Dowsing

[poliphilo]

Ailz has a witchy party trick where she dowses the number and sex of a person's children (already born or to come) by swinging a pendulum over their open palm. It works with both men and women- and I've never known her get it wrong. Here she is performing it with our niece, Jenny.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes.

The pendulum moves one way for a girl and another way for a boy.

She's been doing this since she was a teen.

[mamarose.livejournal.com]

I love chatting with unborn babies this way :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah, you can do it too....:)

[mamarose.livejournal.com]

I picked up dowsing when I was on the road doing tarot readings. I am best with yes/no questions, but love it. I call this one of my parlor tricks, as once the pendulum starts swinging, it always draws a crowd.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I met a guy once who claimed to be able to detect underground anomalies- like wells or mineshafts- using maps.

[mamarose.livejournal.com]

Using maps? I wonder how accurate he was. I wonder how that works. So interesting.

My great grandfather could use a twig to dowse for water, which I still find fascinating. Though he did so by walking around, not over a map ;)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He didn't do it commercially- and wasn't trying to sell himself; he was in fact rather reticent about his ability. Very strange. I never put him to the test- more's the pity.

[methodius.livejournal.com]

I used to do something similar when a teen. A friend had a pendulum and a pice of string that came in a DIY dowsing kit that he'd bought in a novelty shop or something. I tried it out by covering photos and seeing what it said about the sex of people in the photos. It was supposed to swing backwards and forwards for one sex, and in circles for the other (I forget which).

It was remarkably accurate. A bit like spinning a coin and having it come up heads each time. I can't recall that it ever got one wrong.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

These things work in real life- but when they're tested under laboratory conditions they almost always fail. It's a weird old world.