Dowsing with Ged

updated 08/03/2022 As activities are suspended pending a return to normal life after the pandemic I have been considering what I believe I have learned thus far about dowsing. Dowsing or Divining - How and What? No Explanation I am unaware of any confirmed explanation of what is happening with Dowsing/Divining; However, something is happening, my mind is open and curious and results so far are exciting though as yet unproven. Dowsing or Divining? The terms "Dowsing" and "Divining" appear to be interchangeable. I prefer Dowsing as the word Divining suggests a supernatural of theological connection. My Dowsing My targets are underground services and linear in nature, e.g. cables, pipes, drains etc. I walk a study area with metal Dowsing Rods, recording locations where they cross and using GPS to mark-up on maps. I am not looking for water sources or isolated items. Dowsing Tools Dowsing with Rods I have not been a party to any experiments with anything other ...

Investigation Halted Covid-19 So, just as the project was getting its legs and the Moor was revealing its first secrets to the dowsers the first pandemic to hit the world for some time arrives. Initially there was some thought that we could continue in small numbers to explore the Moor but as the virus expanded in the UK the point was reached 22 March 2020 when the National Trust was forced to close Lyme Park, House and Gardens to all access. UK Restrictions On the 24th March the UK government introduced 3 weeks of heavy restrictions: One outside Exercise p day, Food & Medicine only shopping, Essential travel to work only if unable to work from home and providing an essential service. Initially three weeks but will almost certainly continue in some form for 3-6 months and possibly beyond; So, for the foreseeable future no further dowsing activities will take place. We will be back out there though we don't know when. In the meantime Stay Well .

Strategy As with the first week, two teams of volunteers were to head out on the moors; the Tuesday team which included me were to follow one of the gullies all the way up the moor to see how far the stone built culvert extended and the Thursday team would visit Cluse Hay, an extension of the moorland to the west so see if the same patterns were repeated. Tuesday - Eastern Moor Two of us explored the clough which continued up the moor from the first culvert discovery concentrating on how far this primary culvert extended. The dowsing rods consistently predicted the line of the drain which did not always adhere to the centre of the gully. Though we did not attempt any excavations, we encountered a significant number of collapses revealing the stone culvert confirming the line and exposing the high volume water flow. This primary drain was found to continue up to just below the summit of the moorland, further than expected. The weather was foul and terrain difficult so no investig...

Second Team Following our excursion on Tuesday and apparent discovery of a grid pattern of drainage, a second team went onto an adjacent moor section on Thursday. Chris deliberately kept them in the dark as to Tuesday's results in order to avoid prediction. Grid Pattern Continues "Thursday went exactly the same as Tuesday (despite being in a new area) apart from some difficulty in locating (or at least getting a consistent line for the 10 yd drains. We certainly got the 5 yd pattern and we decided to focus on one of those lines which we could see with the pins, we brought all other pins into this line and really focused on getting a solid idea of exactly where that drain was. We ended up with 20 pins in the ground in a dead straight line, ...." This report shows a separate team using dowsing rods to identify the same regular 5 yd separated drains intercepted by approx 10 yd drains and an arterial stone built culvert running below a dry clough. "... went down...

Strategy Today 4 of us set out for our first survey attempt on Park Moor in the southern region of Lyme, a National Trust property on the edge of the Peak District in the UK. These moors were drained about 200 years ago and with climate change and other influences, these drains are now too efficient at water removal contributing to moorland fires, loss of habitat and flooding. The aim of this exercise in dowsing (divining) is to understand the drainage system Lacking any historical maps to help us know where drains would be, the first thing we had to do was to decide an approach. Several large gullies cut through the moor and one possibility was that any land drains would drain into them in a fish-bone pattern.  Taking this as a possible model, we would spread out to walk in a line parallel to a gully in the hope that we would come across side drains. First Moor Survey Results and Confusion We began walking parallel to the gully and almost immediately began to expe...

My neighbours are building an extension and two unexpected pipe routes have appeared heading under our boundary fence line when digging foundations. I can see the line they follow into our garden and experimented with the rods. Walking up the side passage between the fence and our garage, I experienced rod crosses in line with both; one a ceramic surface water drain at 90 degrees and a mystery line about 1m depth running diagonally. Feet not Rods I experienced a straight forward rod cross near the ceramic drain and after passing back and forth concluded that the cross occurred when my feet were over the drain as opposed to the rods themselves. The deeper line which looks more like an old power cable; looks as if it has a bitumen wrapping.  I experienced crosses but the rods definitely aligned with the line at 45 degrees to the fence line, again when my feet were over the projected line. If the detection indicator is the feet rather than the rods then this would ex...

Setting the Scene After the experiments 2 weeks ago, the rods came up in conversation the following week so I brought some rods in with me again. Recalling the ground Though no plans can be found, I believe there to be at least 4 old abandoned pipes running through this section of bramble strewn woodland. The estate has changed many times over 200 years and buildings and services have come and gone with no trace. Working out in either direction from a wall which runs South to North through the wood, I had previously experienced apparent rod crosses at three points to East and one to West. East Using the same references to people as in the last post. Subject 4 (J) walked over the same ground as the previous post and identified apparent rod crosses at two points, which both coincided with points of interest (POI) from the previous post; However, another point was not identified. Subject 2 (H) had similar results with at least 2 coincidental points reacting. Subjec...

Unplanned Opportunity I was working with a group of people today building a dry stone wall and the rods came out for curiosity and entertainment. I have recorded what happened as it all adds to the story of this blog. We were by a bramble filled woodland through which I believed at least one and possibly more out of use drains ran; which I did not tell anyone about. Unless stated otherwise the 4 mm welding rods were in use. Mixed Results Subject 1 (P): walked out to beyond where I suspected a drain would be and experienced no reaction. Subject  2 (H): walked to the same point and encountered a fairly weak crossing part way. After turning back and retracing his steps a strong reaction appeared at the same point which could then be repeated. Subject 3 (M): [a member of the group in previous posts when he had experienced rod crossings] walked out and back but experienced no reaction on this occasion. Subject 4 (J): [who had NOT seen subject 1-3 experiments] walk...

My involvement with this Project started in January with a small note in a newsletter: " .....we are looking to determine where drains have been installed on the moorland. This will involve the use of divining rods, plenty of walking across the moor, and when water is indicated to be travelling underground, some exploratory digging will be required to find the drains. We are looking for a small team of volunteers who might be interested in taking up this challenge and helping us map these drains which were installed.... "  up to 200 years ago! 10 People Gather This morning, 10 of us met for the first time. The project leader and 9 interested people from a variety of backgrounds. 3 or 4 of us had tried dowsing with rods previously; one an ex landscape gardener who had successfully located field drains for his work. The project leader who had initiated the idea had only tried it in the yard recently. There was a healthy skepticism with many having researched the Internet ...

Dowsing Rods I have no idea what impact, if any, the shape and material of the tools has on results. I personally have only used metal rods bent into an L shape. Material wise, they have until recently always been copper due to the that being what I was introduced to. More recently, I have experimented with welding rods. These rods consist of a carbon steel wire coated with a Rutile shell which is used during the welding process to assist with extraction of impurities and control of the melted metal pool. Rutile is a mix of compounds including titanium oxide; However, I don't think the coating is relevant, indeed as the rod is bent the coating breaks off and increasingly falls away in damp atmosphere. Assuming the coating is not involved in the dowsing what is left is a steel rod. My experiments with the welding rods thus far suggest that steel performs the same as copper and, though I haven't as yet tried, I have heard people say that coat-hanger wire works. All thes...

First Experience of Dowsing Rods In the early 1970s I worked for GPO Telephones as a cable test engineer and was often in the position of having to ask a gang to excavate a hole in a road to get to an underground cable fault. It was before electronic services locators were readily available and judging where the duct line containing the cable was positioned was often difficult. One of the old gang leaders, an ex Royal Signals WWII soldier, got two copper rods out of the truck and bent them into L shapes announcing that he could locate the line by dowsing. He proceeded to walk across the section of road surface repeatedly with the rods held out in front of him and, to everyone's great amusement, showing them crossing. Among the hilarity and ridicule, he convinced a couple of us to have a go. Of those of us who tried, two had nothing happen and two of us had other experiences. The first time the rods crossed for me was almost frightening and certainly unsettling. I repeated the...