, and found that he could dowse it 
reliably when blindfold. Below ambient field strength his rods went one 
way, above the ambient field they went the other. Fascinatingly, when he 
the overhead electrode was tuned by an assistant to give the ambient 
field strength, it "camouflaged" itself against the sky and he could no 
longer dowse it.

So how come experiments with magnetic fields have gained so much 
mileage, often giving positive results? Well, notice that the positive 
results are generally associated with *changing* field strength. James 
Clerk Maxwell's famous equations tell us that where there is a changing 
magnetic field there is also a changing electric field, and vice versa.

All the significant anomalies appear to be consistent with the notion 
that what the dowser actually responds to is changes in the vertical 
electrostatic field between ground and sky. Some physiological research 
has been carried out into our sensitivity to such electrostatic fields, 
but very little. Tony tells me that it supports his ideas but I have not 
dug it out for myself.

Finally, what about ley lines? Again, theories based on the magnetic 
fields generated by Earth currents meeting geological faults have been 
partially backed-up by experiment, and partially contradicted. Now, 
consider that the dowser is picking up the changing electric potentials 
caused by the changing magnetic fields, in turn caused by the changing 
current direction and density, and again the anomalies vanish. Leys are 
indeed just geological fault lines - at least, the one in our back field 
is.

Anyway, make of that what you will. Must dash.

-- 
Cheers,
Guy