History of Pendulum Dowsing

Historically, dowsing has been known for its ability to locate water, gold, oil and other minerals, but it has also been used in many instances involving issues of life and death. In France, physicians have used the pendulum to assist them in making diagnoses; the use of the pendulum is officially considered to be a science known throughout Europe as Radiesthesia or in French "Radiesthesie". Many people have used the pendulum to detect allergies and other ailments, and even to accurately determine the gender and birth date of unborn babies (baby gender prediction).

Throughout history, people have turned to the pendulum to guide them when their lives were at stake. In dire circumstances during the Vietnam war, some U.S. marines were taught to use a pendulum to locate underground mines and tunnels.

History presents many accounts of the successes of dowsing, including those from officious sources. Britain's Weekly Telegraph of July 20th, 1994 reported the following obituary: "Colonel Kenneth Merrylees, the water-diviner who has died aged 97, worked during the Second World War as a bomb-disposal expert, when he used his dowsing skills to find bombs with delayed-action fuses which had penetrated deep into the ground."

The pendulum has also had its share of controversy throughout history. During the Cold War in the 1960's, American pendulist Verne Cameron was invited by the government of South Africa to use his pendulum to help them locate their country's precious natural resources, but he was denied a passport by the U.S. government. A few years earlier, he had demonstrated his special dowsing talent to the U.S. Navy, successfully map dowsing (locating on a map) every submarine in the Navy's fleet. He shocked Navy officials by not only locating every American submarine, but also every Russian submarine in the world. Afterwards, the CIA determined that Cameron was a risk to national security, and he was forbidden to leave the United States