On Parched Farms, Intuition Used to Help Find Water (Dowsers in vogue)

[depakid]

Phil Stine walked a grid pattern with Frank Assazi in search of water with the aid of a Y-shaped willow stick on Mr. Assazi's land in Merced, Calif.
--------------

Phil Stine is not crazy, or possessed, or even that special, he says. He has no idea how he does what he does. From most accounts, he does it very well.

“Phil finds the water,” said Frank Assali, an almond farmer and convert. “No doubt about it.”

Mr. Stine, you see, is a “water witch,” one of a vanishing breed of men, and the occasional woman, for whom the ancient art of dowsing is alive and well.

Emphasis, of course, on well. Using nothing more than a Y-shaped willow stick, Mr. Stine’s primary function is determining where farmers should drill to slake their crops’ thirst, adding an element of the mystical to a business where the day-to-day can often be painfully plain.

Asked how he does it, Mr. Stine has a standard retort.

“I just tell people,” Mr. Stine said, “it’s the amount of lead you got in your butt.”

Scientists pooh-pooh dowsers like Mr. Stine, saying their abilities are roughly on par with a roll of the dice. But witches have been much in demand of late in rural California, the nation’s biggest agricultural engine, struggling through its second year of drought.

The dry period has resulted in farm layoffs, restrictions on residential and agricultural water use, and hard times for all manner of ancillary businesses, like tractor dealerships and roadside diners.

“There is a domino effect to the point that a little clothing store goes out of business in a town, because the people living there move on,” said Doug Mosebar, the president of the California Farm Bureau.

The state estimates nearly $260 million in crop damages through August. The drought has been particularly hard on areas like the Central Valley, the state’s 400-mile long farming basin, and in Southern California, where some avocado farmers have taken to stumping their trees, cutting them back to the base rather than watering them. Statewide, farmers have left nearly 80,000 acres fallow rather than struggle — and pay handsomely — to keep them irrigated.

The dry times have meant good business for people like Blake Hennings, a well-driller in the Central Valley city of Turlock, who says he has a lengthy waiting list and a yard full of worn-down drill bits. At a recent job he dug five test holes, all of which had been identified by a water witch like Mr. Stine.

“We only had one bad one,” said Mr. Hennings, whose brother Curtis also dabbles with the dowser. “How they do it is beyond me.”

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/09water.html?hp

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

1. How much does he get paid for carrying a stick around a field?

Because I'm sure those farmers can really afford to be spending money on this charlatan. :eyes:

[Sal Minella]

3. Okay. A friend had me hold two L-shaped pieces of wire loosely in my hands, long ends pointing

straight forward, and said, walk across the street. The long ends of the wires swung together and crossed. I am not making this up. I am not any kind of religious wackoid and have never seen Ronald Reagan's face in my morning toast, or anything like that, but those wires crossed, and I assume it had something to do with a water main under the street.

I will not retract saying this happened, and I think people who are so eager to accuse dowsers of being "charlatans" ought to try walking over a water main with L-shaped wires in their hands.

Scientists who studied elephants communicating successfully over long distances decided it was ESP, until they discovered the sounds elephants make that are far below human hearing. Elephants communicate over long distances; we just recently figured out how they do it. Dowsers sometimes find water (if it is there); we don't know yet how they do it.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

9. When I see a controlled scientific study demonstrating this works, then I'll believe it

[Sal Minella]

10. Proof is easier than that. Try it yourself.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

17. I kneeled down to tie my shoe and saw a penny. Therefore, tying my shoe is a good way to find money.

Sorry, I think you have a different definition of "proof" than I do.

[Sal Minella]

19. Fail. Not even a half-hearted effort at comparison.

[Nihil]

26. Save your breath with them ...

... both of the people you are responding to are close-minded
"one-handed typists" (to put it politely).

Dowsing for water (and other things) by walking over the area
of interest works. I have seen it done. I have done it myself.
This doesn't mean that every person who *claims* that they are
a dowser is competent (or that they are not a charlatan or
con-artist or whatever) but neither is everyone who *claims* that
they are economists (or physicists or ...) competent - evidence for
*THAT* is only too obvious every day (yet very rarely prosecuted).

I have yet to read any single explanation that successfully covers
all targets of dowsing (e.g., water, metals, organic remains) or
all methods (e.g., hazel twigs, metal rods). Most centre on the
device magnifying (or providing a focus / feedback mechanism for)
tiny muscular movements of the operator. Whether the trigger for
these movements is simply subconscious recognition of information
received through sight/hearing/taste/smell/touch or through some
other method (magnetic fields being a strong contender) I don't
know but the phenomena is real, even if currently insufficiently
explained.

Personally, I am most skeptical of people who claim to dowse things
without visiting the area (even though I know about remote sensing
experiments) as I find it hard to fit any explanation into a scientific
setting.

:shrug:

It may well be that it is *my* expectation that there is commonality
between the different aspects that is the problem: just because they
seem to operate in the same way doesn't mean that they actually do.
It might be that the different sensory data are combined but as some
people are more or less sensitive to some aspects (e.g., poorer hearing,
keener eyesight) their reaction varies accordingly. Hopefully, we will
find out some day soon ... but this is no reason not to take advantage
of the still unexplained phenomena and dig those wells!

:hi:

[Sal Minella]

30. What a fine post!

[conscious evolution]

36. Hippy is right

It is easy to do.
You can try it yourself in your own front yard.On most houses the water line going into the house almost always follows a straight path from the water meter to the house.Give it a try and see if the wires cross when you pass over the water line.A wire coat hanger can be used to do it,although copper wire or the bailing wire used to tie rebar together work best.
The crossed wire trick is an old one used by electricians to find buried cables and pipes.I would not be surprised if plumbers use it also.If you know any electricians ask them if they are familar with it.
I use it fairly often and usually when it is wrong it is because I have located some other type of buried metal.
When I was a green helper many many years ago the Master electrician who taught the trick to me also gave me a very rational explanation concerning the science behind it.Unfortunately,since it was so long ago and did not seem to particularily relevant info at the time,the only thing I remember about his explanation was that it has something to do with the difference of the electromagnetic field of the earth and the metal of the pipes.

There is one thing I think hippy is wrong about.I don't think it was the water she was reading but the water pipe itself she was hitting on.

As far as the OP is concerned,dousing for water like the guy in the article is something I have never seen done before.I am suspending judgement on it till I have personally seen a dowser finding water on a regular basis.Or not.

Now time for the woo-woo part-I had some Guatemalan laborers walk of a job once when I dowsed some buried lines.They thought I was using witchcraft and satanic powers to find them.

[madokie]

27. I've used that tactic to find many water lines back through the years

and I'm as anti religous as one can get. I've never dowsed to find water to drill a well to but I know it works for me for water lines. If it doesn't then I am one lucky dude

[Sal Minella]

29. Yes, I know a plumber who finds water lines this way all the time.

I used to think it was something he did for show, just part of a somewhat flamboyant personality, but that was before I felt the wires turn in my hands.

[cpamomfromtexas]

5. I am quite the skeptic too, but I also think

different people have different gifts.

I know as long as I'm off pain meds I have strong people intuition. My husband takes me to official functions and brings people he's considering bringing on his committee home so I can give him my read on whether they are trustworthy. I don't know how or where it comes from but it even surprises me. He came home the other day and verified something I told him several months ago would happen, it's wierd, but I've learned to trust it, I think it's God given.

[YankeyMCC]

2. Interesting that on NPR

this past week, I forget which show, might have been Science Friday last friday, there was a discussion with a researcher that showed that the more people feel that they don't have control of their lives the more unacceptable they are to conspiracy theories and other nonesense claims.

It must be very frustrating for a farmer becoming overwhelmed by global or at least large regional ecological crisis that they can't control.

[Sal Minella]

6. The more out-of-control people feel, the more likely they are to perceive patterns in static, etc.

But it's not superstition to pay a man to walk a grid in your field when you know full well that the answer he gives may well be, "I'm sorry, I can't find a water source under your field." -- the farmer may have unreasonable hope (that field looks horribly flat and dry to me) -- but the dowser is not taking advantage of anybody when he takes payment for telling someone whether or not he senses water underground. (I mean, when my doctor gives me a physical, I pay her whether she finds anything unusual or not -- dowsing and physical exams are services we pay to have performed.)

[YankeyMCC]

16. It is superstition to believe something

not based on facts and your comparison of a dowser to a doctor is also fallacious. In one case you pay a professional, licensed, reputable professional (a profession based on rigorous testing and examination of underlying facts and practices of the professionals) to perform an examination on you. In the other case someone is taking money from you for a service that is based on unverified 'faith' and for which there is no accountability.

[Sal Minella]

18. I didn't believe it either until I felt the wires turn in my hands.

The well-driller who said four out of five dowsed spots he drilled hit water -- "I don't know how they do it," he said. He's just making this up to pull your leg?

Competent dowsing depends on ability of the dowser, not faith on the part of the observer. Just like good medicine depends on the ability of the doctor/healer/physician, doesn't matter whether or not somebody has "faith" enough in him to give him a "license."

[YankeyMCC]

20. Licensing isn't based on faith

it depends on meeting clearly stated requirements and assessment or meeting certain specified qualifications and milestones.

Dowsing depends on the faith of the observer in that they must believe (or be led to belive through deceptive practices) that they will actually get benefit for their money.

[Sal Minella]

21. We're talking about completely different things.

You're talking about what the observer believes.

I'm talking about what the dowser does (does or does not locate water underground).

You're trying to pretend dowsing is always some sort of scam practiced for money.

Dowsing has nothing to do with "belief" or "superstition" on the part of an observer, just as elephants communicating with sounds below human hearing has nothing to do with ESP.

[YankeyMCC]

22. "pretend dowsing is always some sort of scam"

I'm not trying to pretend anything it IS a scam.

And again your analogy makes no sense or connection. The reality of the situation is how it affect people and taking money from someone based on a scam (or at least ignorance at best) is harmful.

[Sal Minella]

23. Of course taking money from someone based on a scam is harmful.

If you choose to believe dowsing is always a scam, that's up to you. You are perfectly free to believe whatever you like.

Personally, I think dowsing can't hold a candle, scamwise and/or charlatanwise, to organized religion.

But, to each their own.

[YankeyMCC]

24. Well I can agree with your last point

organized religion takes in a lot more money on false pretenses and is more commonly abused.

[polly7]

4. Many people can do this

It's kind of fun, try it! Straighten out two coat hangers and hold one loosely in each hand. Walk around your yard and they will cross over water or metal. Or, balance a crowbar in the palm of your hand and it will start moving up and down. I found water in our pasture this way. Oh noooooooes, I'm a witch!

[Sal Minella]

7. Am glad you posted this, I figured I would get called nine kinds of crazy.

[polly7]

8. Oh no...

I've done it, my Dad can do it, my little 90 year old Grandmother found water in the same spot I did. If they think you're crazy, they'll call me worse for this - the crowbar tilted up and down 37 times standing at the spot they came in to drill on ....... at 37 feet we saw the first water. It is very real.

[Sal Minella]

11. ..........probably has something to do with elephants.........don't you think?

[polly7]

12. no idea why it works, but it does.

[Mrs. Overall]

13. My cousin (and many other people in my family) lives in a small, rural town in Northern CA

and she is on the cemetery board there. Recently the town has begun "refurbishing" the old pioneer cemetery that dates from the mid 1800s. One of the elderly women in the town is a well-known "grave dowser" and she helped the board to locate the graves that no longer have headstones. She even found a set of bones buried, unmarked, outside the cemetery fence. She uses a stick (not sure if it is willow or not).

I am very logical, not religious, but I am not willing to dismiss this as a chance occurrence. I think there is probably a scientific explanation for it. Perhaps it is similar to animals being able to perceive earthquakes before they happen.

[Greyskye]

14. I remember watching my grandfather dowse for water

I watched the bark splinter as the tip dipped. He held it the same way as in the photo above, but with his thumbs extended.

Decades later, I still don't have a clue how he did it. :shrug:

[Greyskye]

15. .

hiccup

[Tumbulu]

25. A very old dowser came to my farm and taught us how to use sticks to locate water.

It was simple and it worked. He charged no money, the well drillers all have dowsers around here. No one dares drill without one. Water is always found, but they can't say if it is good water or not. So, there is still a risk in drilling. The water we found on my current farm is not deep enough, only 20 ft down, which the county will not allow to be used. It has to be 40 ft or more here.

On my first farm (no dowsers were in that area) there was not a decent well for 6 square miles. Many trial holes were drilled at great expense on farms around mine ( we are talking $20,000 per test). I walked around my farm for months and months, studied soil maps, topographic maps and well drilling maps and walked more. I got a different feeling in one small area. I had a test hole drilled and it was a winner- over 1500 gpm . The value of the land went way up and everyone around wanted me to come over to their farms to help them find water. I walked around a lot, but had no such feeling at their farms. I knew nothing about using sticks then and had never even met a dowser.

It seems to me that some humans have an ability to sense the difference between solid earth and underground pools or streams below solid earth. Drilling for water is always risky. Just because you can find water does not mean it is usable water. But is it way better than drilling just anywhere, ask the well drillers what they have to say about dowsers.

[Sal Minella]

28. I've read somewhere about dowsers not accepting payment for their work,

feeling that taking money is an abuse use of their gift. But I'm sure on the other end of the spectrum there are charlatans who take payment and walk around having no clue what dowsing really is.

I can imagine that water flowing underground makes a low-level vibration that some people can feel without even being conscious of it ....but grave dowsers are something I can't begin to wrap my mind around! I've read several times of grave dowsers finding human graves outside the boundaries of an old cemetery.

[Tumbulu]

33. The well driller in my area works with two dowsers

the one is this older gentlemen who loves some company and teaching interested people. He charges no money, but the driller says he buys him breakfast or lunch and some people pay for his gas to come out. The other dowser is also retired and asks for something like $100 to be donated to the volunteer fire department if water is found on his recommended spots.

These guys are hardly crooks. I have farmer friend in NM who have had a dowser come and this dowser asked for $150 to be donated to the local elementary school if water was found.

I think that people should stop jumping to conclusions that everyone is out to steal money from others. just because the republicans do it, does not mean everyone thinks that way.

[soulcore]

31. Eisntein said it best...

"Not only is the universe as strange as we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."

Growing up in rural Texas were we actually had fresh-water wells, I can tell you that dousing DOES work.

Now WHY and HOW it works are the real questions to be asked.

[Nihil]

34. Exactly right.

> Now WHY and HOW it works are the real questions to be asked.

:toast:

Unfortunately, too many people here (and, ironically, in the
"Science" forum) are incapable of separating the phenomena from
the various fictional wrappings added to it over the years.

These self-proclaimed "skeptics" are no more "scientists" in
this regard than your average creationist ... sad really ...
especially how they like to shout down the discussions or try
to exclude them from the forum.

:shrug:

[semillama]

32. Everything you should know about dowsing

http://www.lysator.liu.se/~rasmus/skepticism/dowsing.html

[happyslug]

35. Reminds me of the calculation you make when you catch a ball

A ball follows a set pattern, Calculus was invented to track such projectiles when it become scientifically important with the advent of Artillery (Calculus was and reminds Newton's Greatest contribution to Science). Before Artillery Science assumed a ball or projectile went in a curve line similar to that of a ball, actual Scientifically research starting in the 1400s show that NOT to be the case, a ball follows a pattern con tolled by two factors, its lost of forward speed do to friction with the air AND the downward pull of the earth. Thus the peak of projection is about 1/3 into its flight and then slowly declines.

A ballplayer has to make this calculation as soon as a ball in thrown or hit (as in baseball to the outfield), then runs to where the ball will land. A football thrown by a Quarterback to a receiver goes on a shorter arc, but similar calculations are involved. As human we do this calculation automatically, can catch the ball (if it is possible, most batter do NOT want the ball caught). No one has yet to figure out HOW people do this on the run as their go after the ball, we just know it is done. It is believe to be involved in experience (i.e. learning to play catch as a child) but even children who never play catch can make a very good guess to where it will fall..

Side Note: Please note I am ignoring people who did NOT learn to throw before age 6, such people are often referred to throwing "like an old woman". That phase came out of the fact that few women few women in the US before WWII learned to throw before age 6. If a person first starts to throw after about that age, the body and mind does it substantially different then if we learned it before age 6. The method is considered improper and has been called "throwing like an old woman" for generations. Many women did not learn to throw before age six for such throwing was considered unladylike and young girls were discouraged from throwing, thus never learn to throw properly at the age when one can learn to throw properly. This applies to males as while as females, but the term used is "throw like an old woman" even to men who never learned to throw at the proper age to learn.

Anyway, dowsing seems to be very similar, it is a practice people pick up by looking over the lay of the land and determine by their experience where water is most likely to be found. It involved looking at what is growing were (Access to water improves what can grow), it may be a low spot (Where water can seep into the ground an build up over time). It may be a bend in an long forgotten river bend (where water may have seeped into the ground and form an underground pool) etc. Dowsers seems to use all of these (and more) to find water. It is more a do to experience (including watching other look for water AND seeing where water occurs in Nature). It has long been shown NOT be be based on anything mental, an experiment several years ago with Dowsers over an area of water pipes, some of which had water, some no water, shown NO ability to find the water better then just guessing. The problem is dowsers have better records out in the field, where it is hard to set up actual blind sided tests. Thus all the test shown was that the dowsers where NOT connecting to water directly, but did not show that all the dowsers were doing is going by the lay of the land.

As people above has said, no evidence has emerged on how Dowser find water. To do so means following several dowsers as their find water, but that would take time and money (I am reminded of an early attempt to come up with a computer assisted medical care system, it took researchers almost a year of following the several doctors and seeing how their actual examined and treated patients to get an idea of how the doctor determined what is wrong with a patient, once that research was done it was simple to write the program, but the real work was in the one year research of following SEVERAL Doctors as their did their examinations, I believe the man hour involved was over 20 years, just to get the data, a similar program could be done with the dowsers with similar results, but no one wants to put 20 years of man hours just to do the research).

My point is while their is scientific evidence that what dowsers do is NOT supernatural or some version of ESP, there is also evidence that dowsers do find water at a rate better then random guessing. How it is done probably can be determined by a study, but it would take YEARS just to follow the Dowsers and years to see what factors are in the calculation (which will be made more difficult given that the dowsers are looking at a lot of different factors, some of which are important and others that are not). As to the "Tools" being used, those tend to be more crutches then any real help, but as crutches dowsers have come use to using. Probably does NOT help aid in any physical way, but helps them concentrate on the factors that show where water is.