Instructor: Rainsong
Date: January 11, 2020 (Saturday)
Seminar: Topic: Journal Club — Saturday, 11 January, 2020 at 6:30pm/1830hr New York Time — text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) — Instructor: Rainsong, probably — Search LECTURE111
Dowsing can be interfered with by radio frequency radiation
Paavo Huttunen, Ahti Niinimaa, Risto Myllyla
Pathophysiology 19 (2012) 89-94
Rainsong: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Rainsong: Welcome to another psionics seminar here at the social club.
Rainsong: Tonight, we’re having another Journal Club meeting, to discuss the findings of a Finnish paper in Pathophysiology that I came across while looking for something else.
Rainsong: The peculiarities of the search function at the library at work can sometimes make for interesting results when doing literature searches :/
Rainsong: The gist of the article can be pretty much summed up in its title: Dowsing can be interfered with by radio frequency radiation
Rainsong: Are there any questions or comments, before we dive in?
ally: Nay (: lurking from the ambulance here, may be afk at times
Rainsong: Stay safe and good luck on your shift.
Rainsong: Seems to be a bit quiet this evening. 🙂
Rainsong: Unlike in many American studies of parapsychological phenomena, the Europeans generally don’t dismiss as “evidence of a flawed procedure” any study with good results.
Rainsong: As a result of this, it is taken as a given that dowsing exists, but it was seen as strange that during the late 20th century, some studies showed ambiguous results.
Rainsong: In this study, one of the paths being used as an experiemental site happened to be below a radio tower that was just out of view beccause of the topography.
Rainsong: Within a certain “cone” of this tower, dowsing results dropped off noticeably.
Rainsong: Once it was noticed there was a radio tower in the direction of that area of disturbance, they did some more tests,
Rainsong: The preliminary finding, published in this article, points toward interference by the radio waves from the tower.
Rainsong: If their results prove (or have been proven… it’s not a new article) to be repeatable in other places and other researchers, it could account for the drop off in good results as the second half of the 20th century and the turn of the 21st have progressed.
Rainsong: More radio towers are going up all over the place, all the time, to facilitate cell-phone service, after all.
Rainsong: Any questions or comments?
Chirotractor: Heading to a dinner so I can’t keep up :\
Rainsong: Have a good time. 🙂 Don’t worry — can field questions later, if you have any.
PatchesTheCoydog: Was there any attempt or the possibility of an attempt to find sub-groups of dowsers by how much influence the radio towers have over results, was it definitely a blanket effect that influenced all dowsers equally or…? (I found an abstract of study but didn’t mention either way. Meant find full text to read but was busy as of late). The possibility of dowsing operating by more than one mechanism is interesting and sub-groups from radio tower influence would support this I think.
Rainsong: Excellent question. One moment while I re-check the section of the paper in question, so as to avoid incorrect data 🙂
Rainsong: No, the re-did some tests with a sub-set of the original group.
Rainsong: Apparently, the tool used appears to make a difference as to how much of an effect the radio tower has.
Rainsong: The frequencies and intensities of the radio broad- and narrow-asts appears to also make a difference.
Rainsong: And they speculate that there may be a difference in people who feel electrical fields and some kinds of radio waves.
Rainsong: Of course, like all good researchers, they also referred back to earlier studies of dowsing, to compare and analyze their results. The previous researchers hadn’t taken radio towers into account in their reports, but the researchers on this paper re-used some of the earlier experimental sites.
Rainsong: Any other comments? Questions?
Rainsong: (Perfectly understandable about the abstract vs full paper, by the way)
Rainsong: It’s a fairly short paper, and most of it is made up of background information and graphs showing stats.
Rainsong: Worth a read
Rainsong: Thus endeth the Journal Club part of the seminar.
Rainsong: Does anyone have any questions about any other psionics stuff?
Mulberry: That’s interesting, and makes me wonder about the effect of 5G, and what affect is any could be seen with other psychic techniques that rely on receiving information
Rainsong: nods It definitely points to a number of areas to research, doesn’t it
Mulberry: Do we have a way to find out if anyone is doing or planning any research?
Rainsong: Literature search, for published papers and looking through listings of current research on the websites of various research organizations. Obviously, these only publish non-classified/non-military research
Rainsong: And it’s difficult to get a complete listing of research groups, even just in the English-speaking world
Rainsong: A Google Scholar search can sometimes turn up some interesting results
Mulberry: Ok that’s something – I didn’t know about Google Scholar, I’ll check it out. 😀
Mulberry: Does the article mention the width of the cone of influence at all?
Rainsong: Seems to be connected the width of the wave in question, but it’s unclear at this point
Rainsong: As for other research, can’t forget looking through the articles listed in the References section of any academic article you read. They can often lead you to more information, and to more papers by the authors of these other papers
Rainsong: Thanks for participating, everyone 🙂
Mulberry: Thank you! 🙂
Rainsong: While Journal Club meetings are more … fun… when the paper is controversial and there are a dozen or so people involved in the discussion, I’ll continue to schedule Journal Club seminars periodically, when I come across a paper that looks interesting.