Ley Lines; All over the World or just in Europe?

[Lily]

brave masochist.

good one...

[helenoftheways]

Nico, the people who accept "that the entire planets biosphere walked off a boat in pairs after a hell of a flash flood" do not know it. They have been told (may I say brainwashed??) that it was so. The only way they can know it, is for them to have been there & experienced it. You completely avoided this word when you quoted me. The only way to know something is to experience it personally.

For instance, someone may have told me that Nico doesn't like to eat shrimps. But I don't know this - it's hearsay. The only time I will know it is when I sit with you & a plate of shrimps is put in front of you, you turn green & push the plate away...and even may throw up! Then I will know beyond a shadow of doubt that you don't like shrimps!

[I've just had a phone call & completely lost my train of thought here!! ]

Oh yes....I remember now....

'I'm a sceptic' video

...hope it enlightens you!

[Explorer]

Nico, the people who accept "that the entire planets biosphere walked off a boat in pairs after a hell of a flash flood" do not know it. They have been told (may I say brainwashed??) that it was so. The only way they can know it, is for them to have been there & experienced it. You completely avoided this word when you quoted me. The only way to know something is to experience it personally.

If you experience something personally, then all you know is that you experienced something, it doesn't say anything about the underlying phenomena.
Merlyn tried to test that, that is part of the scientific proces that was explained in your movie. And he concluded that he experienced the rods moving when he held them, but that they did not move when he didn't hold them. Thus the theory is that it must be the human factor that causes the rods to move.

Ignoring that with the response that you 'experience', and thus Know and Accept is not a reasonable argument, but faith, it has nothing to do with physical reality. Which doesn't make it meaningless or worthless, just not physically real. And it only becomes silly when you start claiming that.

Christians experience their god also, that is the whole idea that totally convinces them. They are not all simply very stupid you know, they experience and Know. They just don't understand how their minds can trick them, just like you when you brainwash yourself into Knowing that you can 'sense' leylines.

By the way. I'm a druid, I use magic, and I experience lots of impossible stuff also. I brainwashed myself just as much as anybody else. The difference is that I realise it and therefore can brainwash myself into other beliefs if I want to. But I will never make impossible claims about physical reality.

[Heddwen]

I've always assumed that it was me and not the rods that did the dowsing. The rods indicate the ley by magnifying the bodys response, it is merely an indicator. It is said that dowsing works best for those who are open to their unconscious levels. Now, the skeptic in me would seriously doubt this attribute. Why should it work for one individual and not the other? Although this seems to be the case, it works that way. Why or how is another issue entirely. All I can say is see my post above it does seem to work.

I'm really interested in Merlyns experiment. If I understand correctly, the L rod handles were placed in tubes and there was no movement. Well there wouldn't be as outlined above. Perhaps a retrial with direct contact of the handles to establish if a ley exists at the point. Then the level, do you mean a spirit level balanced across the hands or do you mean a plumb line from the hands hanging down. I take a hardened muggle along with me just to check for indescrepencies, subconscious or not.

Perhaps we could all try this as a fun experiment?

[Explorer]

I've always assumed that it was me and not the rods that did the dowsing. The rods indicate the ley by magnifying the bodys response, it is merely an indicator. It is said that dowsing works best for those who are open to their unconscious levels. Now, the skeptic in me would seriously doubt this attribute. Why should it work for one individual and not the other? Although this seems to be the case, it works that way. Why or how is another issue entirely. All I can say is see my post above it does seem to work.

I'm really interested in Merlyns experiment. If I understand correctly, the L rod handles were placed in tubes and there was no movement. Well there wouldn't be as outlined above. Perhaps a retrial with direct contact of the handles to establish if a ley exists at the point. Then the level, do you mean a spirit level balanced across the hands or do you mean a plumb line from the hands hanging down. I take a hardened muggle along with me just to check for indescrepencies, subconscious or not.

Perhaps we could all try this as a fun experiment?

If you really want to test this objectively, then you have to do a blind experiment:
- Identify your ley line, power cable, water source or whatever you think you can detect. Detect it and mark its position.
- Identify another similar source, mark its position but keep that hidden. Make sure that nothing will give away its location to the test subjects, it should look like any other spot.
- Identify a third spot, where you detect nothing.

- Get a number of people and let them dowse the visible source first. This gives you people who are 'sensitive' to it.
- Now divide the senstive people in two groups. Send one group over the area with the hidden source that you identifed and see if they find it. Send another group into the area that you identifed as containing nothing. (and ofcourse don't tell them which is which!).

- Compare the results to see if there are significant differences between the two groups.

[Heddwen]

Noted and thanks, Nico. I would like to try it I hope some others do too. Meet you back here with the results

[MiriamSPia]

I'm rather pleased by the diversity of comments. Dear Sceptical Druid "Know and accept" actually means, I have reason to believe that I actually know the truth of the matter and I accept that I do. I can't prove it to you, so I have no reason to expect you to agree or to even believe me. *At least, that's what I think it means. **I agree that there is a problem in that people can be wrong; I come across myself suspecting and doubting others and myself repeatedly because I think they might be wrong, or I might be wrong - just as science is, self knowledge and knowledge of life and the world is 'self correcting' - we update our knowledge with improved information.

Ley Lines: I don't know that much about it; I've seen a documentary or two and chatted about it a few times. There are a number of reasons why there would be 'lines' of energy that would be noticeable to us. These range from geological activity as with geological fault lines, to waterways - including 'ex riverbeds', pathways that animals use now or have used for long periods of time, places where the type of earth changes for reasons geologists can decipher but it isn't obvious to untrained observers in expected ways, or magnetic resonance with other aspects of the planet's force field. My best guess is that they are caused by reasons such as those suggested above. I can't do more than guess in this case.

[echoe]

okay, well, if we were to accept the idea that ley lines exist, and if we were to accept the theory put forth by one "founding father" of the concept of ley lines, ( http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/leylines.htm ) then they exist all over the world.

If we are to accept the concept that ley lines are an existence of spiritual grounds that hold meaning and give a sense of feeling of reverence, whether to nature, or to self or to a deity, then we'd have to examine the pyraminds of Egypt, the pyramids of Mexico and Peru, the burial mounds of native Americans, the Stonehenges, the Easter Islands, the bathing huts, the baths/spas, the placement of churches all of which give off a healing to many, or they would not have existed for the length of time they existed.

Nature does give off energy in many places. The Aurora Borealis, Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park, Niagara Falls, volcanoes everywhere, the moon pulling on all oceans and all seas of the entire world, the change of seasons, and on and on goes that list. Why then is it so preposterous to believe that some people may be more susceptible to such influences themselves? England, or more specifically Southern England would not have been the only place in the world to have ley lines. There's a dismissal of the all of the other druidic/celtic societies in such a claim. It's a dismissal of all other possibilities that other societies/religions/cultures could experience the energy of a natural place.

For the dowsing skeptics, (I love skepticism, it makes me examine things more closely) or for the skeptics who may disbelieve that persons may sense energies others may not sense, think in terms of how some people are able to produce a piece of music (Beethoven, Peer Gynt... any fave band you wish to plug in) that brings peace to some, yet not everyone is able to produce music, nor indeed is everyone susceptible to reaction to the music. Not everyone is able to run a major company or corporation, not everyone is able to nurture a child, not everyone is able to run the speed of Olympic runners, or to be strongest, or to be smartest. Each person has talents that are more developed than others, and not all talents are fully realized or understood by those who have little or lesser development in those areas. I can paint, I can draw, I love mathematical puzzles, I am musical, I have a talent with animals in calming them, but I'm not suited for methodical line work, I can't sustain silence for long, etc. There are areas that I have no talents in, and thus a lack of empathy, and possibly a lack of understanding for the talent that another exhibits. I applaud the talent of skeptics to raise the questions that make us examine!

I'm sure there are those who can dowse and not merely by "belief" in their abiility, but by an inherent talent that was more developed either genetically or through teaching or both. Life is full of surprises that way! Even the animals each have a talent that makes them what they are. Even the plants each have a purpose.

[reilz81]

i think the reason they got the nickname dragon lines is because acording to mythology these lines were formed in places where dragons fell but to the topic at hand theres atleast 3 or 4 ley lines that intersect my town in australia

[Dragonwyst]

This is an interesting thread!
First up, for me dowsing with rods falls into the same bracket as using a pendulum. Either way, the rods or pendulum operate as a communication bridge or translator between the conscious,logical part of the brain and intuitive, subconscious. The subconscious and intuitive mind needs symbols, images and metaphors that we are able to translate.
There are a great many things that science does not yet have a handle on. I am quite willing to accept that I might have ways of discerning or detecting subtleties about the world around me at an intuitive level. Sometimes that level is not very deeply intuitive, and if I look back at the time I had that "gut feeling" I can note that there were a number factors that added up to past experience of possibly negative events and that would have given me that warning. For something like discerning water, there may be any number of things happening at levels not currently testable in a laboratory, that communicate environmental information to our bodies. The rods then act as a symbol that allows that information to be accessed my the conscious mind.
I am learning to work with runes in the same way. A rune represents a body of information with several layers of meaning for me. in certain circumstances I might notice a rune - in the shape of clouds, the scratched paint on the side of a building, the pattern of tree branches or bark. It may well be that the rune I see allows me to access intuitive understanding that needs to come to the fore for me to handle a particular set of circumstances better.
The process is important for me. This is my year of learning to be open to more possibilities and learn to trust my creative and intuitive part of my mind more.

[Lily]

There are a great many things that science does not yet have a handle on.
...
For something like discerning water, there may be any number of things happening at levels not currently testable in a laboratory, that communicate environmental information to our bodies. The rods then act as a symbol that allows that information to be accessed my the conscious mind.

It's not like this has never been said before: science does have a handle (pun intended) on dowsing.
First, you prove that dowsing can detect water.
Then you put up a hypothesis as to how it could work, then you do further tests to elucidate your suspected mechanism.

The problem here is that tests have been done and showed that even dowsers who claim they can, cannot detect water. Or ley lines. If done blinded.
http://www.randi.org/library/dowsing/
The second step then becomes unimportant.

[Corwen]

I find it interesting that earth Mysteries orthodoxy in the UK is for lines, in Germany they look for grids. In the UK, UK dowsers find lines, and in Germany German dowsers find grids. I wonder what happens when a German dowser dowses in the UK?

I think they are looking inside their own heads personally, and the whole ley line thing is a red herring. I'm not discounting Earth Mysteries as a whole though, I'm sure it is possible for geological phenomena to have an effect on the mind, and that fault lines, magnetic and radioactive anomalies would have been noticed and used by our ancestors, and that linear alignments were used in their sacred landscape design. But the ley line thing has never really convinced me, and all the evidence I've seen has been very flawed.

[Dragonwyst]

There are a great many things that science does not yet have a handle on.
...
For something like discerning water, there may be any number of things happening at levels not currently testable in a laboratory, that communicate environmental information to our bodies. The rods then act as a symbol that allows that information to be accessed my the conscious mind.

It's not like this has never been said before: science does have a handle (pun intended) on dowsing.
First, you prove that dowsing can detect water.
Then you put up a hypothesis as to how it could work, then you do further tests to elucidate your suspected mechanism.

The problem here is that tests have been done and showed that even dowsers who claim they can, cannot detect water. Or ley lines. If done blinded.
http://www.randi.org/library/dowsing/
The second step then becomes unimportant.

...which leaves visual cues when they get it right - which may not have much to do with maps but may have something to do with the environment. The rods can't detect water and I never said they could. I said I reckon they function as a bridge between the intuitive part of the mind and the conscious part of the mind. (which is probably a very crass definition of the mind in the first place).
I wonder if anyone has run an experiment with dowsers born blind who are skilled, amongst other things, in echolocation. The pick up and interpret cues from the environment a little differently from what we seeing folk are accustomed to.
Enviromental cues are critical to survival. Ask the khlahari bushmen.

[Lily]

eh what, ?
maybe you did not say the rods can detect water, but you implied the dowsers can.
But it has been shown they can't, even if they think they can.
blinded does not mean "blindfolded". it's a technique of disguising the target and averaging out the groups to rule out chance.

more info
http://www.skepdic.com/dowsing.html

[Ghostrider]

What this pointed out was that it was I who was finding the underground obstructions, lines ans such. I am the sensitive instrument, not the rods.

Interesting little experiment.

And that was exactly my point, the human factor.
Bravo for doing this experiment Merlyn!

Why are the dowsers so silent all of a sudden?
I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this experiment and the results.

Well... as a newbie dowser.... I think the experiment is pretty good!
I have absolutely no grievance with the statement that it's the dowser 'finding' the line, structure, well, etc., not the rods.
If rods work for a dowser to recognise what his body or mind (whichever is the one 'reacting' to what is under the ground) is telling him, then I have no problem with that. The same wouold apply to other means of dowsing.

The human factor is a part of the 'magic', there is no denying that.
Stating that magic and the human factor are two seperate things, is the same as people stating that humanity is not part of Nature or that humans are not animals.

As for ley-lines or Dragon-lines... I do believe in those, but only because of own experience. Whether or not I'm fooling myself, guess that's up for anyone to decide.

[Explorer]

Stating that magic and the human factor are two seperate things, is the same as people stating that humanity is not part of Nature or that humans are not animals.

Well said!!

Noted and thanks, Nico. I would like to try it I hope some others do too. Meet you back here with the results

So... any results yet?

[Heddwen]

Hi Nico,

No salient results yet due to lack of motivation/willingness of the research sample. I have tried the same area several times and have come up with different results everytime. Either this or I've found a 'hot spot' for want of a better word.So, it's all inconclusive unless I bribe/hijack anyone into assisting me with this.I'm as sceptical as the next person, I try to look for all the rational reasons before jumping to conclusions.

[Explorer]

Hi Nico,

No salient results yet due to lack of motivation/willingness of the research sample. I have tried the same area several times and have come up with different results everytime. Either this or I've found a 'hot spot' for want of a better word.So, it's all inconclusive unless I bribe/hijack anyone into assisting me with this.I'm as sceptical as the next person, I try to look for all the rational reasons before jumping to conclusions.

Well, I think it may not be necesary.
There has been a really thorough and large scale scientific experiment in Germany in 1999 (I didn't know that).
Dowsers had to find a pipe with running water, and they plotted the distance from the location that the dowsers indicated against the real location of the pipe.
The best case scenario results would be that the location of the pipe would indeed show up in the plot.
The worst case scenario would be a total random plot of dots.

The result after almsot 1000 (!) attempts, was a total random plot of dots.
Which disproofs dowsing.

The experimenters even took into account 'excuses' that dowsers would come up with, like biased investigators and hostile environment. But in fact, the investigators were positive and believe/hoped that they could prove dowsing. But they were also scientifically trained enough to accept the data and the conclusions.
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/testing_d ... xperiments

I'm sure that people will still cling to the idea, regardless of the evidence, and that is a human trait that I always find pretty fascinating.
What makes us believe things that are proven wrong?

[D'Arzhur]

What makes us believe things that are proven wrong?

With dowsing as with other things/belief etc...: my answer is my own experience

[Explorer]

What makes us believe things that are proven wrong?

With dowsing as with other things/belief etc...: my answer is my own experience

so how do you explain away those test results?