Test your Dowsing Skills
The Pendulum and its Use
The pendulum is used widely by
professional dowsers or water-diviners, who often prefer it to the divining rod.
As well as its traditional use in detecting water or minerals, the pendulum is
variously used to divine the sex of eggs or foetuses, to diagnose illnesses, or
to find the locations of lost objects or people.
You can develop and test your own
dowsing powers in the following experiments. You will need a simple pendulum
which can be made by tying a finger ring or other small weight on a length of
fine thread. About 12-18 inches (30-45cm) is fine.
To use the pendulum, hold the end of
the thread lightly between the thumb and first two fingers of one hand. Your
hand should be held comfortably at about shoulder height so that the ring hangs
down freely.
Experiment 1
Hold the pendulum as described
above. Now simply TELL the pendulum to move back and forth. Do NOT try to make
it swing by moving your hand - keep your hand still while staying relaxed. You
will find that the pendulum starts to move as directed, slightly at first and
then with increasing amplitude (keep up the mental intention). Now tell the
pendulum to stop. The swing will quickly reduce until the pendulum stops moving.
Try telling the pendulum to move in
different ways - e.g., left to right, diagonally, clockwise, anticlockwise. In
each case the pendulum will move in the intended direction.
Practice these tests until you have
developed a good sense of the ways in which the pendulum moves and the effects
of your mental intentions on the movements.
Experiment 2
IMPORTANT: In this experiment, and
the experiments that follow, it is important that you do NOT consciously intend
any particular movement of the pendulum. You should rather simply WATCH the
pendulum to see how it moves.
Ask a friend to hold out a hand and
allow the ring to dangle just above it. You will find that the ring will start
to move, apparently of its own volition. You may find that the direction of
movement is different depending on the sex of the person. It is often said, for
example, that if the person is male the ring will swing back and forth, whereas
if the person is female, the ring will trace a circle or ellipse. See if this is
true for you.
Experiment 3
Think of a number between 5 and 10.
Now hold the pendulum so that the ring hangs down inside a glass tumbler,
without it touching the sides or bottom. It may help to shorten the pendulum and
rest your elbow on the table. The pendulum will start to swing until the ring
strikes the side of the tumbler. Mysteriously, the ring will continue to swing
so that it strikes exactly the number of times you were thinking of, then it
will slowly stop.
Experiment 4
Get three cups and invert them on a
table. While you turn away, ask a friend to hide a coin under one of the cups.
Now turn back and hold the pendulum over each of the cups in turn. From the
movements of the pendulum, see if you can tell which cup the object is under.
Experiment 5
Try using the pendulum to get
answers to questions that you are interested in. You will need to decide in
advance what each direction of movement means. A simple and sensible system is
to use a forward-and-back swing for "yes" and left-to-right for "no".
Alternatively, you can use clockwise for yes, and anti-clockwise for no. If you
have a complex question, you will need to break it down into a sequence of
yes-no questions. Have fun, but don't take it too seriously.
Comments
Of course, there is nothing
"magical" about the actual movements of the pendulum in any of these
experiments. The movements are caused by slight unconscious muscle movements in
the body, arm and hand (if you don't believe this then, when observing someone
else using the pendulum, watch their HAND rather than the pendulum).
Psychologists call this phenomenon the ideomotor response. The pendulum simply
acts as an amplifier of these subconscious ideomotor movements, so that they can
be more easily detected.
The interesting question in relation
to the pendulum's use in dowsing is whether these unconscious muscular movements
may be produced by super-sensory or extrasensory awareness. Experiments 4 and 5
provide a way of investigating these possibilities.
Further Reading
Dowsing
(Wikipedia)
Davidson, W. (2008).
Dowsing: For Answers .
Green Magic.
Webster, R. (2003).
Dowsing for Beginners: How to Find Water, Wealth and Lost Objects (Llewellyn's Beginners Series) .
Llewellyn Publications.
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