Huge wrote:

On 2006-07-29, Geronimo W. Christ Esq wrote:

[In a way, this is true. Randi essentially agrees to pay out the money
if anyone can demonstrate "supernatural" powers, or anything that
violates the known laws of physics or our understanding of the world. If
dowsing were possible, it would turn our entire understanding of the
world completely upside down and you could throw all physics textbooks
written in the past 500 years in the bin.

Err, this isn't really the case. It has been shown that human brains
are sensitive to magnetic fields. It may be entirely possible that
dowsing using rods or hazel twigs is possible if the brain is sufficiently
sensitive to detect magnetic anomalies caused by the presence of
buried objects.

I don't think the brain has anything to do with it. You just hold the
rods horizontally out in front of you. If they cross, that indicates
something is below the rods.

You cannot make them cross. They just do it themselves. There is no
input from the user, other than to hold the rods so that they can
respond to whatever it is that makes them cross.