The History of Pendulums
Dowsing, or divining, for everything from water to
precious metals to future events has an extremely long
history of use by humankind. The words dowsing and
divining have exactly the same meaning: to use a rod or
pendulum to find something. The art of dowsing may
have begun with the ancient shamans who needed to
provide water for their clans. Later, this talent passed to
the more structured religious classes who used it for
finding water or metals, discovering the causes of
illness, or divining the future.
The oldest record of dowsing being used by humans
may be the pictographs on the walls of the Tassili Caves
in south Algeria. Dating from about 6,000 BCE, these
paintings show stylized human figures holding forked
sticks.
The wand, or rod, is probably the most ancient of all
divining instruments. Some writers of dowsing history
cite the biblical reference of Moses finding water within
a rock with his wand or staff. Today, however, the wand
is not as popular as pendulums, L-rods, or forked twigs
for divination or finding underground water or other
objects.
Pendulums of all kinds are mentioned in the very
oldest written records or divination and the occult arts.
Ancient Chinese records tell of a ring suspended on a
silk thread that was used to predict the future and warn