This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Nothing remotely to do with gardening
B3
Posts: 27,505
I have some L-shaped metal plant supports that interconnect.
While deciding where to use them, I thought:"They look a bit like dousing rods."
So I gave it a go.
They spread apart and cross over in various parts of the house and garden.
I tried to find a genuinely scientific reason for this on Google, but all l can find is hocus pocus , New Age stuff, exposure of charlatans etc.
Setting aside magic and special powers, why do they move?
In London. Keen but lazy.
0
Posts
Does this help? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon
Thanks obelixx. That's interesting.
I remember South East Water trying to locate a water supply at a client's garden and failing. I used my " dousing rods" ( re-formed wire coat hangers) .
They just laughed when I said " dig there" and I went off to have lunch.
They came over to my van and asked my to come back into the garden to look in the hole they'd dug. I was 6" out.
Still better than their electronic sensors.
I have no idea HOW it works, but it does. I've done it lots of times , in lots of gardens.
Mine went daft near the airing cupboard and under the ceiling light. I wondered if it was something to do with electricity.
I've done it, again using coathangers and yes, it works .
We have old Victorian (probably) drainage soughs running under the fields and they sometimes get blocked by moles and other earth movements . I have been able to find where there was a blockage, so I could sort it out. I mapped them out on one field and then gave my dad the coathangers when he was visiting. He had never done it before either, but they crossed at the same places for him as they had for me. I watched him from a distance to make it a fair test!
They didn't work for OH though, think he held them too tightly. I can't quite imagine what muscular responses could cause the rods to move the way they do. You have to hold them in a relaxed way, so they are free to move and the movement can be quite sudden and dramatic as they swing inwards to cross each other. And even if muscular reactions are responsible, the fact that it works means that some, maybe a lot, of people must somehow be able to sense the presence of running water without being aware of it!
I expect being able to sense water was a natural instinct when it was necessary for survival sill have been lost in most people Just because science hasn't found - or even properly investigated - how it works doesn't mean that water divining is all tosh.
I've seen folk put the short end, ( the bit you hold ) in an old bic pen sleeve so they can't be accused of turning them.
we were 'invited' to use a douser when we wanted a borehole drilled. The drilling company said they'd charge £100 less if a diviner came to tell them where to drill. OH was very grumpy about it but said 'fine, if you must'. They turned up, wandered about and said 'well anywhere really' and we said 'yeah, we know. There are springs every 10 yards here. It would be clever if you could drill a hole and NOT find water.'
Still, interesting that they were offering the discount - clearly they have found it saves time and abortive drilling in most places
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”