No chance - I walked along the length of each line, being steered by the dowsing rod as pointer. When doing that I frequently check that I'm truly on line by moving my hand holding the rod about 18" sideways, off line, then it points back in to the line at about 45o and as I bring my hand back it 'clicks' very definitely into pointing straight ahead when it hits the line. The points that you see, I stopped along the way to locate by measurement - principally the crossing points, plus others as necessary to give the scale and shape of each 'half-cycle' loop between the crossing points.

What is it then? moment of truth - the answer is - I don't know! but it's certainly there, it's something, of great clarity and precision. What usefulness, or what power it may have, remains to be explored - hopefully by science. The most interesting thing, for now, is humans' ready ability to detect it, and most of all, the role of Intentionality in the process. Both the latter things, routinised 'science' likes to ridicule, define out or otherwise justify ignoring - because particularly Intentionality, if seen as a powerful interesting phenomenon rather than just an experimental annoyance, upsets the whole apple cart of scientific method!

For the time being, if anyone's interested, the best intro to the flavour of all this, is The Sun and the Serpent by Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst, Pendragon Press 1989, about the mighty so-called Michael and Mary line, one of the 'biggest' (whatever that means) of such line-pairs on the planet. Whereas the line-pair I dowsed has crossing points and 'spread' measured in tens of metres, the MM's crossings and 'spread' are measured in tens of kilometres. As it happens, Mary comes right through my farmyard - I knew she was nearby, from the book, but not until I idly enquired, with the rod, at what distance (by using the yes/no bracketing method described earlier), and got 18 metres, did I realise ... the hairs stood up on my neck!

Such lines are everywhere - certainly, other line-pairs comparable to the one I dowsed, cross the same site, and I suspect they exist in fractally ever-diminishing scale down to atomic scale maybe. Other dowsers have delved much deeper into all this than I have - it looks like a morass of ever-elaboarating pattern complexity. But that's OK because Intentionality is perfectly capable of distinguishing one element from another, i.e. detecting one and ignoring the others, until you Intend otherwise.

Are you going to try it, joe.e, or just do online mind gymnastics? The first is the easy way you can check this out for yourself. Want any help, just email me.

Woo spooky - this'll be the work of Dean Radin? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Radin.

Posted By: joe.efor even the most convincing of my personal dowsing experiences, and that without consciously deciding to, I had avoided situations that had a possibility of clear, right or wrong answers

So, having realised, did you try some situations that had that possibility of clear, right or wrong answers? Real shame you invalidated your interest and ability. How about going into it scientifically now?

Just thought I'd mention that we have now found an old well on our land. This was discovered by the even lower tech method of walking backwards and tripping over a rock covering the top of it. The walking backwards was not a conscious act of 'divining'. However, by not looking where he was going the rock was dislodged, leading to the discovery. If he had been looking where he was going, the rock would have been stepped over / gone around.

Quote from link: "In a way, if you can think of a question, you can dowse for the answer."

Pity they can't find the answer as to how it works!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7623256.stm - maybe S*eptics too.

Dunno, but thanks for all the vigilance.

Can't resist - which one is the troll?

I've had 3 dowsers on our land recently for the purposes of drilling a well, all 3 had different results, this is their story:

1. Old Man Rippoff
He was recommended by the local water board as the only person they knew in the area who dowsed. He arrived at the land one morning along with his son who explained the process while the old man whipped out his sticks and started walking around the perimeter. The son explained that they both dowse and drill wells, and that if we wanted to they could guarantee the results - for an additional fee (no water no pay, but if there is water pay more). The old man stopped a few times, moved some rocks about, then continued walking around. Finally he delivered his verdict: There's no water here, not a single drop, he advised that we'd better sell this land and buy something else! oh, and that'll be 300 euros for 30 minutes of his services please.

2. The Son
Came across another father and son team, this lot were eager to help out and said that they'd waive the dowsing fee. Free is my favourite price, so off they went, this time with sticks and pendulum. He didn't do a perimeter sweep though, instead just started walking in a direction. Came back about 15 minutes later saying that there was water at this particular spot at a depth of 50m and there was more water at 80m. Great! Quoted 50 euros per meter to drill - I still wasn't happy drilling without some guarantee - but he wasn't willing to guarantee anything, even when I offered more cash for a positive find. Long story short, mixup on the telephone, miscommunication, the guy starts drilling before we know he has and BOOM he finds water at 30 meters right where he said it would be. He recommends we go deeper (at this point I'm a little more confident) and he hits more water at 90m. He installs a well, all our neighbours (who've been here 40+ years) hear the news of water in a rather dry area and become his new customers. Everybody happy.

3. The Family Friend
The friend had been involved with this project from the start, we sent him a satellite image of the land, and he came back with 2 marks on it saying where we should drill. Since he works for the meteorological society and recently sold a few farms I thought he had some insider knowledge (laser assisted geological studies perhaps? magneto-sonar imaging? quantum nano bots that flew down between the soil looking for moisture?) No. He printed out the satellite images and used a pendulum to dowse the 2 points. Anyway, after we've drilled the well, he comes around saying we've thrown our money away what idiots we are for not drilling where he pointed out. He proceeds to do some dowsing on the land and, why yes! he again finds the 2 spots he previously identified from the satellite images! Amazing!
He says that the well we installed is fed by a small underground current and there's much more water at his 2 locations. Grrrrr.

What I've learnt from the experience:
Does dowsing work? I Don't know (and from the above story there's not enough data to tell. Drilling 1 well does not a scientific study make).
Is dowsing just mystical nonsense? I Don't know.
Is there a whole lot of BS from knowledgeable experts? Yes.
Is there a certification body that can certify the quality of a dowsers' work? No.
Can I study dowsing at a University or technical college? No.
Will dowsers guarantee their work and drill at their own expense if they're wrong? Not in my experience.

LOL. So true