Guy Hudson in the Daily Telegraph

[Ian Pegler]

Written in the wake of the Sally Le Page thing, some journalists like Tom Ough are at least willing to give dowsers the time of day even if the skeptics don't think they should...

"You can’t look this much like Paddington Bear, I thought, and be a quack. You just can’t. It’s impossible."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking ... t-dowsing/

Ian

[DarkChestofWonders]

Good find Ian.

Nice explanation of the Ideomotor effect too.

[Ian Pegler]

Good find Ian.

Nice explanation of the Ideomotor effect too.

A pseudo-skeptical explanation for the movement of the rods. The term pre-dates the birth of modern psychology proper. It even pre-dates the birth of Sigmund Freud. It was originally used to explain table-tipping. It may (or may not) be relevant to dowsing but does not explain the cause of the dowsing reaction. I will not use the nomenclature of the debunkers, who seem to think that all dowsers assume that the movement of the rods is magical. It's a misrepresentation of dowsing and dowsers.

[DarkChestofWonders]

Ian,

I think I see what you mean.

Just so that I understand this properly, the ideomotor effect should not be attached to dowsing, correct?

I've not looked to or tried to explain it myself, but thanks anyway for your explanation. I didn't realise either that the "ideomotor" word was that old, it sounds like a more modern word.

I know dowsing works and that's it for me.

[Ian Pegler]

Ian,

I think I see what you mean.

Just so that I understand this properly, the ideomotor effect should not be attached to dowsing, correct?

I've not looked to or tried to explain it myself, but thanks anyway for your explanation. I didn't realise either that the "ideomotor" word was that old, it sounds like a more modern word.

I know dowsing works and that's it for me.

According to Wikipedia:

"The term Ideomotor was first used in a scientific paper discussing the means through which these spiritualistic phenomena produced effect, by William Benjamin Carpenter in 1852"

(the pseudo-skeptics are the ones who write the Wikipedia page, so if it's wrong blame them!)

Freud was born in 1856. Using the term "ideo-motor effect" is a bit like describing human health with reference to the four humours of the Classical world. I regard it as a non-phrase because it's inadequate, it doesn't really fully explain things and says virtually nothing about the nature of consciousness. I also don't want to give them an inch, so again, I won't employ their vocabulary.

Ian

[patrick herring]

I don't see what the problem would be with ideomotor response/effect. For one thing, it's true, I've measured it (with a smartphone and app code) at between 0.05 degree and 1.5 degree as a response to "show me Yes/No". Secondly it doesn't debunk dowsing. The next question is "where do the ideas come from?"