Talk:Dowsing

Popular Mechanics
This article is from 1998, but the PM website keeps regurgitating it in various forms. Every time I see it, it makes me sad, and misery loves company. So here: Dowsing Data Defy the Skeptics!!!! --ElOso (talk) 19:49, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Electrical fields?
My mother is an engineering geologist. One day, at a job site, some of the digging crew apparently attempted to use dowsing rods to determine where underground power lines were buried so that they wouldn't accidentally hit them with the digging rig. Luckily, the area where they decided had no underground wires did in fact have no underground wires. That this digging crew would use this technique for something so important is rather disturbing, not to mention illegal, I think. But is it possible that strong electromagnetic fields from high voltage power lines might be detectable by something like this? It is definitely much more likely than water affecting it.198.209.24.146 (talk) 19:16, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If by "dowsing rod" you mean "EMF meter", then yes, you can do it. 19:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Dowser healing
Hmm! Scream!! (talk) 21:55, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Dowsing in 2017
There are several current newspaper articles on UK water companies using dowsing rods (or not). Worth a mention? Anna Livia (talk) 17:49, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Definitely. Christopher (talk) 18:05, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Question
Could some dowsing actually be a form of 'cold reading/subconsciously analysing the landscape'? Thus feeling changes in the soil, noticing indicator plants and creatures, smelling petrichor at low levels etc. Anna Livia (talk) 19:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure. The Ideomotor effect is muscle motion caused by subconscious process. The subconscious process could include analysing the surroundings for cues. Leuders (talk) 20:34, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * More saying that there could be some practical basis for "hunting for water using subtle clues" (and between us all we could come up with some more possible cues) than that it is actually so/a scientific process. Anna Livia (talk) 22:54, 27 November 2017 (UTC)