Dowsing, Dowsing

A Y- or L-shaped twig or rod is sometimes used during dowsing, although some dowsers use other equipment or no equipment at all.

On the upper floor, each dowser was asked to determine the position of the pipe. Over two years, the 43 dowsers performed 843 such tests. Of the 43 pre-selected and extensively tested candidates, at least 37 of them showed no dowsing ability. The results from the remaining 6 were said to be better than chance, resulting in the experimenters' conclusion that some dowsers "in particular tasks, showed an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance ... a real core of dowser-phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven" Wagner, H., H.-D. Betz, and H. L. Knig, 1990. Schlubericht 01 KB8602, Bundesministerium fr Forschung und Technologie. As quoted by Enright in Skeptical Enquirer Five years after the Munich study was published, scientist Jim T. Enright contended that these results are merely consistent with statistical fluctuations and do not demonstrate any real ability. Enright, J. T. 1995.

Source: Wikipedia > Dowsing