Treasure hunting

[Oroblanco]

af1733 wrote:I actually wanted to mention something here. Did you see the YouTube dowsing demonstration the Jean provided a link to? The one showing the dowsers palming the coins while pretending to dig them up?

How many people do you think saw this demonstration before the "dowsers" were busted by the TV station? It would be a pretty convincing trick if you didn't know their secret, don't you think?

Moral: Don't believe everything you see.

Actually AF I have not watched the youtube video, will take your word for it. Should we be surprised that there are charlatans? Should we conclude that if we can find one charlatan, then all are charlatans? Do you think it would be possible to "palm" a gusher of water coming from a well-drill hole? Sometimes, my friend AF, seeing IS believing. Nothing less is ever going to convince a skeptic.

Oroblanco

Answer the fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. ~ancient Hebrew proverb

 

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[Siegfried Schlagrule]

I seem to recall that when I stated that the Amazing Randi was caught on video tape palming an envelope in several of his "tests" that no one believed me. The fact that a professional magician could and did cheat in his test is a whole bunch more believeable than that every dowser cheats. Personally I am way too clumsy to attempt to palm anything. I have not watched youtube anything and have no reason to doubt that what you said happened did in fact happen. What I doubt is that it stands as proof that dowsing is a fraud. The greatest proof of success in dowsing is results. I don't intend to rebury what I find until sceptics can explain what I do. I doubt that oil drillers who dowsed their wells will put it back in the ground either. Sceptics who claim that dowsing does not work have a hell of a problem explaining the times that it does work. That random guessing bit gets pretty old when you start multiplying numbers and calculating the odds. All of the proposed tests of dowsing never seem to include a sceptic competing side by side with a dowser and beating him by guessing. exanimo, siegfried schlagrule

 

[Oroblanco]

Siegfried wrote: All of the proposed tests of dowsing never seem to include a sceptic competing side by side with a dowser and beating him by guessing

Now there is a CAPITAL idea my friend! I wonder why no one has offered to try this?

Oroblanco

 

[aarthrj3811]

guess
–verb
1. to arrive at or commit oneself to an opinion about (something) without having sufficient evidence to support the opinion fully: to guess a person's weight.

2. to think, believe, or suppose: I guess I can get there in time
-----------------

–noun 6. an opinion that one reaches or to which one commits oneself on the basis of probability alone or in the absence of any evidence whatever.
-------------------

—Synonyms 1. hazard. 1, 2, 4. Guess, guess at, conjecture, surmise imply attempting to form an opinion as to the probable. To guess is to risk an opinion regarding something one does not know about. Guess at implies more haphazard or random guessing. To conjecture is to make inferences in the absence of sufficient evidence to establish certainty. Surmise implies making an intuitive conjecture that may or may not be correct. 3. fancy, imagine. 6. supposition.


Need I say more...Art

 

[aarthrj3811]

Not at all xupz....Your an expert at GUESSING...I am just a guy that happens to be a Dowser....Guessing and Dowsing are not compatable if you want to locate treasure...Art

 

[aarthrj3811]

Huh....??Art

 

[Oroblanco]

Art, I don't know why you bother, some folks (including some who will remain un-named, but you already know who they are) just don't care to have friends. They would rather fling insults and try to appear to be "superior" in intellect than have friends. It is their loss.

Oroblanco

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

Siegfried wrote: All of the proposed tests of dowsing never seem to include a sceptic competing side by side with a dowser and beating him by guessing

Now there is a CAPITAL idea my friend! I wonder why no one has offered to try this?

Oroblanco

Oh, It's been offered to be tried on every level by every type of dowser there is. That includes the water dowsers who have offered to compete against professional hydrologists; the oil dowsers who offer to compete against trained geologists; the mining dowsers that offer to compete against mining engineers; the medical dowsers who cannot legally compete with medical "professionals" here but routinely legally beat their butts off in England and are licensed by the National Health Service there. The intelligentsia refuse the tests. Why? They already know the answer. The answer being that they will not be able to sustain their belief systems when you remove their copouts. Read the post below yours for a poster boy example of the typical sceptic shuck & jive. Points to ponder.
1. Sceptics demand proof and refuse to provide even a reasonable demonstration of their beliefs.
2. They state that a person can guess the location of treasure as well as a dowser. Fine - don't tell me show me.
3. They say that you can dig a hole any damn place and find water. I think friend Oroblanco has a site where they are very welcome to demonstrate that little gem of wisdom.
4.They say that anyone can find gold in a gold bearing region and forget that thousands of forty-niners starved to death in the richest mineral zone in the world digging deep holes every day.
5. They say any success in dowsing is a coincidence or non-scientific. Who cares? Success is success. If someone on tnet thinks that every time they wear their grubbiest sweatshirt they will have a good day of hunting who is harmed? If someone else grabs a stick and uses it to chose where to look for loot who is harmed? Maybe the one who is harmed is the one who is so darn conceited and worried about their "image" that they are afraid to try new things.
6. Finally if they have tried and failed who cares? It's not the end of the world if someone can do something that you can't and other people can do things better than you can. When you were in grade school were you able to pick up a football and throw a touchdown the first time you tried? Most people couldn't including most or all of the football hall of famers. This attitude that if you tried it once and it didn't work speaks volumes about you. It doesn't say anything about dowsing. exanimo, siegfried schlagrule

 

[aarthrj3811]

Very good post SS....I don't remember if I every thanked you for your map dowsing lessons here on t-net...I am using some of what you taught me....Oroblanco...Sometimes I wonder why I bother to answer some of the people here. I have met some good people thought this forum...All three of this summers projects are for people who read my posts and had questions to ask me. PM's and personal e-mails keep me going....I think all three of these projects may have some good results. I can't know for sure but you can bet that I will have a lot of fun with my friends....Art

 

[Oroblanco]

SS - great post! Indeed - what harm can there be in using such in-expensive tools, and HAVING FUN? If we are "deluding ourselves" by dowsing, is that any more of a self-delusion than for someone to think they are intellectually superior to people they don't even know? We have seen posts from skeptics that show this form of delusion all too frequently.

Art - you have exhibited great patience and a good sense of humor, this fellow I was responding to is one I had on "ignore" for a while (the only one on my 'ignore' list) but since removed the ignore, figured maybe he had a bad day or just wants to think he is mentally superior to dowsers - it is no skin off my butt if he wants to live in that sort of illusion. I know we all have our disagreements but would sooner lose money than lose friends (maybe a key reason why I am not wealthy! ) I was just curious as to your reasons. There is nothing wrong with keeping the "hand of friendship" extended even if not welcomed the first few tries. Like a wise grandmother once said, if someone took the time to write to you, it is common courtesy to read it.

If someone is having success in finding treasures by dowsing, why on earth should that person NOT do it? So what if science cannot explain, disprove NOR prove it - if it works, do it! I agree with Siegfried, entirely.

Oroblanco

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

Very good post SS....I don't remember if I every thanked you for your map dowsing lessons here on t-net...I am using some of what you taught me....Oroblanco...Sometimes I wonder why I bother to answer some of the people here. I have met some good people thought this forum...All three of this summers projects are for people who read my posts and had questions to ask me. PM's and personal e-mails keep me going....I think all three of these projects may have some good results. I can't know for sure but you can bet that I will have a lot of fun with my friends....Art

Hello Art, Glad you got some good out of it. You've done some good work on the uniteddowser site and other places. I at least monitor every dowsing site I've ever heard of.
One thing that amuses me is that I've been dowsing for over 30 years and others have been dowsing for over 50 years. I don't know any long term dowser who considers himself as an expert. I find people who think they are experts here. That's from waking up some morning with an epiphany I guess. It sure isn't from ever going out and seeing what works and what doesn't. exanimo, siegfried schlagrule

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

1. Sceptics demand proof and refuse to provide even a reasonable demonstration of their beliefs.

How do you propose we demonstate our beliefs as skeptics? We make no claims to demonstrate anything. Is there a dowser on this entire forum who wouldn't classify me as a skeptic? Would the real skeptic please stand up?

2. They state that a person can guess the location of treasure as well as a dowser. Fine - don't tell me show me.

Why don't you take a look at the numerous videos of dowsers failing to perform better than random. I'll make a claim though, as a skeptic, I can perform any treasure finding and dowsing as well as random probability, without any effort or rods to boot. I will prove this claim to any dowser on the forum.

3. They say that you can dig a hole any damn place and find water. I think friend Oroblanco has a site where they are very welcome to demonstrate that little gem of wisdom.

No that's not what we said, you chose to bend it so it works for your argument. Since 90% of the world has water beneath it AT SOME DEPTH, dowsing for water on average will have a success rate of 90% at random so long as depth is not a factor. In fact, select 10 spots at random on the entire land mass of earth and on average I will have correctly dowsed water 90% of the time. Thanks for playing.

4.They say that anyone can find gold in a gold bearing region and forget that thousands of forty-niners starved to death in the richest mineral zone in the world digging deep holes every day.

People can find gold in a region that has gold in it? That's amazing, it's almost like finding water when you fall off a boat. It's too bad the logic in the argument fails because you conveniently went from A->C, skipping B where the vast majority of easily recovered gold was mined out. So your little argument should have read:

"They say that anyone can find gold in a gold bearing region, but due to the gold rush where most of the easily recoverable gold had been cleaned out, it lead to thousands of forty-niners starved to death in the richest mineral zone in the world digging deep holes every day."

Now that makes sense.

5. They say any success in dowsing is a coincidence or non-scientific. Who cares? Success is success. If someone on tnet thinks that every time they wear their grubbiest sweatshirt they will have a good day of hunting who is harmed? If someone else grabs a stick and uses it to chose where to look for loot who is harmed? Maybe the one who is harmed is the one who is so darn conceited and worried about their "image" that they are afraid to try new things.

What success? Why is it dowsers haven't posted massive findings? Oddly enough there's no "Today's Finds" for dowsers with tons of threads started everyday. Harmful? I think spreading delusion is quite harmful.

6. Finally if they have tried and failed who cares? It's not the end of the world if someone can do something that you can't and other people can do things better than you can. When you were in grade school were you able to pick up a football and throw a touchdown the first time you tried? Most people couldn't including most or all of the football hall of famers. This attitude that if you tried it once and it didn't work speaks volumes about you. It doesn't say anything about dowsing. exanimo, siegfried schlagrule

How about this for a challenge. I'll compete against any dowser on the forums under Art's 10 cup binomial setup. If the object we're looking for is metallic, then with my metal detector I will claim 100% success in finding that object in 1000 trials. Now if the object isn't metallic, I'll claim that I can perform within the expectation of random results without breaking a sweat. The dowser will compete with his dowsing rods vs my metal detector. They should have no problems competing against me with their skill as many claim 100% success anyway. Let's see how many dowsers "can do things better than" me and my metal detector or me and my random number generators.

First off hello. I'm not ignoring you. I will however wait awhile to respond because other folks may wish to add something to the discussion on one side or the other. Would you be kind enough to provide a phonetic pronunciation of your screen name? thanks, siegfried schlagrule

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

How about this for a challenge. I'll compete against any dowser on the forums under Art's 10 cup binomial setup. If the object we're looking for is metallic, then with my metal detector I will claim 100% success in finding that object in 1000 trials. Now if the object isn't metallic, I'll claim that I can perform within the expectation of random results without breaking a sweat. The dowser will compete with his dowsing rods vs my metal detector. They should have no problems competing against me with their skill as many claim 100% success anyway. Let's see how many dowsers "can do things better than" me and my metal detector or me and my random number generators.

Good intensions, xupz...but, the reality of it is that no dowser would ever compete against something that is easy to prove works, such as a metal detector. You'll see for yourself, if any of the dowsers reply to your post, that they (dowser types) will twist and spin your challenge, make absurd claims to be able to locate items 30' to 40' underground and other outlandish claims they can do, whereas a metal detector cannot do.

Thought you had me on ignore SWR. The statement made was that dowsing is no better than guessing. No one said that a dowsing rod was the equal in speed and ease of operation of a metal detector. I will state that many dowsers check the sites of competition treasure hunts after the fact and find planted coins and prize tokens that were missed by the contestants. Actually that could very well be the fairest side by side test for metal detectors versus dowsers. See which one could find the most targets in the same amount of time. The exact statement you are responding to was that guessing would be the equal or better than dowsing. Not quite the same thing now is it? exanimo, siegfried schlagrule

 

[aarthrj3811]

Hey SS...I never quit trying to learn...I like to do a lot of experimenting...Right now I am working on Max's theories and from the last 2 solar storms I have noticed a change in my rod reactions. I have a target that I map dowsed and my research tells me what is buried there and I am not digging it until I do some more experiments. I can't prove exactly what is down there but that is part of the fun...Your right about there not being any expert dowsers...Just people who can dowse..When you gentlemen give me some information I listen and take what I can use and file the rest in my mind......Art

 

[aarthrj3811]

How about this for a challenge. I'll compete against any dowser on the forums under Art's 10 cup binomial setup. If the object we're looking for is metallic, then with my metal detector I will claim 100% success in finding that object in 1000 trials. Now if the object isn't metallic, I'll claim that I can perform within the expectation of random results without breaking a sweat. The dowser will compete with his dowsing rods vs my metal detector. They should have no problems competing against me with their skill as many claim 100% success anyway. Let's see how many dowsers "can do things better than" me and my metal detector or me and my random number generators.

Has any of the Dowsers on this forum ever said that Metal Detectors do not work? How many Dowsers have said that they use Metal Detectors? Why did you buy a Metal Detector? After all ..You just need your Random number generators to locate massive amouts of Treasure. Heck...even a blind person has the same odds of locating a treasure as anybody else....Art

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

Hey SS...I never quit trying to learn...I like to do a lot of experimenting...Right now I am working on Max's theories and from the last 2 solar storms I have noticed a change in my rod reactions. I have a target that I map dowsed and my research tells me what is buried there and I am not digging it until I do some more experiments. I can't prove exactly what is down there but that is part of the fun...Your right about there not being any expert dowsers...Just people who can dowse..When you gentlemen give me some information I listen and take what I can use and file the rest in my mind......Art

best to take notes and review them occasionally. Amazing how many times something you heard a long time ago suddenly makes sense later on. Also hard to always remember everything you've heard over the years. siegfried schlagrule

 

[OldBillinUT]

I was very sceptical about the paranormal until I learned of law enforcement using psychics to resolve crimes. How they are able to sense the location of a body of a complete stranger in a distant location from their home with out any foreknowledge just amazes me and is undeniable.

What does this have to do with dowsing you ask ? Simply that as TT said there are obviously some people that are sensing something that others are not. Mainstream science doesn't have a grip on it and I don't understand all of what goes on in the world around me nor do I pretend to I just want to learn all I can.

I have no need or desire to belittle anyone or battle endlessly over the validity of a technique or ability someone may posess. What impresses me about this forum is how the applied addage "two heads are better than one" works so well here. That is our strong point and you can see it in action. As far as I am concerned anything legal and ethical that can be employed to fill my safe with valuables is fair game any time.

OB

 

[OldBillinUT]

SWR I am not certain of what qualifies as a "credible source" that definition can be subjective can it not ?

In reviewing the results of a simple search engine effort I can locate as many statements to support as not. I suppose that docket records would prove valuable but I will have to leave that to someone else. My personal interest in the subject just doesn't support the time required.

OB

 

[Oroblanco]

Art wrote:

Has any of the Dowsers on this forum ever said that Metal Detectors do not work? How many Dowsers have said that they use Metal Detectors? Why did you buy a Metal Detector? After all ..You just need your Random number generators to locate massive amouts of Treasure. Heck...even a blind person has the same odds of locating a treasure as anybody else....Art

I for one use EVERY tool available to assist in locating gold and/or treasure, though I have never tried dowsing to locate treasure I will sure experiment. Why would anyone rule out ANY tool that might be of some assistance, in finding treasure? To give one's self an extra handicap? As if finding it is not difficult enough!

I posted links to documented cases where police used psychics to help locate victims and suspects, successfully, in another thread. There is even a television series on this subject.

Oroblanco

 

[Oroblanco]

SWR check out: http://www.courttv.com/onair/shows/psychic_detectives/

Here is an extract:

Mondays at 10:30pm E/P
Thursdays at 11pm

When investigators have exhausted every lead and turned over every stone. When detectives are out of time and out of luck. Where do they turn? Law enforcement has developed an arsenal of tools to help stalled investigations. But how often do they actually enlist the help of a psychic? Psychic Detectives tells the true stories of real cases where psychics help detectives solve some of law enforcement’s most baffling cases. It’s the show that’s turning skeptics into believers.

Actually, not to sound skeptical but I fail to see a direct connection between dowsing and psychics searching for dead bodies. Perhaps there are some similarities between map-dowsing and searching for a missing person, but field searching for water doesn't appear to be too similar, at least not to me.

Oroblanco