Live water

[griff]

Hi Grahame

Effects of atmospheric pressure on borehole rest water levels.

The variations in pressure can be described as Semi-diurnal, that is, two times in 24 hrs. you ask me to define this, it's not easy to do that briefly, but here goes!.

A sinusoidal wave with a period of 12 hrs, which is one of the significant terms of the Fourier series expansion of diurnal variations of atmospheric pressure.
To put it more simply - At the latitude of Greenwich the 20 yr mean daily variation was approx. 0.02 inches of mercury (peak to trough).
In the winter, the forenoon wave tends to be larger than the afternoon wave and in summer, when the sun heats tracts of land, it tends to diminish the forenoon wave and increase the afternoon wave.
The phenomenon diminishes in intensity the further it is from the tropics until it assumes very small proportions 65 degrees or 70 degrees from the equator.

Regards Griff (Phew!)

[Grahame]

Phew! indeed..!

Thanks for that explanation Griff; I even think I understood it!

My interest was piqued by your mention of this Diurnal Wave, as it was a natural cycle that I hadn't previously heard of.

[Old Bob]

Just read all the posts of very interesting stuff, I too have chased primery water. Have a ley near and a very confusing tangle of water signs. Some 20 meters it breaks into a good water line which goes through my shed where we hand drilled and got beautiful water, it then goes on in a big loop to other bores. No more than 60 meters away is a old bore with plenty of water of very poor quality on a seperate line of iron loaded water. One thing I have noticed is some trees lean towards near by water lines even if they are deep below. Some years back we planted a quick growing tree for shade about 2 meter from a water line and in spite of staking it to stop it leaning it did anyway pulling the stakes over now it is 450 mm dia and still leaning. Cheers Old Bob.

[Guy Hudson]

Hi, All,
I miss Dan Wilson! Hope your are still listening out there, Dan.
Pauline - I am one of those "Zambian dowsers" and am very interested in making redirecting water and purification by intent.
I'm possibly a slow learner - as at first I didn't believe in map dowsing as on courses it had not worked for me - but it certainly
has when I have had no option but to use it - and now I map dowse frequently.
Sorry if we at Village Water have given the impression we are not open minded on these issues. We have 'trained' our local well-digging teams
to dowse - although the one occasion I got involved the well had already been started exactly on the best underground stream I could find in
the locality - so the team leader was doing something equivalent to dowsing without being aware of it. So we have I suppose formalised
location spotting using the dowsing. One stage further on from deviceless dowsing - dowsing-less dowsing.
I also dowse in complex and difficult clay areas with a very high success rate and I think some of that will be due to redirection.
Purification you have to be careful of when dozens of lives are at stake. I'm just cautious. I often come across purity problems - especially iron
do you have a protocol for purifying by intent?
Best wishes,
Guy

[griff]

Earlier, under the heading 'Live water' I saw posts which mentioned diverting watercourses into wells when yields were reduced. Also that it may be possible to influence water quality by 'intent'. I have, on a couple of occasions, successfully but surruptitiously tried to influence the flow of fissure-borne groundwater towards a surfacing spring, using the time-honoured method (ritual or intent?) of sideways beating with a heavy hammer on a stout iron bar driven into the ground over an underground course whilst mentally concentrating on increasing flow into the spring collector. On both occasions the yield returned to normal by the following morning. My clients were not told and I did not charge for this because I could hardly believe it myself! and I had been called in to change filter cartridges on the domestic services. Both customers 'phoned me the following morning to say that the water was back to normal.
My question is; What could be the dowsing 'protocol' or acceptable ritual procedure for influencing (or attempting to), water quality and chemical composition by intent?

Regards to all, and thanks to Guy and Pauline

griff

[Doug Bates]

Dear members; I feel some tough commentary is required here...
I'm a long-standing former Professional member of the BSD (during the Michael and Diedre Rust era) and I allowed my membership to lapse a few years back because of the kind of dream-world nonsense that was regularly being published in the BSD Journal . I lived and worked in Scotland at that time and was somewhat distant from BSD activities in the south anyway. Now I've been based in Surrey for the past 4 years and have been considering re-joining the Society , however, the nonsense being promulgated here in the forum is in danger of putting me off again .
One of the primary objectives of the BSD has always been to promote the cause of dowsing as a practical skill and art in real-world applications and to support its acceptance by the scientific establishment . I'm sorry to say that this is never going to happen if the kind of nonsense that members of the Society are writing in this forum, and no doubt in the journal and other places, continues to be the colour of what the public and the scientific establishment see as dowsing's flagship organisation .

I'm a qualified exploration geologist and a full-time professional dowser of 17 years standing, with more than 2500 water supply developments, 9 oil developments, and 60-odd mineral prospects under my belt. I have become a leading proponent of the dowsing art, through rigorously disciplined adherence to the principle that all dowsing must be substantiated by measured results that prove its effectiveness, and I have written and published a great deal on the subject, always substantiated by actual results... I care passionately about dowsing and its future advancement, and I am one of only a few who have taken the frontiers of dowsing closer to meeting the frontiers of science; but I fear I am fighting a losing battle for the wider acceptance of dowsing, not so much against the scientific establishment as against the beliefs and publications of the BSD membership! So much airy-fairy unsubstantiated gibberish only serves to seriously undermine the credibility of dowsing and its potentially powerful place in the future of humanity.

Here displayed for anyone to read are so many flights of fancy and bogus ideas and notions about how groundwater occurs and behaves, and an ignorance founded only in hearsay and belief without any scientific substantiation whatsoever, as well as arrogant implications that dowsers have so much more perfect knowledge on this subject than geologists do because it comes from some nameless gospel or oracle that must be believed without any need of substantiation or logic! Please! Contain yourselves, BSD members, I beseech you! Be careful what you write in the public domain and be rigorous in your examination and substantiation of what you believe to be true. If any of you are truly interested in advancing your knowledge and skills in this arena, please take the time to do the requisite research, to examine your ideas in a logical manner, and to understand the knowledge that science has already given us as a platform upon which to base the advancement of dowsing as a serious sensory skill.

Magical water that appears in unlimited abundance out of nowhere? Groundwater that obeys your every thought or command at the snap of your fingers? Domes no more than a few feet in diameter, so commonplace as to be found almost anywhere, even several within a garden that speaks? geospirals and blind springs? blink-dowsing and guided writing? mental water filters? Please!!! Get real!
In the REAL world there's no such thing as 'live water' unless you refer to water full of living organisms like 'live yoghurt'.
Generally, we do not want living organisms in our drinking water, for among these are pathogens and parasites that are responsible for many of the world's worst killer diseases.
Water is a chemical compound with certain physical properties that obey only the laws of physics and chemistry. Water has no ears to hear your command, nor any consciousness or ability to choose to do anything other than that which the confines of its surroundings and the laws of physics dictate.
There are simple logical physical explanations for all the various ways in which water occurs and circulates in the Earth, for the natural fluctuations in well levels and yields, and for variables in water quality. There's plenty of well-presented information available in libraries and on-line through websites such as those of the British Geological Survey and the USGS. If I have time enough in my busy schedule, I may post a few brief explanations of some of these hydrogeological principles, because if I and other professional dowsers are to win the battle for dowsing's credibility, we are going to have to turn our attention to educating the membership of the BSD and sister societies in other countries, and promoting more professional and scientific standards in the forums and publications of these organisations, if only to prevent the amateurs from destroying the credibility we work so hard to build and maintain.
Let us try to instil some scientific discipline in our ranks, and let us not delve so readily into realms that cannot be substantiated or proven with measurable results; but where proper substantiation and proof exists, then let us publish it.

Here follow a few prime examples of dowsing fiction from this forum, together with brief real-world explanations.

[ledgehammer]

Dear members; I'm a long-standing former Professional member of the BSD (during the Michael and Diedre Rust era) and I allowed my membership to lapse a few years back because of the kind of dream-world nonsense that was regularly being published in the BSD Journal . I lived and worked in Scotland at that time and was somewhat distant from BSD activities in the south anyway. Now I've been based in Surrey for the past 4 years and have been considering rejoining the Society , however, the nonsense being promulgated here in the forum is in danger of putting me off again .
One of the primary objectives of the BSD has always been to promote the cause of dowsing as a practical skill and art in real-world applications and to support its acceptance by the scientific establishment . I'm sorry to say that this is never going to happen if the kind of nonsense that members of the Society are writing in this forum, and no doubt in the journal and other places, continues to be the colour of what the public and the scientific establishment see as dowsing's flagship organisation .

I'm a qualified exploration geologist and a full-time professional dowser of 17 years standing, with more than 2500 water supply developments, 9 oil developments, and 60-odd mineral prospects under my belt. I care passionately about dowsing and its future advancement, but I fear I am fighting a losing battle for the wider acceptance of dowsing, not so much against the scientific establishment as against the beliefs and publications of the BSD membership! So much airy-fairy unsubstantiated gibberish only serves to seriously undermine the credibility of dowsing and its potentially powerful place in the future of humanity.

Here displayed for anyone to read are so many flights of fancy and bogus ideas and notions about how groundwater occurs and behaves, and an ignorance founded only in hearsay and belief without any scientific substantiation whatsoever, as well as arrogant implications that dowsers have so much more perfect knowledge on this subject than geologists do because it comes from some nameless gospel or oracle that must be believed without any need of substantiation or logic! Please! Contain yourselves, BSD members, I beseech you! Be careful what you write in the public domain and be rigorous in your examination and substantiation of what you believe to be true. If any of you are truly interested in advancing your knowledge and skills in this arena, please take the time to do the requisite research, to examine your ideas in a logical manner, and to understand the knowledge that science has already given us as a platform upon which to base the advancement of dowsing as a serious sensory skill .

Magical water that appears in unlimited abundance out of nowhere? And what's all this about groundwater that obeys you every command at the snap of your fingers Dan? Please!!! Get real!
In the REAL world there's no such thing as 'live water' unless you refer to water full of living organisms like 'live yoghurt'.
Generally, we do not want living organisms in our drinking water, for among these are pathogens and parasites that are responsible for many of the world's worst killer diseases.
Water is a chemical compound with certain physical properties that obey only the laws of physics and chemistry. Water has no ears to hear your command, nor any ability to choose to do anything other than that which the confines of its surroundings and the laws of physics dictate.
There are simple logical physical explanations for all the various ways in which water occurs and circulates in the Earth, for the natural fluctuations in well levels and yields, and for variables in water quality. There's plenty of well-presented information available in libraries and on-line through websites such as those of the British Geological Survey and the USGS. If I have time enough in my busy schedule, I may post a few brief explanations of some of these hydrogeological principles, because if I and other professional dowsers are to win the battle for dowsing's credibility, we are going to have to turn our attention to educating the membership of the BSD and sister societies in other countries, and promoting more professional and scientific standards in the forums and publications of these organisations, if only to prevent the amateurs from destroying the credibility we work so hard to build and maintain.

Hi Doug,

welcome to the forum,

I read your post with interest and thankyou for your contribution, just a couple of points...

I also care about dowsing, but have come to a different conclusion to yourself in the terms that it is not ready to be accepted, this personal battle is indeed admirable but IMHO you will not convince skeptics as their mind set is not in the right place to accept anything which does not conform to their "step ladder" syndrome, however reasonable we both may think it is.

In terms of science, many who claim to be scientists will not accept dowsing, so in many ways your work is regarded in the same way as you have regarded the ideas voiced on here. I know it works, you know it works but I am hoping you can see outside of your perspective, as there isnt really a credible scientific explanation for dowsing so others see dowsing as unproovable therefore will not touch it with a barge pole.

The theory of relativity if not already is about to be blown open, Levitation is possible according to scientists and many other sciences are evolving (science being interpretation of the world around us accepted by repeatable observations and experiments), remember what you consider to be nonsense may be unveiled to be truth in the years to come.

Many ideas discussed on this forum could be considered radical, and many ideas I have are most certainly considered radical by the scientific community, and Im sure you will admit that many of your own ideas are considered radical by the same community, although many are accepting them :-)

We would love for you to rejoin the BSD, I myself am based in Surrey and am dissapointed somewhat by the lack of dowsing in this area, so would love to benefit from your years of experience if you would be willing to share, as for acceptance I believe we should accept ideas different to our own, if somewhat inconceivable as the things we once believed were impossible are an everyday practice. The ideas and research which is relevant to ourselves is usefull, that which is not directly usefull we should show compassion towards, these ideas are not the reason why good folk as all of us are a minority, alas times are a-changing, acceptance, tolerance kindness and compassion are the important things

Best wishes

Tom

[Doug Bates]

Thankyou Tom, for your welcome and your positive thoughts.

On your first point I beg to differ. I have convinced many sceptics through careful rational explanation of techniques relative to geophysics, and ultimately through the proof provided by real-world results. Among the sceptical minds thus opened to some degree are at least 2 senior hydrogeologists at the British Geological Survey, civil engineers, architects, even lawyers... The decision makers in business, in society, and in politics are mostly rational sentient people with some measure of common sense and some measure of education. They demand rationality and justification of their decisions, if they are going to commit to spending sizeable sums of money on work recommended by dowsers. Something more than £20,000,000 has been invested in water boreholes on my specifications, and I'm pleased to have maintained a worldwide first-strike drilling success rate above 85%, About two thirds of the remainder are satisfied by second attempt or additional drilling, bringing my overall development success rate to over 95%. Real-world data constitutes real proof.
Please note, readers, that I have never claimed 100% success rates (as so many dowsers do), or that dowsing is perfect. No matter how adept we dowsers become, we are all human and will make errors of judgement or interpretation from time to time.
Many of my surveys are troubleshooting jobs where dry or low yield bores have already been drilled, and many of my clients require substantial above-average yields. If a client wants 12,000 gallons per hour for irrigation or 40,000 gall/hr for an industrial process, it’s my job to find and develop that amount of water sustainably. My success is measured by actually finding that amount of water and successfully developing it. In most locations the chances of being able to accomplish such a task without the use of divining methods are very low, as proved in so many instances where prior multiple borehole drilling (up to 12 attempts in my direct experience) failed to find anything near the quantity of water required. Occasionally I fail too, and I accept responsibility and take it upon myself to find out why, without looking for excuses.
This is the way sceptics are convinced, by keeping it real, not by sounding off on a raft of unsubstantiated notions.

On your second point I agree. There are indeed many scientists who will not accept dowsing, even when supporting evidence is undeniable, because we can not yet explain the dowsing phenomenon scientifically, but biophysical science is progressing and someday we will arrive at the explanation. There are many other similar phenomena in nature that science can't yet adequately explain, yet we accept their reality on the basis of verifiable observations. They say a goldfish has a memory span of maybe 5 seconds, yet who then can explain how salmon, after years roaming the ocean, are able to navigate their way back to the rivers they were spawned in? We know and accept that they do, because it is an oft observable fact, but we can't explain how. So I say to close-minded scientists that science is not a doctrine but the quest for knowledge, and for that, besides logic and reason, impartiality and open-mindedness are required. He who closes his mind to encompass only that which he believes or knows already, abandons the quest and ceases to be a scientist.

Having said that, I partially concede your further points about keeping an open mind on all the concepts aired in this forum, but I do have serious reservations about many of them, which are demonstrably false, misguided, or misconceived. Certainly our ideas in the dowsing community are considered radical, and because of that it is essential to present a sound basis for them. Waxing lyrical about concepts that can't be substantiated with convincing evidence, or that are demonstrably false, doesn't help our cause. In fact it does immeasurable damage to our cause, because the sceptics are always ready to point to these poor examples and brand us all a bunch of cuckoos.

Now, if it is possible (for example) to command water to do things it doesn't normally do under the known laws of physics and chemistry, then where is the evidence to support it. I don't know of any substantive measurements that demonstrate that such a thing is possible, but when I see data that can't be explained in terms of hydrogeology, that shows without doubt that it is possible, then I too will accept and believe it. At present I don't believe it. Pigs still do not fly, and I don't believe they ever will...

Acceptance, tolerance, kindness and compassion are indeed laudable principles within a minority community such as ours, and I am certainly more than able to embrace these social gifts. All I am advocating is that they be tempered with a little reason and discipline insofar as BSD forums and publications are concerned. These radical ideas are actually a large part of why the BSD will always represent a fringe minority operating outside the realm of scientific disciplines, because the dross tarnishes the gold to the extent that people of sound mind can't accept the whole gamut, and therefore reject even the parts that do make some sense. If even dyed-in-the-wool scientific-minded professional dowsers such as I, have to think twice or thrice about being a member of the BSD, then what hope is there to win acceptance in the wider community? For this reason I am willing to re-join the society and try to influence policy and thinking from within, through reasonable guidance and encouragement, and constructive criticism.

You are right about many things that once seemed totally impossible now being everyday practices and technologies. Indeed, how magical did it seem for example when the first cameras and photographs were invented; and who could have imagined, even 50 years ago, that we are now able to record masses of data, and digital photographs, on a tiny silicon chip no bigger than a fingernail? I do, of course appreciate and accept your point, but this also kinda illustrates my point. These radical advances have been made in the realm of science and technology, whereas human potential has advanced and changed relatively slowly over the centuries and almost all significant progress that has been made has occurred through the applications of scientific advances. Through science and technology we are able to become better and more versatile dowsers than our forefathers were. They had only folklore and religious dogma to guide or thwart their efforts, but we have accurate maps, aerial and satellite photographs, computers, cell-phones, drilling rigs that can drill down hundreds and thousands of metres into the Earth, submersible electric pumps, and monitoring equipment of all kinds with which to record accurate data.
We should be using science to explore the frontiers of dowsing, rather than recoiling ever further into a dream world of fantastical supposition ruled by self-proclaimed esoteric demigods. In his post of 23rd December 2005 Dan Wilson exhibited some sign of rational judgement, when he wrote in response to some comments by Pauline Roberts, " I'm always suspicious of jumping to conclusions on such things, in the way dowsers do wholesale because they think being a dowser gives them a special licence to pronounce on things without doing the work." ... but then it is abundantly clear from the rest of the post and all Dan's other posts that this is exactly what Dan does or did, himself. We all need to be far more objective about dowsing, and more careful about the claims we make for it, just as Dan Wilson pointed out in this one insightful sentence.

I look forward to plenty of lively debate, and to meeting you and many other members at next year's congress, if not before.
kind regards; Doug.

[Doug Bates]

I was very interested in Jim Kuebelbeck's letter in DT recently remarking on "live water" which seems to be magical water which appears in difficult circumstances and never goes down in yield and purity once accessed.
I remembered Gordon Wright's story of his father when official Rhodesian water-diviner remarking that there was a curious thing about big supplies for estates, they were always available to the exact yield required and hadn't been there when the estate was previously dowsed. Both Gordon and his father dowse as locators of "live water" of which this is also a characteristic.
With this in mind, I reapplied my mind to the well belonging to my hosts the FitzGeralds in Spain who now invite me out there for four weeks every year. Two main dowsing exercises have been applied to the source for this well over the years, a sealing-off of neighbouring cesspit water which was contaminating it in the dry season, mainly conducted by American Mallory Cross at my invitation, and a piece of "distant water diversion" applied to the source which is predominantly Andalusian reservoir leakage, to bump it up a bit. Both these were successful.
The idea that you can have all the water you want and perfectly pure rather appealed to me, so I quizzed the garden for this novel supply. It said well, there's quite a good dome about 40 ft from the well. I then asked if we couldn't have some mental water diversion from it in favour of the well ? and the response was "well, there's some much easier live water diversion you can have right next to the existing supply". I said well, we'd have that in the interim, when would it deliver ? and the answer was, immediately.
I said nothing, thinking my hosts would think me as idiotic as you are at this moment, and that evening Mr F who measures the well level every day exclaimed "it's gone up by a foot !". I suggested he test it for quantity and from then on he has been running his garden sprinklers off it - unthinkable a week earlier.
So, for me the rumour is true. No digging, you just snap your fingers. Try it for yourself.

Such amusing and illogical anecdotes... Rest assured that Dan was quizzing himself, not the garden. Two key subjects are addressed in this post: (1) Apparently pure magical 'live water' quite commonly occurring in small 'domes' and (2) the concept of being able to block or divert groundwater flow through the application of thought-forms or even soliloquious banter.

(1) In my preceding post I've already said there's no such thing as 'live water' in the real world, and certainly not any with magical properties of being able to appear from nowhere and flow in inexhaustible abundance at the will of a wishful-thinking dowser. Groundwater flows through the bedrock formations in only two ways. Slowly, through porous medium such as sandstone, siltstone, or some limestones; or relatively rapidly through geological discontinuities such as faults and fractures. These rapid flows are the sources we seek for high yields. The direction of flow at shallow depths, typically encountered in boreholes and wells, is usually sub-horizontal and down-gradient under the influence of gravity, but groundwater does move in all directions, including vertically upwards in rare instances, under the influence of pressure and temperature gradients in confined aquifers. Upwelling water may form dome-like concentrations in an inhomogeneous porous medium, but more commonly rises through faults and fractures finding the 'paths of least resistance' to reach the surface and form springs, sometimes under artesian conditions if extensively confined at some distance from a source at higher altitude. Thus all sustainable flowing water sources have some detectable structure involved, usually discernible at the land surface as a narrow line or 'vein'. What many dowsers refer to as 'blind springs' are usually (in my experience) points of intersection between two or more fractures. Drilling at these fracture nodes invariably produces higher yields than a single fracture will (obviously) and they therefore present geophysical anomalies that some dowsers are able to home-in on without necessarily understanding the underlying structure and hydrogeological conditions. True groundwater domes are rare, occurring almost exclusively in regions where there is a lot of hydrothermal activity and volcanism. They are driven by pressure and thermal gradients above heat sources such as deep magma chambers and sometimes reach the surface in spectacular fashion such as in New Zealand's Rotorua district or the USA's Yellowstone National Park. Groundwater in these convection systems is usually a mixture of meteoric water (from rainfall infiltration) with some formation water or connate water (from stored volumes within deeply buried compressible sedimentary strata), water of dehydration (from mineralogical metamorphosis of heated rocks), and primary water (from magma). The typical range of magmas contain 1% to 5% water. This type of water is never pure, however, as it is driven out of the rock formations along with all manner of other volatiles and soluble minerals, as evidenced by the deposition of mineral veins within fractures and siliceous sinter around geysers and hot springs. All groundwater contains some dissolved minerals. The only naturally occurring pure water is rain, purified by the cycle of evaporation and condensation.

(2) Groundwater flow modification through the medium of thought alone is physically impossible unless it can be proved that thought alone can do such physical miracles as squeeze sand or crack rock. Vibration by beating an iron bar driven into the ground with a sledgehammer might in some cases induce shallow water to alter its course in the ground, due to physical modification of the ground by vibration or shock waves in a set direction.
Dan doesn’t offer any detail or measurement to determine how successful the three episodes of attempted water flow modification were, except for an apparent rise in water level by about a foot, some hours after the last, and an alleged greater abundance of water for a period thereafter.
Well yields and water levels are subject to natural fluctuations all the time. A drop in atmospheric pressure over a period of several hours can cause water levels to rise by as much as a metre. A difference of 30cm is quite commonplace. Besides this, it seems probable that the well might not have been in use while Dan was ‘working’ on it, thus it might have had a little respite time to recharge its water level somewhat from the natural reservoir in the surrounding ground. Finally, if indeed the yield was temporarily increased, it is more probable that this was due to a natural cause such as rainfall some days or weeks before the event. One must not forget that it takes time for rainfall infiltration to reach a well and, depending on the distance and nature of the ground between the source and the well, days, weeks, or even months may elapse between a recharge rainfall event and the occurrence of a measured difference in well yield. Cause and effect is not always so simple to discern in this field and one can easily jump to false conclusions. As beguiling as it may be to wish that it could be possible to simply direct water to a well at will or even believe one is able to do it; my professional opinion as both a geologist and dowser is that the likelihood of this ever being proved as a real phenomenon is vanishingly small.
DLB

[Doug Bates]

I don't think live water is the same as primary water. If I do a piece of "guided writing" on it, there seem to be these options:-

Hydrological cycle: rain/aquifers/evaporation/condensation/rain.
Primary water 1: water generated by granite under great pressure. The
aluminium atoms in the granite reform to hydrogen.
Primary water 2: water generated by cooling magma. A similar fission process.
Primary water 3: water generated by secondary volcanic (metamorphic)rocks under great pressure. A similar process, but aluminium doesn't seem to figure.
Live water: this is a kind of within-earth hydrological cycle not involving the atmosphere. It is closely in tune with human thought processes and has the characteristic of being teleologically directed, which is to say, it prepares itself way ahead for a dowser's call for it. It promises to save us from drought. It can take from the other systems as required.
Technical water: not free water like the others but a type of live water stored in hydrates of minerals. It acts as a reservoir for live water.

What interests me about live water is that it can become artesian to order so you don't have to drill for it. Again, this is something some dowsers can do better than others.

(The weirdos invade water-divining ! Is nothing sacred ?)

Which weirdos is Dan referring to here, I wonder...
It is apparent from this example and others that Dan's 'guided writing' was a bit misguided.
The creation of water by nuclear fission of Aluminium or any other element is unknown, has never been recorded, and as far as the current state of scientific knowledge can determine, is quite impossible. Water is produced from magmas and from the heated surrounding rocks, however, it is not made, but simply liberated from its formerly trapped state. (see previous post).
Scientists with any interest in dowsing might be put off by this description of 'live water' and its supposed characteristics or properties, which (with all due personal respect) appears to come straight from La-La Land. Sorry Dan. Such unsubstantiated notions with no foundation in fact or science should preferably not be committed to text in the public domain. It directly damages the credibility of serious professional dowsers and hinders the progress towards recognition of dowsing as a legitimate geophysical method.
DLB

[Doug Bates]

The whole thing with "live" or "primary" water began with a Stockholm professor of mineralology called A. E. Nordenskiold who wrote a paper theorising that some water might be generated through chemical processes deep within the Earth's crust.
This is in sharp contradistinction to conventional hydrological theory which says that rainclouds precipitate as rain which either evaporates, runs off into rivers or seeps down into aquifers to become "ground water", etc.
It was regarded by the scientific establishment as heresey for a long time. A mining engineer called Stephan Riess used Nordenskiold's theory and battled against the establishment to prove his point, and it got quite nasty - see chapters 8 & 9 of Christopher Bird's "The Divining Hand" for a detailed account.

I'm not sure what the current state of play is, in terms of establishment science. My Penguin Dictionary of Physical Geography contains the following definition:

juvenille water - Hot water of Magmatic origin derived from the Earth's interior and not from atmospheric or surface water.

Dowsers in the past have theorised that "geo-spirals" (see Guy Underwood's Pattern of the Past) are caused by primary water rising up through the rock until they meet an impermeable layer where it "domes", making a "blind-spring" and seeps out any which way it can.
Although Underwood talks about blind springs, there is no mention of "primary water" per se in his work. It seems to have been retrospectively applied by subsequent dowsers.
I don't believe there is anything magical about it, personally. Moreover, primary water has the advantage that it is unpolluted. The idea needs to be looked at seriously by geologists, especially now.

Thanks Ian, for this little injection of actual research. Water is an integral part of Earth's make up. The total volume on Earth is more or less fixed and it just keeps recycling itself. Water affects almost all Earth's dynamic processes. There is water inside the Earth's mantle (0.1 to 0.3%), which becomes concentrated in magma melts up to 1 - 2%. Seawater infiltrates deep enough through oceanic crust to contribute to higher levels of the upper mantle, and a lot of water is carried down into the mantle along subduction zones, to be regurgitated through magmatic systems and volcanoes, which sometimes contain up to 6% water. This water is driven off with other volatiles as magma cools and crystallises, as water of crystallisation in some hydrate / hydroxide minerals and phyllosilicates such as muscovite mica, as hydrothermal fluids, and as water vapour from volcanic vents.
DLB

[griff]

Hi Doug.

I like your approach to the dowsing/water divining scene; injecting a realistic tone to some of the more esoteric discussions on the forum is not always instantly popular, ( e.g. see some of my previous posts ) and seems to cause loss of interest in the subject under discussion.
With regard to changing the direction of an underground watercourse to augment or redirect the supply to a spring or shallow well - I was sceptical about the idea of beating a vertical steel bar in the desired direction until I actually secretly tried it on two successful occasions. I never charged for this and would never do so because I still don't quite believe it!

A few simple things about accessing potable groundwater that I have discovered over the years:

1) Underground flows of water often follow the same principles as surface water flows, therefore topography is important.
2) Not a lot of water is in movement at depths of more than 180 feet in the British Isles unless it is being abstracted by deepwell pumping
3) 'Fossil water' is not an infinite resource.
4) Shatter zones associated with geological faults provide paths of preferential groundwater flow into or through areas under survey.
5) Phreatic water in limestone areas can often be highly contaminated from sources many miles away due to the presence of flooded caverns.
6) Most of the accessible groundwater in the uk is fissure-borne and 'water-domes' are rare and often a figment of a diviner's imagination.

Regards, Respect and Welcome back..

Griff
Stay cool

[Doug Bates]

Thank you Griff for your positive welcome and practical observations. It is very good to have other reasonable and realistic voices in this forum. There is an obvious need for realism and pragmatism in the BSD, and having moved outside its orbit for some years, I am now resolved to get involved and make a worthwhile contribution to the society's advancement.

It is true that injections of reality are not always popular, indeed they are sometimes not well received at all, being something akin to a rude awakening from a pleasant dream land, and readers do sometimes take offence. However, I don't care as much for popularity as I do for the advancement of the science and art of dowsing. I try to be diplomatic but not to the extent of being so PC as to say nothing of any substance lest I offend someone. I have had past battles with BSD members taking umbrage at my realism, and worst among those was a confrontation with another prominent professional member of the BSD who I notice is still frequently mentioned in this forum. Undoubtedly this character had been a respected member of the BSD for many years and had at that time the elevated status of 'special advisor' to the BSD on all matters pertaining to water dowsing, which led one to believe he was the BSD's top man in this field. Although it happened many years ago, there are two very important lessons to be learned from this experience that are as relavent to BSD members today as they were back in the 90's, so I want to recount it briefly now.

I had no problem with the gentleman in question at all until I was called to do a groundwater survey for an irrigation well for tenant farmers on part of the Crown Estate in the vale of Pewsey, which perhaps he considered to be his home turf, it being not very far from his home town... At the time I did not know much about him and I had never met him, although I knew he had done a handful of surveys in Scotland where he did not have much of a reputation for success. His name was not mentioned at the time of the client's enquiry nor at any time during my survey work. I made the arrangements to do the survey for an agreed fee plus mileage, which made it worthwhile for me to travel down all the way from Aberdeen (about 500 miles one-way). I applied my usual professional standards to the job, researching the geology of the property and surrounding area, and preparing my map-dowsing plot in advance. My map-dowsing techniques are very particular and detailed, as I apply myself to actually delineating and mapping the primary water-bearing structures and other geostructural features in the area. I plotted two major east-west striking linear features, running right through the chalk bedrock underlying the farm, which I interpreted as geological faults and their adjacent highly fractured hanging-wall zones. These were subsequently confirmed as very strong divining anomalies on site, and three excellent locations were marked for drilling, each capable of yielding substantial flows well in excess of the required volume. I duly submitted my thorough 'Hydrogeological Prognosis and Water Divining Survey Report' with my invoice for the agreed survey fee. I heard nothing until about 6 weeks later I received a disconcerting letter from the client with a cheque for a paltry sum that did not even cover my travel expenses.

The letter explained that they had wanted a second opinion and got 'Mr BSD special-advisor' to have a look at the place. They had showed him my report, and he had proceeded to rubbish my reputation and everything I had written. He undermined my geological analysis, stating that there are no geological faults in the chalk, it's just a porous aquifer; and he told them there was nothing exceptional about my three drilling locations, assuring them that you could drill about anywhere in that area to get the volumes of water I had estimated. He then did his own survey and nominated a so called 'blind spring' for drilling. Obviously the client was very confused and in the circumstances they felt they could not justify paying my survey fee. I wrote back to the client expressing my shock at the alleged behaviour and assured them that my geological assessment was scientifically accurate and my water divining pedigree was at least as good as that of my detractor, having divined successfully for several of the Crown Estates in Scotland and for hundreds of other clients in all sectors from the smallest to the largest; however, the damage was done. I never did get paid and to my knowledge the client never drilled a borehole.

I subsequently called the BSD office to protest and was advised to do so in writing. I wrote to the board. I sent a copy of the client's letter and a copy of my report to illustrate the professional standards to which I work, together with copies of geological maps of several places on the chalk outcrop areas where geological faults are shown to displace the chalk. They already knew enough of my professional reputation as a geologist and dowser to take my complaint seriously. I remonstrated that their special advisor's behaviour had been unprofessional in the extreme and totally against the BSD code of ethics; that his conduct had damaged my professional reputation, had cost me a financial loss, and worse, had brought dowsing and the BSD into ill repute. The board considered the evidence from both sides, agreed with me, and removed him from his special advisory status in the BSD.

For any readers who don't know; the chalk group is the most important aquifer of southern England. It consists of about 300 to 450m of very fine-grained calcareous-ooze deposits of Cretaceous age consisting of the fossil remains of coccolithophores and foraminifera deposited on the sea bed over a period of many millions of years. The Upper and Middle chalk units are the principal aquifers, while the lower chalk is marly and less permeable (also less exposed and therefore less weathered). The hydrogeology of the chalk is that of a fractured microporous aquifer with very high porosity but rather poor intergranular permeability. The porous matrix provides a water reservoir but boreholes drilled through it often produce only small yields as little as 0.5 to 1.5 l/s (400-1200 gall/hr) from boreholes up to 250m deep... It is secondary permeability developed through fractures widely present in the weathered zone, mostly within 60m of the land surface, and along deeper geological fault zones, that accounts for the more important aquifer properties and the numerous middle-to-high-yielding private and public water supply boreholes in the region, some of which yield up to 200 l/s (160,000 gall/hr). Geological faults and fracture zones, therefore, are critical to the occurrence of high yields in the chalk aquifer... Somebody, who, though he may be professional in another chosen field, is not a geologist and is therefore not qualified to pronounce on such matters, was very ill informed and gave bad advice in my professional opinion.

Some years later, a well-meaning friend bought me a copy of this fellow's book... I have it yet, but have so far disdained to read it. Can anyone blame me? I remained a member of the society for several years after that, but this incident was certainly part of the reason I was ambivalent about the merits of having anything to do with the society and eventually (for reasons explained in previous posts) I withdrew from it.

The two most important lessons to be drawn from this tale of woe are these:

(1) BSD members should be careful to observe, know, and adhere to the BSD charter and code of ethics lest you bring dowsing into disrepute (is it still as it used to be, published inside the back cover of every issue of the BSD Journal?) ... This includes being careful to ensure that what you say and write about dowsing and its concepts and principles is carefully considered and reasonably substantiated in the context of presently accepted knowledge of the field you are working in (in this case, geology). BSD members should be aware that amateurish unfounded or incorrect statements, theories or beliefs, and assertions that such things, though they fly in the face of current scientific knowledge, are true and should be believed because they have been dowsed to be so, do in fact bring dowsing into ill repute and do harm to the credibility of all professional dowsers. This is why I, as a professional dowser of great experience, keep my work within my field of expertise and do not meddle in medical dowsing, healing, spirituality, etc, where I lack the appropriate background knowledge.

(2) BSD members should be careful to conduct themselves with decorum in dealing with paying clients, should always respect the work of professional dowsers who have already done work before you, and even where there is disagreement it should not be voiced or written without proper factual substantiation. Unsubstantiated pronouncements and disagreements only damage the reputation of dowsers and our art, and sometimes (as in this case) result in financial losses too. As an addendum to this, another important point. Professional fees are professional fees. Amateurs undervalue dowsing and undermine professionals by charging piffling nominal amounts. This detracts from our work and again it detracts seriously from professional dowsers' earning capacity. Please don't do it.
DLB.

[Grahame]

One of the primary objectives of the BSD has always been to promote the cause of dowsing as a practical skill and art in real-world applications and to support its acceptance by the scientific establishment. I'm sorry to say that this is never going to happen if the kind of nonsense that members of the Society are writing in this forum, and no doubt in the journal and other places, continues to be the colour of what the public and the scientific establishment see as dowsing's flagship organisation

Doug, firstly I wish you a warm welcome to the forum - it's always good to have a refreshing and balanced viewpoint on board, and from a fellow Scot, no less. I look forward to more of your sensible advice. I would also encourage you to renew your Society membership; if you want inject a more rational approach into the proceedings, it's the best way to do it. And we do need more professional water dowsers, particularly in the north.

I just wanted to point out, in case you weren't aware, that this forum is not exclusive to BSD members but is open to all and sundry; so it cannot and should not be considered an accurate representation of current BSD opinion - indeed we often do have to post caveats to that regard on some posts. Any matters directly relating to BSD policy etc. should not be discussed openly on here, but instead should be addressed to the Society or Council via the office.

Secondly, although I am in agreement with your sentiment that the Society should be supporting the acceptance of dowsing by the scientific establishment, this is not actually one of the stated objectives in the M&AA of the Society; the principle aim is "To encourage and support the study and practice of dowsing and its application in every field of human interest".

That's not to say we shouldn't be doing all we can to encourage scientific investigation of the art; but the Society has always been a very broad church and caters for all interests in the field of dowsing, and that includes the more esoteric aspects. This has always been a hotly-debated topic between the tangible and intangible dowsers, but the simple truth of the matter is that if the Society had limited itself to supporting only tangible dowsing, we would have folded ten years or so ago. There is huge interest in the use of dowsing as a tool for investigating consciousness, healing, spiritual expansion, subtle energies and all the other intangible areas of life that science has yet to embrace; and the Earth Energies and Health Special Interest Groups are the two largest in the Society at the moment. Water is the smallest interest area. Like I say, it's a broad church, but no matter what each of us applies it to, the dowsing response is the same in everyone and no member should be penalised or chastised for individual expression of their belief.

Healthy discourse and research is, however, expressly encouraged, and I hope you will continue to participate in that.

[Doug Bates]

One of the primary objectives of the BSD has always been to promote the cause of dowsing as a practical skill and art in real-world applications and to support its acceptance by the scientific establishment. I'm sorry to say that this is never going to happen if the kind of nonsense that members of the Society are writing in this forum, and no doubt in the journal and other places, continues to be the colour of what the public and the scientific establishment see as dowsing's flagship organisation

Doug, firstly I wish you a warm welcome to the forum - it's always good to have a refreshing and balanced viewpoint on board, and from a fellow Scot, no less. I look forward to more of your sensible advice. I would also encourage you to renew your Society membership; if you want inject a more rational approach into the proceedings, it's the best way to do it. And we do need more professional water dowsers, particularly in the north.

I just wanted to point out, in case you weren't aware, that this forum is not exclusive to BSD members but is open to all and sundry; so it cannot and should not be considered an accurate representation of current BSD opinion - indeed we often do have to post caveats to that regard on some posts. Any matters directly relating to BSD policy etc. should not be discussed openly on here, but instead should be addressed to the Society or Council via the office.

Secondly, although I am in agreement with your sentiment that the Society should be supporting the acceptance of dowsing by the scientific establishment, this is not actually one of the stated objectives in the M&AA of the Society; the principle aim is "To encourage and support the study and practice of dowsing and its application in every field of human interest".

That's not to say we shouldn't be doing all we can to encourage scientific investigation of the art; but the Society has always been a very broad church and caters for all interests in the field of dowsing, and that includes the more esoteric aspects. This has always been a hotly-debated topic between the tangible and intangible dowsers, but the simple truth of the matter is that if the Society had limited itself to supporting only tangible dowsing, we would have folded ten years or so ago. There is huge interest in the use of dowsing as a tool for investigating consciousness, healing, spiritual expansion, subtle energies and all the other intangible areas of life that science has yet to embrace; and the Earth Energies and Health Special Interest Groups are the two largest in the Society at the moment. Water is the smallest interest area. Like I say, it's a broad church, but no matter what each of us applies it to, the dowsing response is the same in everyone and no member should be penalised or chastised for individual expression of their belief.

Healthy discourse and research is, however, expressly encouraged, and I hope you will continue to participate in that.

Thank you for this advice Grahame. I stand corrected although I do believe it was an express aim set forth within the BSD policies at some point in the 90's, perhaps in association with the foundation of the Dowsing Research Group. Guy Hudson may shed some light on this?

The BSD members Code of Ethics that was always published in every issue of the Journal was:
(1) In relations with clients, patients and others they shall act in good faith in accordance with the highest standards of personal and professional integrity, upholding the good name of the society and its members.
(2) Being mindful of their responsibilities to others they shall avoid and discourage sensationalism, exaggeration and misleading statements.
(3) They shall not use their membership of the Society as evidence of their qualifications or ability as dowsers, and shall only use the name of the Society in any printed material in accordance with the Articles of Association.

I completely accept that the Society is a broad church and that the majority of members are involved mainly in esoteric exploration of the more intangible aspects of human potential and spirituality. Fair comment about the fiscal integrity of the Society too.
Therefore in due consideration of the majority, I shall henceforward try to temper my constructive criticisms with a more esoteric filter.

I venture to suggest, however, that the water interest group within the BSD is rather small because it is a specialised field in which a relatively small number of dowsers work, for few have the gumption to lay themselves open to the harsh light of necessary proof every time they dowse, and some of the professionals who do, like myself, have perhaps tended to disassociate themselves from the esoteric majority of the Society for the very reasons I have explained in my preceding posts.

In respect of advancing the cause of dowsing as a serious geophysical exploration technique in the water and minerals sector, and working on the common ground between Dowsing biophysics and scientific geophysics in this demanding arena, it may ultimately be preferable to form a new International Society of Professional Water and Mineral Dowsers as a vehicle to focus the energies and efforts of a professionally qualified and disciplined minority towards greater pioneering achievement and scientific advancement.
No doubt others have suggested this before, but of course we all have busy lives and it takes a considerable effort and time commitment to begin and sustain a professional society. Since I am suggesting it again now, I will consider re-joining the society and putting a proposal together for such an organisation to develop within the BSD.

Let me close by assuring you and our readers that I do not wish to penalise anybody, but chastise I will, when I witness members making unfounded false assumptions or statements and embarking on flights of imagination that are clearly unresearched, unsubstantiated, or just plain gobbledegook, in arenas where we do already have sound tangible scientific knowledge to build upon, such as here in the water dowsing forum. I feel you and the membership as a whole must concede that to provide constructive criticism in these circumstances is definitely in the interests of the Society in accordance with its Code of Ethics. By the same token, contributions of a high standard of research, investigation, and debate on this subject should be encouraged by all means.

DLB

Note by I.P. 18.10.11 - deleted double-post