My late uncle Stanley was the first one to introduce me to dowsing as a boy. I must have been 8 or 9 at the time and I was out visiting his small farm located near what is now Sea-Tac airport in Seattle. It wasn’t a particularly big farm. Just about 5 acres. But that much land today would be a fortune, since a lot of property, residential and close to a major airport (off to the side where it’s quieter, however) would be a small fortune today.
Back then it was a genuine wonder: A tractor, a stand of corn in summertime that towered over me, aunt Iris’s homemade pies (done between her American Legion volunteer work and a real working job), and a big collie which looked remarkably like Lassie. Except, “Happy” had been taught to bark fiercely whenever the word “democrat” was mentioned in conversation.
One day when we were visiting, Stanley asked if I wanted to learn how to dowse. I had no idea what that mean, but my dad and I followed him out to the shop out back (Stanley built all his own houses and may dad helped in on most of them, hence my grounding in tools…I was a tool helper). After going through a few items in the sawdust covered room he announced he’d found what he was looking for: A pair of brass dowsing rods.
After a few minutes of instruction (aided by a 6-foot piece of iron pipe tossed on the ground, I was ready for my first experiments in dowsing.
The first item I found (following directions to work the front yard east to west, eyes closed) was the waterline in from the street.
A second “find” was a sewer line. Boy, was this ever fun.
I’ve used dowsing a few times since, and in fact that’s how we found the spot on our property to put in our back-up well. Worked just fine.
The main tricks of it seem to be finding the right shoes. Some people swear by bare feet, others claim leather soles work best, while another camp has the well-insulated view that rubber soles, like tennis shoes, are the real McGoslin.
The second key thing is to hold the rods just right. They need to be able to rotate, just so. If they are held with the tips too close to level, they will sway uselessly. However, if the tips are too low, then there’s not enough swing to them.
Third thing to remember is that your eyes need to be closed to “feel” things. I don’t know why, but the feel is more apparent for many people with eyes closed. Maybe dowsing has something to do with the brain shutting off overt optical inputs; I can’t just say.
Last point – and most important – is that you give yourself permission to dowse. A lot of people fail at dowsing because they don’t let themselves actually do it. They “counter-believe” in the process which understandably torpedoes the whole thing.
So there you have point #1. If you really want to be a prepper, a pair of old brass curtain rods is a useful thing. Or, drop by a welding store and pick up some brass 36” rod and bend some up, yourself. The water may be down a ways, but in the hands of someone who has practiced the art (it’s not witchcraft, it’s just one of those natural forces we’ve lost track of, thanks to technology) water is often easily found.
So what on Earth could this have to do with data and our www.nostracodeus.com big data project which looks at the comings and goings of words from major media? Well, you may recall that in Monday’s column, we added the words “harriers” and “carriers” to the dictionary and ever since then, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning has been making headlines because it’s enroute to a training mission in the South China Sea, where China has just instituted an air defense zone, which the US has “tweaked” with a B-52 overflight, and which gearing up to project Chinese sea power into the contested (with Japan) Sendaku islands area.
One note about the Chinese picture (after you click on the first one at the link above) of the aircraft appearing to take off from the Liaoning. It’s not. The aircraft is too high to have done a takeoff – since the aircraft even light on fuel – would be less than half of its apparent altitude. So this was, to my eye, an aircraft that came down, made an approach, and then did a go-round. The angle of attack looks wrong for low airspeed, too. Staged-looking. Just sayin’.
Also, offers reader Roger, there’s a dandy backgrounder on air defense identification zones to be found over here.
After you go back and reread the post “Winds of Noumenon” you’ll see that events since have sure focused on carriers which could be a success for the data-sniffing technique, OR (and this is something that didn’t hit me until this morning) the Nostracodeus software could act something like a massive dowsing rod amplifier. Or a “big data dowsing amplifier” might be another way to express the idea.
Could it be that regular people have hints (in their dreams) that tell them – against a very, very noisy background of modern high energy life – what’s to come?
Clearly, in last Sunday’s dream-state, carriers and harriers sitting on the deck came through, along with a picture of a female in charge. Turns out that yes, there is a woman in charge of a major US naval group, and among her command (if a reader who researched the point has it right) there are smaller Marine ships with Harriers aboard. (Mark II’s, if that matters.)
So the question is whether my dream was in any way meaningful?
That I can’t tell you. But, what I can tell you is that both Grady and I have now put the word “disappear” into our Indicators analyses as we’re both off doing runs now. I haven’t looked at the size of the news sources run, in number of pages to read) but as I write this note my run (of woo-woo and fringe news sites) is 215 out of 2156. In a couple of hours we’ll see what’s in that one.
The reason is the latest dream-state concept I woke with was “disappearing and some number of people were involved. If, over the next week (two at the outside) we get a glob of missing/disappeared people, then will have even more research to do.
Something roll around in the back of your mind – which is where the reality we share seems to spring from… Is future-directed software sort of like a digital data dowsing rod?
Readers Writes on China
In our Peoplenomics.com subscriber report this week, we highlighted the differences in strategic thinking about China. Among other points: The US is very technology-dependent in it military approach to things, while China continues to hold a strong “rural fall-back” capability which has failed in the US due to the attacks on the American farmer and small farm life overall.
As a result, I noted the large number of Chinese who in a sense are “massing” near the US border in places like Vancouver and Toronto – a point echoed by subscriber Joel who sent this:
My son the geographical analysis expert tells me that Canada encourages the immigration of mainland Chinese.
Gov expected lots of new jobs to follow.
However, the rich mainlanders established bolt-holes but leave their businesses to operate in China. Lower costs, fewer regulations.
Maybe, if the violent rev in China really gets going, the entrepreneurs might relocate their stuff.
Meanwhile, Vancouverites and Torontonians suffer with ridiculously high housing prices.
Toronto has the second highest number of hi-rises in NA, after NYC.
Toronto has the most construction projects of any city in NA.
This is the uptown area of Toronto: mostly Chinese, Korean, Iranian. (Yes. Iranian).
Quite a contrast in another way: The US is arguing for open immigration for poor people who will compete for the few remaining jobs in America, while the Canucks are going for high dollar people.
Seems there’s no “right path” in this: The Canadian approach is screwing people out of affordable housing, but because of the lower wages which higher immigration from penniless people will incur, the US will get to “unaffordable” via a different path: Lifestyle decline.
Boy, are we led by geniuses, or what?
Brain Food
You remember our conversation a while back about steak and eggs for breakfast? (scroll down here to “Steak and Eggs Breakfast Note) Now there’s another doctor out with the same kind of warning about how all that “high grain, high fiber” stuff might actually be making your dumber.
I’m fortunate, having a room temperature IQ, I figure I can load up on the fiber. But you? There’s still hope…
Why You SHOULD be Paranoid
Credit to Madison Ave. Mike for catching the report about “mSpy: A terrifying app for spying on another smartphone or tablet user.” Oh, special bonus: Keystroke logger, too.
I don’t know about you, but I NEVER use my GomerPhone to access banking, trading, or eBay – nothing connected with money, thanks. Anything that touches money goes through a wire and when mobile, 24 character passwords with upper/lower case and a bunch of punctuation helps, I think. A few banks can’t handle that…almost like they thrive on incompetence.
Home security routers are here, btw.
Speaking of money – and Gomer and such: did you see where a British IT fellow threw out a hard drive with about $5-million in bitcoins on it? BBC coverage is worth a read.
Reader Bill on Smokers
Earlier this week I pointed out the paradox involved when a state (California) allows medical marijuana use and then along comes a city in that state, San Rafael I think it was, which bans smoking. “Hold up, there Ure,” figured Bill:
George,
I would be the last one to go along with more government meddling but smoke is a very real problem for multi family buildings.
We are in the property management business and we presently have a vacant unit above two chain smokers.
We have tried everything – caulking and sealing between floors where possible, carpet cleaning, ozone.
The next day the smoke smell is back.
The homeowners association will not do anything so we are left with legal action against the downstairs owner.
A ban may not be a bad idea. It’s your castle until it affects someone else.
And, now that I think of it, the medical use can be taken on through oils and baked goods. I think Bill’s right though…freedom is free until it makes someone else lose one of their freedoms. Fair ‘nuff.
“Obama Chamberlain?”
As long as we’re going through the mail bag this morning:
Hi George.
I’m a long time reader of Urbansurvival and truly think your take on things is spot on. However, (here’s the BUT), your comparison of Obama to Chamberlain and, by extension, casting Hassan Rouhani as Hitler just stuck in my craw. Chamberlain, I think history has shown, was just a fool that couldn’t do political calculus. I think the worst we could charge him with is naiveté. Obama, on the other hand, from what I get, seems to have a malicious agenda, both abroad and at home, that does not have the U.S. interests at heart. Keeping with the WWII motif, Obama would be closer to a Vyacheslav Molotov.
Secondly, the only expansionistic, occupational, genocidal, UN resolution defying, unilaterally air striking, militaristic State with work camps and a charismatic leader screaming for war is Israel. Netanyahu is much more Hitleresque. Now Saudi Arabia has the bomb? Are they not a highly unstable, aged, corrupt monarchy that is the world’s largest supporter of terrorism through the Wahhabi schools? Please explain to me how, with what has been a stable western style country like Iran having the bomb is a bad thing. I think the worst charge you can put against Iran is bad rhetoric, but in that category, Israel and Saudi Arabi are no better. Perhaps if Iran had the bomb, according to Cold War logic at least, all the players in the Middle East would play in their sand box together like good little children.
Respectfully Ure’s
Doug in Alaska
Fair point on Molotov….we could discuss that over cocktails (sorry, it was such a good line…).
On your second point, I have no explanation for behavior in the Middle East. Although (credit where due) Elaine’s evolved an interesting theory that people become like the animals they keep (and eat) at a culture level.
Here’s how this works: Here in the US, people might be thought of as bovine, or cow-like, full of BS and herding-instinct driven. (I have to admit there may be some truth to that aspect.)
Her idea about the Middle East relates to the large number of goats raised and consumed there. Remember, we sold off our herd of 30-odd goats a few years back. So I’ll leave it to you to ponder what we might have observed about goat-like behavior beyond me being an old one.
Durable countries, seems to me, eat a wide variety of protein sources (*including pig and fish). Look at Spain, Germany, England, the US, and China and tell me about protein uptake.
In the meantime, December 3rd is the new moon this cycle. I’m keeping the flash goggles handy until the 9th.
Outlook
Really cool idea to offer in tomorrow’s (not too terribly long) article for Peoplenomics subscribers. And even if you ain’t one ‘o them, ya’ll come back Monday for another assaults on mental complacency.
Write when you break even…
George george@ure.net