Maj. Smith,

I was just wondering if you are aware of any research on the effect of operant conditioning on dowsing.

Let's say that you have a dowser who is in training. At random intervals you reward the doswer's hits (maybe give him $10 about every third time he is correct).

It would be interesting, because people could self-reward (although not randomly). Like I will allow myself to go to the movies every 5th hit I get in dowsing practice.

Just a thought

I seriously doubt that experiments of this nature have been done. I believe, however, that it would be very interesting -- and perhaps productive -- to conduct such research. Great idea! We just need to come up with some resourcing to see if we can eventually try something along these lines.

Best,
Paul

Pardon me for the intrusion, but I'm interested in your topic. Is there research to quantify what the success rate is for a superlative dowser? If it exists, it would be incentive for which students could strive. As it is, all I hear is that it works sometimes and not others. A guage would be great. The thought of self-reward is an interesting concept. My quest is for gratifying targets, so I'm biding my time until such appear. Hmmm. I wonder if I can dowse gratification itself, in some form. Thoughts?

Lee,

I can certainly see an intrinsic reward in getting success. We all want to succeed. Of course, people who dowse for treasure or mineral resources can get rewarded significantly.

I think you could certainly figure out a way to dowse which targets you might find most rewarding.

Maj. Smith,

Thank you for your reply.

I think for an experiment you would need two groups of people who have about the same success rates. One would be a control group and the other the experimental group. They would be given the same training targest over time. The experimental group would be randomly rewarded for success in some way. The success rate of each could then be compared to see if operant conditioning positively affected the success rate of training.

Ok - I'm ready for my CIA funding

Rinpoche, I was intrigued enough to go ahead and look up your terminology. I'll gracefully curtsey out of this discussion and leave it to the pros. I was curious how one could focus solely on one success, with the idea of a possible reward hovering in the back of the mind, thus making it a dual focus. It would be interesting to see the outcome. Good luck with the CIA!!

For myself accurate feedback is the motivational force. New to the forum first post here. I pen dowse quite often.

Russ

Hi Russ,

What does pen dowsing look like? Is it similar to dowsing rods? Or similar to sketching on paper -- like an ideogram?

I agree with you about feedback as a motivation.