A Pendulum - 1980

 

Copyright 1997 Michael Strong

 
 

In early 1980 I got my first pendulum. Leah had talked about them in her meditation class and told us that if we wanted a pendulum one of the best places was to find one in a gem store. We had to "feel" the thing to feel that it was right for us. I headed done for the rock shop in Westport and quickly found a small chain which held a tiny glass globe with rocks in it.

For days I was fascinated with the idea that this small device cold be made to swing wildly with no seeming motion on my part. It would seem to give me yes and no answers and directions. Later I realized that I supplied the motion for the pendulum and that the motions for this curious device could be changed by my own interest. The pendulum was not somehow independent of me.

Nonetheless, in what I will call "unconcious mode" the pendulum can indeed provide useful data. Just remember, the pendulum is not an independent agent. Hang it from a stationary platform by itself and it does nothing. It does nothing until it is in your own hands and then it is just an output device for yourself.

I didn't know that early on. At first it seemed to answer yes and no questions. It was really nice when it gave me answers I wanted to hear. But before I got on to that and before I realized that I couldn't be sure of how to keep my conscious self far enough out of things to trust results from the pendulum, I had one of those one-time experiences which disproves my own debunking.

This happened late on the afternoon of a weekday, during rush hour in the heart of Westport. A girl friend asked me to pick up a book of inspirational sayings by a New Age author whose name I can't remember anymore. An American Indian name. She gave me the author and the title of the book.

At that time Whistler's second floor front section was entirely religious, occult and related books. Marlene, who took care of that section was a Unity minister in training and she had a very good knowledge of what books were stocked and where they could be found. I was running on tight time and felt I had perhaps five minutes to dash in and get the book. Since I had delayed getting the book early I depended on her being there to help me find the book.

Luckily I was able to park directly in front of the bookstore. I dashed in. Marlene was not on duty. I had no idea where to look. For some reason, which I don't remember now, I was confused about where in the entire front of the store I could find the book. It seemed it would take forever and I had no assurance of where it was. I didn't even know what it looked like. I looked quickly over the shelves but couldn't find a thing.

It so happened the pendulum was in my pocket. I pulled it out and got it swinging in a circle and then asked it to point to the book. Immediately it changed its swing to an arc in a direction pointing across the room. As it did so I had a sense of where the book was. I walked to the other side of the room, reached to the back of and between a couple of large books on a middle shelf and pulled out a thin tiny lavender book. Without much further thought except a quick "thank you" I headed downstairs, paid for the book and drove off.

In later weeks, as I began to distrust the "objectiveness" of the pendulum I had the bookstore example as an exception. In fact, once I really stopped trusting the pendulum as an independent agent I lost the ability to even get the pendulum going in a circle for about a year and a half.

Yet looking back I now realize that the pendulum cannot ever be independent and that it is in the nature of the pendulum that, used well, it is merely a means for my "conscious" to check out my "sub-conscious" or maybe "super-conscious" or some other buzz word.

When I think about what occurred in the bookstore I realize a couple of things that I could not have gotten from the pendulum had it indeed been an independent agent. Trying to use the swing of the pendulum to sight along to find the book is not very accurate even assuming you can do so with the precision of an open gunsight or even cross hairs. The angle it covers has to be pretty large by the time you get to the other side of the room. For that matter it is impossible, from the swing, to know whether it is pointing ahead or behind. Still further, there was no way, in a forward or backward swing, to know which shelf the book was on.

So, somehow, I had to have known where the book was in a way that my "conscious" mind would not otherwise credit. In essence, the pendulum became a front for my "sub-conscious." Because I walked directly over to where I felt the book was and pulled out a book which was too small physically to be seen easily. Even though it had a lavender jacket it was tucked so far back on the shelf, between larger books and didn't have the title on the spine of the book that I'm reasonably sure I might have missed it anyway even had I known what it looked like and had I closely perused that shelf in the normal way. For that matter I didn't expect a lavender color. I didn't know it was small. At least, not in a conscious manner.

I feel that this is what all dousing is about. Pretending there is something magical about the pendulum itself is simply incorrect. I believe it is a kind of slight-of-hand we play on ourselves.

So do I use a pendulum now? No. Maybe someday, but I really haven't figured how to keep my conscious interests from intruding. I'm not good enough at doing a slight-of-hand on myself to make it work in a manner which appears independent. Besides, if it is coming from some knowledge to which I have access anyway my effort has been to look for a more direct means of recognizing that information.