Pendulum Autoquestioning

I was recently asked about a technique that I taught in one of my US courses in February . . . the use of a Pendulum and Answer Card for ideomotor effect based autoquestioning. As many know, I have special cards printed up that I use with clients or on the street and have a number of purple crystal pendulums that I use for the purpose.

Pendulum Autoquestioning is fascinating to many. It is based upon the ideomotor effect in which one communicates directly with the unconscious mind via a swinging pendulum. Ideomotor means unconscious movement (ideo = idea : motor = movement : so ideomotor is essentially the idea moves something). Basically, just as with a Ouija board, the subconscious mind moves the object without conscious awareness by using muscles that are not normally controlled via conscious awareness.

An easy method for pendulum autoquestioning is to first hold the pendulum over a board or piece of paper either untuned or with an answer chart. The answer chart I use is as follows:

Hold the pendulum over the board and then just think of the direction and the word. For instance, think of "yes" while imagining the pendulum moving in an "up and down" direction. Do the same for each of the directions indicated as well as the clockwise and counterclockwise circles.

Coincidentally, I've been shooting video lately for a training program and the pendulum is one of the suggestibility effects I am covering as well as autoquestioning . . . so, here is a short video of me using a pendulum and one of my special answer cards with a young woman. This is her first exposure to the use of a pendulum so the video shows me running her through a calibration process and then the autoquestioning.

Note that usually I use a higher resolution google video version of my videos for the blog but for some reason the video page there for this piece is still getting an error message so I am embedding the youtube version of the video. If you want to see the high resolution, just go to the youtube page (here) and select the "watch in high quality" option just below the video.

Notice that you don't have to be in any sort of so-called "formal" trance for this to work. You can just hold that pendulum up and start doing it at the get-go in full waking state (whatever that really means) or you can breathe and relax and center yourself first. It's up to you. While I do like to center myself first, I have been known to just whip it out in public and just start playin' with it as it hangs there swingin' around . . . but that's the kind of uninhibited guy I am, you can do it in the privacy of your own home if you prefer . . . in the bedroom, on the kitchen table, whatever suits your fancy.

Every once in awhile, when I am in the mood for some walkabout trance, I will carry around some pendulums and my special answer cards and do walkups with the beasties.

I will be giving away a number of my "psychic pendulums" in my upcoming Trance Wizard show as well as teaching this and alternative processes in my Metaphysical Hypnosis course (so reserve your place for both events now).

Here is a video of me using a pendulum while using the ideomotor effect as a type of trance induction coupled with eye fixation and vivid imagining . . . Pendulum Suggestibility Fun (this is one of the most popular of the videos from that series, I am using one of my favorite pendulums in that session - I have a lot of pendulums as I collect them).

All the best,
Brian

Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [brian@briandavidphillips.com]
Hypnotist, Certified Hypnotherapist, Trance Wizard
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.BrianDavidPhillips.com