http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-42070719This caught attention, especially the bit where
"Ms Le Page said: I can't state this enough: there is no scientifically rigorous, doubly blind evidence that divining rods work."I have a reasonably open mind to most things but fall back on science to explain stuff. Before I came to Spain I was sceptical - How
could it work?
However since being here, I have seen many wells (bore holes, not your open wishing well types) drilled. Without exception the company use someone endowed with diving abilities to find the best site. They aren't always successful (maybe 1 in 3) but if you are aiming to hit an aquifer say a metre wide at a depth of 100 metres with a ten inch drill , there isn't much leeway for error.
We had our own bore hole drilled 12 years ago. It was quite hilarious as people turned up with packed lunches from the nearby village to watch the proceedings. The year before we had a tradesman visit and he said why not have a well. He stripped two twigs off a tree and proceeded to divine. He said yes you have water here and then proceeded to stomp his foot 35 times and pronounced it is at 35 metres. We had a good laugh at that over our meal later.
Back to our prospective well. As well as the "official diviner", a bloke called David turned up from a different village. Their official diviner. He was joined by around 5 local people who felt they also had the gift. They used anything from one twig, two twigs, two bent welding rods and one guy had a fob watch which he dangled on the chain.
After a fair bit of wandering around the concensus was this spot. This was a metre away from the previous spot divined by the tradesman the year before.
Drilling commenced and we hit water at 38 metres. There is no average around us for depth so it wasnt a lucky guess. Some are as deep as 180 metres ( cost 54 euros a metre including sleeving)
When all this had died down I had a go with the fellows discarded bent welding rods. It works , don't know how. You can even find buried 1.5 inch plastic water pipe at half a metre. When the subject comes up, I give visitors a scientific (as far as I can ) test by getting them to walk a route. Around 1 in 4 can divine. The other 3 without exception pour scorn on it.
Back to the article. If you know the route of a water pipe and you walk it as the engineer, it seems reasonable to me that IF you have the power you could find the waterlogged area underground versus dry pipe. I still cannot explain it as it doesn't make sense
Any diviners out there? All nonsense?