Pendulum & Dowsing

Take hold of a pendulum on the screen and see how a tiny movement of your hand becomes a wide swing; dowse over charts — yes and no, numbers, letters or your own choices — or print one for your own pendulum; run Chevreul's blind test with a hidden coin; and keep a record of what it said and what came true, measured against chance. The rhythm of the chain shows, with Galileo, why a pendulum keeps time by its length. Do Chevreul's own experiment of 1812 again: the iron ring that swings over mercury, stops when a glass pane slides between or a support braces the arm, and no longer cares about the pane once you are blindfolded. Push a swing in time with its rhythm and watch a tiny push build a wide one, or tap along with your own pendulum to work out its length. Walk a ten-metre line with two dowsing rods and feel a degree of wrist become a full swing; then take the barn test of Munich yourself, the pipe hidden and your calls scored against one in ten. Dowse a map as the abbé Mermet taught: forty-eight squares of country with a spring shown or hidden, a bob that trails your finger as you sweep, and your calls scored against luck by hit, by near miss and by distance.

mixer

How it works. A pendulum moves because your hand moves it, through tiny movements you make without noticing — the ideomotor effect the chemist Michel Chevreul demonstrated with pendulums in the 1830s. That is why it can surface what you already half-know, and why it cannot tell you what nobody could know. Never use it for health, money or safety decisions.

Show me:

How this works

The bob hangs from your hand on a thread 20 cm long, so it swings once every 0.9 seconds. Move your hand in time with that and each swing adds to the last: a movement of a couple of pixels becomes a swing of dozens. The pendulum does nothing your hand did not start — the numbers beside it show how little that can be. Your hand drifts back over the dot when you hold still, and the crystal point loses about 34% of its swing a second to the air.

It hangs still. Take hold, then move your pointer in a tiny circle, once every 0.9 seconds or so, and see what the thread does with it.

Your hand moved0.0

The pendulum swings0

Pendulum settings

Thread length · 20 cm, one swing every 0.9 sA short thread swings quickly; a long one slowly. Match your hand to it.

Weight

A good all-rounder.Draw the pendulum's trail

Ask, and write it down

Write the question before you ask it, and the answer as soon as the pendulum gives it. Come back later to say whether it was right — that is the only way to learn whether it is worth trusting.

Question

AnswerWhen will you know? (optional)

PRACTISE WITH IT

0 of 8 done

A few things to do with this tool, from a first try to a habit. Each one you tick counts as practice for the day, towards your streak and milestones.

Kept in this browser. Notes you send to the journal are kept there as well.

WORKS WELL WITH

LEARN THE BACKGROUND

2 lessons explain the ideas behind this tool.