[Shalrath]

Hey guys,

I've just completed an apprentice training revolving around radiesthesia and using pendulums as well as dowsing rods, the latter to a lesser extent.
It lasted for 60 hours and was carried out by two professionals, both of them masters of the craft, who often engage in field work, providing radiesthetic expertise, water detection, finding lost objects, people etc.

Before I continue, you need to know where I'm coming from - I'm an engineer and a computer scientist. Everything related to hard science of facts and measurable forces is what I studied and what I do at work.
So you can understand the reluctance and skepticism at the prospect of dealing with something deemed undetectable, mystical-bordering-occult, something that deals with the subconscious and esoteric, something that most scientists dismiss as superstition and 'magic'.

Nevertheless, after about half the course, I already knew this stuff works.
It's not charlatanerie, it's not guess work. I won't get into the details but more and more work is being done in the department of building and using actual electrical devices and meters to measure the forces at work, in the context of radiesthesia. Some of these are already out there but since so few people commit to this, it's a slow-going process. Finally, UN considers radiesthesia a discipline of science.

The course I participated in was a prelude to becoming a journeyman but I decided this wasn't what I wanted for several reasons. My main goal has been to get to know what this is about and how it works. There are many books on the subject which address minute elements of the whole dowsing phenomena and enable to broaden one's knowledge in that department. That latter part of the course was oriented towards the more mundane practical applications of dowsing and preparation for something akin to a state exam. The most important things have already been said in the first 60 hours.

Thus my next avenue of approach - to read as much as I can and perhaps find some way to bridge the gap between hard science and this "soft" science as I like to call it.
There is a common agreement that radiesthesia should be studied first if somebody intends to embark on a journey to become a healer - we're talking biotherapy, reiki and such.
The primary idea is that radiesthesia works with the same energies, both beneficial and detrimental. Knowing how to detect sources of the latter, enables a healer to better apply the former.

For example, unknown underground water streams universally generate negative energy that radiates outward for hundreds of meters and passes through most substances, including reinforced concrete and metal plates. If a healer were to help a person get rid of something that negatively affects their health, that healed person might return to their home, to their bed, without knowing that they are in the radiation zone of a negative watercourse. All healing will be reversed within a single night spent in that area, sleeping. The solution is often to simply push your bed a couple of meters to one side and suddenly many health-related problems disappear. With dowsing and knowledge of radiesthesia, a person could use a pendulum to detect such watercourses and select their places of rest or work (places where you spend the most time) in such a way as to avoid these areas of negative energy.

The negativity we're talking about here can be of sufficient intensity that at the age of thirty, people have health problems typical for elderly - heart failures, strokes, cancer, mental afflictions etc. All this just because they've spent their lives in the zones of negative energy without knowing about it.
This is just scratching the surface; when I realized the extent of knowledge and the bulk of information and science behind all of this, I was baffled and stunned. This isn't something you can summarize or explain in a single book or a prelecture. People study this for years.

There are many kinds of pendulums and materials from which they are made; every physical object around us has its own energy signature. It can be positive, negative, strong or weak. You can use radiesthesia to determine for example how beneficial a particular type of food is for you or for somebody else. Radiesthesia and dowsing ties with chakras, with colors (including chromotherapy), with auras and with the general concept of extra-sensory perception.

A theory claims that there is no such thing as extra-sensory perception; rather it is an aspect of radiesthesia and a particularly strong sensitivity to perceive energies involved. By extension, anybody could learn that, it's just that some people have a natural tendency.
You can determine possible areas of esoteric affinities - different people have different tendencies; some are more naturally inclined to be healers, others to be herbalists, yet other people have premonitions and strong intuition which indicates talent at clairvoyance. All of us can technically master any of these skills, thus some come easier than others depending on predisposition.
I realize this is a rather loose and chaotic collection of thoughts and conclusions but I'm hoping this will at least pique some interest and push people to explore this sadly obscure discipline. It's really worth a shot, if you can keep an open mind.

I will answer any questions related to the subject, to the best of my ability.
I took the liberty of answering some that I've found on the main page where I'm posting this:

1) Any tips on finding things with a pendulum? (somebody lost a bracelet)

Without previous training, I would advise against using a pendulum. A person would have to use a specific type of pendulum and experience shows if people have pendulums at home, they are of the type that is best suited for some other work. You need to understand how a pendulum works with you - women and men have certain differences that practically make their pendulums behave in starkly different fashion. Men typically have polarity opposite to that of women - it's like the yin and yang, but like everything else, there are exceptions to the rule. The most important thing is to understand what a pendulum's behavior means to you. If it makes circular, clockwise motions, does it mean yes? or no? That depends on said polarity and relates to programming your pendulum.
Without understanding the very basic rules of pendulum's behavior in simple cases, you cannot hope to expect it to work when looking for a lost object - it's an advanced usage that even professionals have occasional problems with. Finally, a pendulum is like a personal talisman - it is advised to carry it with you at all times so it's attuned to you by constantly being within your own biofield. Without that, pendulums gather whatever energies happen to be around, including negative ones that will inevitably affect the accuracy of whatever findings they are used to obtain.

2) How do you know you are not using your mind to move the pendulum?

This is a frequent question. The idea is to clear your mind and avoid asking any questions, then simply let the pendulum swing above the open palm of your hand. Then turn your hand upside down and check again what happens. If the pendulum reverses its motion on the other side, this means it works and you're not affecting it with your mind.
Using a pendulum is a mental process and you need discipline and a good dose of conscious effort to keep your mind focused and clear. If you do that, you won't doubt your pendulum's motions. It is easier said than done.
What works for me is color meditation - print a sheet of paper with 7 colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Then in a comfortable position, imagine as each of these colors (one after another) enters your chakras and energizes them. This could last as little as 2-3 minutes but it works wonders for me. It calms my mind and somehow makes me more centered, more open to interpret the pendulum's behavior rather than impose my own will upon it.

3) Just wondering what technique people here use to get a session with their pendulum started.

The general set of rules is as follows:
- you must not cross your legs or hands (sitting cross-legged is out of question, you're better off standing)
- the tip of the pendulum should not point to any part of your body
- some pendulums require 'discharging' after each session or even after each question; this is done by knocking the pendulum once or thrice against a solid object (like a wooden table) or letting it rotate over a lit candle for a dozen or so seconds
- a pendulum should be whirled around and then allowed to settle itself in whatever motion it wants; this way, you're expending much less of your own energy to make the pendulum swing. Letting it start moving from a resting position is possible but it does expend a considerable amount of energy. Move it deliberately, then stop your movement and see what happens while asking the question
- questions should be as simple as possible, preferably yes/no
- for novice pendulum users, try not to work with a pendulum longer than 20-30 minutes daily. This is considered equivalent to 8 hours of regular physical work. Anything more and you might be overworked. Professional dowsers may extend this as far as 90-120 minutes but they too have limits
- pendulum detection works in conjunction with electric, magnetic and electro-magnetic fields. It can detect all three, show the polarity, plus and minus, flow of electricity etc
- some materials distort the reading, especially in the field. Chief among these, is clay. It's not a coincidence that in ancient times (and some places not that long ago) the floors in homes/huts were made of packed clay - it works like a shield against negative watercourse radiation
- there are two basic ways to ask questions: these are called the physical method and the mental method. The former is related to questions like "point the source of negative energy" or "is there negative radiation here". The latter is more complex and involves questions like "how negative this energy is in a scale from 1 to 10", followed by counting slowly from 1 to ten and observing the pendulum's behavior. These methods are supplementary and are often used interchangeably
- finally, where to hold you pendulum? This is different for each person. First, make sure you hold the string like you would when plucking something from the ground - all of your fingers should point downwards. You need to find the length of string that works for you. It's related to the so called radiesthetic color of the user. The higher the color, the shorter is the distance between the pendulum and your hand. Start by holding the thread very closely to the pendulum and let it move on its own. Typically it won't move at once and that is good. Keep extending the thread and observing the pendulum. At one point it will start moving and if you continue to extend it, that movement should cease eventually. Get back to that point where it moved and mark it somehow - this is your personal length, at which the pendulum responds to you. It may change over time but most of the time stays the same. For me, this is equivalent to the width of the palm of my hand - I place the pendulum between my thumb and index finger, let the thread fall on the palm of my hand and grab it at the base of the pinky. This length should work for most people but the best method is the one I explained earlier.

Feel free to ask questions.