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 Post subject: Thoughts on Divining
PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 6:04 am 
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I have recently started seriously trying to perfect the divining of gemstones, particularly corundum.

I started about 2 months ago and was getting readings over a great area. When these areas were checked, they they had all sorts of different stuff, and wasn't of much use really.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been trying to concentrate on particlar minerals.

When I hold 2 pieces of sapphire in my hand while divining I have been able to block out the mineral in the floor of an area (mainly mica where I am trying this) but I am getting readings from different stuff still.

Luckily, I do not seem to get gold, ironstone, etc, but I am getting Zircon (not so bad), black spinel (not as good), fused quartz (bugger), and what I think is basalt (to be confirmed that it is basalt).

If I discard the sapphires and hold 2 Zircons, it blocks out corundum, fused quartz and basalt, but is giving me black spinel and what looks like ironstone but is not magnetic (gotta get it identified).

In the area where I am, it is not so bad finding zircons and black spinel as they almost always are present where there is corundum in the area where I am and thought to be good indicators.

Now the question. How can the false readings given be blocked?

I have tried carrying a greater amount of the stone I am looking for and trying to block out the signal of the offending stuff, to no effect.

I must say that I was a sceptic regarding divining until recently when I started trying it, as well as seeing the results from a friend of mine (and known to Tim).

I have done many blind tests to good effect, as well as finding a couple of stones when speccing. The false signals are mucking things up though.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 8:07 am 
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:D

whatever makes you dig deep and hard Bluey... if divining gives you the motivation to turn over dirt it does the job just fine IMO. Apart from that I am a non-believer...


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:27 am 
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It's all to do with stamping the foot, seriously.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 1:49 pm 
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I just can give little advice to you, by telling you how I do it.

I use a self - produced pendulum when searching for the right places to dig for Emeralds.

The pendulum contains a beautifully shaped, big, but light colored and included emerald. The crystal was attached on top of a piece of lead - alloy, in which i gave a bit of chromium dust, aluminium dust and quartz dust. The reason for building this crystal foundation inside the pendulum originally was to make it possible to walk with it in areas of vast wilderness and uneven ground, such as we have in the alps.

A light pendulum, such as the ones they sell in shops etc. would react too much to the bodymovement of the carrier when stepping upwards /downwards in steep area. The addition of the pulvers was ment as a booster for the crystal: instead of blocking the crystals reaction to the earths rays it becomes a part of the construction by addition of the elements of the crystal searched for. At the end the whole cunstruction was surrounded by multiple windings of Hemp, a magic plant, that not only provides effects to humans and animals, but, in this case, is a buffer for the pendulum so it is no problem when it touches a rock while pending.

Now to my advice.

When I use the pendulum I don´t ask for a SINGLE outcome. I leave a bit of Latency in my question by putting my mindset to:

Where will I find some Emerald crystals in a depth I can get to by digging for a day?

So my advice to you would be, instead of asking for a very distinct answer, let the question be somewhat unsharp, and the answers will improve.

For me it works this way, but it took some years to find that out.

And as you see it works....
:wink:
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 5:57 pm 
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Thanks for the replies all.

NIKOLAUS - Your method definitely makes sense. I am just a newbie with divining and do notice that it all improves with time. Maybe I just need more time and practice.

I am using rods at the moment. Have tried a crystal with no effect so far. Perhaps my scepticism of a crystal is blocking this.

The idea of using a pendulum of the stone one is looking for has a lot of merit. I have a 120 carat bomb hanging around which will have a new job.

I also think the question asked is the problem. I will take your thoughts on board and keep on trying.

TIM - I too was a non-believer until I started trying it out. Having seen a few people now (especially Glenn) using either rods or a crystal to great effect, I just had to give it a try.

As regard to digging. That won't stop. I just want to try and narrow my search down.

MEHOOSE - I use the stamping of the foot to get a depth indicator. It seems to work quite effectively.

Thanks again all. I guess it is a matter of practice makes perfect.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 6:05 pm 
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here is what I wrote over on AFL when the subject was brought up but like Tim said anything that makes you strive harder or longer and that you truly believe in is A-Okay in my book

"First off let me say..my pops believes 100% that divining or dowsing works as they used to use it to find water on his farm when he was grwing up so with that being said..I don't think that divining works one bit..they use it to find oil, water, other minerals, and now gemstones? So aluminum or copper or iron rods have this magic power to find these different objects and materials? Something that takes oil companies or diamond/gem companies multi-million dollars to find??? Just doesn't make to much sense to me. I would think if there was even the slightest bit of evidence that it works then Oxford university, MIT, Columbia university would have multi- millon dollar grants studying this thing with hordes of scientist clammering to figure or study or exploit this "mysterious' force. Wouldn't you think that Exxon mobile, or BP, Chervron would have dropped billions of dollars checking this out to find oil..or the billion dollar arab countries in mid-east to find water? there is not one bit of provable evidence to support that divining works. It's a metaphysical science..it can not be confirmed by any repeatable experimentation..if so then it would have been proven. Even the most "accomplished" dowsers fail to achieve anything more than chance rates in a properly controlled experimental setup.
The claims that dowsing can find water have been scientifically investigated numerous times, but dowsing has yet to be proven. In fact, James Randi, the stage magician (The Amazing Randi) and professional skeptic has offered a prize to any dowser who could successfully locate water in underground pipes 80 percent of the time. The prize has grown from $10,000 to over a million dollars and has yet to be claimed. Randi said that "the sad fact is that dowsers are no better at finding water[gemstones] than anyone else. Drill a well[dig a hole] almost anywhere in an area where water is geologically possible, and you will find it."
just my thoughts..trying to use rationale thinking..so no offense to anyone..just giving my point of view

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 6:30 pm 
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hi amguy

Little note from the past .. when my grand father wanted a well he hired a "water witch" thats what they were called in those days. Anyway the "witch" says there is good clean water not that far down right here. Right here was about 15 feet off the northwest corner of the house. now ya gotta know my gramps to understand him ... nope he says I'm not having a well that close to the house. so the witch goes in circles looking for more water. finds some well away from the house .. happy gramps .. rock water at the bottom of the hole 225' down .. yuky stuff .. but water.

time moves on the farm gets sold and the new owner don't like rock water.... so they hires themselves a diviner (turns out it was the "water witches" son) ... he says the same as dad right here 15' from the corner of the house is good clean sweet water. new owner says go for it. the new well is 35' down and its the main aquafer in the area (flows through a gravel ridge at the back of the farm)

I'd say thats a lttile beyond the "you can find water any where if you dig deep enough" :lol:

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:07 pm 
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I'd say thats a lttile beyond the "you can find water any where if you dig deep enough"
Well Wolf..you can pretty much in most areas find water anywhere you dig as long as it's deep enough..lets take a look at the Ogallala aquaifer..in the great plains of america it covers roughly 170,000 square miles..in some of the driest locations in america..if you dig anywhere in nebraska, North texas, southern south dakota, western oklahoma or wester kansas you will hit the aquaifer..so in 170,000 square miles if you dig deep enough you will hit water..same thing applies to the sahara desert..Eastern colorado is one of the most desolate places but due to wells dug pretty much anywhere it's prime farming land..granted one wqell maybe 200 feet deep and the next one over only 100 feet deep but thats due to the composition of the rocks and how permeable they are..the water table is pretty much the same the over the whole area that water is found..it's physics

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:08 pm 
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Hey amguy.

I agree with everything you have said. Like I said before, I was also a sceptic.

what I cannot explain are the blind tests that I have done. One in particular.

I used a small zircon because zircons seem to give me a cleaner reading.

I checked a pile of tailings (about 2yards) with the rods and 2 zircons in my hand. No signal.

I then put a 2 carat zircon into the pile and turned it over a few times with a shovel.

I checked the pile again and got a reading.

By going through the pile a bit at a time, I was able to find that zircon. That sold it for me.

I am keeping my thoughts open regarding the use of divining and it will not ever replace the hard grunt with a pick and jackhammer.


Wolf - In Western NSW years ago, there was a time when no-one would bother to drill for water until the old diviner had checked things out first. I believe he had never missed.

And yes, there were stories of people wanting the bore somewhere else to where the diviner said and dudded out. It happened to one of my uncles.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:22 pm 
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I know what you are saying bluey and I for one would be hard to disprove something like that if i saw it but lets look at the big picture and I am not singling you out Bluey and am speaking in general as i do enjoy reading about your experience..wouldn't you think that, like i said in the above post, that deBeers or Rio Tinto would much rather pay John Boy from down the road to locate diamond or gold deposits than spend millions of dollars on magno-spetrometer things massive ground penatrating radar systems and huge teams of geologist to find these locations, large testing labs to determine ore content..even if a diviner was right 50% of the time..heck give him $10,000 to go find the producing kimberlite pipes..why spend $10 million? Not even a scientific shred of evidence it works..if you or anyone can proves it works I would contact every known scientific establishment in the world and have it tested and studied..heck that would be millions of dollars in your pocket..fame, fortune, patents..i would jump all over it..maybe try a scientific experiment..set up a grid pattern 1 or 2 acres big marked off..have a 3rd party bury something in that 2 acres..then have at it..repeat 20-50 times as a controlled experiment..figure up your success rate and crunch the numbers and see what you have

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:49 pm 
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No offence taken at all amguy. Thought this subject would bring out the 2 points of view.

I agree that if divining was so cut and dried, then the sellers of GPR's would be out of business.

I cannot explain it. Just looking for answers.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:30 pm 
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hi blue,

sounds very like a very interesting way to find minerals. curious as to how you receive "signals" and "readings?" :?


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 11:34 pm 
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I can attest that water witching works - my grandfather, Dad and neighbor are all witchers for many decades. Heck, we use my neighbor and his witching skills to locate the water lines around here when someone forgets because they haven't been to their lake cabin in 10 years and needs to dig. The people putting in the septic tank behind us used him to locate their lines. I've never tried it myself but I've watched it done many, many times. HOW? I don't know but if he walks too fast, a large indicator can swing those rods so suddenly and hard I swear they'd break his fingers if he held them too tight....

but this is the first time I've heard of witching for gemstones so this REALLY fascinates me! If it works for water....makes me go hummmmm....

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 11:46 pm 
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Here I copied this off of Answerbag.com

Dear Cecil:
My world view has been severely altered, and I need your help. While on a recent trip to the wilds of Arizona, I had the opportunity to witness--and indeed, participate in--a demonstration of "wishing," which is the location of underground water through a divining rod, or "wish stick." I had always thought this practice was an old wives' tale, but the natives use it routinely to determine where to dig their wells.

If a stick of wood is used, it bends toward the ground; if a coat-hanger wire or thin brass rods are used, one is held in each hand, and they cross over each other when water is found. The only explanation the local experts could provide is that moving water creates a magnetic field, but this doesn't account for its effect on wood. I swear on a stack of Straight Dopes that I speak not with forked tongue. Illuminate me, Cecil. --Cooper B., Chicago

Cecil replies:
Good Lord, dowsing? Next you're going to tell me you got a great deal on a time-share condo. This is about the oldest dodge in the books.

You don't describe what your "participation" consisted of, but let me guess: you watched some old geek with a divining rod (typically a forked stick held in a peculiar grip with both hands, but sometimes just an ordinary single stick) wander around the desert for a while with a look of concentration on his face.

By and by the stick began to quiver, and suddenly plunged sharply downward, whereupon he exclaimed something to the effect of, "Dig here, you'll find water." Then he said, "You try it, sonny, it'll work for you, too." And gosharoonie, he gave you the stick and showed you how to hold it and lo and behold, when you got to the spot where the stick had plunged down for the old coot, it did the same thing for you--just like some mysto force had grabbed onto it.

Naturally, since water in Arizona is typically found 175 to 200 feet below the surface, you didn't actually dig a well to test the accuracy of the rod, but assumed that since it worked for you, it must be legit.

Congratulations, sucker. You've fallen victim to the classic Skeptical Young Guppy Becomes True Believer syndrome, described in great detail in a study of dowsing (as wishing is sometimes called) published by two University of Chicago researchers in 1959. "Wishing," incidentally, is a corruption of "witching," as in "water witching," the most common American expression for dowsing, AKA rhabdomancy and divination.

Although divining has been around in various forms for millennia, the well-known forked stick method appears to have been devised in the mining districts of Germany (you can supposedly find minerals with a dowsing rod, too) in the late 15th or early 16th century. It was first formally described in an essay in 1556, and since then has been spread around the world by European colonists. In the past 400 years, more than a thousand essays, books, and pamphlets have been published on the subject.

Needless to say, dowsing is entirely a fraud, although often an unconscious one. Innumerable experiments, beginning in 1641--that's right, 1641--have demonstrated that:

(a) The presence of water has no discernible effect on a rod held above it, whether the rod is made of wood, metal, or anything else.

(b) The success rate for diviners is about the same as that for people who use the hit-and-miss method when looking for water.

(c) Geologists trained to recognize telltale surface clues (certain kinds of rocks and plants, various topographical features) will invariably far outdo dowsers in predicting where water will be found, and at what depth.

Nevertheless, belief in dowsing has persisted, partly because most people secretly want to believe in magic, partly because water is fairly easy to find in most parts of the inhabitable world, and partly because the plunging-stick phenomenon seems so convincing to untutored observers.

It's worth noting that in many parts of the eastern U.S. it is virtually impossible to dig a hole and not find water. Granted it's tougher in the west, but I lived in Tucson for a spell and they had gotten well-digging down to such a science that the success rate approached 100 percent. Even over complex hydrological formations, the success rate by the hit-and-miss method is often as high as 75 percent.

The plunging-stick phenomenon is caused by a well-documented psychological effect known as "ideomotor action," first described in the 1800s and clinically demonstrated in the 1930s. What happens is that conscious thought gives rise to involuntary, usually imperceptible muscle movements.

If I strapped you to a table in a lab and loaded you up with sensors and told you to just think about raising your arm--but not to actually do so--the sensors would probably detect some slight upward motion in that arm, which you'd be completely unconscious of. Ouija boards and several other seance-type tricks make use of this principle.

In forked-stick dowsing, the two ends of the stick are held in a rather uncomfortable grip in such a way that the stick is under considerable tension--coiled up like a spring, as it were. Any of four minor muscle movements will result in the stick taking a sudden lurch downward (you can try this in the backyard sometime).

An experienced dowser, who has often picked up a fair bit of practical geological knowledge, particularly if he has worked in the same geographical area for many years, often develops a good instinct for judging where water might be just by looking at the terrain. When he walks around doing his number with the stick his mind unconsciously transmits this knowledge to his arm muscles, with predictable results.

You, the young sap, don't know anything about geology, but you do know where the stick pointed the first time, and unconsciously you want to duplicate that feat. If either you or the dowser is blindfolded, though, you won't even get close to the spot twice.

Besides forked sticks you can use barbed wire, a fork and spoon, coat hangers, welding rods, even a bunch of keys hanging by a chain from a Bible. If you want more information on this ridiculous art, most libraries have lots of books on the subject--right next to the section on tarot cards" [end quote]

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 3:00 am 
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Yeah. It is going to be interesting if I can get a solid result. Not going to take up all my time though.

Hey amguy.
Read that article also. The reply seems to be extremely biased and without foundation . did you notice the advertising on that page?

Found a good article on researching dowsing.
http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/Dowsing.htm

It seems to look at the subject quite thoroughly, but of course does not give definitive answers either way.

Hey gingerkid.

I don't know how the signals are being interpretted. At first I thought that I was picking up the electrical conductivity of an object, but I am now leaning toward the magnetic anomoly of different items. Maybe it's both of the above, or none of the above. I honestly don't know.

My feeling is that you could get bogged down with the science of it. As long as you can get it working, who cares how.


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