Dowsing is an ancient art with roots going back to all manner of people and cultures. Divination, which means to have perception by intuition, instinctive foresight or unusual insight, is another appropriate name for dowsing. Historically it has been known as the process of using L-rods or pendulums to search for underground water sources. You may also be familiar with dowsing as the process of using a pendulum to tap into the intuitive mind using a series of questions that can be answered “yes” or “no.”
The pendulum used in dowsing is simply a tool, or piece of equipment. What actually makes this tool move is the person’s own autonomic nervous system – nothing supernatural. The movement is created when the nerves in the fingers respond to the messages sent from the brain. Here’s how the process works in dowsing: the left brain (logical brain) asks the question; the right brain (intuitive brain) interprets the question and responds back; the left brain then translates this answer into a signal through the autonomic nervous system and sends this signal down through the nervous system to the finger tips to give the “yes” or “no” response to the pendulum.
Learning dowsing is a very personal journey. A student can be educated either by self-teaching through books or by taking a class from a teacher who has the expertise in divination. He or she learns how to be connected to their intuitive self by being grounded and centered in Spirit, often facilitated by meditating beforehand. In knowing this important connection, their pendulum is then their communication between their own conscious and subconscious mind, and nothing else. As with anything, it takes time to learn this skill. A student must stay focused on having a positive attitude, being patient and trusting himself.
We all have intuitive abilities and dowsing is one way to direct those abilities in a positive way. For example, a practitioner’s “yes or no” question could be related to their own experience in the areas of food, nutrition, relationships, essential oils, chakra balancing or anything else where they want to know “what is in their highest good.”
It is important for practitioners to keep ethics in mind when dowsing. If working with someone else, it is necessary to obtain their permission to ask questions about them, as to avoid invasion of privacy. Also, questions to the future are based on information available today, and due to changes in people or events, the answers will change with that.
You can find a variety of resources on dowsing through the American Society of Dowsers, Inc. at www.dowsers.org. There are also excellent chart books to assist students of this art, one being: “The Pendulum Charts Volume I” by Dale W. Olson.
This ancient art does lead the practitioner onto a path of self awareness and enlightenment. Try it for yourself and enjoy.