Nineteenth century French chemist, Michel-Eugène Chevreul, was a staunch skeptic, who strongly detested the wave of spiritualism of that time, much of which he saw more as charlatanism. Regardless, many “spirit show” audience members still seemed convinced that some kind of phenomenon was happening that caused them to experience what they did.
The craze at the time involved tables that would inexplicably move and tip to one side as ordinary volunteers barely touched the table’s surface. Similarly, the art dowsing, pendulum readings, mysterious Ouija boards and the like, all seemed to operate with a similar function that Chevruel himself pointed out in 1833, in an open letter to Andre Marie Ampere, as well as in his own paper that he wrote in 1854, entitled, De la Baguette.
These are the earliest documented observations which first revealed that the true mystery behind these phenomena is our own human subconscious. This is where it is first announced that the mysterious acts which one can experience are nothing more than our own subconscious muscular reactions that are completely involuntary and therefore have the ability to amaze the self while the mind is in this state. Later, this became known as the ideomotor effect.
I was certified by a delightful hypnotist named Marcia Proctor. She is an amazing woman who has the ability to put people into hypnosis in the easiest and most effortless manner. These are ideas that she has picked up along the way, but I would treat her personal tips like gold. She is both a master and a student of the field of hypnosis, and knowledge of hypnotherapy is advanced beyond the vast majority of hypnotists out there.
In her words: “The pendulum is a tool for communication with your subconscious, which includes your emotional mind. It knows the truth. With the pendulum, you have access to the powers of perception deeper than your conscious or intellectual mind.”
The pendulum is the foundation upon which the polygraph was built, and yet, the pendulum is as simple as any swinging weight that hangs at the end of a thread or chain, and which can be held easily with one hand. You don’t need to go to a metaphysical bookstore to buy a pendulum, although, I must say that pendulums are powerful, beautiful objects that are hard not to collect.
The easiest way to construct one is to just take a finger ring, pendant or charm and clip it to the end of a chain or cord ortie it to the end of a ribbon or string so that it can hang about six to seven inches below where it is held. Even a wristwatchwill work. I love pendulums because they can be seen as a true gateway into our subconscious thoughts, while simultaneously referring to the classic hypnotist image, swinging his shiny watch at the end of his chain.
If there is an object of significance that the pendulum can be swung over to, and which can also serve as a resting point, even better; otherwise the palm of the other hand will suffice. If seated at a table, it is natural to want to put one’s elbow of the hand holding the pendulum on the table, but it is better to keep the elbow off the table.
The most common way of holding a pendulum is in the less dominant hand, securely pinching the end of the cord between the thumb and forefinger. It is then draped over the back of the fingers, so that the hand can hold the pendulum with the thumb remaining on top (thumbnail facing upwards) while pinching the cord. I don’t think it really matters, but if you want to look good in front of the other the local astrologers, just do as I say.
I believe the pendulum is used today in hypnotherapy because, if what Chevruel said was true, then the “magic” that people were experiencing with the “knowing pendulum” was really an observation of our subconscious while watching the pendulum move. Anything that allows our conscious minds to reason with our most subconscious thoughts is extremely interesting to a hypnotist.
It is interesting that, as mentioned earlier regarding the placebo effect, that even though you can tell your subject outright that it is simply one’s subconscious, it still seems to work. True, Chevruel originally stated that once the operator became aware of the brain’s reaction, the phenomenon was no longer able to be reproduced. However, it is widely known in the hypnosis community that even if one is aware that this thing called an ideomotor response is essentially your subconscious finding a way to communicate through your nervous system, the pendulum still manages to show successful results,. It is also a very permissive approach, which doesn’t put too much pressure on the operator.
Just do the ritual. Continue to concentrate on your question or dilemma and the pendulum will eventually move in the direction of your answer. Before asking your pendulum anything, one must make sure that one’s mind is calibrated to the swinging of the pendulum. So whether at a table or standing, hold it over the focal point, whatever you are using to delineate a resting spot.
Once the pendulum is completely still, in your thoughts, think “yes,” and set it in motion by nodding your head. Notice how it rocks forwards and backwards, like in the direction of yourself nodding your head in agreement. This is your pendulum’s “yes” response.
Ask the pendulum to center itself over its focal point and then think “no,” while naturally shaking your head from side to side. Note that the pendulum moves from the left to the right, just like your head shaking or finger waving. Incidentally, if the pendulum moves in circular movements, chances will be that the answer that it is giving you is either “maybe,” or “I don’t want to answer.” But what we will be focusing on primarily is calibrating the “yes and no” response with your use of the pendulum. The best way is to ask actual questions that have a definite yes, no, or I don’t know answer, and watch your pendulum react accordingly, as you meditate on each question.
1) Did I choose my neighbors?
2) Am I a man? Am I a woman?
3) Was I born in California?
4) Is my car pink?
5) Am I married? Am I single?
6) What is the distance between Jupiter and the Sun?
Now ask yourself questions which might cause a disagreement between your emotions and your intellect, such as: 1) Am I satisfied with my car?2) Am I pleased with where I live? 3) Do I feel successful in life? 4) Do I earn enough money? 5) Am I a happy person? 6) Should I buy another pendulum?
Continue to practice with your pendulum and you can discover more about yourself that you may not have known otherwise. It is also possible to use your pendulum to help you make difficult-to-answer decisions that require a more intuitive answer. In these cases, there are many times that the pendulum will answer the question in a way you may disagree with. This doesn’t mean that you are wrong and that your pendulum is right. It does mean that you need to contemplate the deeper issue.
I will usually collect up the cord or chain and hold the pendulum stone or “bob,” in my hand to consult with it. Then I might re-ask the question or ask it in a different way, in order to get a second opinion by starting up the pendulum again.
One of the first things that you tend to learn is that it really is best not to dwell on letting the pendulum make predictions for you. The pendulum is best not used as a supernatural tool of this caliber. What it can do is answer questions for you regarding whether or not the timing of things seems appropriate or not, and also whether a situation or decision you make is in your best interest. So asking it things like, “Is it the right time for me to request a promotion?” or even, “Is requesting a promotion right now in my best interest?” is a more practical application of using a pendulum than asking questions like “Will I be getting that promotion I’ve been wanting this year?”
You will find that using your pendulum in a more permissive manner allows you access to your higher self. This guides you by letting you know if it feels conditions are favorable or unfavorable based on its access to the Life Force Energies. At least, that is what I am told.
There seems to be an etiquette of “proper pendulum dowsing,” which suggests to never ask one’s pendulum for an unforeseeable prediction of the future. Yet there is also an aspect of mystery underlying the entire use of the pendulum as a “subconscious gateway.” The idea being that if it truly is a subconscious gateway, who really knows what clues there are to find in the different manners that we observe it communicating with us?
The pendulum was one of the first oracles regularly used to determine both the pregnancy of a woman and the sex of a child before birth. Doing a search online, one finds many contradicting methods which tell you what signs to look for, how to calibrate, how to hold it, and what to be concentrating on. The idea goes far back to gypsy origins, and as such, it is hard to place just who started this tradition, what the details of the tradition consisted of looking for and also how off-base the system would become over time.
Remember, as interesting as I find the mystery of ideomotor response found in the work of pendulums, my greater interest would be in asking the question if there is a secret understanding that even our subconscious may be unaware of? To receive the correct answer if one is pregnant is almost 100 percent, since it is an actual “law of nature,” as indicated by understanding the ideomotor response — one’s body will simply know the truth as to if one is pregnant whether one realizes it or not.
Nonetheless, the gender test was still vaguely intriguing to me, since it had this element of “hidden mystery” and also because after I had tried it over a couple of instances whenever presented, I started to find out that it was indeed always right once the ultrasound came back.
Admittedly, much of the time, the woman making the challenge would already be pregnant and want to know if I could somehow know for myself if her baby was going to be a boy or a girl. So when I gave her the pendulum, it would be more of a suggestion experiment where I would just tell her that if it swings this way, then it is a boy, and if it swings that way, it should be a girl. Since she herself already knows the gender of the baby she is carrying, the ideomotor response has no problem taking over and getting the job done.
Since I first started playing around with this (almost twenty years ago), however, I started trying something else, which I am still unsure about, so I feel if I mention it in this article, something may come of it (besides the obvious, which is, that I am talking crazy again). My notion is that I have good reason to believe that there is something to this “pendulum gender game.” So far, I may have just been lucky, but it has simply not failed me for many years now.
Originally, I learned it from a Turkish woman who told me that this was something that her family did going back many generations. Her claim was that her method “never fails.” And when she did it, she did it with my then pregnant wife. I remember being mildly amazed that it worked.
So, as an experiment, whenever I had a pregnant woman ask me what the sex of her child was going to be, I would make-shift a pendulum out of whatever happened to be around in the moment, and then I would have her hold it and make an interpretation. It was that easy… plus, it seemed to always work.
Assuming that she was honest when she said it had never failed her (or, allegedly generations of her family past), and hard as it may be for me to put more control on this experiment, since pregnant women aren’t always directly in front of me to do this with, my sense is to try and begin looking deeper at this phenomena by just putting it out there. Is the urban legend really just an old wives’ tale? Or could we all be missing something deeper? Might sacred geometry somehow be playing a role?
Whether what I am about to tell you is real or just another perfect example of magical thinking, I do think it deserves looking into in the form of play. It really might amaze you.
Play the game as follows, and take note, as you simply watch life’s mysteries unfold. The next time you are confronted with a pregnant woman, you don’t need to have your special quartz crystal pendulum with you in order to play this simple game. Just tie a paper clip or wedding ring to a piece of ribbon or string, or even just have the woman who is pregnant hold a thin necklace with a pendant: 1) To begin, it is an interesting conversation-starter as you hand the pregnant woman your pendulum to look at. 2) Do not give her any instructions at all about what to do with it, and if someone tries to give her directions, tell them to stay quiet for the time being. Just watch her and observe what she does with it. If she asks you for guidance, have her hold it over her open palm, and tell her to “see if it swings.” 3) This next part is where this game detaches from rational thought patterns, but not to worry. Just remember, this is a game. Watch closely, to see if the pendulum is swinging in any particular way. If it is motionless, tell her that in a moment she will see the pendulum swing. The pendulum will eventually swing, and when it does, you will look for one of two swinging patterns. (A) If it swings in a straight line in any direction, this can be seen as a “yang,” or male energy making its presence known through the laws of sacred geometry. (B) If it swings in a circular motion, whether it is clockwise or counterclockwise, it can be seen as a “yin,” or female energy emerging from the subconscious.
Oddly, at least for me (as well as this woman and her family), it has proven to work 100 percent of the time. Common statistics would easily prove me wrong in the long run, but so far, to my surprise, this has worked on everyone I have tried this on. Interestingly, it oddly makes sense, especially if you have ever looked into the sacred geometry mentioned by Drunvalo Melchizedek in his Flower of Life model, which is a geometric pattern found in ancient hieroglyphs all over the world since (it seems) the beginning of language and communication. The Flower of Life symbol consists essentially of identical , overlapping circles, beginning with a single circle that is surrounded by six identically sized circles. The perimeter of each circle will be seen to barely touch each circle next to it in this configuration. Now, if more identical circles are then filled in to create a uniformed grid of vesica pisces that overlap all seven initial circles, a kaleidoscopic pattern of six-petaled flowers within each circle suddenly appears.
At this point, there is a way of interpreting a “male energy” that can be seen more as the thinner unions (the “flower petals” of the design that are formed by the multiple vesica pisces), and the “female energy” as the motherly circles which bring the entire design to life from the beginning. Thus the lines are MALE “yang lines” and the circles are FEMALE “yin circles.”
My theory is that there might be a possibility that pregnant women will subconsciously tend to swing pendulums by themselves in a way that will reflect the gender of the child. Taking this “male/female” concept a few steps deeper, it would then be possible to have anyone concentrate on anything at all, before handing them a make-shift pendulum, and by just watching it swing, you will determine if the energy of their issue has a male or female vibration and thus may have better insight in knowing how to balance them accordingly.
If there is a conscious connection to yin and yang energies that can be interpreted by observing the simplest geometrical swings of a pendulum, now that would be really something.
My feeling is that even if this doesn’t turn out to be true, once you explain your reasoning of why you feel this way by drawing a Flower of Life for the woman you are explaining this to, they can no longer blame you if it doesn’t work anymore. Blame it on the Flower of Life. Nevertheless, what if there was some kind of truth behind this? Wouldn’t it be weird? It already weirdly makes sense, so I encourage you to try this and let me know of your experiences. I don’t even want to get into the possibilities of what it might mean if the straight lines are sideways, or if the circles go counterclockwise….
^^^
Alain Nu, “The Man Who Knows,” is an international performance artist and “Man of Mystery.” He is a paranormalist, a world-renowned metal bender and a “you have to see it to believe it” sort of guy.
He has starred in his own four-part miniseries for the TLC network, The Mysterious World of Alain Nu, and has authored two books (State of Mind and Picture Your ESP). Highlights of his career include headlining at Las Vegas showrooms and casinos such as The OYO Casino, The Alexis Park Resort, The Notoriety Theater, and Caesars Palace Las Vegas. Alain has performed for presidents (including three inaugural balls), politicians, royalty, other ambassadors/world leaders and celebrities worldwide.
This excerpt is adapted from State of Mind: The Man Who Knows Reveals The Powers of Mind Over Matter.