Findings on Dowsing

Dowsing is a way of being conscious of sensory inputs which are not directly connected to the instinctive brain functions. For example man's sensitivity to magnetism. The organ we assume to be responsible for this sensitivity is the pineal gland . We know that the pineal is contained within the skull, but the pineal lies outside the brain, and has no direct contact with the brain nor does it have direct nerve connections. So the pineal must communicate with the lower brain through subconscious urges, and not rational thought. In the case of dowsing, clearly the subconscious brain (not mind) is, in some way, able to alter muscle tension in the shoulders and arms, by way of the ideomotor effect, causing the crossing of angle rods, and the swinging or rotation of the pendulum.
Yet the same channels must also be used by other subconscious stimuli for them to be felt. Anyone who has used dowsing tools may find that the same techniques work well for psychic explorations, such as dating artifacts and map dowsing. But, although the manner of bringing the raw impulse through to conscious perception may be the same, this does not mean that the origins are the same. Dowsing may be linked to the magnetic sensitivity of the pineal, but psychic sensations may emanate from quite different organs.
Becker and Marino, who state that not all information gathered by the usual senses is 'processed at the conscious level, and there is no physiological principle that would preclude the subliminal detection of EMFs [electromagnetic fields] by the nervous system.'
No one knows how dowsing works, they only know it does. There are two popular theories to explain dowsing: the first suggests that dowsing works as a result of natural phenomena. Buried metal, minerals and underground water causes either a magnetic field or a disturbance in the earth’s own magnetic field. It is thought that the dowsing rod is a tool for showing the reaction of the magnetic field in the ground to the natural magnetic field of the body.
This theory was investigated scientifically in Logan, Utah, USA, around 30 years ago. Intrigued by a dowser pinpointing the bodies of two boys who drowned in a local river, Duane G. Chadwick, professor at the Utah State University Water Research Laboratory undertook several experiments to see if there was some scientific basis for dowsing. Chadwick and his colleague, Larry Jensen started from the known observations of geologists that underground water can cause anomalies in the Earth's magnetic field. They figured that dowsers could show sensitivity to these anomalies by involuntary muscular movement in the wrists, and dowsing rods would certainly amplify any small muscular reaction by up to 300 times.

In the first of a series of experiments, on the Campus, they set about testing the idea that dowsing reactions might coincide with the spots where some changes occurred in the Earth's magnetic field. Chadwick and Jensen laid out a straight track, free of obstructions and, using a caesium vapor magnetometer, checked for variations in the earth’s magnetic field at one-foot intervals. Chadwick then buried a length of wire, in a neutral area, to distort the magnetic field. Twenty-five people were recruited to walk the test course. Few of them were dowsers; most were students or university staff. They were given a pair of L- rods made out of clothes-hanger wire, and told to hold them out roughly horizontal. If they felt any kind of reaction, they were to stop and put down a small block of wood. The results were amazing in that twenty-three of the participants had a dowsing reaction within three feet of the buried wire. Chadwick was convinced the outcome was far greater than chance.

In another experiment in North Logan City Park, Chadwick and Jensen marked out a test course with no obvious or known features. This time, the test was double blind - nothing was deliberately buried and no one knew what was out there. 150 participants with dowsing rods were asked to drop a wooden block whenever they experienced a dowsing reaction and again almost everyone did. They dropped an average of 11.3 blocks each and the location of each block was documented. Then Chadwick and Jensen went over the course with two magnetometers mounted, at different heights, on a wooden sled. The difference between the magnetometer readings showed the variation in the magnetic field along the track walked by the dowsers. The researchers then graphed the magnetometer readings against the positions of the wooden blocks, which showed again that the dowsing reactions occurred unmistakably at peaks in the magnetic field.

The Second theory is that dowsing works through the arts of the paranormal; an explanation used to account for the ability of some dowsers to find objects which are thought not to produce or influence magnetic fields. As far as field dowsing is concerned, the paranormal theory is probably in error since it has been shown that virtually everything, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, reacts to magnetic fields. However, map dowsing is something else. How does a person dowse a map to successfully locate a target hundreds or thousands of miles away? There are many unanswered questions along the same lines, which are commonly put down to psychic ability or intuition. Mankind does not know everything. Much science fact today was the science fiction and mysticism of the past and dowsing has undoubtedly survived from primitive times when the ability to find water, for instance, could have meant the difference between life and death.

To my mind there are actually two types of dowsing. Field dowsing based on magnetic effects and map dowsing or distance dowsing based on intuition or psychic ability. The two types of dowsing are quite different and both types can be learned and improved on with perseverance and practice
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This is a small spattering of information that I have found while researching ‘consciousness’ and it’s relationship to PSI. The research and laboratory work in this field has been undertaken by colleges, universities, scientific, and government professionals all over the world for over 100 years. In every avenue of this research (of which dowsing is a part), the field work and lab work has shown consistently that PSI phenomena has performed better than random chance. (Some far better)

Some of the above was taken from Electromagnetism and life, Robert O. Becker and Andrew A. Marino, State University of New York Press, 1982