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Trees and stones with powers to throw?
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Re: Trees and stones with powers to throw?
May 19, 2012, 17:01
My apologies for not having read this entire topic. (The fact that you have to individually select every post on this forum makes it too time-consuming, which is why I rarely post here.) I've read the last lot of posts and the original ones.

My first thought - and probably the first thought of most people - is that the best way to test if a stone really can throw people is to watch it happening - or not happening. In cases where people create the effect by their own efforts, blindfold them and lead them to different stones. The same would apply to the guy who claimed to receive electric shocks no-one else could receive. Surely a simple matter to blindfold him and try different stones? Unless of course he claimed every rock in the world had that effect.

Regarding dowsing: I've done it, watched it being done, and have worked for a water company and spoken with people whose judgment I trust who've seen remarkable results. I've mentioned before on here the case of a dowser who was able to trace the line and even the depth of a water main that no-one else had succeeded in tracing. The person who told me the story worked in the planning department, was very experienced, and had failed to trace the main himself with the assistance of a colleague. The main was asbestos cement, a material used at one time for cheapness which can't be traced with metal detectors or the like. The main in question ran under fields and there were no valves or other apparatus to give any clue to its position. It branched off at an angle and disappeared from the line originally plotted on the company's plans.

In my experience there's no doubt the rods move involuntarily. Nor is there any doubt that people can trace things they don't know are there by other means. How it works I don't know. Like a lot of things, guesswork can produce ideas so unlikely that they obscure the phenomenon rather than illuminating it.

In my view we need an empirical approach, and well-devised testing, and we need to eliminate as many spurious considerations as possible. For instance I had a sizeable number of positive readings at sites such as Avebury and Glastonbury which correlate with other people's findings, when the unconfortable possibility occurred to me that the rods move in response to the body after a certain number of other bodily movements - eg after several paces, which would mean if peope start from the most practical place, the rods would move at the same place a few paces on, regardless of what might be there. I was able to put that to the test and discount it, but that's the kind of prosaic possibility that needs to be considered.

Personally I'd very much like to see some proper, controlled testing carried out. The phenomenon does occur, and I'd like to have more idea what it is and also weed out the charlatans, self-deceivers and dramas-merchants and focus on the responsible people.
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