Helpful tips on dowsing for beginners

This extract is from a more recent BSD journal (1991). It is the content of a lecture delivered by a former president of the British Society of Dowsers, Major-General J. Scot-Elliott. He came to practice dowsing later in life and specialised in archaeological dowsing. He authored a helpful book, “Dowsing: One Man’s Way”, published in 1977. (It might still be available from the BSD shop, https://britishdowsers.org/ )

In his lecture, you can see how the explanation of the dowsing effect has moved from the idea of a mental radio (objects giving off emanations), to the realisation that it is a matter of mind. Interestingly though he suggests that the ability may not be evenly distributed throughout the population, with only 10% having the ability to become “good” dowsers. But the key he asserts is to find an application for one’s dowsing and concentrate on that, rather than apply dowsing to everything and then practice with that application. Early work needs to include good feedback, to build confidence. Expecting novice dowsers to perform well is not justified, and this has implications when one considers past experiments designed to prove the credibility of dowsing.

As in the post of 26/03/2020, he believes it is necessary to keep the process of dowsing as simple as one can. Avoid preconceptions as much as possible (in the dowsing field these are sometimes referred to as shibboleths). He mentions that samples are only an aid to focus the mind, they may be helpful sometimes, but just a written description of the object sought may also be sufficient.

He ends with a helpful description of his way of working and also some basic rules for beginners. Dowsing is the art of seeking, and for this to be successful, one requires practice with feedback, in order to develop confidence and identify confounding factors. But he also stresses that “the need to know” is important, ie the results are improved, if the search is personally important to the dowser. And of course, the question the dowser asks themselves in their search must be the correct one (otherwise, garbage in, garbage out) and interestingly, it often should account for time, because of the rémanence effect.

The article is entitled “Dowsing for beginners”, see:

http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No232_1991_p248.pdf