I'm writing an article on pendulums. Here's my thoughts so far. If someone wants to add some material on the history of the use of pendulums to communicate with the dead, I'll list you as co-author of the article...
I'm torn on the topic of Pedulums. I've tried one out, as sort of an experiment. I guess four possibilities come to mind:
1. Perhaps a ghost or spirit is actually moving the pendulum. Directly using some sort of psychic force to move it around and answer the questions.
2. Perhaps a ghost or spirit acts through the pendulum user, causing the pendulum user to subtlely and subconsciously affect the movement of the pendulum. After all, it takes very little movement by the hand, to create great movements of the pendulum.
3. Perhaps the pendulum user is subconsciously moving the pendulum, and answering their own questions without realizing it.
4. Perhaps the pendulum user is misinterpretting random movements of the pendulum, caused by random or unconscious movements of their hand.
The fact the pendulum is actually held by the user's physical hand brings the practice into question, somewhat. I love the idea of it...and I'm not saying its not legitimate, I'm just saying that the use of a pendulum (without some scientific controls) is not conclusive evidence of a haunting or communication with the dead.
The scientific controls I'd like to try sometime, would be suspending the pendulum from a stationary object...rather than a user's hand. Controls would need to be put in place regarding vibrations in the room (a little sensor for this would be fairly cheap) and controls in place regarding breezes in the room (for instance pieces of light cloth hung from stationary objects around the room, both near and far from where the pendulum is hanging.)
And then, if I were able to establish the pendulum was moving independently in reponse to my questions, I would want to see if this form of communication was answering intelligently, consistantly, and was bringing forth answers that could be confirmed as true.
Mark Stinson