Dowsing

It's my opinion, and the opinion of almost anyone who has seriously investigated dowsing, they do not work. So why include an article on how to build dowsing rods? Because the claims made by manufacturers are very enticing and their devices are usually quite expensive. Buying a commercial manufactured rod and discovering that it only finds empty holes is a costly and embarrassing mistake. Therefore, several types are presented here so you, the experimenter, can build them, try them and move on to something that actually works.

Each of the devices presented are very simple to build, and range in cost from nothing to about eighteen dollars or less. The electronic dowsing rod is the only one that requires any electronic skills. If you decide to build one or more of the devices, I'm warn you, not to get lulled, into a false sense of success by using the typical sloppy testing of dowsing apparatus, or believe that you will ever find any worthwhile treasure with one of these devices. If one thousand hunters, using dowsing rods, looking for a cache, one of them may stumble onto the cache and credit the use of a dowsing rod for his success. Only one in ten million humans are gifted in the art of dowsing, or around 1500 on earth.

Basis Dowsing Rods

The first rod we will build is the "L" rod, used to find water and buried pipes. It will cost nothing to make, it requires only two iron coat hangers. First use wire cutters to cut the hook from the coat hanger off, below the twist. Straighten the wires, then bend into an "L" shape with the short end about five inches long, and the long end cut to about fifteen inches.

Stretch a water hose across your yard and turn on the water. Holding the rods in a level position, walk slowly towards the hose in a path to it until you have crossed over the hose. When you walk over the hose the "L" rods should swing inward or outward, depending on whether you are right-brained or left-brained, and cross each other. This is known as the "Water hose," scenario by some wannabe dowsers and opponents.

Most people try this exercise usually get a response from the rods, and so it's often used as evidence of dowsing skills. If the rods did not cross as you walked over the hose, don't worry. This is an exercise in autosuggestion and the ideomotor response, not dowsing. The length and weight distribution of the rods make them very sensitive to gravity and makes them difficult to hold level. The slightest movement of your wrists will cause the rods to swing. By telling you that they are suppose to swing as you cross the water hose, you have subconsciously fulfilled that prediction without realizing it. However, this is not a controlled test; therefore, not valid and not reliable testing. The author conducted experiments while teaching occupational training, lining ten to twenty students from different class sections, giving each two brass "L" rods, and told to walk forwarded. They unknowing were being tested in their dowsing ability. Only one or two in the controlled group would have the rods cross; therefore, they were good subjects to be natural born dowsers.

Counter balanced brass rods

Many dowsing enthusiasts will find fault with the choice of a clothes hanger, for our rod material. The majority of the manufactured rods are made of brass, with a few telescopic radio antennas, that are chrome-plated brass. The choice of brass is that it doesn't have the natural reaction to magnetic fields that iron does, for whatever reason this matters. It's conductive, though, and can receive the electromagnetic energy radiating from the target that ignores the earth's magnetic field. It's no wonder clothes hangers failed; besides as a treasure hunter you want to convey a professional image and bent clothes hangers just don't do that.

In summing up dowsing, simply doesn't work regardless of the elaborate designs and contraptions. Underground water is held in aquifers, large underground pools. In some areas of the world aquifers are larger than other parts of the world, depending on the climate. In some places water is being consumed faster than it can be replenished by surface water runoff from rain. There is an exception to the above and it hasn't fully been researched to find out if an electronic signal path in the ground is conducive to being picked up by dowsing rods. The author has experience, where the top part of his neck, on the back of his head, would have a reaction when approaching an electronic signal path.

Prepared by the Meisterhunter

Instruments