Here is a nice short article describing some dowsing experiments undertaken by a group of 10-12 school children, who were attending a boy’s school in Eastbourne, England. The author had taught himself to dowse and led the investigation. Though a short account, it highlights a number of features of dowsing.

www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No30_1940_p212.pdf

First point of note was that the boy’s interests ranged across the spectrum from interested to sceptical, but this had no bearing on whether an individual could obtain a dowsing reaction, a result which is a little counter-intuitive.  Furthermore, the sensitivity of dowsing reaction seemed to depend on the choice of dowsing instrument, so they were allowed to choose the device best suited to them. In fact, a couple of boys could dowse naturally with no instrument.

They began with water detection and depthing. The two depthing methods used were interesting, one involved them imagining they were descending down a shaft, until a reaction was obtained. The depth at which this occurred was the depth of the water and interestingly, this could be doner using any unit of measurement. Another method (inspired by Cryke’s method, see post “Another approach to water divining” on 04-04-2020) involved tracing a circle of dowsing reaction around a metal object placed in the ground immediately above stream, the radius of the circle represented the depth of water. This observation seems to suggest that the conscious mind can impose rules on the unconscious mind concerning how to process information.

Another example of the mind’s filtering ability was also observed when searching for objects on or near the surface of the ground. Here they noticed that to detect objects close to the surface, one had to think “shallow”, but for deeper objects, one had to think “deep”, or the object could be missed.  Similarly, when searching for water, thinking too much of water would miss iron pipes carrying water.

Finally, they observed the effect of other people disturbing their dowsing results. In fact, it was possible for onlookers to “plant” a dowsing reaction in another dowser. It is interesting to speculate, whether this effect was also related to the observation that contact between an experienced dowser and one who has otherwise great difficulty dowsing, can produce results in the latter. This observation has often been reported in the BSD journals.  

Here is a short account in the BSD Journal illustrates one important application of dowsing, that of dowsing for health.  

“Dowsing by the pendulum”, by Amy Goldwin.

http://www.dowsing-research.net/blog_extracts/BSD_No29_1940_p165.pdf

The author uses her dowsing pendulum to determine the “vitality” of her subject in a very simple manner. She holds the pendulum over the subject, to obtain first that she refers to as the subject’s “vibrations” (a reference to the idea in her time, that the dowsing reaction was some sort of radiation). This initial step she could also perform from photographs (akin to map dowsing), or even handwriting. Next, she held it over a protractor, and the line of swing of the pendulum coincided with a number, from 0 to 180 degrees; the lower the number, the poorer the overall health of the subject. She could also identify further insight into the prevailing ailment, by repeating the exercise, but this time holding the pendulum over the protractor, while pointing to organs on an anatomical chart. She could also simply hold her pendulum over the person or their proxy and obtain an insight into the subject’s state of health from one of four response.

This is another example showing that, as has been noted previously, the dowsing reaction can be programmed, and furthermore the response can be calibrated against an arbitrary tool.  (Another instance is the use of a coloured chart when water divining to deduce the purity of the water, eg black might indicate brackish, blue perhaps fresh water). Here a protractor is used, with the advantage that the response can be converted into a (relative) numerical value.

In addition to testing, she dowsed for remedies. She apparently had a range of these, each of which she would dowse over until the pendulum showed the largest swing. How the chosen remedy related to the ailment is not clear, but since some of the remedies were homeopathic, and perhaps her observation that the a remedy did not always correct the same issue, then maybe the healing effect (as determined by her pendulum), might relate more to her intention to heal.