OT: Do you believe in witching?

OT: Do you believe in witching?

  • Yes, for all items mentioned.

    Votes: 18 15.8%

  • No, not at all.

    Votes: 49 43.0%

  • Yes, for some items mentioned.

    Votes: 47 41.2%
  • Total voters
    114
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All you have to do is take two metal coat hangers and straighten them out then bend an end to make a handle.
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Brazing rods work very well also.
If I need to dig with a backhoe at work I will not do any thing untill a guy i work with walks the dig line with them. So far he has only been 2'' off and that was a plastic gas line. We hand dig at his marks, find what ever it is and then I go to it with the hoe.
 
peter d said:
OK, so some people swear by this method.

Assuming this actually works, what is the "science" (if any) behind this?
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oh yea ask the science and I shall not beable to answer that..I just know it works and I perferr brazing rods..I use willow for finding water and can also tell the depth..I dont know the science just know it works and I call it a gift..sometimes science does not explain it all..just dont tell that to any other engineers or scientists..I like just having fun with it especially at partie gets everyone involved and talking good interaction toy..especially watching others try..
 
Most dowsers do not consider it important to doubt their dowsing powers or to wonder if they are self-deceived. They never consider doing a controlled scientific test of their powers. They think that the fact that they have been successful over the years at dowsing is proof enough. When dowsers are scientifically tested and fail, they generally react with genuine surprise. Typical is what happened when James Randi tested some dowsers using a protocol they all agreed upon. If they could locate water in underground pipes at an 80% success rate they would get $10,000 (now the prize is over $1,000,000). All the dowsers failed the test, though each claimed to be highly successful in finding water using a variety of non-scientific instruments, including a pendulum. Says Randi, "the sad fact is that dowsers are no better at finding water than anyone else. Drill a well almost anywhere in an area where water is geologically possible, and you will find it."
 
Mystics, fortune tellers, ghosts, alien abductions, seances, Bermuda triangle, electrons jumping from powerlines onto helicopters without capacitance, witching...

All the same thing.
 
A few years ago I thought was a bunch of hog wash, but in the last 10 years or so I'm starting to believe that it works on water, water lines and sewer lines. I have watched my father in law do it several different times and be successful with water lines. My sidekick at work, just this past summer, witched a 10" sewer main at work, about 300' in all, it had a couple of 22.5 degree turns and 2 wye's in. He witched it and put marks on the ground where he thought it was, I eyeballed it and told him there was no way that the line could run the way he had it marked, boy was I supprised!!
 
I don't know about dowsing to find water. But if I take two pieces #6 bare about 3' long and bend them at a right angle, each, I can find about any pipe that runs underground.
 
I have used witching in many cases to find underground water, sewer and storm lines. A simple set of metal coat hangars bent at a right angle. Hold one in each hand straight forawrd and when I cross a line, they cross inward toward each other. My success rate is about 75% of locating within 1 foot of the line. Our local utility even uses me for locates from time to time to confirm their reading with the high dollar equipment. Yes, I believe.
 
Do I believe in witching?
Absolutely! I was married to a witch for ten years. I don't know if she could find water or buried utilities, but she could sure find that $50 bill folded real small and "buried" in the crevices of my wallet.

FRANK
 
No luck!

No luck!

I thought I would give this a try! I have seen it done and work...
But, NO luck! I must not have the touch!
I walked across my yard yesterday using the coat hangers (metal not plastic)
and just could not get anything! :mad:
 
Prove it works and be a millionare!

Prove it works and be a millionare!

The largest and most rigorous dowsing study I am aware of was conducted in
the late 1980?s by physicists in Munich, Germany and funded by the German
government. This experiment is widely known as the Munich Experiment and
its purpose was to test the water dowsing phenomenon.

The experiment was designed by the physicists AND dowsing proponents to be scientifically rigorous and open-minded. The tested individuals consisted
of 43 dowsers selected because they seemed particularly talented in
dowsing. All the participants performed several tests for a total of 843
tests. Only ten of those tests had outcomes more successful than chance
alone. In other words, in 833 of the tests, the dowsers would have had a
greater chance of successfully finding the water by merely guessing where
it was! In addition, the dowsers that performed the 10 successful tests
did not perform well on every test they took.

Anything that non-reproducible is usually rejected in science. In fact,
the James Randi Educational Foundation offers $1,000,000 to anyone that can successfully prove their dowsing skills when put to scientific testing. So
far all challengers have been disproved.
 
Think about it. We are supposed to believe that a stick will be pulled by some mysterious force toward water that is hidden underground.

But the same stick won't react to a lake or pond?

And a piece of wire works even better?

And yet the stick or coat hanger has to be held in someone's hands to work!!

Finally, "Only some people have the touch". So it only works for some people.

Think about it for a minute.

I'm completely at a loss to find out that so many people would actually believe something so.....again, I'm just at a loss.

Steve
 
One of my favorite books is Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark. Doesn't speak directly about divining, but is along those lines concerning the frailty of human logic.
 
It has been my experience that the witch sticks only work if there is water in motion, such as a waterline or sewer line. Yes, I have failed at locating, but have also had good results. If in doubt, I tell them I did not get a strong reading and they can take it from there. Otherwise, I still think my success rate is 75% within 1 foot of the actual line.
 
inspector 102 said:
Otherwise, I still think my success rate is 75% within 1 foot of the actual line.
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Just for kicks, think about this: if you were looking for a 1" water line and you narrowed it down to a 25" swath (1' in each direction around the line), you've identified an area 25 times wider than what you were looking for. How useful would a studfinder be if it operated with the same specifications? It would tell you that the stud you're looking for is somewhere inside this 37.5" space along your wall.

You're still just digging up large areas looking for the line.
 
I think it is only a few that can do it. About 20 years ago, we needed to dig up a feed to a small pump station. A guy that worked there took two brass welding rods, bent them, and said follow me and mark the ground when I tell you. I was skeptical, another guy marked. When we dug it up it was within inches of the marks. Saved us a lot of digging, made a believer out of me!
 
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