>>5325
Sounds like you were holding the rods backwards.

>>5325
>so why are the rods swinging?
Same reason the indicator on a ouija board moves: Ideomotor effect.

How are you a sceptic if you spent all day digging in the mud on the say-so of some sticks?

>>5328
had to dig somewhere, sticks had 'confirmed' where would have been a completely sensible place for the pipe to be. Risk accepted and regretted.
Same game again next weekend, but I'll probably dig the risky hole (15" diameter, 3 foot deep) by hand. Joy. The borer on th back of the tractor was digging a beautifully round, vertical, low effort hole before it all went tits-up.

Think about this: how could they move? What provided the energy for them to move? You say it's just bent bits of welding rod, not even 'blessed' or whatever. What would make them likely to move but not other bits of metal near water?

Place them in free-spinning bearings on a flat surface (so gravity is not and pass water under them. Do they move then? Why not?

Also consider:
- How far down can they detect water? What about up?
- What counts as water? Remember, you're 75% water, and the air contains heptillions of suspended water molecules. Why would they go mad for a pipe right below them when there is so much other water around?
- Go into a huge field one day, ideally miles wide. Firstly, use the rods, dig wherever they cross, ideally hundreds of times, recording your results. Then, generate the same number of co-ordinates randomly in the same area and dig there. Only if the rods are near 100% accurate and at the very least far more accurate than random chance could this have anything to do with it.

Oh, I know all this, all the way to my core.
I asked my neighbour if I could borrow his CAT, but it was in his other van. He said 'let's just use divining rods'. I humoured him. He said 'here, have a go', so I did while still humouring him.
And the rods moved, in an unambigous manner, despite a bit of back and forth, and trying it with eyes closed, and in other places. It was very odd, especially as a complete unbeliever.
I'm already planning a chest mounted camera, rod holders with accelerometers to spot tilt, to see if the rods move before my hands tilt.
Because, fucking hell, it was odd. It clearly didn't spot my water pipe, and my pissing about after finding and repairing the pipe, still made the rods move in the same line. So, I'm a credulous, self-hating fuckwit. But I'm a credulous self-hating fuckwit with an enquiring mind and a vast amount of electronics handy to have a look at things.

>>5330 - Go into a huge field one day, ideally miles wide. Firstly, use the rods, dig wherever they cross, ideally hundreds of times, recording your results. Then, generate the same number of co-ordinates randomly in the same area and dig there. Only if the rods are near 100% accurate and at the very least far more accurate than random chance could this have anything to do with it.

Fortunately, I'm a yokel, I can easily do this. I even have fields, some with drainage features that don't show above ground and which I didn't see put in. Herringbone, straight, nothing at all, who knows? However, I don't think it proves much. It would probably prove that the rods moving doesn't indicate subsurface things (that I wanted to find)- but I've already proven that to my satisfaction, with a single test. What I didn't prove is that it's just my monkey brain fucking with me - and, if it is, it's interesting to have a look at, like a decent optical illusion, story with a twist or stash of hedgerow smut.
I want confirmation that it's just me leaning my hands (just gone out and had another play, the amount of movement it takes to swing the rod is of the order of a degree, so should be spottable with a non-shit accelerometer.)

>>5332
>I want confirmation that it's just me leaning my hands

Then remove your hands from the equation. As I say (with an unfinished sentence in) >>5330
>Place them in free-spinning bearings on a flat surface [...] and pass water under them.
See the picture attached for what I mean. Obviously set this up twice with them the same distance apart as you'd hold them.

If they tilt in your hands but not on their own, then the movement must have been caused by your hands.

>>5333
Nah, my scepticism is such that I'll not bother with that. as I don't think anything will happen. I'm already convinced that divining rods don't find water.
I know I'm in the loop - but what am I doing and why?
Have ordered accelerometers and rotary encoders. Will 3D print (see - there's a use, unbelieverlad) some probe handles and go for a walk. Bet nothing happens (but then, I'd have bet nothing happened with bare rods a couple of days ago).
I know this is all bollocks - but what kind of bollocks?
If I tilt the handles then the rods move, I can wonder why and maybe investigate further.
If the rods move then the handles move, I can be nothing to say because cunt etc, and investigate further.
If nothing happens, I can investigate further or leave it.
I'm only doing this because it's so odd seeing the rods move...

>>5334
Your motor system is constantly working making micromovements and corrections. As long as you're holding onto the rods even through a holder, you're injecting movement into them. Close one eye, pick an object far away, hold your thumb out and try and keep it dead still under the target. You can't. Any investigation where your hands are part of the equation is compromised.

>>5335
Yes - although I wouldn't say the investigation is compromised, so much as the investigation is centred about me and the rods, rather than the rods on their own (which is your experiment and I believe will show that they're inanimate (carbon) rods, hence uninteresting. Feel free to give it a go yourself). I'll only return to it if I become convinced that the rods really do something other than indicate my hand position.

>>5333
>If they tilt in your hands but not on their own, then the movement must have been caused by your hands.
That's irrelevant if, somehow, the conjunction with the human body is what makes the tool work. I mean in the sense that maybe the magic power that causes divining rods to work needs to be grounded through a sack of wet electrolytes and haemoglobin or something.
Not to say magic is real, just that your experiment wouldn't prove it doesn't.

>>5337
But then how would an accelerometer be able to determine the difference between OP moving his hands over where he now knows for a fact water is, or the rods pulling them in with the shift in weight? Again, OP said a degree of movement was all that's needed and the motor system will make unconscious movements greater than that all the time.

>>5338
Accelerometer isn't for spotting weight change, it's to spot the handle tilting. Assuming the earth's mass doesn't shift because magic.

And bear in mind, OP knows where the water is, and that's absolutely not where the rods cross over. That's sort of why I'm so confused. I _know_ the water's elsewhere, so why would I be tilting the rods in the wrong place? What kind of subconscious cuntery is this?

The rods are long and have substantial inertia. If I tilt the handles and then the rods begin move a fraction of a second later, the handles did it. If the rods rotate and then the handles tilt because the rods' weight has moved, the rods did it. If it's too close to call, I'll have to have another think.

Anyone who wants to have a play, have at it. My rods are about 1m long, 1.6mm diameter , probably brass, with a 10-12cm bent end. That's just for reference, not saying that they're particularly conveniently sized for angels to dance on.

Dowsing rods are just as effective as those bomb detectors that bloke sold to Iraq.

>>5340
Thanks for your considered input. It has added considerably to this thread.

Dowsing is pseudo science at best. It has been examined using scientific methods many times over, and you are not going to find water pipes or even groundwater with any kind of reliability beyond pure chance.

The family across the street from my parents once enlisted the services of a dowser to find hidden groundwater, because their kids were sick all the time and they somehow believed in that kind of thing. And sure enough, a dowser turned up and told them that there was a current of underground water under their house, and that that was making their kids ill.

It turned out a year later that there was mold everywhere in the walls, which a building engineer assured them was because of shoddy weatherproofing and poor overall choice of materials, as theirs was a budget prefab house which had its best days behind it. Which no amount of actual underground water probably would have had any effect on. They didn't even have a basement.

>>5342
The opening post, and every post since, has been pretty clear that
DIVINING RODS DID NOT FIND THE WATER PIPE
I don't think anyone here has said it did, or does, or can.
What I want to find out is why the rods cross, in my hands, at that place. What's making me do it. Why there? Why so repeatable? Even when I'm a complete fucking unbeliever, or even an antibeliever, as I know where the (now repaired and reburied) water pipe is, and it's not where the rods cross...
Fuck's sake, I'm not saying 'woo, spiritual energy', I'm saying 'WTF am I doing'?
Short shrift awaits comments along the lines of 'LOL dowsing's bollocks and you're a credulous simpleton'.

>>5343
Magnets.

>>5343
I can assume it's some kind of government mind control.

>>5343
Fairies live in the pipes and tug on the invisible water strings that are attached to the rods.

Is there anything else where the rods cross? Have you tried digging around there?

I'm sure I read once that a lot of water companies in this country still use dowsing rods, despite their clear inefficacy.

>>5346
These all seem plausible, although magnets shouldn't affect brass much.

I've not tried digging where the rods cross, it's a long line down the side of a building, the foundations went down about half a meter, and I didn't see anything when they went in. If I get bored, I'll follow the line and see if it has ends or anything. There was another line in the garden, which was an extension of a wall. Didn't get anything when I went over places I know have soil pipes or buried cat5.
Maybe the faries just want me to dig over the garden, or the government mind control thinks I need a bit of exercise digging.
If I dig, and find stuff, it proves nothing. Likewise, if I find nothing, it proves nothing. That said, I shall be waving the rods over any hole I do dig, 'cos why not.

>>5348

Fairies have an intense dislike of ferrous metals so they'd be happy enough in brass.

>>5343
Iodeomotor function is essentially an unconcious, slight movement of the body. As far as I know (which is clearly very little) it's related to the placebo or 'self forfilling prophecy' effect.

>why the rods cross, in my hands, at that place
It may be that you execpted a water deposit at a specific location because there used to be flowers there, perhaps you've previously noticed the ground is firmer in the general area possibly indicating something burried like a pipe, or maybe you've just assumed that's where the water pipes should be.
As for how your hands might have physically moved without your awareness; there's that story of a maverick horse who'd said to understand math. The owner would hold a placard with a simple equation and amazingly the horse would stamp out the correct answer. An investigator repeated the process but unbeknown to the owner, had changed the placard - with the horse relaying the answer to the old equation. It turned out the horse was stamping to the nodding cues of the owner, who apparently had no idea they were leading the horse on.

Ofcourse, i'm talking out of my arse and i'm sure someone will come along who knows what they're on about, but with a bit of insight you can see yourself making these previously unconcious motions when, say, your foot twitches at the allusion of a shameful secret, or the scratch to your neck when telling a lie. If you take the time to notice your actual behaviour rather than what you think about your behaviour, stuff like dousing, tarrot or whatever becomes a much more solid conversation with yourself than some magical what if. Unless of course that's part of the feedback loop in which case no level of awareness, concious or otherwise, could be stripped from truth.
That's not to say that 'magic' isn't real - after all what is sufficiently advanced technology - it's just that a lot of magical phenomia can be explained fairly well by realising that base human perception creates the appearance of magical shit from 'mundane' reality.

Book pictured is a very good introduction to such ideas - you'll find it infinitely more valuable than this post should you have the interest to read it.

I'm very tired.


>>5347
I've heard the same, secondhand, from a sanitation employee.

>>5350 It may be that you expected a water deposit at a specific location

That's the thing that troubles me. Sure, the first time we did it, we sort of expected to find the water pipe somewhere around there, and the rods confirmed it, what with all the ideomotor stuff. We then extrapolated that into a line, and painted it on the ground, so any time we went back, we confirmed it. Fine, no problem with that.
But, after I'd dug through where the water pipe actually was, some two feet form that first guess, what the fuck is up with my subconscious to still cross the rods at the first place / line, not where I absolutely, positively, know where the pipe is?
I think I get on reasonably well with my subconscious, but maybe it's an abusive cunt and I'm in thrall to it. That would be fun, if troubling, to find out.

>>5351
Sorry, i misread your posts. Yeah, that does sound odd. Maybe the elevation of the ground is slightly uneven which causes a hand to dip or twist - i don't know, i'm drawing at straws. Perhaps you could blind test the experiment - call over a friend or two to perform the same actions and see what result they get - be extremely careful in what you tell them before hand - you simply cannot even allude the the answer you're looking for (to be honest a great length of turned over earth will probably be enough to bias their results).

Suggestibility has a lot to do with this sort of thing - are you particularly gulible?

At the end of the day it's the night - you'll just have to study yourself to find an answer. The best way I've found is to consider what answer you want, then go the opposite direction. Though this may be why i'm so confused and doubtful of myself.

>>5351
Dowsing does not work under controlled conditions. And you personally would have to go to extremes to get your conditions controlled, as >>5351 implies, so it's not worth it. Just put it down to your unconcious mind and move on.

>>5351
Do it 100 times and come back. Dowsing is pseudoscience and I'm genuinely surprised that there are some people here who seem to have taken it at face value. I'm looking forward to the oncoming thread about chiropractic and then we can go talk about flat earth in the weekday thread.

If dowsing really worked, it would be a lot more popular, because it would be a lot more marketable. A multitude of reasons as to why this could be coincidence, bias, or whatnot have been presented.

Of course you could have your cake and eat it by acknowledging that it's bollocks, but say that you enjoy doing it as a reflective experience.

>>5350
I have that book, it is very interesting. Can also recommend.

>>5353 Just put it down to your unconcious mind and move on.
Nope. I want to record, in excruciating detail, the exact moment my monkey brain does this thing. Gaze tracking, SQUIDs clamped to my brain to see what I'm thinking, hands and dowsing rods instrumented better than a post-Challenger shuttle launch.
And you can't stop me. Well, apart from the SQUIDs.

>>5356
I obviously did none of that (although I did build some rod holders that measure tilt and rotation. Not played with them yet, since today I dug another hole, without relying on the dark arts.
Straight through the fucking pipe again. If anyone wants my services as a water pipe finder, let me know. I'm currently two for two. Have a repair kit handy, and expect to spend some hours manually digging a hole big enough to do the repair.
Only got 4 more holes to dig for this project. Wish me luck. Or not.

>>5357
Your voodoo is very impressive. If you can reliably repeat this trick, you should make a YT channel and become a millionaire etc.