Geobiology: history and the state of knowledge

The authors, in order

1. 1833The chemist Michel-Eugène Chevreul publishes, in an open letter to Ampère, his experiments with the pendulum: he attributes its movements to involuntary gestures of the hand, which he develops in a book from 1854.
2. 1929The dowser Gustav von Pohl walks the entire town of Vilsbiburg in Bavaria with his rod, and credits the ground’s “radiations” with an effect on the inhabitants; his book appears in 1932.
3. 1933Georges Lakhovsky, an engineer and inventor born in the Russian Empire, publishes La Terre et nous with Fasquelle, in Paris.
4. 1946Manfred Curry, a doctor and sailor, publishes Bioklimatik in two volumes; the diagonal grid that bears his name appears in 1952.
5. 1954Ernst Hartmann describes his grid for the first time, then details it in a book published in 1964.
6. 1983Blanche Merz, a Swiss engineer and dowser, publishes Les Hauts-lieux cosmotelluriques, which popularizes the idea of places charged with energy.
7. 1995The researcher James T. Enright disputes, in the journal Naturwissenschaften, the barn experiment run near Munich by Hans-Dieter Betz’s team: in his view, the results remain within chance.

What the tests showed

The most cited experiment in favor of dowsers is the barn experiment, near Munich, in the late 1980s: according to Hans-Dieter Betz, 843 double-blind trials with 43 dowsers showed a statistically significant but very small effect. In 1995, James T. Enright judged in the journal Naturwissenschaften that these results remained within chance; Betz maintained his reading.

In 1990, in Kassel, the GWUP, a German association for the critical examination of the paranormal, tested dowsers: according to its report, their results did not depart from chance. In 2017, Jay Olson, Ewalina Jeyanesan, and Amir Raz studied the ideomotor effect, which makes a pendulum move through small involuntary muscle movements.

In 2012, Finnish researchers suggested that standing radio waves might explain the reactions dowsers say they feel: a lead to check, not an established result. In the current state of knowledge, geobiology remains a belief: no grid has been recorded by an instrument.

Underground water and faults

Dowsers and geobiologists speak of “water veins” and of “radiations” said to rise from faults. Hydrogeologists describe something else: in hard rock, water flows through cracks and weathered layers, and locating it is difficult. They describe no “ray” projected above the ground.

Why do people talk about scandal?

The word comes up when costly services promise an effect on the home without demonstrating anything: sale of devices supposed to act on a grid, fear kept alive, quotes without measurement. Versana cites no specific case; the guide “Choosing a geobiologist” gives the reference points and the public recourse.