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Robbie wrote:The latest thing is sniffer bees, which are better than dogs in many respects. They're quick to train, cheap to keep, have a sense of smell at least equal to dogs', and don't get bored with the job.

You really have to read Jon Ronson's Psychopath Test, when it comes out.

Mr_Grue wrote:

Robbie wrote:The latest thing is sniffer bees, which are better than dogs in many respects. They're quick to train, cheap to keep, have a sense of smell at least equal to dogs', and don't get bored with the job.

You really have to read Jon Ronson's Psychopath Test, when it comes out.

Is that like a book test but you end up with a dead goat and everyone mistakes you for Ewan McGregor?

TonyB wrote:I am perhaps even more sceptical than Randi, yet the strange fact remains that I can dowse for water.
There are a lot of strange things in the world, including the ability of birds to navigate by the earths magnetic field. We are slowly beginning to understand many of these things.

Obviously humans can be aware of things subconsciously, either through a reading of the countours of the landscape, or through smelling particles in the air, or whatever. And the ideomoter response in the twitching dowsing rod amplifies and reveals that information.

What you are saying here is one of the reasons I boldly refer to myself as being a "Psychic". I'm a firm believer that what has yet to be revealed and understood at the analytical level will be. Then again, I'm seeing far too much coming on the market that mimics psi abilities by way of amplified or tapped into mental power. If there was nothing there to begin with there would be nothing there for science to exploit and put to work in said manner... makes you go "hmmmm"

But its a big jump from this to selling bogus "detectors" to superstitious nations. [/b]

We must bear in mind that most of the world does not buy into the Westernized point of view when it comes to dowsing and other such abilities and it's just as wrong for us to insist "they" buy into and believe things "our way". In their mind it is we that are wrong.

If they were selling this as a toy or a parlour game, like ouija boards, I would have no problem with it. But selling it as a serious product to be used in potentially life-threatening situations is just criminal.

Remember, the only reason OUIJA was labeled as a "game" was to side-step the aggression of religious zealots that were anti-spiritualism. Even at that the game and its publishers have known massive amounts of cyclic periods in which hate mail, threats and of course preaching directed at how evil things are... well, the rationalistic point is again a matter of personal choice and not where the average human being places their belief when it comes to such things. I'll also promise that anyone that works the OUIJA with an open and focused mind will, over time, have encounters not so readily explained away. There are many from the magic world bearing just such a testimony though they were once ardent skeptics.

Craig Browning wrote:

But its a big jump from this to selling bogus "detectors" to superstitious nations. [/b]

We must bear in mind that most of the world does not buy into the Westernized point of view when it comes to dowsing and other such abilities and it's just as wrong for us to insist "they" buy into and believe things "our way". In their mind it is we that are wrong.

I suspect, though, that in his instance final validity will be borne out by a death rate.

Whether the suckers buying these devices have a "westernised" or a "non-westernised" view of the world, they are still buying a bogus product that will not do what its manufacturers claim it will do.
If they were searching for truffles in the oak forests of France or Italy I would not mind, but searching for mines in a war zone with a bent coat hanger is wrong. And the guys selling the coat hangers are scum.
Dowsing is still used regularly in Ireland to locate water, but the good dowsers realise the limits of their skill.

With relation to dowsing though I am still confused as to how somebody can genuinely label themselves as psychic Craig.

This is not an attack, more a genuine question.

If every single fair double blind trial has shown that dowsing doesn't work...why do you still believe in it? Reason being, if dowsing does genuinely work 100%...even if only for people who have the "gift"...why does it not work when given 9 pots of sand and one pot of water?

If people want to be visiting psychics and using homeopathic medicine, it's all fine by me. But what's really concerning is that they're using very questionable methods to detect explosives. Which kill.

It'd be safer to send people in there with nothing at all. At least they don't have a false sense of security with empty hands

I spent a good part of my childhood playing with dowsing rods and pendulums (or should that be pendula? Or pendulae??).

They were great fun.

But if they were 100% irrefutibly reliable in anyone's hands, there would be no debate over them.

And as you can't just hand them to a random passer-by and get flawless divination, it follows that they shouldn't be handed out as reliable technology to police and security officers in the assumption that they'll prevent them from being blown to pieces.

It's like teaching drought victims to raindance, rather than shipping out water and improving irrigation.

Pete

Blapsing_Beard wrote:With relation to dowsing though I am still confused as to how somebody can genuinely label themselves as psychic Craig.

This is not an attack, more a genuine question.

If every single fair double blind trial has shown that dowsing doesn't work...why do you still believe in it? Reason being, if dowsing does genuinely work 100%...even if only for people who have the "gift"...why does it not work when given 9 pots of sand and one pot of water?

The so-called "testing" has always been done under sterile settings and to my knowledge, never with flowing water under a natural setting. If we go with the primary theory as to what dowser's claim to detect (when it comes to water) is that the energy of the flowing water "pulls" them... I'm not a professional dowser so I can't go into greater detail outside of that. On the other hand I have used dowsing rods of various sort and located lost items and I'm talking about a straight-up, no one knows where it's at, sort of thing not Muscle Reading or anything remotely related. Too, Channing Pollock located Oil Drill sites for the Ghetty (Gulf Oil) company using nothing but some topographic maps and a pendulum and those wells are still pumping... so I'd have to say, at least based on what I've seen and experienced with dowsing work that there is still more to it than meets the eye... or as it were, the rationalists mind.

I do agree with the concern of selling some kind of Sci-Fi movie gadget (which is what these things look like)as a Mine Detector. On the other hand dowsing and pluming (pendulum) were used during both, WWII and the Korean conflict and to a high degree during Vietnam... and with high success I might add. The catch, which is what I have to assume to be what ticks off the detractors, is that not everyone can do it and then too, some are better at it than others.

As to my using the title of being "Psychic" the explanation is quite simple; I believe that most of the rationale around explaining away Psychic Ability is flawed in that it seems to negate the traditional course of training and Psi Development while exposing that very same set of facts as their answer. True Psi Development exercises are almost exactly like those found in the Old School mode of learning Mentalism;

a.) Environmental Awareness
b.) Observation and Recollection of Details
e.) Sensitivity to the Subtle; temperature, muscle twitches & ticks, complexion, involuntary movement, etc.
f.) Focus & Discipline; the ability to clearly concentrate and hold to a given agenda
g.) Conditioning the Mind to Operate at a Higher Function; basic mathematical computation within the mind, knowledge of classic literature, music (the arts as a whole)
h.) Effective Communications/Word Skills

Oh!... don’t take my word for it, you will find this information and more in a book entitled “Secrets of the Mystic Masters” by Joseph B. Weed. It is probably one of the more explicit and “honest” tomes covering this topic that I’m aware of… but I detest the boogiemen and rose tinted glass approach to it all, I keep things down to earth and strive to wake up those that I work with in this area, to look beyond the delusion. Then again a good 90% of my personal philosophy is pure Hermetics with a hint of the Kabala tossed in for kicks & giggles.

As I’ve pointed out in the past, even the great Edgar Cayce pointed out that being Psychic only meant that one had an expanded sense of awareness; a conscious aptitude for knowing the simplest of influences within their environment or around the item upon which they focused. Other than when he slept and did his thing Cayce wasn’t a huge believer in psychic ability and sought to gain a better understanding of what it was he did, it baffled him on many levels, the truth being known. But then I think he’d be rather disturbed by the attempts of his family member s to live off his fame rather than furthering his research.

Misapplication of terms and buying into the Hollywood/Religious-based perspectives around the Psychic issue is where another huge problem exists, even with the bulk of “believers”. The whole fantasy about “powers” is false; it is not a power but rather a skill; an ability one learns to work with and as such, cultivate. It’s not some sort of mystical force. The non-initiate however, believes otherwise because those of the higher learning encourage an exoteric or surface story line rather than the esoteric (hidden) truths. You’ll find this practice in numerous fields; if you don’t need to know and have not earned the right to know, you won’t. You will only have your theories and of course, the fantasy around it all. The Magick of our ancestors really is the science of our present, and what science has yet to explain, it will in time. Science is Magick and vice-versa; just different terms as well as perspective.

We’ve not nearly enough room for me to clarify and walk folks (one more time) along this path that allows me and others to justly and honestly call ourselves “Psychic” but you do need to consider the scores of “Mentalists” that do take on that mantle, who aren’t afraid of it and choose to accept it because that is exactly what they are. But then the name of that original fraternity for Mentalists wasn’t called the Mental Magic Entertainer’s Association, was it? It’s the P.E.A. – Psychic Entertainer’s Association… and as Richard Webster and more than a few dozen other writers have pointed out, if you aren’t selling yourself as a Psychic and just a magician that acts like one, you will not gain the overall advantages known by those that do. It’s that simple!

Seeing any and all persons claiming the Psychic level does not instantly make them evil, manipulative, immoral, unethical, etc. To typecast such persons in that light is akin to saying that all black people eat only Chicken and Water Mellon, all French folk stink the high heavens and everyone from Ireland is a drunkard and hellion. It’s simply not true, just a bunch of folk judging books by their covers…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/mers ... 357813.stm

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Police worker wins psychic ruling

A police employee sacked for claiming psychics should be used to crack crimes has won a landmark ruling that his views should be seen as a faith...

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Let's just pray that no more crimes are committed or bombs planted. Then we'll all be OK.

It seems to me that if dowsing can't be studied objectively, it's a subjective experience e.g: it's not happening on its own; the subject is doing it themselves, either by deliberately fooling themselves or via the ideometer response.

Tomo wrote:It seems to me that if dowsing can't be studied objectively, it's a subjective experience e.g: it's not happening on its own; the subject is doing it themselves, either by deliberately fooling themselves or via the ideometer response.

agreed 100% - sorry craig, but you're wrong!

One massive flaw in your argument being how you can't find water if it isn't flowing...(sounds like a cop out to me)...but you can find lost objects? Are you saying that a list necklace has flowing water inside it? Or perhaps a lost teddy bear is dying for the loo?

The physics of moving the rods doesn't add up, either. The force required is FAR greater than could ever be exerted by a small object or an underground stream by several hundred orders of magnitude. It's the person holding the rods making them move, either consciously or subconsciously.

I would like to see anyone believing in this to walk across a minefield with dowsing rods to prove their confidence in a practice which if it turns out to be true would open up a whole new field of physics I would think

Ted wrote:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8357813.stm

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Police worker wins psychic ruling

A police employee sacked for claiming psychics should be used to crack crimes has won a landmark ruling that his views should be seen as a faith...

---

Let's just pray that no more crimes are committed or bombs planted. Then we'll all be OK.

Wonderful concept.

I can see it working well in practice.

Fill a theatre with suspects, warm them up with some heartwarming messages from deceased relatives, then bring on the headline act...

I'm getting a young blonde lady. possibly in her late teens or twenties... A white van, plastic bag and gaffer tape are also significant...

Five hands immediately shoot up amid cries of Ooh! Me! Me! Pick Meee!!

It just might work!!!