Dowsing What’s Dowsing? Dowsing is a method used by people to locate water, oil, minerals, etc. Traditionally uses a forked stick Now often uses a pendulum or dowsing rod Rods are held loosely in the hand When over water, the rods cross, or uncross, or move

Success of Dowsing How can we explain the high rate of success of dowsing? Underwater rivers are, in fact, extremely rare However, ground water is extremely common In many areas, more common than not It is possible that dowsers are unconsciously moving it themselves It is difficult to hold objects like this absolutely still

The Ideomotor Effect (1) The body moves – often unintentionally Even thinking about moving has an effect If I shout at you, your muscles would tense involuntarily Your body reacts without planning to Your body prepares for any motion you will actually do Think of even the simplest motion – standing up from the chair Shift your feet back to put them under your center of mass Shift your upper body forward to balance yourself Flex muscles to bend joints at hips and knees If you think about moving, your body will make small motions that give it away Magicians use this to do common tricks Leave the room Let the audience hide something Magician reenters Someone will give it away with an involuntary motion of their eyes Or muscle tension when the magician is close

The Ideomotor Effect (2) Poker players know that people involuntarily give away what they are thinking “Poker Face” is hard for most people If the dowser knows where to look, he can “detect” it there The motion of the dowser guiding the rods can easily be too subtle to notice The dowser is not necessarily cheating The motion can be entirely due to the ideomotor effect

Ouija Boards Ouija boards are (or were) a popular form of entertainment Supposedly information coming from the beyond You place your hands on the “planchette” and ask questions It points to the answers Doubtless caused by the ideomotor effect

How to Not Test Dowsing Put a dowser in a natural environment Have them select a spot Dig until you find water Of course, water exists naturally lots of places, if you dig far enough There are also clues that you can use to get an idea where water can be found that don’t require dowsing rods Lower elevation Plants Combined with the ideomotor effect, a dowser could get a very high success rate Again, this does not mean that dowsers are intentionally cheating

How to Test Dowsing The easiest way to test dowsing is to simply fill a bunch of jugs with water and leave others empty (or put sand in them) and let dowsers try to detect which have water The dowsers cannot be allowed to touch the jugs Ideally, any experimenter participating should also not know which jugs have water in them To avoid giving it away via the ideomotor effect This test has been done many times Always a catastrophic failure