Pendulums & Dowsing

2007-12-04T21:21:00.000-08:00

Excerpted from the book: Powers that Be
Author: Walter Woods

We are all skeptics and want a rational explanation for how walking along with a simple tree branch in the shape of a Y can lead someone to the perfect spot to dig a well, or how holding a pendulum over a map can locate a lost plane. So I always like to introduce newcomers to the amazing world of dowsing with some research and theories about how dowsing might work. I find this helps people when they start out because, first of all, in order to get results, it's important to believe that dowsing can work. And having some understanding of how it might work usually helps beginners to believe. Also, it takes some of the "spook" out of it!

There have been many attempts to explain the often mind-boggling results that dowsers can get, but no single explanation has been agreed upon. Skeptics have suggested that when dowsers locate a precise spot to drill a well, they are responding to the physical terrain of a place without realizing it, instinctively knowing where water will be found beneath the ground based on clues from the land above. Some believe that it must be an external force that guides the instruments, rather than an internal force that emanates from the person dowsing. But this doesn't explain why some dowsers don't need an instrument, they just tune in to physiological changes they feel in their body when they dowse, and let these changes guide them.

The most likely explanation is that dowsing is the ability to tune in to some force that science has not yet identified. For instance, water and the items that dowsers find may have a natural magnetic, electromagnetic, or other unknown energy to which dowsers are able to attune their instruments. A fairly simple science experiment shows how moving water can cause electricity to flow. Water drops moving down a wire will rake off enough electrons to cause a small neon bulb to flash--a requirement of over 68 volts. (You experience something similar when you slide across a plastic seat and get an electric shock when you touch someone.) Water flowing underground also causes some kind of electric current. Any time electricity flows in any kind of conductor, it creates an electromagnetic field. What if this field could then be picked up by internal sensors that we all have?

Is it possible that we have sensory systems that we are not consciously aware of? Back in 1983, a neurophysiologist at the V.A. Medical Center in Loma Linda, California, reported observing effects from electric fields only one-millionth as strong as those formerly considered threshold levels in humans. This was news to most scientists, but not to many dowsers! Dowsers have frequently conducted experiments at dowsing conventions in which they passed electricity through ground, and found they could easily pick up the resulting electromagnetic energies. Scientists have identified three sensors that can pick up this electromagnetic information. One is near or in the pituitary gland (in the brain), and there is one on each adrenal gland (near each kidney). The theory is that by comparing the information from these three internal sensory points, the brain can determine both the distance and direction of an electromagnetic source without our conscious awareness--much in the way the brain uses the two eyes to calculate how far away an object is, another thing the brain does without us consciously thinking about it.

So how do we get this sensory information from the unconscious to our conscious mind? That is where dowsing comes in--in particular, the dowsing instrument. Experiments have been performed in muscle testing, in which the subconscious can be programmed to cause involuntary muscles to be strong for a true statement and weak for a false statement. There have also been experiments that test the muscles in dowsers, with the finding that dowsers move their instruments with involuntary muscle movements. Do you see how this could work? Say our internal sensory systems pick up electrical currents from the flow of water underground. Our conscious mind may not "know" we feel these electrical signals, but the sensory systems could trigger involuntary muscle responses tht indicate the "yes" response in dowsing instruments. The muscles of the body respond involuntarily, guided by the unconscious--or at least, by that of which we are not aware.

Perhaps you're saying, "But that doesn't explain map dowsing or information dowsing." After all, dowsers are able to locate things by dowsing on a map with a pendulum; and they are able to dowse for this information by "programming" their subconscious to respond by giving certain signals indicating a "yes" or "no" to questions. (You'll learn to do this later.) What kind of energy could our internal sensors be tuning in to in these instances?

Map dowsing seems to be related to something called the "Backster Effect." Cleve Backster is a lie detector specialist who attached a galvanic skin response detector (a lie detector, in effect) to the top leaf of a plant. This device measures the electrical resistance of the skin--or in this case, the leaf. He then watered the plant, intending to measure the amount of time it would take for the water to reach the leaf and change its electrical resistance. To his surprise, the detector immediately indicated a response that correlated with a "happy" response in humans (the galvanic skin response that equates with a happy state). Puzzled, he decided to measure a traumatic response in the plant by burning a leaf. The plant showed a fear response on the lie detector as soon as he had the thought. He hadn't even picked up the match yet! (Ever notice that people who talk to their plants have the best green thumbs?)

Backster's experiments have been duplicated thousands of times, using many variations, by many scientists. These experiments and others like them have been argued to show that there is some type of energy--I'll call it "superconscious energy," for lack of a better term--that seems to have been flowing through Backster's mind and the plant. Have you ever felt ill at ease or apprehensive for no apparent reason? Perhaps this is the undetected energy that explains a mother's intuition.

A basic theory is, then, that using a dowsing instrument allows your subconscious to tap in to the wealth of information available from this superconscious energy. It follows, therefore, that water dowsing is the most physical type of dowsing because it is most closely related to your body's own sensitivity to the electrical currents of underground water. Dowsing for objects is also likely related to the body's allowing itself to tune in to electrical currents. It seems more psychic in nature, however, because you really have to let your rational mind let go of preconceptions in order to get in touch with energies you are not conscious of.

2007-09-17T17:40:00.000-07:00

Pendulums
Author: Bob Ater

Modern treasure hunters have been discovering how useful and versatile the swinging pendulum can be. It can be easily used in the field for searching for any kind of target that can be pictured in the mind. As a map dowsing instrument it is superb. It is small enough to be carried in the pocket. Once the methods of its use are learned, it can be counted on to help bring forth valuable information from the subconscious mind. It need not cost very much to make since any small weight attached to a thread or string or small chain can work very well.

The treasure dowsing pendulum user may be surprised to learn that the use of these devices is not a new invention, but can be traced back in history at least 10,000 years. In fact, they may have been used for searching for things even earlier than that, but we have proof they were used by a very early culture located on the northeast coast of America and Canada. These early people followed the retreat of the last glacier northward, as the ice melted 10,000 years ago. The actual origin of these dowsing instruments may well have been Sumer in the area of modern Iraq.

We now have proof that pendulums were a very important part of the very ancient cultures of North America. Archaeologists who have explored ancient Indian mounds in Florida have found pendulums that are dated to about 5,000 years ago. Other examples have been found which are dated as close to our own time as 1,200 A.D. These are thought to have been very sacred instruments. They were important enough to ancient people to be placed in the graves with the bodies of the dead. A great deal of care and effort was used in their manufacture. Many are intricately formed and decorated.

Many archaeologists have been confounded when discovering these devices in ancient graves. Some have identified them as fishing weights or net sinkers. Not having an understanding of dowsing and how the pendulum is used in that art, they simply search their own personal experience for things they have seen that look similar. Their first thought is 'fishing weights'. It may well be that some of these were used occasionally for that purpose, but I am sure this was not their original intent. Most archaeologists do recognize that these artifacts were meant to be suspended from a cord for some kind and probably had some kind of 'magic' or sacred intent and use.

One pendulum weight found in an Eskimo grave was made from a walrus tooth. It still had the rawhide cord attached. The archaeologist who classified it admitted that it was not a fishing weight, but had something to do with religion or magic. He called it a 'charm stone'. It was used, I think, to dowse for walrus and other game animals and fish. It may well have also been used to find the way home or to gain other valuable information. The Eskimo culture was not limited to Alaska. It spread out over the far northern part of North America from the Pacific to the Atlantic. When the Norse explorers arrived on the shores of North America they were met by many skin bots filled with Eskimos. This was the same area where thousands of these dowsing pendulums stones have been found in the graves of a culture that is dated to at least 10,000 years old, the Red Paint People.

Magnetic Pendulums
Ancient pendulums were most often made of shaped and decorated stone. Sometimes, as was the case in much of Florida, the hearts of conch shells were carved into pendulum weights.

Sometimes even pottery fragments were reshaped into pendulums. In Egypt they were sometimes made intentionally from pottery clay, then fired and decorated.

Some Indian medicine men seemed to have preferred pendulums made of iron ore called magnetite. The fact that the material was magnetic probably added mystery and wonder to its use. Two such pendulums made of this material are illustrated here. Such devices are really 'treasures' in their own right.

These facts about ancient pendulums should be very exciting to we modern treasure hunting dowsers. They provide a real psychic connection to those ancient treasure hunters of long ago. If they could search for targets that were of interest to them and experience a great deal of success, then we today can certainly do the same. They must have promoted the art of pendulum dowsing for more than ten millenniums.

References:
Indian and Eskimo Artifacts of North America, by Charles Miles, published by Henry Regency Co., Chicago 1963
Archeology of Eastern United States, edited by J. B. Griffin, published by University of Chicago Press
A Report on the Archaeology of Main, by W. K. Moorhead, published by The Andover Press, Andover, Massachusetts, 1922

2007-09-14T00:44:00.000-07:00

Wholistic Living With the Pendulum
Author: Per Hogseth

The pendulum is a very useful tool for getting in touch with the deeper levels of your being. In 1949 a prehistoric cave mural was found showing a dowser looking for water. Carbon dating revealed that the moral was at least 8.000 years old. So dowsing has been around for quite some time.

For a long while it seemed to be almost forgotten, but in the last hundred years interest has increased again, particularly in Europe where the pendulum is often used for medical diagnosis.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
The pendulum reads exact energy patterns. Every living thing is surrounded by energy, some good and some bad. We can easily sense and distinguish different energies. Cleve Backster`s experiments vividly showed how plants will shrink away from negative energies. All living things have this capability, but we humans are either not aware of it, or tend to ignore it most of the time.

How can we meet someone and in just a few seconds dislike them or feel they can not be trusted? Our nervous system is the communication system in our bodies. The brain gets its information through the nervous system and then transmits that information back. Hence, we may feel drawn towards someone without knowing why.

The responses the pendulum makes do not come from the pendulum itself, but from your inner being. Your inner mind and super-conscious mind communicating through your nervous system. As a result, when we hold the pendulum over something, we are measuring the interaction of the object’s force field with our own nervous system.

Interestingly enough, it is not necessary to have the actual object or person present to get accurate readings. The famous French priest, Abbè Mermet, was able to successfully dowse for water and minerals in Africa from the comfort of his office in France.

Verne Cameron was able to demonstrate to the American navy how he could locate the position and depth of every submarine in the Pacific Ocean. He was also able to determine which submarines were American and which were Russian.

2007-09-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

An Insight Into Dowsing
Author: Sophie Chamberlain

Dowsing, sometimes associated with the word radioesthesia, is the use of a special instrument to identify or find an object or condition in physical matter. Dowsing is generally associated with finding oil, water or precious metals, but sometimes an object that is missing. To this end, various Dowsing instruments are used- on either a map, a picture or an actual physical location. Dowsing is probably a very ancient practice. There is evidence that Dowsing goes back as far as ancient Egypt and ancient China. Dowsing was reportedly used to find coal during the Middle Ages.

The most popular tools for Dowsing are the "wishing rods," which are often made out of metal these days but sometimes out of wood, as was common in the past--and the pendulum.

Dowsing, in the past, generally used wood. Popular woods that were used for Dowsing were hazel branches, generally forked, along with beech, alder and apple. Nowadays, as before, the Dowsing rods, when used, are held in an L-shape with discovery being made when the rods cross each other. Pendulums used for Dowsing are simply generally string weighted with some type of crystal or other type of weight.

Sir William Barrett, a physics professor at the Royal College of Science in Dublin at the end of the century, was extremely skeptical of Dowsing until he became familiar with a dowser named John Mullins, who was hired by the Waterford Bacon Factory to locate underground streams of water. The small forked stick he used for Dowsing almost immediately bore more fruit than the work of various professional geologists who had failed to identify the water source. Later on, Barrett would be one of the main founders of the British Society for Psychical Research and publish the results of his research on Dowsing in the Society's Proceedings.

Classic research on Dowsing was conducted and reported by Dr. Solco W. Tromp, a Dutch professor of geology, who was the director of the Bioclimatological Center in London. His chief book related to parapsychological research was Psychical Physics, a work speaking of the influence of various types of electrical and magnetic field on living organisms. It included the effects of these types of fields on dowsers, which he himself tested in the laboratory. To this end, used a galvanometer with a wooden ring and a coil of wire to create a magnetic field. He found that, although dowsers could not really determine the intensity of the field, they could detect changes in it. He also found that Dowsing in the field, using a pendulum for quicker results, could successfully enable to dowser to detect different types of magnetic anomalies.

Theories of Dowsing vary, but it is often supposed that the Dowsing instrument conveys to the psyche of the dowser a subtle energy detected around the object in question. So a field of energy, perhaps still unknown to modern science, is postulated to be the cause of the phenomenon.