A $110,000 prize offered by Australian Skeptics Incorporated is safe after testing a world record number of water diviners at Mitta Mitta on Sunday. A total of 52 diviners, or dowsers, used an array of forked sticks, fencing wire, copper wire and bare hands to test their ability to divine water in surface containers on a green of the Mitta Mitta golf course.
Twenty two-litre bottles were filled with either tap water or sand, wrapped in brown paper, numbered and positioned in a large circle. Diviners were able to calibrate their equipment before the start and had only to identify the contents of each bottle without time restrictions. Sigrid Condon, a Mt Beauty mother with no divining experience, up-staged the line-up of professionals with the highest score of 14 out of 20 correct.
Bob Nixon, chief inspector of the Skeptics, said all scores fell into an expected pattern of random results – “The scores skewed towards failure: there were more bad scores below 10”, said Mr Nixon.
“We weren’t surprised. It was exactly what we predicted would happen.”
Midway through the test, a hostile group of diviners demanded Mr Nixon reposition the bottles, claiming interference from underground streams.
“We asked them to draw a map of the area and seven marked out streams, but there was absolutely no correlation between them”, Mr Nixon said.
The test was almost thrown into disarray when a dog, belonging to a Skeptics member, left his watery mark on one of the packages, calling a temporary halt to competition.
Mr Nixon said the event represented a new world record for the most diviners tested at the same place in one day, and the result added to the body of evidence accumulated over the past 20 years that divining is nothing more than random guessing.
Berrigan dairy farmer and diviner Shane Spunner was skeptical of the Skeptics’ ability to stage a fair test. “The test should have been made fairer by finding an area with no underground water”, he said.
From The Weekly Times, Victoria, Southern NSW, 14 March 2001.
