Sexing With Magnets

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Using a magnet suspended on a string, touch an object with the magnet and then lift the magnet several inches high. If the object is male, the magnet will swing back and forth, if female, it will start to circle. This works for almost any object; plants, animals, etc. Is it caused by ionization and, if so, why the different directions for each sex?

-- Jody Brakefield (jobrakefield@infoave.net), April 04, 2000

Answers

I have never seen any of these "sexing" things work with any degree of accuracy. No scientific backing at all. The swing is caused by minute movements of your hand or air currents. Les

-- Les (lvaughn@suntransformer.com), April 05, 2000.

This is nonsense, pardon my french... suspend whatever it is from a stationary tripod or other such device and prove it to yourself... I guess common sense has departed with the general dumbing down of the American populace. I'm stunned that someone would actually believe this sort of crap. Do you even know what ionization is? And you presumably vote and drive a car? Scary stuff.

-- RMD (rmckim@email.com), April 05, 2000.

I just love it . Well some of us dumb old hillbillies remmeber sexing with magnets (and you can use a pencil and string too ), water witching and other such nonsense like mustard plaster for a chest cold . I guess i need to get educated and learn how wall street works . Not my style . To each his own . By the way if memory serves (as old as i am) it's a circle for girls back and forth for boys and a total stand still for infertility . (used this on people and critters) Becky

-- Becky (Joel681@webtv.net), April 05, 2000.

I repeat, suspend it from a stationary tripod and prove it to yourself. Do you know what a tripod is? Jeezz! And just because you might be a hillbilly doesn't mean you have to be an idiot, too.

-- RMD (rmckim@email.com), April 05, 2000.

Calm down RMD. You're beginning to describe yourself. Most of us feel there are no stupid questions here. The purpose of the questions is to gain knowledge. If we ALL knew everything, we wouldn't need to ask. By the way, there are a lot of things I can't explain. Water- witching is one. Most of David Copperfield's illusions. How aspirin works. The Holy Trinity. Why cancer is. You get the point. Good luck all!

-- Brad (homefixer@mix-net.net), April 05, 2000.


I have heard that you can do this with a wedding ring if you are pregnant to determine the sex of the baby. Back and forth is a boy, circles is a girl. I tried it with my first two children, didn't really expect it to work, but thought I'd test it and see. With my first child it consistently swung back and forth every time, and I tried it on several different occasions and days. That one was a boy. Next time it said I had a girl. It didn't feel like a girl to me, and sure enough, I had a boy. I think it is a kind of dowsing. If you want to see if it works, why not try it out on many animals where you already know the sex, writing down the results, and see how accurate it is. Then you could do a bunch of chicks or something,and put all the supposed male chicks in one pen and the females in another and wait and see how it worked out. Just because we don't know why something works doesn't mean it couldn't work. Science still can't explain why bumblebees can fly, but they fly nonetheless!

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), April 05, 2000.

A better test would be to do it on a batch of animals you do NOT know the sex of, keep track of what the indication was for each animal, then when finished go back and check the results. If you do it on a subject you already know the sex of, you will probably, without meaning to, influence the results. Might as well apply proper scientific method. Again, there is no scientific basis for this stuff and I don't believe it works. Anybody who does give a scientific explanation proving how it works is just making it up, or has been fooled by somebody else who made it up. Now that I have said all that, I do have a cousin who can witch for water. I have seen him do it. Go figure. Les

-- Les (lvaughn@suntransformer.com), April 05, 2000.

I can definitely vouch for being able to influence the results, either by prior knowledge, or wishful thinking. Try using the pendulum, and concentrating on what you want it to do. It will do just exactly that, as it will pick up involuntary muscle twitches. This makes it almost impossible to get unbiased results. BTW, this is entirely different from dowsing, which does work. I have used it to trace water and electrical lines before construction work, with a great deal of success.

-- Connie (connie@lunehaven.com), April 05, 2000.

whew! If I didn't know you guys, I would never have gone to this thread....thought maybe it was an over 18 website! tee hee

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), April 05, 2000.

R M D take a lesson from thumpers father [in bambi]If you cant say something nice , Dont say any thing at all.

-- kathy h (saddlebronc@msn.com), April 05, 2000.


Jody ,this is another part of folk lore I guess. It is not stupid or anything else nasty that was said .After I got slammed for my spelling and now this , I think we should stick to IF YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING NICE DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL !This forum is wonderful and no one should think if there ? is worth while or silly.For the people who don't like the ?'s don't read them and please don't comment on them. I think you need to consider others feelings , I'm sure you weren't born perfect like you are now .So everyone please keep asking those ?'s

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), April 05, 2000.

I sex my chicks with a needle and thread. It works and I am very rarely wrong. If I hold a needle over my hand it circles. If I hold it over my son's it goes straight. I have done this repeatedly. It has never circled over my son's hand and has never went straight over mine. It matters not to me how it works. If the wind makes it do this then it quite a miracle. If you think I'm cheating then explain why I would bother doing this over and over again for no ones benefit but my own. I mean if somehow I can swing a needle and manage to make my chicks sex change to what ever I want, then I am quite talented and perhaps I could go into business. Let me tell you something about hillbillies. Most hillbillies could do more with less than any wannabe homesteader ever thought about doing. I would like to see you split shingles with an axe, or build yourself a stone mill with nothing more than hand tools. Have some respect man. Maybe just maybe it would behoove you to attempt to learn something from those hillbillies you are lambasting. Call me a hillbilly? That's a compliment that I don't deserve.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@calinet.com), April 05, 2000.


I think I was born skeptical and will probably die looking for rational evidence for everything. BUT I HAVE SEEN THIS WORK ON MANY OCCASIONS. We had an old OB nurse who used to do it with uncanny accuracy. She even predicted a still-born very early in the pregnancy, though of course, we didn't tell the mother. Don't ask me how! Maybe someday we'll learn more about "vibes" and then there will be a scientific explanation for this "weird" phenomenon,. Paulette

-- paulette mark (kiwi333@ipa.net), April 05, 2000.

What's the line from "Hamlet" about there being stranger things between Heaven and Earth, Horatio? Can't possibly quote it correctly as it's been so long since I studied it or saw the play but I remember the gist. Have a good one.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), April 05, 2000.

When I got married for the next 11 years I had a re-occuring nightmare that I was in a plane and the right wing falls off and I crash. My wife got her pilots licence and was a flight instructer when she was in a midair collision and you guessed it. Her right wing got sheared off!!! After she died I never had the nightmare again. Thats true I swear!! Life is strange huh. Couldn't make the magnet work tho. Cat kept swatting it.....Kirk

-- Kirk Davis (kirkay@yahoo.com), April 06, 2000.


The answer to this little puzzle seems to be more in who is holding the string, instead of what they are dangling from it. Every now and again, you find someone with the talent to be able to tell, most of us just have to cross our fingers.

-- Connie (connie@lunehaven.com), April 06, 2000.

Jody, Hi! read all this in the bi-weekly report good old Countryside sends. So. of course, I had to put my two cents worth in too. RMD this person must have had a really bad day. A lot of these old-wives- tales have scientific reasoning behind it. And then some people are born with better ability to pick up on natural vibrations. Just because these things don't work for some people is no reason to ridicule others. But, RMD, has not expressed their opinion around here before, or I missed it. I've seen the magnet work before, don't know how or why, it was just for fun,like this forum. A sense of humor and an open mind really helps when you live beyond the sidewalks. {stole that from jd]. karen

-- Karen Mauk (dairygoatmama@hotmail.com), April 06, 2000.

This is superstition. There is no truth in it at all. It is God who determines the gender of everything. Not chance, not swinging anything in the air. Although fallen mankind has found medical ways to discover the gender of something, it in no way changes or determines the gender of it. Also, how can string and a magnet know the gender of something. A human can't figure it out off the top of his head. He can guess but that's all. God made humans the most intelligent of His creatures and if humans 'invented' the magnet, how could it be any more intelligent than a human? If you're refering to the 'inward powers' of the human, again you're wrong. We are fallen man and have been since the fall of Adam. God did not give us the power to see into the future and predict what is going to happen or what is going to be. We are limited is what we can do. Let's praise God for what He has enabled us to do and leave the future in His Hands.

-- AbigailF. (treeoflife@sws.nb.ca), April 06, 2000.

I am going to clarify something right now. When I said that I would be quite talented if I could make a chicks sex change I was being sarcastic. I am a Christian. I think that the writer above me misunderstood what I was saying. I do not believe there is any hocus pocus to this. I do not believe this is psychic powers or telekenisis. God created the world with order. He created magnetic fields. The reason this works is no different than why a magnet attracts or repels. The reason some people can't do this is because they're magnetic field varys somewhat from others. One of man's problems is he is always trying to give himself credit for that Which God has done. I do not want anyone to have the impression that this is what I am doing. God made magnets and he made magnetic fields a scientific answer to folk lore. Imagine that!

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@calinet.com), April 06, 2000.

There is not a large enough magnetic field to the human body to have any effect on as weak a magnet as you and I have access to. Yes the body is mainly electrical in nature, but this swinging object thing is hocus pocus. Don't try to explain something with science when there is NO scientific backing to it. That's not science, it's wishfull thinking.

-- Les (lvaughn@suntransformer.com), April 06, 2000.

My Gosh, friends and neighbors! Let us attempt not to polarize here! Let's recap. First a question from Jody. Now, when I ask a question here, and I suspect this was Jody's goal, I am attempting to get some information from someone who has it when I don't. From my perusal of this thread, there has been information, opinion and vitriol. How about we restrain ourselves to information and a modicum of opinion? I know that I have been political at times, but will try to restrain that impulse. (Whoa! Failure! Anybody want to trade Clinton/Gore jokes?) Ahem. I'll try behaving again. I am not a believer in the magnet sexing thing. But I can't poo- poo (or is that pooh-pooh?) what someone else thinks. Well, actually, I can, but I won't. RMD, come back. Perhaps you can educate some of us. I get a little too insanely verbal from time to time too. You're welcome back, just give info, not put-downs. We're all here to learn, and I'll bet Jody knows a bunch of stuff that you don't. If I'm wrong, I will eat your dirty socks for a week without condiments! (Help me out here, Jody!) Hey guys, lets just have fun and educate each other! I have found this philosophy to be accurate, 'tho' I cannot remember the originator. "I have never met a person from whom I could not learn something!" Good luck to all!

-- Brad (homefixer@mix-net.net), April 06, 2000.

Hey Brad--I thought that saying was " I never met anyone I didn't enjoy, even if it was him down the driveway ! Southern humour--sorry

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), April 06, 2000.

Fine by me. Toodles

-- Les (lvaughn@suntransformer.com), April 06, 2000.

First of all I have no idea about magnets. I haven't tried it. If you remember my post was about needles. I understand that you might not believe the magnetic field theory, but how else do you explain the fact that a needle swinging has worked as a sexing tool for me for years. If I just guess I can't do near as well. Come on Mr. Scientist assuming you believed what I am saying(which I realize you do not, how would you set up a scientific test to determine the active physical principal here. Once upon a time a person would have laughed in your face for saying you could cure deadly diseases with mold. People would have turned purple if you suggested that the earth was round. Many would have completely lost it if you would have suggested cutting a hole in someone's head to do brain surgery. So here's the question at what point are people just too plain rational for science? Science is about possiblities not about facts. No major scientific breakthrough would have ever occurred if the men who discovered them would have had your attitude. You see there is more to science than what we know there is also what we don't know.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@calinet.com), April 06, 2000.


Hey Joel - watch your punctuation! And "humour"? We talkin' southern Canada or GB here? Sorry, I got the "language police" thing from someone else on this site, although I cannot remember who! But fun is fun.

-- Brad (homefixer@mix-net.net), April 06, 2000.

All I know is that I cannot wear a windup watch. I've tried for many years. They will stop for no apparent reason after I've worn them for a while. The jeweler will keep them for a day or two and tell me there is absolutely nothing wrong with them. I say them because I've had 4. One jeweler finally told me to paint clear fingernail polish on the back of the watch- several coats. That fixed it! His theory was that I had "too much" electricity/magnetism in me. I can't explain it scientifically. Just a modicum of opinion/information.

-- Peg (jnjohnsn@pressenter.com), April 06, 2000.

Hey, I'm glad it works for you. More power to you. I know lots of folks that swear by this stuff. Just don't claim a factual scientific basis for something that cannot be proved by science. That's all I'm saying. If that offends you I'm sorry. You don't have to get abusive. I didn't start the name calling.

-- Les (lvaughn@suntransformer.com), April 07, 2000.

How calling someone Mr. Scientist could be interpreted as abusive is beyond me, but if I hurt your feelings I apologise. My point in the post was that no major discovery was known to be able to be proved by science before the discovery was made. That is the nature of science. You observe the unexplainable and find a way to explain it. To say that making observation and theorizing upon it is unscientific is just plain wrong. I say that there is a good deal of evidence leading me to believe that magnetic fields are the cause of this particular phenomenon. Here is a list:

1) It only works with metal or magnetic objects 2) There are no other major physical properties that affect only metal in this way 3) It is scientifically accurate that all things have a magnetic field, however minor it may be.

I am sure I could come up with a few more given time to research it but these are off the top of my head. Perhaps I should have prefaced my statement with "my theory is", but I can see very little that doesn't lead in the direction of magnetic fields being the cause of this phenomenon. If magnetism is not the source then I think that is fantastic because it means that there is another force out there at work that we as yet don't understand. Perhaps a "new" physical property that only God understands. I think this whole thread is great because it is about thinking critically. It is about not only spewing out what you've been told, but pursuing new directions and new thoughts. This is the stuff that discovery is made of. Without it there would have been no Handel's "Messiah, no light bulb, no homesteading movement, no pursuit of greater discovery.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@calinet.com), April 07, 2000.


It's all in the way you word it. If you say "this works because..." that implies that it's a proven fact (or at least an accepted theory). If you say "I think this is why it works..." or something similar, then you are admitting that there is some doubt. Perhaps I should have stated myself more clearly. I was not offended by being called a scientist (assuming you were talking to me), but rather by the tone which I perceived behind it. In either case, apology accepted, thank you. No hard feelings. Back to the subject. A lot of folks don't even use a magnet but rather a pencil or wedding ring, neither of which is magnetic. This is just one of those things that lots of folks swear works but can't be proven scientifically. Maybe some day it will, who knows? Maybe some day I'll learn to spell. Stranger things have happened. I think I'm ready to stick this one with a fork and call it done.

-- Les (lvaughn@suntransformer.com), April 07, 2000.

Well, it's quite easy to see why it works, males are positive and females are negative and of course they give off strong force fields. Everybody knows that, Les! I was really interested in this statemetnf on here, though: .... I can swing a needle and manage to make my chicks sex change to what ever I want.....

Now, there is a subject for conjecture! Do you suppose hermaphrodites got a dose of the wrong magnetism while in the womb? Could they be remagnetized or demagnetized and made straight? What a nice idea for a grant for NIH.

-- Elizabeth Petofi (tengri@cstone.net), April 07, 2000.


Went right out & tried this on a steer. Nothing happened, it just kind of hung there, limp like. What does this mean? Didn't use tri-pod

-- Okie-Dokie (www.tommycflinstone@aol.com), April 08, 2000.

Although I hesitate to even comment on this subject, years ago, as I was about half-way through my pregnancy, a neighbor came over and wanted to show me how to "predict" what the baby would be. She used the needle method, and at first it would go straight, then in cirles, then straight and on and on. I Pooh-pooed the idea, thinking it was a bunch of hooey. When I delivered, it was twins. One boy, one girl. So...maybe the needle was right after all. Not for me to explain.

-- Jan B (Janice12@aol.com), April 08, 2000.

Jody, I don't know why it works, but I know that it does sometimes. I think it depends on who is holding the needle or magnet. I don't care if it can be scientifically proven or not. I know that my cousin's ex-wife could not only "sex" things accurately with a needle and thread, she could accurately tell the genders of all of the children that a woman had been pregnant with, even pregnancies that ended in miscarriage. She did this consistently, even when the ladies were strangers to all of the other women in the room. If this was a "parlor trick" she certainly had it down good. As for scientific proof of this, dousing for water, etc., I doubt there is any anywhere. Who cares? If it works, it works. Just because everyone on this forum hasn't seen it in action, doesn't mean it ain't so. And so far as science goes, if science and the medical profession both knew as much as they think they do, we would all be a lot better off than we are today.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), April 09, 2000.

Hate to rain on anyone's parade but science has never proven anything. Ask any scientist. Science is only capable of disproving. The scientific method works like this: 1) observe something 2) make a hypothesis (guess at what's going on) 3) design an experiment that will test the hypothesis 4) run the experiment 5) analyze the results. The experiment can prove your hypothesis false. It will never, ever prove it true.

-- Deborah (ActuaryMom@hotmail.com), April 10, 2000.

Elizabeth: Totally LOL!!!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), April 10, 2000.

Regardless of the vehicle (magnets, rings, erasers) what are the possible outcomes of the prognostication? Male: 1 possibility; Female: 1 possibility. The outcome of the prediction could be compared to tossing a coin: the outcome Heads: 1 possibility; Tails: 1 possibilty. So you have a 50/50% chance of being right.

So you toss the coin once...what are your odds: 50/50. Next time you toss the coin, what are your odds? (hint 50/50)...how about the next time? (50/50 still). The point is that you always have at least half a chance of being right. Let's say you do this 3 times, and you come up with Heads every time!! Hooray! Does this mean that you are correct, or just lucky?

I am not going on record here are saying that there aren't unexplained phenomena (gee, I sometimes listen to Art Bell!!!) but that maybe some of these predictions have benefitted from just a little bit of luck! Since sexing embryos has the same probabilites as tossing coins, I think it's possible that for the few times most of us have experienced this, that it was just lucky. Do this 10,000 times? Maybe....

I wouldn't take these odds in Vegas...Now what about: get pregnant or not pregnant? With the lights on, or not with the lights on? If it's a full moon, or not a full moon?

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), April 11, 2000.


Please be patient. And remain calm. This will all be explained in an upcoming episode of the "X Files."

-- Rog (flanders@probe.net), April 11, 2000.

I got a good chuckle out of this topic, and I guess that's worth something!

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 12, 2000.

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